Praying for the Home Team

Text: Acts 1:15-26

There seem to be some verses missing in the reading today from the Book of Acts.

Here’s how that could be. There is a committee that chooses the readings for each Sunday. On the committee are people from lots of Christian denominations. Sometimes they leave out some verses in the middle of the reading. As they did today. Sometimes they do that because the middle verses are distracting, or include some verses that seem out of place. But I’m convinced that sometimes they do that because the left-out verses give them the creeps.

Here is what they left out today. In the story in Acts that we just heard, the disciples are picking a new leader. That’s because one of the old disciples is missing. He’s missing because he is Judas, the disciple who gave Jesus up to the authorities to be executed. He’s not missing because the remaining disciples were upset with him and didn’t want him around, though that might make sense. He’s missing because he is dead. And the verses that are missing tell us what happened:

[vv 18-20] Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. This became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Hakel'dama, that is, Field of Blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his homestead become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it’; and ‘His office let another take.’

This is a little gruesome. A little violent. A little creepy. But it is germane, for it explains both what happened to Judas and why they were anxious to replace him. Because it was written in scripture that they should. The scripture had to be fulfilled, it says.

Since it was written in scripture, we might ask how and how much God was involved with Judas’s explosive death. Did God cause it? Or did God allow it? Or did God just observe it? To what extent and in what manner does God interfere in the actions of humans—Judas in this case?

You might answer that God extracts justice here. Judas did a bad thing, God punished him. In the psalm for today, we sang that the life of righteous persons is wonderful. Happy are they. They take delight in things. They are like fruit trees that are planted by streams of water. Everything they do will prosper. They are not like the wicked, for whom nothing is wonderful. The wicked are chaff, blown about here and there. The wicked cannot stand in the face of judgment. The wicked are doomed. The good get the goods and the bad get punished. It all works out.

Except that that’s not how it seems to work out in real life. People who do bad things can get off scott free, live prosperous lives and are delighted. People who do good things can suffer, get jerked around, and bear sour fruit.

Is this God’s will? Or is this God’s doing? Or is this God’s nonchalance? Is it God’s anything?

We, the people of the Book, the people whose religion comes from the Bible, hold that God is active in the world and in our lives. The Bible is a collection of stories of that activity. God knows what is going on and God has a hand in what is going on. God interferes in the daily lives of people, or if not daily then at least from time to time. Time measured on the short scale of people’s lifetimes. God does not always approve what is going on. Which means that God does not interfere in everything. Sometimes God is sad about what is going on, sometimes happy, sometimes annoyed. Which means that there is a certain intimacy between God and people.

On a case by case basis, though, it is hard to tell exactly how God is working. We have to interpret it. Luke, the author of the Book of Acts, interprets the death of Judas as a fulfillment of a prophecy of great King David and a fitting punishment for bad Judas. But some have interpreted the actions of Judas not to be wicked but instead to be an example of obedience to the directions of Jesus. Judas was the one whom Jesus could trust to advance the plot that leads to the crucifixion and thus to the resurrection of Jesus. Judas was the brave and obedient soldier. I’m not sure whether this is a good interpretation or not, but it does show that we humans don’t always know what God is doing at the moment.

What is God doing when Judas dies so horribly? Does God allow this? Does God watch curiously? Does God make it happen? And if God does make it happen, does God orchestrate the whole thing, or just nudge things a little this way or that on the margin? Where is God’s motivating power? Does God make Judas do something against Judas’s will, or does God make Judas will something—change his will—to take his own life? And did Judas pray to be delivered from his death or did he pray to be led to it?

When we pray, these questions are relevant. What do we hope for when we pray to God? Our prayers are often petitions, requests from God. We pray for ourselves. For our health and happiness. For blessings that we hope to appreciate, for success in an endeavor. My sister prays for a good parking spaces. My colleague prays for home-team victories.

Or we pray for others whom we love or worry about. We pray that someone will get better, that a friend will find a companion, that our neighbor will have safe travels, that a relative will not die just yet. We pray for the world, for an end to war, for an end to abusive relationships.

We pray that all we hope for will happen and that nothing we fear will happen. Chances are, in the particular we will be disappointed. Not necessarily, but based on experience, probably.

That does not mean that we pray only to hear ourselves talk. Prayer is not just some coping thing we do in the face of limits and uncertainty. We don’t pray just to make ourselves feel better. And though I’ve spoken here about prayer also being about listening, I’m not saying we shouldn’t speak up. The same Bible that tells us God likes to hang around with people tells us that God also likes to talk to and listen to people. What God does with what God hears, that’s hard to say.

Prayer is like a pathway. Praying keeps us on the path when we drift off into the brush and the weeds and the rocks. But the path is not one that someone, not even God, has laid down for us. It is not like a railroad track, with a fixed start and a fixed destination. Prayer not only keeps us on the path, it creates the path. It makes the path.

Prayer is motion toward God. God’s revealed interest in us keeps us moving. Our experience of God’s interest in humans convinces us that walking toward God is not a fruitless or aimless waste of time and hope. The path is not random, though it may seem twisty. It is a result of a complicated mix of all the things that are part of our prayers.

When we pray, we rightly expect something to happen. But who knows what? We pray over and over, and we come to worship over and over, because this is all a work in progress. In prayer, in worship, in whatever kind of faith life we have, there is the possibility—even the expectation—of a new future. The pathway goes somewhere. We pray that God will interfere in our lives. That something will be different. That we will be transformed.

Baptism: Members of One Another

Text: Acts 10:44-48

Welcome, T___. The readings for today align nicely with your baptism.

Today we heard the second of two baptism stories from the book of Acts. The two are similar. Last week a member of the Ethiopian court was baptized. He talked to the disciple Philip about Jesus, and after hearing what Philip had to say, asked him “Look, here is water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?” So Philip baptized him. And today, some folks were listening to Peter, moved, the story says, by the Holy Spirit. Peter this time does the asking: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?” And Peter baptized them.

Baptism is particularly, but not uniquely, a Christian rite. It seems to have been invented around the time of Jesus. Maybe it was adopted from existing conversion or cleansing rituals. Maybe not. But from the very beginning of the early church, baptism and Christianity went hand in hand. It is the final instruction of Jesus to his disciples in the Gospel of Matthew: “Go ... and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”—the words we used with T___ today and which are always used.

Baptism is sometimes imagined to be some kind of miracle consumer product. When I was growing up, Colgate toothpaste came with Gardol, a made-up secret ingredient barrier between your teeth and the world. In ads, Gardol was shown as a big invisible shield; cavity germs could not get through. For some, baptism is like that, a protective layer that keeps sin away. For others, it is more like detergent, washing away all previous sin. The emperor Constantine, who in the fourth century made Christianity politically and socially acceptable, waited to be baptized until just before his death. He wanted to die sinless, so he didn’t want to have time to sin between his holy bath and his presentation before St. Peter at the gates. He wanted to make sure he got in.

Lutherans are adamant about lots of things, but two of the most important are that, one, we are all sinners and, two, that it is not by our own goodness or effort that God favors us. The Gardol can’t keep us from sin. And St. Peter doesn’t care what kind of sin-filled baggage we bring.

When Peter, before he got the job of gatekeeper, baptizes the folks that we heard about in the story in Acts, he hangs around a bit afterward. They were all baptized, it says, and then they invited him to stay for a few days. And I guess he did. Kind of like a long coffee hour.

Baptism is an introduction into a community. It is something done in the community, with God’s presence. Though it is a sacrament, and in our denomination clergy must preside at sacraments, it requires the presence of the assembly. That is, all of you. Both who you represent—you speak for all Christians today—but also you in particular, you as an individual. You just made a promise to support T___ and pray for him. You are on the hook.

That’s why baptisms here are usually on a Sunday. Because that is when the community gathers. That’s why the church frowns on private baptisms. That’s why godparents or sponsors are an important part of the ceremony, since they are usually part of the wider community.

We are members, as the Apostle Paul seems to say, one of another. It is better than being a family. Family ties are complicated and sometimes ornate, and not everyone in a family is good to everyone else. But in the membership in the body of Christ—that is, in the membership of the followers of Jesus—that is, in the membership of one another—we are good to one another, or we are supposed to be.

This is my commandment, we heard once again today, that you love one another as I have loved you. It is no accident that in the season of Easter (and in Holy Week before Easter, too), we are reminded of this commandment over and over. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another as I have loved you. We are members of each other. We are here because this commandment of Jesus, and the person Jesus who commanded us, are important to us.

Our thoughts about Jesus and about this commandment are in us. In all sorts of different ways and in all sorts of different understandings and beliefs and doubts and experiences and resultant actions. But in all the members of the followers of Jesus, those thoughts are in us.

The admission requirements of this association are low. There are no special exams to pass and no special grades to get. Anyone who is called by the spirit can be baptized. In years past the church has spent a lot of time and effort to make sure that people were worthy of baptism. But there is no human being in the church who has the right to say whether we are worthy or not. The Ethiopian court administrator says, “What is there to prevent me from being baptized,” and Philip answers: Nothing at all. Peter asks, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people,” and he answers himself: No one at all.

This community of which we all members is a practical community. Not just a theological one. In the most simple way possible, we are with one another. We worship together, we eat together, we tell funny stories and we tell sad stories, and we laugh together at the funny ones and comfort those who tell the sad ones. Or try to. We are interested in each other, or try to be. We are compassionate, or try to be.

Someone wrote recently that in hard times people usually come together to support one another. But that instead, in these hard financial times, people have been inclined to isolate and exile one another. By shame them and by blame. But we in the church, the body of Christ, are by the commandment of our teacher not allowed to do that. Our compassion is not supposed to depend on circumstance. We know that people’s lives can be changed in a second. For ill or for good. We are with them no matter what.

Martin Marty, a contemporary Lutheran theologian, warns that we have to beware of thinking of ourselves as agents. By that, he means thinking that we are virtuous, powerful, and wise when we are rarely any of these. But especially it means thinking we are independent of one another. He wrote that one of the reasons we are in a mess at the moment is that we forgot we are members of each other. “We pretended we weren’t,” he said, “and that is where the great immorality lay.”

Lutherans recognize Baptism and Holy Communion as the two sacraments of the church. Both of these sacraments are rites of humility. They are antidotes to hubris. To pride. They are signs of obedience and dependence. In both, we humble ourselves. As we come forward to the altar rail, we admit to the world that we need this spiritual food. When we come to the baptismal font, we admit that we need each other.

So, we assemble today in humility and love for one another. We assemble to welcome T___. We welcome his as a fellow worker with us in the kingdom of God, a child of God, and a member of the body of Christ. Thanks be to God.

The Vine-Branch Connection

Text: John 15:1-8

It is increasingly clear that the difference between our insides and what’s outside is not that great.

It turns out that we are not independent creatures, isolated by skin and by preference from the biologic soup in which we live, or from the physical wear and tear on our various parts. Nor are we isolated from our insides, as if our selves were separate from the organic machinery that toils day and night to keep us working. We know too much now. We know we are creatures among many, pretty tiny compared to the world. And inside of us are many creatures, pretty tiny compared to us. We do not live alone, and we cannot survive alone. We—our selves, our beings—are a mass of biology in a mass of biology, organized and inspired by the spirit. Or as Genesis puts it, we are dust out of which God has formed us with God’s breath.

John, the writer of the today’s Gospel passage, who preceded us by about 1900 years, seems to have known all about this. This business of insides and outsides. Abide in me as I abide in you, Jesus says in John. John is all about abiding. It is hidden a bit in our Bible, because John uses one word translated variously as dwell, and remain, and stay, and live. There are many dwelling places, says Jesus, using this word. Where are you staying? ask the disciples when they first meet Jesus, using this word. Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth, it remains—using this word—it remains just a grain, Jesus teaches the crowd.

God lives in us. We live in God. Or you might say we remain in God and God in us. It is a two-way street.

It is one thing to think that God lives in us. As if God were our motivating force, or our soul, or our source of goodness. As if God were inside of us, struggling to shine through all the garbage and fear that we dress ourselves in. Or as if we were all Tin Woodsmen, empty but for God as our living hearts.

So it makes sense when we hear Jesus say, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Fruit cannot grow unless it is connected to the vine—that’s what it says in the bulletin that the children here get. Without God, we are unmotivated, uninspired. It is a parasitic relationship, in the nicest way. Jesus is the source of all life, and we live on that source.

That may make sense, but that is not what Jesus says here. Live in me as I live in you, he says. This is exactly reciprocal. Live in me in the same way as I live in you. The original is even more clear: “Live in me and I in you. Just like that!” This is a pretty weird notion. Jesus and we are in symbiotic relationship. We are, as the scholars say, mutually in-dwelling. We are dependent each on the other.

I am the vine, Jesus says, and you are the branches. The vine is strong compared to the branches. The vine is tough. The vine is big. The branches are more fragile. The branches are small. The branches hang on the vine and depend on it. Precious water comes up the trunk of the vine and nourishes the branches. The vine connects the roots with the leaves. Without the vine, the branches die.

The vine seems to be as God must be. The source and strength of all things. The branches cannot live without the vine.

But that is not the whole story. Because neither can the vine live without the branches. The leaves live on the branches, and collect the energy of the sun. The sugar that feeds the vine comes from the leaves. The vine lies dormant until the leaves emerge. If you ever had a grape arbor—there is one outside my window at home—you know the difference between the naked vine in winter and the luxurious expanse of leaves that fill it and flesh it out when the weather warms. The vine provides the constant, dependable strength. But the liveliness comes from the branches, and it is on the branches that the fruit lives.

Evidently there is something we do, we who are the branches—you are the branches—that completes the vine. Something we are that fulfills at least a part of Jesus, at least a part of God.

When we say that Jesus abides in us, we imagine Jesus being our center, necessary for our existence. Can we therefor say that since we abide in Jesus in exactly the same way, that somehow we complete Jesus?

Or perhaps we might imagine that living in Jesus is like living in a strong, safe house, a place of protection and comfort. In that case, since Jesus abides in us in exactly the same way, can we therefore say that somehow Jesus finds the same things when he lives in us? Does it make Jesus feel good to live in us?

The vine needs the branches. But the branches need one another also. The branches nourish each other. Supported by the vine, they feed the whole, they feed each other.

We are called to love one another. In the verses that immediately follow today’s reading (and which we’ll hear next week), Jesus gives us a new commandment. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” he says. We feed one another by caring for one another, by loving one another. The fruit of the vine is in one sense the purpose of the vine. The fruit of the vine is the work of the vine in the world. The fruit is the manifestation of all the energy and biology of the vine and its branches working together. Our care for one another is the fruit. I am the vine, you are the branches, said Jesus. Those who live in me and I in them bear much fruit. The branches—us—represent God in the world. God is glorified, says Jesus, when the branches bear much fruit.

Perhaps this sounds a lot like good works. Especially to Lutheran ears, which are supersensitive to words in that category. But the words of Jesus here in John are not about salvation, or getting into heaven by doing good things, even when good things means loving other people. This passage is not about future glory and spiritual accomplishment. It is about how God works through us in the world now.

The official motto of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, our denomination, is “God’s work, our hands.” We are not observers in this world. The branches cannot live without the vine, we cannot live without God’s creating and foundational force. This is not a choice but biology. Branches cannot choose to hop off the vine. We depend on the vine. But neither do the branches just hang around on the vine. We are not spiritual couch potatoes in this endeavor.

For the writer of the Gospel of John, there is no distinction between our spiritual existence and our physical existence in the world. There is no sense that what we do in the world is either a cause of a good life in Christ, or on the flip side is it a result of that life in Christ, or is it even a sign of our life in Christ. It is not separate from it.

Instead, it is exactly the same as our life in Christ. Who lives in us. And in whom we live. He inside us and we inside him.

Heart Sick Calling

Text: 1 John 3:16-24
Other texts: John 10:11-18

Why do we have fire departments when there is no fire?

Every day all day fire fighters are waiting in fire stations, fire trucks at the ready, fire hydrants cleaned and checked. Yet most of the time we have no fires.

The question is absurd and the answer obvious. We will for sure have a fire some day, some day soon. Fires threaten the individual good and the common good. Though maintaining a whole fire department is expensive, and most of the time unnecessary, the evil of fire and the extent of the loss is great. So great that we are willing to give up our individual wealth to provide for people and equipment and systems to do nothing but put out fires, should there ever be one.

We have agreed to spend our money, and to put firefighters’ lives at risk, to put out fires for everybody. Even for people who do bad things. Even people who don’t have any money. Even people who are illegal, on the run, who have committed a crime. Even people who stupidly contribute to the fire by smoking in bed, storing oily rags, leaving charcoal grills open; all those things experts say not to do. When there is a fire, we save everyone, if we can. We don’t inquire first. Firefighting is unconditional. It is a kind of grace.

In the city, you might say that it is in my own best interests to keep my neighbor’s house from burning to the ground. But country folks, whose houses lie far apart, have fire departments, too. Who anywhere could ignore a burning house? Who would say, “let it burn to the ground”? We fight fires because it is horrible not to. Because our hearts tell us to. We fight fires because we care for one another. It is a sign that we do.

We do the same when we build hospitals. Or build transportation systems. Or when we feed people who have no food. Though in these things we are often less graceful and more stingy.

We do things for the common good. What that means in practice is that we do things for the good of individuals. What turns individual good into the common good is that we do not distinguish one individual from another when we decide whom to care for. When no privilege is recognized. When we care equally for all, it is the common good. When we choose others to receive extra benefit or extra burden or extra punishment—for whatever reason; the reason does not matter—when we do that, the good is no longer common, but particular.

The writer of the first letter of John asks how any of us could see someone who is in need and yet refuse to help. Actually, he asks how God’s love abides in anyone who does that. For he surely knows that in most cases, people pass by the needy by all the time. But his question is not rhetorical. The question is: when we do that, is God in us? Where is God’s love in us when we refuse to help our brother or sister?

Whenever we bring suffering to anybody, and whenever we fail to relieve the suffering of anybody, do we have any grounds to claim that God’s love abides in us?

When we harm others by omission or commission, we embarrass ourselves. It hurts our hearts. Our hearts know better. It makes us sick at heart. War makes us sick. Personal violence makes us sick. Torture makes us sick. Seeing others starve makes us sick. Seeing others die for lack of medicine makes us sick. Seeing others enslaved makes us sick.

Yet we continue to see our brothers and sisters in need and refuse to help. We do so for all sorts of reasons. Reasons that are practical, expedient, or affordable. And shame-making reasons, too. Fear which shows itself as timidity, greed that grows out of fear, self-importance, ignorance. And reasons of confusion. Balancing one thing against another, one life against another, one love against another.

None of the reasons matter to our hearts. They all end up sounding like defenses, apologies, “this-hurts-me-more-than-it-hurts-you” kind of talk. But our hearts hear this nonsense and know it for what it is, and they condemn us. Our hearts condemn us, it says in the epistle of John.

Our hearts condemn us. But God does not. For God is greater than our hearts, it says. God knows everything, and knowing so, does not condemn us. Not that God doesn’t agree with our hearts. Maybe God does. Maybe God, who abides in our hearts, see things as our heart does.

But God does not condemn us. God knows that condemnation is not helpful here. What God knows is that we do not easily refuse to help a brother or sister whom we see is in need. We do so against our will, so to speak. Against our deep desires. Our brothers and sisters call us. Call our hearts.

What makes the shepherd good, in the story we heard today from the Gospel of John, is that the shepherd knows the sheep. Jesus is the shepherd. What distinguishes the good shepherd from the other shepherd, the bad shepherd, the hired hand, is not that the good shepherd treats the sheep better than the hired hand, though he does, but that he cares for them. Meaning that his heart is called by them. The sheep call the shepherd and the shepherd cares about that.

He cares so much that he is willing to risk everything, even his life, to help the sheep. Each sheep. Each sheep without regard to privilege. Without regard to anything. Each sheep. The shepherd listens to the calling of his heart. He never sees a brother or sister in need and refuses to help.

Jesus is the shepherd. He tell us so. I am the good shepherd. And in the Gospel of John, as we heard a couple of weeks ago, we are sent by Jesus as Jesus is sent by God. In the Gospel of John, the sheep become shepherds. Jesus tells us that, too. It will not do for us to stand around and munch and [bleat] baaa. We cannot stand around and watch the fires burn.

For John, the power of God lives in Jesus and in us. John calls it abiding, which means making one’s home somewhere. An abode. Our hearts, which abide in us, call us to help one another. To love one another as Jesus loves us and has commanded us. But the power to do so comes from God. When we see our brothers and sisters in need, and our hearts call to us, and then we turn to help them, we are able to because God’s love abides in us. When we do not refuse them, we may claim that God lives in us.