Sermon for July 7, 2024

July 7, 2024

by Kristin Berkey-Abbott


Mark 6:1-13


Last week, we saw Jesus as a powerful catalyst for healing. Power flows out of him when a woman touches his garment, and his Divine power allows him to bring a dead girl back to life. So when I read the text for this week, verse 6 jumped out at me: “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Something has robbed Jesus of his power.

One of the advantages of following the lectionary is this opportunity for something new to leap out at us. I’ve read this passage dozens of times through the years, as the lectionary comes back to it, and as I’ve taken classes, and I’ve focused on the part that comes both before and after it: the hometown folks who reject Jesus, and Jesus sending out the disciples, telling them what to do if they, too, are rejected, the famous shaking the dust of rejectors off your feet and moving on.

This past week, however, I kept coming back to that image of Jesus being limited. He can still do a bit of healing, but if someone’s beloved daughter died, this week in the life of Jesus might find the father out of luck. I read forward in the text, and I’ll say more about what I discovered next week, when our Gospel reading does not skip ahead in the text. We are in the middle of a meditation on power, its manifestations and its limitations.

In the earlier parts of Mark, we’ve seen Jesus fully able to control all the elements of the world: he’s driven out demons and forced the storm and the seas to calm down and healed the sick, and even raised the dead. And now, he finds his power constrained? How do we explain that?

In other words, you’re telling me that demons obey him and the sea obeys him, but a little thing like human unbelief keeps him from doing much beyond a bit of healing here and there? The answer seems to be yes.

Notice that he’s not simply refusing to do miracles. It’s not like Jesus says, “Well, if you feel this way about me, then I won’t help you, even though I could.” The text says that Jesus could not, not Jesus would not. And what is the element that is binding him? Many Bible scholars say that Jesus cannot act because of the people’s unbelief. One aspect of this unbelief, if we dig down into the Greek word, is a withholding of belief in the power and promises of God. It’s a much deeper issue than simple doubt. It’s quite a contrast to the people in last week’s Gospel.

If we look at last week’s text, we see that the people in need of miracles, the bleeding woman and Jairus, father of the dead girl, have faith, which looks like fierce hope or maybe desperation. They are in need of intervention, and they know it, and they put aside all that they have thought might be possible or impossible.

Last week, on our way home from Bristol, Carl and I talked about faith and hope and miracles. He pointed out that even with the strongest faith, a person might not get a miracle. But without faith, we can be sure that we won’t get a miracle. We talked about any number of doctors that we know who have told us the value of faith and hope in making a recovery, even if the recovery doesn’t mean healing but means learning to live with a disease.

Jesus has a very different experience in this week’s text. The people in his hometown are so constrained by what they’ve been trained to think that they seem to have lost their hope in the possibility of something different.

They cannot believe what they have seen. The people in Jesus’ hometown have seen what he has done, the miracles he has performed. It’s not like he went off to Rome, did miracles there which no one in the home town witnessed, and then came home. He’s been doing these miracles in their midst. Why do they have trouble believing?

We see in this Gospel that the familiar can be constraining. The people in Jesus’ hometown reject him because he is so familiar that they cannot conceive of him in any other way than son of Mary (a specific slur about legitimacy in a patriarchal society to refer to the mother rather than the father), than as a carpenter, a worker of low social status. Those questions about family, status, occupation, education—these are still questions we ask today, and they are questions that can undercut us all, from the smallest member of our communities all the way up to God Almighty.

Like so many people today, the people in Jesus’ hometown are people who are invested in life as they have always known it, so invested, it turns out, that they cannot imagine that anything might be different. And their closed minds affect Jesus. Today’s Gospel shows us how essential it is to maintain our hope and our faith, not just for ourselves, not just for our communities, but also for God’s ability to work in the world.

Throughout the Gospels, we see the trait that keeps people imprisoned is their inability to break free of what they have always known. Here we see that this inability has even broader implications—the inability to conceive of life in any other way keeps God from acting too.

Earlier this year, my Systematic Theology professor said something similar. He said that God has a vision of the world, a vision of how creation should be, and God is always moving towards that vision, no matter how many roadblocks humans put in the way. God invites us to be part of the vision, but even if we say no, God is going to find a way to continue the creative work that needs to happen. But if we say yes, oh how much easier a time God will have. Our radical hope in God’s vision can be the fuel that helps it to happen.

All week, I’ve thought about the way that Jesus feels power drain out of him when the bleeding woman touches his hem and how this week, Jesus is like a drained battery. Would we live our lives differently if we thought of ourselves as God’s battery charger? Would we commit to radical hope each and every day?

Where are we stuck in our preconceived notions of how society should be and what redemption looks like? Where do we need to shake dust off of our feet and move on? Where might God lead us, if we can just learn to trust, hope, and act?

Gospel in Bread Sculpture

On Saturday, I worked on my sermon and made the dough for communion bread--it's not a special recipe, but it's the one that yields the most consistent results, King Arthur Baking's recipe for an oatmeal bread that I make without the cinnamon.

My spouse made this bread creation to illustrate the Gospel for Sunday, July 1, 2024, about Jesus and the bleeding woman who touched the hem of his garment for healing.  I wrote this Facebook post:  "Today's Gospel, Mark 5: 21-43, in bread form (touching the hem of Jesus). I made the dough, but Carl Berkey-Abbott is the artist who shaped it. Just another fun Saturday at the Berkey-Abbott house."

Best Sermon Ever?

My sermon for this past Sunday was one that so far has gotten the most praise, and one parishioner said it might be my best one yet.  So, let me post it here, so that I remember.

February 25, 2024

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

 

 

Mark 8:  31-38

 

 

When I read today’s Gospel, I’m shocked at the way that both Peter and Jesus respond.  Listen again:  “And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”  That verb:  rebuke.  Who does Peter think he is, rebuking Jesus?  Of course, this isn’t the first time that Peter has tried to be the boss.  But Jesus’s response shocks me too.

 

Jesus says, “"Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."  Wow!  Just wow!  Peter would be an infuriating disciple at times, to be sure.  But to call him Satan?  Is Jesus saying that Peter is evil?  And if so, on the level of Satan?  Really?

 

It’s even stranger if you look at the whole chapter. In Mark 8: 29 (two verses before today’s reading), Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah.  In fact, in the Gospel of Mark, Peter is the first to declare that Jesus is the Messiah, well, the first if we’re not counting a demon or two along the way.  People have declared Jesus a healer, someone amazing whom they haven’t seen before--“Who is this man who ______ “ and we can fill in this blank any number of ways:  gets rid of demons, heals on the Sabbath, calms the sea and wind.  But no one puts the pieces together until Peter; Peter is the first to see the larger cosmic picture.

 

 

 

Peter may have recognized Jesus as the Messiah, but then he’s got a problem.  Here is Jesus who is not behaving the way the Messiah is supposed to behave.  Peter isn’t stupid.  He’s been well-trained, as all male Jews would have been, in the Law and the Prophets.  He’s heard the passage from Genesis that we heard today—he knows that God has made a covenant.  He’s part of a people who have been on the lookout for a savior for centuries. 

 

But Jesus isn’t behaving like the savior Peter expects.  Peter would have heard the Psalm that we heard today, that language of deliverance that is part of so many Psalms and so much of the ancient prophets.  Peter is expecting a Messiah, yes, and expecting deliverance, but he’s been hoping for something different than what Jesus offers.  I can’t know for sure, but I imagine that Peter has imagined what life will be like when the Romans leave.  That’s what most people long for when they live under an oppressive regime.  I imagine Peter and most of the people of Jesus’ time wanted a Messiah who was a revolutionary to restore the glory days of times past—and kick those Romans back to where they came from.

 

Let’s do a thought experiment to understand both Peter and what is unfolding, the events that lead us to Holy Week.  Let’s try to understand why Peter is so baffled and so angry in places.  If Jesus appeared today, what would he need to say to make us take him aside and rebuke him?  Or put another way:  what comes to your mind when I say say “The Salvation of the World.”

 

I imagine that your answer is very different than the answers that we’ve been studying in my seminary Systematic Theology class.  So, let’s personalize this a bit.  When I say the word “Salvation” or “Savior”—what comes to mind?

 

You might think about a cross.  You might think about Heaven, in terms of the place where we hope to go when we die.  You might think about some end time, when all of creation is finally the way God intended it to be.  You might think of various movies that have been made or maybe about Bible studies that have opened your eyes.

 

Now imagine that Jesus shows up and suddenly people around you start behaving differently.  The alcoholics stop drinking, and wonder of wonders, they don’t substitute one addiction for another—they claim the lives they’ve been denied.  All sorts of cancers—healed with just a word or two from Jesus.  People with terrible arthritis can walk with no pain.  Overweight people shed their excess pounds with no drugs, no surgery, no diets, and the joy that they’re feeling makes others want whatever they’ve experienced.

 

So far, so good, right?  But maybe you’re expecting more—you’ve seen the prelude, and you’re ready for Jesus to deliver.  Peter was expecting Jesus to deliver a world free of Romans and full of self-rule.  In our thought experiment, what would Jesus proclaim that would horrify us in the same way that Peter is shocked and revolted?  What would Jesus have to say to make us rebuke him?

Imagine that Jesus tells everyone that there is no Heaven when we die.  There’s no Hell either, but no Heaven.  All that stuff you learned about the cross and how Jesus suffered so that we get eternal life, which means a Heavenly reunion with all our loved ones—imagine that Jesus tells you that your spiritual elders lied to you.  You’ve been sold a bill of goods—Jesus says it over and over again, and not just to you and other members of the inner circle, but to everybody.

 

Imagine how upset you would be.  You might ask yourself what the point of it all has been.  It’s very fine for people to be cured of their physical ailments, but Heaven, Heaven is the ultimate goal, isn’t it?  ISN’T IT???? 

 

Continuing this thought experiment—we’ve imagined Jesus with us, and we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we’re seeing the Messiah.  And yet, he’s delivering a message that contradicts much of what you’ve always known about what salvation means.  What do you do?

 

Maybe, like Peter, you pull Jesus aside to speak privately.  Maybe you just want some answers to your questions.  Or maybe you have doubts, but you don’t want to admit you have doubts, and you hope that Jesus can explain.  Or maybe you want Jesus to fine tune the message and explain what happens after death.  Maybe you could be OK with an alternate picture, if only Jesus would explain.

 

Jesus is adamant that Peter is wrong, that so many preconceptions of what salvation looks like and what a savior should look like are wrong.  We may feel superior to Peter, but that’s because we know how Peter’s part of the story ends.  We know about salvation, don’t we?  Of course, Peter thought he did too—until Jesus came and changed everything he thought he knew.

 

Peter wants his homeland back.  We want Heaven.  Imagine Jesus telling us that Heaven is already here.  Imagine Jesus pointing to our fish fry that we had on Friday night and saying, “It’s here.  The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Your loved ones, living and dead, are right here when you serve fried fish and the coleslaw made from Fiona’s mother’s recipe and every single one of us brought out favorite dessert, enough to share.  What more do you need?”

 

Like Peter, we might want to pull Jesus aside and say, “That vision of salvation is not going to win you many disciples.”  And Jesus might point to a weary world and paint us a vision of more service, not less:  a world where children are cared for perhaps by adults who are missing their grandchildren who live in other towns, a world where people gather for tea and cookies and help with homework or English language classes, a world where people teach each other to play musical instruments instead of only going to concerts,   . . . on and on I could go.

 

One Bible scholar says that this passage tells us that the true cost of discipleship is relinquishing our preconceptions of what a Messiah should say and do.  Again and again, Jesus tells us that salvation looks like love, and that love looks like service, and that service to each other looks like Heaven to our souls.  Peter didn’t understand that message at first.  Do we?

 

If so, we’ll find that our crosses are easier to bear, that in sacrificing our self-interests as we serve, we will build a richer life than we ever imagined.

 

I hope there is a Heaven when we die, that we’re all sitting at the Welcome Table, eating desserts from all the family recipes, seeing all our loved ones again.  And if we’ve lived our lives the way Jesus tells us we should, Heaven will just be icing on the cake, because we’ll have already tasted it here on earth.

 

For the Anonymous ones, the Simon Peter's Mother-in-Laws

On Sunday, I preached a sermon about Simon Peter's mother-in-law, healed from a fever, rising from her sickbed to serve.  Instead of the kind of feminist outrage I would have channeled in my younger years, I decided to talk about Simon Peter's mother-in-law as one of the first to understand the appropriate response to the miracle of new/healed life that Jesus offers:  to serve others.

Later in the Gospel text for Sunday (Mark 1: 29-39), Simon Peter and his companions hunt for Jesus, who has retreated to pray.  Note that verb:  hunt.  It's much more hostile in the original language than how we might interpret it:  the disciples are concerned because Jesus didn't leave a note about where he has gone.  No, it's not that at all.  One Bible scholar posited that it shows that Simon Peter wants to control Jesus, and since we see this behavior throughout the Gospels, I'm inclined to believe it.

We have two people bookending the Gospel text, and I pointed out that the Church has prioritized Simon Peter, who goes on to fame as one of the church fathers.  But what's unspoken is the people who did the work along the way, people who might have been women:  by hosting the travelers, by paying for the ministry, by opening their homes for church meetings, by staying behind and caring for the community that the apostles formed. Perhaps Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is the first one of these.

I didn't come up with a satisfactory conclusion until Sunday morning.  I had thought about going with a reminder that we are called to serve.  But then, I thought about all the ways that the people of Faith Lutheran already serve and how they might feel by me exhorting them to serve.  So I concluded this way, a way that felt immensely better:

This lectionary text comes to us in a time when many of us are creating annual reports for places where we work or worship. It’s a time when many of us are assembling documents to pay our taxes. It’s a time of Super Bowls, of remembering that human societies celebrate the rich, the famous, the big in number, the powerful. Along comes this text to remind us that God does not raise us from our sick beds so that we can go out and earn more money. Jesus does not cast out and silence the noisy demons so that we can tell ourselves how worthless we are.

I spent last week reading Faith Lutheran’s annual report, and I continue to be impressed with how much this worship community does. I know that in the metrics of both the ELCA and the larger Church world, we are a very small congregation. I know that there are Simon Peters who would wish for bigger and better things. But I when I look out, I see Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, the people who serve each other and serve the larger community. Like Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, we may feel like we are overlooked and even nameless. But rest assured, God’s mission is being fulfilled here, right here, in this place in the mountains of Tennessee. Keep up the good work—may your light continue to shine as you serve.

My Sermon for All Saints Sunday

I feel like my All Saints Sunday sermon was a good one, so I'm going to post it here.  This line came to me late, as I was about to print the sermon.  It's my favorite part:   "We live in a culture that tells us it’s better to be a Kardashian than a Christian, better to be a celebrity than a saint. And so many of us make the same mistake of seeing ourselves with the eyes of our culture rather than the way that God sees us."

Here's the whole sermon:

The Sermon for Sunday, November 5, 2023

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

 

 

Matthew 5:1-12

 

 

I know that for many of us, All Saints Sunday isn’t our favorite church day; it can be painful, whether we’ve lost a loved one in the last year or long ago.  I’ve talked to more than one person who avoided this service the first year after a loved one died, and one member of my quilt group says she avoids this service every year because the loss of her mother still hurts, 19 years later.

 

And it’s been a tough year in terms of other losses.  For those of us who thought that human history was on a trajectory away from prejudice, hatred and war, this year has been a challenge.  It can be hard to believe the words of the Gospel that those who mourn will be comforted.

 

Or maybe we want to know when—when will we be comforted?  Maybe instead of a worship service of remembrance, we’d prefer a time of lament.  Maybe lament scares us, because some part of us believes that a vengeful God or a version of fate will take away the good parts of our lives that are left.  But dip in and out of the Psalms, and you’ll see that lament has always been part of the spiritual journey—for a more bracing experience, read the book of Lamentations.

 

We may also dislike this festival day because we focus too much on the saints who have gone before us, saints who were less than saintly, many of them, it not most of them.

 

We tend to forget that all the saints that came before us were flesh and blood humans (including Jesus). We think of people like Martin Luther as perfect people who had no faults who launched a revolution. In fact, you could make the argument that many revolutions are launched precisely because of people's faults: they're bullheaded, so they're not likely to make nice and be quiet and ignore injustice. They're hopelessly naive and idealistic, so they stick to their views of how people of faith should live--and they expect the rest of us to conform to their visions. They refuse to bow to authority because they answer to a higher power--and so, they translate the Bible into native languages, fund colleges, rescue people in danger, insist on soup kitchens, write poems, and build affordable housing.

The world changes (for the better and the worse) because of the visions of perfectly ordinary people--and because their faith moves them into actions that support that vision. If we're lucky, those people are working towards the same vision of the inclusive Kingdom that Jesus came to show us.

 

I realize that for some of us, this day that celebrates saints both ancient and modern can make us feel inadequate.  We might think about our relatives of just a few generations ago who built things that are still here—I’m thinking of literal buildings, like the ones built at the church camp, Lutheridge.  The original buildings need much less maintenance than the newer buildings, that’s the kind of strong foundation that past generations left behind.

 

But sometimes, it’s not always clear what we’re creating at the time or what we’re building, what will be left behind when we’re gone.

 

We might think of a man like Fred Rogers, known to generations of children as Mr. Rogers.  He was ordained a Presbyterian minister.  But instead of going the route of traditional ministry, which might have won him more respect at the time, he wanted to see if he could harness the power of this new medium, television, to teach children.  After many decades of success, it might be hard to remember how much of a risk Fred Rogers took with this path.  Indeed, he had to periodically go back to his church elders to justify and maintain his ordination.

 

This All Saints Day, I’m also thinking of my brother in law, Carl’s younger brother, who had a massive heart attack and died in June.  He didn’t see himself as anything special.  I remember a conversation I had with him in January of 2022.  I asked him when he was scheduled to graduate.  He said, “Next May.  Unless I flunk out.”

 

He was likely far from flunking out, but that’s not how he saw himself.  I wish he could have heard the tributes in the days after his death, how his daily life was such a blessing to so many, in his work with the seminary, his work with neighborhood churches, his work with underserved children.

 

He would not have seen himself as a saint, in part because we live in a larger culture that tells us that working with just 10 children is not nearly as impressive as being Mr. Rogers.  We live in a culture that tells us it’s better to be a Kardashian than a Christian, better to be a celebrity than a saint.  And so many of us make the same mistake of seeing ourselves with the eyes of our culture rather than the way that God sees us.

 

We don’t always know the full extent of the good that we are manifesting in the world.  We don’t have to nail our 95 theses on the Wittenberg door to bring good into the world.  We can put our loose change into cans for noisy offering, and a month later, we’ve been part of raising hundreds of dollars for a pet shelter.

 

Dream a little on this All Saints Sunday. If you could create a new life out of the threads that you have, what would you weave? Or would you start again, with different yarns and textures? What is your dream of a renewed life, a resurrected life?

Jesus invites us to be part of a Resurrection Culture. We may not always understand how that will work. Some years the taste of ash and salt water seem so pervasive that we may despair of ever tending fruitful gardens of our lives again. But Jesus promises that death will not have the final word.  Today, as we remember the saints that have gone before us, let us give thanks for their witness, and a prayer that our own witness will similarly nourish generations to come.

My Sermon for October 22, 2023

My spouse said that yesterday's sermon was the best he'd ever heard on that Gospel.  Wow.  So let me reprint it here:

October 22, 2023

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

 

 

Matthew 22:  15-22

 

 

If I had to pick a saying of Jesus’ that was most famous, this might be the one:  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”—or perhaps this more familiar version:  ““Render[e] therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  People who didn’t grow up in church might think a famous politician said it—they might therefore be surprised to find out that it comes from a religious leader.  They might be surprised because so many of us have heard it in a pro-tax context; it wouldn’t surprise me to see it in a political campaign.

 

It probably won’t surprise you to find out that Jesus is making a much more nuanced argument—as well as skillfully avoiding a trap set for him.  Consider for a moment who is asking this question:  Pharisees and Herodians, not two populations who usually work together or even speak to each other.  Pharisees, religiously devout, resented the claims of divinity by the Roman emperor.  Herodians supported Herod, the Jewish ruler put in place by Rome, dependent on the Roman empire, and thus we assume would support the tax.  These two groups with differing views of Roman rule ask Jesus if it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. 

 

Consider the Roman poll tax. 

 

Theologian David J. Lose says, “First, some background. It is not simply taxes in general that are up for debate here. Jews in first-century Palestine paid numerous taxes: temple taxes, land taxes, and customs taxes, just to name three. The tax in question was a particular—and particularly onerous—one. It was the imperial tax paid as tribute to Rome to support the Roman occupation of Israel. That is right: first-century Jews were required to pay their oppressors a denarius a year to support their own oppression.”

If Jesus says to pay taxes, the Pharisees can use his answer to show that he’s collaborating with the oppressor, Rome, that he doesn’t feel with the pain of the Jewish people.  If he tells everyone not to pay taxes, he’s a traitor to Rome.  Will he be a seditionist or a collaborator?  It seems that the questioners have set the perfect trap.

 

But Jesus is not so easily fooled.  He asks to see a coin.  There is clear evidence of all kinds of idolatry:  a graven image on the coin, an emperor claiming to be god, currency demanding loyalty.  Jesus is not just avoiding the question.  He’s asking a much more important question.  Who deserves our loyalty?  He says the famous line.  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

 

Don’t be fooled.  Jesus has not suddenly transformed into a pro-government prophet.  He knows, and everyone around him knows, the terrible power wielded by earthly empires.  They are surrounded by the results of ruinous policies:  farmers evicted from their land, people in other occupations barely able to eke out a living, everyone in danger of losing the little bit that Rome allows them to have.  Even the ones at the top of the power structure, the Herods, the Pontius Pilates, know that they serve at the pleasure of the emperor, and the emperor’s loyalty is far from sure.

 

          Jesus isn’t advocating for a two state system.  He’s not telling us to be loyal to both government and God.  This is not a pro-tax text.  This is not a tithing text.  This is Jesus, reminding us of which kingdom came first.  As we heard in the Isaiah text, God was here before any earthly power, and God will outlast them all.

         

Jesus’ questioners have missed the point.  It reminds me of Christians who would come a few centuries later, theologians who would spend a lot of time and energy arguing over whether or not God came first or Jesus, arguing over whether or not Jesus is  more human or more divine.  However, I spent time this week thinking about these 4^th century controversies because I was writing an essay for my midterm in my Systematic Theology class.

 

As I thought about Jesus looking at the face on that coin, I thought of the questioners who had God right there with them.  They could ask Jesus anything, and they ask him about taxes.  They gazed upon the face of the Divine, and they asked about loyalty.

 

One of the Gospel commentaries I read reminded us that every life is marked with God’s visage—we look at each other and make the same mistake those Pharisees and Herodians did.  We see each other as the world sees us—marked and measured by what we wear, what we drive, the jobs we do, the houses we live in, the degrees we’ve earned, and the money we make.

 

But Jesus is different.  Throughout his ministry, he sees worth and potential where the rest of the world sees sinners and outcasts.  Jesus reminds us again and again that God chose us, that God loves us, just as surely as God declared the worth of Jesus at the baptism of Jesus.  We can put our trust in God, in a way that we will never be able to trust an earthly ruler.  Earthly rulers must worry about consolidating power and doing away with threats.  God does not.

 

If we really want to change the world, we can practice seeing others through the same lens of love that God sees each and every one of us.  It’s easy when we’re seeing people behaving well.  It’s harder when we feel threatened.

 

Let us remember what the words of Jesus imply.  We are not the emperor’s.  An earthly empire does not imprint us with our true identity.  Baptism does.  Communion does.  We are God’s.  But even without the sacraments, God claims us and declares how important we are.  In turn, we can act with the love that lets us see the essence of God in every human face.

More about the Homicidal King and the One Cast into Darkness

One of our Sunday afternoon practices which may seem strange is to listen to and/or watch parts of other services from churches that still feel like part of our wider spiritual community, most often the ones where we've been members.  It seems strange to me, because we've already spent a huge chunk of Sunday in church--and now we want more church?

Yesterday we watched the sermon that was delivered at the Lutheran Church of the Nativity in Arden, NC.  Pastor Doug Kearney preached a great sermon.  I had just preached on the same text, Matthew 22:  1-14, so I was interested to see if we drew the same conclusions.  I was relieved to hear him preach on the need to remember that we have spiritual obligations to work for change in the world, even as he admitted that he's the kind of Lutheran that believes in "grace, grace, and more grace."

He was more pointed in the kinds of changes he thought we should work towards:  racial justice, an end to poverty (he's done important work to establish a garden that provides fresh produce to the local food bank), the kinds of issues that you would think wouldn't be controversial in a Christian church.

My approach was more understated, although I, too, preached about the need to remember that we aren't given grace so that we can lounge on the sofa in our non-wedding clothes.  But my call to action was much more muted:  "Jesus showed us how to live as the community of God. We share what we have, knowing that it will be multiplied to be enough. We invite everyone, even though some won’t accept. We heal our societies in the ways that we know how to do, and we remember that even when it seems there is no way, we pray to the one who shows us again and again, that there is a way out of no way, a way that is different from the ways of earthly empire. God invites us to a wedding feast—not an ordinary banquet. I hope that we say yes."

I had thought about making more specific recommendations for how we say yes to God's invitation, but my sermon was already a bit long, so I decided against it.  And I had also thought about bringing the current events happening as Israel prepares to obliterate Gaza, but there, too, I decided against it.  I spoke about earthly empires who destroy whole cities, but I didn't name names.  After all, there's plenty of that behavior to go around--no need to single out just one nation.

And part of me doesn't want to get too political on a Sunday morning, even though I believe that Christians need to be involved politically.  I am still relatively new to this congregation, and my focus will be on good news.

This morning, I read an interesting approach to the parable that neither Doug Kearney nor I used.  Nadia Bolz-Weber sees the figure cast into outer darkness and gnashing of teeth at the end of the parable as Jesus:  So, beloveds, what if the kingdom of heaven isn’t like a bullying-king what if the kingdom of heaven is like the guy who refuses to play along? What if the kingdom of heaven is like someone who shows up and says no to empire. What if the Kingdom of heaven is like the one who stands speechless before his accusers refusing to dignify taunts with a reply, … What if the kingdom of heaven is like someone who is hog tied for not participating in victimizing the weak (or for not self-protectively piling onto someone when we sniff out a mistake they made years ago). What if the kingdom of heaven is like someone who is thrown by the empire into the outer-darkness . . . and what if the name of that outer darkness is Calvary?"

I wish I had seen her sermon before yesterday, so I could have mentioned this interpretation.  But this Sunday's lectionary reading, Matthew 22:  15-22, might give me another chance.  Hmm.  Stay tuned!

Yesterday's Sermon (best so far?)

My spouse is very demanding when it comes to sermons.  He has years of training in Philosophy, which gives him certain expectations when it comes to critical thinking and lines of argument/support for a thesis.  

So, when he said that the sermon I delivered yesterday impressed him, I took that seriously.  He didn't say it was my best sermon so far, but he's never praised my past sermons in the way that he did yesterday's.  The idea about the Canaanite woman causing Jesus to pivot and expand his ministry was something that stood out (and it's an idea I got from one of the writers of the Feasting on the Word commentary).

So, without further ado, here's my sermon manuscript for August 20, and it's fairly close to what I delivered:

 

The Gospel:  Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

 

 

Once again, this Sunday, we have a chunk of text that seems to be in two parts that don’t exactly go together.  In the first chunk, Jesus talks about what goes out of the mouth as being more important than what goes in—a clear swipe at purity laws (or at least, that’s what it seems at first).  Then in the second chunk, we have Jesus seeming to be needing to be mindful of his own teaching, when we watch him interact with the Canaanite woman.  In between, we have disciples reporting that the Pharisees aren’t very happy with Jesus.  We could almost visualize him retorting, “Well, I’m not very happy with them and the way they haven’t been teaching well!”

 

This issue of purity isn’t one safely settled in the past, of course.  We’ll see it again in Acts, as the disciples try to decide how to adapt their new branch of Judaism, especially as they go to cultures that aren’t predominantly Jewish.  Peter has a dream about eating unclean meat and getting the message that nothing is unclean in the way he’s been taught.  We see it through the centuries:  real Christians believe this way or that way—and we see very blood wars break out when people can’t agree.

 

It's interesting to look at each story to see who is delivering the truth:  Jesus, in his preaching about what defiles, the Pharisees, who have been studying the law for much longer than most people, the disciples who report back to Jesus, or the Canaanite woman.  In the first chunk of the Gospel, Jesus gets the last word, delivering the truth.  In the second chunk, it’s the Canaanite woman who speaks truth to the one in charge.  Both passages have people asking questions.  Both passages are concerned with what is right and proper.  Both chunks have a certain amount of messiness—that might be a comfort or we might feel anxious about it.

 

The second chunk of text is the one that has always made me feel the most anxious.  Why on earth does Jesus speak to the Canaanite woman this way?  This is not the expansive, inclusive, savior of deep love and compassion. 

 

Some Biblical scholars and preachers will try to tell us that Jesus delivered these words in a joking tone—he’s only kidding.  To which I say, “Give me a break!”  That’s what all bullies say, isn’t it?  “I was only kidding.  Lighten up.  Don’t take everything so seriously.”  Some of us might blame the Canaanite woman for not knowing her place, for causing a scene.  Ouch.  How many of us have been told that we’re too much, that we should take it down a notch, that we’re being too loud.

 

Let’s not sugarcoat this issue.  Frankly, this depiction of Jesus shows me a savior that I’m not sure I’d like to meet in person:  he’s grouchy and pretty close to abusive with that reference to dogs.  It’s one of the clearer ways to support the parts of our creed that say that Jesus came and was fully human.  He’s fully human right down to his dismissiveness.

 

 

What happens if we accept this picture of Jesus?  Here’s some background which makes it easier.  Jesus and the disciples have left their home territory of Galilee.  They are in the district of Tyre and Sidon—in other words, alien territory.  And here’s a woman shouting at them—she’s out of line, and she won’t go away when Jesus and the disciples try to ignore her.  But it becomes clear that they will have to do something—she keeps shouting.

 

Maybe Jesus is gentle at first when he explains the limits of his mission.  He’s not here for her.  And then there’s that reference to dogs—ouch.  Let’s be blunt—Jesus is talking to her in a way that’s not acceptable.

 

I admire her tenacity, her ability to talk back to Jesus, to answer his argument with one of her own.  “Even the dogs get crumbs.”  And so, once again, we get a parable where a woman with great faith gets rewarded with health (remember the bleeding woman from a few Sundays ago?).  Again, we get an encounter where Jesus learns an important lesson from a woman.  And here, it’s a woman from an outside culture—in terms of purity, he shouldn’t be speaking to her.  But she changes his mind.

 

Wait—did you get that?  Jesus changes his mind?  For those of us who want to believe that God is all knowing and all powerful, we might feel uneasy.  If God knows what’s best, why would God change?  And yet we see that happen throughout our sacred scriptures, the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Does that mean that God can’t foresee the future?  Does that mean that God might not know what’s best? 

 

Is God relying on us to point out where we see a need for change?  If you believe in the concept of free will, then that’s exactly what God does.  If God just intervened in the world, that would violate the principle of free will which God instilled in creation. But if we invite God to action, then God has grounds to act.

 

Even as I don’t like the way that Jesus speaks to the Canaanite woman, I like that he listens to her and changes course.  He doesn’t punish her for her impudence.  The way he has done so many times, he responds to her cry of “Help me!” 

 

Does this encounter change Jesus’ sense of his mission?  It certainly seems to.  A few weeks ago, in Matthew 10, Jesus sends the disciples out to the lost sheep of Israel, giving them instructions NOT to go to the gentiles, not to go to the Samaritans.  By the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the instructions are different:  “Make disciples of all nations.”

 

If you read all of the Gospels, you’ll find a different sense of mission in each of them.  In Mark, for example, Jesus seems to be figuring out what he’s been sent to do; in this Gospel, his sense of mission comes late (and you might argue if it comes at all—at least in the way that we understand his sense of mission).  In Matthew, Jesus seems much more sure of his mission.  But the Canaanite woman appears to let him know that his idea is much too small.  In some ways, she demands that he have a bigger vision.  And he does.  And we do.  Think of how successful she is in terms of changing Jesus’ mind.

 

Of course, she’s not looking to bring the word of salvation to every land—she just wants her daughter back.  She’s lucky.  Every time there’s a story of healing, I’m mindful of all of us who might feel deep sadness in the times that our faith could not cure our loved ones.  God doesn’t always come through in ways that we demand or expect or yearn for.

 

But the good news that Jesus proclaims is one of incarnation; God wants to know us so deeply that God comes to us in any number of ways.  Maybe that way will be one of healing.  But even if it’s not the healing that we expect, walking with God will restore us to wholeness.  And our wholeness can extend outward; our wholeness can enable the wholeness of others, God’s table expanded to include lost sheep and teachers who already think they know it all and irritable people and pushy outsiders who demand a place at the table and all the dogs who would happily settle for scraps and crumbs, but can have a seat at the table too.

Last Thoughts on Yesterday's Gospel

We have been away from the Revised Common Lectionary at my church for some time.  We used the Narrative Lectionary for much of the school year last year (2012-2013).  For summer, we've been travelling through Acts.

I've been continuing to post weekly meditations on the Revised Common Lectionary here, and it's interesting to contemplate the intersections.  Yesterday, while much of the world explored the Good Samaritan, we read Acts 9:  32-43, where Paul heals and brings back Tabitha, also called Dorcas, back from the dead. 

Our pastor talked about a time where he knew he would likely be called to the hospital:   a woman with a difficult pregnancy wanted to be sure he could get to the hospital to baptize the baby.  He kept the supplies by the door, ready to go at a moment's notice.

I thought of the to-go pack in popular culture, of people living in apocalyptic times who try to prepare ahead of their run for safety.  My favorite example is Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower.  The teenage protagonist and narrator knows that the outside world is likely to invade her walled community at some point, and she prepares a backpack and even does drills where she practices grabbing the bag in the dark. 

I thought of the spiritual to-go pack.  I wondered if a vial of holy water is part of the standard Eucharist bag.  Would sanctified oil be part of it?  I'd want both, although in the Lutheran tradition, one doesn't need special water to do a baptism.

I thought of the items that most of us take with us through our weekly lives.  What's in your purse/backpack that travels with you?

The Holy Spirit Does Not Tweak Around the Edges

Our pastor delivered a grand Pentecost sermon.  He focused more on the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works in the world.  We didn't really hear much about the early church--or the later church.

My favorite bit:  The Holy Spirit is not to content to tweak around the edges.  The Holy Spirit does not politely observe the speed limits set by congregations.  The Holy Spirit may not even admit there's a road to be followed.

It was also Confirmation Sunday, and our pastor encouraged the Confirmands not to worry about bringing back the Church of the past or even preserving the Church of the present.  He encouraged them to lead the Church down the path for which the Holy Spirit will equip them.

I thought about us all, sitting in our suburban church, with Confirmands at the front.  I thought about the larger institutional Church.  I thought about the first Christians who both worked within the institutions of Judaism and created something very new.

They probably felt much the way I do:  excited at the possibilities, and apprehensive of what may happen.  Did they feel apprehensive about what might not happen?  Did they feel abandoned?  Even though Jesus promised that he would not leave them orphaned, I imagine that some of them felt quite orphaned.

As a young woman, I hated Paul's letters.  Now, as a woman in her middle years, I find them oddly comforting.  In them, I realize that the early church, so often held up as ideal, faced all the problems we have now:  difficult personalities, differing agendas, diverging visions.

I don't feel the attachment to the church of the past as some people do.  I like the current church which is wrestling with issues of diversity and decline.  I know that the church of the past was not in decline because so many people were smothered or shut out all together.

I could be happy to leave the current church behind too.  We spend a lot of time navigating personalities and dealing with issues of buildings that were created for a different time and people.  I could be happy to follow the Holy Spirit elsewhere.

I'm sure it would be somewhere I could never have imagined.  And when I face the exhausting process that faces us to fix the roof, that vision looks very attractive.

What Do You Talk About on Transfiguration Mountain?

For yesterday's sermon, my pastor focused on this part of the Transfiguration story in Luke 9:

³⁰Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. ³¹They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Our pastor focused on that word "departure."  In all my years of Transfiguration Sundays and that text in other settings, I had somehow never realized that the story tells us what Moses, Elijah, and Jesus discuss.

Our pastor told us that the word for "departure" is also "exodus."  And from there, we launched back to the Passover story.  The Israelites find themselves out of Egypt, but like many of us who have found ourselves miserable on vacation because we've brought ourselves along, the Israelites can't stop their habits of whining and complaining.

They're out of Egypt with nothing between them and the Promised Land, nothing but themselves.  They have to learn to trust God and that God will follow through on God's promises.  We need to do that too.

Jesus will come down from one mountain and trudge towards another, the mountain of Golgotha:  God keeping God's promises.

Our pastor reminded us that we are called to live the Good News, to live the story so well that people will want to know what we know.

He said that we could see it as God's wisdom or God's sense of humor that we are the way that God has chosen to tell God's story.   God counts on us to get the message out there into the world.

You might protest that you didn't sign up for such a task.  Like Moses, you might see people that are better suited to declare God's mission and wonder why God doesn't pass over you.

God has infinite capacity for knowing what is best--and God has chosen us.  So, live like the Resurrection Person that God knows you can be!

Believing the Best

Yesterday, I cleaned up after our family service that meets at 10, and then I headed over to the sanctuary, where I caught the last bit of my pastor's sermon.  He was preaching on James 1:  17-27.

He reminded us of how faith is scary/radical/weird in terms of how we treat each other.  He reminded us that Luther taught us to explain everything in the kindest possible way; even when the actions of our co-workers and neighbors makes us shake our head, we are required to put a positive spin on those actions.  Luther's teaching undergirds James (or does James undergird Luther?).

Of course, it would be better to avoid talking about others at all, but so far, I'm not as good at that.  So, since my workplace seems predisposed to gossip and speculation, I try to be the one who sees the possible positive when all around me, everyone is seeing negative.

But honestly, I don't believe that our various officials are on a destructive path.  I don't think anyone becomes an administrator at a school just to ruin that school.  I don't believe that political officials will destroy parts of America so that they can get elected.  I don't think that people want to get elected or rise in rank just so that they can enrich themselves.  I truly think that even when people's views differ from mine, that they're not lying to get elected or to keep the population placid.

Let me hasten to confess that my skewing positive doesn't affect anyone else.  I'm amazed at how dedicated people are to believing the worst.

Christians are countercultural in all kinds of ways.  Imagine how the world would change if we looked for the best in each other, instead of assuming the worst.

What To Do with Miraculous Leftovers

Yesterday's Gospel tells us that after the miracle of multiplying loaves and fishes, the leftovers filled 12 baskets.  It's always interesting to me what details leap out at me as we travel through the Lectionary.  One year, I couldn't stop thinking about those 12 baskets.

So, of course, I wrote a poem.  It appeared in qarrtsiluni.  You can read it here; hearing me read it is also an option.


Left Behind

 

We gathered twelve baskets of leftovers,
and then we confronted a new crisis:
what do with all the food left behind?

We slapped together fish sandwiches for all the weary
travelers. We made to-go bags
for everyone with hungry
families at home. We made sure the boy
got his investment back and then some.

We still had several baskets.
We made a picnic for ourselves.
And then Martha stepped forward.
With her old family recipe, she baked
pan after pan of bread pudding.

Some people gathered to talk mystical
theology. The rest of us helped
Martha clean up the kitchen. We wallowed
in dessert and fellowship. We celebrated
sweetness, the important life lesson.

Isaiah for Holy Trinity Sunday

Yesterday our pastor preached on Isaiah 6: 1-8, which may be the first time I've heard Isaiah preached on Holy Trinity Sunday.  But it worked.

Our pastor talked about institutional churches which mainly do what they do for the sake of the members.  He reminded us that this kind of thinking is a danger for all churches.

But we must resist.  After all, at the beginning, Christianity was an evangelical movement.  People were consecrated in baptism not to stay in their churches and care for members, but to go out and spread the good word.

In fact, our pastor reminded us that evangelists, the ones who went out, had higher status than preachers.

I'm not sure what time period he referenced, but it's good to be reminded that Christianity began as a movement led by lay people.  We see too many churches where members are content to let the pastor do everything--after all, they'll say, "That's what we pay him for."

Our pastor encouraged us to go out and chat about the Gospel.  And then, because he began life as an English major, he created a slogan that has a lovely alliteration:  Go gossip the Gospel.

May our lips be purified for this purpose!

Yes, an unusual Holy Trinity Sunday--but much better than arguing about Trinitarian theories and bringing up Trinitarian controversies that have split the church in the past.

The Day After Pentecost

Our pastor was full of metaphors yesterday.  He said, "The Holy Spirit doesn't come like a box from Ikea with stick figures showing us how to be Church."

He also said the Holy Spirit is not a breakfast cereal; it's not the same with every spoonful.  We're never sure what we'll get from spoonful to spoonful.

I was full of strange Pentecostal connections myself.  It's Pentecost, and the Bloodmobile is here.  We're talking about the Holy Spirit, and some of us may be looking ahead a day to Memorial Day.  I felt haunted by spirits of all kinds.

Perhaps I'll write a poem or two.

Good News, Fierce Forces that Oppose the Message

Our pastor's sermon on Sunday focused on the idea of being in the world and not of the world.  For his children's sermon, he used an interesting swimming pool metaphor:  children get in the pool, but they're not part of the pool, the way the swimming pool liner (above ground) or the tiled walls (in-ground) would be.

For the adults, he reminded us that the religious officials of Christ's day had learned to live and work with the Romans.  They had become part of the social order that Jesus came to upset.

The Gospel is not such good news for those who are comfortable with the System as it is.  Still having Walter Wink on my brain, I thought of his ideas of Domination Systems and the Powers and Principalities.

Our pastor circled to those ideas by looking at the prayer of Jesus and focusing on Jesus praying for protection for his followers.  He's not praying just in case.  He knows that that there are fierce forces in the world that will oppose the disciples.

He talked about a past governor of Alabama, Bob Riley, who tried to govern based on his understanding of the Bible's command to look out for the least members of society.  As we might expect, fierce forces organized to oppose his legislation.

Our pastor warned us about the upcoming campaign season that promises to be nastier than usual.  He cautioned that we'd hear lots of hate and fear.  He urged us to remember that when we hear such things, we're not hearing our Gospel.

He concluded by invoking this hope, that we live what we proclaim, the Good News.

Amen to that!

Love is a Verb, Not a Feeling

Our pastor preached on the Gospel yesterday and focused on what it means to love each other.  He didn't sum up his thoughts quite this pithily, but again and again, he reminded us that love is a verb, not just a feeling.

He moved to this part of the sermon after reminding us that Luther said we can't just not bear false witness--it's not enough to tell no lies.  We have to actively believe in the best of people and look for the best in them.  Oh dear.  I have a lot of work to do in this area with certain humans.

Actually, I've already done some of this work--at work, as you might expect.  I remind myself that not everyone is efficient in the ways that I am.  I remind myself that people are doing the best that they can do.  Their results may disappoint--but no one goes to work or class saying, "I wonder how I can fail today.  In what spectacular ways can I go down in flames?"

Our pastor moved to talking about our neighbor and how we define our neighbor.  It's not a geographical definition.  Luther said that where there is need, there is neighbor.

Luther said that faith is an active, busy, creative force.  With enough faith, we can't help but do good works.

And for those of us who are feeling a bit depleted, our pastor reminded us that God gives us faith enough to love as Christ loves--so much so that we would have to choose to live differently than Christ did.

What he left unspoken:  so many Christians do, indeed, make that choice not to live Christ-like lives.

My prayer for the week:  Creator God, please fill me with the faith I need to live a life that emulates Christ's.  I am surrounded by non-Christ-like ways to live.  Remind me that you have called me to a better life.  Remind me that I have a higher purpose.  Fill me with the faith that can move my feet, with faith that will remind me that love is a verb, not a feeling.

Our Clinging Hearts

Our pastor has been off lectionary for Lent; he's been preaching about the last 5 days of Christ. Yesterday's pre-planned Gospel was the Crucifixion story.  It provided an interesting juxtaposition with the story out of Sanford, the shooting of unarmed Trayvon Martin.  When our pastor first mentioned the case, I felt my heart sink a bit.  I find the story heartbreaking in all sorts of ways, yet I'm tired of hearing all the anger that it provokes.

Our pastor pulled off the tricky task of talking about the case without it sinking the larger message.  Our pastor reminded us that we don't know as much about the case as we might think we do.  He said, "It's not helpful to speculate on what the people were thinking or feeling that night.

He said that Christians have a voice to bring to this conversation, which is so marked by anger and speculation.  He then segued to the Good Friday story.  He asked, "To what is our heart clinging?"

Luther said it should be God.

Our pastor reminded us that our culture will offer us many substitutes for God.  Our culture is happy to provide gods for us:  self, anger, money, anxiety, status . . . the list could go on and on.

It's an important question to ask periodically:  to what does your heart cling?  Is it God or some other kind of god that your culture has supplied?

Still Yearning for Transfiguration?

Yesterday, our pastor talked about transforming the way we think about church.  All too often, we approach church thinking about whether or not it's doing anything for us.  Do we like the music?  Does the church teach our children how to be good?  Would we miss the people if we didn't go?

Our pastor reminded us that the church should be for the people who haven't yet discovered the church.  It's not about us and our self-centered little lives.  Of course, he used kinder language.

I'd been thinking of similar ideas earlier in the week when I'd been writing this post for the Living Lutheran website.  My assignment was to write something about Transfiguration Sunday.  In past years, I'd have written about personal transformation.  This year, I decided to focus on Peter and those shelters he wanted to build (booths in some translations).

I'd also been reading this post by Nadia Bolz-Weber, where she uses the term "the Babylonian captivity of the church buildings."  Wow.  I wish I had written that!

Instead, I wrote a few paragraphs about the problems of being tied to church buildings and asked, "What would happen if we left these booths behind?"

Now I know that many of us can't leave our buildings behind, particularly not in the horrible real estate markets that still oppress so many communities.  So I wrote about ways that we could transform our buildings so that they could transfigure us.

Here's how I ended, and it's a good vision to hold on to as we progress to Ash Wednesday and Lent: 

"I am transfigured by a vision of church that contains all sorts of bodies, from the elderly woman who finds a place to stash her walker to the transgender person who is between sexes, from the man scarred by his latest heart surgery to the pregnant woman.


I am left breathless by this vision of bodies in a variety of colors from a variety of backgrounds. I am inspired by a vision of church that welcomes both the arts of the banner makers and choir members and the arts of the impressionistic painters and mystical poets. I cheer for a church that offers sanctuary from the pointless noise that assaults us in the outside world.

I am transfigured by a vision of a church that flings wide open the doors, both to welcome the stranger with more than just a visitor name tag and to send transformed members out “to heal what is split in the world” (in the words of Gail Godwin)."

Thoughts about Love Before Valentine's Day

Our pastor went off lectionary yesterday.  If I was a pastor, I would avoid a holiday like Valentine's Day, but our pastor is fearless.  He talked about famous couples in the Bible, and pointed out that the unhappiest marriages came from one or both partners being unable to be happy with what they had in the marriage.  He talked about that desperate yearning for more and that inability to be satisfied that can contaminate many a marriage--or any other human relationship.

Along the way he talked about the perfection of God's love for humanity.  God's love should be a comfort.

As I parked the car before church, I was listening to NPR's This American Life, which was also broadcasting a show about love.  A young guy was talking about how he thought that marriages should expire every 7 years, at which time couples can renew or not.  Maybe he didn't say that about all marriages.  Maybe he was just talking about how he planned his own marriage.

The interviewer, Ira Glass, offered an eloquent defense of marriage.  He said he thought that one of the comforts of marriage was that during the bad days you knew that you had a commitment, you knew that you wouldn't just leave and that your partner wouldn't just leave.

I think that in America we do a bad job of learning how to manage our emotional lives.  We think our feelings are real.  We forget that the emotion we have today will likely be gone by tomorrow.  We forget that our bad feelings are often triggered by all sorts of things that have nothing to do with how we really feel.  Low blood sugar has caused many a fight--and probably more divorces and break-ups than we like to think about.  Many of us go through daily life fatigued.  We think our boredom and sadness are caused by our families or our friends or our jobs--and that might be the case--or we might just need more sleep.

So, as we begin the mad rush to Valentine's Day, let us take a moment to remember the gift of being able to love each other.  Let us remember God, who first loved us, and who will love us long after all other love falls away.