Tactics

Text: Colossians 3:12-27 December 31, 2006

Welcome, children of God, holy and beloved.

Modern Protestant Christianity is a long on strategy and short on tactics. Or to be more churchy: long on theology and short on practices. Or what Christianity calls disciplines: things we can do to live the kind of faithful life we would like to live. It is great to know that we are justified by God's grace, but now what? What do we do day to day, hour to hour, knowing we have been freed from the power of death?

For Protestants, disciplines have usually been put at the back of the drawer, along with the unpaired socks and the squashed penny souvenir from the Space Needle. Something not very useful but not yet ready for the trash. Luther and especially his fellow reformers felt that Christians had been captive to the rules and regulations of the Roman church, and so de-emphasized many powerful but traditional disciplines that they thought enslaved people to the church hierarchy. And in our time, people have been confused about how and how much their faith can and should be expressed in public, as opposed to personal or private, lives. There is a school of thought that imagines faith to be something emotional—a feeling, sort of—or belief, but not something real; as real, say, as paying the rent or dealing with your boss or your significant other. Practical things.

But the need for guidance—we have been saved by Christ; now what do we do today, or this minute?—is a question even the earliest Christian communities struggled with. The passage in the letter to the Colossians we just heard from tries to help its readers with an answer.

It is likely that this epistle was written by someone other than Paul, some time after his death, but to a group of followers of Jesus who are trying to conform their lives to Jesus. How should they do that? The letter presents a kind of argument, or a kind of program, for behavior. In summary, the argument says that we can act in a certain way out of power that comes from Christ. In detail, the argument has four parts.

First, it starts by making clear that the things that usually guide people’s actions: power, position, safety, revenge, things like that, are not helpful to Christians. Instead, the people are urged to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, and patient. What these five things have in common is a tendency to put others before ourselves. To consider others to be equal to or better than we are. Counter-cultural, for sure. [As one scholar explains:] To waive one’s rights rather than be concerned for personal gain. To not become frustrated and enraged but to make allowances for other people’s exasperating behavior. To acknowledge as if we were feeling it ourselves the pain that others feel. All these things are essential, Colossians argues, for the sake of the community. And the community in the end is the whole world.

But this is a list of goals, not tactics. Easy to note, hard to do. So the second part of the argument backs up a step. Everybody wants to be compassionate. No one wants to hurt others. But how can we do that? We start with what we know. And what we know is the word of Christ. Which in our case means the words of Jesus (his teachings, prayers, and parables) and the words about Jesus (the Gospels, and also the words that others tell us about their own experiences of Christ) and about the words in our own heads and hearts about Jesus (our own experiences of Jesus in life, in prayer, and in worship and song).

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” the people are told. The word is like food. Rich food. Good food. Delicious and nutritious. As rich as Christmas chocolate and good wine and as nutritious as tofu and green beans. Like food, the word of Christ gives us energy, power, and substance. It is necessary for life and action. Let the food-like word of Christ be in you, says Colossians. That means: don’t fill up on other things; don’t spoil your appetite. And it means: seek the word; spend time in the pantry and looking into the refrigerator. Snacks would be good, too.

The third part of the argument is that the word of Christ leads to peace. The peace is a result of confidence that in Christ, death has no power to rule us. What we learn from the word of Christ is that we can live without fear. Or maybe more practically, that when we have fears—which we are bound to have—that we can turn to the word of Christ to remind us that the fears are—at their core—groundless.

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” the people are told. There are lots of other things that might rule in our hearts. What are the things that pull us, move us, and rule us? Wanting to be admired, to be safe and secure, to be loved, to not be lonely, laughed at, ignored. To get good grades. To get back at someone, to be left alone, to not be bothered. But of all those things, says Colossians, the peace that Christ brings is the ruler of them all. They are the subjects. You tell them to hush, to quiet down a bit, to chill. Let peace have its sway, says Colossians. Let peace be the boss.

The goal drives us. The word powers us. The peace frees us. But it is Jesus who shows us what to do. The fourth part of the argument is that empowered by the word and freed from the power of fear and death, we live our daily lives through the guidance of Jesus. “Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,” says Colossians.

As we do anything, keep Jesus is mind. Think to yourself: I do this in the name of Jesus. I come across a beggar on the street. Could you say: “I give this dollar in the name of Jesus.” How about: “I pass on by in the name of Jesus.”

Could you say: I admire the sky in the name of Jesus. I eat this Special K cereal in the name of Jesus. I vote for this person in the name of Jesus. How about: I complain about my boss in the name of Jesus. I throw this trash on the street in the name of Jesus. I smoke this cigar in the name of Jesus. How about that?

I paint this picture. I visit my aunt. I take the dog for a walk. I give some money to Oxfam. I buy an iPod. I fix my car. I write this nasty letter or this complimentary one.

Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. In some things we do it is easy to add “in the name of Jesus.” “I donate to Lutheran World Relief.” “I say hello to the ticket taker.” In others, it makes us uncomfortable. Rightly so. “I cheat on my taxes.” Or makes us embarrassed or sad. “I steal from my business colleague.” “I refuse to call my father.” Or so bad and secret that it makes us go “la la-la la-la. I don’t want to hear you.” The rule of thumb for Colossians is this: judge what you do, or intend to do, by considering whether you would be comfortable doing it “in the name of Jesus.” If you would, then do it. If you wouldn’t, then don’t.

Thinking about Jesus in all we do helps us pay attention to life and our lives. It is a kind of mindfulness. It is a discipline, a habit of being that helps us live more intentionally (that is, not by accident or distractedly or carelessly). It helps us to notice the world more (makes that Special K taste better and the clouds more beautiful and the iPod more amazing), it helps us do with less (because we take time and enjoy the pleasures of appreciation), and it helps us be virtuous as defined in Colossians (because we notice that others are much like ourselves).

It sounds from all this that faith proceeds practice. But it is usually the opposite. If we wait until we feel spiritually ready, we’ll never start. It is like trying to write the perfect love letter, which being never perfect never gets sent, and the lovers never meet. Spiritual practice is not like a final exam, best taken after much preparation. It is more like trying to fix a faucet. You just start, and if you find that you have to rush to the hardware store to find the right bolt, then back a while later to get that special tool—well, that’s how such things go. And that’s how most of us learn about plumbing.

Faith is like that. You start out doing things in the name of Jesus. And in your heart, the peace of Christ begins to rule, and in you, the word of Christ begins to make itself at home. And pretty soon, you find yourself acting with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And you begin to see, as Colossians says at the very first, that you are chosen by God, holy, and beloved.

One Tough Cookie

Text: Luke 1.47-55 December 24, 2006

Let’s not make Mary out to be too sweet. Let’s not put her in a beautiful blue robe (why is it always blue?), with blushing cheeks and flowing hair, a contemplative smile, and a halo-like glow surrounding her.

Mary was a street kid, or would be if she lived now in the city. She was very poor. Her husband-to-be, Joseph, was a carpenter, not an admired craftsman but low on the economic ladder, a rung even lower than a subsistence farmer. She was probably young, maybe thirteen or fourteen. She lived in a really bad time for Jews in Palestine. Roman armies patrolled the streets, and crucifixion was common for minor crimes, including not knowing your place, or talking about a time when Israel might be free again. If you kept your mouth shut you might keep your life.

Mary was one tough young lady. Not at all fragile and shy and retiring. We do her an injustice if we sentimentalize her. When we do, it is too easy to forget that Mary has something to do with Jesus besides being a vessel for God’s grand scheme. Some call her the first model of a Christian disciple, and if that is true, we who are trying to follow Christ need to see her as an agent in the story of God’s work.

Today we read aloud Mary’s response to Gabriel’s message. This beautiful song, called the Magnificat—from the first word in the Latin version—is a song about God shaking things up, unsettling things, and delivering on a promise. Listen, disciples of Christ, to the three things that Mary says.

Mary says Yes.

She says Yes to God’s invitation, even though it would have been very clear to her that lying low would be more prudent. It was not a good time to be talking about a Messiah or the restoration of the power of Israel and in memory of its great former King David. That would be dangerous talk.

And it is clear that Mary knew it, for her song is all about turning things on their heads. Things that seem to be settled will be unsettled. Things will be stirred up, and when things get stirred up, stuff on the bottom and stuff on the top can mix in odd ways, and the dregs can become the cream. Raising up the poor and, more threateningly, bringing down the rich. Raising up the lowly and, worse, throwing down those in power—the mighty down from their thrones. This is seditious, Mary’s song is.

And into this world, and into this mess, Mary will bring a child who is not going to be shy about his mission. Mary knows it. I’m sure that’s what she ponders in her heart when her son is finally born.

Yet, smart and tough, Mary says Yes. Yes. I’ll bear the son of God and I’ll raise him and fear for him and be proud of him and watch him through to his end. Yes, she says.

When God calls, who knows what is going to happen? We don’t live in perfect times, no one ever has. If we are waiting for conditions to be just right before we do anything—in our lives or in our world—we’ll never say Yes. And we cannot set conditions, no bargaining with God. I’ll do this if you, God, make sure everything will work out the way I want it to. That is not to say you can’t complain to God or make demands of God or be unhappy with where God takes you. And I’m sure if you do that God will listen and will promise to be with you all the way. It’s just that it will be God’s way, not yours.

Mary says Help!

Mary is not afraid to ask for help, or to be person who agrees she needs help. A savior has come, she sings. To be saved, you need something to be saved from. To be redeemed, you need to be captured by something. Saving means healed, and to welcome healing—and Mary does—you have to admit you are not doing all that well.

When you are privileged you get things no one else does: you never have to wait, and you never have to be crowded. But all the rest of us live in a world constrained by other people and by time and logistics. We are limited, as creatures are. Mary calls the privileged “proud in their conceit,” and in the King James Version of the Bible she calls them “proud in the imagination of their hearts.” In the Greek, it is “arrogant in their understanding of their hearts.” In other words, they don’t think they need anything.

Christianity does not have much to offer to people who are totally satisfied with the way they are and the ways things are in the world. But who is so satisfied? Not the people in Mary’s situation or in the situation of any real person that I know.

To say Help! means to admit that we need help. That we would welcome some divine intervention because we need that intervention. That we cannot do it, whatever it is, without help, and that we welcome God’s hand in our lives.

And Mary says Hooray!

The whole song is one big Hooray! Hooray not for Mary herself, though that, too (“The Almighty has done great things for me,” she says). But hooray that God’s regime is, or soon will be, the one in power. For the writer of Luke’s Gospel, who the ruler of the world is—Caesar or God—is one of the main points of the coming of Jesus. And to Mary, the answer is definite and clear. The jubilation that Mary feels is the joy at a major good change in things. Maybe it’s like the way the Democrats felt at the last election. Or to be a little more personal, the way you might feel getting married, or having a child, or beginning a new friendship. In the present event there are signs so definite and true as to be certain that a new future is about to unfold. A great future.

Christians live under a promise. For some, that seems absurd. Things go on, and what will be is what will be. There might be hope, but to the cynical it is more like whistling in the dark. But it is part of the fabric of Christianity to be naïve enough to think that God has something in store for this world that will recover and renew it.

The story of the Bible is a story of an ongoing relationship between God and people. We do not have a faith in which God does all the work while we sit around like lumps. Nor do we have a faith in which people struggle or prevail by themselves while God watches without much interest. The history of our faith—over time and for some, in our individual lives—is a conversation, full, as for Mary, of both contemplation and passion.

Advent rushes up against Christmas, especially in this year when we celebrate both in the same day. The song of Mary is like the overture to the greater song. Which in itself is a duet. Call and response. One asks for help, the other responds. One calls in invitation, the other agrees. And in the heavens and on this earth, all say Hooray!

Amen.

Slackers

Text: Zephaniah 3:14-20

It seems that a confluence of factors has put the stress-o-meter off the scale. I know that because I can see stress in your faces and the faces of just about everyone I know. I hear it in your voices and the voices of others. I see it in your lives and the lives of others.

The stress-o-meter rises whenever there is something to stress about. And the stress-o-meter tells me that we are in a tight spot. There is way too much to worry about. Even if nothing worrisome is happening in your own life, you might worry about things happening to the world: wars and genocide—Iraq, Palestine, Sudan; the 40 million people living with AIDS; the spread of nuclear weapons; individuals blowing themselves and other people up; oppression and slavery; melting ice caps. These things crank up the stress-o-meter a couple of notches.

But I’d bet that it is stress closer to home—closer to our individual selves—that is wearing us down the most. It is the usual stuff, I’m sure. Papers and projects due, long nights at the office; looking for a job or to get out of a job that gives you the creeps. Moving from one house to a new one; or from one town to a new one. Trying to find a good relationship or get out of a bad one. Caring for a cranky child or a cranky parent. Seeing people we love change in weird ways and wondering how to deal with that.

It is not like these things are new, really. In the Gospel reading, people ask Jesus what they should do to change their lives. And Jesus speaks to them about things that are on their minds. Having the basics for life: clothing, food. Trying to be a good person. Trying to do an excellent job.

Yet knowing that people are and have been in the same boat doesn’t help. The total of all the items on our lists can be impossible to deal with, and, God knows, the burden of all our chores and worries takes way too much energy to bear and doesn’t leave us much for joy, which is the word for today, this third Advent Sunday.

But it is not the quantity of things by itself that stresses us. I don’t stress in anticipation of doing something well, or even doing it OK. So say I’m signed up to make a birthday cake for a friend’s party. If I think I can do that easily, or that if I can’t it doesn’t matter much, or that I can accomplish the same goal by doing something else (like buying a cake), that’s one thing.

But if I think I’m going to mess up, that’s something else. That’s stress. We stress about things when we are afraid we are going to mess up, or might. When we are afraid that if we can’t or don’t come through something bad will happen to us or to people we love or people who count on us. It is not the work. It is not the prospect of the doing itself, it is the fear that we might do it badly. It is that feeling that wakes us up at 5:30 in the morning. That things will go wrong. When we fear we might be bad.

At the center of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus. The meaning of the resurrection spreads widely throughout the teachings and life of Christian faith. One of the corollaries of the resurrection is that God will make all things new. That what seems to be the end is not, and that we are not condemned by our past. That a way has been made to the future that is different from the past. In the adventure of God, the most horrible thing can butt right up against the more wonderful thing.

And another corollary of the resurrection is that forgiveness is a part of everything that happens between us and God. That God is not only willing to forgive us but that God fervently desires to.

We use the word “forgiveness” so often that we might mistake its power. It means let off the hook, in a big way. Imagine you are on trial for a major crime. Life in prison. Then imagine the verdict is announced: acquitted! That’s like being forgiven. Imagine you have a lump or a sore, and you are afraid that means an invasive cancer. Then imagine the diagnoses is announced: benign! That’s like being forgiven.

The book of Zephaniah from which we heard this morning has only three chapters. The first two are a rant about how bad Judah and its neighbors have been and what jerks they are and how things are destined for a bad end. But then, in the last verses of the book, God acquits the people. The Lord takes away all judgments against them, it says. So “sing aloud, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart.” All their burdens—the lame and the outcast will be saved, the prophets says—will be lifted. The Lord will rejoice over them and be glad.

God forgives us not only because God is good, it seems, but because God is made glad by forgiving us. God is made glad by seeing God’s people—that means you and me—seeing God’s people be joyful.

God will forgive us for the things that we mess up. It is not our job nor are we able to get everything right. Maybe we are overly responsible. (A little proud, even, hesitant to leave things in the hands of others or the hand of God.) You know in advance that God will forgive you. Perhaps you could know in advance that you will forgive yourself if you mess up. Even if you make mistakes, get it wrong, even really wrong. God cut Israel a little slack, and Israel messed up pretty bad. You know that God will cut you a little slack, no matter how much you mess up. Perhaps, knowing that, you can cut yourself a little slack, too. It’s okay. It’s all right.

I’m not saying this is simple to do. I’m not saying that things we do are not important, even really important. (Though not eternally important.) I’m not encouraging people to forsake their duties and commitments or to become cynical about them. God does not say to Israel, “who cares? Not a big deal, guys.” God does say, “It would make me glad to see you full of joy.”

No one likes to see you wake up at 5:30 in the morning full of worries. Not even God.

One way to think about this is: if God will forgive you when you mess up, who are you to dispute God’s judgment? Another way is: if God wants you to have a little fun, maybe you should.

The prophet tells us that God rejoices in our joy. God brings us home, says Zephaniah, and God “will renew you in his love. He will exult over you with loud singing, as on a day of festival.” Like today.

Name Renewed

Text: Jeremiah 33:14-16 December 3, 2006

What is your name?

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts your name is what you are known by. If you decide to change your name from Fred to Ferdinand you just tell everyone you meet that your name is Ferdinand. And it is. No need to go to court or post listing in the paper or anything like that. According to the law, your name is not unchangeable and inherent, but depends on your actions (telling and using your name) and on your choices. It says something about you, or can.

Historically, names tell about relationships. With your family, for example. So Ericson is son of Eric, Petrova is the daughter of Peter. Or your relationship with your job. So Cooper is a barrel maker, and Stein (meaning stone) is a stone cutter, and Smith is a blacksmith. Or your relationship with your town or place. So the Jesus we follow is Jesus of Nazareth; or more modernly: Kierkegaard, the family that lived by the church, the kierke; or Jack London, from London.

In the time in which Jeremiah prophesied, the people of Israel had become confused about their name, the name of their nation and people. Not the name itself, really, but the significance of it. Not what they were called, but what they were called in the eyes of God and the nations. Their name had been given to them centuries ago by God after Jacob wrestled with an angel. But now, it seems that their relationship was heading for divorce. Having been exiled from Judah, having the Temple—the house for God—destroyed, what did they mean to God, and what did God mean to them? Were they a people of the land? Or of a system of beliefs? Or adherents to some special code? Or nothing special?

In the passage we just heard, Jeremiah tells the people that in the hopes of God the day is soon coming when they will know again who they are. A leader will spring up, says the Lord, who will be just and righteous. And Jerusalem will have a new name: The Lord is our righteousness.

This is kind of a strange name. A little long, but nice. Where do you come from? I come from the place named “The Lord is our righteousness.” That is the name of my community. That is the name of my home. That is the name of my people. It tells us something, like the names of old, Richardson whose dad was Richard, or the Fishers who worked on the sea. It tells us something important about them and about their relationships. It tells us something about how the holder of this name relates to God.

The name “the Lord is our righteousness” means two things. First, it means that when we are looking for righteousness—that is, when we are trying to find out how to live in the best way possible—we look to God, we turn to God. So the name tells us something about ourselves. It tells us on whom we depend. And second, it also means that when we are trying to figure out what God is like and what God intends for and with us, that we know that God is righteous. So the name tells us something about God.

Righteousness does not mean morally blameless (as it is mostly used now). It means truthful, ethical, fair, things in line with what God hoped for when God created the gift of the world and life, the way things were designed to be in the imagination of God. A righteous world is not one in which everyone walks around telling everyone how good they are, being righteous and all, or how good everyone else, probably not righteous, should be. It is a world in which widows and orphans—code words for people who are poor, oppressed, have a hard time functioning or coping—in which the disposed are cared for by those in possession, in which those without power are protected by those in power, in which the strong are peacemakers.

Perhaps “the Lord is our righteousness” would be a good name for us, the world in our time, our culture, ourselves, you and me. We too are confused about our name. All sorts of forces surround us, just as in the time of Jeremiah. And in the time of Jesus that Luke writes about. What shall we be known by? Shall we be known as powerful and rich? Generous and courageous? Self-indulgent? self-sacrificing? What shall we be known by? What name will we choose that tells people to whom we turn? And what name will we choose that tells people what is important about the God we follow?

The rite of baptism that we just celebrated is full of names. We are the devil-renouncers. We are the ignorers of empty promises. We are the redeemed ex-slaves. We are the people freed from the power of sin and death. We are the people who praise God in thanksgiving for the gifts of life. That is who we are.

In baptism we get a new identity. We become known as a Christian. Once people’s first names were known as “Christian” names. Meaning that in baptism one receives a new name to go with the new life. We say that we become members of the body of Christ. We are bearers of a light that shines unmistakably before others.

Advent is a time of repentance, a word that means turning. Turning over a new leaf, in one sense. But in another, more powerful sense, means turning back to view what we have been and to consider whether we might be something else in the future. Something new. It is a good time to think about our real name. Who are we? Who are we really? What is our real name, the name that describes us perfectly in the center of ourselves?

Your name is what you are known by. What name shall that be?

No Exit, Thankfully

Text: Mark 13
Other text: Daniel 12:1-3
November 19, 2006

Robert Pirsig, in his classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, coins the term “gumption trap.” A gumption trap is where you find yourself when you have done everything you can and things still don’t work. It happens when you cannot figure out how to get that stupid bearing back in its seat or that rusted retainer off the bolt. But he means it to be more than a mechanic’s frustration. It is a kind of trap of the mind, where all roads seems to be dead ends, where you can’t find your way out of the mess you are in, where it seems that the forces are aligned against you, or at least out of your control. It feels like urgent, anxious desperation.

It is one thing if what you cannot get to fit is bearings and bolts. It is another altogether if it is your life that is not fitting. You can put down the tools and walk away. And sometimes you wish you could do the same with your life. Pack it up and move on. You wish for what some call “the geographic cure.” Escape by change in geography. Change of scene, leaving behind those things that you can’t figure out or repair, as much as you’ve tried. Get out of that troubled relationship. Quit that stupefying job. Change careers. Get off the fast track, or get on it. Flee those classes that you didn’t want to take and that dissertation that has no end. Stop fretting about money. Leave behind those closets and drawers and boxes and hard drives full of stuff. Leave behind the noisy neighbor, the ratty apartment. The unfulfilled ambitions. No place is perfect, but almost any place has got to be better than this place.

Whole nations and cultures and peoples can feel this way, and when they do, a kind of writing called “apocalyptic literature” appears. Stories and myths that are like a cosmic geographic cure. A major change of scene. Stories of whole worlds—of the world—being changed from the foundation up. The destruction of all that is familiar and in its place a new world. In the Bible, parts of the book of Daniel—such as the part we just heard—and much of the book of Revelation, and a few passages in each of the first three Gospels, including the one we just heard from Mark. The world is destroyed in anguish in preparation for a new world. All that hurts us is done away with.

Such stories come from people who live under inescapable oppression, like some of the early Christians under Roman rule. They grow out of endless weariness, when there seems no way out, all solutions exhausted. They are stories of an worn out and beleaguered people. Any place has got to be better than this place.

Some people read these stories as predictions of the end of the world. They see them as portraying a final, cleansing purge. The oppressed are finally vindicated. The good raised up to heaven. God the creator becomes the destroyer. The evil ones are finally punished as they deserve, in suffering, and the world destroyed in violence. The end of time.

But though born out of oppression and despair, apocalyptic stories are not mostly stories of revenge and devastation. They are mostly stories of hope. Hope not for the end of the world, but for a better world. In one sense, they are political stories, stories of liberation from occupying powers and freedom from tyranny. And in another sense, they are personal stories, stories of a new life lived as God intended all people to live, in joy and peace. They are less about the punishment of the wicked (though there is some of that, too) and more about the—at last!—happiness of the good. The hope is not for the end of life but for new life. Not that the people would be pulled out from Israel—that had already happened in the Exile and no one liked that—but that people of Israel would be free.

The heart of the message of the Bible is that God loves the world. Apocalyptic stories do not change that message. They are not stories of destruction but of redemption and restoration. God created the world and named it good. Not good for just a while, not good just until humans messed up or did something really bad. But a good creation.

God loved the world, we read in the Gospel of John. Into that world that God loves came Jesus, the incarnate child of God. God so loved the world, John writes, that God sent Jesus to be in the world. And it was right into the middle of a time of oppression, occupation, poverty, and violence in the world. God came to be with people.

The apocalyptic writers do hope for a big change. But the change is for a new world, not no world. A change here, not in some other geography. A new Jerusalem, one restored to greatness and obedience to God, not the end of Jerusalem. The pangs that Mark writes about (and Paul, too) come before the birth of the world—the world renewed—not ended. They appeal not to a punishing God, but a saving and healing God. They pray, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer, not to be whisked up to heaven before our time but for God’s kingdom on earth, God’s hopes to be fulfilled on earth, as they are in heaven, in our time.

We sing hymns today of plenty, of harvest, of goodness, of God’s gifts in this world. We sing today especially in anticipation of Thanksgiving, but we are always thankful for this earth and for our lives in it, and for God’s presence here among us, and God’s revealed interest in this little speck in the huge universe.

Yet even so, people suffer and people do evil things. And sometimes it causes us to become so weary we cannot stand it. And in those times, we have to think: what do we hope for? Do we hope to be taken out of life or do we want a better life? Are we impatient for the end of creation or a fulfillment of creation’s potential?

There are some who happily, eagerly, read these stories as final judgment and hope for the end of time in our time. It is an understandable reading, because it is born from weariness, frustration, and fear that we all feel. But it is not the hope of the people who wrote or first read these writings.

It is a gumption trap to so quickly conclude that there is no salvation, no solution. It is not what Christians proclaim. We are a people who proclaim that the world will be saved, that we will be healed, that even in the times of despair, Jesus promises new life ahead.

The geographic cure never works. It never works because you bring your life with you wherever you go. And because one place is much like another. And because it doesn’t match your hopes. What you hope for is not that all your enemies will die but that you will live. Not that your troubles will be vaporized but that they will have no more power over you. There are lots of reasons you might leave town—in Boston, there are the cold winters, hot muggy summers, crazy traffic with no road signs—but if in weariness you are looking for the geographic cure, you’d be better off staying here and chatting with God. Because when you are tempted to leave town, what you hope to find is not so much a new town as a new life.

Jesus Weeps

Text: John 11:32-44 November 5, 2006

It is one thing to make an example of your friend. It is another thing altogether to be there at his graveside.

There is a back-story to today’s reading in the Gospel of John. A couple of days earlier someone had brought a message to Jesus. His friend Lazarus was ill. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed Jesus with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard about it, he said to his disciples, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And therefore, John reports, although Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, he stayed two days longer before he left to see him.

By the time they arrived in Bethany, where Mary and Martha lived, Lazarus was dead. He had been in his tomb for four days. Jesus knew it. He had said earlier to the disciples, “Lazarus is dead.”

Now Jesus stands near the tomb. He is among his best friends, people whom he loves and who love him. It is a scene of death. Lazarus, his friend, is dead. It is a scene of sorrow. Mary and Martha grieve and weep in mourning, loud and wailing. They say to him, each one in the same words, first Martha, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then Mary, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It is unclear whether they are accusing Jesus. Or what they thought he might have done. Some people were heard to wonder: this Jesus made the blind see. Could not he have kept Lazarus from dying. Did Jesus think: They are right. I could have, and I didn’t.

Jesus wept. Not wailing, not like formal mourners at the graveside. The word John uses is different for Jesus. Mary and Martha wailed. Jesus wept quietly. He shed tears, we might say. He shed tears when he saw the sorrow of Mary and Martha and all the crowd, also, who had come to mourn. Who would not have wept?

For John, the Gospel writer, everything Jesus does points to the divine. John is not particularly interested in the humanity of Jesus. Unlike Mark, whom we have been hearing from this year, who loves the person of Jesus. John loves the God in Jesus. The first part of the Gospel of John is called by scholars the book of signs, signs that point to Jesus’ amazing godliness. And the second part is known as the book of glory, meaning the execution and resurrection of Jesus. For John, everything has another meaning.

But in spite of that, the human Jesus sometimes escapes the words of John and reveals the part of Jesus that we know is in him. He sneaks out from behind the curtain and shows himself. Jesus is about to raise Lazarus from death, a miracle if there ever was one, and a prequel to his own resurrection. It is a time of sign and of glory. Yet Jesus weeps silently.

Why does Jesus weep? Does he weep for his friends Martha and Mary in mourning? Does he weep for the loss of his friend Lazarus? Does he weep because he thinks he could have done something sooner? Does he weep because he is Jesus, who cannot put friends before duty? Who knows why he weeps? He weeps for all these things and more.

When someone you love dies, there is so much to weep for. For your loss, and for the sorrow of your friends who survive, and in regret for things you wished you had done—that call, that apology, that forgiveness, loving more, saying more—and in dismay in the ending of things that you cannot prevent.

Jesus weeps. But Jesus is also angry. Greatly disturbed in spirit, according to the reading. But “really ticked off” might be another way to say it. The word means angry. It comes from a word in Greek that sounds like the sound an angry horse makes. He is angry when he first sees Mary and the others. And again, when he stands in front of the tomb. This is not a moment of glory for Jesus, even though he is about to gloriously raise a man from the dead. This is not a moment Jesus seeks out, not something Jesus is thrilled about.

Lazarus is not an example, he is Jesus’ friend. John sees the death of Lazarus as a means to an end. Jesus sees death, just death.

It is right to be angry at death. There is nothing good about it. Perhaps we can see beyond death. To the rest it brings a tired and troubled soul. To the resurrection which we have been promised. To the returning of our bodies to the earth. But death itself? It is right to be angry.

God hates death. Though it is always risky to claim to know what God thinks, it seems to me that the life of Jesus, God in human flesh, shows us that God hates death. Why else come as Jesus to free us from the power of death? Death makes Jesus angry, makes God angry. Greatly disturbs God in the spirit. Agitates God.

Someday, we read in Isaiah and someday, we read in Revelation, there will be no more death. No death to greet with sorrow and anger. But at the moment death is with us. If I recall correctly, there is not a story in the Bible or tradition in which God keeps anyone from dying. Not even Jesus.

Death is serious business. In spite of Jesus’ knowledge of the ways of heaven and earth, he does not relish his own execution. In spite of the impending miracle of Lazarus brought back to life, Jesus is angry. In spite of our conviction of eternal life in God, we dread death.

Death is not nothing to Jesus. It is dreadful. God does not promise in the short term to take away death. But Jesus does promise that we need not fear it. We can cry in sorrow and anger at death. We would be crazy not to. Jesus does.

But we do not have to give ourselves up to its power to rule us through fear. Death is flimsy. Death does not have the last word.

The fact of death greatly disturbs us in spirit. But the power of death is weak. Jesus does not ask us to believe that death is insignificant. But in the face of God’s power and reach, care and compassion, and eternal friendship, it does not signify much.

Reformation On-going

Text: John 8:31-35
October 29, 2006

This is a big day for Martin Luther. We sing hymns that he wrote, and we hear his words quoted. The Lutheran church worldwide is especially proud of Martin Luther on this day, and will celebrate the day more energetically than most other Protestant denominations. You would be forgiven if you thought that the name of this day was Martin Luther Sunday.

But it is not. This is Reformation Sunday. What we celebrate today is The Reformation. That period about 500 years ago when the unity of the formal Christian church was shattered. Though there had been major splits in the church before, in the Reformation the very idea of what the Christian church was made of changed. It wasn’t Luther who made this happen. Forces were already weakening the Roman church. Luther was just the right man in the right place.

Lutherans and other Protestant churches celebrate the Reformation because that was the time of their incubation. Without the Reformation there would be no Lutherans or Methodists or UCC or Disciples of Christ or Baptists or any of the hundreds and maybe thousands of Christian denominations.

Not everybody sees this as good news, all these little grouping of Christians, and during the Reformation most people thought the upheaval in the church was bad news. Luther himself was unhappy about how things went. He was not interested in breaking the church apart. He would have not been pleased to see a denomination named after him, as we Lutherans have done. “What is Luther,” he said, “After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone.”

Luther sought reform, not replacement. He was a “work in the system” kind of guy. The system was broken, he thought, and he had a few ideas about what was wrong and how to fix it. But he was surprised at what he helped cause. For a long time he thought that if the Pope were only made aware of the problems in the church, he would move to fix them and everything would be ok again. Luther’s early letters to the Pope are heartbreaking and naïve, saying essentially, “I think you are a great guy; why are you letting these bad things happen?”

When we see how the Christian churches are going at each other, we might join Luther in having mixed feelings. So what we celebrate today is not so much the period of the Reformation (capital R) but the idea of reformation (lower case r).

All organizations need reforming from time to time. Good starts and good intentions break down either because an organization forgets its mission or allows it to be corrupted, or because the mission is good but the implementation is not. So a hospital may begin to think that its mission is to make money for its shareholders instead of caring for people. Or a government may begin to think that its mission is to protect the holdings of the rich few instead of the well-being of the many. Or a church may begin to think that its mission is to keep things orderly, privileged, and successful instead of to bring about God’s realm of peace, healing, and justice.

Or the mission may be on track and the execution not. So the hospital may harm people through poor controls and standards, or the government through corruption and cowardice, or the church through greediness for power, success, and admiration.

The church exists so that people may know God. Worship and teaching and service and music and all the other things we do provide ways for people to know God, each person in his or her own way. There is no single path to knowing God, so the church’s most important task is to say what it knows and share what it experiences and teach what it has figured out so far and to nourish people in their faith, and then to get out of the way. The church’s most constant job is to remove barriers between people and God.

We are slaves, as Jesus says, to many things in this world. His audience takes him literally and protests. We are not and have never been slaves to anybody, they say. But Jesus knows that our masters are many. What are the things that boss you around? What are the things that keep you from doing what you know is right? What are the things that make you do what you know is wrong? Those are our masters. When fear is strong in us, we are not ourselves. We are someone else’s. We belong to someone, something else. “A slave to sin” is another way to say this. It feels sometimes is as if we were trying to get through a door, except there is this big guy in our way, blocking the passage. Or as if people have put up Jersey barriers, like they do in construction projects, and our way which seems like it should be short, direct, and pleasant winds all around in annoying detours.

The job of the church is to make those barriers ineffective. Either by removing them, or by showing us that they are not really substantial and permanent, just flimsy and fake. Margaret Payne, the bishop of the New England Synod, wrote about the job of the church this way: “By means of worship, courage, compassion, and teaching, to remove all barriers that resist God’s transforming power.”

All too often, though, the church does the opposite. It puts up barriers. You can’t come in, it says, because of the rules, because of the way you are, because of the way we are. So Paul writes in Romans about how the rules of the church in his should not be used to keep out the pagans who wish to follow Jesus. So Luther speaks out against a church that insisted on mediating between God and people. So Paul extends access to the church to gentiles so that all might follow Jesus. And Luther translates the Bible into the everyday language of the people so all might hear the word of God.

A theologian writes about the ongoing nature of faith. “Now, faith, is a living thing … It is not a once-for-all accomplishment. It is not a possession, like a Visa card, that some have and others don’t. It is an ongoing response to God, to the world, to life. It is therefore a matter of decision—taken not once, but over and over again.” So the church, grounded in faith, and renewed through trust in the ongoing and often surprising guidance of God, is formed over and over again.

In a moment [ ... ] will be installed as the vicar here at Faith. She will take on a role as a leader in the Lutheran church. And she will take another step on her path that, God willing, will lead her to ordained ministry.

[ ... ], there is no perfect church that calls you. There is no church known by human beings that is right now complete and true. There is only—as Luther and his friends wrote— there is only an assembly of those who gather to hear the gospel of Jesus and to share in his supper. There is only a church that works daily, over and over again, to free people from the barriers that keep us from God. There is only a church in constant reformation.

Where Do You Want to Sit, John?

October 22, 2006
Text: Mark 10:35-45

Last week the Greater Boston Food Bank held a luncheon for the people who work in what they call agencies. The Food Bank is where we get almost all our food for Faith Kitchen, and we are an agency. An agency is some organization that feeds people by giving them food or serving them meals, as Faith Kitchen does. Once a month someone from Faith goes down to the Food Bank in Boston, loads cases of fresh, canned, and frozen food into a van, and brings it back here so we can make meals for hungry people. Every month we pick up between 300 and 600 pounds of food. It costs us anywhere from nothing to $30 for all that food.

There are many agencies. We are one of the smaller ones. Last year through the agencies the Food Bank distributed 25 million pounds of food in the Boston area. That’s 70,000 pounds of food a day.

The luncheon was held on the 25th anniversary of the Food Bank, and it was held to honor the agencies. At the tables, about a thousand people sat, people who in one way or another worked to help people who were hungry get food to eat.

There were lots of congratulatory speeches, saying how great the agencies were. Tom Menino, the mayor of Boston was there, and so was Senator Ted Kennedy. The speeches and the bigwigs were there to make the agencies feel good about themselves, good about their work feeding hungry people.

The meal we ate was great. (Almost as good as a meal at Faith Kitchen.) And it was good to meet people from other agencies, just ordinary people. But I think all the praises made a lot of people queasy. It made us queasy because I bet there was not a person in that room who fed people in order to be praised. There was not a person in that room who fed people in order to get a pat on the back and a fancy meal. There was not a person in that room who fed people in order to sit next to a mayor or senator.

And it made us feel queasy because though there were lots of speeches telling us how good we were, we agencies were, there was not one speech about hungry people.

It is so easy to divide people into givers and getters. Between, in the jargon, providers and clients. In the hunger business it is especially easy. Some people serve other people. From there it is easy to say “people of a particular kind serve other people of a different kind.” At Faith Kitchen the structure tries to work against making those distinctions. People who come to eat help cook, and people who come to cook eat. That is happening more and more, but even so, differences appear to be evidence for judgment. Even people at the Food Bank seem to feel confident about who is the giver and who the getter.

James and John ask to sit next to Jesus. People see in this passage in the Gospel of Mark a power grab by the two disciples. We want to sit next to you, at your left and your right, they say to Jesus. And the other disciples get annoyed. Indignant, the passage says. We imagine them to be jealous. They wanted those seats themselves. Jesus tells them all, Sorry, those spots are not mine to grant.

Just before these verses, Jesus has told his disciples once again (for the third and last time), that he is on his way to Jerusalem, going to a certain and painful death. One way to look at the request of James and John is that they are looking beyond this prediction to a better time when their party will be in power, in glory, as they say. They are looking to escape the inevitable sorrows of this world. And they want Jesus to do something for them.

But perhaps not. Perhaps there is another way to read it. Perhaps their request is a sign of solidarity with Jesus. After hearing the horrible prediction, they say to Jesus, we are with you all the way. I’m on your right hand, says one. I’m on your left, says the other. We’ve got your back. They are willing to immerse themselves in the sorrows of the world. They want to do something for Jesus.

And when Jesus says to them, Do you know what you are getting yourselves into, do you know what you are asking, can you take it, they say, Yeah, we can. We are able.

Jesus makes it pretty clear to the disciples that being privileged is not what following him is all about. You don’t get special seats for being a Christian. You don’t get to hobnob with the mayor and the senator. What you get to do is to serve with Jesus. I’ve come not to be served but to serve, he says.

But we have got to be careful not to confuse service with authority, with goodness, with power. We have to be careful not to think that serving others is a way to establish our goodness, our righteousness. Do we think we are better for serving meals at Faith Kitchen than those who come to eat those meals? If so, I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind when he said, I’ve come to serve.

We are called to serve others not because we are good. It is not our greatness of character that drives us to serve others. It is not our special skill, it is not our super-compassion, it is not our education, it is not the expectation of our mentors and parents. It is not the prospect of a fancy meal in Boston, or the praises of politicians, or days in heaven.

We serve because others exist. It is the call for help, quiet or loud, subtle or obvious, that leads us to serve. We serve food because others are hungry, not because we are such great food-servers. You give to the beggar because he needs you to. You nurture your young children because they need you to. You take care of your aging parents because they need you to. You visit the prisoners and the home-bound because they need you to. You listen to your colleague go on and on about her spouse because she needs you to. Our sacrifices—for our friends, families, spouses, neighbors, country, co-workers, teammates, strangers—giving up our time, our leisure, our chances, our money, sometimes our lives—we make sacrifices because people need us to. Not because we are so great.

Which is good for us, because people sacrifice for us not because they are so great, either. But because we need them to.

Serving others is not a chore or an obligation. It is how we bind ourselves together. It is why the guests at the Food Bank luncheon felt unduly acclaimed. In his remarks, Mayor Menino said that though the Food Bank had done great things in Boston, it was his hope that in the next 25 years there would be no need for a Food Bank, because there would be no hunger. He got it right. The Food Bank and all those agencies exist because people need them. Though feeding people is great and praiseworthy, we do it because people are hungry.

We come asking for help and guidance and healing and new life from Christ, who responds not because he is good—though that certainly is true—and not because he is powerful. But we know that Christ will serve us because we need him to.

Today, Tobias is baptized. Just now, he was welcomed into the Lord’s family, a child of God, and a worker with all in the kingdom of God. Now a follower of Christ, he has been welcomed to be cared for by Christ and, as he promised through his adults, to care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace among all people.

Loving and following Jesus is not an escape from the world. Jesus is not some buffer, some insulation and isolation from a demanding, difficult, and needy world. Jesus comes to be in that world. Impatient with the ten who are thinking not of human things but of heavenly things, he tells them he comes to serve. And it is because the world needs him to. To follow Jesus is not to escape from the world, but to be in solidarity with it.

Babes in the Woods

October 8, 2006
Text: Mark 10:2-16
Preacher: Pastor Stein

The Pharisees were wise in the ways of the world. They knew what’s what. They weren’t babes in the woods. They had been around. They weren’t born yesterday.

So when they asked Jesus this question about divorce, they already knew the answer. They were not trying to get new information. They were trying to trip Jesus up. To catch him in making a political mistake. Maybe he’d say something stupid that would get him into trouble with the authorities. The authority in this case being King Herod, the guy who earlier had had John the Baptist’s head served on a platter because John had criticized Herod’s own peculiar marriage arrangements. Maybe the Pharisees could get Jesus into trouble. For they knew how things worked in the world.

Against the worldly wisdom of the Pharisees Jesus sets before us the little children. This is not the first time in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus has used children as an example to the disciples. Earlier (as we heard a few weeks ago here) he told them that they had to welcome even children, a radical statement in days when children were like property and not yet persons. They, the disciples (and us, of course), were being told: welcome even outcasts. It is a little different in today’s reading. Today, instead of telling them they should be nice to children, Jesus tells them they should be as children. Be like children. If anyone wants to enter the kingdom of God, Jesus says, he or she must receive it as a little child.

This is kind of a riddle. And the riddle goes like this: how is a child not like a Pharisee? We modern types might answer from a sentimental and romanticized picture of children. Children are portrayed as sweet and innocent, powerless and pliable, not mean or greedy,. Painted in pastels, so to speak. But as parents know, that is often as not wishful thinking. And that certainly was not the view people had of children when Jesus spoke these words to the disciples.

But one thing we can say about children and Pharisees is this: Pharisees are old and children are new. Pharisees are experienced and children are without experience.

Being new, children have three things that Pharisees seem to have lost.

First, being new, children have no past. (For a little while, anyway.) No past means no regrets. It also means no grudges, no revenge, no payback. No unrequited loves, no disrepute, no careers made or broken.

Second, being new, children live in wide adventure. I’m not sure it feels like an adventure to children, but all that we know was once unknown to us. Every fact was once a mystery, every conclusion once a question.

And third, being new, children seem to approach life with enthusiastic expectations. I don’t mean that children don’t know sorrow or think that everything is and will be great. I mean that their expectations of life are spirited and energetic and eager.

The rest of us, being old, know a little about life. We, like the Pharisees, are wise in the ways of the world. But our wisdom has not always come in pleasant packages. We have had too many experiences that, as they say, build character. Relationships do not always work out, futures do not always unfold as we hope they will. People we admired turn out to be jerks. People we depended on turn out to be untrustworthy. People have been mean, or stupid, or corrupt, or unfair, or just weak when we needed them to be strong. Our luck has been bad: the bus pulled away just as we arrived to catch it, the door closed, the opportunity snatched by another. Not that life is bleak, but that the path from there to here has had a few rocks on it, sometime pebbles, sometimes boulders.

The Pharisees come to Jesus with dumb questions and nasty motives. Who knows exactly what they were thinking? Maybe they were afraid that Jesus teachings would disrupt a way of life that they found comfortable. Or even found good and true and right. Or maybe they felt he was disrespecting their discipline and training. Or maybe someone whom they valued or depended on told them to. I don’t know. They were doing the kind of thing that people do based on their experience of the world and other people and their ideas about how things work and should work. But the Pharisees in this story don’t seem happy to me.

The promise of Christianity is new life. Another way to say this is a life healed. Another way to say this is a life restored. Another way to say this is a life saved. The aches and bruises that result from our stumbles on those rocky paths need no longer control us. Not that everybody and everything will treat us right, but that the wrongs will not be such overwhelming burdens.

When Jesus speaks about children and the kingdom of God, he is not making up rules and requirements. He is stating an observation. The promise of new life that he offers is relief and rest for those who hold so tight to those burdens. What we hope to find is a way for us to come to God and to life in exactly the way children are different from Pharisees. What we hope for in Jesus, what we pray for, what we trust he will do, is to enable us to be as new as children.

That our past will no longer control us. That, being as children, we may live without regret and not driven to revenge and retribution, or engulfed in guilt and clothed in shame, but that we may know that we are forgiven.

That we may no longer be indifferent, living withdrawn and insulated and isolated. That, being as children, we may see our lives ahead as an adventure, not being nonchalant but welcoming surprise.

And that we may no longer think ahead dispiritedly, anticipating disappointment and disillusionment. That, being as children, we may have enthusiastic expectations for this life and for a promised life to come.

Like the Pharisees, we know what’s what. We have been around. Yet we hope to be as ones born yesterday into a new life. We hope that as the children were by Jesus, we may be embraced by God and blessed.

Vital Mutants

October 1, 2006 Text: Mark 9:38-50

In institutions there is a tendency to favor structure over vitality. Even though, as in the body, it is the vitality of the parts that strengthens and preserves the whole. Our living, energetic cells, constantly moving and making, keep us intact and sturdy. The structure of an institution is a myth. Without vitality, there is no structure. Without vitality, structure is death, like a snail shell without the snail, a skeleton without breath.

I’m talking here about the church. Not this church in particular but the wider Christian church. The church is an institution, and it seems in constant battle about its bones and its boundaries. How is it defined, what are its fundamentals, what is central, who is in and who is excommunicated, who has the power to decide and who has the power to change things. God created the church, our theology says, but then we act as if God moved to Florida, like an absentee landlord, and left us alone in charge of the property.

And when we are alone, we build institutions. Not because we are perverse, but because there is no way we can run things unless we are organized. Any group larger than a couple of handfuls of people develops a bureaucracy. With officers and rules of authority and specialization.

The Bible is peppered with stories of the beginning of the church. The Bible is the story of people’s discovery of and relationship to God, but it is the story mostly of groups of people.

Both the first reading and the gospel reading today tell of moments of transition. One in the growth of Israel and the other in the growth of Christianity. The question is: If the church is to expand, who can speak for it? It is like the transition that happens in an entrepreneurial venture. Somebody has a vision and gets things going. A small group forms. In the early days there is little to organize. Everyone does everything, there are few specialists or experts, there are no traditions to honor. The people involved are not necessarily the best in their fields and are not necessarily smart or skillful. They are the people who are available and eager, a lot like the disciples of Jesus, who in Mark are clueless but persistent.

Moses was the leader of Israel. He made all the decisions. When things went well, Moses got the credit. When things went badly, he got the grief. As in today’s event in the desert. You brought us out here, says the Israelites—who, remember, Moses led out of slavery—you brought us here to eat nothing but manna. We hate manna. Remember how great it was in Egypt? Slaves or no, we got fresh fish for nothing, fresh vegetables, fruits, garlic. Give us meat to eat!

Moses sees this is a crisis not of provisioning but of organization. I’ve had enough, he tells God. I cannot do this by myself. I am not able to carry this people all alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way it is going to be, I’m out of here. Fire me before I quit.

But God sees that Moses needs some organizational help. Time for a little bureaucracy. Time for a little hierarchy. And God takes some of Moses authority and spreads it around. God “took some of the spirit [of Moses},” it says, “and put it on” seventy middle-managers,.

The middle managers, which by our time in the church means bishops and pastors and deacons, exist to preserve order. In particular, to preserve the orderly transmission of the message. The message of Jesus, in the case of the church. The word “ordination” comes from the word “to order.” Ordination does not convey special powers. Ordained ministers agree to maintain orderly theology. To keep the message as free from noise as possible. They are the fiber optics of the church, one way of connecting people to Jesus.

In the psalm today are beautiful verses telling how “one day tells its tale to another” and thus their message is carried to the whole world. The institution of the clergy is supposed to do the same sort of thing, each telling the ones following who in turn tell the ones after them. It is like DNA, passed on from one cell to another, creating beings in perfect copy.

But it doesn’t work. Not in biology or in the church. It doesn’t work not because the copy mechanism is imperfect. It doesn’t work because a perfect copy is not the right thing. Neither the church nor a species can survive if it remains unchanged over time. The environment changes and creatures change with it.

In biology, mutation introduces change, new and unpredicted elements. It’s part of the system.

In the church, also, a kind of mutation introduces change. People on the outside: prophets, iconoclasts, heretics, the unschooled, seers and mystics, doubters and skeptics, contrarians. When the seventy gathered with Moses, two were left out: Eldad and Medad. The others protested; Eldad and Medad were speaking without authorization. Joshua calls out in alarm: Moses, stop them. But Moses will not. He knows that they are necessary to the survival of Israel.

The disciples of Jesus complain in the same way. Teacher, someone was healing people in your name, but he was not one of us. We tried to stop him. But Jesus tells his disciples: Let them be.

The seamless transmission of doctrine and story from one generation to the next provides continuity that keeps the message alive. But the seamlessness of it makes it hard for God to get a word in edgewise. How can God affect the church when each generation is a perfect copy of the previous one? Those in the institution of the church have to be careful to listen for the voice of God in those who seem to be out of it.

No one knows in advance which mutations will be helpful and which not. Martin Luther was named a heretic and a contract put out on him. He survived, and his words and actions re-formed the church. He had a big impact, we can see, 500 years later.

Not every change is so radical. Who are the carriers of beneficial mutations now? Who is the Eldad or Medad of this day? Who is healing without authority? Whose words is God using to re-form our church now? Are they coming from the academy, the street, from the left or the right, from some Lutheran somewhere in Minnesota or some post-Christian poet? Are they coming from someone here in this gathering today?

The church is not the orderly parts of it. Not the seventy elders and the twelve disciples and the Synods and Assemblies and clergy. They are the staff, for convenience and order. The church is the body of Christ. Formed and re-formed everyday by the life and energy and wonder of all who gather. Formed and re-formed by you.

What's Wrong with Being Right?

September 24, 2006 Readings: Psalm 54 & Mark 9:30-37

The problem with claiming to be righteous is that we don’t know if we are righteous. Sometimes not. Probably not. The problem with claiming to be the greatest is that we have no idea how great we are. Sometimes not so great. Not very great.

The word “righteous” means that we are right with God. Aligned with God. Aligned also with God’s created universe. And aligned with what God’s wants. If we are righteous, things are smooth. No swimming against the stream. No splinters in the walkway. No squeaks. Being righteous is moving in parallel with God.

The problem with thinking we are righteous is that we think that we are right. Righter than most, in fact. So much righter that the others who are not right are in fact wrong. And the problem with that is this: that if we think we are right because we are doing exactly what God wants, then people who are wrong are against God and people who are right, like us, are with God. And so whatever we do, God is right behind us every step of the way. God is on our side and we know it for absolutely sure. And since God is in our corner—not, please note, that we are in God’s corner—then we can do pretty much what we think without restraint. We are the greatest. We come first.

Some of you may have noticed that the psalm that we recited today was missing a few verses at the end. That’s for two reasons. The first reason is that I wanted us to hear clearly the words of comfort in the psalm. The words of the last verse we read: “God is my helper. God alone guards my life.” God is committed to helping us. And only God guards us. That’s good to hear.

And the second reason is that I wanted to talk about the next verse here in the sermon. The next verse after these nice words in Psalm 54 goes like this: “Render evil to those who spy on me; in your faithfulness, destroy them.” The person who wrote this psalm is calling on God to destroy the person’s enemies. To render evil to them, which is perhaps worse. The writer is wishing evil on his enemies. You can tell that the writer of the psalm considers himself to be pretty much in the right and that he is confident that God agrees with him and that God will therefore kill his enemies and send evil their way. I wonder what makes him think that God would make evil happen. I thought that evil was someone else’s realm.

Jeremiah calls on God, too, in the first reading. “I was like a gentle lamb,” he writes. But not so gentle that he doesn’t hesitate to call on God to send retribution on those who have insulted him. Because the prophet has tried to be faithful.

The trouble with being right, the troubles I guess you have to say, the troubles with being right are two. The first trouble is that you can hurt people in your righteousness. You know what’s good for them, or if not for them then for the world. This is the sort of thing that ends with someone saying “no gains without pains,” or “this is hurting me more than it hurts you” or “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs” or “the end justifies the means.” It leads almost inevitably to all sorts of sorrow.

The second trouble is that it is very tiring to be right. If you are right and others are wrong then you have to be vigilant. For your sake and the sake of the world. For if the others succeed, or win, or prevail, or take over, then, since you know they are wrong, things will be bad. Unlike if you win or prevail or what have you. So you have a moral obligation to watch out for the un-righteous, the un-right, and when you see them, to fight them. Maybe even to call up evil on them. For the good.

Now the alternative to all this is what Jesus said. First, he wasn’t very big on people who thought they were right or righteous. Second, he preached pretty much the opposite: turning the other cheek and all that stuff. Loving people. Loving your neighbor. Loving even your enemies. Not calling out evil on them. Not calling on the wrath of the Lord God to smite them or to bring vengeance or even to protect you. Some of what Jesus preached made people nervous. Still does.

The trouble with claiming that God is your particular powerful champion is that the other guy can just as easily say God is his particular powerful champion, instead. In fact, that happens all the time. And both of you claim to be right, to know the truth, to speak for God, and to know God’s private cell phone number. Who is to judge? So you fight it out in the usual way: through aggression and violence and intimidation and in oppression and pre-emption. You outdo each other in destruction and pain.

The other way, the way Jesus seems to talk about, is to outdo each other in love. That is a win-win situation. Because no matter who is right, you are competing, if you want to call it that, in being loving. Who can be the most loving. Who can be the most compassionate, the most forgiving, the most generous with your time and possessions; the most helpful. Who cares? It is all good.

The disciples were arguing about who was the greatest. They had the good grace to be embarrassed when Jesus asked them, what were you guys arguing about? That certainly shut them up. They knew it was stupid. Then Jesus tells them that to be first they have got to be last.

The fruits of trying to be first are sorrow and exhaustion. The fruits of trying to be last are joy and freedom. There is a kind of wisdom, writes James, that is earthly and devilish. But there is a kind of wisdom from above that peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, willing to yield. Such wisdom bears fruit, he says, and the harvest is peace.

The opposite of right is not wrong. The opposite of right is to be humble. To not be so darn sure you know what is going on, that you know just what God meant, that you are such a better interpreter of God’s signs and words than someone else. Your neighbor or your enemy or your fellow disciple.

Loving your neighbor and your enemy, praying for them even though you can’t stand them or are afraid of them, is not some sort of trick. Not some magic moral martial art thing. It is a way of being humble. It is also a way of acknowledging that maybe God knows a lot more than we do. Maybe we could admit we are wrong. Maybe we could stop and ask for directions. Maybe we could spend time, resources, and energy to outdo each other in love.

A Mind on Human Things

September 17, 2006 Text: Mark 8:27-38

Jesus had a lot on his mind.

Lutherans are adamant about the incarnation of Jesus. Jesus was God in the flesh. More than others, even, Lutherans insist that Jesus was 100% divine and 100% human at the same time. That balance is even. Not mostly divine and a little bit human. Not mostly human with a touch of the divine. Not a god in human disguise, walking incognito on the earth. Not a good teacher and radical blessed by God. But God and human both.

Not everyone likes this approach. You might think the hardest part would be claiming that Jesus was God. And for sure that was the issue during the life of Jesus, where people thought he was being blasphemous by claiming even a special connection—a family connection—with God. And maybe for you that is the hard part even now.

But after 2000 years of the teachings of church and tradition, the problem is often the opposite. In our liturgy and our classrooms we easily claim that Jesus was divine, son of God, sitting even now at the right hand of the Father, visiting us in our times of trouble and listening in heaven to our prayers. What often tempts modern Christians is to forget that Jesus was a person. That he did person things. Drink water, stub his toe, get annoyed, feel passionately, complain about the weather. Whatever it is that people do, Jesus must have done a lot of the same (in his time and circumstances).

There is nothing that Jesus skips over, nothing that he as God is too squeamish to do as unbecoming of a divine creature, nothing that he skips out on and avoids, even despair and death. We can say he knows us as we know ourselves and speaks for us as one of us and we let him advise us on our own lives and the state of the world.

These verses from Mark that we just heard are so full of hot topics of doctrine—Messiah, salvation, sin, for example—that it is especially easy to read them as pronouncements and theological truths. Sort of like a campaign speech, highlighting important points and issues. But I think we can just as easily read them as a story. A story about an important time and event in the life of Jesus, a man called to a mission. And that’s what I’d like to do today.

Jesus has reached a turning point in his ministry. Up until now he has been a teacher, a recruiter, and a healer. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that if things go on as they have so far, Jesus will be in big trouble. He speaks to his disciples, but it is almost as if throughout this passage he is really speaking to himself.

Who do they say that I am? he asks. Let’s not imagine this is a trick question posed by an all-knowing divinity, but an urgent need by a man wishing to know how he stands. They think I’m Elijah, they think I’m John the Baptist come back from the dead. They gather in big crowds around me and they talk about me even though I ask them not to. Jesus is famous, infamous, popular with the masses. He’s in demand.

And my disciples, what does this motley crew think? “Who do you say that I am,” Jesus asks them. “The Messiah,” Peter speaks for them all. You are the Messiah. They think I’m the king, the leader of Israel, the savior of the nation. In your imagination you can hear Jesus sigh. It is a good answer, but a hard answer.

The crowd thinks Jesus is a prophet, the disciples think he is a savior king. Either of these roles leads to almost certain death. Jesus knows he is going to be arrested and killed. And he tells the disciples so. Things are going to get bad.

But Peter can’t stand it. “Don’t let it happen,” he says in another account. Don’t do it. Jesus turns on Peter. Not very compassionate, here. He doesn’t say “there, there, Peter, what will be has to be.” He rebukes Peter, turning on him. And he calls to Satan, “get out of here.” Satan in the Gospels is the symbol for temptation, and it seems that Jesus is tempted. Is he tempted by those human things? Things like a long life with friends, perhaps, sitting on the porch with Peter years later, talking about their grandchildren, days at the beach and in business together. Things that people get to do, some of them.

There is a choice here, or at least Mark makes it sound that way. Jesus’ choice. And he puts it in those terms. “Those who want to save their life will lose it; those who lose their life for my sake and the sake of the gospel will save it.” A or B. The left fork; the right fork. A fantasy of a long and pleasant life. A near-certain short and violent mission.

Yet what kind of life would it be if he abandoned his call? If he chose the rocking chair over the cross. If he ignored his mission. What would it profit, he wonders aloud, to gain the whole world and forfeit one’s life?

Jesus is called by God and by the world to a mission. He sees sure risks ahead. He is tempted to avoid his call. Yet in the end he comes to understand—or you might say he always understood—that if he were to embrace that pleasant life he would have no life worth living. And so off he goes, meeting with Moses and Elijah in the next passage in Mark, and then on to the cross.

What Jesus does is a human thing. To choose between the one life and another is a human thing. To be at a turning point. To be called (though maybe not as Messiah) and to take risks (though maybe not to be crucified), to see danger, to be tempted to turn aside. These are human things. Jesus’ story here is a human story. Our story.

You have a chance to work on improving infrastructure in a developing nation / it will be uncomfortable and unhealthful / you are tempted to stay home. You are approached by someone begging on the street / you’ll have to give up a little time and money and it will be awkward / you are tempted to walk on by. You long to set up a studio and be a photographer / it will mean a drastic cut-back in salary that will affect not only you but your spouse / you are tempted to keep your old job.

Jesus says Peter (or is it Jesus?) is setting his mind on human things. Of course he is! Peter (or is it Jesus?) is human. It is a human thing to avoid pain and trouble and sadness and loss. It makes sense to do so.

But it is also human to feel called by God. To feel that there is a life for us that feels in synch with the universe. We know in our bones that we can be at peace with ourselves and others. That there is a way to live in trust and fearlessness. That we are destined not to be like Gods but to belong to God and loved.

Jesus calls the people in the reading an adulterous generation, a word that in the Bible usually means idolatrous. And it is not just Jesus’ generation that turns to idols, but every generation. No generation has been free from idols. The biggies: power, wealth, security, relationships; and all the little other ones. They are energized by our fear. Idols offer to keep us well and satisfied. They offer to keep death away. But idols lie. They don’t give us life. They take away our lives in service to them. If we try to save our lives through idols we will surely lose our lives to them.

“If any would be my followers,” Jesus says, “let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” This is not an invitation to suffer. Why would God hope you would suffer? It is an invitation to spit in the faces of our idols, to hear the call of God, and to follow it, come what may. To turn our backs on fear.

What God wants for us is what we mostly deeply want for ourselves. We and God are related; we are made in God’s image. We share the same genes, so to speak; we are related by blood. What God hopes for us is what we most urgently and truly hope for ourselves.

Our lives are full of little turning points, times of choice. I put before you life and death, says Moses, choose life. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, God asks in Isaiah, listen … to me, and [choose to] eat what is good. Follow me, invites Jesus, and claim your life.

Father of All Law, Mother of All Sin

September 10, 2006 Text: James 2:1-17

My neighbor tries to start his old, rickety truck, whose springs are shot and whose bed always is full of some kind of junk or other. The truck won’t start. Urrm, urrm. The starter turns. Urrm. Again. And again. Finally it catches. He backs up, just missing clobbering the car behind, then surges forward, just missing mine in front. I surprise myself by thinking: “what is wrong with that person?”

What is wrong is that he is poor, that he needs his truck for his work but can’t afford to fix it, that he has a bushy mustache, that he dresses oddly, that he looks strange. What is wrong with him is that he is not me, not like me. What is wrong is that he is different.

I have sinned. There is no sin in seeing this man. There is sin in judging him.

We are creatures blessed with sensitive detectors. The rods in our eyes can detect a single photon. Our ears if any more sensitive could hear the random motion of the molecules in the air. Our brains are pattern detectors. What impinges on our consciousness is change, motion, and edges. We are creatures designed to detect borders. To detect differences.

Isaiah promises sight to those who cannot see. Hearing to those who cannot hear. In the golden age, when those who are injured and wounded will walk, when those who cannot speak will speak, when the wilderness produces fruit, then perception will be restored to those whose eyes and ears are broken. It is occasion for rejoicing.

And yet, our abilities and propensities for distinguishing one thing from another get us in hot water. In the hottest water. We see other people as different than we are. We see them as “not people.” So we can buy and sell other people without seeing them as people, as real people. People, that is, like us. We can put other people in camps. We can bomb other people’s cites and kill them. We can keep other people in poverty, or not rescue them from poverty.

We can do this because something is broken in us, some other kind of detector, that would detect the anguish and despair that we know we would feel if we were them, those other people. We don’t see them as we see ourselves. We don’t see them as we see those whom we know well—our friends and family, for example—those whom we love.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” James reminds us, reciting this half of the basis of all law in scripture. You do well if you really fulfill this fundamental commandment, he says. “But,” he says, “if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” The emphasis here is on the second part of the commandment. “Neighbor as yourself.” The opposite of “love your neighbor as yourself” is not “hate your neighbor.” It is “see your neighbor as different than yourself.”

“Love the Lord your God will all your heart and soul and mind,” is the first half of the commandment. But the second half does not just say “and love your neighbor, too.” The prime commandment is not “Love God and your neighbor, too.” The second half has this kicker: “… as yourself.” “…as yourself” is the unexpected part and therefore the powerful part.

For James, loving one’s neighbor as oneself is the father of all law. And for James, partiality—judging some folks to be better than others, to treat some people differently than others, to show deference to some and to show others disrespect—for James this is the mother of all sin. From this all sin towards others flows: covetousness, murder, dishonor, theft, the human side of the Ten Commandments.

And this fundamental commandment is a necessary part of being a follower of Christ. “Do you,” he asks in his letter, “Do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” He cannot conceive how treating others in any way differently than we hope to be treated ourselves can be reconciled with Jesus for those who follow Jesus.

Maybe this is the original sin. In the garden, after eating the apple, Adam’s and Eve’s “eyes were opened, “it says in Genesis, “and they knew that they were naked,” and as a result, they put on some clothes. It is not their nakedness that is the issue. The sin, or maybe it was the result of the sin, was that they recognize a distinction that was not there before. It is not that they suddenly noticed a difference in each other than they had been blind to before. It is that the difference was suddenly important.

Ever since then, our difference detectors have been working overtime. A writer in New York, writing for tomorrow’s anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, wrote that in the days following the attacks, “a single source of solace emerged amid the dread and grief: a great upwelling of simple solidarity. Here in New York, and in … Washington, that solidarity took homely forms. Strangers connected as friends; … political and civic leaders of all parties and persuasions stood together [and, I should add, religious leaders, too], united in sorrow and defiance.” And he goes on to say that that solidarity was not confined to New York City but extended worldwide.

Yet within months all this unity, all this recognition of common humanity in suffering, vanished. It shattered into thousands of distinctions, between good and bad, east and west, Christian and Jew and Muslim, and between one kind of Christian and another and between one kind of Muslim and another. Now the world stands in splinters. It is if we cannot bear for long to be the brothers and sisters that God created. We have walked out of the garden.

We are really good at seeing differences, even where there is nothing to see. Catholics in Ireland detect Protestants, Shiites detect Sunnis. Lutherans used to detect Mormons but evidently have forgotten how. Thank God.

Do we see what God does not? Is God, all knowing, blind to things we see so clearly? Are God’s eyes less sharp than ours? Or is it that God chooses not to see? That through some kind of Godly moral strength God pretends not to see?

Or is it that we see and then we judge. “What is wrong with this guy?” I say. That’s a judgment. But when God sees God does not judge. That the differences that seem so big to us seem to be nothing of import to God. They are not important. They do not make a difference to God.

The psalm tells of the salvation of the world, an age—the kingdom of God, we would say—when the people who are oppressed and live in sorrow are restored. This is the same world that James writes about in hope. What kind of world is it, he asks, when someone can see a “brother or sister naked and lacking daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your full,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs”? What kind of world is it when the rich are respected for being rich and the poor despised for being poor? What kind of world is it where I mock my neighbor for his troubles? This is a world where we do not treat our neighbors as ourselves for we do not see them as like ourselves.

This is our world, but it is not God’s kingdom. It is not the kingdom that Jesus preaches. Or promises.

In God’s kingdom, the kingdom we hope and pray for, James says, mercy triumphs over justice. Our eyes are opened and our ears unstopped and our “neighbor as ourselves” detectors begin to work.

James saw in Jesus a constant reminder that we are all in this together, brothers and sisters. As we announce in the words of Paul each week: There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. All neighbors, like ourselves.

A Gospel Life

September 3, 2006 Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Preacher: Pastor Seitz

Today’s Gospel text presents Jesus in a very common situation. He is being challenged by “Pharisees and teachers of the Law.” They gathered around Jesus. They sat and watched the disciples and some were eating without washing their hands.

The Pharisees and teachers of the Law ask: Why don’t your disciples live according to the traditions of the church instead of eating with unclean hands?

Jesus gives a very strong answer, “you hypocrites! You have let go of the commands of God and are holding onto the traditions of men.”

Jesus is being challenged by his peers and his elders because he is not living according to what they expect. In their eyes, nothing is more important than the traditions of the church and the Laws when it comes to how one is supposed to conduct oneself while following God.

Those of you who know me may not be surprised to learn that while at seminary I was called up to the Dean’s office, once. I had a good idea at the time what it was regarding because there was something going on at the seminary apartments where I lived.

Wherever I live I get to know some of the homeless community on a first name basis. I like to talk to people when they ask for change and find out who they are because I feel a little personal contact and understanding can go a lot farther than some spare change sometimes.

I went to seminary in Berkeley, California and there was a fairly large community of young people who were homeless living there. One young man’s name was Andrew. He had lived in Berkeley, on the streets, since he was 16. He was probably 18 when I met him.

As often happens to homeless people, he caught a serious cold that turned into pneumonia. He went to the hospital and they released him into some of his friend’s care. They were homeless too so they called me. Andrew had pneumonia, could he stay with me for a few days while he takes his medicine and gets well enough to stand again?

So Andrew stayed in my seminary-owned apartment with my roommate’s consent, just until he could make it on his own again. It was not long before out neighbors started complaining that the person locked up in Tim’s apartment could get everyone else sick. I made no effort to send Andrew away before he was well enough and just when it looked like things were settling down, I received a notice that the Dean wished to see me.

So I went to the Dean and he asked me if I was housing a young homeless person in my apartment. I answered, yes. Well your neighbors are concerned that you will get sick and that they will get sick. They are concerned for your safety. What exactly to do you think you are doing with a sick homeless person on your couch?

I answered him with one of those classic one-liners that you always wish you could think of in a situation like this. I answered, “I am doing exactly what the book we came here to study has told me to do.”

In the lesson from Deuteronomy today, God warns the people after, after admonishing them to obey the Law, only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you don’t forget the things your have seen nor let them slip from your heart.

The truth is that Law is for experience – if it is not true or good in experience than what good is it?

In James Chapter. 1 from the 2^nd lesson today, we are given direction which should still be central to our teaching today. “Brothers and sisters, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for peoples anger does not bring about the righteous life God desires for us.”

How many Christians are quoting this scripture in their arguments and complaints? Just watch the “Christian” portrayed on T.V, nearly every televangelist is angry. Most denominations today are defined by what we disagree with. Name any hot topic: war, abortion, homosexuality, etc. Seems like anything controversial in society there are Christians lining up to do their part and voice their anger and disapproval.

Jesus cuts through the argument with these words “Listen to me everyone and understand this. Nothing outside a man makes him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him unclean.”

We are not unclean because we have dirty hands and eat! Woe to you who sit in judgment of others for their shortcomings while the habit of sitting around and judging others is the greatest shortcoming of all.

God tells His people in the 1^st lesson, Follow my Laws in order to serve me – but do not forget your experiences so you remember why the Laws exist. In the 2^nd Lesson, James tells us – Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

In the Gospel Jesus reminds us that there is danger in defending the Law if it leads you to forget who we are and what the Law is for. The Law is to guide us and, as James states, “But the man who looks intently into the perfect Law that gives freedom – and does not forget – will be blessed.”

As James says, the Law is designed to give us freedom.

My other favorite story about this topic took place not long ago in my previous call. I welcomed a couple of new members to the church. They were an older married couple, an old blues musician and his wife—also a musician. They invited me to play with them. Eventually they asked me to perform with them in a bar.

Between sets some members from the church that had come to listen were giving me a hard time. “It’s hard to believe that our very own man of the cloth is playing drums in blues band. Pastor, I wonder what Jesus would make of this?”

There was a man sitting alone at the only table near our group. When he heard the name Jesus, he said, “Jesus!? If Jesus was here he wouldn’t want anything to do with a guy like me!”

So I dropped down into the chair next to him and said, “No way, Brother! If Jesus walked in here right now you are exactly the guy that Jesus would be hanging with.”

When this story was retold at a congregational meeting people complained that their pastor was hanging out in a bar and inviting other members to come and setting a poor example for our youth.

The disciples needed to eat more than they needed to worry about what the teachers and the Pharisees thought about their hands. The homeless young man needed a place to get well more than my neighbors at the Seminary needed to feel comfortable about housing a sick stranger. And the guy in the bar needed to hear that Jesus loves him more than my parishioners needed to certain that their pastor was not going to the bar.

The Gospel leads us to go out and serve anyone, anywhere, at any time. The Law reminds us we are forgiven along the way. We are called to live lives of service more than lives of obedience to the Law and traditions of the church. That in fact is what the Gospel is all about.