Good Friday 2011

John 18-19

Good Friday 2011

I am stripped bare

there is finally nothing left to hide me.

I’ve fought and fought

trying desperately to cling to what has covered me.

You show me, me

and I cringe at the crusty corners that have cut and scraped.

My deeds, my sin

turning from life, turning toward what eats up my life.

I lash out

striking with the sword, returning to that vicious circle that has spiraled down throughout history.

Though in the End, I’ve forsaken you

running in shame, denying what you have tried so desperately to teach me, denying who I am, denying who you are because fear for my own life has consumed me.

Perhaps one of the hardest parts of this story which gathers us this day is witnessing to the actions and reactions of Peter and the rest of the disciples. Just the night before these are all the very same people that Jesus spent quite a bit of time and care telling these disciples, “No longer do I call you servants, but I have called you friends.” (John 15.15) these men and these women who Jesus has called and gathered around himself are more than just pupils to be taught lessons. These men and women are friends who share in a deep love that cares dearly for each and every one of them. So when disciples run away from the scene of Jesus’ arrest and then when Peter denies fully, whole-heartedly that he does not know this man who has just called him a friend, we begin to see the completeness of the disciples failure to trust and follow in the way of their Lord.

And when I hear about how these people who knew Jesus personally and loved him dearly abandons him to die, I cannot help but begin to see where I’ve failed, where I’ve run away from what I avowed to stay loyal to. Even the best of us fail in our lives to always do what is absolutely right. Even the best of us have our faults that are laid bare from time to time. And that simply is a part of what the cross reveals in stark detail. It reveals the sins we have committed, and it reveals all those times when we very possibly could have done some more. In the end our strength, our reasoning, and our intellect fail us. For sometimes the right thing to do is not clear, and other times it can be as clear as a bell ringing, and yet we fail to act.

But the cross also shows one amazingly foundational truth that undergirds all of creation throughout all time – Jesus dies for us so that we may see the depths to which our God goes for us people who have failed. Jesus does not make a pact before he is handed over to be killed. He does not say, “I will go do this for you if you promise to shower me with love and glory.” He does not say, “I will do this for you if you promise to be perfect from this day on out.” He says, “I do this for you, because I love you and I do not want to let you go.” So the cross finally shows the vastness of God’s love that as the Apostle Paul says in Roman, “nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8.39)

But…

Truth is stripped bare

everything that clouds my vision has vanished.

Light shines and shines

illuminating what is real and what is from everlasting to everlasting.

You show me love

and I smile at something so steadfast and serene.

My hope, my trust

reveling in wonder, reveling in the life you continually give me.

You’ve forgiven

And I am stripped bare

There is finally nothing left to hide me or your love.

The Strange, yet Holy Table

Matthew 26.17-30

Maundy Thursday 2011

This is my body given FOR YOU.

This is my blood shed FOR YOU.

These are the words that grace us this night. These are the words that turn simple bread and simple and simple wine into something more and something greater than we could have ever possibly imagined. These are words FOR US, including those who are celebrating their place at the communion table that has always and always will be there for them. These words are the very words that Jesus imparts to his disciples, his friends on an evening where he very much knows that he must do what he must do, that he must be betrayed and abandoned by these very same people that he dearly calls friends. These words gather us all around a table set for a meal where there is a place for all of you.

It is a strange table, is it not? It certainly does not look like a big long table that a family would gather around for Christmas or Easter, and there certainly is not a sumptuous feast of turkey, roast beef, or ham with all the trimmings. We sometimes kneel. We sometimes stand. We even sometimes have it brought to us when cannot make the journey to it ourselves. It is a strange table that people the whole world over share a place at when they hear those words “given and shed FOR YOU.” This meal that we receive at this strange table is a sacrament – a gift given to us by God by God’s command FOR US for the forgiveness of our sins.

It used to be thought for a while that for a person to be able to come to this table that person had to prepare and purify his or herself – that he or she had to take care not to receive it in an unworthy manner. But this line of thinking simply misunderstands what Jesus declares to be true for us all as they gathered for that last meal together. What happens in this holy meal is something that God does and that God does alone. It is God’s word that turns this everyday bread and every day wine into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus. It is God’s word that commands us to this in remembrance of our Lord Jesus. It is God’s word that declares from that night in Jerusalem to this very day in a small country church in Wisconsin that, in Christ’s body and blood, we have the forgiveness of sins. All because it is FOR US.

So when we come to this visually strange, yet wholly wonderful meal, we come as people in need of God’s grace. Jesus knew this that night in which he instituted it. He knows that this night he is to be betrayed. He knows that these people who he has come to call friends are going to abandon them. Christ knows that they are very much a people who need grace and forgiveness even as he speaks those words of institution at that Passover meal and gives to us this daily food that has the power to refresh and strengthen us in our faith.

There are times when doubts and sorrows assail us for all sides. There are times when it seems like the devil “sneaks and skulks about at every turn, trying all kinds of tricks…[wearing] us out so that we either renounce our faith or lose heart and become indifferent or impatient. For times like these, when our heart feels too sorely pressed, this comfort of the Lord’s Supper is given to bring us new strength and refreshment.” (Luther’s Large Catechism, p. 469; Kolb-Wengert ed. of the Book of Concord.)

The power of this meal resides in the one who goes to do what he must do. Today and through the next two days we will see the depths and the heights our God goes to for us. For the next two days, we see that Jesus’ body and blood are broken and shed for us, for all of us, for the forgiveness of the sins we carry with us, even to this strangely shaped, but wholly holy table.

Thoughts from Places: Small Town America

The Melodic, harmonic, symphonic Incarnation

Luke 2.1-20

Christmas 2010

And so here we are, gathered together on cold winter night in a warm, beautifully lit and decorated church, again…for yet one more year…for yet one more time to hear the same story told yet again, to hear the beautiful hymns that extol the wonder and joy of the birth of child just like last year and the year before that. This story is the story that brings us together this night. This story is the story that causes the world to rush frantically about in the weeks and days trying cross every gift that needs to be purchased, every cookie that needs to be baked, and every decoration to be hung with the love and care that we seek to express as the snow falls to the ground and covers our lawns trees and houses in dazzling white blanket.

This is a time of year of giving, of sharing the love that we have for one another, yet it is the same story. It is the same act of giving birth to a child that causes us to do what we do. What is it about this story that it has the power to resound throughout the world for ages upon ages? What is it about that one singular night which has begotten so many nights of remembrance? Simply put, this story, this night that we hear about year after year in an unchanging manner is nothing less than the Lord our God who made us and gave us life come down to earth to live, laugh, love, cry, and die among us. This is God made flesh, born into the world.

Sadly this world that God is born into is not a world that rejoices in a symphony of music melodious and harmonious. Rather the world that Jesus was born into was filled with the cacophony of sorrow and unrest. War, sickness, poverty, and oppression afflict the people God so lovingly made, and perhaps saddest of all, the people God so lovingly made had so often visited these afflictions upon one another. Yet perhaps this is one of the reasons this story has resounded throughout the ages. For the same cacophony still rings out in our world. For Jesus comes yet again this year to redeem a world that still lives broken and afflicted to sing again the beautiful melody of love and forgiveness that mends the broken hearted and lifts up the lowly but not before bringing down the powers of discord that sin has placed high among us.

Now if you can’t tell, the musician in me has taken hold as I describe the birth of Christ as the beginning of a song that leads to the glorious resolution of God’s great symphony. Maybe I’m trying a little too hard to be poetic, yet I believe that this metaphor stands true. The world we live in is a world that is desperate need of the love, healing and forgiveness that God brings to us through the birth of that little child, “away in a manger, no crib for his bed.” Wars rage on as our brothers and sisters in Christ fight for their life and the lives of those around them. Diseases ravage places of disaster like nation of Haiti where 2,000 people have died as a result of an epidemic of cholera. The poor, the unemployed, and the underemployed still struggle with the fear and uncertainty in their lives as they figure out how to provide for themselves and their families. Some of us have lost people close and dear to us and grieve that they are not around to share their life and the love with us as they once did. But that’s why this old story, these old songs, and wonderful family traditions have lived from generation to generation to generation. This story is the beginning of a story that has the power to resound in 1^st century Palestine. This story has the power to resound in 16^th century Europe. This story has the power to resound in 21^st century Taylor, WI. Because this story breaks into our lives and welcomes us with love, compassion and forgiveness even when our lives have become full of dissonance.

This story of Jesus being born in a stable and laid in a manger is the story of God’s love for the world that God created, and God has not and will not abandon God’s creation. And this story is a story for the whole world to hear. Just take a look at the setting and players in this story! God comes to a lowly virgin who has little or no power within her society and says, “You will be the one who will bear my Son into the world.” God comes to a simple carpenter and asks him to care support this young family trusting that this all is indeed good. God comes to shepherds, people who live on the outskirts of society who are told to go spread the good news. God comes in this setting to these people so that we just might see that this story, this song is a gift of faith and love given to the whole world and not just the privileged few. When Christ is born a melody ensues that challenges the way we think about our world and our place within it. When Christ is born a melody ensues that ends with a big, full beautiful, resonant chord of redemption and wholeness. Yes this is an old story and an old song, but bursts forth year after year showing us exactly who God is and what God does and that is that our God is a God who is for us. This is what begins with Jesus’ birth and is fully revealed on the cross.

There are so many songs that lift up this very foundational notion, and Christmas seems to have given us some very beautiful songs over the years. From the depth of It Came Upon a Midnight Clear which tells of how this story is a comfort for out whole lives to the clear and simple Silent Night which so perfectly describes the mood of this holy night, our Christmas hymns have been treasure throughout the years. But just four years ago I heard a song come on the radio that captures the clarion call of this night. It’s by the Goo Goo Dolls. Now, kids if you don’t know who that band isyou might try asking your parents, and for some of you older folks out there you may need to ask your kids who that band is, but in 2006 they released the single “Better Days.” I want to share a portion of the words of that song:

And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cuz I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And desire and love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

So take these words
And sing out loud
Cuz everyone is forgiven now
Cuz tonight's the night the world begins again

The Neighborhood of Make Believe and the Kingdom of God

Luke 11.1-13

7/25/10

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, it’s a beautiful day for a neighbor…” How many of you sitting out there today know where that song is from? I certainly do. It’s the song that began every episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood. I grew up that show. It fascinating and safe place to use my imagination, to see how so many of the things we use from day to day are made, and to learn a little bit of how kindness can and should be spread throughout the world. In some ways, it’s something of miracle that his show lasted for so long on public television, especially for the way it has been mocked throughout the years. I guess some people just couldn’t get past the idea that image he portrayed on screen could actually be his real personality and the way he really dealt with people on a regular basis.

Now, how many of you knew that Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister? You wouldn’t know that by only watching his television show, but yes he was an ordained minister who was specially charged with serving children and families through his television show. So when I think back to “the Neighborhood,” I can recognize how he sought to imagine a world where God’s kingdom had indeed come and how people loved, laughed, cried, got angry, and even forgave one another in the rule of that kingdom. Mr. Roger’s “Neighborhood of Make Believe” sought to be an example of what it is like to live your life by faith, trusting in God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. He didn’t use specific Christian Language, but he still preached the gospel of a life lived by faith.

The prayer we pray every time we come together in worship and for many of our meetings is the Lord’s Prayer, is it not? That is prayer that doesn’t change from week to week. (Sure the words may be a little different from time to time, but is the meaning of that prayer ever truly changed by saying “sins” instead of “trespasses?”) This is the prayer that Jesus teaches his disciples when they ask him to pray. This is the prayer that holds on so very dearly in people’s minds even when the ravages of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease work upon our loved ones. And what is at the heart of this prayer? It is nothing other than beseeching, asking, even begging God for God’s kingdom to come right here, right now. In this place, in this time.

In praying for God’s kingdom to come, we are praying for that kingdom that rule of love to rule our hearts as we deal the people all around us in our lives – those who have sinned against us and those we have sinned against. In praying for God’s kingdom we are praying for that kingdom to come where we receive our daily bread – not just the food and water we need to eat and drink every day, but all of those things that we need to live and flourish. But we ask for our daily bread, not for what we want or what we think we might need in the future. In praying for God’s kingdom to come, we are praying that, in God’s kingdom coming into the earth and into our lives, we are delivered from the evil that plagues us brought into the promise that will always hold us dearly and lovingly even though we die. It is a bold prayer that we pray mostly from memory every week or more often depending on our practice. Do we have the courage to pray this prayer? Do we have the persistence to pray this prayer? Do we even have the absolute shamelessness to ask our God something so astounding?

I had another pastor point out to me this past week that the persistence that Jesus talks of in the short parable in our reading is actually much better translated as “shamelessness.” There are times in our lives where we don’t always know what to pray and how to pray to pray it. And again scripture shows us just how much the disciples can be like us when they ask Jesus to teach them to pray. And Jesus teaches us how to pray. That may be one of the more important things to remember when you think about how we may even begin to be shameless enough to ask God of these astounding things. Jesus teaches us. In faith, we find that God enters into our lives and gives us the strength to pray our prayers especially in those when it may be hard to pray. And I tell you, it has been hard to pray this week. It gets to be that way in our lives from time to time, but those are the times in which Jesus holds us up and is as relentless and shameless as he asks us to be in our lives.

We had vacation bible school led by a team of counselors from Luther Park Bible Camp this past week, and they closed every day of bible camp with a shout prayer. Fred Rogers may not have gone for a prayer that was so loud and boisterous, but I suspect he would have agreed whole heartedly with the Spirit behind those prayers. Because, as Mr. Rogers himself said once to a young girl, “the thing God wants most of all is a relationship with you, yeah, even as a child – especially as a child.” The Kingdom of God that Fred Rogers imagined maybe have been a land of make believe, but when we make believe that God’s rule is how we are going to live our lives, it becomes real in our relationships with each other and with God. Be bold. Be persistent. Be shameless. And my God’s indeed come upon the earth.

Praise God!

Psalm 150

4/11/10

There’s a joke that bounces around the halls of seminaries about praise songs, praise bands, and praise worship. It’s usually told with an air of cynicism that all praise music can be boiled down to this – three chords, four words, five times. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this kind of worship, but it usually looks like a service in a big space where the congregation looks up something that looks much more like concert stage with pianos, bass, guitars, trumpets, saxophones, trombones 5-6 vocalists, and a drum set right in the middle. As disparaging as this joke about 3 chords, 4 words, 5 times is meant to be, it does speak to a truth that worshipping God singing “Jesus is my friend” five times with a simply melody and harmony, while entertaining can be a thin worship experience that is designed to be more about entertainment than the depth of God’s presence in our whole life, good time and bad.

Now let me take a moment right now to say that the contemporary service lead by our Sanctuary Singers does not fit the mold of that disparaging 3-4-5 joke. The old hymns that we love are most often old folk songs of the people who gathered in Christ’s name hundreds of years ago, and I’ve to see that the songs that the Sanctuary Singers leads for our contemporary services are the real, authentic folk songs of this parish, especially as many of them are written by the people who live and work in this area of Jackson County and Trempealeau County. Moreover, there is depth in those songs which speak to the profound presence and love of God in our whole lives. Praise songs too often come nowhere near that depth of meaning, yet in this Easter season, hearing Psalm 150 which our children helped tell this morning, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to discount simple praise of God.

We really don’t need to look much further than the Book of Psalms. The Psalmist regales us this day with in which the beginning of each line is Hallelujah! Praise! Praise! Praise! Praise! Praise! and ending with another triumphant Hallelujah! Clearly taking some time to simply praise God is an activity that we should engage in. As jaded about praise music as I and other learned people can be, there can be profound truth about God and what God has done expressed in praise music. But that truth is not something that can be left to the wayside in hopes of making church “fun.” You see songs lifted in praise of God and especially the hymns of praise we find in the Psalms have to carry with them the implication that the wondrous things that God does begin with the sorrow of God reaching down to all the suffering and sorrow of creation in the crucifixion of Jesus who died for our sins, who joined with us in our suffering and death so that we might be united with him in his death and rise up to new life with him in his resurrection.

I bet you didn’t know that a praise song could imply all of that. Yet that is exactly what Psalm 150 is doing in praising God. When the psalmist decries “Praise God in the holy temple; praise God in the mighty firmament,” the psalmist is in fact proclaiming our life, our whole life comes from God whose home is all of creation. When the psalmist decries “Praise God for might acts; praise God for exceeding greatness,” the psalmist is in fact proclaiming the greatness of God in restoring, redeeming, forgiving and most of all loving us, the creation God has made. You see, this praise arises from a God who weeps upon the death of one his friends. This praise arises from a God who proclaims that the poor will be blessed. This praise arises from a God who frees his people slavery in Egypt. This praise comes from a God who walks with us in our pain and suffering and gives us the promise that “[God’s] rod and [God’s] staff shall comfort me.” (Psalm 23.4b) And so we should respond with singing, dancing,

Our songs of praise should never deny or hide the fact that there is wrong, evil, sin and suffering in this world. Instead our songs of praise should be solid declarations that God sees our plights, hears our prayers, and bears our sins. So to simply declare “Jesus is my friend” five times over using only three chords, should always be sung with proclamation that Jesus’ friendship is that of a love in which he lays down his life for my life and for your life. To skip the hard stuff, to make this with all its pains and sorrows just a deviation from the glory the in which we were created until we enter back into the glory of heaven cheapens cross the suffering Jesus went through to bring us back from the dead through his blood. We must always begin at the cross, because in the cross unites us with Christ in our faith so that when he is raised that promise is raised for us as well. Our songs of praise are then statements of belief where we say with all assuredness that yes, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God and we do indeed have life Jesus’ name.

And so this morning, I want you all to join me in singing a simple song of praise. Don’t worry if you are singing it right enough of well enough, for whatever it is it will be a joyful sound to the Lord. It is an African American spiritual called “I’m So Glad, Jesus Lifted Me.” (ELW #860) Let us rejoice in that Jesus has indeed lifted us out of our despair and raised us to new life!

Happily after "Happily ever after..."

Luke 9:28-43

2/14/10

“And they lived happily ever after…” This is probably a phrase that you all have heard at some point in your life. It literally is the fairy tale ending. It’s what is said after Cinderella is found to be the one who the glass slipper fits perfectly. It’s what’s said after Prince Charming finds Sleeping Beauty and gives her the kiss that wakes her from her slumber and banishes the curse put on her kingdom. It’s what happens after Beauty finally admits her love for the Beast. “Happily ever after…” The perfect ending to the perfect story of romance and danger, No?

Happily ever after carries with it some very nice imagery. It carries the image that the two star crossed lovers are finally able to be together. It states that their life from there on forward is mired not in sorrow or heartache, but rather in love and bliss and pleasantness. Happily ever after means that all their cares and needs are forever taken care of almost as a reward for the trials they had to endure to be together. It even often means a beautiful castle with the very finest furniture, coaches, and servants. We love our happy endings. In fact, movie directors are told quite often to make the ending their movies have a happy ending because that’s what people will pay money to see in the theaters. Yet, happily ever after rarely ever occurs in the reality of our lives. In reality, when we come to these watershed moments like those in our fairy tales, we instead find out all too quickly that the next day the sun rises and clock still runs forward and life still continues on presenting more that we must face. Maybe that’s why sequels are so popular at least the first and second times. We know that there’s a next, and we wonder what that next will be.

Certainly today, we are not faced with the end to our gospel story. We know that. In fact, it much more like the middle of the gospel story, yet here we come to this mountain top where disciples see a dazzling display of lights and the coming of two men from their ancestral past that had long been gone. What a sight it must have been! To see light shine forth from Jesus’ face. What a sight it must have been! To see two heroes from the past who had led their ancestors out of slavery and through strife. It may not have been the end of the story, but it is no wonder that Peter would rather erect dwellings and stay in this place from here on out than to do anything else. “Master, it is good for us to here, let us make three dwellings…”

At this point of the gospel story, this would be Peter’s happily ever after. Here, on this mountain, Peter and James and John would be able stay forever in the presence of the glory of their God. They would forever be able to bask in the light and glory of the God who had created them and has sustained them throughout the years. In Peter’s words, it is good for us to be here. Here on this mountain their cares and troubles melt away, and they only know the happiness in which they experience right now, at this place, at this time. But God declares that they should listen to Jesus, God’s Son, the Chosen. And Jesus’ words to his disciples from the very first day they met are still the same: Come and follow me. Maybe not that specific phrase, in phrases like “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people” and “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

The story of Jesus is not a story of happily ever after. The story of Jesus is a story that culminates in the cross in which he wins the forgiveness of sins and eternal life for us all on a cross upon which he dies for us and our sins and transgressions. And Jesus knows this. He knows what he must do. He knows who he must be. He knows he must be the story of redemption and salvation in the world that God has made. And so after that dazzling mountain top experience, there is a On the next day. Jesus knows that life continues forward. Jesus knows that our future contains not only happiness comfort, but also a sadness and sorrow that must be and will be salved.

So instead of Jesus letting Peter and James and John stay up there and erect dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, Jesus leads them down the mountain and onto the path which Christ knows will lead to his crucifixion. And the disciples follow.

Our Lord is not only a Lord of the past, but a Lord of today and the next day as well. Jesus goes forth from that mountain top so that the good news that he brings will be brought to the whole of God’s creation. That is what the Christian life is about. It is about a life that is lived moving forward following Jesus and sharing the grace that God has shown us through the Son who gives up everything so that we might live.

This morning we will baptize a new person into the Body Christ. In Jeremy Rommel’s baptism, a mountain top experience in his life will occur. He will be forgiven of all his sins and claimed as a child of God forever. With those kind of promises, you could almost say, “and Jeremy lived happily ever after.” But he is child. He has so much to learn and experience and all of that is laid out in front of him. It is from this moment of joy and grace that Jeremy must go forth with our help and live a life following Christ, not because he must earn some measure of his salvation, but because the salvation he has been given is a grace and a story that lived a shared throughout the rest of his life.

Jesus turns happily ever after into life ever after lived in the love and grace of our God that has claimed us and will not let go. It’s not that we’re not promised a happily ever after in the life to come with the whole communion of saints, but Jesus comes to bring not only reward but real, actual life. Jesus comes to bring us the next day, and what a joyous next day it is.

Christmas is coming

Luke 1.39-55

12/20/09

Read Psalm 80:1-7

Yes, Christmas is coming. It is less than a week away. Yes, Christmas is coming. We will gather together and rejoice and be glad and celebrate this festival with our family and friends. Yes, Christmas is coming. The fulfillment of all hope, the very fulfillment of our salvation will be born to a carpenter, his young wife, and the whole of creation in a stable for there was no room at the inn. Christmas is coming. Christmas is coming.

Christmas should be a time of hope and joy. Yet, I wonder if it also is a time where we cry out to God, “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we might be saved.” We should be dancing and singing carols of the glorious things that God has done for us, yet we know the bread of tears as we confront this joyous holy day without a loved one yet again or for the first time. We should be laughing at one another’s jokes and stories, yet there are people who will be struggling to find food and water for a day which looks too much like any other day struggling for the bare necessities for life. There are many people who face this coming season with these fears and sorrows, and maybe it just might be true that we all face doubts, uncertainty, fear, anger, and sadness, at least maybe a little while we are rejoicing in the glad tidings of Christmas coming.

I read that psalm to you today in part because it was the alternate reading set before us this day. I read it because it stands in stark contrast to the beautiful and hopeful Song of Mary that we did read together. It is a song that speaks of the hard things that we all do go through in our lives, but it also a song that gives us permission to cry out to God in our sorrow and ask for the help that we truly do need. Mary’s song is a song extolling the goodness and righteousness that God has done in bringing the justice and love that we need. I read this other psalm to you today, our life comes with the reality that we experience great joy and great sadness in our days here on earth. I read this psalm today, because it gives voice to the tension that God brings us joy and life and love, yet the reality of sin and death is ever present within our world today.

We live in this tension between joy and sorrow, and it is okay to do so. It is okay to cry out to God, “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!” If we deny the sorrow and suffering of our lives, then we deny the gracious gift and love and that the Father has shown us in sending his only Son so that we might be forgiven and live united in his death. If we deny the joy that has come and is coming to us from the fruit of Mary’s womb, then we deny the truth that God has power over the suffering and death that our sin causes in our lives. This tension between joy and sorrow is a part of the story that makes us to know that God is real and that God loves us more than we could ever possibly put into words.

Yes, Christmas is coming. It is less than a week away. Yes, Christmas is coming. We will gather together and rejoice and be glad and celebrate this festival with our family and friends. Yes, Christmas is coming. The fulfillment of all hope, the very fulfillment of our salvation will be born to a carpenter, his young wife, and the whole of creation in a stable for there was no room at the inn. Christmas is coming. God has heard our cries, and God has given us great joy that we will be restored, that we will be saved. Christmas is coming.

Giving thanks to God

Matthew 6:25-33

Thanksgiving Eve 2009

When it comes to God and what God says and what God promises, there are simply times when I just don’t understand what God is doing or what in the world God is saying to you and me. This text that we just heard, and this national holiday that have for tomorrow is just one such of those times. Jesus says, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” And this confuses me because I keep hearing that, if I’m going to continue on living and not die, then I need food, water, air and shelter. Those are the very basic things that I need. They are the very basic things that everyone who lives upon this planet earth needs. So I’m not supposed to worry about what I will eat, what I will drink, or where I will sleep tonight?

Of course, when you take the whole world’s population into account, I am simply among the richest people on the planet. It doesn’t feel like it, but think about this. I never had to ask myself these questions: Will I have a place to sleep tonight? Will I have food to eat today, let alone this week? Will I have water to drink? Instead, I’ve asked myself these questions: Should I have a Diet Mountain Dew or Diet Pepsi? What will I have for supper tonight? When will I lay down in my warm bed after I get home tonight? Do you hear the difference in those questions? So the thing that has me completely befuddled with what Jesus is saying is how do I tell someone who’s physical well being depends on the very basic of needs to not worry about them?

The thing is Jesus telling us not to worry about we will eat, drink or wear is not a word of scolding for the person who is dealing with those basic needs in all actuality. It isn’t, because Jesus is simply stating the truth that worry will not put food on the table. It can’t. Only going out and finding food like a bird flying in the air will meet that need. Maybe I’m befuddled by what Jesus is saying, because I don’t know and I can’t understand what it truly is like to be that impoverished.

If you are aware of this or not, the Northwest Synod of Wisconsin, our synod, has a companion synod in Evangelical Lutheran Church in Malawi in Africa. The bishop from that synod said while he was visiting here in Wisconsin, “I don’t know how you people can believe in God. You have everything. What do you need God for?” Maybe this really gets to the core of what Jesus is saying tonight. Maybe Jesus is shaking us to look at the blessings that we have been given from God. Maybe Jesus is telling us what it is like to live a life where we truly pray to God “Give us this day our daily bread.” Maybe what we truly are called to be is a people who strive not for securing our future but instead striving for and seeking the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. Maybe what Jesus is saying shows us our need for God and tells us that our trust, our faith should be in God alone, believing that God does provide.

I think that every year we enter into Thanksgiving day we have in our minds thoughts of what we have been blessed with in our lives. We give thanks for the people who have cared for us, who have made our life a little more joyous. We give thanks for the things that we do have even as we see the things that are slipping through our fingers. But perhaps we should give our greatest thanks to the one who has given us the life that we do have and who has freed us from the death our sins condemn us to. At times in our life it can be hard to see exactly what God is up to because we don’t see our need for God. But nevertheless, God is still faithful and God continues to provide for us even when gone as far as we possibly can go and taken our last breath. And God reaches down, scoops us up and hold us within those loving eternal arms. Let us give our thanks to God.

The insignificant made significant...

Mark 12:38-44

11/8/09

Insignificant. That’s maybe a word you could describe how it feels to be just one person amongst a whole world of problems. Just one person. Just one life. Living in a world with six billion people, a nation with 350 million people, a state of five and a half million people. Who am I in the midst of all this immensity? The world is filled with problems ranging from wars to hunger to pandemics to looming environmental disasters to financial crises. To confront any of those problems by myself would be like a rain drop falling upon a slab of granite – barely felt and quickly forgotten as it evaporates into the heat of a day.

I could hold up a sign the declares that all sides should give up fighting and make way for peace, but myriad other voices would drown that out as each side would press on with their calls for fighting and defense for what is good. I could cook a meal for someone who needs food and nourishment, but that act of kindness would be statistically unimportant and thrown out of the gathered data as outlier insignificant to the overall picture of what is going on. Of course, I’m not exactly a faceless, nameless person without any voice to speak to a good number of people. I’m a pastor, and I have a place and time to speak at least weekly. I’m charged with inspiring people to action. I’ve been called to be a leader of people, to preach and to teach. As the world sees it, I am no faceless, nameless, homeless person without the power to influence people and situations. I have a position of authority. I have a position of importance….at least those are things I could say if I was delusional and completely concerned with who I am and what power I wield. Let me assure you. I am not completely delusional. Although, maybe there are times when I let that fantasy enter into my mind. Perhaps I will yet receive “the greater condemnation.”

What harsh words we are confronted with by Jesus in the beginning of our gospel reading. The scribes are just doing their jobs and fulfilling their calling as teachers and preachers of God’s word. We hear Jesus denounce them for wearing long robes (oops.). We hear that they are greeted with respect and like to sit in the places of honor (yeesh.). We hear that they like to say long prayers (*gulp*). Jesus is not kind to the thought that some people are better than others because of the trappings they surround themselves with. Yet, it is pretty clear that Jesus, while passing harsh judgment upon the scribes, is not passing judgment upon them for simply being scribes but for taking the fact that they are scribes as something to be especially honored. Then these scribes go further yet and take that position of authority as something that is even higher than the welfare and life of widows who in this society are relegated to total dependence on the care and generosity of others. Thankfully, we never get caught up in the “show” of who are, or do we?

It’s sad but you and I can get caught up in the image that other people see of us, and we can get caught up in the image that other people show to us as we encounter them in our lives. These scribes that Jesus is condemning have given up care for other people and care for the godly work that they perform for care of how they look and seem to other people. I bet that there are times when we can and should rightly indentify with these scribes and condemnation that Jesus proclaims for them. At least when we see that condemnation and hear it speaking to us in our lives, we can finally reassess who we are and who we should be. You see, that is part of the power of Christ. Part of the power of Christ is to shake us to the core so that we can see that we have turned away from the things that we should be concerned about and turned towards ourselves and how righteous and just we appear before the world. That is a power that names sin and names its hold upon us. That power can show us how we fight for our appearance. That power can show us how we devour widow’s houses, maybe not literally, but certainly figuratively as we are either implicit or complicit in the systems that keep people poor, that keep people hungry, and that keep people in conflict. It’s not even the money we spend in all the various places of our lives. It’s the way that we tend to put ourselves and our wants above the things we should really care about – our trust in God and our care for all the people and the rest of creation that God has made.

So today, where is grace to be found? Certainly we cannot find grace in our ability to always trust in God above all else and to always care for the needs of others. For as we know, a single person’s quest to do everything right will do nothing to change the reality of the situation. That is until one person was born showed us all that his IS the power to bring in a new reality. That is until Jesus is born and walks among us, teaches among us, and dies for us and our sin, that inability to trust in God above all else.

You see, grace is to be found in the way that Jesus declares and proclaims that even the seemingly insignificant contribution of a poor widow is deemed the worthiest gift of all. Normally, such a gift would go unnoticed and be considered meaningless the total sum of that is collected in to the treasury of the temple, but Jesus is seeing that poor widow give all that she had left took notice of someone and something and turns it into a proclamation of grace that, in God’s eyes, no goodness, act of kindness, sharing of love, or trusting in God is deemed insignificant. In the reality that Jesus ushers in, it is that trust in God, even as flawed as it is for us sometimes, and goodness that makes this immense world and universe a significant place. That is our hope in the face of the hopelessness of fulfilling the Law that God would have us fulfill. It’s not that we forget how to be sinners, we probably remember all too well how to be sinners, but has deemed each one of us as insignificant as we are individually as worthy of God’s love and forgiveness.

Today we will/we have baptize(d) a new child into the church. We will baptize a child that the world vastly on the whole has taken no notice. Yet, today God will take special notice of Evan and proclaim him to be as special and loved as anyone else in the history of the world, even the really great and really important ones. Today the Holy Spirit will enter into him and forever hold him in the eternal promises specially for him just as specially it was for all the rest of us here today. God has taken notice and God will not forget.

Mark 10

Mark 10.2-16

10/4/09

In 1992, my family on my dad’s side gathered together to celebrate my grandma and grandpa Ahles’ 50^th wedding anniversary. In 1994, my family on my mother’s side gathered together to celebrate my grandma and grandpa Iverson gathered together to celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary. This year my parents will be celebrating their 32^nd wedding anniversary. As you can tell, my immediate family experience is not that of a personal experience of divorce. Yet, I know that is not the case for everyone in their lives. Divorce is an all too real experience for many people in their lives. The statistic that I keep hearing concerning the divorce rate in the U.S. is at least half if not more than half of all marriages end in divorce. Divorce is so common in our society today that I try not to assume that all families are like mine when I enter into conversation with the people I meet. Rather than get involved with the rightness or the wrongness of divorce, divorce is simply a reality. It is a reality that involves hurt and pain. It is a reality where relationships that were once thought to be so sure, fall into brokenness.

It is no one’s intention to get divorced. Nobody gets married thinking that somewhere down along the line “I’m going to divorce my spouse.” Even the divorced person who really believes that he or she made the right decision sill feels the pain of that decision and will forever carry the marks of that relationship as who that person is has been shaped by that relationship. One of the things that we all experience is that at one point or another in our life we have all experienced the hurt and the pain that the presence of brokenness in our lives causes. No one intends to experience this pain, yet we all the same experience it. This brokenness is sin, but not sin that be placed upon any one single person. It is a sin in which forces that seem to be beyond our control play upon us, and we seem to be powerless to do anything about it. This same sin which causes our relationships to break down is the same sin which allows people to go hungry. This same sin which causes us to fall out of love is the same sin which allows the suffering of people to go on unchecked. This same sin which breaks apart families and friends is the same sin which allows us to only look at our selves and our own needs and not the needs of others. This is a systemic sin in which all the actions and inactions of all our lives leads to the suffering of other people. This sin is simply reality – not necessity, but reality.

Jesus knows this. He sees the Pharisees coming to him with this question to try and get Jesus to take moral judgment upon people who they think are simply wrong. Yet, when the Pharisees ask him this question, Jesus does not point to what’s morally wrong. He points to what is good and right. They ask him to make a judgment upon divorce, and Jesus says that it is good for a man and a wife to live in committed relationship with one another. Jesus knows that God does not intend for our relationship to be broken, but Jesus knows just as much that our relationships will be broken. Jesus has for some time now been trying to tell the people that are following him what he must do. He keeps on trying to get people to know that he has come for us. He has come for this people who are enslaved to sin and death. He has come to die for us so that we may be redeemed in our sin and brokenness and be forgiven for the things that we know that we do and the things that we don’t know what we do. Two times Jesus has foretold this to the people around him, and a third time is just around the corner.

So when Jesus says, “Therefore what God has joined let no one separate,” he is saying that God’s intention for us is that we would live in relationship with one another. He is saying that it is God’s intention that we live in community respecting the bonds that tie us together. He is saying that God intentions are wholly good, and it is only when our sin enters the picture do those intentions get distorted. Jesus does not come to make excuses for our sin, but he does come to forgive us of our sins. Jesus sees that we are a broken people makes for us a lament that cries out on behalf of us to restore us to wholeness and to restore us to righteousness. This does not mean that are to live in unhealthy situations, but he has come to us who are broken.

And so then, little children are brought Jesus so that he might bless them. If you are saying to yourself at this time that this turn in the story seems to be coming in straight out of right field, then you could be right. Yet, having this story of Jesus welcoming the little children into his arms is a wonderful moment of reconciliation and grace. These little children, people who were very much “the least of these” in Jesus’ society, are the ones who Jesus has come to bring into his kingdom of reconciliation and grace. It is in turning to these children where Jesus makes the bold statement that he has come to be our Lord, a Lord of Life, a Lord of Love, a Lord of forgiveness. It is wonderful to see that what really makes Jesus indignant amongst all this talk of divorce and adultery are foolish disciples who try to bar the way for the children to come to Jesus and receive his blessing. Sin is a reality that Jesus has come to address, but denying grace and forgiveness to least, the weak, the forgotten, the hurting is what causes him to make a clear statement about what people shouldn’t do. Grace and Blessing is something that Jesus will not let be denied. Reconciliation and forgiveness is what he has come here to do.

Bishop Pederson at the synod ministry retreat painted a picture of just who are these children who come to Jesus. He said that this image is one of the more beloved images of Jesus’ ministry as we imagine this scene more often than not with serene, peaceful little children who are quiet, respectful, and nearly angelic in the presence of Christ. I don’t know about you, but children are rarely quiet, serene, peaceful, and nearly angelic. More often than not, they are giggling, yelling, running around to and fro, getting into things, getting dirty, demanding this or that, or crying. Children are getting into fights with their siblings telling each other not to touch them or even breathe their air. Children come with bumps scrapes and bruises that only a gentle kiss can cure. Does that sound like any children you know? Yet Bishop Pederson went on. He painted the picture of children who are living in destitution, hungry, sick, or made to grow up in a way that we could almost never imagine for our own children.

It is all these children who Jesus scoops up into his arms. All these children who are dirty, poor, sick, scared, laughing, screaming, and playing. These are the ones to whom the Kingdom of God belongs. And what’s more is that is us who are made children of God in our Baptism who come to Jesus broken, sinful, sick, tired, and hungry for forgiveness that Jesus wraps up in his arms blessing us and forgiving us for the things that we have done and the things that we have left undone.

Stochasticity

Mark 4:35-41

6/19/09

(Inspired in part by WYNC's Radio Lab)

Stochasticity. Do any of you know what this word means? Could you even spell it? No? Stochasticity is something that we encounter every day of every year of our lives. Still doesn’t ring a bell does it? Well, don’t be too distressed. It is a big fancy science word and my spell check doesn’t even recognize it as a word. It just gives that red, squiggly line underneath it telling me that there’s something wrong with it. However, like I said earlier, it really is a word that describes something that happens to us in our everyday lives. Stochasticity is simply the concept of the ever pervasive presence of randomness in our world. It’s why making exact weather predictions is nearly impossible. It’s why baseball players and basketball players usually make only a certain number of shots in a game. It’s what is behind this sometimes chaotic world as lives and events don’t always go as orderly as we have them planned in our minds. We often like to think that our lives are going to go A, B, C, however that plan gets derailed as X disease ravages one’s body unexpectedly, Y layoffs put retirement plans on hold, or even Z the slippery spot on the road causes the car to spin out of control paralyzing the person from the waist down.

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns and even sometimes it can feel as if it is completely spinning out of control as life seems to get only more and more chaotic as what was supposed to happen is disrupted by random chaotic events. If he had come to the intersection just a second earlier… If she had stayed on her original flight… Basically, if the coin had come up “heads” instead of “tails.” Each moment in our lives has a number of different outcomes and choices and possibilities, and at times it feels like we have no control over how things are going to turn out in our lives. Sometimes it feels like we are caught in a storm at the mercy of the crashing waves and swirling wind crying out “Teacher! Do you not care that we are perishing?”

This cry from the disciples comes out of the ancient image of Chaos within the world – the sea and the storms that rage across it. All throughout the Bible this image for chaos gets played out in story after story. In the Exodus story, it get played out as the Red Sea blocking the escape of the Israelites from the Pharaoh’s army. In the book of Joshua it is used to mark the boundary demarcating the end of the 40 year wilderness journey and the beginning of their life in God’s Promised Land. In the book of Jonah, the seas crashed and raged around the boat Jonah was trying to use to get away from God. You see, water is an amazing, powerful image for the people of the Bible. It has the power to give life and the power to take it away. The sea was a place that claimed victims in the storms and winds crash about on them. One was never completely safe and secure and the stochasticity of life, the randomness of life was ever apparent. No wonder the disciples were afraid. Even though they were fisherman, that perhaps made them keenly aware of the seriousness of their situation as water began to swamp the boat they were on. Fear gripped the disciples, and what makes it worse is that there was nothing that they could do about it. In fact, they believed that they were going to die – Jesus! We are perishing!

So where does God fit into all this chaos of fear and death? How does God fit into this world where chaos rages from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth? How does God fit into a world where our lives seem to hinge on the outcome of a coin flip? How do we want God to act in a world where an infinite amount of causal relationships of the decisions we make and decisions thrust upon us are made? For the disciples, it seems as if they almost want Jesus to react as fearful and anxious as they are themselves. Water is swamping the boat! Wind is whipping around tossing the boat back and forth! Come on Jesus! Wake up! How can you be sleeping at a time like this?

We would rather that Jesus exhibit some of the same fear and anxiety that we are feeling. Instead, Jesus displays a calm indifference to our fear when we would rather he rush in and save us from our immediate fears. There are times when we’d rather have our God be a God who comes running like mother after her child wandering out into the street than have who stares calmly into the face of chaos and death. It’s not until the disciples wake him up that Jesus even has any care about what is happening. Upon being woken up, he simply turned to the sea and said “Peace. Be Still.” Jesus’ words calm the storm. Jesus’ words calm the sea. Jesus’ words then create astonishment in the disciples as his words bring order and peace to chaos and randomness within the world. Jesus stands up to the chaos creates calm with his very words. “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Who is that order and creates out of the chaos?

Before this, maybe they saw Jesus as a prophet relating the will of God to the people. Maybe they saw Jesus as a healer helping the sick. Maybe they only thought of him as a teacher like how they do on the boat. But, upon seeing Jesus do this, they are simply in awe, yet they still don’t get it. They don’t get that this man who sleeps on a boat in the stormy seas is God, the creator and sustainer of all life, and he has come to bring in the Reign of God where sin and death have no more power over our lives. Trusting in that, in other words, having FAITH means trusting that Jesus has come to put a calm and an order upon our lives that truly allow us to finally live free from our constant fears of whatever might happen to us in our lives. It doesn’t mean that we are unaffected by randomness, by this concept of “stochasticity” in our lives. It means that when go through the storms and chaos in our lives, God is right there with us, never abandoning us, and giving us the strength of God eternal steadfastness throughout all our lives.

For all the beauty even unseen...

Mark 4:26-34

6/21/09

I did a big part of my growing up in western Kansas where my parents served as co-pastors of upwards of four congregations in a 60 mile radius. Now, one of the things that I still remember fondly was the literal amber waves of grain. We drove by them on the way to school in the school bus. We drove by them on the way to church. We drove by them on the way into the city to do our shopping. One of the things you should realize is that “amber waves of grain” isn’t just an image in a patriotic song. It is literally what happens as the strong southerly winds drive across the open fields of grain causing them to undulate and crest like the waves of the open sea. That take by itself is an absolute beauty and sight to admire.

I’ve often heard from people that the drive along the roads to get through the state of Kansas is one of the most boring things you could ever do. I’ve heard it said, “There’s nothing to see out there! It’s just flat and empty.” I lived out in western Kansas for seven years, and I’ve had multiple occasions to go back to visit and see the area in which I spent a significant portion of my childhood. Let me tell you all here, there is a depth and breadth of beauty that is almost unmatched. Sure there aren’t many trees, and the trees that do grow are stunted and twisted by the whipping winds. Sure there aren’t majestic hills, let alone enormous mountains that loom high in the sky. But, Kansas has a beauty that you wouldn’t expect. The beauty is in the grand scope you can get looking off into the horizon and be amazed at the vastness of God’s creation. The beauty is in those undulating fields that ripple and roil in the wind. The beauty is in the subtleties of the landscape that may not be apparent at the first glance. However, getting people to see that and realize such tremendous beauty often fails, because for some reason mountains are something to look at and the plains and prairies are not.

Let me assure you right now that I’m not bringing this up because I’m being paid on the side by the Kansas State tourism board. I’m not even implying that I don’t like or appreciate the beauty that I’m surrounded by right here right now living in Wisconsin. But I bring this up because, for some reason, we all tend to have trouble seeing the value and the beauty in the small, broken down, dilapidated, poor and seemingly insignificant. We love what is grand, extravagant, well kept, popular and successful. But, what makes the grand and glorious be something that we end up valuing so much? What gives things like mountains, canyons, and city skylines an inherent value and worth? Who decided that the mountain was something to look at while the open prairie is just empty and boring?

Jesus knows that when we think of what is good for us in our lives we think of what is grand and glorious. Take a moment. Close your eyes. Try to imagine what the Kingdom of God will look like. Focus on the images that pop into your mind’s eye. What do you see? Do you see a mustard seed growing into shrub? Do you see a farmer harvesting his or her crops? I think that if we’re honest with ourselves, we probably think of the Kingdom of God like we so often imagine heaven in our pictures and descriptions. We first see pearly gates. We see streets paved with gold. We see grand houses in which we will be reunited with all our friends and relatives. But do we see God? Would we even be open to how God makes the Kingdom of God a reality?

Jesus uses these parables so that he can confront what we would expect the Kingdom of God to look like. He uses these parables challenge and confuse what we are expecting from God. He uses these parables to tell us that God’s reign is an event, not a place, where people have trust in God’s love and care for them and where people then respond in showing that love to one another.

This first parable that we heard today is a parable telling us that the kingdom of God is going to grow and happen whether we are vigilant watching it grow or even know all the processes that need to take place for a seed to grow. The farmer doesn’t know and doesn’t need to know the second by second progress of the seeds life. The farmer simply plants the seed and gathers the fruit that the seed bears. In this, the Kingdom of God is simply being open and trusting that the seed will bear fruit in its due season. The process is ultimately out of the farmer’s hands.

The second parable we heard today is a parable telling us that the Kingdom of God is like the unlikeliest of seeds and plants. The mustard seed is small. In fact, if someone dropped it on the ground outside, we just might not be able to find it. Compared to the other things in life back then like having a labor animal or a heard of sheep, just one mustard seed would seem very insignificant. Yet God’s Kingdom comes even in the seemingly insignificant and proceeds to bear the fruit and love that provides shelter, food, and a nesting place for the birds of the air. God’s kingdom comes unexpectedly and directly challenges our normal ways of thinking and shows that that grace has come for the whole of creation and even the seemingly small and insignificant has the power to share God’s grace. God’s kingdom is a place where grace, forgiveness, and simple care for the other person happens as a response to what God has done for us. It doesn’t happen because we know and are making sure it happens. It happens because God has willed it to happen, and happen it does in many surprising and unexpected ways. Even the “flat and empty prairie” is a place where the beauty of God’s work can be seen, if you only have the patience to open your eyes and see its beauty.