Tag Archives: love

On Ashes, Valentines, and Ultimate Things…

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Photo credit: https://abidingpresence.net/newsfeed/2018/2/8/holiday-mashup

“Happy Ash Valentine’s Day!” my friend wrote this morning.  At first the greeting made me chuckle, especially given the number of grimaces and eye rolls I have received this year about how the Church has to celebrate Ash Wednesday on a day that is supposed to be about love.  Truth be told, I am not even sure how many faithful will even come to church tonight instead of going out to dinner or staying in for a cozy night with loved ones. 

But what I loved about that greeting today was how it married the two notions:  that you can celebrate love and death all at the same time.  In the same way that the Church soberly says, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return,” the secular world, despite the obvious consumerism of the day, uses this day to soberly say, “No really.  I love you:  I love you my friend, I love you my co-worker, I love you my classmate, and I love you, my beloved.”  These two days, at their root, are meant to talk about ultimate things:  love and death.  And as a priest, when I walk individuals and families toward death, there is nothing but love hovering around.

I wonder if the confluence of Ash Valentine’s Day might be an invitation for us this Lent.  How might you use these next forty day to meditate and act on those things of ultimate significance?  How are tending your relationship with God in a way that acknowledges that relationship’s ultimate significance?  How are you loving your neighbor in a way that honors the ultimate significance of their dignity?  How are you caring for yourself in a way that shows the ultimate significance of your identity as a child of God?  I don’t know if you need some silly candy conversation hearts that remind you that you are dust – or if you need ones that remind you that you are truly loved.  Either way, I hope this Ash Valentine’s Day is a day you can enter into Lent with significance, remembering you are loved. 

Sermon – Mark 1.21-28, EP4, YB (Annual Meeting Address), January 28, 2024

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Before our family left for our cross-country trip during this summer’s sabbatical, I had been warned by a fellow parishioner.  “I never really understood the word ‘awesome’ until I saw the Grand Canyon,” she told me.  The word awesome seemed so underwhelming – maybe because we use the word for things that are less than awesome – an awesome movie, an awesome meal, an awesome day.  But as I stood at the rail, overlooking the massiveness of the Grand Canyon my brain scrambled.  It was as if my brain could not comprehend the sheer vastness of the view in front of me – how far does the canyon stretch?  How deep is the bottom?  How long did it take those specks that must be hikers to get there?  Or maybe, more deeply, how did God conceive of such an indescribably beautiful thing.  As tears welled in my eyes at the Grand Canyon’s inconceivability, I finally understood the word:  awesome.

In today’s Gospel, that is the reaction of the crowd to Jesus.  Jesus comes into the temple on the sabbath and teaches like no other teacher has.  The teachers they know “always say, ‘as Moses said,’ or ‘as Rabbi so-and-so said.’  Jesus [speaks] with a quiet but compelling authority all of his own.”[i]  And the people are astonished, awestruck, amazed.  And their amazement does not stop with Jesus’ unique authority in his teaching.  They see his unique words carry with them power to make the unclean clean.[ii]  Like standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, their minds are scrambled.  They cannot understand this new thing.  They are just beginning to taste what one scholar describes as “One of the salient characteristics of [the Gospel of] Mark…the motif of surprise, wonder, awe, and fear…reactions [that] embrace all aspects of Jesus’ ministry…”[iii]  Those gathered today watch Jesus and can clearly say he is awesome.

This past year of ministry at Hickory Neck has struck me in a similar way.  I have stepped back many a time and looked at this community with a sense of awe.  I have told you repeatedly that one of the core values of Hickory Neck is our sense of curiosity – our willingness to try new things.  I talk about that core value a lot because that core value is extremely uncommon in churches.  Put more simply:  our core value of experimentation and playfulness is awesome.  I watched as your Sabbatical Team and your Vestry this past year embraced the idea of mutual sabbatical with gusto, confidence, and playfulness.  I watched as this parish didn’t just look at sabbatical as an obligation or a burden to bear, but as an opportunity to grow, try on new things, and encounter God in fresh ways.  I watched you learn, laugh, and love.  I watched you push yourselves and encourage one another.  I watched you grow in your relationship with God and one another.  And the view was awesome!

But I also watched you in the hard things this past year.  I watched as you grieved, struggled in your faith, and said goodbye to dear friends – all while embracing and comforting one another.  I watched our Stewardship Team take on a hefty deficit budget and decide to try a new approach to stewardship that felt uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and hard – and yet ended the year not only not incurring a deficit, but only using 8% of the savings we planned to use.  I watched as your Vestry held itself accountable to strategic goals the Vestry set for itself and I watched the Vestry struggle through hard questions of process and systems – and I saw the Vestry grow into the fullness of their leadership.  I watched a community struggle with decreased volunteerism and long-held preferences for the “way we have always done things,” – and I watched our community step boldly into doing things differently.  And I have to tell you, even (and maybe especially) in the hard stuff of ministry, the view has been awesome!

We started 2023 as almost two communities:  those long-timers who have been a part of Hickory Neck for ages but were away during long portions of the pandemic; and those newer members who made their way to Hickory Neck during- and post-pandemic who didn’t have a clue how things had “always been done” but knew they have found something special in this community.  One of our hopes had been that these two communities within a community would use our time of sabbatical to form a new Hickory Neck – to build a new way of being that involved shared leadership, creative ministries, and fresh encounters with the sacred.  I stand here today in wonder as I look at Hickory Neck a year later and I have to tell you:  the view is awesome!

We head into 2024 with some revenue challenges, with some needs for increased participation and leadership, and with the tensions that always exist in a growing church.  But we also head into 2024 with a renewed sense of wonder and awe in all that God is doing in this place.  From reenergized ministries to the wider community:  hosting the homeless, building beds for the children in our community who haven’t had a bed, feeding the hungry, and clothing those who struggle; to fresh, creative ministries that we have never tried before:  a children’s music ministry that will launch this summer with a chorister camp; to invitations to grow closer to that Jesus who is truly awesome – through liturgies, study, and service.  God has incredible things in store for us this year:  and the view is awesome!  Amen.    

[i] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 11.

[ii] Gary W. Charles, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 311.

[iii] John R. Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 2 (Collegeville, MN:  Liturgical Press, 2002), 79.

On Being Love and Light…

29 Wednesday Nov 2023

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Photo credit: https://www.thekitchn.com/amazon-pipishell-shopping-cart-review-23250404

This week, I was out shopping for household basics and managed to get in a fairly short line.  But before I could load my items onto the conveyer belt, I noticed the customer checking out was having some sort of issue.  Eventually I surmised it was an issue with a credit card.  The staff and customer realized she was using a card the store doesn’t accept.  The customer rifled around for another card, but for some reason, during her flustered search, she became emotional.  I would not have noticed except the checkout clerk and the bagger immediately jumped into caretaking.  I heard them soothing her, assuring her everything was okay.  I then overheard the bagger explaining how his day had been pretty crummy too, with a broken-down car and a phone that fell into a rain puddle.  The mood lightened – for the three of them, certainly, but even for those of us further back in line who may have been tempted to become impatient or frustrated. 

I confess, I was in awe of the interaction.  Here were three very different people – of different genders, races, and socioeconomic statuses – and yet, in that moment, they showed anyone willing to see how to be a decent human.  That may sound simple, but with shoppers bustling around with the frenzy of the holiday season upon us, and the emotions that are often lingering right under the surface this time of year, it was a powerful reminder about our priorities this season.

I do not know about the religious affiliation of anyone in that triad, but in Church speak, those two staff members were showing the love of Christ to that woman – they were showing what our baptismal covenant calls “respecting the dignity of every human being.”  One of our core purposes at Church is to equip followers of Christ to go out into the world, sharing the love of Christ in their own particular vocation.  As Advent approaches this Sunday, I am reminded that the world needs that love now more than ever.  We certainly do that intentionally at Hickory Neck, with services like our Blue Christmas service that acknowledges how our vulnerable emotions can be bubbling right under the surface this time of year, or with our Invitation Sunday coming up that honors how much longing there is in the world for meaningful community.  But more importantly, I hope our church is empowering our parishioners to be agents of love everyday, who can, at the drop of a dime, see need right in front of them, and show compassion, mercy, and grace.  I look forward to hearing from you where you see invitations this week to show Christ’s love and light!

Sermon – Matthew 18.21-35, P19, YA, September 17, 2023

20 Wednesday Sep 2023

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One of the tricky things about Jesus’ parables is where to situate ourselves, especially when the parable is a familiar one.  As soon as we hear the words, “…the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts…” our brains jump ahead, “Oh, this is the one where the guy is forgiven of his debts and then two seconds later turns around and refuses to forgive someone else’s debt.”  We may have felt pity for the first slave who owed so much, we may have been shocked by his poor behavior toward the other slave, or we may have even thought, “That guy deserved what he got!”  But the thing that is the hardest to do when reading this familiar parable is to situate ourselves in the shoes of the first slave.  And yet, that is the entire reason Jesus tells the parable today. 

We know where to situate ourselves because of what happens before the parable.  If you remember our gospel last week, we talked about Jesus’ conflict resolution plan.  In the very next verse after Jesus explains how the community of faith is to handle conflict, Peter asks a question in today’s text.  The question is a fair one, and when we’re really honest with ourselves, one we may have asked God ourselves.  Peter asks, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?  As many as seven times?”  The parable Jesus tells today is in response to Peter’s question about conflict, sin, and forgiveness in the community of faith.  Essentially, Jesus says, “Let me tell you a little story about forgiveness.”  So, we, who have resisted forgiveness ourselves like Peter, can situate ourselves with not just Peter, but with the slave who fails so miserably at forgiveness. 

Now, before you get too defensive about how you would never treat a fellow human being like the first slave treats the second, we need to think about Peter’s question first.  Theologian Stanley Hauerwas explains, “Peter’s question presupposes that he is the one who has been sinned against.  He assumes that he is in the position of power against the one who has wronged him.  But Jesus’s reply reminds Peter that he is to learn to be the forgiven.”[i]  Before we begin to think about offering forgiveness, we operate from one foundational truth:  we are a people who have first been forgiven.[ii]  Our forgiven status is at the heart of our ability to be a people of forgiveness.

But before we even talk about being a people of forgiveness, we need to talk a little bit about what forgiveness is not.  Some of us believe that forgiveness means excusing or overlooking the harm that has been done to us and saying that everything is okay.  For those who hold that belief, forgiveness can be equated with stuffing our feelings down deep inside or downright lying in order to keep the peace.  Others of us believe that forgiveness means allowing those who have hurt us to persist in their behavior.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is so important, that we become recurring victims of offenses.  Still others believe that forgiving means forgetting what happened.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness is pretending an old hurt does not still hurt.  Finally, others see forgiveness as something that we can do at will, and always all at once.  For those who hold this belief, forgiveness must be immediate and offered quickly.  The problem with all these models of forgiveness – of overlooking the harm, saying everything is okay, of allowing recurring behavior, of trying to forget, or forgiving once and for all – is that these models of forgiveness would have been totally foreign to Jesus.  According to author Jan Richardson, in Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness, “…nowhere does Jesus lay upon us the kinds of burdens we have often placed upon ourselves—burdens that can make one of the most difficult spiritual practices nearly impossible.”[iii]

So, if we know what forgiveness is not, we need to know what forgiveness is.  I like what scholar Debie Thomas has to say about forgiveness.  She says, “I think forgiveness is choosing to foreground love instead of resentment. If I’m consumed with my own pain, if I’ve made injury my identity, if I insist on weaponizing my well-deserved anger in every interaction I have with people who hurt me, then I’m drinking poison, and the poison will kill me long before it does anything to my abusers. To choose forgiveness is…to cast my hunger for healing deep into Christ’s heart, because healing belongs to him, and he’s the only one powerful enough to secure it.”  She goes on to say, “Secondly, …forgiveness is a transformed way of seeing.  A way of seeing that is forward-focused.  Future-focused.  Eschaton-focused.  …abuse and oppression are [n]ever God’s will or plan for anyone.  But I do believe that God is always and everywhere in the business of taking the worst things that happen to us, and going to work on them for the purposes of multiplying wholeness and blessing…Because God loves us, we don’t have to forgive out of scarcity. We can forgive out of God’s abundance.”[iv]

So how many times are we to forgive?  Not seven times.  Not even really seventy-seven times or seventy times seven, as some translations say.[v]  The forgiveness that first slave receives is hyperbolically abundant – the forgiveness by the king of ten thousand talents (or the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor)[vi] is almost ludicrous in its generosity.  But that is how abundantly God loves us.  We are invited today to love with that kind of ludicrous abundance too.  For our health, for our faith in the better world God is creating, we pray for the strength to ask God to “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  We are a forgiven people, who, because God loves us, can forgive not out of scarcity, but out of God’s abundance.  Amen.  

[i] Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew:  Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids:  Brazos Press, 2006), 166.

[ii] Hauerwas, 166.

[iii] Jan Richardson, “The Hardest Blessing,” September 9, 2014, as found at http://paintedprayerbook.com/2014/09/09/the-hardest-blessing/#.VBOogcKwKi0 on September 16, 2023.

[iv] Debie Thomas, “Unpacking Forgiveness,” September 6, 2020, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2748-unpacking-forgiveness on September 16, 2023.

[v] Lewis R. Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 69.

[vi] David Lose, “Pentecost 14A: Forgiveness and Freedom,” Sept. 7, 2014, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/ 2014/09/pentecost-14-a/.

Sabbatical Journey…on Being the Church

03 Monday Jul 2023

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Several years ago, I encountered a mobile chapel at General Convention.  The idea was that if people are being taken away from church on Sundays by sports, competitions, or other commitments, bring the church to them.  The mobile chapel was set up so people could go in for personal prayer, but there was also a set time for the distribution of Eucharist with a priest.  It was a creative expression of an ever evolving Church.

Travelers Chapel, Wall Drug in Wall, SD (reuse with permission)

On today’s leg of our sabbatical journey, I felt embraced by several other folks bringing church to me.  The first encounter was at Wall Drug, the famous roadside attraction and tourist stop in Wall, South Dakota.  Among the drug store, gift shops, stores, and restaurants is a “Travelers Chapel.”  The Chapel is always open, offering a peaceful setting for prayer.  Amidst the consumerism and loud animatronic singing, the Chapel is like an oasis for all of us passing through.  Somehow, Wall Drug managed to bring church to me today.

The second encounter came as we checked in at hotel tonight.  A laminated card was left on the nightstand.  The card is basically a greeting and blessing for all who stay at the hotel.  I confess I have never received such a note at a secular hotel, and I was thoroughly humbled by the witness of love of the management and staff of this hotel.  Once again, church found its way to me, this time at a Comfort Inn and Suites.

Hotel Note in Albert Lea, MN (reuse with permission)

Far too often I hear churchgoers complaining about how fewer people are making their way to church.  Today I am reminded that our work is take church to others.  Jesus was always commissioning people to go out and witness God’s love and redemption.  Our work is no different.  I wonder what unique way you might figure out how to be someone’s church today.

Sabbatical Journey…On Resetting and Love

27 Tuesday Jun 2023

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Idaho Road (reuse with permission)

In case reading about and seeing pictures from our cross-country adventure make you think we are having a perfect trip with perfectly behaving family members, today reminded me how human we really are.  When you are family, you know each other almost too well:  you know what makes family members laugh and what embarrasses them, you know the quirks of each member and you know teasing is a form of love, you know how far you can push someone until they lose their cool.  But because you love each other unconditionally, sometimes you push anyway.  And when you are in each other’s presence 24/7 for ten days, apparently, the tenth day is when the pushing becomes almost inevitable. 

Despite the dazzling green of Idaho’s countryside, the beautiful rivers of Wyoming, and the stunning mountains across three states, and although there were fun road trip games, stories shared, and conversations had, today I also lost my patience and my ability to exhibit mature parenting responses.  Even with some downtime for all of us, I realized I was snapping too much, and my patience was brittle thin.  What I needed was some unconditional love, and so, as I said goodnight to each family member, I asked for a hug.  Despite having just been bickering not ten minutes earlier, each member to a person gave me a hug without protest.  And suddenly the unease that had settled around me melted away.

Too often – with loved ones, with neighbors, with community leaders, and certainly in church – we forget to reset with love.  I know not everyone is comfortable with physical touch, and I know the pandemic made us anxious about physical contact, but sometimes I think a hug might help us all reset some of the tension between us.  In fact, I know some of us have been frustrated or angry for so long that we are not even sure what we were originally frustrated or angry about. 

When I’m feeling frazzled, one of my favorite prayers is from Psalm 46.10, “Be still and know that I am God.”  I love to pray those words repeatedly, each time, dropping the last word in the phrase.   The first time I pray all eight words.  Then I pray just seven, “Be still and know that I am.”  And then six, and so on, until I just pray the word “be.”  If a hug is not available to you today, or if you want to do your own self work on resetting with love, I commend Psalm 46.10.  Between God’s invitation into stillness, and the stillness one finds in hugs, I pray you find some peace this day.

Sermon – John 10.1-10, Acts 2.2.42-47, E4, YA, April 30, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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As a parent of young children, I often found that I mourned when certain stages ended.  One of the harder transitions was when I was no longer physically able to manhandle my children.  Before then, if a kid was refusing to move, or was throwing an epic tantrum, I could just swoop them up and manage their outburst physically.  But once I could not long hold their weight or battle those strong little arms, I realized my parenting technique was going to need a dramatic change – I was going to have to give up some control and figure out how to help both of us verbally work through what was going on in the moment.  Of course, that probably was the way I should have been parenting from the beginning, but sometimes a good swoop sure did feel good and gave me the illusion of control.

When I see images of Jesus the Good Shepherd – the biblical image we celebrate today – I find a similar sense of disappointment.  If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, I am metaphorically that helpless, probably not too bright, albeit cuddly sheep draped over Jesus’ shoulders.  That kind of image has always made me feel a little disempowered.  But this week I stumbled on a Byzantine icon[i] of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd which shifted things for me.  Instead of a sheep draped over Jesus’ shoulders, the icon has a person draped over Jesus’ shoulders.  Their eyes are closed, their body is limp, but Jesus, complete with the nail scars in his hands and feet, seems to effortlessly be carrying this person out of the wilderness.  The image did not necessarily make me feel empowered, but the image did humanize this metaphor for me.  I could easily imagine an adult who has been walking through the valley of the shadow of death, exhausted from suffering or grief.  Or I could imagine a protective Jesus who has swooped someone out of harm’s way.  And I can definitely imagine an adult who has worn themselves out with their own tantrum.

In John’s Gospel today, Jesus is shepherding the crowd through all those scenarios.  You may remember back in Lent we got that long story from John’s gospel about the blind man Jesus heals, only to have the religious community freak out about Jesus healing on the sabbath and not believing the man had actually been blind in the first place.  Well after the blind man proclaims his desire to follow Jesus, Jesus then turns back to the community of faith and offers this explanation of his healing the blind man.  His teaching in John is actually much longer than what we hear today – in fact, Chapter 10 of John’s gospel is usually divided into three sections – all about the Good Shepherd – but a different section is appointed for each liturgical year.  In year A, we get the “I am the gate,” or door, portion of Chapter 10.  We are told that when we pass through the gate, the “good shepherd,” tends to us so that we will have life, and have life abundantly.

This passage is the “so what” of Easter.  If you remember, people have been running around, demanding proof of Jesus’ resurrection, taking whole walks with Jesus before realizing who the resurrected Jesus is.  And so, Eastertide is a celebration of the resurrection, and we spend seven weeks trying to figure out what resurrection means.  The “so what” today then is that Jesus came, died, and rose again so that we might have life, and have that life abundantly.  And if that abundant life means Jesus has to carry us out of trouble, hold us when we cannot walk on our own, or haul us over his shoulder when we are just too stubborn to accept his gift of abundant life, that is what Jesus the Good Shepherd will do.  Jesus’ resurrection matters because his resurrection reminds us of the gift of abundant life.

But that story is only part one of our “so what” today.  The rest of the “so what” of resurrection happens in our lesson from Acts today.  Since Easter we have been reading in Acts about the beginnings of the church community.  We have heard two parts of Peter’s sermon after the great day of Pentecost, where he gathers the first mega church of over 3000 people.  Now we hear the “so what” of Jesus being the gate.  You see, when Jesus becomes the gate, the door through which we pass into the protected sheepfold, you know what that gathering of the sheep looks like?  We are not disempowered, limp bodies, lying under protection.  When we pass through Jesus’ resurrection, we join a community – a community of action.[ii]  The text from Acts says of that growing body, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”[iii]  As the community grows, they share in economic justice, sharing their wealth and caring for all equally.  They spend time together, eating with glad, generous hearts, praising God, and tending to the goodwill of all.  Jesus doesn’t just carry our limp, weary selves, and then deposit us into the world to try again.  Jesus brings us into a fold – a community of study, fellowship, communion, and prayer.

That is the beginning of your “so what” of Easter today.  We are an Easter people because Jesus gave his life so that we might have life and have that life abundantly.  As Easter people we are gifted that abundantly life so that we can enter the sheepfold of faithful community.  Your invitation today is hop off Jesus’ shoulders, walk through the gate of Jesus, and come into to a community of faith where we will study God’s word, develop meaningful relationships, come together around the common table, and pray.  When we gather in that kind of community, when we are fed mentally, physically, and spiritually, then we fueled for the rest of the “so what” of Easter.  Once nurtured in that generous, abundant community, we are led back out through the gate that is Jesus, better able to love and serve the Lord out in the world.  Thanks be to God!

[i] As found at https://www.etsy.com/listing/856250878/hand-painted-byzantine-icon-of-jesus?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-home_and_living-spirituality_and_religion-other&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDhfiQo66BpPPH4Bg02sff293o0Q8_YqIhIUuxfVbEDRA8-6wbArd0aAg3OEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_12559942249_120251207180_506897847531_pla-302895540136_c__856250878_122003557&utm_custom2=12559942249&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDhfiQo66BpPPH4Bg02sff293o0Q8_YqIhIUuxfVbEDRA8-6wbArd0aAg3OEALw_wcB on April 29, 2023.

[ii] The idea of what life is like in the sheepfold is articulated by Matt Skinner in “Sermon Brainwave:  #901: Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A) – April 30, 2023,” April 23, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/901-fourth-sunday-of-easter-year-a-april-30-2023 on April 29, 2023.

[iii] Acts 2.42-47.

Sermon – Matthew 28.1-10, ED, YA, April 9, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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I have a friend who does one of the most unconscionable things in life:  she flips to the end of every book and reads the ending first before going back to the beginning to start.  When she first told me about this habit, I was mortified.  How could you ruin the suspense, ignore the carefully crafted character development, and destroy the experience of imagination so callously?  For her, the answer is simple.  She needs to be assured that everything will turn out okay – the only way she can trust the journey the author will take her on is if she knows how the journey will end.  Now I have certainly read my fair share of books whose ending made me furious, so I get her logic.  But I have yet to be converted to her method, even by the bad endings.

Sometimes I think Easter Sunday is a bit like flipping to the end of the book.  We want to know Jesus rises from the dead, forgives our sins, and restores us to the promise of eternal life.  But that is not where the story starts today.  We are told that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go to see the tomb.  These two women do not come to prepare the body with spices like in the other Gospel narratives.  They just come to see the stone-cold reminder of death and lay down all that has been.  In any death, there is a flurry of activity – the realization of pending death; the calling in of loved ones to say goodbye, or in the case of sudden death, the shocked gathering of grief; the funeral plans and details so complicated all your brain can do is make one decision at a time; and then the receiving of condolences and public marking of goodbye.  But in any death, eventually everyone leaves, and the mourning are left doing what Mary Magdalene and Mary do – going to sit at the tomb with the stark reality of all that has happened.[i]

In some ways, that is our posture as a church today.  If we participated in Holy Week at all, we walked the last meal of Jesus, his washing of feet, his agonizing prayers, his betrayal and denial, his torturous death, and the finality of his tomb.  Of if we participated in Lent, we walked through the depths of our sinfulness, doing the hard work of repentance, even being reminded we are dust and to dust we shall return.  Of if we go to church on a regular basis, we know that Jesus is just the final act of God in response to the ways the people of God broke their covenant with God again and again – ignoring prophets and sages, ignoring the sins of their ancestors, ignoring all the blessings and glimmers of hope from God and instead doing our own will, not God’s will.

Once you know that whole narrative, humbling dragging our baggage of misbehavior, misdeeds, misguided wills, then the story we hear today is not just a “and then they lived happily ever after” ending.  Today’s story is profound, unbelievable, and, as the text says, literally earth-shattering.  What God in Jesus does today is entirely undeserved, nothing we are remotely entitled to, and utterly full of love, forgiveness, and grace.  When we carry the weight of that entire book we have been reading, then today’s text is the very reason we say alleluia over and over again today.  Today’s text is the reason we make our way to this place, whether we have never been here before, are not entirely sure we want to be here, whether our faith journey has begun to be renewed here, or whether this place feels like home for us.  Today’s text is the reason we have any hope at all in this conflicted, messy, seemly unsavable world.

But here is the funny thing about this beyond happily ever after ending:  this is not the end.  After the earth is literally shaken at its core, the appearance of an otherworldly angel, and even an encounter with the risen Christ, the story goes on.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary go witness to the other disciples.  We are told they go with fear – even though both the angel and Jesus tell them to not be afraid.  We are told they go with joy – because even though this new thing is terrifying, this new thing is terrifyingly joyful.  We are told they run – run to share the best beginning they have ever heard.

That is our invitation today.  In Christ’s death, we hear the best beginning we have ever heard.  Knowing all that we know of the prelude, we know that this is terrifyingly joyful news.  But this is news that we are invited not just to share, but to run and share.  I do not know to whom you need to run to today.  Maybe someone in your life needs this terrifyingly joyful reminder of resurrection.  Maybe someone you have never met before is waiting for you to run into them.  Or maybe you just need to run into your downtrodden self and remind yourself of this good news.  When the clergy today says, “Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, alleluia, alleluia,” our response is not just a verbal one.  Today we are invited to run and share the good news!  Amen!

[i] Kathryn M. Schifferdecker, “Dear Working Preacher:  The Foundation of Christian Hope,” April 2, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/the-foundation-of-christian-hope on April 5, 2023.

Sermon – John 3.1-17, L2, YA, March 5, 2023

29 Monday May 2023

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For the next four Sundays in Lent, our lectionary has us step away from the gospel of Matthew – the primary gospel for Year A in the lectionary – and take up the gospel of John.  Each of these Sundays will be a study in story and character:  today we read of Nicodemus, next week the Samaritan woman at the well, then the healed blind man, and finally the Lazarus story.  What I love about the use of the Johannine stories this Lent is they are centered on characters – people – trying to figure out this whole Jesus thing.  They are not passages like John’s flowery beginning:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…[i]” 

Over the next four weeks, instead of pouring over John’s convoluted text, we will be using John’s stories and characters to help to illuminate that text.  But like any story, we have to be careful about the lure of familiar stories.  Today is no exception.  Right away, John begins to tell us what we presume is everything we need to know.  “There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  He came to Jesus by night..”  Immediately, our brains start firing:  this is going to be one of those stories of silly leaders who should know things, but clearly do not.  And Nicodemus is sneaking in under the cover of night:  clearly Nicodemus is embarrassed, unsure, and probably a bit shady.  Two sentences in and we have this all figured out.  Forget how Nicodemus is so dimwitted he can’t understand what Jesus means by being born again.  We hear all the hints and triggers, and we’ve written the sermon before I said a word to you.  Moral of the story:  don’t be like Nicodemus; live in the light of Jesus, because God so loved the world.  Done!

But when we live in a black and white world – or this case a day and night, or darkness and light, world – we miss all the gray where we reside in our faith journey.  No doubt, Nicodemus visits Jesus from the shadows.  But we have to remember, given Nicodemus’ position, approaching Jesus publicly would have been “difficult, perhaps even dangerous…in the bright light of day.”[ii]  Truth be told, Nicodemus is not so different from any of us.  Nicodemus is “a successful and self-confident man, he plays a leadership role in his community.  He is spiritually open and curious, yet also rational.  He approaches Jesus directly and tries to figure out Jesus’ actions and social networks.  He is committed and curious enough that he makes an appointment to talk to Jesus face to face.”  Now, he may not be ready to go public, and so he, “…makes the appointment in the middle of the night, when he can keep his faith secret, separated from the rest of his life.  His imagination is caught by Jesus, but he wants to compartmentalize whatever faith he has.”[iii] 

Knowing Nicodemus has compartmentalized his faith, and knowing he is a bit skeptical, and knowing, eventually, he really does not get what Jesus is saying, the text today invites us not to judge or belittle Nicodemus, but instead see ourselves in him.  Before you get indignant about how maybe you have been born again through baptism, or how you can describe a moment when you were saved by proclaiming your belief in Jesus, I want you to remember one redeeming thing about Nicodemus today:  He is curious.  Nicodemus could have stayed even further in the shadows, he could have not approached Jesus at all, he could have said nothing when Jesus cryptically talks about being born from above.  Instead, Nicodemus stays curious.  Nicodemus may not be able to fully understand Jesus, but he follows his curiosity about Jesus.  Our instinct may be to hear judgment about Nicodemus, but what our text wants us to hear is “God blesses the curious because they are ready to learn and experience something new.”  The curious are blessed because “they can be truly born again.”[iv]

You may have heard John 3.16 today, listened to Nicodemus’ seeming failure, and thought you were going to be told to just believe today.  Diana Butler Bass explains that the word “believe” in John 3.16 comes from the German word for “love.”  To believe is not to hold an opinion.[v]  In fact, believing is “not so much about what one does with one’s mind as about what one does with one’s heart and one’s life.”[vi]  Your invitation today is not to avoid the patterns of Nicodemus, living in the light by just willing your mind to believe in Jesus.  Your invitation is to follow Nicodemus on the path of curiosity that will lead you into the life of love.  To help us on this journey toward curiosity and the life of love, I share this benediction:

Blessed are we in the tender place
between curiosity and dread,
We who wonder how to be whole,
when dreams have disappeared and
part of us with them,
where mastery, control, determination,
bootstrapping, and grit,
are consigned to the realm of before
(where most of the world lives),
in the fever dream that promises infinite
choices, unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the after,
forced into stories we never
would have written.
Far outside of answers to questions
we even know to ask.

God, show us a glimmer of possibility
in this new constraint,
that small truths will be given back to us.
We are held.
We are safe.
We are loved.
We are loved.
We are loved.
Amen.[vii]

[i] John 1.1-5.

[ii] George W. Stroup, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 70.

[iii] Deborah J. Kapp, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 68.

[iv] 10.

[v] As explained by Debie Thomas in Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories:  Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR:  Cascade Books, 2022), 34.

[vi] Stroup, 72.

[vii] Brenda Thompson and Jessica Richie, Bless the Lent we Actually Have:  Sermon Guide (KateBowler.com, 2022), 9.

On Practicing Daily Love…

15 Wednesday Feb 2023

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Photo credit: https://www.foodandwine.com/news/most-popular-valentines-day-candy-every-state-2022

As our girls age, they take on more independence.  Recently, that took the form of preparing Valentines to exchange with classmates.  Our younger daughter had already done this for years, so she knew the drill.  In fact, I came downstairs to find her packaging the Valentines kits we had procured.  As she wrapped up, she explained to me she was leaving one Valentine undone for the new kid in her class.  “I don’t know him well enough yet.”  I asked her why that would prevent her from addressing a Valentine to him, and she explained how each person was receiving a personalized note from her.  “Dear X, You are kind.  Happy Valentine’s Day.”  Or, “Dear Y, I like your laugh.”  And another, “Dear Z, You are fun to play with.” 

Yesterday, as she packaged up the completed Valentines, I asked her what she wrote for the new student.  She settled on, “Dear W, I like how calm you are.”  I sent her off to school in awe, wishing I could claim credit for the thoughtful, generous kid she has become, but knowing I could not claim credit for her Valentine kindness.

The more I thought about her notes, the more I thought how my daughter has internalized the loving eyes of God.  Thinking of faults in others is easy.  Somedays we can think of nothing but those faults.  But thinking of goodness in each person is actually harder than it seems – especially for that coworker whose moods drive you crazy, that committee member who always stirs the pot in meetings, or that family member who is always criticizing you or your choices.  I can attest to the fact that as lovely as my daughter’s notes were, she has registered complaints about almost every classmate of hers at some point in the school year.

Instead of dwelling on the glory (or lack) of romantic love in your life this February, I invite you instead to adopt the practice of daily love.  Maybe you start with the people in your life who bring you joy.  Let them know which of their attributes you really appreciate.  But then try daily love with the hard ones in your life:  the curmudgeon, the nagger, the expert in passive aggression.  Even if you cannot immediately say the words aloud, challenge yourself to think of one lovely thing about that person.  When you finally gain the courage, then find a way to share that loving regard – maybe aloud, maybe in a quick email or text, maybe in an old-fashioned card.  I can’t wait to hear how the practice of daily loves starts shifting your eyesight!