Sunday Sermon: John the Baptist/Pentecost 4

"Hope for a Child"

Last weekend, my husband and I made a journey I haven’t taken in fourteen years – we drove out through Western Minnesota and into Eastern South Dakota, until we finally landed in the tiny town of Vienna, South Dakota. We were there to celebrate a church Centenniel.  Long ago, I had served as pastor of three churches out there – Bethlehem Lutheran in Vienna, Naples Lutheran in Naples, and Our Savior’s in rural Henry. The town of Vienna was listed back then as "population – 90" – the membership in the three churches was about 275, I think. I was surprised, when I got there, to find out that they had a pretty healthy youth group and confirmation class. I had thirteen 7^th and 8^th grader confirmation students that first year when I was still getting used to being a pastor.  And a few years later a healthy dozen youth took a bus down to New Orleans for a Mission trip. On the other hand, there were only a handful of baptisms during my time there. I presided at many more funerals than weddings. I remember so clearly the few baptisms I had, because each one was precious; I remember the people in the congregation with stars in their eyes, looking at the baby. All their hopes were right there – in that tiny tiny child.

Perhaps this seems an odd way to begin a sermon about John the Baptist – but maybe it seems odd to you that we are even talking about John the Baptist this summer Sunday. We’re used to hearing from John in about December, as we are getting ready for Christmas. We’re used to hearing his warning "Prepare the way of the Lord," when there is snow on the ground and when everyone is fixing their hearts and minds on their Christmas preparations. We have a picture in our mind – don’t we? – of John the baptist out in the wilderness, a sort of a severe, wild-eyed person, clashing with our Christmas carols and urging us to repent. And here it is a nice summer day, so far from Christmas, so far from snow, so far from Christmas presents, and we’re hearing about John the Baptist – or actually, we’re hearing about his parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth and about their own hope for a child. Or, to put it more accurately, their lack of hope for a child. Because they were past hoping. They had given up hope. They were too old to have children.

There’s a little backstory to today’s gospel reading –- today we heard only the end of the story of John’s birth. The story begins with old Zechariah going into the temple, serving as a priest. This was a regular activity for him, just as weekly attendance at church is a regular activity for some of you. So he didn’t expect anything to go differently that it ever did. But this particular day he was praying, and all the people were outside, and an angel appeared to him, and told him something: he said "your prayers have been answered. Your wife Elizabeth is going to have a son." And of course the first thing that happened was that Zechariah was afraid, not just awe, but all-out fear. And the second thing that happened is that Zechariah did not believe the angel. He may still have been praying for a child, but he had long ago given up really hoping for a child – after all, they were too old to have children. So he said to the angel, "How will I know that this is so?" –which might seem to be a reasonable question to us, but I think what he really meant was, "Give me a break. Because this is not just hard to believe.....this is impossible to believe....." — and the Angel responded by drawing himself up to his full height (which could have been pretty tall) and saying, "I’m Gabriel. And now, just because you did not believe me, you are not going to speak for the next -oh – 9 months." So when Zechariah came out of the temple and he couldn’t tell anyone what had happened to him.

Nine months of silence. Nine months to think about, meditate about, pray about what was happening in the world, what Zechariah was hoping for, what he had ceased hoping for. In the meantime, Mary also learned that she would give birth to a child, in the meantime, things were happening, ordinary miracles, but extra-ordinary miracles. Isn’t that what the birth of a child is? It’s something so ordinary it happens every day. But it’s something so extraordinary that it fills us with hope again, every time. And there were promises attached to both of these births: John and Jesus. Promises that God would do a new thing, come in a new way, set his people free from all that kept them weighed down.

What is it about Christmas anyway? What is it about Christmas that gets us all excited and expecting? Oh, I suppose someone out there will say, "it’s the presents" – there they are all wrapped up. It’s the presents and the fact that they are all wrapped up and perhaps they are a surprise. Is that what it is? It’s the possibility of surprise, the possibility of opening up something and not knowing what it is before you open it. Perhaps that’s what it is about Christmas. Perhaps it’s the idea that the thing you think is too good to be true – really might be true. Or maybe it’s this: maybe it’s the child. Maybe it’s the hope for a child, the hope for THE child. Maybe that’s what it is.

Anyway, Zechariah had nine months to think about it: what he hoped for, what he had stopped hoping for, what he was afraid to hope for. He had 9 months to stretch his imagination, nine months to re-consider the promises of God – 9 months to think that God’s dreams might even be even wilder than he had imagined. His barren wife was expecting – God was about to do a new thing. A new thing – wilder than his wildest dreams. He was as good as dead, but he would have a son.

What is it about Christmas, anyway? Maybe it’s hope – the hope that a child brings, the hope that children bring. Maybe it’s hope – beneath the presents and the glitter and the light in the darkness – hope for the future, a future that is based on forgiveness rather than revenge, on peace rather than warfare, a future where God again walks among us, as he did in the garden, back in the beginning. Maybe that’s what it is.  Because we need that hope not just when it's dark and cold and the days are short, but even now, today, when there are storms and when there are floods and when there is grief, and when we still don't know what our future might be.

So when his son is born, Zechariah writes on a piece of paper, "His name is John," even though no one in their family ever had that name before. And when he writes that name, he is able to speak: and this is what he says:

"You child, will be called the prophet of the Most high;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways;
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us."

What is it about Christmas?
Maybe it’s the hope of a child – maybe that’s what it is – it’s the hope of a child when all it lost, when you are as good as dead, when you have stopped hoping. That’s what it is. It’s the hope of a child, a child who brings new life, a child who makes you new. It’s not just his son John – but the one he points to – Jesus.

So it was a bright summer weekend when we drove back to South Dakota – after 14 years away. And I wondered what I would find there, as they celebrated 100 years of God's faithfulness to them.  I wondered who I would recognize, who would recognize me. We drove slowly into town. The church had been repainted. There were a few cars in the parking lot. I recognized a face – the woman who ran the post office. I ran up to her and said, "Do you remember you always said, ‘there’s a lid for every pot?’(she said this to me because I was single but hoped someday to find a mate.)  I introduced her to my husband. I found out that some of my dear friends had died.

And then I started to see the children. There are 25 or 30 children in this little church now. I don’t know any of them. Not one. But they are the children of some of my confirmation students, all standing up in the front of the church and singing at the top of their lungs, "Jesus loves me."

Christmas. It was Christmas in the summer, because of the children, and because, like John the Baptist, they pointed to Jesus. AMEN.

"We Wish to See Jesus", part 2

"Trust me."

These are words we hear on this 5th Sunday in Lent, as Holy Week approaches, as the shadow of the cross falls nearer.  "Trust me."  These are words we hear as well in the early spring, as we're looking for signs of life.  We're looking for signs of life, and I don't mean just spring, or even primarily spring, since in most places other than my yard there are plenty of signs of spring.  There are lots of ways that we might be looking for signs of life:  maybe in our own families, maybe in our communities, maybe in the world.  Like the Greeks, "We wish to see Jesus.  We heard a story about him raising the dead."  We want to see life.

I need to tell you, that the verses we just heard, the verses about the seed falling into the earth and dying -- the verses about bearing fruit -- these verses I associate with cemeteries, because that's where I often hear them, and that's where I often say them.  I say them while I am standing at a graveside with a family, saying goodbye to someone they love.  I say them while I am standing in front of a casket, or an urn.  And I love to hear the words about the seeds, because they do remind me of unseen new life.  I remember hearing more than once a story about a little boy, who was driving by a cemetery with his parents.  "Oh!"  he cried out.  "That's where we planted grandpa!"

It's the words that come after that bother me -- words about how the ones who love their lives inn this world will lose them, and those who hate their lives will gain them for eternal life.  When I read these words at cemeteries, I think about how the person who died loved hte life they had been given, loved the families and friends they had been given, loved the work God had given them to do.  And I think:  I don't believe Jesus means that we are to hate this life, the beauty around us, the work God has given us to do, the abundance of friends and family.  I don't think Jesus means we are to hate that life; I think he means us to glory in it, embrace it, love it, live it.  To "hateo ur lives in this world" doesn't mean to hate our created lives, it means something different, I think.  It means to hate the world that has turned its back on God; it means to hate the world that judges people by their success, or their power, or their money, or their beauty.  that tells us that some people are more valuable than other.  It means to hate the world that teaches us to fear people that look different than we do, or who come from a different place than we do.  To "hateo ur lives in this world" means to hate the forces that tempt us to harden our hearts, to despise the weak, to live only for ourselves.

There's a popular book out called "The Hunger Games."  In fact, it just became a movie; I know some young people stood in line at midnight on Thursday night in order to see it.  The Hunger Games is a dark story about a future world where resources are scarce, and where many people had turned against one another to survive.  The games themselves are cruel tournaments where young people are forced to fight one another to the death, for the entertainment of others.  But in the midst of the story, one of the young people, a boy named Peeta, says that there is something he fears more than death.

What he fears most is being turned into someone else by the games, turned into someone cruel, and hard.  He tells one of the other players, "I want to die as myself....I don't want them to change me in there.  Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not." 

To me, this is what Jesus means by "hating your life in this world."  Peeta knows that there is some thing worse than death, and that is becoming a part of the cruelty, a part of the "game."  Jesus tells us as well, that there is something worse than death, and that is turning our backs on God, turning our backs on love, turning our backs on compassion, honor, grace.

I read the passage of scripture from John most often at a cemetery, and I think of the life that is seen, and the life that is buried.  "Trust me," Jesus says to me there.  "Trust me that the seed will come up.  Trust me that goodness and beauty will win.  Trust me that you will see one another -- and me -- again."

But it's not just at the cemetery that I need to hear it-- that we need to hear it.  In fact, if we only hear there words of Jesus at a cemetery, I think we hear them wrong.  They aren't just for the promise that we will live after we die.  They are for us here each day, whenever we are looking for signs of life.

"We wish to see Jesus," the Greeks said to Philip and Andrew.  We do too.

We wish to see signs of life where there is death.  We wish to see signs of compassion where there is cruelty.  We wish to see signs that God is working inthe world, evven in us, that God can transform our own hard hearts. 

Jesus points to the seed buried in the ground, he points to a cross, and he says, "Trust me..... and follow me."  AMEN

Sunday Sermon: X-Treme Discipleship

Matthew 14:22-33


Recently my family got together for dinner.
That evening my brother told us of a plan of his. He’s going to take some time off, a little vacation time, and see some places he’s never seen before.
And while he’s at it, he’s going to do something he’s never done before as well: he’s going to go sky-diving.
Yes, he’s going to jump out of a plane into thin air with a parachute on, pull the cord, and float to the ground. We asked him “why?”
Turns out we never knew this – but it’s something my brother has always been kind of interested in. Who knew?
My brother, the one who won’t go up in roller-coasters at the amusement park – wants to jump out of an airplane.


I have to say that in my life, I have not considered myself to be a big risk-taker –
the exception being the time I packed up many of my belongings and flew to Japan to spend three years or so –
something NO One in my family could understand – any more than they can figure out why my brother wants to sky dive.
I don’t hang-glide either, or skate board.
So my husband and I told him to tell us when he was jumping so that we could pray for him.
My mother, on the other hand, had a totally different reaction.
She said, “Don’t tell me when you are jumping. Tell me when you’re done.”

I can’t help comparing in my imagination the thought of my brother, stepping out of a plane into thin air, and Peter, stepping out of a boat into stormy water – well, any kind of water, actually.
They are both “dare-devil” kinds of actions – both defying the laws of nature – although at least my brother will have a parachute.
If you think about it, what Peter did could be called a kind of “X-treme” sport.
At least, it is “X-treme Discipleship”, don’t you think? Sky-diving. Hang-gliding.
Walking on water. The stakes are high.

The stakes are high.
I really want to emphasize this. This is very scary.
And the mood is set right away in the beginning of the story.
The disciples are out in their boat in the middle of the night, when the wind and the waves come up.
It’s a spooky time of night, the dark dark time just very dawn, and their boat is being battered by the waves.
Then this spooky figure comes along, walking on the water, which doesn’t calm them down – just makes them more anxious.
This is the scene into which we get Peter, calling out to Jesus, “Lord, if it’s you, call me to come to you!” Get that?
Lord, if it’s you... it’s dark, they can hardly see, it’s stormy.... how does he even know it’s Jesus? Except who else would it be???

“X-treme Discipleship” – Peter, without doing any special training, jumps out of the boat and starts walking on water – for a little while anyway.
It’s hard to tell how long he was afloat – a few seconds, a minute, two minutes tops, but it’s pretty clear that his experiment did not last long.
Two minutes of success – then utter, abject failure.
Two minutes of success, and then he’s flailing around, in over his head, going down for the third time. Two minutes of success, and then it’s “Lord, save me!”

Have you ever felt like that? In over your head? How did I get into this mess?
What am I doing here? What was my big mistake? Have you ever felt like that in your life? X-treme discipleship
 it’s sort of like watching the Olympic skaters or gymnasts, and the young woman is going for a most difficult jump – and right in front of the judges and everything – she falls, and not very gracefully.
It’s the first big mistake you make in your new job, it’s becoming a parents and thinking – do I really know what to do next?
I’m in over my head.
Or it’s when a church begins a new project or program, outreach into our community, and suddenly we think, we’re in over our head. There are waves out there! There are storms out there.This is harder than we thought.

If only we had kept our eyes on Jesus.
If only Peter had kept his eyes on Jesus. Right? He would be looking at Jesus and just keep walking, instead of looking at the waves and fallen.
Keeping your eyes on Jesus – that’s the key.
As one well-known author put it, “If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat!”
There will be always be storms in life. There will always circumstances that are unfavorable. But the idea is to step out in faith.
Jesus is calling to us to take a risk, to get out of the water, to do the things that make us afraid.


I have to say, I think I get this. I am by no means a person who is comfortable with risk or with fear.
And I do think that the church is also called to take risks as we follow Jesus.
Loving people is a big risk.
Sharing God’s love is a big risk.
Trusting God is a big risk – for us in our individual lives as Christians – and as a congregation.

However -- not everyone is agreed about what Peter's biggest failure really was.
As you suspect, there are those who consider his biggest mistake was taking his eyes off Jesus.
Peter would still be walking on water, even today, if he hadn’t looked down at those waves.
But other people notice something else about this story.
Just whose idea was it, anyway, to walk on water?
Not something that Jesus suggested to Peter – but something that Peter suggested to Jesus.
It’s as if Peter prayed, “God, I think it would be really cool to walk on water. Can I?”
And Jesus says, “Go ahead, be my guest.” But actually, Peter should have stayed in the boat and left the “walking on water” to Jesus.
Peter should have stayed in the boat, which was headed over to the other side of the lake, to minister to people, to share God’s love, to heal people, to feed people.
Rather than engaging in some sort of death-defying feats, rather than engaging in X-Treme discipleship, Peter should have concentrated on the nitty-gritty of being God’s person in the world, doing the the important things that never get in the newspaper.

What do you think?
What was Peter’s big mistake?
Where we come down might say more about us, than it does about God.

Because, in the end, this story is not so much about Peter’s failure – whatever it might be – as it is about God’s faithfulness.
Whether we fail to keep our eyes on Jesus, whether we fail to take a risk, whether we make a mistake and take the wrong risk, failure is the human condition.
Sometimes we fail to get out of the boat. Sometimes we hear God wrong and end up praying, “Lord save me!” because we have gotten in over our heads, made the wrong decision.

When we follow God, even when we are on the right track, even when jumping out of the plane is the exactly right thing to do
– even then –
we don’t do everything perfectly and we need to be picked up, set right, again and again.

What is constant in this story is the promise the runs through all of Matthew’s gospel
– the promise that “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
What is constant is the hand of Jesus, reaching down to Peter.
What is constant is the voice of Jesus, calling to us, “Fear not, it is I!”
What is constant is the presence of Jesus – in our successes, and in our failures, when we walk on water, when we fall.
What is constant is the body of Jesus, given for you.

We will never hear him perfectly, in this time in our congregation that we are discerning God’s mission for our future.
We will never hear him perfectly, and we will never follow him perfectly – but our failures are not the last word.
Our failures are not the last word. The last word – is the touch of his strong hand.
The last word is the sound of his voice on the waves "It is I."
The last word is his eternal love.

Go ahead, jump.

AMEN

Sunday Sermon: The Right Words

Based on Romans 8:26-39


An old, old story:
It is the night of Passover. A peasant is rushing to finish his work in the fields so that he can attend the holy service. But, alas, the sun drops and it is darkness when no travel is permitted.
The next day the rabbi spots him and asks him where he’s been. “Oh, Rabbi, it was terrible – I was stuck in my fields after dark and had to spend the night there.”
“Well, says the rabbi, “I suppose you at least recited your prayers.”
“That’s the worst of it, Rabbi, I couldn’t remember a single prayer. “Then how did you spend the holy evening?” says the rabbi. “What did you do?”

What do you do?”
That’s the question. What do you do? When you can’t find the right words.... it’s not as easy as it appears.... finding the right words, at the right time.
And sometimes, words disappear at just the moment you need them most.
Perhaps it’s a time of stress or grief.
Just when you are trying to write a card to your friend who was just diagnosed with cancer, you can’t remember or think of a single thing to write that doesn’t sound cheap.
Or perhaps you are standing in front of a family who has just lost a child, and you open your mouth and nothing comes out.
Or perhaps you are trying to express your own pain when darkness or fear descends. The right words, or any words, just won’t come out.
Perhaps at a time of deep joy, as you stand face to face in front of someone who has promised to be with you “in sickness and in health, for richer/for poorer”
or when you have witnessed unexpected abundance, and instead of words there is a lump in your throat.
Perhaps you are one who would really like to get up at a funeral and “say a few words” about your mother or your great-aunt, or your cousin, and you know you just couldn’t.
And you envy those who can.

It’s the same thing with prayer, isn’t it?
I know some people who pray easily, and others who can’t seem to get the words out,
some people who seem to know exactly what to say to God in every situation, and some people who have no idea what might be ‘the right words’.
In front of God they are tongue-tied and mute, like the peasant standing in his fields after dark, unable to say the right words. Or any words.

Paul says that this is actually our natural state before God. We are all actually more like that peasant than we care to admit.
“We do not know how to pray as we ought....” not some of us, not those who are shy, not those who don’t know God, just “we” – “we do not know how to pray as we ought....”.
We don’t know how to pray, and we don’t know what to pray. Not really. Even those of us who are most eloquent when we pray, who always seem to know what to tell God, do not know how to pray as we ought.
And others of us are just honest enough to say – we really don’t know what to pray for.

When your child is ill, when a friends’ marriage is coming apart, when terrorists invade, what do you pray for?
Peace? Revenge? Healing? Comfort?
A new start? Or do you just open your mouth and no words will come out, because we really don’t know how to pray, or what to pray for.
We just know that it’s dark, and we feel alone, and every word seems like a foreign language.

And what does it matter, anyway? Prayer is such an odd activity, speaking to a hidden God.
You know, there are people who don’t pray at all. Not even at meal time.
I remember visiting a couple once, from my church.
And they invited me to pray before our dinner, because, they said. They really don’t.
They really wouldn’t know what to say.
So they don’t.
And why is it so important, anyway?
Isn’t it more important how we live our lives, what we do, how we serve?

Except for two things. If Romans 8 is correct – prayer is at the heart of the gospel, the heart of our relationship with God, the God who longs to be connected with us, who promises us that nothing can separate us from his love.
Prayer is not extra-curricular activity, it is at the heart of the promise of the God to be with us in everything, to be out in the fields after dark, to be standing with us, walking with us in our moments of deep joy, in our times of deep suffering, at all the times when the right words will not come out.
Prayer is God’s promise to hear us, to be with us, to walk with us, to make the words come out right, even when everything is going so wrong.
Prayer is God’s promise to be in the struggle with us, with the marriage that’s going south, with the chronic illness, the grief you feel, the daily joys, the daily sorrows.
Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

Prayer is not extra-curricular activity – and it’s not just prayer that we’re not good at. We also do not know how to live as we ought, not really.
We’re stumbling all the time, you and me, and our lives are sometimes as jumbled and tongue-tied as our prayers.
So, what do you do? What do you do?


What did you do?
The rabbi asked the peasant long ago.
Oh, the peasant said, “I could only recite the alphabet and pray that God would re-arrange the letters.”

“the spirit intercedes for us....” The Spirit takes our jumbled and tongue-tied words, and somehow makes a prayer out of them.
The Spirit takes our tongue-tied lives and somehow makes an offering out of them.
That is what it means to intercede.
To intercede is to give a voice to someone who has no voice, to make a bridge to bring people together who were separate, to make communication possible.
Child advocates speak up for children who are vulnerable, making sure their interests are represented, since they have no vote.
Others advocate for the poor and the homeless, for those who are weak, for those who are abused.

When we pray here in church for our neighbors, we always remember those who are not able to pray themselves, those who are speechless for whatever reasons, sickness or despair, poverty or weakness or ignorance.

We want to give voice to their concerns, to connect them somehow to God who cares for them.

So the Spirit stands with us in our prayers, and in our lives, interceding for us, interpreting our cries, our groans, our laughter, our tears.
So the Spirit stands with us in our lives, as well, in our service, in our struggles, in our confusion, doubt, fear. We’re not alone in life.
God is in it with us.

When you open your mouth to talk to God, about your life, about your family, about your marriage, about the world, and you don’t know what to say; Take courage. You’re not alone.
God is in it with you.
Nothing can separate you from the love of God, not your worry for your children or grandchildren, not your failures or successes at work or at home, not your grieving or your weakness.
Your life might be as jumbled and confusing as your prayers, but God is in it with you.
You’re not alone.
God is in it with you.

Not to make everything perfect, not to fix every mistake, not to make sure your life flows smoothly all the time.

But to get you through. To work through all things. To make your life a prayer, somehow.
God is in it with you.

After all, that is the point.
The point is: nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Not life or death or grief.
Not dangers, toils or snares.
Not groans or sighs.
Whether you are out in the field and the darkness is descending, or out in the world struggling to make sense of your life: you are not alone.
The Spirit intercedes for you.

When the right words won’t come....
The right word is given.
When our sentences trail off, the right word is given to us.
When there is a lump in our throats, the right word rises up.

And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.
Full of grace and truth.
Forever.
AMEN

You Are....a sermon for Easter 5

1 Peter 2:2-10

When I was a little girl, there was a pretty solid line between the kind of toys boys got to play with and the toys girls got
– for example, my brother got trucks – we got dolls – we got the Easy Bake Oven, he got the chemistry set.
But every once in awhile, my brother got something that I kind of envied, that I wished someone had gotten for me, instead.
One of those presents was something called a “Rock Tumbler.”
This was a contraption, or a machine that promised to make plain ordinary stones into beautiful shiny agates.
You just put the rocks into the machine – more than one at a time, of course, and you put in something called “grit”
– and you turned on the machine and the rocks went round and round and when they came out – magic!
– they were changed, they were beautiful, they were something you might want to put on a necklace and hang around on your neck.

“Come to him, a living stone.... and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.....”

So. Last week we were sheep.
This week we are stones. Living stones. That is what you are, according to Peter.
You are.... living stones being built into a spiritual house.... Last week, you were sheep who need a shepherd.
Perhaps you thought it was a little insulting to be called a “sheep” – if you know very much about sheep, it’s not the most flattering comparison, believe me.
Sheep are not the brightest animals, and getting lost, and getting into trouble is something they are very good at.
But consider what it means to be called a stone. A rock, if you will.
What words come to your mind when you think of the word “stone”?
Stones are — inert, they are unmoving.
They are usually quite plain, they are, you might say, personality-less, or boring. That’s what we are called, though. Stones.
Living stones, but still – stones.

So, what does it mean that Peter calls us “stones”?
What is the significance, perhaps?
We might consider a couple of the stories in the Bible where stones figure.
First, there is the story of Jacob in Genesis.
You remember Jacob? Son of Isaac and Rebekah.
Tricked his brother out of his birthright and his blessing.
He’s running away, having tricked his brother Esau. And when he is exhausted and he has to finally sleep, he uses a stone for a pillow.
I can’t imagine anything more uncomfortable, but Jacob is on the run and has to take what he can get. In the night he sees a vision of angels climbing up and down a ladder, and the next morning he’s convinced that “God is in this place, and I didn’t know it.”
He makes an altar right there, and pours oil over the stone, and calls the place “Beth-el.” Which means, “house of God.”
Where those plain old stones are. The house of God.

Or, there’s the story of the Israelites while they are finally getting ready to go over into the promised land.

Each of the twelve tribes is encouraged to find a stone to carry over with them from one side of the Jordan to the other side.
This stone represented something from the past that they would carry with them into their future. Fair enough.
But the stone was something from a very specific past – they were to carry mementos from their forty years of wandering in the wilderness.
The stones weren’t just for fond memories of their successes back in the good old days.
The stones represented how God kept faith with them in the wilderness, even as they were about to cross over into the promised land.

And then finally there is this stone, the stone that the builders rejected – Jesus, the stone that would become the cornerstone of ourfaith.
Come to him who is also a stone – a stone that most people looked at and threw out, a stone that was rejected,
a stone that was considered plain and ordinary and even worthless, maybe even worse than worthless – you know,
as in, “get rid of that stone hanging around your neck – it’s only weighing you down” –


there is the stone who is Jesus, who is, by the way, the cornerstone, the foundation of a new community, a spiritual house.

Last week, you were sheep. This week, You are .... stones, plain old stones.
Plain old stones, but the house of God
Plain old stones, but mementos of God’s presence in the wilderness.
Plain old stones, but being built into a spiritual house.
But not without some rock-tumbling, and some grit.

You are..... You are....
if we’re honest, you hear a lot more different kinds of endings to this sentence, many of them not like Peter’s.
You are.... you are one small person, and what you do will never make a difference.
You are.... you are... consumers, defined by your wants and your desires.
You are .... trying to make it on your own. You are popular, you are not, you are successful, you are not, you are rich, you are poor, you are liberal, you are conservative, you are what you eat.
You are....

We are always being told who we are by someone or another.

But Peter says, you are stones, and you are being built into a spiritual house, a community.
You are stones in that rock tumbler, and you are God’s people, and you are becoming.... beautiful.

You are stones in the rock tumbler, you are the house of God, which means You are.... something else too.
First, you are .... chosen.
I have a bucket of rocks, a few left, I think, from the stones I found for the children’s message.
I picked them up from around the church after it stopped raining yesterday.
And I’ll tell you something, not one of these stones jumped up into my hand by itself.
All of them I chose, I picked up out of the dirt, turned over, washed off.
In the same way, you are chosen by God, picked up, turned over, washed off.

You are also called, you are called by God to a different kind of life.
Because Jesus is our cornerstone, and your life is built around him.

He is not society’s cornerstone, he’s not our culture’s cornerstone.
In fact, he’s been rejected, again and again, by the powers that be: too plain, too humble, too impractical, to merciful.
But he’s our cornerstone and our lives our built around his life.
And so we are chosen and precious, and we are called, called, called to a different kind of life

And you are... you are not alone

Anna Quindlan was asked to speak at a commencement, to give some advice to those who were graduating. Here’s a little about what she said:

“ here's what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life.

Get a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.

Do you think you'd care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights,
a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water gap or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.”
(Source: Commencement address at Villanova University (February 8 1999)

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you.

You know what this reminds me of?
It reminds me of the young woman from our congregation who told me she would rather go on a mission trip to South Dakota than play summer basketball.
It reminds me of the people from this congregation who decided to sponsor refugees, from many different countries;
it reminds me of the people who come out for the funerals of friends, it reminds me of people who have taken time out of their schedules to teach immigrants to read.
It reminds me of people who stick their necks out for people who don’t have a voice.
It reminds me of you, the body of Christ.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love who love you.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is exactly the life we are given in Jesus, our cornerstone.
We are given a life in which we are chosen and precious, in which we are called to live differently, in which we are not alone.
We are the house of God, and surely God is in this place, and we didn’t even know it.
We are the signs of God’s presence in the wilderness, God’s faithfulness in the wildness, on the way to the promised land.

You are.... you are... stones in the rock tumbler, you are the place where God dwells, built around the cornerstone, the one who died, the one who lives.
AMEN

The Woman at the Well, and all That

Maybe it was a wave that started yesterday when I met with seven of the 5th graders who are preparing for first communion.  One of them is also preparing for his baptism.  Two more young people are preparing on their own, as they were out of town this weekend.  They got some materials and started studying on their own.

I walked into worship and saw one of my old worship professors sitting in a pew.  "What are you doing here?" he asked me.  Seriously.  I've been serving here for several years.  He was here to observe our interim organist, who's in a degree program at our local seminary.  All of a sudden I was all in a dither, more nervous than usual, even though I wasn't being observed. 

So, worship today:  I preached.  My sermon title:  "Give me a drink," and how Jesus' request becomes the woman's request, his thirst reveals our thirst.  It's such a great story, and so rich, I wanted to keep the sermon pretty simple.  I hope I succeeded. 

At the second service, I had the children come up and told them about wells and water jugs.  One of my points was that a water jar would have been heavy.  So I had a big pitcher filled with water, and had them try to pick it up.  I myself thought the picture was pretty heavy, but the five year old boy who tried it thought it was not heavy at all.  Oh, well.

I seriously underestimated the time it might take to give every child a small cup of water (after all these years!), but thought at the last minute to just have the people start singing the song, and continue pouring water.

At the second service, I poured water into the baptismal font during the last paragraph of my sermon, while I said,

"If you had known the gift of God, and who it was that was asking you, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water -- gushing up to eternal life, running down over your face, running down into your life.  He is the water that covers us, that gives us life, day after day.  He is the water that refreshes us at the top of the day, that cleanses us, that makes us new.  give us a drink."

During communion at the second service, the congregation sang the chorus "Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord" while our Spirit Singers choir sang the verses.  I can't even describe the sense of well-being I felt from hearing that.

(after worship I bought popcorn from the Boy Scouts, met with a couple preparing for their wedding, visited my mother-in-law in the hospital). 

Taste and see, taste and see the goodness of the Lord

I keep thinking about the people who were there, and the people who were not there.  I know that some people are on spring break, and some people are traveling, and there are many reasons for not being around on one particular Sunday or another.  And I know that some people come to worship and they find it a place where there is bread for the journey, and the water of life, and others think it's boring, or perplexing, or a waste of a perfectly good Sunday morning.  I take that seriously, by the way. 

Sunday Sermon: "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Some of you know that one of the forming experiences of my young adult life was living and working in Japan was I was just out of college. Now there are a number of reasons for this. I had not been really much away from the Midwest or even from Minnesota before that – in fact, I had always lived in about the same place. So, this was a time in my life which seemed like high adventure to me – and that too was different. We were not a family that engaged in high adventure much, or ever, really, and I was not the kind of person to go off and do something impetuous, like learn to hang-glide or climb a mountain or speak in front of people – or get on a plane and go to a foreign country. But most of all, I discovered for the first time what it was like to be different, to look different, to speak a different language, to suspect that I even thought differently than the people around me, and to know that I stuck out, that people would be able to find me in a crowd without much trouble. In other words, I found that I was distinctive, and once I learned a little Japanese, I also discovered that people would ask me a certain question where-ever I went: “What are you doing here?” “What are you doing here?” They wanted to know. Obviously I had come there, or been sent there – for a reason. It was obvious that I didn’t naturally belong there. So “what are you doing here?” they asked.

This last week as I was studying and thinking about the gospel reading from Matthew, part of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, I came across this version, from Eugene Peterson,’s “The Message”:

“Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.  Here’s another way to put it. You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand – shine! Keep open house, be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:13-16.

Let me tell you why you are here – that’s one way to begin our gospel reading for today, answering the question: What are you doing here, the question I got asked all the time when I was overseas, living as a teacher and a missionary in Japan. But I’ll tell you what – something interesting, something kind of funny happened when I got back to the United States. People no longer asked me that question. No one came up to me on the street any more, or stopped me when I was at the grocery store, or when I was in the library, or waiting for the bus, and asked me, “What are you doing here?” I wasn’t distinctive, I didn’t stick out. I fit in. I knew the language, the customs, the people. And in a way, that affected me just as much – no, even more – than when people started asking me in the first place.

According to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, this question, “What are you doing here?” is one of the basic questions of our lives. And also according to Matthew, here is the answer to the question: “YOU are the salt of the earth. YOU are the light of the world.” That’s who you are and that’s why you are here, as well, to be salt and to be light. That’s why as well you each got a tiny candle and a tiny packet of salt to take home with you today – so that you can remember who you are and what you are here for.

But wait a minute – just want does it mean to say that we – disciples of Jesus – that we are salt, that we are light? After all, these are metaphors, we aren’t literally that white stuff that comes out of the box and that we shake out on our food (though not too much these days!), on our sidewalks, in the water that we gargle “for medicinal purposes.” In a Bible study last Wednesday it wasn’t too difficult to come up with a few things about salt that we thought might be important. Salt, like water and bread and wine, for example, is pretty common, not exotic. In the old days, back before refrigeration it was used to preserve food, so that it would keep longer. Salt makes food tastier, and in fact, brings out the flavors in food as well. And even though salt can sting us, it is also used in healing.

At bottom though: salt is necessary for life. We can’t live without it. We may worry about having too much, some of us – but we have to have salt in our lives. Jesus is saying that we are like that. We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world, showing forth the truth of God’s love and mercy – showing forth the truth of God’s justice, showing the power of the love of God in our lives – the power of the one who went to the cross for us.

I read a story in the paper yesterday (this morning) which is really a story about being salt and light. It’s a story about a couple from Winnipeg who were driving back from a bicycle event they had gone to in Arizona and thought they could make it to North Dakota when they were suddenly and it seemed without warning trapped in a blizzard. They couldn’t see anything and finally had to pull over and stop by the side of the road. They thought they were prepared for everything, but as they ran out of gas and were starting to get cold, they began to worry. At some point a trucker also pulled over, concerned about the snow drifts and afraid that he might rear-end someone. As he looked around the road, he saw a little light flickering. It was the light in the car of the couple from Winnipeg, part of their “winter survival kit.”

When I first read this story – I thought it was about the light. The small light they carried that saved their lives, that signaled their presence to the trucker. But really the salt and the light in this story is the trucker – he saw the little light, and he put on his snowmobile suit, and he got out of his truck and he went to the stranded car where the couple was shivering and desperate. He invited them to stay in his truck, where he gave them coffee and a place to sleep. He literally saved their lives. He was light and he was salt for them.

But you know what? He had to get out of his truck to do that.  Jesus says to his disciples, “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” You bring necessary gifts: healing, flavor, preservation, love – to this world. You do. But you know what? You have to get out of the truck to do that. You need to be out into the world that God loves to do that.You might at a nursing home, sharing communion with a shut-in, or in a school, helping a child to read, or at the State Capitol, advocating for funds for Domestic abuse victims, or in a warehouse in Chanhassen, packing food to send to Haiti – or in any number of places, but the truth is, we are the salt of the earth, and we are the light of the world. If you are wondering who you are and why you are here, the answer is so so clear, we are here to be salt and light, or, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “to share our bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into our house, and to let the oppressed go free.” And if our worship here does not remind us about this, our basic identity, every week, it doesn’t matter how well we sing or how well we pray.

When we gather here every week – the main thing that we need to go out knowing is that we are marked with the cross of Christ, that we are children of God, where-ever we go.

Salt and light. Please remember, brothers and sisters – the scripture doesn’t say “You should be salt, you should be light.” That’s not who you should be. It’s who you are. This is your basic, identity, and it’s a gift. The world tries to tell us who were are in many ways: the world tells us that we are “just one person”, and that “there’s nothing we can do.” But God says: “You are salt, and you are light.” You are distinctive.
By the cross, God has claimed you, and healed you, and preserved you, and called you. Even in your one, small life, you bring healing, you bring life. You are marked by the cross, sealed by the spirit. Forever.

The same is true of our congregation. The same question applies to us. Who are we?  What are we doing here?  We are salt and light, in our community for good. We are marked by the cross of Christ, and our calling is to give ourselves away for the sake of the world, for the sake of our community. So that they know who our God is, our God who is at work in the world and even in our lives.

Who are you? What are you doing here?
Maybe one of these days, people will turn around and ask us those questions.

When they do, we will be doubly blessed.
“Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good work and glorify your father in heaven.”

AMEN

Sermon, part 2

(see previous post, but not if you are coming to church tomorrow)

But maybe, just maybe, we are focusing on the wrong thing. Think about this – Jesus called to the four fishermen – and here’s the thing – they were four ordinary people, doing their ordinary daily work, and it was an ordinary day. In other words, in many ways they were just like you and me. They weren’t famous, they weren’t especially educated for this line of work, and by the way, it wasn’t Sunday and they weren’t even in church. They were just going about their daily lives and Jesus met them and called them. Think about that.

You know, most of the time when I ask young people, “where do you see Jesus?” or “where do you meet Jesus?” they usually say, “when I go to church.” And certainly there is nothing wrong with this answer; I want people to come to church, to gather and worship and to know that something special is happening when we are here, praying and singing and hearing God’s word together. But it makes me a little sad to think that they don’t realize that church is not the only – or even the main – place that Jesus meets them, that Jesus calls to them. I hope people come to church to be reminded that God comes to them in many different places in their lives, and calls to them in many different parts of their lives.


Just as Jesus called to Peter and Andrew, James and John while they were fishing, Jesus calls to us in the middle of our ordinary lives, when we are standing in line at the grocery store, when we are helping customers,when we are taking care of our grandchildren, when we are listening to heartbeats or helping children learn to read, when we are comforting a friend, when we are making change, or making coffee.... and Jesus calls to us in those ordinary activities, to “follow me.”

It’s not so much that Jesus asks us to live different lives, but to live our ordinary lives in a different way, by the light that he shares with us. It’s possible that Jesus will call us to follow him to Haiti, but it’s just as possible that Jesus with call us to follow him – right where we are – doing the same work, with the same family, but living by the light of his love. If we are fishermen, our tool might be a wide strong net; if a doctor or a nurse, our tool a stethoscope or a thermometer; if a sales clerk, our best tool might be a smile. But the call is the same, and it comes to us where-ever we are, and all the time, “follow me. Be my person in the world. There is so much darkness in the world. Make my love real to people.”

That’s what I was supposed to that dark cold winter morning, when I was went to the Denver City and County Jail. So, nervous and unsure, I clutched those index cards and I went into the large room where they would soon be serving breakfast. We set up the sound equipment and the men shuffled in. Some of them carried Bibles, tattered New Testaments, the King James version. The songs began. I sang along. We all stood for the reading of the Holy Gospel.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” I began. “On those who lived in a land of deep darkness, light has shined.” What does this mean? I asked questions, wondering if anyone would respond, and what they would say.

When did this happen in Jesus ministry? Near the end? In the middle? No, in the beginning, someone answered. After when? After his baptism and his temptation in the desert. Right after Jesus’ temptation, he went out and began to preach, and began to gather disciples.What about those strange words – the prophecy about the great light, the light which has dawned? “That’s Jesus,” they said.

“Jesus is the light.” What does that mean, that Jesus is the light? “It means that you can trust Jesus. He’ll be straight with you. He won’t ever lie to you.

So we continued through the passage, reading together, talking about Jesus, the light in our darkness, the dawn in our night. I wondered aloud about the calling of the disciples. I wondered about how it must have felt to hear Jesus call “Follow me!” and about that strange word “immediately. They dropped their nets immediately. That must have been difficult. Do you think it was difficult?

“No, was the surprising response. “Why not?

Because Jesus is the light. You can trust Jesus. Jesus won’t ever lie to you. Everyone else will lie to you, but Jesus will never lie. If it was anyone else, it would be difficult. But not if it was Jesus. You can trust Jesus. Jesus is the light.

Now it was time for my sermon to end. But I hadn’t figured out the ending. So I began to say, a little softly, “You know, I believe that Jesus is still calling people today.”

Then a man in the back row stood up. “You know ma’am,” he said in a big booming voice, “considering where we all are, I bet he’s knocking on the door of our hearts right now.”

It’s still true – not just at the Denver City and County Jail and not just here in the his sanctuary – but out in the world, and in our daily lives – Jesus is still the light and he is still calling people today, calling people to follow him into the world, in their ordinary lives, to make his love real where-ever they are. Jesus is still the light and he calls you not to live a different life, but to live your life differently, by the light of his love. Jesus says, “follow me.” No matter who you are. No matter where you are.

I believe that Jesus is still calling people today.And considering where we all are, I bet he’s knocking on the door of our hearts right now.

AMEN

"Baby Watch": a sermon for Advent 4

For the past couple of months, I’ve been engaging in a sort of unusual activity for me – but one somewhat appropriate to the season, anyway.
I’ve been waiting for some babies to be born – three to be specific.
I was told, earlier this year, that three young women from our congregation were going to have babies.
Coincidentally, all three of them were due at just this time of the year.
One of them, in fact, was supposed to have her baby on Christmas Day.
(By the way, she had her baby just this past week.)
I was especially interested because I was the officiating pastor at all three of their weddings, and – let’s be frank,
I was also interested because of the timing: Christmas! – what a great time for a baby watch!


I remember 18 years ago when my niece was born on December 23, two days before Christmas.
I remember visiting her in the hospital almost right after she was born, and how she came home on Christmas Eve, a tiny tiny baby who fit in the crook of our arms.
Both parents got violently ill during the holidays, so the rest of the family took turns caring for her, holding her, watching over her.
It gave new meaning to the word “baby watch” for us.

But I digress – for the words “baby watch” usually refer to the watching and waiting before a baby is born, which is our situation right now, a few days before Christmas.
We are watching and waiting for a baby to be born, aware both of how much there is to do before Christmas, and how much is out of our control.
It seems that before a baby is born there is so much to get ready – there are all the ways that we prepare for the coming of a new baby into our lives, our homes, our hearts.
There are cribs and diapers and clothes to buy, there are books on parenting to read, there are parties to attend.
And there are so many things that, no matter how much we prepare, we are never ready for, and we can’t control.
Two out of three of those babies that I have been waiting for have now been born – and I am mightily resisting calling up the third prospective mother and asking parents grow to hate, “Well? Have you had that baby yet?”
In fact, Once a mother-to-be with a good sense of humor referred all of her well-meaning “baby watchers” to a web site: “www.haveyouhadthatbabyyet.com.”
Just so you know, the answer is always, “Nope.”

It is the 4th Sunday in Advent – just a few days before Christmas, and here were are, on a different kind of “baby watch.”
But I can’t help thinking that there are some similarities between waiting for a baby to be born and waiting for Christmas to come.
There is the same watching and waiting, there are the hopes and joys of anticipating new life and promise – and there are the worries about whether we will be ‘ready’ as well.
I remember one year one of our worship coordinators was lighting the 4th candle on the advent
wreath, and telling me a secret story before the services.
She said, “You know how there are four candles on the advent wreath and they have names?”
“Yes,” I said. “And sometimes the names are: “Hope” or ‘Joy” or “peace”? Yes, I said.
“Well, there’s another name for the 4th Sunday in Advent. It’s called ‘panic Sunday.’”
We both had a good laugh about that, how as Christmas comes near, the time is shorter and the list is longer, and – sometimes a sense of panic does set in.

Will we be ready? Will we have a ‘good and meaningful Christmas?”
will we get the right presents? But ready or not, Christmas always comes.
Ready or not, God comes down ... the child in the manger.


It is the 4th Sunday of Advent now, Both our Old Testament and our Gospel reading are about a certain kind of “baby watch”
– although there is a different slant in each case. The prophet Isaiah speaks to a king and tells him that God will give him a sign.
The prophet actually is inviting the king to trust God – to trust God as he is in a spot, threatened by invading armies.
But this particular king isn’t interested in signs, or in trusting God.
He already knows what he wants to do.
The prophet gives him a sign anyway: “The young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”
And the meaning of the sign, “God is with us.” God goes ahead and gives the sign anyway.

In our gospel reading from Matthew Joseph has received unexpected news.
And at first, the news is not altogether pleasant either. Joseph is reminded of that promise long ago – and still good -- “A baby will be a sign.”
Mary is on a “baby watch” – and he does not know what to make of it. Poor Joseph.
This is not what he expected.
This is not what he had hoped.
But he is a compassionate man. To his credit, he doesn’t even consider calling her out and letting her be stoned by the community, which he could do, within the law. Instead, he decides to ‘divorce her quietly.’
Then he gets the message about the baby. The baby is a sign – an unexpected and not entirely welcome sign from God – “God is with us.”
He is to trust God and take Mary for his wife.

And he does.
He takes Mary for his wife, not knowing what it will mean for them, for him, for their lives, simply trusting God’s promise: “God is with us.”

You know, we don’t know very much about Joseph.
We know that he is descended from King David. We know that he worked as a carpenter, so he was a poor man.
We know that at least twice, in dreams, he heard God’s call.
And we know that he was a righteous man.
He took Mary for his wife, even though it might mean that other people would think he was a fool, that he had been taken advantage of.  He took Mary for his wife, despite his fears, his misgivings, his own hopes and disappointments.
And he trusted God’s promise, “God is with us.” –

“Baby watch.” As Christmas draws nearer, it is good to remember that we are on a
‘Baby watch’ – watching and waiting and preparing for the child who changes our lives.
“God is with us” – that is the meaning of the sign.
But it is good to remember as well that this is an unexpected sign – Joseph did not expect God’s promise to be fulfilled in this way.
Jesus is an unexpected blessing, and like every baby, his coming will change our lives.

Anna Quindlen wrote a book several years ago called, simply, “Blessings.”
The central character is a young man who lives in a little apartment and works for a wealthy family.
Late one night, a newborn infant is placed on this young man’s doorstep.
Though he knows nothing about caring for babies, he takes this newborn into his life – and as you might imagine
– it turns his whole life inside out and upside down.
Suddenly his life has a new center and he has as new purpose for living.
There are many complications in his life because of this unexpected gift.
For one thing, he tries to keep the baby secret for a long time, which is not an easy task.
There are many twists and turns, but it is a fact that this baby changes his life, changes his life direction.

And friends, as Christmas approaches, it is the same with us.
The coming of this little one we are watching for – changes our life.
The coming of this long-expected unexpected one changes us.
He doesn’t make our lives less complicated.
He doesn’t make our lives trouble-free.
He doesn’t make us prosperous or “rich” in the eyes of the world.
In fact he turns our lives inside out and upside down.

For he changes the focus in our life.
It’s just like the pictures I’ve seen of one of the families with their new baby – everyone is looking at the baby – they have fallen head over heels in love.
Suddenly the focus of our life is not ourselves – but the little one
the focus of our life is not ourselves but the Little One
The one who came unexpected into our lives

God with us
not just in our joys but in our sorrows, not just in celebration but in grief and loneliness
God with us
the great God of heaven and earth
who became little for our sake
Who loved us so much
who loves us so much
is willing to live in this complicated, cold, lonely world with us.
To live with us, to die for us, to live in us.

“Baby watch.”

AMEN

Sunday Sermon: "A Different Kind of King"

A couple of years ago on this day – Christ the King Sunday – the end of the church year – I had the children’s sermon.
I had some of the children come up, and I asked them to think about what they knew about kings.
What do kings look like?
What would a king have?
Kings rule, so they thought first of all, that kings must have a kind of a staff for ruling, called a scepter.
So we got out a scepter, and we had someone carry it.
Then they thought they had seen pictures of kings that were wearing beautiful, and plush robes.
So, of course, we had to get out a robe of our own, and have someone wear that as well.
Finally, we thought that kings should have crowns.
Luckily, we also had a crown available, and we had someone put that on, too.
Then we had a real king standing in front of us! All dressed up and ready to lead his people.
What a good way to begin Christ the King Sunday!

Except for two things: That king didn’t remind us very much of Jesus.
And of course, we had to admit, no one had seen anyone dressed up like that lately, with a robe, and a scepter and a crown.

The main problem with this day – “Christ the King” – is really that we don’t have that much experience with kings
– real kings, that is.
There are a few modern kings, we may know about them vaguely – except in the case of one (possible) king – Prince William, who has recently gotten engaged, I hear, and who will someday be King of England.
I think he will wear the robe and crown and scepter then, but only on special occasions.
So what does it mean for us to say that Jesus is a king, that he reigns in our lives, or in the world?
What difference does it make?
We could try being more modern by trying to say “Christ the President”
– but  as soon as I say it, you know that wouldn’t be right.

Of course, there was a time long ago when everyone had kings.
All the best countries had kings, which was why Israel – God’s people – wanted one too.
They wanted a king, just like all the other nations!
The wanted a king, because having a king meant that you were and Important Nation.
Kings provided security for the people.
Kings fought battles (although they were usually the ones giving the orders, not the ones fighting and dying).
Kings made decisions.
Kings made you important. Kings were powerful.

And then you have Jesus.
We say he is a King.
We believe that he reigns.
But if you really pay attention, you will see that he’s a different kind of king
– a different kind of king than the modern figureheads we know
– a different kind of king than the those in ancient times
He doesn’t wear a robe, or a crown, or have a scepter in the Bible stories – except when people are making fun of him.
He says impractical things like “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.”
He does provide a certain kind of security, but not the kind we usually think of, or prize.
He provides the security of knowing that our lives are in God’s hands, but not the security of knowing that we will win every battle.
And of course, if it’s a feeling of Being Important that you want, you might want to check out Jesus, down on his knees, washing his disciples feet.
Doing the dirty work.

So today – on this last Sunday of the church year – and on the Sunday when we are also going to have our annual meeting
We have the story of Jesus on the cross, between two thieves.
People are calling him a king, but they’re making fun of him.
Except for one person, and I think this is really remarkable.


There is one person who recognizes that Jesus is a king, a different kind of king and who wants to live in his kingdom.
It’s that second thief.
He says to Jesus, the king hanging on the cross,
“Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.”
He says to Jesus, “When you are king, and where you reign – that’s where I want to be.”
I wonder why. Why does he say, “Jesus, remember me...”

I can’t help wondering if it’s because he heard Jesus’ other words from the cross, those other strange, unusual words Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus said these words to the soldiers who were crucifying him.
“Father forgive them, forgive them.... for they don’t know.”
To be forgiven, to forgive – is not so common in this world.
It’s more common to hold grudges, to keep score, to get even.
A friend of mine told me long ago, “I’ll forgive someone once, but after that... forget it.”
Right?

But what would a world (a kingdom) be like where forgiveness was abundant, where mercy ruled, where kings washed feet, where the hungry were fed, where captives were set free?
What would the world be like?
No wonder he said, “Jesus remember me,”

“Jesus, remember me.” Can this be our prayer too, on Christ the King Sunday? “Jesus remember us, because we have tried to manage the world and our lives and most of the time, we just made a bigger mess. But Jesus, remember us.
Remember us when we die, and remember us right now, in the middle of our messed up lives. Help us to see your kingdom, among us.
Help us to love our enemies, and our neighbors, and to be your people
Even – especially – in the middle of our annual meeting, because we want to be your people, your disciples.
Jesus, remember us, when you come into your kingdom.

One Sunday I told the children, “Jesus was a king.”
But then I asked them: did he have a crown?” “No!” They answered. “Did Jesus have a robe?” No! They answered.
Did Jesus have a scepter? “No!” they answered.

What did Jesus have? I asked.

“Love,” one child answered.

I was going to say a cross.

But I liked their answer, better.

AMEN

"To Be Blessed" -- All Saints' Sermon

I have only ever known one person named “Beatta.” – have you?
It’s sort of an old-fashioned name, but unlike some of the old-fashioned names, it’s not experiencing a great come-back of popularity.
I know quite a few “Emmas” these days, and all of them are little girls, but before that the only “Emma” I knew was my grandmother “Emma.”
But Beatta – I haven’t heard so much
– and this particular “Beatta” was an older woman at one of my churches, a woman that I went to visit, and to give communion often.
And, I’m not proud to admit, either, that it took me awhile before I realized the significance of her name – what “Beatta” means.

Beatta means “Blessed.” So this woman was named “Blessed,” which I think is very wonderful thing to call a child. “Blessed.”
But of course, this also got me to thinking about two things this week and one is our gospel reading, Luke’s version of the Beatitudes.
“Blessed are you poor. Blessed are you who are weeping, blessed are you who are hungry.”
Beata.
Then again I also considered the day – All Saints Sunday – and I realized that the word “Beata” also means to be a saint.
So today we gather to hear Jesus words of blessing to us, and to hear the names of the saints, the blessed ones, from among us who have died.

But Jesus’ words to us today, on All Saints Sunday, are not just comforting, are they?
They are also challenging.
Jesus blesses the poor, but then he goes on to say, “Woe to you who are rich. Woe to you who are laughing. Woe to you who are full.”
What could he possibly mean?
Jesus gives a promise, a blessing to the down and out, to the poor, to the suffering – but why does he say those words of woe?

It’s tempting to read the beatitudes, and to consider them as a job description, or a litmus test, for saints.
If you want to be a saint, here’s what to do, and here’s what not to do
– just like in our world today, there is certainly no lack of advise for those who want to be rich, for those who want to be successful, for those who want to be happy.
“Here is what you should do,” the lists say. “Here is what a successful, happy, prosperous person looks like.”
And certainly, read this way, the Blessings and Woes of Jesus can’t be anything but puzzling.
And I can tell you this as well: based on these particular blessings, there would be very few people standing in line to be saints.
Blessed are you when people persecute you and speak falsely about you. What’s going on here?

But what if Jesus is doing something much different in his sermon?
What if he is not saying, “this is a job description for saints,”
but instead what if he is assuring people that their status before God is not based on appearances, not based on what their life looks like right now, whether good or bad.
So, if you are mourning, if you are hungry, if you are poor, that is not the final verdict that God is against you.
And if you are rich, if you are doing well right now – that is also not the final verdict of your status before God.
In Jesus’ day it would have been assumed that if someone was rich, they were blessed by God, they were righteous.
If someone was not, that was evidence that they did not have God’s favor.
In other words, you could tell by looking at someone, you could tell by looking at someone’s life whether they were righteous, whether they were “blessed,” whether they were saints, or not.

A colleague of mine recently told me that one of his parish members invited him to go a rally with him.
The rally featured a very famous preacher who I won’t name, but who says, among other things,
that if we are in God’s favor, we WILL have material abundance.
So my colleague went to the rally.
Afterwards, the man from his parish looked at him and said,
“Well, God must really hate me, because my business went bankrupt and my daughter died.”.

And Jesus looks straight into the eyes of this man, and every one of us who grieves,
every one of us who struggles,
every one of us who is down and out, every one of us who is weak,
everyone who has nowhere else to go and says, “Blessed are you... blessed are you....”
do not judge by what you see.
Judge by my word, my promises to you. Do not judge by your failure, and don’t judge by your success either.
“Blessed are you....not because you are happy now, or just because your circumstances happen to be good.
That is temporary.
Know that you are blessed because God has claimed you and holds your life, and has called you by name.
“Blessed are you....”

Recently I heard a story about Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador.
On All Saints Day they too had the tradition of naming those in their community who had died during the past year.
They named both those who had died, and also they started to name those who had disappeared, the people whose fate they didn’t know.
And they had one more tradition: After each name was spoken, the community would say, “Presente.” “Present.”
We do not see them, but we believe that they are present among us, we are united in the Love of Christ.
We do not see them, but we trust and believe that we are united by God’s promise to us.
We cannot see it, but we believe that they are now worshiping at the throne of the Lamb of God, just as we are worshiping here this morning.
And we cannot see it, but we trust and believe that we too are called “blessed,” called “saints”– for Jesus’ sake called righteous
– and that someday we will worship together in the new world that God is creating
– the new world where the poor will have enough, and the hungry will be filled, and where the grieving will laugh, because we will be reunited, and we will see the faces of those we name today
– and we will see our Savior’s face.

“Nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ,” Paul writes in Romans 8.
Not life or death, not powers nor principalities, not poverty or hunger.
Nothing can separate us.


We are called blessed – and our faith is not based on something we can see, but on God’s word, God’s promise to us.
You can’t tell if someone is a “saint” or not by looking at them.
Only God knows, and our God is merciful.
Some of the saints we name today are well known to us, and some of the saints are not as well known,
but we place all of them in God’s hand, trusting his word, the mystery of his love.

I want to tell you a little more about Beatta, the blessed one, the saint that I used to visit.
She lived with her elderly father, and they took care of each other.
I’m not sure though, who took care of whom. She had a chronic disease, and he needed to care for her as much as she needed to take care of him.
She had never married, never had children, and I’m not sure that she ever held down a job.
So many of the things that we consider are a part of a “blessed” life, she never had.

And yet she was called, “Beatta”: “blessed.” St. Beatta.
And so she was blessed, not because of any specific accomplishment in her life, but simply because her parents named her, and loved her and believed in her.
And, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is the same with us.
Blessed are you who are poor, who trust not what you see, but the promise of Christ, the riches of Christ, the love of Christ – for now and for eternity.

AMEN

Sunday Sermon: Joy in Heaven

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Luke 15:1-10
16 Pentecost Year C
‘Joy in Heaven, Joy on Earth’

How do you know when you’re lost?
Our gospel reading today has got me pondering this question. ‘How do you know if you’re lost?

Perhaps the first picture I get in my mind now whenever I read these parables
– about lost sheep and lost coins – is from my first church.
The picture is a small flock of sheep — in the church parking lot of one of my churches.
And it wasn’t one of the country churches, but the ‘town’ church.
I remember that it was a Friday morning, which was not a very busy morning at the church.
I had been in the office for about an hour, and was getting ready to leave to go to a Pastor’s Bible study.
As soon as I stepped out the door, I saw them, standing in the parking lot, looking bewildered.
Or maybe they didn’t look bewildered.
Maybe that expression is just the way sheep ALWAYS look.
And looking back after all these years, I wonder if they really even knew that they were lost.

So, the question again: how do you know if you’re lost?
The parables we have before us today are about lost sheep and lost coins
– how do you know if you’re lost?

Sometimes I think it’s fear that clues us in: we’re driving down the highway and we take a turn
– and suddenly we do not recognize the landscape.
 And a feeling of fear grips us.
Or you are in a department store with your mom and you’re looking at toys very very intently, and when you look up, your mom is gone.
Fear.
Or, you watch two planes slam into the tallest buildings in New York City. Fear.
What’s going on? What’s going to become of us? Are we lost?
Sometimes, not always, a feeling of fear can be a big clue that we are lost.
And that fear can lead us down some dark pathways: pathways of hate and intolerance and hard-heartedness.

Sometimes it’s loneliness – a feeling of being alone.
I remember the first time I drove through the badlands – I was driving with my family, and looking around at all of the beautiful scenery,
and I thought that if I was driving through here all alone, without all of the signs of civilization, without all the other people in the car with me,
I would not feel so much like it was beautiful.
There’s something about being alone that can make us feel lost – like the child I mentioned earlier at the department store.
She’s in the same spot, looking at the same toys as a moment ago, but something has changed. Suddenly she is alone.
And lost.

Sometimes it’s hopelessness that makes us feel lost.
There are so many reasons people feel hopeless – by which I mean, that they do not think they have a future
– if you are trapped in poverty, if you can’t get work, if you have a sense that you are not worth anything to anyone.
If you are surrounded by ugliness and not by beauty, it’s easy to feel hopeless about the present and the future.
If you are walled out of opportunity, walled out of prosperity, it’s easy to feel hopeless – and lost.

How do you know if you are lost?

The intriguing, and really amazing thing about the two parables, two very familiar parables we have before us today
is that they invite us to look at the experience of being lost from God’s point of view.
Not from our point of view (how do you know if you’re lost?)
But from God’s point of view.
We don’t know anything about how the sheep feels, right?
And lost coins, as far as I know, don’t have feelings.
But in the parable we get a glimpse of God, a wealthy shepherd with 100 sheep – by the way a huge number, four times larger than a normal flock in those days
– or a poor woman, with just ten coins – a day’s wage – to her name.
We’re invited to see how God the wealthy shepherd leaves the 99 to go in search of just one sheep.
And not only that – look very closely – leaves the 99 sheep not safely in the pen, but out in the wilderness!
Jesus begins the parable by saying, “Which one of you would not....”
but the truth is, no one would be foolhardy enough to leave most of his sheep in danger to go after one stupid sheep who had wandered off!
No one but God, who cares so much about one lost sheep, so foolishly about one sinner.
Or take a look at the poor woman, with ten coins, who loses one.
You can understand, perhaps, if you just have a little, why she would sweep and sweep, and look under the sofa cushion, and not give up until she has ten coins again.
It is her whole living.
She cannot get by without the one.
But then, read on: after she finds her coins, she invites her friends over and has a party!
She blows her whole living celebrating! “Which one of you would not spend all you have...?”
Well, maybe you wouldn’t.
But God would, God would risk everything, would give up everything to find you, and God would risk everything to celebrate your return.
“And there is joy in heaven... there is joy in heaven... whenever one lost sheep is found, whenever one sinner, one sinner is found...”
One sinner – one stupid sheep, one outcast, one hopeless, one despised person... from God’s perspective.... is beloved....

How do you know you are lost?

When I was a little girl, I loved to write: stories, poems, one act plays, everything.
I think I learned to write stories almost as soon as I learned to write.
But here’s another thing I would do periodically, I would re-read what I had written earlier, and I would be so embarrassed, so ashamed, because I would suddenly understand that it wasn’t very good.
And I would throw all of those stories, all of that poetry, all of those plays, into the wastebasket. It would go into the trash.
So periodically I got rid of everything I had written before, everything I now understood to be worthless junk.

Some years ago, I was rooting around in a closet somewhere, and I came across a box, a box I didn’t know about.
It was in my parents’ house, among my mother’s things.
When I opened the box I discovered many of those stories, poems, plays that I had thrown away – that my mother had taken out of the trash and saved them all.
It was a rare occurrence – I was looking at myself from my mother’s perspective – and I realized that she saved those writings not because they were so much better than I thought
– but because she loved me.
I looked at myself from my mother’s perspective – and realized that she loved me more than I imagined, more than I thought.
There was rejoicing, Rejoicing in heaven, rejoicing on earth.
My mother rejoiced in me, her child.

Today we are invited to look at ourselves from God’s perspective rather than our own.
Today we are invited to hear the sounds of rejoicing in heaven, to know a God who saves our trash, who seeks out lost sheep, who sweeps the whole house and spends everything to find us.
Today we are invited to hear the sounds of rejoicing in heaven over us – and over the whole world that God loves.
We’re invited to see that God loves children, adults, the shunned and the self-righteous, the haters and the hated, Lutherans, Muslims  – all this blessed lost world.
And we’re invited to rejoice as well – to sing our hearts out, to open our arms wide, and to look at the world, ourselves, from God’s perspective.

How do you know when you’re lost?
Brothers and sisters – sometimes I think we only really know we’ve been lost when God puts us on his shoulders,
when God lifts us up in her hands,
when God opens his arms to us in love.
We know that we’re lost every time God finds us, every time God finds us, however we are lost -- whether we are lost in our fear, or lost in our hopelessness, or lost in our hate.
Then hate turns into love and fear turns into hope and loneliness is swept up in community.
And there is rejoicing in heaven. And rejoicing on earth

AMEN

Creative and Redeeming

(such as it is)
(I want to give credit to David Lose of workingpreacher for some of these ideas.)

I love baptisms. I just want you to know this, and I hope you do too (love baptisms).
I love baptisms, and just the other day I was saying that I felt that a baptism was a visual sermon – why do I even preach when there’s a baptism?
There’s so much truth right there in front of us – first there is the person being baptized, a baby, or a child, or an adolescent, or an adult
– it could be anyone.
But whoever that is, whatever age, whatever we know or don’t know about them – that person is receiving something from God – promises of God’s eternal life, promises of God’s commitment.
I love baptisms! – that sense of receiving a totally free, unearned gift from God that I see whenever I witness or perform a baptism.
(I riff on a few memorable baptisms here.)
Then there is the part where we make the sign of the cross on so many foreheads and say, “You are marked by the cross of Christ forever.”
The person receives a candle and is told to “Let your light so shine....”
And then we welcome the person into our fellowship and say:

“We welcome you into the body of Christ and into the mission we share: join us in giving thanks and praise to God and bearing God’s creative and redeeming word to all the world.”

Creative and redeeming: those two words describe the mission of God.
God has a mission in the world, and everyone whose is baptized receives both a promise and a mission
– to bear God’s creative and redeeming word to the world.
I love baptisms.
So much a visual sign of God’s grace and unearned love.
So much a sign of our mission in the world – sharing the light, bearing the cross.

What? You might say.
What does baptism have to do with bearing the cross?
To be more specific, what does baptism have to do our gospel reading from Luke today?

Today’s gospel seems to be the opposite of unearned love and grace.
These words warn of the cost of discipleship, what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Jesus tells his followers that they must pick up their cross and follow him, which, believe me, is not a walk in the park, not a piece of cake, not like rolling off a log.
Being a follower of Jesus is not easy.
Bearing God’s creative and redeeming word to the world is not easy, or at least – it’s not always easy.

We might even ask that very Lutheran question: “What does this mean?”
Or, what does taking up our cross have to do with me, with my life?
What does taking up the cross having to do with the things I do every day,
like mowing the lawn and going to the state fair and going to work, or looking for work, or taking care of my children or my grandchildren?
What does taking up my cross have to do with that? What does taking up my cross have to do with most of the things that I do in my life?

I’ll be honest, I think we’ve been taught to hear this reading in a particular light.

We’ve been trained to think that when Jesus talks about “taking up the cross”, he’s referring to some major spiritual suffering or endurance test.
We’ve been trained to think of mostly pretty well-known people, who rose to the occasion in a time of crisis:
people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Corrie ten Boom, who, in one way or another, went up against the Nazis.
And we’ve been trained, I think, to consider “taking up the cross” as only in explicitly religious terms: what we do on behalf of the faith.
But, what if it’s simpler than that?
What if it’s more ordinary?
As one biblical scholar has put it: “Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships.
It is instead what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ.”

Think about that: taking up a cross is what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ.
And what if that includes – well – everything?
Yes, teaching Sunday School and helping with confirmation and taking communion to shut-ins and counting the offering,

but also – being an accountant, a teacher, a doctor, a machinist, a clerk.
Or changing diapers, mowing the lawn, voting, advocating, supporting international adoptions, volunteering, driving a bus.
Whenever we allow the whole of our lives to be shaped by our commitment to Christ – we are bearing the cross.
Mowing the lawn is God’s work – because it’s God’s lawn, after all.
Caring for your children is God’s work – they are God’s children, entrusted to us for awhile.
Someone I know is donating his kidney to someone else – except that he said, “Well, actually, it’s God’s kidney, I’ve just been using it for awhile.”

I consider all the people I know here, and the different things I know that they do, ordinary, extraordinary things “for the sake of Christ.”
One person I know speaks on behalf of cancer research, particularly childhood cancer; another assists with the youngest children in the Richfield Public School system.
Another person helps people with speech difficulties after a stroke; another delivers packages, and yet another works in public safety.


A young man from this congregation has completed basic training and has become a sort of informal chaplain in his unit.
I have to say that I had no idea when he was in confirmation, but God works in mysterious ways.
Everything we do, even the most difficult – maybe especially the most difficult – work that we do, we are invited to do for the sake of Christ, out of commitment to Christ.
For God cares about our immortal souls, and God cares about our daily lives, and the daily lives of our neighbors.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son.... to die for us...
and for God so loved the world that he wanted some of us to be teachers, and some of us to be machinists, and some of us to be parents, and some of us to be nurses, and some of us to be police officers, and some of us to go into the Peace Corp, all for the sake of Christ.

Knowing this, of course, doesn’t make life easier. When we are baptized, whenever that is, we are marked by the cross of Christ – and that means a least two things.
It means that we receive God’s promise of life, forgiveness, love and care for our whole lives.

We are marked by the cross of Christ, one of God’s beloved children, an heir of all of God’s gifts.
But we are marked by the cross and that means that we are God’s person, God’s representative, doing God’s work where-ever we go
– and some of God’s work is a pleasure to do, and some of God’s work is hard, and sometimes God’s work takes courage.
Just ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Or Corrie ten Boom. Or any parent, at one time another.
Or ask a sales clerk, trying to be helpful, after standing for several hours, and dealing with crabby customers.
Or anyone who has offered a gift to someone who doesn’t want it.
In all we do, we bear God’s creative and redeeming word to the world.
In all we do, we share our commitment to the one who came to love, forgive and bless the world.
In all we do we show our commitment to the one who was rejected, but who loved the whole world anyway.

So, “you are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked by the cross of Christ forever.”
So look at your hands this day. The work of your hands is holy work, the work of loving and blessing the world.
The work of your hands is Holy work.


I want you to put you hands out, palms up like this.
And I want the person sitting next to you to make the sign of cross in the palm of your hand.
And say these words, “You are marked with the cross of Christ. Blessed be the work of your hands.”

(Have them say that.)

“You – today – baptized children of God – you are marked with the cross of Christ. Let the light of God’s love shine in you. And ... blessed be the work of your hands.”

AMEN

Sunday Sermon: Raising the Dead

2 Pentecost Year C
Luke 7:11-17

“Raising the Dead”

Dear friends in Christ, grace to you and peace from God our creator, and from our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

On Memorial Day, I saw a photograph.
I saw a photograph of a young woman lying face down in front of a headstone at Arlington National Cemetery.
She’s lying down as if she is praying. Reading the article which accompanied the photograph, I discovered that she is lying in front of the grave of her fiancé, James Regan.
A photographer discovered her there, “talking to the stone.
He wrote that, “She spoke in broken sentences between sobs, gesturing with her hands, sometimes pausing as if she were trying to explain, with so much left needed to say.”

That was three years ago.
I wonder what has happened to the young woman in those three years.

Does she still haunt the cemetery, speaking to the stone?
Does she still weep? Is there still so much left to say?
Her grief is so personal, and yet I would guess that many of us would understand, would feel a kinship, would say we know something, a little, of what she has suffered.
So many of us would understand, a little or a lot, just as we might understand a little or a lot of the story in today’s gospel.
After all, it’s a story that takes place at a funeral.

“Do not weep.”

These are Jesus’ first words to the widow he meets in our gospel story today.
“Do not weep,” he tells her, which means that we can assume that she is weeping.
In fact, she is probably weeping and wailing loudly, as the funeral procession makes its way through town.
There are so many ways that this woman has become desperate that it might be hard for us to imagine.
First there is the grief that we can understand: a parent losing a child! – even an adult child

It’s hard enough for grown children when their parents die, but for a child to die first – unimaginable
– I once had a funeral for a 99 year old woman in my congregation. Sigrid was her name. She came from Norway, married and lived through the hardscrabble years of the depression, through two World Wars. She had six children, but her two daughters were the only ones I met, the only two left of her children.
At her funeral service, several people asked to stand up and briefly share a memory of Sigrid.
One man stood up in the pew and said that he had asked her once what was the most difficult thing she had to deal with in her life. She replied, “that four of her children died before she did.”

So that grief is hard enough – the grief of a parent losing a child – a widow who has lost her ONLY child, her only son.
But the woman is also desperate for another reason – when her son died, she lost her place in society, she lost her support, she lost the one who could speak for her.
A woman in those times needed a male advocate. First it would have been her husband, but he had died, leaving her a widow.
Then it was her son, her adult son. So the woman was probably not just weeping because she lost her son, but because she lost her advocate.
And when Jesus touched the funeral bier he not only restored this relationship, he also gave her back a place in the community.
He gave her back a voice.
He said to her, “Do not weep,” but he did more: he raised her son, and changed both of their lives. He gave her back her son, restored her hope, restored her life.

And if we are honest, wouldn’t we hope for the same? Don’t we hope for the same?
Imagine for a moment that you are widow, weeping, alone, without an advocate in the world.
Imagine that you are the one standing at the bedside of a friend, or that you are at the graveside, or that you are in the funeral procession, saying goodbye.

I can tell you – I’ve been to a lot of funerals – but I’ve never been to one yet where the dead person sat up.
Instead, we go to the cemetery, where we stand around in a circle and pray, and where people sometimes weep, and where a fresh headstone is laid down.
I’ve been to a lot of funerals, and some were for people who lived long and faithful lives, and others were for people whose lives were too short, and who left people who depended on them, in one way or another.
I’ve been to a lot of funerals, where people speak in broken sentences between sobs ... pausing as if they were trying to explain with so much left to say.

I’ve been to a lot of funerals, and I’ve never yet seen the dead person sit up – and yet, I believe in a God who raises the dead. I believe in a God who reaches out to touch us,
to speak for us when we are vulnerable,
to give us to one another when we are lonely.
I believe in this God because there have been times in my life when I have been lonely, grieving, times when I have needed an advocate –
and God has raised someone up to speak for me, to comfort me, to encourage me.
Not just a spiritual feeling in my heart, but God has sent a real, live flesh-and-blood person.
Has it been that way for you, as well?

As I said, I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life – and some just recently. And I nearly always hear – or sometimes speak – these words

“When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by Baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might life a new life.”

....We too might live a new life.

What does this mean? I’ll tell you what – it means that we are wailing widows, in need of an advocate, but that even more so, we are Jesus’ disciples, that we have been raised to new life and called to live compassionate lives, reaching out to touch one another, reaching out to heal, to speak words of forgiveness that change reality. We are raised to new life, to live not for ourselves, but for one another. We are called to challenge the status quo, we are called to restore hope.

We are called to stand in front of tombstones where people are speaking in broken sentences.....
We are called to stand at soup kitchens where people are hungry
We are called to stand up for people who are forgotten and left out.
For ... as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life.

If you read the book of “faith stories,” told by a few members of our congregation, some of the stories you will read are stories of grieving – and hope.
They are stories about prayer, and perseverance, death and resurrection.


One story told is about a young woman who lost her mother to cancer when she herself was a new mother just 28 years old.
She speaks about this time as a time when she was raised up. She say that she was “learning to fly,” by which I think she means learning to rely on God, to trust that God was present in her life.
She writes about that time,

“God and my faith in Him got me through each step of her disease. I think that’s how He knew I could handle her leaving – one small step at a time.
One breast removed, spread to another breast and removed, to her hip, to her brain, to her lungs. One small step at a time preparing us, testing our faith, one disappointment at a time.”

She concludes her story, “Then I would take a big breath, take a step, and another.
I would flap my wings;...I would sing a new song about a life with my new family...
I would fly and get to the destination knowing that God is with me and my mom behind me....”

So we too each day rise to new life, we learn to flap our wings, to fly,
because we believe that we have been buried in the waters of baptism, and have risen each day to “live a new life.”
We rise to live a new life for one another.
We grieve and we comfort others in their sorrow; we rise and we help others to stand.

Because in this life we know, like that young woman weeping in front of the soldier’s tomb, that there is so much left to say.
But we also know that when our sentences trail off... there is One who has the last word.
“Do not weep,” he tells us.
He has risen - indeed.



Amen