Having the Answers vs. Living Faithfully

Last night, my seminary class on Christmas and Easter discussed the non-canonical texts that tell about Mary and Joseph and the birth/childhood of Jesus.  They are bizarre texts, the Proto-Gospel of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.  One thing that I wondered was whether or not the canonical Gospel stories would seem just as bizarre, had we not spent our lifetimes hearing them and watching them and acting them out in childhood pageants.  I think they would.

My professor finished by saying that we can see how the non-canonical texts are trying to fill in the gaps, that they are harmonizing with the canonical texts not competing with them.

She reminded us that it's good to have gaps in the texts.  The gaps remind us, as do the texts (both canonical and non), that having the answers is not the same as living well and living faithfully.  Her closing thoughts seem so essential to me in this time of deep division.

Reweaving My Frazzled Threads

This morning is one of those mornings when I feel a bit frazzled and overextended.  Let me collect some threads and see what I can weave together.

--I have turned in midterm grades for Spartanburg Methodist College.  Hurrah!  I am trying something new this term, frontloading the more intensive assignments, the research assignments, to the front half of the class.  I think it's better for students, but it has meant a tiring few weeks for me.

--I go to an audiologist this morning.  I have had my hearing checked before, but it was around 2009 or so.  I have already found out that my health insurance doesn't cover hearing aids, but that wasn't a surprise to me.  I may make the investment.  After all, we've invested in vision aids and teeth--why not hearing?  These are the decisions that might mean we have a healthier old age.

--My audiologist appointment was for next week, when SMC is on spring break, but they called to offer me this morning's spot because someone had cancelled.  I am glad I was able to say yes--perhaps next Friday will now feel more spacious.

--For one of my seminary classes, we have to choose five weeks where we'll do a more intense thinking about the week's texts.  Tonight we study the non-canonical birth narratives.  I decided not to do the more intense engagement.  I am not likely to ever preach or teach on those texts, so I'll save my intense thinking for later.

--I was sad to hear of the death of Martin E. Marty, a prominent theologian and a Lutheran.  In recent years, I haven't read as much of his work, but there were times when I read his short articles on a regular basis and found his voice one of sanity and compassion. 

--I was sad, and yet the man was 97 years old, so I'm also happy that he lived a long and fruitful life.

--I was happy to read this article in The Washington Post about an unexpected benefit of drinking tea.  When I clicked on the link, I expected that the benefit would have something to do with vitamin absorption or hydration.  Lo and behold, steeping tea can lead to reducing toxins like lead that might be in the water.  The tea leaves attract the toxins and hold them, while releasing their own benefits.  Hurrah!

--I think about the years when I worried about my tea consumption, worried that the tannins might be doing something to my stomach, the way that they discolored tea pitchers.  But through the decades, we've found more and more benefits to tea drinking.

--I am also thinking of past years and my fabric buying.  This week, Joann Fabric announced it will close all stores.  That store used to be one I went to much more regularly, back in the days when they had cheaper alternatives to the fancier cloth/quilt shops, back when I was making more baby quilts.

--And then my brain went to the going out of business sales that they might have.  I probably have more fabric than I can use in the lifetime that I have left--but I do have some quilts that will need some backing fabric.  I wonder how much time is left for those stores and when the sales will start.

Well, let me shift gears and think about a sunrise walk.  Yesterday I even did a bit of jogging.  I am relieved to be getting out of my chair this week.  Last week was tough, with cold and ice and wind.

Refuges and Dwellings in This Time of Trouble

I am always intrigued when images coalesce across meditation spaces.  This morning, this line from Psalm 57 spoke to me.  I wrote it in my sketchbook, putting it into a different line form:

Be merciful to me, O God,

be merciful

for I have taken refuge

in you; in the shadow of your wings

will I take refuge

until this time of trouble

has gone by. (Psalm 57: 1)

The language is from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, which uses the New Jerusalem Bible translation.  Other translations use words like storm, danger, and catastrophe, but I love the way "time of trouble" sounds, and the verb choice, "has gone by" instead of "pass by" or "dies down."

I was thinking about this passage as I made the morning oatmeal, and I thought about a text that is bringing a friend comfort, the idea of the soul making a dwelling with God.  Was it dwelling?  shelter?  home?  It's slightly different than my soul rests in God.

And then I thought about the similarities:  refuge and dwelling.  In some ways it's like being rooted in God, but in other ways it's different.  Rootedness reminds me of dirt and growing things.  A shelter, a home, a refuge, a dwelling is less organic, more structural, perhaps more sturdy and protected.

No mystery why these passages are speaking to me in the perilous times we live in.  And of course, the times are always perilous, but I'm not always so aware as I have been recently.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel, Transfiguration Sunday

The readings for Sunday, March 2, 2025:

First Reading: Exodus 34:29-35

Psalm: Psalm 99

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:12--4:2

Gospel: Luke 9:28-36 [37-43a]



Here we are, the final Sunday before Lent begins. Transfiguration Sunday gives us a chance to wrestle with an essential question: who is this Christ? Why worship this guy?

Do we worship Christ because of his glory? The mystical elements of Transfiguration Sunday dazzle us and threaten to overshadow the rest of the story. What a magnificent tale! Moses and Elijah appear and along with Christ, they are transformed into glowing creatures. A voice booms down reminding us of Christ's chosen and elevated status.

It's easy to understand Peter's response: we'll stay on the mountain, we'll build booths! It's easy to understand why the disciples stay quiet about this mystical experience.

Jesus then heals a child; he's a success where his disciples have failed.

Do we worship God in the hopes of harnessing this kind of transfiguring power? It's easy to understand this impulse. But much of the Bible warns us against this impulse.

Jesus know that he's on a collision course with the powers that rule the world. The disciples argue about who is greatest, and Jesus reminds him of the nature of his ministry: to be least.

For those of us who worship Christ because we want transfiguration, it's important to remember what kind of transfiguration we're going to get. We're not likely to get worldly power, money, or fame because we're Christians--in fact, it will be just the opposite.

Will we get healing? Maybe. Will we be creatures that glow with an otherworldly light? Metaphorically. Can we charge admission and get rich from our spiritual beliefs? Go back and reread the Gospels, and see what Jesus has to say about wealth.

Ah, Transfiguration Sunday which leads us to Mardi Gras, a few last hurrahs before the serious season of Lent, that season of ash and penitence. Let us stay here in this glow.

But let us not forget the path before us, the path that brings us off the mountain and into service. Let us not confuse the mountain top for the true relationship that God offers us.

The Feast Day of Saint Matthias

Today is the traditional feast day of St. Matthias. In the 1960's, the Roman Catholic church moved his feast day to May 14, so that we're celebrating his life in a month that makes more chronological sense--Matthias was the apostle chosen to replace Judas Iscariot, who committed suicide after he realized what his betrayal had wrought, so it makes sense to celebrate his life after Easter. Of course, traditionalists will celebrate today. And Eastern Orthodox believers will observe his feast day on August 9.

I've recently become a bit fascinated with this saint. I've done a smidge of research, and I can't tell what, exactly, he's the patron saint of.

If I was in charge, I'd make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition. Would I make him the patron saint of people who must wait for recognition in the workplace only, or in any situation? Is that process of waiting so different?

I have this on the brain because I have worked in places where the local job ladder is very short with lots of folks who have been working for the organization for ten years or more--when there's a job opening, they couldn't all be promoted. And if they wanted further promotions, again, long wait times.

I imagine that the circle of Jesus was similar. There's the inner circle, the twelve, chosen early. Then there's a massive outer circle. Who would have dreamed of the incidents that led to a job opening in the inner circle?

Of course, as a woman, I will always wonder at what Gospel revisions went on in the early church. Was the inner circle really that tight? Was it really only twelve? Was it really only men? We know that Jesus had a sympathy towards women that was uncommon for his time period. Would he really have excluded them from the inner circle?

Then I think of the logistics of being one of the twelve--all that travel, all those difficult circumstances. Maybe it was kinder of Jesus not to call women to be part of the inner circle. If you go back to the sayings of Jesus, it's clear that he doesn't see hierarchy in the same way that humans do--he clearly mocked the idea that some disciples are more chosen than other.

So, would Matthias have even seen his appointment as a promotion? Maybe it's just our later proclivity to make lists that sees this development as a promotion. Of course, there is that passage in Acts that seems to show that the disciples shared our proclivities toward hierarchy and list making.

I think of Matthias, patiently waiting, following Christ, never knowing the outcome. In that way, he's the patron saint of us all. We follow Christ, not knowing whether we'll be chosen for some superhuman greatness, or whether we'll be called to stay put, quietly ministering the people around us. Some of us believe that God has a plan for us, while others believe that God will use us where we are, like a master weaver. Some of us believe that the universe is essentially chaotic, but we are not excused from God's mission of Kingdom building. Some of us know that we cannot possibly comprehend any of this, and we know that we are lucky that God does not depend on our puny imaginations.

Sermon for Sunday, February 23, 2025

February 23, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 6:  27-38

You have probably heard the words in today’s Gospel used to justify a pacifist approach to the question of violence.  Perhaps worse, you might have heard people use this text to tell us that we must endure violence on earth so that we can get our reward in the afterlife.

But you might not have thought of these texts as resistance texts, texts that show us how to resist the world we live in, a culture which has never been a turn the other cheek kind of place.

In his book Engaging the Powers:  Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, Walter Wink explains this text in the context of the honor culture of the time of Jesus.  There would have been strikes to the cheek in a particular way, with a particular hand, the hand used when hitting an inferior, and the purpose would be to put a person in his or her place.  If I offer the other cheek, then my attacker would have to hit me with the other hand, which would be the hand used when one is an equal.  It is a way of asserting one’s dignity.

Similarly, if ordered to give a coat, and I strip naked by giving my tunic as well, that would be an act of dishonor, and not only would I bring dishonor on myself, as I stripped naked, but I’d also bring greater dishonor on the one who set these events into motion.  In Matthew’s version, we get the sentence about being forced to go a mile and going an additional mile.  People who heard Jesus say this would know that he was referring to Roman soldiers, who could force people to walk a mile, carrying a pack.  A Roman soldier who ordered someone to go more than a mile would be in trouble, so walking an additional mile while carrying a pack is a way of sending a message to that soldier.

Of course, resisting in this way carries a risk.  It’s not as passive as it seems, and it risks enraging the one who seeks to remind us of our place in the social caste.  In the time of Jesus, in many cases, the enraged person could have one flogged or put to death for impudence.  It’s important to remember that the culture of Jesus was a vastly different culture in many ways than our own.  Very few people had the kind of human rights that we say are important, that we can go to court to protect.  In the time of Jesus, there was very little in the way of recourse if one was wronged.  It was a culture based on social hierarchy, with very little movement between class and caste. It was also a culture ruled by Romans who were not going to tolerate social unrest, Romans who would not hesitate to slaughter dissenters.  The Romans liked to remind those whom they conquered of the inferiority of the conquered.

But in some ways, the culture of the empire was not so different than ours:  people pitted against each other in a quest for scarce resources, a few people lifted up while masses of others faced a variety of oppression.

The rest of today’s Gospel gives us additional instruction in how to resist a culture that seeks to distract us by turning us on each other.  Some of the instructions make sense.  We can give to those who beg—that seems like an easy task, one that many of us do already.  If our goods are taken or repossessed, we can let them go—that’s not far from other instruction we’ve gotten from Jesus.

We can love our enemies, but what does that mean exactly?  Jesus gives us one concrete command:  we can pray for those who abuse us, whether the abuse is physical or emotional or monetary or any other form.  As we pray for those who oppress us, we keep our hearts soft.  We remind ourselves of the humanity of us all.  We pray not just for the transformation of the abuser, but we also pray to keep ourselves from being transformed.

At the very least, we can pray. We can pray for those people who are doing the heavy lifting of resistance. We can pray for those who are transforming their societies for good, whether they live in our country or on the other side of the planet. We can pray for the softening of the hearts of the hard ones. We can pray that we have the wisdom to recognize evil when we see it. We can pray that we have the courage to resist evil in whatever forms it comes to us.

These are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that evil elements will not turn around and destroy us. Likewise, these are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that we don’t become the evil that we are resisting.

Jesus shows us how to live in this world, how to resist evil without being destroyed by evil, and our world certainly has plenty of evil that needs resisting.  So how do we do it?  Love is the answer, and it has continued to be the answer.  We’ve had great religious and moral thinkers through the ages return to this principle of loving our enemies as a tool of transformation.

And it’s not just transformation on a personal level.  Let us not forget that nonviolent resistance can change governments and countries.  Think of the changes that we’ve seen in our lifetime.  I would call our attention to 1989, when the wall between the two Germanys came down.  Did you know that this moment in time was sparked by weeks of prayer services and candlelit marches?  Did you know that a Lutheran church played a key role?

In October of 1989, a Lutheran pastor in Leipzig, East Germany started holding Monday night prayer meetings.  At the same time, there were evening protest marches, with tens of thousands of people coming into the village square, holding candles.   One Communist official in Leipzig said, “we were prepared for everything except the prayers and candles.”  There were rumors that people would be allowed across the border, so people went to the border crossing.  The guards there hadn’t gotten any official notice.  They were outnumbered, and they knew that they had a choice:  they could start shooting and commit mass murder or they could lift the gates and allow reconciliation.  They lifted the gates, and the world was changed.

It could have gone differently, and for every example I give, there are others which have not ended well, like Tiananmen Square.  And yet, just because liberation hasn’t come yet, it doesn’t mean that it won’t come.

Walter Wink, writing in 1993, notes, “In 1989 alone, there were thirteen nations that underwent non-violent revolutions. All of them successful except one, China. That year 1.7 billion people were engaged in national non-violent revolutions. That is a third of humanity. If you throw in all of the other non-violent revolutions in all the other nations in this century [the 20th], you get the astonishing figure of 3.34 billion people involved in non-violent revolutions. That is two-thirds of the human race. No one can ever again say that non-violence doesn't work.”

You might be tempted to say that we’re talking about events from 1989, which is getting to be a long time ago.  You might look across the globe in despair at how little evidence of nonviolence or nonviolent resistance you see.  But rest assured that resisting despair, resisting violence, and praying for our enemies is much wider spread than we might think.  This process is like the flower bulbs that many of us planted months ago.  Even though the larger world seems frozen and dark, those bulbs have started their work, and soon they will burst forth in glorious colors to brighten the drab world.  Likewise, our prayers for peace, our prayers for justice will do their work—and 40 years from now, we won’t recognize the landscape we live in, a landscape we changed through our resistance to the culture that offers violence as the only solution.

The Beginning Days of Confirmation Class

I am a Synod Appointed Minister, a very temporary position which has lasted a year longer than first planned.  I am happy to be at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN, and I'll be sad to leave.  But it's also hard to know some best approaches as I think about things like Confirmation class.  After all, the church is looking for a full-time pastor to share with the neighboring church in Bristol, VA.  It might make sense to wait on some things, so that the full-time pastor can go from beginning to end with the confirmands.

But the search process can take awhile, and meanwhile, the middle schoolers are getting older.  So I decided to start Confirmation this year, on Feb. 9.  That Sunday, we made Valentines to talk about God's love, so we opened the class to everyone, regardless of age. I made some salient points about love and how God loves us no matter what. The youth enjoyed making Valentines. I do realize that they may remember the Valentines making more than the message. But since it's a message I return to often in the youth sermon, hopefully they will remember.

On this past Sunday, we looked at the baptismal promises and the affirmation of baptism promises, which are essentially the same.  We talked about parents and family and church members making promises on behalf of babies and about what it means when we hand those promises back to the confirmands.  It was a good session.

This Sunday, we'll start talking about baptism in earnest.  I have an infographic that I made for a seminary Foundations of Worship class, and we'll start there.  

The following week, I will be out of town, so I want them to make an infographic or a collage.  They can use mine as a model.

I'm thinking of this approach as one of modules.  When the new pastor comes, I hope to be able to say, "We've done a module on baptism and a module on communion."  If it's awhile before the new pastor comes, we'll move on to the creeds and the commandments.

It is strange thinking of Confirmation, what I hope to teach, what really feels important. I worry about the next person coming in as we are midway through the process and deciding that I've done a bad job. I don't care what that person thinks of me, but I don't want the youth to be punished in any way.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for Sunday, February 23, 2025:

First reading
Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

Second reading
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Gospel
Luke 6:27-38


Turn the other cheek. Give up your clothes if asked. This Sunday we get to Luke's version of texts which have been so misunderstood through the centuries that it’s hard to remember what Jesus was really saying. Jesus was NOT saying to let your abuser batter you day in and day out. Jesus was not instructing us to let evil steamroll right over us. Jesus was not even calling us to pacifism, a stoic acceptance of brutality that will buy us a better condo in Heaven for enduring hell on earth.

No, these are resistance texts. Yes, resistance texts.

These are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that evil elements will not turn around and destroy us. Likewise, these are texts that show us how to resist evil in such a way that we don’t become the evil that we are resisting.

It’s important to remember that the culture of Jesus was a vastly different culture. It was a culture based on honor. It was a culture based on social hierarchy. It was also a culture ruled by Romans who were not going to tolerate social unrest, Romans who would not hesitate to slaughter dissenters.

Jesus shows us how to live in this world, how to resist evil without being destroyed by evil. If you want to read the best text on this idea, I recommend Walter Wink’s Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. It is one of the best books of theology I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of theology.

Let’s focus on the turning of the other cheek, since this passage is so well known. Notice that Jesus gives specific cheeks in specific order. That’s a detail lost on us, but it wouldn’t have been lost on the people who heard Jesus’ instructions. Walter Wink explains today's Gospel passage in great detail to show that Jesus doesn't advocate passivity but instead shows a way to maintain one's dignity in the face of overbearing oppression.

For those of you who would sneer at the idea of resistance working in our evil, evil world, I would say that nonviolent resistance can bring mighty social change.

Walter Wink, writing in 1993, notes, “In 1989 alone, there were thirteen nations that underwent non-violent revolutions. All of them successful except one, China. That year 1.7 billion people were engaged in national non-violent revolutions. That is a third of humanity. If you throw in all of the other non-violent revolutions in all the other nations in this century [the 20th], you get the astonishing figure of 3.34 billion people involved in non-violent revolutions. That is two-thirds of the human race. No one can ever again say that non-violence doesn't work. It has been working like crazy. It is time the Christian churches got involved in this revolution because what is happening in the world is that the world itself is discovering the truth of Jesus' teaching, and here we come in the church, bringing up the rear.” And of course, more lately we can point to a variety of revolutions which have fairly peacefully gotten rid of dictators who had been in power for decades.

Maybe we are not up for the task of resistance, which can be scary and can lead us to unexpected places. At the very least, we can pray. We can pray for those people who are doing the heavy lifting of resistance. We can pray for those who are transforming their societies for good, whether they live in our country or on the other side of the planet. We can pray for the softening of the hearts of the hard ones. We can pray that we have the wisdom to recognize evil when we see it. We can pray that we have the courage to resist evil in whatever forms it comes to us.

Sunday Report

Yesterday was a more harrowing drive to Bristol than I like, especially in the first half hour (darkness and rain and wind and big trucks).  But it was a good day at Faith Lutheran.

For our Confirmation class, we looked at the baptism promises and the affirmation of baptism promises, which are essentially the same.  We talked about what it means to live into these promises.  Even the ones that seem straightforward, like bringing children to the word of God could have some nuance:  that could be the Bible, most obviously, but even things like hymns can contain the word of God.

I will continue to stress that what we're talking about is a lifetime journey, not a one time test, like a driver's license.  I want them to know that even if they're not sure about everything, it's O.K. to live with some mystery.

Then we headed upstairs for worship.  I was happy with worship and with my sermon, which you can view here or read here.  There was a good vibe in the congregation, even though the attendance was a bit lighter.

On our way home we had rain and snow at the higher elevations.  Down here on the other side of the mountain, we had sun, but so much wind I didn't want to go back out.  Luckily, I didn't need to.

Sermon for February 16, 2025

Luke 6:17-26

Does this text seem familiar?  It should—in Luke 1, which we heard on the last Sunday of Advent, we hear a version of these words as Mary rejoices with Elizabeth.  In Luke 4, which we heard three weeks ago, Jesus preaches his first sermon, which sounds like a shorter version of what we hear today.  And today, Jesus elaborates on the ideas that we first heard from Mary—clearly Mary has trained her son well.

This text might feel familiar in other ways too—and yet different in key ways.  You might remember that this sermon happened on a mountain.  And yes, it did—in the Gospel of Matthew.  But here, in the Gospel of Luke, instead of having people look up to Jesus as he preaches from a mountain, Jesus looks up at the disciples as he preaches on a plain.

Last week Jesus told Simon Peter to cast his nets into the deep water.  This week, Jesus delivers his message on a plain, a level place.  As with last week’s deep water, we might not understand a level place in the ways that prophetic tradition would recognize it.  Professor Ronald J. Allen says, “The word “level” often refers to places of corpses, disgrace, idolatry, suffering, misery, hunger, annihilation, and mourning”—and then Dr. Allen traces the word across 6 prophetic texts in the Old Testament.  Jesus is on a plain with us, on the level, giving us even-handed discussion about what it means to follow him during the desperate times in which we find ourselves, whether it’s the Roman empire or late stage capitalism.

He must know why he has attracted a following:  people come to him eager for healing, yearning to have their demons evicted.  Throughout the Gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit has been on the move, demonstrating Divine Power, and the beginning of today’s Gospel is no different.  In the middle of level ground, Jesus gives us plain talk about the Kingdom of God, which is different from earthly kingdoms.

In ancient times, people saw evidence of Divine favor in earthly circumstances.  In the ancient context, people knew that that someone was blessed by God—or gods and goddesses--because they were rich, because they weren’t hungry, because they had respect from every corner of society.  Ancient people assumed that if one was poor, if one had desperate circumstances, if one’s life was marked by death or other forms of doom, that it was because a person had done something to deserve that fate.  Ancient people saw divine favor expressed in quality of life

Jesus tells us of a different reality.  The poor aren’t damned, the hungry aren’t doomed, the mourning aren’t perpetually sad, the reviled aren’t forever cast away.  Indeed, when we live on the land of the level, we are surrounded by people whose lives are wrecked.  And here comes Jesus, echoing the words of the angel Gabriel to his mother Mary, words that say, “Hail, o blessed one.  The Lord is with you.  You have found favor with God.”  Jesus tells us over and over again that when we feel lost, when we feel abandoned, when we feel most outcast from our society, God is right there with us, on that plain.

And then we get to the Woes.  Blessings and woes—it’s the language of the prophets, the message that God has not abandoned us, the message that there is a penalty for living lives that seek success by the world’s markers, not by God’s.  Jesus knows how easy it is to fall under the spell of our larger society that tells us that we should value wealth, comfort, prestige—it was true in the time of Jesus, and it’s just as true today.  

In the Gospel of Luke, we get many parables about wealth, about the dangers of trusting in earthly wealth.  Each Gospel warns about wealth in its own way;  the Gospel of Luke returns again and again to the message that earthly wealth takes us away from God.  That is not to say that those of us who are wealthy are beyond salvation.  Not at all.  

In fact, if we look at the book of Luke and the book of Acts as one narrative story written by the same person (and we are fairly sure that both books were written by the same person), we see a radically different way of living, radically different from the ways that the larger world would see as rational.  In the book of Luke, over and over again, Jesus tells us that God’s blessing will look radically different than what the world trains us to expect a blessing will be, and that wealth is not the mark of greatness that the world tells us it is.  By the time we get to Acts, the disciples have begun to put this idea into practice.

The early chapters of the book of Acts show that the disciples have pooled their wealth, that they are neither rich nor poor, that they hold their goods in common.  They eat together and they worship together and they help the poor—and this new way of life attracts people, just like the new way of life that Jesus proclaims attracts people.  

If we look at the Sermon on the Plain, we see that there is a middle way between the brokenness of our current world and the stories of success that our current world tries to sell us.  If we share our wealth, the poor will get their reward, and we will avoid the spiritual dangers that come with extreme wealth.  If we share our food, then the hungry will be fed, and we will be nourished too.  If we comfort those who weep, then at some point, smiles will return to their faces and to ours.

Make no mistake—living this way can invite scorn, or worse.  Jesus warns us again and again of the cost of discipleship, that the larger world might exclude us, might revile us, might defame us because we choose to live out our Gospel based lives.  But that will be fine.  Jeremiah tells us, and the Psalmist tells us, and Jesus tells us, and another several thousand years of wisdom from all sorts of spiritual thinkers—they all tell us that if we live the way that Jesus calls us to live, we will find ourselves like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither.

If we find ourselves in a time of drought, we don’t need to be anxious.  If we perceive that we are in a place that prophets would have recognized as one of corpses, we don’t need to fear.  Our roots run deep.  We will continue to have green leaves.  Jesus speaks to us on the Plain, on our level, showing us again and again that there is a way of healing, a way of hope, that we can find blessings in places where most people would see as desolate.

The Feast Day of Saint Valentine

Here's one of those strange feast days, a feast day that's more popular in the general culture than it is in the church culture that pays attention to saints and their days. 

Those of us in religious circles might spend some time thinking about this feast day and the ways we celebrate it, both within our religious cultures and in popular culture.  I've often thought that marriage at its best is sacramental:  it demonstrates to me in a way that few other things can how deeply God loves me.  If my spouse's love for me is but a pale shadow of the way God loves me, then I am rich in love indeed.

I use the word marriage cautiously.  I don't mean it the way that some Christians do.  I mean simply a love relationship between adults that is covenantal and permanent in nature, as permanent as humans are capable of being.

I realize that this day is fraught with sadness and frustration for many people. I went to elementary school in the 1970's, before we worried about children's self esteem. If you wanted to bring Valentines for only your favorite five fellow students, you were allowed to do that. So, some people wound up with a shoebox/mailbox full of greetings and treats, and some wound up with very little.  I was in the middle, but instead of focusing on how lucky I was to have love notes at all, I compared my haul to those of my prettier friends.  I'm still working on remembering the wisdom a yoga teacher told me once:  "Don't compare yourself to others.  It won't help your balance."

I still worry about how this day might make people feel excluded.  I worry that as with baptism, we don't support people in their covenantal relationships in all the ways that we could.  I worry that a day that celebrates love in this way makes people who don't have a romantic relationship feel doomed.

To me, this feast day is essentially a manufactured holiday, yet another one, designed to make us feel like we must spend gobs and gobs of money to demonstrate our love.

Every day, ideally, should be Valentine's Day, a day in which we try to remind our loved ones how much we care--and not by buying flowers, dinners out, candy, and jewelry.  We show that we love by our actions:  our care, our putting our own needs in the backseat, our concern, our gentle touch, our loving remarks, our forgiveness over and over again.

And sustained by the love that sustains in our homes, we can go out to be a light that shines evidence of God's love to the dark corners of the world.  Every week, we are reminded of the darkness, and some weeks it intrudes more than others.  We must be the light that beats back the darkness.

On this Valentine's Day, let us go out into the world, living sacraments, to be Valentines to one another, to show a weary world the wonders of God's love.

Incarnation and Aging Wombs

Before I went to bed last night, I worked on my homework for my seminary class that looks at Christmas and Easter texts and considers what they mean when looked at without the middle part of the story.  For our homework, we look at the Bible text and come up with 10 questions or observations.  Then we write two paragraphs that respond to the secondary reading and come up with two questions for class discussion.

Our text this week was Luke 1:  5-56, which includes the story of Elizabeth.  I had written a bit about why it was so important to be clear that Joseph had nothing to do with the creation of the baby Jesus and wondered what it would have been like had we not worried about proving the paternity of Jesus.

That thought led me to this question:  "If Elizabeth had been the one to give birth to Jesus, if Jesus had come from a barren womb, from an elderly female body, would the shape of Christianity be different?"  I had never thought about this question, and now I can't stop.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The reading for Sunday, February 16, 2025:

First reading
Jeremiah 17:5-10

Psalm
Psalm 1

Second reading
1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Gospel
Luke 6:17-26

We may feel that this Gospel is familiar; careful readers may see a difference between what we read this week in Luke, and the more common version of the Beatitudes we usually read in Matthew.

Luke begins similarly enough with 4 Blesseds: "Blessed are you who are _______." It sounds much more familiar than the way that Matthew says it: "Blessed are the ______."

Unlike the Beatitudes that we read in Matthew, in Luke, 4 blessings are followed by 4 woes: Woe to you who are rich, full, laughing, spoken highly of.

Is Jesus really cursing those of us who are wealthy and well-fed, those of us who are in a good place in our lives? That would not be the Jesus that I know. I don't usually wish I had a knowledge of Greek and a gospel written in Greek, but here I do. I wonder if there's a better interpretation of "woe."  Similarly, we should resist thinking that it's better to be poor--most commentators agree that the more appropriate interpretation is that Jesus is saying that God prioritizes the poor.

One of the traditional approaches to this version of the Beatitudes is to say that this text shows Jesus upending the traditional order. Everything our culture teaches us about who is a winner and the vast lot of us who are losers--Jesus comes to tell us that in the Kingdom of God, we can look forward to a new social order.

That idea can lead us to lots of new questions: is this Kingdom of God Heaven? Is it an earthly Kingdom? Did it come when Jesus came to us 2000 years ago or is it still in the process of evolving?

And if we're more honest, those of us who are in a less-distressed/more comfortable part of our lives might wonder where our place will be. Do we need to give up all our money? Are our happy days numbered? Is Jesus reminding us that all is cyclical? What does Jesus really want from us?

These are the questions that have kept theologians busy for centuries. Some have said that if you were choosing the most important passages of the Gospels, we'd do well to choose this text. Some have called it a guidebook to the proper behavior of Christians. Is this text an updating of the Ten Commandments or the replacing? Or something else altogether?

For those of us who see the Bible as a guidebook for moral behavior, we might see ourselves challenged to approach the text in a new way. For those who see moral behavior as our ticket to Heaven, we might also be challenged to think differently.

Christ came to announce that God's plan for redeeming the world had begun. That plan involves our pre-death world, which is not just a place where we wait around until it's our turn to go to Heaven. No, this world is the one that God wants to redeem. Christ comes to invite us to be part of the redemptive plan.

Sermon Feedback and Recording for February 9

Yesterday was one of those up and down days.  When we left to drive to Bristol, I thought I had a strong sermon.  As I was delivering it, I felt like I was stumbling and that nothing was clear.

My spouse thought it went well.  He thought it was bleaker than usual (I didn't) and struggled to end on a hopeful note.  His commentary made me feel even worse.  Yet I was interested to see how the sermon came across in the recording.  There was one notable time when my spouse was not at all impressed with my sermon, but when he watched it several more times, he changed his mind and declared it one of my best sermons ever.

Often the recording of the sermon is posted to the church's Facebook page by the time we get home, but yesterday, it wasn't.  We had been having problems with the sound equipment, so I thought it might not get posted this week.  But this morning, there it was.

One of my parishioners had posted it onto her timeline saying, "I needed this today. More than even I knew."  I realize she might have been talking about the whole worship service, not my sermon.  But I needed to hear a comment like that.  I felt like I stumbled more than usual yesterday, and my internal mean voice kicked in to tell me that I was stupid and worthless.

Even though I have learned to hear that mean voice for what it is, even though I am fortunate not to hear it often, it's still exhausting when I'm in that downward spiral.  I came home yesterday absolutely wiped out.

I watched and listened to the sermon this morning (go here to view it).  I am relieved to be able to say that it is a stronger sermon and a stronger delivery than I was remembering.  I am happy to be able to vanquish that inner mean voice.

Sermon for February 9, 2025

 February 9, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 5:  1-11

In today’s readings, we get not one, but two call stories, Simon Peter’s and Isaiah’s.  They are similar in that the call in both stories is clear:  the call itself is clear, even if the mission isn’t clear.  Catching people?  What exactly does Jesus mean by that?  After two thousand years of hearing this call story, we might think we know.

I’ve spent a lifetime thinking about what it means to hear this kind of call.  During my formative years in Lutheran (ELCA) churches in the U.S. southeast, we were asked if we felt we had a calling, and if so, we would find ourselves on a track to either missionary work or seminary.  It was mostly males who heard this call.  It’s not really surprising—after all, in Sunday School and Confirmation classes, all of the call stories we heard featured males as the primary character:  Abraham, Moses, Jonah, Peter, and Paul.  And historically, people who didn’t look like Peter and Paul were not allowed to follow a call into ministry.

That idea of call has almost always been the same:  drop everything, follow Jesus, abandon your life and families.  Go and make disciples.  It was never stay and make disciples.  It was always go.  The call would be worth the sacrifice.  And in my formative years, we were always told of how extreme the sacrifice might be, particularly if we wanted to do missionary work.

Over the past 20 years, I have frequently thought of the nature of call and sacrifice as I researched seminaries.  Until very recently, ELCA  seminaries also assumed that people who wanted to be ordained would be able to uproot themselves and uproot or leave their families and go to a campus that was likely very far away.  It is no wonder that the ELCA has a shortage of pastors.

If you’ve been attending church regularly, you’ve probably heard sermons where pastors reminded you that you, too, are called to go fish for people, to go and make disciples.  It’s important to know that the writer of the Gospel of Luke has a different reason for giving us this story of Peter’s conversion in this way.  The Gospel of Luke is a story continued in Acts, and when we read the two books together, parts of the Gospel are heard differently.  The story of the conversion of Peter is offered to help justify Peter’s later leadership position.  One Gospel commentator points out that Luke sees the twelve disciples as having a different mission than the mission of ordinary people, like you and me who are more likely to be called to stay and build faith communities that bear a different kind of fruit than missionaries who go two by two.  Yet many sermons that I’ve heard lift up Simon Peter as a model for us all, that we should go to every nation and make disciples.

That missionary model of going to foreign nations to make disciples is problematic for many reasons.  And frankly, these days, it would be hard to find a foreign nation that hasn’t heard of Jesus.  There’s no reason to travel to a foreign nation on the off chance of finding someone who hasn’t already heard of Jesus.  In fact, many developing nations see the U.S. as a mission field full of people who need to hear the good news of God’s saving grace.

Yet every year we get this call story of Peter, and frankly, I wish we had a broader view of call stories.  You may have picked up on that, as you have listened to my sermons over the past 15 months—the Advent story of Mary and the angel Gabriel can be seen as a call story, as can the Advent story of Elizabeth’s late-life pregnancy, as can Joseph deciding not to divorce Mary.  I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  There are many ways to be called, and many missions to which we can be called.  

There is another problem with getting the exact same call story every year:  it’s easy to think we know everything there is to know about it.  As I returned to this Sunday’s gospel, I forced myself to look at it more deeply.  I read the chapters around this Gospel, and I was struck by how Simon has had a chance to get to know Jesus.  The Gospel of Luke chapter 4 is where Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law, one of his first miracles.  In Mark and Matthew, the appearance of Jesus and the conversion of Simon is much more sudden.  Jesus appears and says, “Follow me,” and that’s what Simon does.  Here the conversion is more gradual.

When I think about call stories, I’ve been frustrated by the maleness of them, and I’ve also been irked by the youngness of those called.  It’s easy to abandon everything and follow Jesus if you’re working in a dead-end fishing job.  But Simon Peter in Luke’s Gospel is more established.  He has a mother-in-law which says he has or had a wife.    The men have been fishing all night and caught nothing.  They are washing their nets—the equipment needs tending, even if the work has amounted to nothing. I think about this scene and my own work life as a teacher.   I have tried to think about a modern equivalent:  maybe the writing and rewriting of reports that the worker suspects will never be read or the new textbooks that require the rewriting of syllabi and lesson plans, even though the new textbook doesn’t say much that is new.  Maybe the men in today’s Gospel are more like us than they seem at first:  ordinary people doing ordinary, necessary work even when they can’t believe it’s necessary or important.

Jesus tells them to go to try fishing again, to put their nets in deep water.  In Biblical language, the deep water is a place of chaos, but also a place of creation—the language here has links to the creation story in Genesis where God comes into the chaos and forms creation.

We have been living through a year that feels chaotic so far.  We have a flu season that instead of winding down as expected is headed to a new peak—and the statistics about bird flu are alarming.  We are a small congregation, but this year, we’ve experienced more death of those closest to our community; this year, it may seem more like the forces of death are winning over God’s resurrection promise.  and thus, might feel more menacing.  If you’re paying attention to national or international news, the world feels even more chaotic than in years past.

A week where Mike Flynn and others accuse groups like Lutheran Social Services of laundering money for criminal groups—well, these are strange times we’re living in.  And I have worked for and with Lutheran Social Services for decades, and I can assure you that they are not laundering money, unless by laundering money one means that the group is taking money from those of us who donate it and making sure that the hungry and the homeless and the refugees have resources.  They do good work, as does Lutheran World Relief, ELCA World Hunger, and any number of other religious organizations.  We’ve had decades of the U.S. government saying that religious groups should take care of the poor and dispossessed, a thousand points of light doing care work more effectively, more compassionately than government can.  Religious groups have done just that.  And now, we have people in the government criticizing religious groups for doing that work.  We live in strange times.

Today’s Gospel speaks to our strange times.  In fact, we can see this call story as one that speaks to our strange times.  If we see the deep waters as representing chaos, it’s clear that God does not leave us to drown.  We are to cast down our nets and try again, even when we’re convinced that it’s a fool’s errand, that we’ve worked and worked and worked and there are no fish to be caught.

God appears to tell us to try again.  In our lives of chaos, try again.  Even if we’re older and tired, try again.  We may be convinced that God can no longer make all things new, that there is only chaos and no creation left in the deep waters.  Today’s call story reminds us of all the times that God has answered by giving so much fish that the nets threaten to break, that we have to call in our fishing partners to help us so that the overflowing abundance doesn’t break the boat.

In our current climate full of the cacophony of chaos, the deep water of our time in history, Jesus calls us to a different life and calls us to help others to find a different life.  Listen to the call of Jesus.  Look for ways to live out the Gospel.  Let us reinforce our nets and plunge them into the deep water.  Let us pray for more abundance than we could have imagined.  Rather than drown in the depths of fear and despair, let us reinforce our nets, preparing for the abundance that God calls us to be ready to receive.

 

Politics: Writing Letters, Making Phone Calls

In the past, I haven't spent much time contacting my U.S. senators or my representative in the U.S. House.  I've written the occasional letter about a bill coming up for a vote, and during the first Trump administration, I felt compelled to make phone calls here or there.  This past week has been different.

I began with making phone calls on Monday; I called my two senators to give my opinion on the cabinet nominees that might come up for a vote sooner rather than later.  That was Monday when I thought the votes might happen momentarily.

As the week continued, we heard about DOGE getting control of various databases that include sensitive information--so I made calls about that because it felt urgent.  In both instances, no one answered the phone, but I expected that.  I left a message, as I have been trained to do:  focused message, my name, address, and phone number.  This morning, The Washington Post is reporting that I am not the only one concerned; the story has this headline:  "Lawmakers flooded with calls about Elon Musk: ‘It is a deluge on DOGE.’"

I've also written letters.  I am odd in that writing letters feels easier, and I do believe that a handwritten letter gets similar attention to a phone call.  I am certain that online polls and online generated letters/communication don't get much attention at all, especially in times when offices are getting lots of communication.

I like writing letters, which I keep brief, because I can do them in my spare time, which is not abundant.  Phone calls mean that I have to do a bit of talking myself into the process; I am not a talk on the phone person.  

I wrote letters in support of the federal workers who are being treated shabbily.  I wrote letters in support of USAID.  I do realize that there is waste and abuse across various government agencies, and I know that's true of most institutions.  But there are good ways to do reform, and there are bad ways.  Taking a sledgehammer to programs is one of the bad ways, particularly when it involves ordinary people's lives and livelihoods. 

One of the reasons I haven't communicated with my legislators is that reform has usually been more moderate and measured.  I haven't always agreed with the directions taken, but I have felt that various points were considered as people with more information than I have had made decisions.  I have not felt that way in the past two weeks.

In this time, when so much is under attack without much communication or consideration, sending messages to the people who are supposed to be representing voters feels very important.

Genocidal Despots and Poems

I am taking 2 wonderful seminary classes, and I'm so happy that I get to end my MDiv on this note, with two wonderful classes in my last term, no drudgery work.  Last night's class is a New Testament class called "Birth, Death, and Back Again:  Christmas and Easter."  It looks at Christmas and Easter texts without the in between, and I am loving it.  In my first year, it was offered, but it was onground, so I couldn't take it.  This semester, it's virtual.  It's not offered every semester, so I'm glad that I had a chance to take it--an advantage to taking a slightly slower route to graduation.

Last night we discussed Matthew 2:  1-23, the visit of the magi, the flight to Egypt, the massacre of Bethlehem boys, and the return.  It was the kind of class meeting where I took extensive notes and thought, I need to remember these details for next year's Christmas season sermons.

Of course, the most powerful part of last night's class is one that I'll probably use more in funeral sermons than in Christmas sermons.  We talked about Herod's slaughter of the Bethlehem boys under the age of 2 and asked the question of why Joseph gets a dream that saves Jesus, but the other parents in Bethlehem don't.  Does God allow genocide?

My professor, Dr. Laura Holmes, finished our discussion of the death of the innocents by reminding us that salvation/redemption/liberation comes with a high price, and not just for Jesus; there's lots and lots of damage to those around him. 

In other words, Jesus came into our world that is ruled by empires, by genocidal despots, by the people in charge who are scared and thus make terrible decisions.  I realize that that on some level, my professor's response doesn't answer the question.  My own answer, as people who read every blog entry of mine will know, is that God isn't all powerful and that evil forces do have a lot of power, and that those two facts often lead to bloodshed, which is not what God wants, but God can't always prevent it.

I admire my professor's ability to give us insight and encourage class discussion.  I hate the classes that are too focused on student presentations.  I am paying for the professor's expertise--if I wanted to be taught by peers, who may or may not have extensive experience, I can do that much more cheaply than a seminary class.  Last night we had both expertise and really insightful class discussion.

When class started, I thought about one of my all-time favorite poems I've ever written, a poem that imagines what might have happened had the magi showed up at the Southern border.   The final poem had multiple strands: Epiphany, the perpetual crisis on the border, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad.  As the class went on, lines of new poetry kept bubbling up in my brain.  Happily, I had a blank legal pad nearby, so I wrote them down.  It was wonderful to feel inspired.

I am not sure I can transform those lines into anything that I like as much as the poem that I'll post below, the poem that was published in Sojourners in 2020.  

 

Border Lands

I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, February 9, 2025:

First Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8 [9-13]

Psalm: Psalm 138

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Gospel: Luke 5:1-11


Today's Gospel is one we must have heard a gabillion times, if we've been going to church for any amount of time at all. As the Gospel becomes familiar, perhaps the rich symbolic language loses some of its power. The symbol of the fisherman is one we find across church cultures; the mission of fishing for people, too, is one that most faiths hold in common.

Let's look at the Gospel again, to see what we might have missed. I'm struck by the fact that Jesus comes to call Simon Peter and his friends and family during their work time. Christ, too, is on the job. The familiarity of this Gospel makes me forget that first verse, that tells us Jesus is preaching when he slips into the boats. I wonder what the crowds who came to hear the word of God made of that?

Jesus slips into the boat of weary fisherman who have had an unsuccessful night. What convinces Christ that these men are the cornerstone of his work on this planet?

If you were setting up your new ministry--or any other kind of venture--would you choose the men that Jesus chose?

In hindsight, it's easy to say "Of course." But take a minute and consider the story for today.

We see fisherman, and unsuccessful fisherman. In the Palestine of Christ's time, these men wouldn't have been at the bottom of the social ladder, but they'd have been close, viewed as solidly working class or lower. It's hard, heavy work to do this kind of fishing--and dirty work, as there are fish and nets to clean.

These are not men who own land, the kind of men that would have had status. These are not men who have been trained by religious authorities, as we might have expected Jesus to choose for his ministry.

Jesus chooses regular, ordinary people. These are not men with gifts of oratory, not first. These are not the best and the brightest, at least not at first. But Jesus chooses them.

In the previous chapter, Jesus has healed Simon's mother-in-law. These are not young, single men, fishing on a boat to pay for college. Just like so many of us, these men had families and work and lots to accomplish in a day. But they've also seen Jesus in action, healing one of their own family members. And then, they get to experience their own miracle: full nets, from a sea that didn't yield fish before.

Jesus calls, and they respond. Perhaps it's because of the nets that are so full to bursting that they almost sink the boats. Perhaps they realize that on their own, they have empty nets, while with Christ in the boat, they're successful in ways they didn't think they could be.

It's a potent metaphor. Christ wants to join you on the boat. Will you give him a place to teach the world? Christ wants you to try again, when you're convinced that only failure can come from casting down your nets again. Will you follow Christ? Will your nets be empty or full to bursting?

Cast down your nets. Cast them down again and again and again until you are a different kind of fish and a different kind of fisherperson.

Lutheran Social Services Under Fire

On Sunday, I got home from preaching about the Feast Day of the Presentation to find people across social media in a state of disbelief and outrage about remarks made about Lutheran Social Services, with Mike Flynn accusing the group of laundering money. Good grief. It would be laughable if I didn't know so many people would take this seriously.

I've worked for LSS in my youth, and I have continued to be part of groups that partner with them. I have seen the good work that they do. I am also old enough to remember that many of these social service agencies grew bigger as past presidents like Reagan cut government services saying that religious groups should be taking care of the needs of impoverished citizens. And now, after decades of doing that, there's criticism and blow back/up.

It's flabbergasting to watch the situation in Washington, D.C.--as I'm sure the ones doing the breaking up of government want it to be.  I am interested in what happens to the Department of Education.  I am irked by what is happening at USAID.  I am convinced it's not about saving money, no matter what these DOGE folks say.  These are the most underfunded parts of government.  If you want to save money consequences be damned, set your sights on the Department of Defense.

This is the strangest time in U.S. history that I have ever seen, and I am not thinking I will see normal times again in my lifetime.

But let me remind myself of past times of poor prospects that suddenly brightened.  Let me remember the fall of the wall that separated East and West Germany.  Let me remember Nelson Mandela being released from prison.

Let me continue to do what I can:  taking the longer view, making phone calls, making art.  This morning's reading from Psalm 37:  34-40 gave me hope (posterity for the peaceable!):

Wait for the Lord and keep to the Lord's way,
and the Lord will exalt you to inherit the land;
you will look on the destruction of the wicked.


35 I have seen the wicked oppressing
and towering like a cedar of Lebanon.
36 Again I passed by, and they were no more;
though I sought them, they could not be found.


37 Mark the blameless and behold the upright,
for there is posterity for the peaceable.
38 But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed;
the posterity of the wicked shall be cut off.


39 The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord;
the Lord is their refuge in the time of trouble.
40 The Lord helps them and rescues them;
the Lord rescues them from the wicked and saves them
because they take refuge in the Lord.

The Feast Day of Anna and Simeon

Today we celebrate the lives of Simeon and Anna. Yesterday was the feast day that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple 40 days after his birth. Simeon was the priest at the temple that day. God had promised Simeon that he would not die without seeing the Messiah, and at the end of Simeon's life, God fulfills the promise.

When he held Jesus, he said the words that many of us still use as part of our liturgies: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel."

On this day, we also celebrate Anna the Prophetess, who was also there for the presentation. Like Simeon, she's at the end of her life, and she's spent much of her life in the temple, doing the support work that keeps religious work running smoothly. It's interesting that I assume she did the support work--the text says she spent her days worshiping God and fasting and praying. My brain filled in the rest: that she did the sweeping and the care of the candles/lamps and the feeding of everyone.

We have the song of Simeon; I wonder if Anna sang a song? I wonder what it would be?

I am fairly new to this pair of feast days; in fact, I only realized a few years ago that Anna and Simeon share the same feast day. I love feast days that celebrate humans at the end of life, humans who haven't done anything particularly remarkable--although staying faithful for a lifetime is fairly remarkable.

The churches of my childhood didn't spend much time on the old people in any story. The lectionary readings focus on Jesus and the disciples, who are often presented as men in the youthful prime of their lives.

I'm forever grateful to feminist scholars who have returned to these texts and given them a new spin as they imagined what would happen if we moved women to the center of the narratives--or, if not the center, at least out of the marginal shadows.

I feel a need to do something similar with the stories of the old folks. Elizabeth, Simeon, and Anna are great places to start.

Today, let us remember that God makes us a similar promise to the one that Simeon receives. We need but open our eyes to see the presence of the Divine. And if we're faithful to the best of our abilities, we may find out we've been holding the Divine in our hands all along.

When Lectionary Dates Collide: A Sermon for February 2, Candlemas, the Feast Day of the Presentation

 February 2, 2025

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

Luke 4:21-30

Today we hear about the reaction to Jesus’ preaching in the Temple; it’s part 2 of the reading that we began last week.  You may remember that Jesus reads from Isaiah and then he sits down saying that today the scripture has been fulfilled.

Today is also the feast day of the presentation, 40 days after the birth of Jesus, where Joseph and Mary take the baby Jesus to the temple, according to the custom and the religious law.  We have this story just 2 chapters earlier in the Gospel of Luke.  Simeon is in the Temple, Simeon who has been promised that he will not die before he has seen the Messiah.  He holds the baby Jesus, the fulfillment of the promise, and declares his faith, declares that he has seen the Messiah.  Anna, too, is there—she’s a prophet and she’s 84.  She, too, proclaims Jesus as Messiah, and goes out to tell others.

What a different reaction than the one we see in today’s Gospel from the lectionary.  In today’s reading, some are amazed, some are surprised at the claim, while others say, “Who is this guy?  Isn’t he Jospeh’s son?”  Judging by Jesus’ reaction, there must be a sense of dismissal of Jesus, as if they are saying “How arrogant do you have to be to claim to be the Messiah.  Jesus reminds them of other ancient prophets:  Elijah and Elisha, prophets who were sent to Israel, but also to outsiders who accepted them—and more, to outsiders who helped them survive.

Some interpreters of Luke see this as Jesus telling the hometown crowd that his ministry will be broader than some might have expected the Messiah’s focus to be.  Some have wondered if Jesus was trying to provoke a negative reaction.

If that’s the case, Jesus certainly succeeds!  The people behave with a mob mentality as they move to throw Jesus off a cliff.  Somehow, Jesus escapes.  Is it because he’s a shapeshifter?  Does he vanish like smoke? Does he have a protective shield, a force field?   Are there people in the crowd who hold the others back?  Are the murderous impulses of the crowd not that strong after all?

Now look back to the reaction of Simeon and Anna.  They see the baby and believe, before the baby has done a thing.  The people who hear Jesus in today’s reading have seen what he has done.  Reports about him have come back to his hometown.  Like Simeon and Anna, they have had the chance to see the Messiah with their own eyes.  And their response:  let’s get rid of him.  Not “Praise God, we have seen the Messiah,” but “Kill him.”

It's easy to feel superior, from a distance of thousands of years.  It’s easy to imagine that we would be like Anna or Simeon, that we would instantly profess our faith.  We wouldn’t be like those hometown folks who wanted to throw Jesus off of a cliff.

And yet, as I reflect on my own life, I think about the times I have been closer to that murderous crowd than to  Simeon and Anna.  I think about the times I throw Jesus off the cliff.

How often have we wanted to rely on ourselves alone?  How many times have we suffered, knew that we needed help, but not wanted to pray about it.  I find myself thinking about the larger problems of the world; surely God has better things to do than to worry about my little anxieties.  And yet, we know that God wants to be involved in our lives.

How often have we wanted to rely on human innovation?  How often have we trusted our own resources instead of God?  I think of every miraculous healing and how often I want to give the credit to researchers or medicines or the body’s ability to heal itself.  I think of how often I am reluctant to say that I have seen a true miracle.

We may be like those who heard Jesus preach that day and say, “Messiah?  Joseph’s boy was not the Messiah I was expecting.”  We might want to want to micromanage the miracles we are requesting.  We might wish we could trade in the miracles that come to us for something different, something with more power and domination.  We might not be able to be like Simeon who can see the Messiah in human form.  We might wish that God came to us in a different form.

How often do we sink into despair?  We see chaos and assume that God has left us to our own devices and that we are doomed.  We discount the power of good to overcome the powers of evil. Again, we throw God over the cliff. God commands us to be children of the light, committed to love. Many humans seem to prefer to wallow in our feelings of fear and despair. Ah, despair, the sin that medievalists would remind us is the deadliest of the deadly sins--for it is despair that keeps us from believing that life can be different, that God is really in control. And if we can avoid believing that God is in control, then we can avoid our responsibilities towards this world that God created, this world that God declared “Good and very good.”

The new year, which is quickly moving towards becoming the old year, is a good time for reflection, a good time to turn inward and to become aware of areas where we could still use improvement. Sure, God loves us the way that we are (a gift of grace to be sure). But God always calls us to be better. It's time to work on our attitudes and beliefs and actions that throw Jesus off the cliff, attitudes and beliefs and actions that make others think that God is indeed dead.

Today, let us remember that God makes us a similar promise to the one that Simeon receives. We need but open our eyes to see the presence of the Divine. And if we're faithful to the best of our abilities, we may find out we've been holding the Divine in our hands all along.  

Feast Day of Saint Brigid

Today is the feast day of St. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland. She is one of the early Christians who stood at the intersection of Christianity, Druidism, and the other pagan religions of Ireland. She is also one of those extraordinary women who did amazing things, despite the patriarchal culture in which she lived.

Like so many of our early Christian church mothers, she felt called by God from a very early age. She resisted attempts to get her married: one account has her scooping out her diseased eye in protest of an impending marriage--and later, healing her dangling eyeball by putting it back in her head. When we go back to read about the lives of women in medieval times, it's amazing that more women didn't fight harder to go join the cloistered life.

St. Brigid founded some of the first Christian monasteries in Ireland, most famously the legendary one in Kildare. She also founded a school of art that focuses on metal working and illumination. The illustrated manuscript, the Book of Kildare, was created under her auspices. Unfortunately, it's been lost since the Reformation, so we know it by its reputation only.

She's also famous for her generosity, especially to the poor. She showed this compassion early on, giving away all of her mother's butter to a poor person--and then, by her prayers, the butter was restored.

As a 21st century woman, I'm amazed at what she was able to accomplish, during times that are much more difficult than mine. Founding numerous religious orders, motivating artists, compassion to the poor, devotion to God--she seemed to have had no trouble leading an authentic, integrated life. Why does it seem so hard to me?

Of course, I know Brigid across a space of centuries, through the gauze of hagiography and legend. If Brigid could speak, what would she say? Would she tell us of the sleepless nights where she wondered how she was going to find enough food, enough contributions, to keep her religious orders afloat? Would she bemoan all her administrative duties, which sucked away so much energy, when all she really wanted to do was to illuminate manuscripts?

What do our lives say about our beliefs? If centuries from now, a middle-aged woman read about your life as you're living it, would she be inspired? Are we leading authentic, integrated lives? Are we building concrete institutions that will outlast us by centuries?