Christians Wear Funny Clothes

Text: Colossians 3:12-17
Other texts: Luke 2:41-52

We spoke on Christmas Eve about all the possibilities inherent in the birth of a child. All the uncertainties and hopes that go with new birth. And how we can imagine all the things that might happen to a new infant. We hope that all children have lives of grace. We know that some might revolutionize the world. We have read that Mary pondered the future of her miraculous child in terms like these. What would her child Jesus be like?

But now, already, Jesus is growing up. There is not much about the childhood of Jesus in the gospels, just a couple of stories like the one we heard today. And thus there are only a couple of Sundays in the season of Christmas before we get to the ministry of the adult Jesus in the world. That hasn’t stopped people from writing about the young boy Jesus, but we figure those writings are fanciful.

What we do know from scripture is that Jesus was a good, well-brought-up boy. He almost surely could read. He certainly knew his Bible. People in the Temple are amazed at this young boy’s knowledge of Torah and his sophisticated understanding of it.

What a child needs to know as he or she grows up is how to be a part of the community, the culture. And to know how to behave as a responsible citizen. These are things we all need to know. And all need reminding of from time to time. Even as adults. Or maybe especially.

The apostle Paul, prime missionary for the newly born church of Jesus Christ, is a good one to remind us. That is pretty much what Paul does. He starts churches and then he writes them long letters reminding them how to behave. Because they forget. Being a follower of Jesus is sometimes a peculiar thing. It often goes against the “basic principles of this world,” as Paul [or an author claiming to be Paul] writes earlier in this letter to the Colossians.

Before the passage that we heard today from this letter, Paul tells his church all the things they are advised not to do. But in today’s reading he tells them what they should do. Which is much more helpful. He tells them first who they are. Then how they should appear. Then how they should behave.

He reminds them first that they are chosen, holy, and beloved. He is claiming for them the same privileges that Jews like Paul already have. They are chosen by God to be a light to others, to be an example of the way to live in harmony with God’s intent and will. They are holy, a word that means separate—set apart from the rest of the world both through their reliance on God’s word and through their actions in response. And they are loved by God. They live in God’s unconditional grace. All together these things mean they are God-focused. As a consequence, they—meaning we—spend time thinking—and praying—about what God wishes for us and how we might reveal the God we know to the world. And that we have both the requirement and the freedom to do that.

So, having set that foundation, Paul tells them: how to dress. He tells them they—we—should clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Five things: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. We shouldn’t ignore how powerful and difficult to follow this advice is. All of these words imply servility. Servility is not something we usually admire in ourselves. This is more than being good to other people. It is more even than being a servant to other people. It means valuing others more than we value ourselves. It means also a willingness to waive our rights rather than gain at the expense of another. It means also to not be frustrated and angry at the idiotic behavior of those other people.

None of this is easy. We cannot, you might argue, control how we feel. But Paul only asks that we control the clothes we put on, not the body underneath. That is, how we act and therefore appear to others. Clothing can highlight the best of us and hide the worst. Fortunately for all. We can act compassionately toward those whom we despise. We can be humble toward those whom we feel superior. We can be patient in the face of aggravation. And I’m sure as some of you have discovered, when you act that way often you become that way. How you feel follows what you do. It is made of magic cloth, these clothes of Paul. Acting in love changes you so that you love more. So Paul says: finally, clothe yourself in love. Love binds them all together.

We speak of the assembly of Christians in the world as the body of Christ. The body is called together by God. But it is held together by our forgiveness. By, as Paul says, bearing with one another. It is the forgiving of others, the forbearance of others’ faults, that is the radical center of Christianity. It comes from God. As we are forgiven, so we forgive. But it happens through us. Through our actions day to day. Who would adopt a faith based on servility? Christians. Christians do.

We do this, and we can do this—even though imperfectly—because Jesus is in us and we are in him. Paul encourages the Colossians: the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Make space for Jesus, someone described this. When in doubt, think: if Jesus ruled my heart—which in the time of Jesus was the organ you thought with, the center of rationality—if Christ ruled my heart, what would I do now? Or think: if I were at peace with myself and God, what could I do now?

As the chosen, holy, beloved people of God, we show the world who we are by the way we act—the clothes we wear. We are to be a light to the world. And we show each other that, too. New Englander Thoreau wrote “beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.” But we are taught that Christ makes possible a new world. Christians are supposed to put on new clothes, without first waiting to become or trying to become new wearers. The clothes are outlandish and noticeable. They signify Jesus Christ.

Ministers wear these funny collars. I wear one from time to time. When I have my collar on, I’m a better driver. Less of a jerk. It is silly, I know. But I don’t want people to think badly of ministers in particular and Christians in general just because I cut someone off or jumped a green light or didn’t stop for someone in a cross walk. Like it or not, people judge Jesus by what those who say they follow Jesus do.

Do everything in the name of Jesus, Paul tells us. We act in Christ’s name. When people know we are Christian, they judge Jesus by what we do.

Follow Jesus, says Paul. Be servile. Forgive others no matter what. Wear funny clothes. Change the world. Be changed.

Baby Jesus

Text: Luke 2:1-7
Other texts: Christmas Eve readings

There is usually no sermon preached on Christmas Eve at Faith. This is a short homily that opened the worship service.

It is tempting to embellish the story of the birth of Jesus. It is tempting to make more of it than it appears in the Bible. Which is not much. Luke’s Gospel contains an extensive story of Jesus’ birth, and in Luke the birth itself is given only two verses:

While they were [in Bethlehem], the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

But today is Christmas Eve, and what better time is there to give in to temptation? And the birth of any child—what better event to fire the imaginations of all people? The birth of a child seems a genuine miracle. How can any creature, let alone a human child, come into existence at all? How can those two cells that start it all up—even if one is from the Holy Spirit—how can they become the trillions of interacting, energetic, chaotic, coordinated sea of cells and chemicals that make a person? The mystery of God become human is matched by the mystery of humans becoming human.

And yet the birth—miraculous and full of extreme pain and joy as it must have been—is just a few verses, in the story of Jesus. And in the story of the lives of all of us.

We are about to hear eight readings that together tell the story of Christmas. The birth of Jesus is in the middle. The readings tell the particular cosmological story of the birth of God in the world. And they tell the wider story of what it is like to hope for a child, to know a child is coming, to have a child, to raise a child, to ponder the child’s future. The story is not so different from the story of your parents and you, or the story of you and your child.

Lutherans are adamant about the humanity of Jesus. One hundred percent God and one hundred percent human, we say. And so it is important that as we hear this story of the birth of Jesus, son of God, that we remember that it is exactly also the birth of Jesus, child of Joseph and Mary.

The Christmas Eve story starts with the prophets Isaiah and Micah. We live, as they say, in the world of darkness and light, of suffering and delight. There is a longing in us to renew the world. The yearning for a child is a incarnation of the hope we have that there is a future, one that is new and good. The longing in Isaiah is for a child, a wonderful counselor, a prince of peace, a restorer of the world. That longing is a grander version of what we hope for every child.

But then it becomes a particular child. The child you were, or are, or the child you have or hope to have. Mary, in the Gospel of Luke, hears that she will soon conceive. She is much perplexed, Luke reports. That is not a surprise. It is strange, in a way that is both urgent and nice, to think about giving birth. Our desire for the general future becomes more immediate, scary, and exciting.

Mary conceives. But before she gives birth, the family is dislocated because of events beyond their control. They leave their families of origin, and have to travel. Everything is a mess. They are poor, young, and in a strange place. There is no perfect time to have a baby. There is no perfect spot. Children are born every minute in this world into comfort and also into hardship. Jesus is born. There are no details. It is not any easy thing to come into the world. There is a lot of commotion. And then, if we are fortunate, relief and amazement and a quiet place—as for Jesus—for mother and child and father, too.

People are thrilled, Luke continues in his story. The shepherds come, like relatives from out of town to admire the baby. And, like relatives, off they go again. Already the tranquility of a new birth is replaced by expectations and requirements. Within eight days Jesus must be circumcised.

In the temple, though, a stranger named Simeon makes grand predictions. Why is it that a baby seems to be everybody’s business? He looks at Jesus, he picks him up—why do people feel they can do that—and praises him. But his predictions are ominous, too. In the Gospel of Matthew, the next to last reading, kings come to see the child. Is that weird? What are his parents to make of that?

The joy of being a parent is always mixed with wondering, with pondering as it says Mary does. What will happen now, what will happen next, what will happen in the years ahead? How will the world be and how will it be for my child? Mary and Joseph, for all the premonitions and announcements and auguries, cannot know what will happen to their son. They cannot predict what will happen to him, both the grand and the gruesome. And who would want to know for sure what will happen with our children? God will be with them, but the future is unwritten. And blessedly not ours to know.

It is time to celebrate the birth of Jesus who is the Messiah. Jesus Christ. We will have many occasions later to hear about his life, his ministry. About his miracles and teachings. And about his trial, and execution, and resurrection. And then can ponder the meaning of the Messiah, the divine son of God.

But now, tonight, we can remember that Jesus had human parents, lived in a family, had to learn to eat and walk and be potty trained and had conversations and get praised and scolded. Just like every other human child. All God, all human.

Why Go to Church This Sunday

Text: Philippians 4:4–7

Christians, and especially Lutherans, have a bad habit of treating the apostle Paul as if he were a theologian. We hear Martin Luther quoting Romans and think that Paul’s most important contribution was to explain a doctrine of justification and grace.

But Paul was before all a missionary. He was in modern terms a church planter. Without Paul there would be no churches to preach the gospel. Though the center of the Jesus movement was in Jerusalem, the churches in the countryside—the ones that Paul founded—were the ones that spread it. There may be more to the story than we know, since our main source of information about this is the book of Acts and the letters of Paul. Acts tells a story of the early Christian church in which the heroes are Paul along with Peter. And of course what we get from Paul’s letters is information about the churches Paul started. Maybe there were dozens of Pauls of which we know nothing. There were certainly other preachers who talked about Jesus. We know this because Paul sometimes disparages them.

Paul was a convert to Jesus. He started out as a kind of sheriff or bounty hunter of Christians, but he had a life-changing experience and vision which made him join the people he had been hunting down. But he did more than join them, he became their chief marketer and promoter. He could have been a soul practitioner. Instead, he became a founder of churches. Paul evidently felt that to enjoy and live out the good news that he had found, one had to be part of a worshipping community.

Perhaps there is a way to follow Jesus all by yourself, but for sure that is not what Paul did. He spent his remaining life first calling together groups of men and women and then later encouraging them to stay together when they threatened to disintegrate or got into other trouble. The church for Paul was fundamental to following Jesus. Not the wide association of all followers, Church with a capital “C,” but the small, intimate groups of people who met in each other’s houses.

People like to say that they are spiritual but not religious. What this means, I think, is that they don’t like church. They can read the Bible and pray by themselves. But they don’t like church, for a whole bunch of reasons. Why, they wonder, should anybody come to church on a Sunday morning? Let’s talk about that today.

The root word for church in Greek, the language of the New Testament, is ekklesia. Like ecclesiastical, which just signifies churchy. The word ekklesia means “assembly,” or “gathering,” and it comes from two parts which together mean “called out” (ek: from, and kaleo: call). Both these parts are important to its meaning as church.

A church is a place to which you are called. No one really has to come to church anymore. It is not expected or required to get along in society. The time when every Christian felt obligated to be part of a worshipping community is gone. That means that probably you are here for a different reason.

One way to think about this is that you have chosen to be here. You are here because you intend to be here. One thing that the diverse people of Faith church have in common is that people here are by and large serious about their faith. Not that we are somber about it, and not that we are doubt-free (if that is even possible or desirable), and not that it is always joyful or fulfilling to be here, but what happens here is important to those who are here.

But another way, or maybe a related way, to think about this that you have been called here. A call is like an invitation but a little bit more. Something with weight to it, or a little edgy. A call is a little more compelling, more insistent. It is God who calls the church into being each week. It is God who makes that insistent offer.

A call has a direction to it. This can be exciting and it can be scary. In my experience, usually both. You are called from one thing into a new thing. There are four attributes of this call to assemble that shed light on why church matters.

First, we are called from our homes. Homes for many are our base. In our homes are people we love and maybe take care of or take care of us. The chairs are comfortable and there is food in the pantry. On a cold day, or on a morning after a late night, or when leaving home means lots of paraphernalia, staying home can seem pretty great. That’s why we are called out of our homes. Leaving home on a Sunday morning is an exercise in discipline, but it is also an exercise in freedom. We are called to leave our own selves behind, in a way. To let go of the homey things, the daily things that burden, distract, and occupy us so energetically.

Second, we are called to church. There is a purpose in God’s invitation. Church is a special, particular place designed for worship. It is a place that reminds us to praise God and gives us some tools to do that. A place that provides nourishment to us in the form of readings, sermons, and sacraments. A place of forgiveness and one that does not shame. And a place in which what we most care about can be expressed out loud.

Third, we are called one by one. Each person comes by her or himself. Even when we come as couples or families. The call to you to be here is a call to you alone. You, as you stand with God at the moment. You in the life you are leading right now, this minute. God’s call is not a general one. If it were, why would you pay attention to it? You are called here because God invites you here now. You are here because you have answered it this day.

And fourth, we are called together. Church is a community of people. People who have agreed to both admonish and comfort one another. Pray for one another. Ask for help and offer it. Who can be sociable or private, funny or grave. People who will accept and love one another unconditionally as a discipline of faith. And people who, like you, have responded to a call.

Martin Luther was opposed to private communion. In his time priests visited rich people who did not want to be bothered by coming to church. Luther said that this violated Jesus’ commandment regarding the Lord’s Supper. Luther said that when Jesus said “do this” (“do this in remembrance of me”), he meant not only the eating of bread and the drinking of wine, but the gathering as well. The communion is a communion not only with God but with other disciples, other followers, of Christ. And gathering and the sharing of the meal with others were essential parts of it.

Many years ago, as the way I stood with God seemed to be changing, I went on a spiritual retreat. And while preparing for it, I wrote three questions in my journal: Who is Jesus? Who am I? and What should I do—what is my obligation to others? Those are the questions that crowd asks John in today’s Gospel reading. Those are always the questions of faith. They are important questions. Who is God? Who am I? What am I supposed to do?

The people who are drawn to this church—you and me—care about something. What happens here is important. There are a lot of great things that go on at Faith church. People like each other. We laugh quite a lot and talk even more. We pray for one another. We cook great food and do fun things. We admire and respect and have affection for each other. Those things are really good. But what makes this a church is that God is important to us, that we need to know God, and that we find this place helpful to our longing.

Paul was a pragmatist. He started churches because he thought they were the best way to spread good news, to strengthen the resolve of new followers of Jesus, and to transmit the benefits of Christ. They were spiritual and religious. As in Paul’s time, each church is a mystery and a blessing, called into being by God and both enjoyed and sustained by those who hear and respond. For that, today, we give God thanks.

How to Pray

Text: Philippians 1:3–11

I want to talk today about praying. I’m going to talk about ways we might pray. And also about things that get in the way of praying. And I’m going to start with Paul’s prayers in his letter to the Philippians.

Paul is enthusiastic, a word which mean infused by the spirit. He writes to the church he started in Philippi. Even though Paul is in prison when he writes this letter, he tells his readers that he is full of joy. More exactly, he says he is constantly praying with joy in every one of his prayers for them.

What is Paul doing? When we hear that Paul is praying for joy, what do we imagine? That he is kneeling by his bedside prison? Or that he stands with his arms raised? Or his head lowered? Does he pray out loud, or quietly? It doesn’t matter, I suspect. But what does Paul mean for his readers—for us—to think when we hear that he prays? Is he doing something different than just thinking about the Philippians? Could he say “every time I think of you, I’m filled with joy?” It is not the same, is it?

For many, praying is the same thing as wishing for something, or asking for it. The jargon word for that is petitionary prayer. You are petitioning God for some outcome, just as you would petition the court for a favorable judgment. Please bring world peace and please let the Patriots win and please let me find a parking spot are all petitions to a being who can make things happen, no matter how likely. It is also the kind of prayer that Paul prays later in the letter, when he says “My prayer is that your love may overflow.” Paul is asking for something.

It is the kind of prayer children are first taught (after meal grace). Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. When I was a child I was told that Amen meant “let it be so,” which is a petition tacked onto a petition. (But Amen, as Jesus used it, just means “truly.” It is an emphatic punctuation mark. Maybe we should translate it “you bet!” or “for sure!”)

But there are other kinds of prayer. A friend of mine says that there are only three basic prayers: Thanks, Wow, and Please. Prayers, in other words, of gratitude, prayers of awe or worship, and prayers of petition. My friend is partly right, but he leaves out an important kind of prayer, which I’ll get to later. His three prayers have us doing the talking, which is not the whole story.

When we do do the talking, we pray to ask or pray to tell. To ask something from God or to tell God something. I’d like today to say six things about prayer. You can think of them as opportunities of prayer. Or possibilities. Or tips. Six tips for praying. Or just observations. The first three are about asking for things.

Number one: Pray for what you want. Do not be too polite. Do not worry about what other people pray for. Do not worry about whether what you want is OK to want. Praying to God is not a performance or an assignment. It is not for anyone else’s benefit. You do not have to be worried about whether you are praying for something embarrassing. Or something trivial. Or something way too grand.

Number two, a corollary of number one: Pray for things of all sizes. Pray for little things. Pray that you win the lottery. Pray for nice weather for your picnic. Pray that you do well in the 10K race. If that is what you want, pray for it. And pray for big things. Pray for world peace and an end to war. Pray that your friend will get better and recover. Pray that your marriage will always be filled with joy. Do not think that the small stuff is beneath God’s notice or that the large stuff is beyond God’s power.

Number three, which enables numbers one and two: Do not edit your prayers before you pray them. Your job is to do the asking. God’s job is hear you and respond. Do not anticipate what God will do and therefore modify your prayer before it even gets out of your mouth. How do you know what is pleasing to God’s ears? As good as it is to be humble, God does not demand your humility in prayer. You do not have to protect God’s sensibilities. God can take it. Ask truthfully.

If the first three tips are about asking God for something, the next three are about telling God things. Paul’s prayers about his joy in the Philippians are prayers of declaration. God, Paul says, I am really happy about the church people in Philippi.

Tip number four: Pray about the ordinary day to day things that are happening in your life. Tell God what’s up, how you are feeling, what’s happening at the moment. Make small informative prayers. It sounds a little like Twitter, I guess. Divine Twitter. Tell God that you are unhappy with that guy who just turned left in front of you. Tell God that you are worried about the meeting you are about to attend. Tell God that you are really enjoying this fresh mozzarella and tomato sandwich. Do not worry about boring God. Little prayers like this remind you that you and God are connected.

Number five: Pray quietly and also pray loudly. There is no special tone of voice with which you must pray. Pray in silent meditation, pray when singing hymns, pray in loud alleluias. Come to the altar and whisper your prayers to God. Or stand in your room or come in to church someday in the middle of the week and yell your prayer out, if that’s what you need to do. No one has to hear you but God.

And number six: Speak your mind. If you are grateful, say thank you. If you are confused, tell God so. If you think it is stupid to pray, tell God that, too. Be watchful for the times you think: “I cannot pray that.” Those are times and the things you most need to pray for. If you are angry, tell God you are mad. If you are disappointed, tell God that.

A summary of these six tips is this: when you are doing the talking, ask for anything. tell God everything, and do it boldly.

But prayer is not all about talking to God. Prayer is a conversation with God. There are two beings involved, you and God. Sometimes you talk—asking and telling—and sometimes you listen.

So the last tip is this: Wait. I do not mean wait for your prayer to be answered. Not to wait for your petition to be granted or denied or your declaration to be acknowledged. Conversations are not transactions, with God any more than they are with people. Not everything we say in a conversation needs or gets a response.

I mean be in a state of waiting. Be wait-ful, if there were such a word. There are times when quiet waiting is the right thing in a conversation. When there is perhaps much to be said, but not said right this minute. Or maybe nothing to be said, as with two friends sitting across the table from one another after a big day. It is not just waiting idly, but waiting expectantly.

The vision statement of the New England Synod of which we are a part recently had as its motto: Pray Unceasingly. And Paul says he is praying constantly. This does not work if prayer is a like a series of messages, like emails, that you send to God. No one can do that unceasingly. But if by praying constantly you mean that you are ready to engage in a conversation, that you are ready to say something when you have something to say and ready to listen when you are ready to hear and ready to just sit with God when that’s all that you and God need to do—when you are ready to do that without being too self-consciousness and nervous and therefore rehearsing the whole conversation ahead of time to get it just right—then you can.

Prayer is one of the spiritual practices. That means, first, that is is something we do, part of the life of faith. And second, that it is a skill that changes and gets better as we do it. And finally, that it is something that both benefits our spirit and is guided by God’s Holy Spirit. When we pray, we do not pray alone. We pray with enthusiasm, infused by the spirit.

The Lord be with you. Let us pray. For sure.

Sabbath FAQs

Text: Genesis 1:1-5, 2:1-4

On Thursday, the city was deserted. On Thanksgiving day in Cambridge you could have walked down the middle of the street without danger. There were no cars, few people, no commerce. It was great!

It was like the good old days. In those times in Massachusetts there were things called Blue Laws. They required most businesses and retail stores to be closed on Sunday. No shopping allowed. No shopping meant no shoppers, which meant no cars. You could drive by a mall and the parking lot would be completely empty. No shopping meant no shops, so people who worked in retail did not have to go to work. It was very quiet. It was peaceful. It was nice.

The bad thing about Blue Laws, and the reason they were repealed, is that they forced a religious ethic—no work on Sunday sabbath—on people whose religion, or no religion, did not honor Sunday. But the good thing about Blue Laws is that they forced everyone to take a sabbath rest. It sounded like a deprivation, but it was a gift. It put the force of law as a balance against the forces of commerce and busyness. It made rest a requirement for the health of the culture, the city, and the health of its citizens.

In the end, as often, commerce and busyness won the battle. The Blue Laws went away, and no law of rest replaced them. We all let this happen, because we all forgot how much we need to rest. We lost the sabbath. We have forgotten the sabbath. And now we are starving for rest. We need a sabbath rest to live satisfactorily. To have forgotten that we need a sabbath is like forgetting that we need to eat. This is not good.

Since we have forgotten the sabbath, I’ve put together a short list of frequently asked questions (and answers) about the sabbath. They have to do with rest and with worship.

Question: Do we need a sabbath?

Answer: Yes.

Sabbath is downtime. Downtime is part of creation. The creator took a good chunk of time off after creating the universe. The story of the creation in Genesis is not a story of six days effort plus a footnote. The time that God rested is included in the story. The story starts, “at the beginning” and ends “these are the beginnings.” And between these two verse markers are God’s work and God’s rest. Downtime was important to our creator, and it is to us as creatures.

We know this to be true through experience and through research, which increasingly shows that not doing something—stopping work—is essential to performance, learning, and civil behavior. You cannot do, think, or be polite without prolonged rest.

And, even if that were not so, we are commanded to rest. Downtime is one of the Ten Commandments. Near the top. The third or fourth, depending on how you count them. I think you know that the Ten Commandments appear in two books of the Bible, one set in Exodus and the other in Deuteronomy. One of these versions says keep the sabbath because God did after creating the world. And the other one says keep the sabbath because once the Israelites were slaves in Egypt and had to work all the time, but now God has freed them. So God commanded us to rest because we need to and to rest because we can. We need to and we can.

Question: Can’t I take little breaks and spread the rest over all the days of the week?

Answer: No.

In Genesis it says that “God had finished, on the seventh day, the work God made and then God ceased, on the seventh day, all the work that God had made.” Little breaks are great and necessary, and maybe God took a few during the creation of the universe. God does, after all, sit back at the end of each day and admire the day’s work. But little breaks are not downtime. They are not sabbath. They don’t work that way, and we all know it. You cannot work seven days a week and ten hours every day and claim that you cease work because you take coffee breaks and naps. We need to take a day off like God does.

Question: Can there be too much downtime?

Answer: Yes.

The sabbath is created in the context of the work of creation. Work and rest are intertwined. Martin Luther wrote that work is a calling by God. This has been interpreted to mean that you should work as hard as possible. Bosses like that when dealing with workers. But that is not what Luther meant. First, Luther wanted to make sure that people, and especially the church, valued all work, not just church work. The clergy had an inflated view of their own work as especially godly, and Luther wanted to deflate that view. But second, and as important, Luther said that God loves a great pair of shoes made by a shoemaker and God loves a clean floor cleaned by a cleaning service. The doing of things with our hands and minds pleases God. But just not doing it all the time.

Final question: Then is this all just about me?

Answer: No.

Sabbath is good for us, and downtime is important for our well-being. But that is not the only reason why it is necessary. Sabbath is worship. Sabbath gives us quiet time and space to pray. It gives us sufficient spans of time in which our thoughts can settle and our hopes and fears become clearer. And it allows us to listen for God and to God. Sabbath is more than downtime in that it purposely pushes away those things that make us most fearful and anxious. Things like performing well and being well-off and having enough. For many people, days of sabbath are the days in which they feel most close to other people, to their families, and to the wonders of the world.

Sabbath is worship because it is connected with God. It is a gift of God and a command of God. So the pleasures we get from rest we can see as coming from God’s love for us and the discipline that sabbath requires we can see as coming from our trust in God.

One of the works of the church is to provide times and spaces for worship, quiet, and sanctuary. And to teach us how to take sabbath time. It is not the only work of the church, and churches do not always do it well. But unlike for the rest of the world, it is an essential part of the job description.

Advent marks the beginning of the church year. Although it inevitably it is seen as a prequel to Christmas, it is really a time of reflection and meditation. Advent Sundays can be sabbath times, downtime, times of rest in an otherwise anxious time. Especially in these days, when there seems to be a lot to be anxious about.

There is no movement on the horizon to bring back sabbath laws. But sabbath time has been given to us nonetheless. Accept the gift. Embrace the gift. Slow down. Stop. Rest.

That's What You Say

Text: John 18:33-37

Today is called Christ the King Sunday. But it would be more Biblical to call it Christ Not-the-king Sunday. Or maybe Who-says-Christ-is-King Sunday. For it is others, not Jesus, who call him king. In all four Gospels, Pilate asks in one way or another if Jesus is king. And in all four Gospels Jesus answers in one way or another “That’s what you say.”

Neither God the Father nor Jesus the Son are enthusiastic about kings. In the book of Samuel, the people of Israel ask God for a king to lead them, but God cautions that

[A king] will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, … and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his friends. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. You yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."

But the people say to God, “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations.”

In the Gospel of John, after the crowd of 5000 whom he has just fed try to make Jesus king, he runs away and hides out in the mountains. And in all the Gospels, Jesus seems to prefer titles like Son of God or Son of Humanity or Rabbi, meaning teacher. And yet people hoped that Jesus would be more like a king. And people still do.

The feast of Christ the King is not an ancient holiday of the church. It was invented by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and was not given its permanent spot as the last Sunday in the church year until 1970. Pius saw that there is in our world a deep and sometimes desperate call for someone to lead us as a king might and take care of us.

These are confused and anxious times, not times of contentment and peace. Wars rage constantly. We know that people suffer and we feel helpless to do anything about it. Social and political issues have divided the country and the world down the middle. Too many voices compete for our attention and for our affection. Too many people are trying to convince us of one thing or another. And too many of them are lying to us.

Things are scary because they seem not only out of our control but out of anyone’s control. We are like children in a household where there are no adults. Or where the adults act like children, and are childish and unreliable.

Isn’t there someone we can follow? Isn’t there someone who will tell the truth?

The two questions are related. Jesus relates them. Pilate asks about kings, and Jesus answers about truth. You say that I am a king, says Jesus, but I came to testify to the truth.

Ah, says Pilate—in a line left out of the lectionary, but in the Gospel—Ah, Pilate says, but what is truth? Not true facts. Not statements about doctrine or belief. Only in the Gospel of John does Jesus speak so much about the truth. And the word he uses means reliability, steadfastness, trustworthiness. More like true blue. Or true friends. True grit. Something both immeasurable and yet undeniable.

To be true is to be in alignment with the world as God created it to be. Like a wheel being true. To be smooth and effortless. To travel an effortless path, where, as Isaiah has it, every mountain and hill is made low; the uneven ground level, and the rough places smooth.

The enemy of truth is not falsehood, not error or mistake, but fantasy. Most of us live in a world that is at least a little fantastic. We think more of ourselves than we ought to—or we think less that we deserve. We imagine motives in others than do not exist. We have groundless fears and unhelpful hopes. We deny our own habits and obsessions, and we deny our own sorrow. If truth is a smooth path, fantasy is a rocky one. Acts that spring from fantasy destroy us and our world. It is too tiring and in the end too discouraging to have fantasy occupy us. You will be freed, as Jesus testifies earlier in John, if you know the truth.

For Christians, the truth has something to do with Jesus. Not about Jesus so much as through Jesus or from Jesus. To see the truth is to see as Jesus sees. To see through the lens of Jesus. Or to put it in a different way, to interpret the world as Jesus interprets it for us. We agree when we follow Jesus to let him explain things to us and to believe him when he does. When he talks about ethics or prayer or money or hypocrisy or corruption or compassion, we believe him. We say that Jesus sees the truth, or see things truly, or describes the world truthfully. We give Jesus the authority to tell us what to do because Jesus is the truth, in the way I’m talking about.

I’m convinced that of all the gifts Jesus had, it his ability to see and tell the truth that drew the band of disciples and the crowds of people to him. They could tell. People who convert to Christianity in an instant see the truth of Jesus immediately. Other people come to think so over time, through reading, conversation, prayer, and through confirming experience. We give Jesus sovereignty over us and are obedient to him, which is one way in which he is king. Follow me, he says. The kingdom of God is better called the reign of truth.

But we are obedient not because he is a tyrant, or because he is a better manager, or because he hangs around with people in high places, or because he is a great general for whom we would fight. All the kingly things. We do not give Jesus the kind of obedience we would give a boss (or king), but the kind of obedience that we would give a guide or mentor. Jesus has our focus. What does Jesus say? What does Jesus see? To where does Jesus lead us?

Everybody, from Pilate to Pius, wants Jesus to be king. Everybody but Jesus. People make out Jesus to be what they want him to be.

But Jesus does not command our attention like a king. He draws our attention like a lover. Present in our minds, as we walk, or shop, or eat, or work, or take a break. The one for whom we change our plans. The recipient of our vows. The one of whom we are mindful.

Jesus retells God’s lesson in Samuel as he talks to Pilate. Kings have armies and fight holy wars. If you want that, he says, if you want a king like everybody else, go find a king. But if you want to live a true life, follow me.

Unimagination

Text: Mark 13:1-8
Other texts: Daniel 12:1-3

Forty years ago it seemed like the world was on a roll. It was the beginning, everyone thought, of a new age. The dawning of the age of Aquarius. The Berlin wall, a symbol of the old, national, hateful way of international politics, had fallen. And not long after, our scary enemy, the Soviet Union, would collapse. Possibilities were expanding. Humans were walking on the moon. Ancient limitations were yielding to human cleverness. The old generations, stuck in century-long patterns and traditions, were being replaced by a new, younger, smarter, more adventurous generation.

And here we are. War, starvation, oppression, and greed are still among us. The stability of the world’s climate is threatened. There seem to be no good and simple solutions to anything. Everything seems much too complicated to even think about. Is the world falling apart? Can anything hold?

In times like this, things are beyond our powers. Things cannot go on like this, people say. The more powerless people feel, the more they begin to hope for a quick and radical solution. And some begin to hope for a kind of divine restart. Seeing no human fix, some hope that God will wipe the desk clean and start over. A clean install.

This kind of thinking is called apocalyptic, a word that comes from the title of the Book of Revelation. Revelation is the most extensive example of apocalyptic writing in the Christian tradition, but there are others in the Bible, starting with Daniel, about whom we heard in the first lesson. And in the Gospels, including Mark, there are little apocalypses, as they are called. In all these writings there is a slightly sweet and rotten combination of fear, antsiness, and hope.

These end-of-the world stories come from people and times of oppression and occupation. So they ask God to share with them their urgency. They are not about faraway redemption, but rescue now, this moment. Soon.

But predictions made two thousand, twenty-five hundred, years ago, have not come to pass. We are still here. The world continues to exist. It turns out that God is not us. That God is not like us.

God’s patience is greater than ours. God seems to be in it for the long haul. God is evidently more willing to see how things work out, and to let them work out. God is less likely to panic than we are.

God’s forgiveness is greater than ours. Maybe the worst things that can happen are not quite as bad in God’s eyes as they are in ours. Maybe we are like little children for whom every slight and sin is a major event. Maybe God is more even tempered.

God’s flexibility is greater than ours. God seems less doctrinaire than we can be. God allows a little slack in the affairs of the world. God is opinionated but not unmovable. God changes God’s mind and reverses judgments. God is influenced by argument, as God is by Abraham and Moses, and by repentance, prayer, and extenuating circumstances. And by intercession.

And mostly, God’s compassion is greater than ours. The apocalyptic writings predict anguish and violence and death to the oppressors and enemies and sinners. People left behind suffer horribly. It is vengeful and retributive. But it seems that God loves us too much to zap us all in a divine cataclysm. Forgive those who harm you, says God in Jesus. And in older scripture God seems to be less wrathful and instead disappointed and saddened by the sins of the people of God.

It is not right that we should usurp the calendar of the end of time and to lobby God to destroy all of creation, which after all was made in God’s hope. It is arrogance and hubris to think that because we are freaked out God would be too, or should be too. How can we think that our own particular sorrows—even though they be great—and our anger, and our hysteria could justify the end of the world? How can we believe that the spirit of God in creation would let life fade so easily? How can we hope for “anguish that has never before occurred,” as it says in Daniel? Or famines and war? It is almost pornographic.

Scary times seem to demand extreme measures. That’s because it is hard to think about solutions when the problems seem so enormous and immediate. Apocalyptic hopes reflect lack of imagination. They are sort of: I don’t know what to do, so tomorrow is cancelled. All of us feel this way from time to time, but it doesn’t mean we hope for the end of the world. At least not usually. Apocalyptic thinking is kind of an extreme form of the geographic cure. When in trouble and in doubt, leave. Go somewhere else.

In scary times, cosmically or personally, we first of all are convinced that the future will be the same as today. We see the future as just one long and tiresome stretched-out present. We cannot imagine a different future. And second, even if we could, the steps we’d have to take to get there seem impossible. We cannot imagine how we could get realistically from today to tomorrow. And third, it seems to be all or nothing. We cannot imagine how any intermediate actions would make a difference. In good times you know that things change, that small steps make a difference, that intermediate actions are effective. In scary times, you forget.

But Jesus reminds us. It is basic and fundamental to Christianity that something new is possible. Not only possible but inevitable. The good news that Jesus brings is that tomorrow need not be the same as today. That to hope to be healed, and to be restored, and to be refreshed is realistic, not fantastic.

Both to nourish this hope, and as result of the teachings of Jesus, we do three things. First thing, we forgive the past and know that we will be able forgive the present. Second thing, we can count on the constant and intimate presence of God. There is nothing, as the apostle Paul says, that can separate us from the love of God. And third thing, we gather into communities of people who look out for one another and remind one another of the first two things.

So here we are. In whatever circumstances. In hope or worry. In concern or celebration. But we will not be here for long. Not because things will end, but because they continue. The walls of no temple are permanent, no matter how big and unmovable they seem. God draws us forward into life. We may resist or we may welcome this divine pull. But God, patient, forgiving, open-minded, and compassionate, makes things new.

No More Tears

Text: Isaiah 25:6-9
Other texts: Wisdom of Solomon 3.1-9, Revelation 21.1-6a

How greedy life is. How greedy we are for life.

Life is good. We take pleasure in things. We are pleasure creatures, enjoying a good view as much as a good dinner. A good conversation, a good hug, and good handshake. A good friend. We are made to enjoy life, to enjoy living, to enjoy the company of others, to enjoy the beauties of the earth. It is our blessing that we love and are loved, that we create things and admire them, that we have aspirations and accomplishments, and also that we can overcome adversity and solve problems. We are clever and fun and complicated.

Life is sturdy. We live in a sea of organisms, not all of them friendly, yet we mostly persist. We live among hard and dangerous objects, yet we mostly survive. We are complex and fragile mechanisms, yet we and all of God’s creatures are resilient.

We value our lives. And we value the life in others. We form attachments that are rich and soulful. The wiring of our brains and the flow of hormones and enzymes in us mysteriously but actually connect us with the people around us. We are not alone.

So it is on All Saints day that we remember the dead. Or better to say we mark our memories of them, we bring those memories up and forward, and we refresh our affections for those who have died. And we ponder their missing.

Each of us has a strong and unshakeable sense of identity, of the “I” that I am. We seem to be continuous and coherent persons. And those we love seem so, too. So, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how well we are prepared, no matter how sensible and understandable, even no matter how desirable, the death of another is inexplicable. How could it make sense?

So death must be a corruption. All the ways we die—disease, suicide, accident, system failure—seem an interruption in the order of things. How is it that we who are so marvelously made could be unmade? How it that any creature could be? How can it be that someone who was so present can be lost to us? It is not right for life to end.

Life is good, yet life is also sorrow and suffering. I don’t have to tell you. Bad things happen to us in body, mind, and spirit. Discouragement, pain, and despair always attack and sometimes are overwhelming. It is tiring. Injustices are perpetrated on us. Burdens that are given to us, that are taken up by us, that are forced on us, burdens that accrete over time, or shock us in surprise—the burdens get heavy and heavier.

And then. Then death is more welcome. “Since I lay my burden down, my troubles will be over,” says the song. “For all the saints,” we just sang, “who from their labors rest … we feebly struggle, then in glory shine … soon to faithful servants cometh rest.” We quote the verses for evening prayer—“until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then, Lord, in your mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.”—And we say these same words at a funeral, at the end of life. Peace at the last.

Even as greedy we are for life, we seem not to want to live forever. My grandfather, who at the time was nearing 90, once said, “I always wanted to live to a ripe old age. But I think I’m a little overripe.” The burden we let go is the “I” itself, our identity, our self, which at some point seems to take too much effort to maintain. And then we see that the words on Ash Wednesday, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” could be a promise, not a threat. A relief. Release. Letting go.

Death is as much a part of us as anything in life. It is in our nature as created beings. It is not that we are wicked or imperfect or flawed, and therefore mortal. It is only the way we are made. It is how things work. And I guess we could look at it with the same amazement as we look at all the common and yet unbelievable things our bodies do: like see or love or dance or think.

But we don’t. Such a view is not sufficient. First, death causes too much sorrow for us on this side. And we don’t know for sure how they are feeling on the other side. Second, it is always too sudden, even when it is not. And third, most of all, we cannot believe that force of our lives, the momentum of existence, does not carry us into an active future where either loose ends are tied up or wounds healed or rewards realized. How can it be that evil deeds done—injustices—go unpunished or good deeds go unrewarded (as they certainly do in our lifetimes). How can it be that we cannot know and enjoy our eternal rest. How can it be that the promise and vitality of our youth is not restored. And how can it be that we are not reunited actively with God our lover and our maker?

The alternate first reading—the lectionary sometimes lists two choices—the alternate reading today is from the Wisdom of Solomon. It starts like this:

“The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.”

In other words, the good will out. In the end justice prevails. The righteous are rewarded. Evil does not succeed, no matter how things seem. This is God’s working to set things right. God, as always, extracts the good from the evil. It is a kind of story of Lazarus in a cosmic realm. Death is not the period at the end of the sentence.

This is good news. Death is only a moment in life beyond which the living cannot see. It is good news, but it is not good enough. What Isaiah writes is better news. What God promises in Isaiah is not a revival or a renewal or a resuscitation. What Isaiah promises is an end to death altogether.

“God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations;

God will swallow up death forever. And then God will wipe away the tears from all faces.”

The story of the Bible reinforces our instinct that death has no permanent part in the order of things. The intention of God in the first chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, is realized finally in the last chapters of Revelation, the last book.

In the end, it says in Isaiah, and also in Revelation, which quotes Isaiah, we are given more than comfort for the way things inevitably are. Instead, these prophecies and fantastic accounts predict an end to mourning, an end to tears, an end to crying and pain. The new creation is the one that God hoped for in the old creation. Our intuition about life will be realized and our greed for life fulfilled. We will no more light candles for the dead. We will no longer weep.

Reformation Freedom

Texts: Romans 3:19–28 and John 8:31–36
Preacher: Pastor Seitz

Today we celebrate the Reformation and we remember our denomination’s name-sake, Martin Luther.

The story of Luther is well known among many of us but just to highlight a couple of his accomplishments lets start with the verse attributed with starting the Reformation. It is the last verse from the Second lesson, Romans 3:28 “For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

This verse was a complete contradiction of the time. The Catholic church was teaching that salvation (or justification) was only attainable through works. You had to do what the church told you in order to be saved. One reason for this was that the Bible was only available in Latin and the church services we held in Latin. And most people did not know Latin so they relied on what the church leaders told them was necessary for salvation.

One of the first things Luther did as a result of discovering this verse that led to his theological revelation was to decide that it was not enough for him to be able to read the promises laid out for us in scripture. But that everyone should be able to read it for themselves so he translated the Bible from Latin to common German.

Well this is where the theological revelation moved into a social revolution. In Luther’s efforts to reform the Catholic church – he taught that any Christian is as close to God as any priest. And that almost every Christian was closer to God than the Pope whom Luther often referred to as the Devil.

Through the Word of God as revealed through scripture, every Christian could be and should be pursuing their own faith journey with Jesus. That everyone should be a leader in church as followers of Christ.

Now the Gospel text for today, Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

And the Jews who were listening to him responded to Jesus saying, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to anyone, how is it that you say, “you will be made free?””

I am only a pastor and not a true Biblical Scholar, but it seems to me that the Jews who respond to Jesus are missing something. What is wrong with this statement? Anyone? Uh, now again just speaking as a common pastor, isn’t there something in the Bible about Moses, the Pharoh, the Egyptians, and an Exodus? Jesus doesn’t like to argue but it seems like he could have just mentioned this in his response.

Now the reason we have this Gospel text attached to our celebration of the Reformation is that Luther showed us freedom in Christ in ways we were not aware of before. Through having scripture in our own language and sermons and services in our own language – we know that, as Luther taught and we still teach today, through Jesus we are free from Sin, Death, and the Devil. We are free to live without guilt, without fear, and without mortal grief. We know through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, that our sins are forgiven, that death has no hold on us, and that the Devil is powerless against us as those who follow Jesus.

We are FREE! Free to live guilt free stress free fear free lives! Hallelujah!

If somebody said to us, you are not free - you are all slaves. Like those responding to Jesus, we could say, we are Americans and the patriots of our country died so that we could have freedom. Slavery was abolished – we have freedom of religion and democracy. We could say that we are the most free people in the world! Not only do we have secular and religious freedom but as followers of Jesus we have freedom from Sin, Death, and the Devil. We could not be more free!

But how many of us feel free?

Speaking as a thirtysomething-year-old: as a representative of my generation and those coming up behind us: we work more hours than any generation before us, have more families where both parents are working full time, we have less vacation, we have more student loans, more credit card debt, less comprehensive health insurance, less job security, higher morgages and more stress than any generation before us. And lets not forget a whole list of other things like the recession, politics, corporate corruption, and war.

Now I hate to mention this in my sermon but I have to because today is Reformation Sunday.

Now speaking as a pastor, I can tell you, in reality – even for someone who dedicates their life and career to walking with Jesus; there are really only two times when I truly feel free.

One is whenever I get to relax with my beautiful wife and our son and none of us is watching the clock because soon one of us has to go. So, for at least a little while many evenings and some days I feel free. Because when I am with my family, and we are relaxing together, I am not worried about income or debt, not car nor house, or any other thing or situation that I am tied to that causes me stress.

The other time I feel free, and this is the Gospel truth, is right here and now. Whenever I get to spend time with my family of Faith and we get to worship and sing and pray together.

And our children are running around together and we stand young and old from all our different backgrounds and journies – and together we gather around the table that Jesus has set for us and we stand and kneel side by side under the cross of Christ together – in this 100 year old building together – whenever I get a chance to be here and share in this community I am not worried about income or debt, not car not house, or any other thing or situation that I am tied to that causes me stress.

In my family at home and at Faith when we come together I feel supported and I remember why I work hard and manage all the stressors in my life. When we come together I feel free and that I am a child of God who is blessed and blessed again. And when we come together we each remember who we are and that we are not alone in our struggles or our stresses.

For it is only when we are alone in our struggles and our stresses that we cannot feel our true freedom. From the very beginning we were made to be in community. When God made the first human, and he had the world and all the animals, he was lonely. So God made a companion for Adam, because as God put it, it is not good for him to be alone.

Now today in the Gospel, Jesus says, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Well thanks to Luther, we have been invited to continue in God’s word for 500 years. And Jesus tells us that those who continue in his Word are not just his followers, but truly his disciples.

Now sometimes we see the disciples in scripture as an insular little band of 12 followers. But I commend to you today that they were more than just followers. Jesus said to each one, follow me, and they followed. But eventually he says, now go and do likewise.

Feed my sheep, be laborers in the field of the Lord, heal the sick, comfort those who mourn, preach the good news, bring good news to the poor and set the captives free!

Jesus teaches us to be servants and more than servants! He teaches us, as his true disciples, to be servant leaders. Eventually the disciples went out and did as Jesus taught them – the very fact the church exists today is evidence of that fact. At some point the disciples did more than answer the call: follow me. They extended the call to those around them and said to others: follow me.

Now on Reformation Sunday celebrate that Luther put the power in our hands so that we could be like priests ourselves, be leaders ourselves, and not wait for other leaders in the church to tell us what to do. And Jesus says “if you continue in my word you are truly my disciples, and the truth will make you free.” And God designed us to be in community so that we are supported in our lives and can feel our freedom.

We also remember on Reformation Sunday that the reformation is not over – not for us, not for the church, and not for this congregation. The next step in our own reformation is to move forward as disciples: as servant leaders and go to those in need – not waiting for others but embracing our Lutheran heritage and our Lord’s teaching and living as servant leaders ourselves. By moving forward and helping those in need and saying to those around us – be they our family at home or our family here or people just standing around and saying to them, Follow Me. We don’t have to go out by ourselves – we should go out as a community to those who feel alone. We are called to serve all those around us who may never feel their freedom because they feel alone in their struggles and stresses.

There are people all around us who need our help. We don’t have to wait for someone else to find a service opportunity and invite us - they may be waiting for us to invite them. Who among us would say no if any one of us said I am going to help someone right now – follow me!

I will close with something useful I heard at the Bishop’s Convocation this week. The keynote speaker said, “It is easier to act our way into a new way of thinking than it is to think our way into a new way of acting.”

So let us go forth as servants of Christ, as Lutherans, and as disciples who are servant leaders – acting in ways that not only help us to feel our own freedom but setting others free by showing them they are not alone in their struggles and that we are all in one community as children of God. Because Jesus says, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” So let us be free indeed!

Money and Abundance

Text: Mark 10:17-31

A man approaches Jesus and tells him in so many words that he would like to live a good and Godly life. A noble goal. Since the man was already righteous, meaning he was following the rules of his faith, he no doubt expected a little mild coaching, or a tip of the day. Instead, Jesus tells the man he has to sell all he owns and give the proceeds to the poor. It is hard to follow Jesus. The man, who comes to Jesus eager and confident, leaves distressed, saddened, and uncertain. The story does not tell us what he does. Only that he leaves, not so much shocked as we heard today, but disheartened, downhearted. Having heard Jesus, whether he kept all he had or sold it all, his choices were discouraging.

Money is powerful. It is not even a real thing, but it demands our attention even so. It is a convention based on trust among people that lets us do things in life that are essential or frivolous. Because it is without meaning itself, it can stand for all that we need, hope for, are afraid of. The fear of being without money is closely tied to the fear of death. No food, no shelter, no health care. Hardly anyone thinks that money is unnecessary. Yet “sell all you have and give to the poor,” Jesus said to the man.

Money seems inescapable. A newsletter sent this past week to leaders of Lutheran churches claimed that its topic was stewardship. Stewardship means taking care of things. It does not necessarily have to do with money. But the newsletter was all about money and how to get it and how to keep it. The lead article was titled “practical help in a fluid economy.” It had little to do with Jesus. It could have appeared in USA Today.

When Jesus talks to the man, Jesus looks him in the eye, it says, face to face. And Jesus loved him. Jesus knows, I’m sure, that what he is about to say will be hard words to hear. He knows that the things we hold onto so tightly hold us in turn. That the thing we grasp so tightly grasp us even harder. Anything that we desire to keep, keeps us. All the things we own, our favorite things, demand attention, and love, and loyalty, and protection from us. How much of our lives are devoted to caring for what we own?

We celebrate the 100th anniversary of this building next week. It has been a place that has protected and nurtured people praising God and being fed by God. It is place whose purpose is to gather people who care for and celebrate each other and others in the community. It is place, as our motto says, of spirit, joy, reverence, and service. At the same time, it is a burden. One that we gladly bear, but one nonetheless. It demands time, money, and energetic thought. It is our responsibility, which requires tending.

The man cannot give up his possessions without much grieving, for he loves them so. They have given him much that is good and fine and safe.

But it is not just what we own that owns us. We are connected to many things by little strings of responsibility and affection and common purpose. The man is disheartened when he hears what Jesus says. But the disciples are more than perplexed, as it says. They are astonished and terrified. For when Peter explains that he and the others have given up everything for Jesus, Jesus speaks to them about leaving their “house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields.” That is, everything that has any hold on them. Not only on their stomachs, but on their hearts. Which means not just things and loves and responsibilities, but also plans and schemes and dreams.

What Jesus promises is freedom. He offers a light-traveling nomadic life that has a spiritual clarity. A kind of life in which a person is transparent, the same inside oneself as outside. Both unencumbered and therefore undisguised. Without guile, as Jesus once said of Nathanael. Without any need to dissemble or to worry about what face is forward. And with this freedom we are able to hear God more clearly and we are able to act for God’s world nimbly and with more courage.

I used to think, and preached, that this passage told us what we should do. That Jesus was telling us what to do. After all, the man says to Jesus, “what must I do?” If we wanted Christian freedom then we had to let things go. And that was that. Just let go of all that you hold dear, and everything will work out fine. So, go ahead. Go on. Let me know how things work out. As if it were easy. As if it were possible.

But now I see in the eyes of Jesus nothing but compassion. As Jesus looks, eye to eye, loving the man, Jesus knows what is happening inside this person. It is no doubt true that all that we grasp onto diminishes us. And that our tight grip harms the world. Jesus’ analysis of the problem is correct. But we can hardly do otherwise. We hold onto what we have for dear life.

The man goes away gloomy. What Jesus asks for is impossible. He says so himself. Mortals cannot do it. So where does that leave those—the man, us—who wish to be disciples of Jesus? Is it OK if we hedge our bets? Do things work out if we cling to our possessions, or is it all or nothing, a binary theology? Can we keep a little? How much is too much? Or is it like exercise: any little thing we can let go of helps? Can the man be a disciple of Jesus—follow me, Jesus says—if he does not do exactly what Jesus tells him to?

With God, all things are possible, Jesus tells his disciples. Do we believe that to be so? Do we believe what Jesus says here? Not believe in Jesus, but believe him. Is God trustworthy? If we give up all we possess—and those things that therefore possess us—will God take care of us? Do we trust God to do that?

Trust is not something that just arrives, like a package in the mail. It is a result of many encounters and experiences. Many tentative proposals, most with favorable responses. Many little experiments. Even for people who are vouched for by another (your best friend tells you: “she’s a great person”), trust is built gradually. Even when you fall head over heels in love with someone, trust comes over time. So it seems it is with us and God. Even if God is vouched for by scripture and teachings and by the testimony of other’s experiences. Even if you fall in love with God. Trust takes take and trials.

One reason we follow Jesus is because the promise he makes of a good and abundant life strikes us as real. And his analysis of the power of money and other possessions, material or otherwise, to interfere with that life strikes us as correct. We know he is right about this.

This does not mean to go hungry or become destitute. (Give to the poor, Jesus says; it is not good to be poor.) Or to sever ties with each other, or to deny our interdependency, or to spurn the love of others, or hesitate to ask for help. But it does mean we do not rely on our stuff for healing, protection, and guidance, or for the good life.

The story of the man ends in uncertainty, as do ours. We do not know how he interpreted the words of Jesus, how he acted, what decisions he made. Do we want to spend the hours of our short lives tending our possession and under their power?

Jesus looks into our lives—and to the heart of the world—with compassion and love. There is a better way.

Once Upon a Time Things Were Bigger

Text: Psalm 8

Once upon a time we were bigger. A lot bigger.

In the time of Moses, in the time of Jesus, even up to the time of Martin Luther, we were bigger. Human beings could walk from one end of the universe to the other. One end being the west coasts of Africa and Britain, the other end being the east coasts of Asia. Humans could cross the universe on foot in less than a year. And did. Luke tells us in the book of Acts that people came to Palestine to hear about Jesus from every place under heaven

Once upon a time we were younger. A lot younger.

In the time of Moses, Jesus, and Luther, we could count back through the generations of humankind to the very beginning of the universe. Your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s … and so forth … was Adam. Lots of generations, but numerable. Possible. Traceable. They are listed in the Bible—if you allow for a little glitch here and a little nip and tuck there— from Adam to Jesus. If you lay all these generations end to end, you get to about 6,000 years for the age of the universe, or about 300 grandparent’s grandparents. Not so many. We could celebrate its anniversary without feeling too foolish.

The world was old, but not that old. The heavens were far, but not that far. The cosmos was big, but not that big. It was all sort of human-sized. Something humans could feel comfortable with. Awe-inspiring, magnificent, but comprehensible. Roomy.

How big, in this universe, could God be? How far away could God be? Not too big, not too far. Big enough to serve you, small enough to know you. Small enough to wander about in the garden of Eden. Small enough to have conversations with Abraham and Moses. Small enough to make a deal, a covenant, with a wandering tribe of nomads and freed slaves. Big enough to fill every space; but space was little. Ageless enough to be of all time; but long ago was not so long ago.

What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them? The psalm asks. We share our grandparents’ sense of wonder at this. We seem to be especially blessed by our creator. We are a little confused these days about what it means to have dominion (not domination) over the animals and things of the earth, but we cannot deny that we are the beneficiaries of what seems to be a benevolent and generous giver. Other creatures have given up their lives and their coats for us. We do speak and name things and by language gain control over things. Human beings have prospered so far, and there are many of us. The world has been good to us. Why is that? God of the heavens and the moon and the stars is mindful of us and cares for us, so the psalm says. Why is that? God was powerful, and God was caring. But there was not so much on God’s plate as there is now.

We know now that everything is bigger and older than we can imagine. We can talk about it, but we cannot imagine it. And in the scale of the universe, we are much closer to the smallest thing than the largest thing. And the whole history of human beings is not as long as a click in a symphony. If you were distracted for an instant, in the life and breadth of the universe, you would miss us. We can talk about that too, but we cannot imagine it.

What are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them? In the face of our tiny-ness, we can agree with the psalm that it is amazing and we can praise God that God should mind and care for us. But now that we know how much there is, it seems sometimes to us that the effort God makes to do so is also unimaginable. God knows all there is to know. It seems too much.

So, in response some people deny that God exists. And some declare that even if God does exist, God is not, cannot be, mindful of us. And some say they it doesn’t matter what they think because it will not affect how they live one way or the other.

Followers of Jesus say that God became human. Became human while remaining God. Immanuel, we say, God with us. Human-sized and short-lived. But I’m not sure that that helps with this particular quandary. Does God become other things in other places in the wide universe? Is there a Jesus-like God for the fish and for the proteins in a cell and for the galaxies. And if not, why do we alone get Jesus?

Abraham Joshua Heschel, a wonderful and faithful thinker, says that the start or the ground of our relationship with God begins with our sense of the ineffable. Indescribable and inexpressible. We stand in awe in the universe—a Psalm 8 sized one or a modern gigantic one—and we are amazed. We marvel at our own existence and the blessing we seem to have. We are filled with wonder and we are filled with thanksgiving. We agree with the pslam. What are mere mortals that we should be blessed? That we should have life at all?

In one sense, in this sense, the nature of God is not really our concern. The size of the universe and the God that creates, fills, and runs it is not germane. The psalm does not ask, What is God that God should be mindful of us? It asks, who are we? I spoke at funeral yesterday and started out saying that I wanted to talk about me. I didn’t mean to say this—it just kind of popped out—and it was a little embarrassing, as it was not about me, as we say. It was about Alma. But what I meant was that it was about my response to her. I couldn’t really say what was going on from her point of view in our relationship. Just my point of view. That she was gracious to me and kind and attentive and make me feel cared for. When we talk about God, we can talk only about ourselves. What are mere mortals that God should be mindful of us?

When the disciples turn away the little children, Jesus gets upset. Do not stop the children, he says. Let them come. To come to God as children does not mean we have to be uncritical and unquestioning or be especially lovable. Children are often critical, skeptical, and hard to take. But children are rightly the center of their own universe. They are grateful and demanding in one package. Everything for them is ineffable.

Of course we will try to understand how God is and works. But how we imagine God changes in the course of our lives as well as in the course of history in the world. We can get all tied up in knots if we try to base our faith on that understanding. What we know for certain is what the children knew when they approached Jesus. God invites us in. And we are blessed.

Look at the Children

Text: Mark 9:30-37

As Jesus starts talking in Mark’s Gospel about being first and last, there is a shift of character. If you listen carefully, you might hear it. If you were reading along you might have seen it. Jesus starts talking about servants but ends up talking about children. Hardly a big deal. But people have made much of this small change and have tried hard to reconcile it. They point out that the one who is the servant of all is even the servant of servants, and therefore the lowliest of all. And they point out that Jesus speaks often about his ministry to the poor and the outcast. And they point out that children, too, were considered the lowliest of all. Children had no stake, no power, and no voice in the culture of the age. In that sense, the servant and the child must be the same.

This sort of works. It fits in the context of the disciples’ chatter, which has been all about who is the greatest. (At least they were embarrassed about it when Jesus caught them.) Jesus tells them: stop it! You are being stupid and you do not get it. Jesus is all about turning things upside down (or upside right, as my son used to say). That is certainly true, but an interpretation like this brings to it things we already know about Jesus and and which influence our reading and hearing. We just assume it applies here. Which it does not.

Jesus tells the disciples two different things. First, he tells them they have to become servants. Second, he tells them that they have to welcome children. He does not say that servants and children are the same thing or stand for the same thing. He does not tell them they have to be like servants or that they have to be like children. But if he is not talking about general purpose lowly people when he talks about welcoming children, then what could he be talking about?

Children are different from adults. That is a pretty modern notion, but even in Jesus’ time children started out as children—not just little adults—and eventually became of age. Children are not different because they are small; there are small adults. Or poor; there are poor adults. Or disenfranchised, or illiterate, or hungry, or poop in their pants, or have lots of energy. Adults are and do all those things, too. What makes children different most of all is that adults are old and children are new. Like Christina, for example.

We see children as innocent, meaning un-poisoned. We know children are not always sweet or kind. But they do not have that air of having been corrupted, as adults usually have. We see children as prone to making errors, but that’s OK because they are just children. We forgive them easily. And we see them as having finite but unlimited potential. Against this we see adults as jaded, blameworthy, and reprehensible. And we see them as having diminished potential. All things are possible for children but for adults fewer and fewer things are possible. Or so it mostly seems. A life renewed in Christ is a life re-opened to possibility.

Jesus says that whoever welcomes a child such as the one who sits in his arms at the moment welcomes Jesus. Or to turn the phrase around a little, one way to welcome Jesus is to welcome such a child.

Jesus doesn’t actually quite say Welcome. It is not like we are welcoming a child into our house for a nice dinner as we might welcome a friend. The word Jesus uses here means Receive. As receiving a gift. Or receiving an assignment or command. Or receiving someone into your care. It is more than welcoming, which can be of the moment and impersonal. When we receive a child we become responsible and engaged with the life of that person. To receive a person as Jesus talks about is to accept that person into our life in some way.

We receive children, or hope we do, generously, compassionately, and forgivingly. We give them the benefit of the doubt and and our hearts favor them. And we receive children, or hope we do, with thanksgiving. Not with thanksgiving for anything special that they accomplish or promise, even, but simply for their being. We are thankful that they exist. And once we have received them, we are thankful that they exist in our lives. And having received them, we feed them and protect them, play with them and teach them.

Children force us to focus on someone besides ourselves. Unlike the disciples, who were much more interested in themselves than in one another or even in Jesus. The disciples act like children. Children do think of themselves most of the time. The disciples in Mark are infantile. When Jesus tells them here a second time that he will be executed and rise again, they mumble and shuffle their feet. They argue over which one of them is better. They quibble and quarrel.

Jesus does not invite them to come to him as a child might. They are already doing that. He tells them that while children think of themselves, the job of a disciple of Jesus is to think of the children. The job of a disciple is to offer hospitality. To receive others as Jesus does. To receive others as we receive a child. To be generous. To be compassionate. To forgive. And to care for.

We are to be gracious hosts, putting those who come to us first, to provide for them first, to make allowances for them, and to put ourselves last. To be servants not as the most lowly but as the most giving and most receptive—welcoming. The gracious host is the one who serves others first and him- or herself last.

The church is by design and intent a place of hospitality. There is good news to be heard in the church, but the first bit of it is that those who show up at the door are welcome. It starts there.

It is often hard to be hospitable. Children are cute; adults, not so cute. But these verses from Mark do not portray some sentimental scene with lovely children in the lap of Jesus. We are not called, at least not here, to be children. We are called to be adults. Not to be welcomed but to welcome.

Followers of Jesus—Christians—are by declaration and by intent people of hospitality. Not because people are so great—though they mostly are—and not because they are so accomplished, but simply because they exist. Like children.

We receive them because Jesus told us to. We receive them because to do so is to receive Jesus. And to receive Jesus is to receive God.

The Self of Jesus

Text: Mark 8:27-38

Oliver Sacks, the observant neurologist, has spent most of his life trying to discover what it means to have a self. What is it about our selves that makes them seem to be continuous? What is it about our selves that makes them seem to be ours, to belong to us? If someone cannot remember anything that happened more than five minutes ago, does that person have one self or many? If someone can only remember what happened long ago, is that long-ago person the same as this present person? If someone who could speak now cannot, is that the same person as before? What if someone goes crazy? What if someone is drugged? What of someone loses part of his or her brain? What if someone, as a person Sacks describes did, mistakes his wife for a hat. What is a person? What is a self? What is our self?

This is not an academic question. Who are we? Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Do you feel the same, think the same, have the same desires and fears? If you are the same person, do you rejoice at that or mourn? And if not: same question. Are you responsible for things you once did? What happens to you when you are married? When you have a child? When you get very sick? Or wounded? When you lose someone you love? Do all these things of our lives belong to us, the same person, throughout? If not, if we are sometimes divorced from our former selves, then what makes us one being?

People sometimes speak of life as a journey. It has been a long road, you might say, looking back. Just starting out, you might say, as if you knew where you were going. There is a path on which you walk, you might say. People in religious circles talk particularly about one’s faith journey. As if it were one continuous thread. Or they talk about faith development. As if faith were like a photograph being gradually revealed, or a like a souffle gradually rising. And as if your self, the center of your being, were not transformed.

Jesus asks his students, his disciples, “who do people say that I am?” Why is this question here in this story? It is not enough to say that Jesus said it and therefore it is here. A Gospel writer makes decisions about what to include and what to leave out. Of all the things Jesus said or was reported as saying, why did Mark include this thing, this strange question? Is it a rhetorical device, a way to set up Peter and his passionate answer: you are the Messiah. Is it there to show that people outside the inner circle were talking about Jesus’ ministry? Is it there to foreshadow Jesus’ inevitable death?

Or rather is it there because Jesus really wanted to know? Is it possible that Jesus was not sure who he was? Or that he had moments when he was not sure? Even though divine—as we profess—as human didn’t Jesus wonder from time to time what he was? Which of us humans knows our selves for sure, or the self we are about to be? Even the most confident and certain of us is uncertain sometimes. Who do people say that I am, I wonder? It would be helpful to know.

This story in Mark is about a turning point in the life of Jesus. Up until now Jesus has been known as a healer, a teacher, and someone who ruffles the feathers of those in authority. Like Elijah, or John the Baptist, or a prophet, as people describe him, according to the disciples. But it is increasingly clear that Jesus is trouble, and Jesus is in trouble. You don’t have to have pre-knowledge to know that he was likely to be caught and tried and punished. Now Jesus stands on the cusp.

In terms of the story of Jesus, there is no logical necessity that he be crucified. (Though maybe the necessity is theological). Perhaps he could continue to teach and heal, and in his old age someday to sit in a rocker on the porch with Peter and tell stories about the good old days. Of course, we might not be here then, in a Christian church, but maybe we would. God is powerful.

I bring this up because I’m convinced that that is what Peter is thinking. What he was thinking when Jesus tells Peter that he, Jesus, is about to go to his death. (It is pretty clear that Peter does not hear the part about rising again.) Don’t do it, Jesus. Stay here with us in our little band of disciples. Peter is Jesus’ friend. Peter does not want to lose his friend. And maybe Jesus does not want it, either. Jesus is tempted by Peter’s remarks. Jesus is tempted to turn his back on the resurrection, to succumb to Peter’s vision of the future. Get behind me, Satan! thinks Jesus. You are thinking of human things, he says. And so Peter is, being human and all. And so, perhaps, is Jesus. Maybe Jesus is talking to himself a little. Who will Jesus be? Will Jesus save his self, the person he has been, or will he lose it, becoming someone different. Not a healer, but Messiah, and therefore certain to go to the cross. You might say he has no choice, but he has the same choice all humans do. That we all do.

We sometimes ignore how intertwined the story of Jesus is with the story of Peter. But the story of Jesus is not the story of a lonely leader and a bunch of clueless followers. Peter is there. Clueless like the rest, maybe more so, but close to Jesus. Peter is more than a sidekick. They say you are Elijah, or John the Baptist, the disciples say. Yes, but what do you say, Peter? If Peter had answered differently, would the world have been different? You are the Messiah, says Peter. And Jesus knows who he must now be. I must go to Jerusalem, he says, and be killed, and rise again.

Our steps towards one’s future are less like a journey than a series of shocking transformations. Peter is changed by Jesus, Jesus changed by Peter. That’s how it works with us, too. It is like a dance, a series of proposals, tentative or bold, a series of responses, timid or passionate. Our partners are often other people, but sometimes events, positive or not—illness, accident, birth, inheritance, addiction—invite us forward or they lean too close. With God, we are in a faith dance, more than a faith journey. Wondering, questioning, accusing sometimes, yelling, loving, thanking. Sometimes taking a rest.

Who are we? We are dance partners with God, and with God’s creation. The person we once were and the person we will be are joined together in the dance. Our selves are defined not by our memories or our abilities or the consistency of our thoughts. We propose to God and respond to God’s steps. Sometimes gracefully, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes foolishly. But on we go. Dancing. We in God’s arms. God in ours.

Justice First

Text: Mark 7:24-37
Other texts: Isaiah 35:4-7a, Psalm 146

Matthew steals this story from the Gospel of Mark. Mark was the first Gospel to be written, and this stealing from him is common. Both Luke and Matthew take Mark as one of their major sources of information. And both then often modify what Mark has to say. As it happens here.

People have had a hard time reconciling the sweet compassion of Jesus with the angry words he uses with the woman. After she asks for healing for her little daughter, Jesus answers that “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” Meaning, everyone assumes, the woman and her suffering daughter. But in the end, of course, Jesus relents.

Matthew adds a line to the story that is not in Mark. In Matthew, after Jesus first rejects the woman’s petition, she cries out, “Lord, help me!” You might therefore think—and maybe this was Matthew’s purpose—you might think that Jesus changed his mind because he was moved with compassion. That would suit us, who imagine Jesus to be always even tempered and helpful. And sometimes Jesus is, even in Mark. In one of the first healing stories in Mark, Jesus was so overwhelmed with compassionate feelings that it says his stomach turned over in sympathy. But that is not what happens here. Here Jesus is turned not by his empathy but by God’s constant requirement for justice.

We have polluted this word “justice” in our times. It has become a synonym for retribution, for payback. Justice has come to mean “get what you deserve.” So when we talk about making sure justice is done we often as not mean “let’s find those guys and make sure they are punished.” But that is not what justice means in the Bible.

In the Bible, justice means “restoration.” Our world gets broken. The world is wounded. God’s design is frustrated. And justice is the world healed. Things set right again. The word justice in the Bible has overtones of joy. You know the essence of justice when you are in exile and can finally come home again. When you are in prison and can be back with your family. When you are hungry and get a good meal. When you are homeless and can finally be in a bed of your own. “My beddy, my beddy,” as my son used to say when he was little and tired and ready for sleep. He had a bed. Justice is the freedom from oppression. A conversion from suffocation to free breathing. From sickness to vibrant energy. From slavery to freedom.

In the world of the Bible, in our world, things are out of balance. The poor suffer while the rich gloat. People go hungry while others are gluttons. People are oppressed while others profit from oppression. Justice is done when those things that are broken are restored.

God is powerful. But our God is strange, favoring the weak and on the side of the poor. A God of the outcasts, God comes to us as Jesus, a poor vagrant who hangs with those who disgust others. God frees the people of Israel from Egypt because they are slaves. God’s identification is with justice. I am that God, God tells the Israelites, that God who brought you out of slavery. That one.

Yet the longing for justice lives in the powerful and the wealthy as well as in the weak and poor. So even the well-off find the songs we heard today from Isaiah and the psalm to be good news (oddly, since on the surface these verses condemn them). Partly that’s because everyone has felt oppressed from time to time. But it goes deeper than self-interest. It is mostly because injustice is evil. And that people feel that. Oppression is not from God. Injustice harms our souls as well as our world. Whether or not we benefit, we know that something is wrong.

When the psalm describes God’s power—the God who made heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them—it is a God who restores justice. “He gives justice to the oppressed, food to the hungry,” so we recited today. The law of Israel starts with justice. The life and teachings of Jesus embody it.

In the Gospel story we just heard, a mother approaches Jesus while he is trying to get a little break. He is a celebrity by then, and Jesus had a hard time finding some private time for rest. He’d been running all over the countryside. So he’s a little crabby when, like an ancient-day telemarketer ignoring the do-not-call list, she interrupts his dinner. He tells her, in essence, to get lost, take a hike.

She argues with him. But instead of appealing to his compassion for her or her sick daughter, she reminds him of his call to do justice. “Even the dogs do not go hungry,” she says. Poor people were allowed to glean, or collect, the wheat from the fields, to gather a little of the produce there. It is an act of justice: the owners of the fields left some grain un-gathered for the poor. When the woman says to Jesus, Let me collect what you do not eat, Jesus remembers his call to do justice. You speak well, he tells her. It is her argument for justice, not her sad condition, that moves Jesus. Maybe Jesus doesn’t like the woman. It doesn’t matter. It is justice, not compassion, that moves Jesus.

We are called to love our neighbor. But this is a call to action, not a call to sentiment. To have compassion for another’s suffering is not enough. As far as justice is concerned, neither our feelings nor our beliefs are germane. We cannot control our feelings. We cannot force ourselves to love someone. But we can act as if we do. We can be just.

It does not matter whether we are pure of heart or soft-hearted or have a bleeding heart or a heart of stone. It does not matter whether we like our neighbor or despise our neighbor. What is more important: that Jesus liked the woman—or that he healed her daughter? Our motives are not the point. We feed hungry people and we treat the sick not because we are good but because they are, not because we love them but because God does, not because we like to but because we have been told to. We forgive those who sin against us not because we have forgotten those sins, but because we follow Jesus.

It is helpful to be reminded, as we have today by these readings, that social justice and the suffering of the poor is central to Christianity. What got the Pharisees mad—mad enough to kill Jesus—was not his compassion. They could not have cared less. What got them mad was his demand for justice.

Justice is not an optional add-on to religious fervor. For many, whether the church is good or is not is measured by whether it has been just. For many others, doing justice has been the path to knowing God. While finding faith is a gift of the Spirit, doing justice is something we can choose.

We are rightly humbled by knowing that without God we are lost. But that does not mean that we are helpless. Just because we cannot do everything does not mean we can do nothing. Just because we are always accepted by God does not mean that nothing is expected of us. Just because we have limited capacity does not mean we are incapacitated. Being a Christian is hard work, but good work. Our weakness calls for God’s salvation. But God’s justice calls for our strength.

The prophet Isaiah sings a song about the time when there is no more injustice. Listen to his words: Rejoice, blossom, be opened, leap like a deer, sing for joy, break forth,

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. …. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. Waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.

Let us pray that we may stand for the poor, fight for oppressed people, speak for the frightened, be bold on behalf of the timid, be stubborn against the powerful. Demand justice for all people, likeable or not, admirable or not, good or not.

Let us pray that with God’s blessing we may see that justice is done and the broken world restored.