:: mybackpages ::

The will of God (to give you the kingdom), a Sermon

As in weeks past, our text today continues to tell us God’s desire to give us everything.  Which is so nice, of course.  Then, we’re told that since God has given us everything that we should give alms and give away everything we have to everyone else.  Which is also so nice because it is good to give and share what we’ve been given by God.  Receiving from God requires a community to accept and share what we’ve been given. 

What’s more, in today’s text, Jesus tells us this: have no fear, little flock.  While there is much reason to fear we know that our beginnings and our ends are in Christ in whom we’ve been baptized and already brought through death to life.  Which is also so nice, of course.  But we can notice that Jesus doesn’t address just one person but a whole flock, a whole host of people, a community.  The practice of not fearing as well as receiving from God takes place within a community, with the support of other people.  What we have here is the original “it takes a village” speech.

It takes a community—one throughout history’s length and breadth and one here and now—to discern what we hear from the book of Hebrews concerning faith.  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Did you catch that?  Faith is a promise of a future even when at present you can’t see it.   I like how Eugene Peterson translates it in The Message: “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see.”  I also like how musician and Lutheran Josh Ritter puts it, “You need faith for the same reasons that it’s so hard to find.” 

Faith is not an activity that belongs to us.  It is given by God and requires community to sustain.  Faith is also, by its nature, not something we can see.  And what is this promise, this assurance that God gives in which we wait and hope? 

We hear a part of it today.  God wants to give you the kingdom.  That is, God wants to give you all that God has.  God wants to give you Jesus and all of his benefits: forgiveness, grace, wisdom, life and life beyond death.  God is on the side of life and here Jesus tells us that God wants to give us everything.

But we know from experience that it is often only by faith that we receive this promise.  Don’t get me wrong, the promise is true and real, but sometimes we need faith for the same reasons that it’s so hard to find.  Because what God promises is so far from reality.  God is on the side of life, but we encounter death and the threat of death almost on a daily basis.  When our families are harmed and threatened with violence; when someone steals a job because of who they know not what they know; when cancer keeps striking your home, or disease or depression or death haunt you, we know that we cannot see what God has promised us, but that it is still real and still for us. (pause)

So often we want an answer to life's happenings.  We try and find an answer for when bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.  We'd like to strike that and reverse it so that this world would have justice: good things happening to good people and bad things happening to bad people.  All would be right and it would be much easier to be a good person.  This system of belief is called karma.  

It is tempting to turn God’s promise into something we earn and therefore control as if we could entice God into throwing something good our way.  It is comforting to think that that which happens in life is produced and controlled by God; that God can give and take away as God sees fit.  We want this kind of God, because this kind of God seems fair.  But when bad things happen all we’re left to say is this:  "I just don't understand the will of God." 

Sometimes what we perceive as God’s will can feel a lot like judgment.  And it would be so easy to call it that.  We can almost hear the hecklers say, “too bad, you must have done something wrong to merit this kind of judgment.  You should have believed this instead.” 

In this way of seeing God, as one with puppet strings causing every good and bad thing to happen, we either make excuses for God or excuse God from our lives.  In this system, the one where we say that God is all-powerful, God comes out as all-powerless because things are what they are and there is no changing it.  Children are still hungry, violence still occurs, there is no justice.  And we hang our heads as we hang our hat on the will of God, which we can't understand.  

Have no fear little flock, God wants to give you the kingdom.  God is on the side of life.  It is not God's will that you encounter violence, death, cancer, disease, injustice, etc.  God is on the side of life and it is God's will to give you the kingdom and its benefits, that is: forgiveness, grace, wisdom, life and life beyond death. 

God is powerful, but perhaps not in a way that we can easily understand.  God’s power is made perfect in weakness, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12.  God chooses to be found in suffering because that is where God know he will find us; we don’t have to go searching because God is already there.  God is on the side of life and wills to give you the kingdom.  God also has the power and control to allow us and all of creation to do what we were created to do: have good dominion and stewardship over the earth; for plants and animals to bring forth vegetation and life (Genesis 1).  God allows us to do that which we would have God do.  My friend Kate, a pastor in Atlanta says this, “we must do that which we would have God do.” Tend to creation, feed the hungry, consol the prisoner, watch over the widow and the orphan, give what we have received away to the last, the least, the lost.  God shows God’s power through us, broken and sinful and selfish as we may be.

What then is God up to in the world?

“Though you intended it for evil,” Joseph said to his brothers, “God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20). God takes even the deepest, darkest, most death-like strands of existence and weaves them into something new, something with life and vitality.  Though death was intended through sin, God chose and chooses to give us life in Jesus, in his cross.  Though we encounter the deep and painful experience of depression, those who have gone through it have found a deep and real vitality on the other side.  God is on the side of life and is at work in you and in the world to give you the kingdom. 

Karma says that we earn whatever we receive.  It is how this world often gives.  Grace says that we are given what we do not deserve and receive it without earning it.  It is how God gives. 

Our system of belief is called grace.  It is a system that says that God is with us through all of life, the good, the bad, the ugly and that God suffers with us just as God in Christ has suffered for us.  God is with us in everything that we face.  Grace is the system that I can believe in even though, like faith, I can’t see it but I can experience it.  It is something I must return to and receive over and over again in the community and presence of other believers, in the breaking of the bread and body of our Lord Jesus, faith and grace promises that God will never leave or forsake me or you or all of creation for God is on the side of life and God wants and wills to give you the kingdom.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

________________

I preached this sermon with my amazing friend Erin Nelson in mind. Credit due to her for seeing this as a word to a flock, a group of people and not just individuals.  When we can't believe the community believes for us.

honest prayer

Sermon preached 7/25/2010 at Glyndon Lutheran Church. Note, I usually try to avoid gender specific language for God (viz. "him" or "his" but went with it on account of the relational aspect of the text, most notably: Father).

Text: Luke 11:1-13

_____________________

Let’s be honest.  Prayer is confusing.  It is foreign and strange and a bit counter-cultural. There is hardly time to sit and eat our daily bread during our days let alone to stop and ask for it.  It is an odd and curious habit to pause and pray in order to give thanks and thought for things that seem to come even when we forget to ask.  What’s more, the mechanics of it leave us in a tailspin.  We think that we don’t have the right skill set, or have studied our faith enough, or are good enough.

Let me say this: There is no right or wrong way to pray.  Just to pray is to do it right.  Pray with the words given to you today in our Gospel reading, what we call the Lord’s Prayer.  Pray as if you were having a conversation with a friend, telling what is happening in your life, what you’re afraid of and excited for.  Pray with tools in your hand or as you hang the laundry or mow the lawn.  Sit in silence.  Breathe.  Read the Psalms, the prayers of the whole people of God.  However you do it, it’s right.  And it’s better to do it than not, even if you’re distracted.  God takes you as you are.

Jesus instructs us further: Ask God for things with the same boldness and shamelessness of a daughter who asks her father for a hug or a son who asks his mother for a fire truck. What’s more, Jesus tells us that if we only ask, seek and knock we will be given everything we ask for just as a parent who is asked for fish will not give a snake. Jesus opens up prayer as a relationship between God our Father and us, God’s children.

Now, imagery for God as parent runs beautifully through the breadth and width of the Bible.  It is a popular metaphor because people often encounter God as a parent.  Take Hosea, the prophet who described God as a parent who tends to children, teaching them how to walk, taking them into his arms, dandling them on his leg, even bending down to feed them, and, my favorite, God is like "those who lift infants to their cheeks."  Prayer is our end of the relationship with God.  We pray to a God who lifts us to his cheeks; while we may babble like infants, God hears us and gives us what we need. 

Imagery of God as parent is deeply understood by parents who know about tough love.  Though God may be upset or angry with a situation, God still deeply loves God’s children.  Listen again to Hosea: How could I give you up, how could I hand you over?  My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.  I will not execute my fierce anger.

You can almost hear the tears getting caught in God’s throat. Even in judgment, God comes in love, sits us in his lap, consuls us and wipes away every tear; his own included. 

Now, these are all beautiful images for the way that God loves us and they help us to see God as Father.  But here’s where we need to be honest once again: one image we often encounter and never expect in God as parent is God’s absence or hiddenness, though some of us do know our own parents in this way. We feel God’s absence especially when prayers for healing seem to go unanswered; or prayers to end abuse; to stop addiction; for the right path to be taken; for work to be found; for this month’s check to last; we feel hurt and can feel our fists start to clench as we begin to beat on God’s chest as screams of WHY burst from our guts.

It may be easy for some to look at this Gospel reading today and assign blame to the one praying: you are not praying enough, hard enough, right enough, long enough.  Feelings of guilt and inadequacy tend to surface when we’re given a simple direction only to get lost.  But it seems to me that Jesus is indicating that any way we pray is the right way.  To pray is to be in a relationship with God in the ups and downs ordinary and extraordinary moments of our lives.  It’s a relationship cultivated over time.

What’s more, we’re not alone in feeling like we haven’t had our prayers answered.  It doesn’t happen to just you or just that poor guy down the street.  The Book of Psalms is a collection of 150 prayers and song written by folks who were close to God’s heart who spoke openly and honestly about how they felt about God and their life situation.  60 of the Psalms are lament psalms, prayers asking God’s help, prayers demanding God’s attention in the presence of God’s supposed and felt absence.

Like the Psalmist we could say, “How long, O Lord, Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” (PS 13) Or, “Rouse yourself!  Why do you sleep, O Lord?  Awake, do not cast us off forever!  Why do you hide your face?  Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?  For we sink down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground.  Rise up, come to our help.  Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.” (PS 44)

Scripture shows us that such honesty is appropriate and faithful and, what’s more, that God can handle it. The Psalms show us that honesty, above all else, is invited into the relationship that is prayer. It should also be noted that most—but certainly not all lament Psalms—end in praise, recalling to mind the way that God has been faithful in the past, which leads to a future hope despite present circumstances.

This week I had the honor and pleasure to start making visits to people in their homes.  In one visit I met a woman from this congregation who has breast cancer and is waiting to hear her options for treatment.  The subject of prayer was brought up.  Prayer has been a large part of her sustenance.  She said, “I used to feel so cliché when I would tell someone: ‘I’ll pray for you,’ but what else can you say…Now, I can actually feel the prayers that people are praying.”  She herself has found her own way to pray, on walks in the early morning stillness; in the car on her way to work; in silence.  I was humbled and awe-filled.  She tended to the holy ground that was around her as a practice, one that nourishes her in this time of uncertainty and waiting and hoping.

God does listen and hear our prayers, whatever they may be.  Jesus tells us this much.  Jesus could have told us so much more.  In truth Jesus should have told us that some prayers go painfully unanswered; that some prayers just can’t be answered in the way we would like; and that some prayers require so much energy and wrestling that in the end—though we come out with a blessing—we are forever wounded, walking limp. 

Jesus knew all of this, in the end, of course.  Painfully all too well…Father if this cup could pass from me.  And quoting the psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In all honesty I don’t know why some prayers are answered but not others.  But I do know that God is listening and hears us when we pray.  I don’t know why things are the way they are. But I do know that God is with us in whatever we face.  God’s relationship to us is so tightly woven that it is actually God who meets us in the darkest, hardest, most painful moments of our lives. God knows pain and suffering, fear and loss first hand. In Jesus God took on our life and our lot and died so that we might know there is no where we can go that Christ hasn't already gone, and that there is nothing we can do – or have done to us – that God cannot love and forgive, redeem and save. (David Lose)

That is the promise God gives us today in our reading, and that’s the promise that we’ll invite K into today in his baptism. 

In the waters of baptism God brings us through death to new life in him.  God claims us as children and binds himself to us, promising to be with us and for us, a promise we take in each week at Communion.  These promises are not nullified by life’s situations and can still be trusted even when life doesn’t go the way we would like and hope.  Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our savior, friend and redeemer.  Amen.

Sources:

Roberta Bondi, To Pray and To Love

David Lose, WorkingPreacher.org

 

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

Sunrise service this morning looking over the River Jordan and the mountains of Jordan.

 

Happy Easter. 

Triduum part 3, Holy Saturday

From Cheryl Lawson at Hold This Space:

They call this day Holy Saturday

when hope has died
when God is dead and buried.

read the rest...

Easter is Coming

Since it's hard to see in some internet formats, follow this link.

Brought to you by Dave Lose, Karoline Lewis, Ben Cieslik and the folks at WorkingPreacher.org

Triduum part 2, Stations of the Cross//Via Dolorosa

We gathered as a community of Protestants for our way of sorrow this morning at 6:30 in the Old City at the first station of the cross.  In mob fashion, we took over the space and moved slowly from one station to the next as which we read, sang and prayed.  It was difficult for people, vendors and locals to move through.  It was difficult for us to move through the city streets as wave upon wave of pilgrim leapfrogged with us at different points.  

It wasn't a time for meditation, but for seeing, walking and stumbling a geographical route similar to the one Jesus took many years ago.  There are of course places where a rock or place rise up and stand out from the rest.  These are the places where Jesus apparently touched or fell upon at some point on his walk of sorrow.  Except that the rode he walked is buried under the rubble of 30 feet and 2000 years.  

I'm not sure if it was the early morning escapades or the large crowds and inability to hear, focus and take in what was being said, read, prayed and sung, but the stations of the cross wasn't a holy space for me.  It felt more like an idol, one that we carry as baggage. One that is so consumption driven that it is more about being there than feeling, encountering or witnessing anything holy.  I'm here!  Take a picture, quick!  Codify this moment.  Give me proof of my existence!  Hurry, I see the next place I need/want/must go...NOW! This isn't anything new for the rest of life; being here only magnifies the situation. We want to hold the holy and not behold the time, the place of encounter.  We rush to make things happen instead of letting things happen, letting things come to us and letting the holy break in to our lives in new and life giving ways.  

The day is a blur, my memory of it is in being pushed around, squished by other pilgrims who had to make it through and squashing other pilgrims who were trying to sit and be in a space.  Nevertheless I was richly blessed by the witness and encounter of other Christians on their own way of sorrow.  Pilgrims from the Philippines walked, some barefoot, through the Old City singing hymns and processing to each station on the way. Because it meant something to them it could mean something to me.  

It's a typical theme here in this land we call holy: it is hard to find and experience holy ground. There have been moments, unexpected and kind, that have been chalked full of the holy. These moments have involved quiet moments on Mt. Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration, in Tel Aviv (the most areligious city in Israel) at the Mediterranean.  It has happened where two or three have gathered for the breaking of bread with strangers at a secular Christmas party and a Seder with a family in Northern Israel.  It happened on a Friday afternoon when Muslims were not allowed to enter their holy sites and still gathered for noon prayers outside of the city walls; on that same day when I passed security guards and young soldiers and forced myself to say "Shalom" or "Peace and wholeness" as a pronouncement and hope and not just as a greeting.  It has happened on a "day of rage" when protests circled our neighborhood and I stayed in, looking over the city and praying for peace.

We look for holy in all the wrong places.  I think the thing I appreciate about the God who hides is that try as we might we can't help but find God on the margins, in the profane, in life, in the other.  God knows this, but we often don't: God is most likely to find us in these places and moments and we are more likely to find God there, too, out in the world and among the people.

 

 

 

 

 

Palm Sunday in Jerusalem

We gathered at 9 a.m. for our regular liturgy at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, though this Sunday the liturgy was anything but regular.  Sunday is a special day in the church known as Palm/Passion worship in which we re-tell the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey with shouts of Hosanna filling the air.  We began with a small procession and the perennial classic "All Glory, Laud and Honor."

All glory, laud and honor to you redeemer king, to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring.

We retold the story and began the time known as Holy Week in the church in which we journey from shouts of "hosanna" (is a shout of praise that can be translated as "save now!") to cries of "crucify him" to the news of resurrection and the joy of Easter.

We couldn't help but remember celebrating a great Palm Sunday liturgy at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis.  The processional song still rings in our ears:

Jesus is coming, pave the way with branches, Jesus is coming Hosanna.  Hosanna, Jesus is coming. Hosanna! To the Prince of Peace.

One great surprise and gift his year has been in discovering (via Mary Shore) the work of Cheryl Lawrie over at Hold This Space.  I've since purchased her pocketbook liturgy, but this Palm Sunday sending out is a nice addition to the day.

Later in the day we gathered for the annual Palm Sunday processional from Bethphage to the Old City through the Garden of Gethsemane.  The AP story reported that there were hundreds of pilgrims who marched when in fact there were perhaps tens of thousands.  The story does quote two people I know, one from here and one pilgrim we just met, a pastor from San Luis Obispo. 

The march itself takes you down one steep hill and up another and is a gathering point for people from all nations to shout hosanna in the highest.  The mood was high and jovial, with smiles and joy abounding. I must confess that there wasn't anything that was overly spiritual for me, save for seeing many people from many lands singing and shouting Hosanna, but I was happy and thankful to be walking a similar route to the one Jesus took.  

I had the opportunity to practice some of my Kiswahili with some folks from Congo (where they don't necessarily speak Kiswahili) and a couple from Kenya.  We walked and talked from sisters and brothers from Italy, Egypt, Poland and the Philippines, just to name a few.  We saw some sisters from Mother Teresa's order of nuns.  We watched young people sing and dance their whole way down and back up the hills.  We carried palms as we walked past men and women carrying guns and weapons and prayed for peace in a land so distraught.  

Colin talking to a Franciscan brother from Italy

  

 

I'm not sure where they were from but they were very friendly!

 
 

+ Oscar Romero +

 

Today is Archbishop Oscar Romero's Saint Day.  A Saint Day is the Church's way to say that this is the anniversary of a person's death.  On March 24, 1980, 30 years ago to the date, Romero was assassinated while celebrating the Eucharist, more commonly known as Holy Communion. You can read more about him, here.

One of the lasts things he ever said is recorded in a book called The Violence of Love, which is a post-humous collection of his writings and speeches that have been translated into English.  It is a treasure.  I pull this out every year on this date in remembrance and honor of Archbishop Oscar Romero:

God's reign is already present on earth in mystery.  When the Lord comes, it will be brought to perfection. That is the hope that inspires Christians.  We know that every effort to better society, especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us. [1]

Eternal God, your love is stronger than death, and your passion more fierce than the grave.  We rejoice in the lives of those whom you have drawn into your eternal embrace.  Keep us in joyful communion with them until we join the saints of every people and nation gathered before your throne in your ceaseless praise, through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. [2]

__________

[1] Violence of Love, p. 206

[2] A remembrance of the faithful departed taken from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, page 82

What Song does a Sermon make?

A prophet is the one who, when everyone else despairs, hopes. And when everyone else hopes, he despairs. You'll ask me why. It's because he has mastered the Great Secret: that the Wheel turns. Nikos Kazantzakis, the Last Temptation of Christ

My incredibly smart and fabulous friend Anna made a playlist for part of her final project on the prophet Jeremiah.  I'll have to post her playlist later, as I can't remember what is on it.  Belle & Sebastian, Damien Rice, just to name a couple.  As I sat reading Jeremiah this week, I realized why he is dubbed th "weeping prophet;" it's because he makes you want to cry.

As I started out, I thought the best musical and lyrical accoutrement was Elliot Smith. 

He definitely understands the anguish of the prophet, but what of the faith?  What of the hope? 

Jeremiah 20:7-13 is thought to be the most blasphemous complaint in all of scripture.  The prophet complains that God not only enticed but seduced him; that God didn't only overpower him, but, within the words of the text, "raped him."  How does one begin to convey that image of God?

The prophet teaches us about the nature of life in God, within the life of faith.  It's not roses and sunshine.  It's not the daily lottery or mountain-top experiences.  Sometimes, and more often than not, our lives in God lead us to the absurd, defy rationality and call us do things we would rather not do.  In Jeremiah's case, tell Israel, his beloved, God's beloved, that they were headed towards death.  From Abraham Heschel:

This, indeed, was the roost of his anguish[:] Those whom he loved he was called upon to condemn.  When the catastrophe came, and the enemy mercilessly killed men, women, and children, the prophet must have discovered that the agony was greater than the heart could feel, that his grief was more than his soul could weep for.

The prophet's complaints against God were grounded in trust and faith.  Blasphemous as they were, they were honest and they were real and they were accepted by God, the same God who had formed Jeremiah in the womb, the same God who knew Jeremiah since before he was born, this God accepted Jeremiah's complaint.  Jeremiah trusted this, just as Jeremiah trusted that God would be the one to deliver Israel from  their sins and mistrust.  Jeremiah ends his complaint in praise:

Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord!  For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

This week for me has brought more bad news than good.  A diagnosis of Congestive Heart Failure for my Mom, the news of suicide of one of my co-learners at the seminary, my nieces still-troubling health and constant seizures, the heart-breaking and untimely death of Mike, my sister-in-law's dearest cousin, who had fought with such courage against the Leukemia that overcame him today.  Life is fragile and there is no safeguard against that. 

I went to the Brandi Carlile concert on Wednesday night.  Per usual, yet for perhaps the last time on tour, Brandi finished the show with the Leonard Cohen classic "Hallelujah."  Jeff Buckley, of course, made this song great with his arrangement of vocals and music.  Everyone now seems to cover the Buckley version of the Cohen standard.  Anyway, as she sang words I've heard so many times, one simple lyric struck me as Jeremiah's confession:

Love is not a victory march,
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

That's the song of Jeremiah and that's the song of our hearts from time to time, hopefully not too often, but it's so true.  To be faithful does not mean to live your best life now or to live always with a purpose in front of you.  To be faithful means that, when the crap hits the fan, so to speak, that the words that escape from your lips, the only words that you can lift up is hallelujah, however cold, however broken, Hallelujah.

Holy Week :: A Brief

It's Spring Break at Luther, which means one thing: Easter! 

My Easter Week, aka Holy Week went thus:

Palm Sunday at Mt. Olive:  Due to inclement weather we processed from the undercroft.  I wasn't going to get up for the 8am (because I knew I would be going to Redeemer at 10am), but when my alarm went off at 7am I couldn't fall back asleep on account of having the song "All Glory Laud and Honor" singing in my ears.  I was also treated to a Psalmody in a Mendelssohn setting.  Exquisite.

Palm Sunday at Redeemer: After rallying the kids to join the palm parade around Harrison, the neighborhood in which Redeemer is located, we entered into church with our palms and our songs and our prayers.

Way of the Cross at Luther: Led by Juan Antonio Machado and John Mann, this service of the stations of the cross was stationary; we stayed in our seats as we were given different visuals to feast on.  The readings and prayers were in Spanish and English.

Maundy Thursday at the bar: I think we were celebrating our internship news instead.  oops.

Good Friday at Our Saviour's: This is Colin's church.  We had a service on the 7 last words of Christ.  We heard from the Gospel text, then we heard from the newspaper (the news of the world), then we heard words of hope (from Fyodor Dostoevsky, Oscar Romero and others).  They did this last year and it is a treat.  Heartbreaking, but amazing.  Also, Marty Haugen played the piano for us.  Yeah, that Marty Haugen.

Easter Vigil at Mt. Olive: A three-hour service was long to be sure, but it was well worth it.  I got to be one of the readers--I read from Isaiah 55--once the lights went on and we sang "Now All the Vault of Heaven Resounds" David Cherwien made sure to keep all the stops wide open on the organ.  beautiful.  Afterwards, just the typical fare: champagne and caviar, salmon and asparagus. 

Easter Sunday at Redeemer: Just plain awesome!  So.much.joy!  Dinner at Anna's with her folks and Jesse.

And then I slept.