4th Sunday in Lent
Part of the sermon series on our mission statement: Serving Christ and Community Genesis 18:1-8 Psalm 32 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 John 13:1-17 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who serves us and calls us to do the same. Amen This Lent we have been examining our mission statement during our Sunday sermon time, we’ve explored the grace that God has saved us by, affirmed that we are rooted in Christ and therefore called to flexibility and continual growth, and last week we renewed our commitment to nurturing faith, that of ourselves and others. Today we reach the fourth and final piece of our statement: Serving Christ and Community, next week we’ll put it all together and do some thinking about how we want to live out our mission statement but before we get to that we will consider what it means when we say serving Christ and community. Serving others is a hallmark of the Christian life, Jesus’ whole life was lived in service to others and he commanded his followers to do the same. We see this in our gospel, where Jesus on his last night with the disciples washes their feet and tells them that they should follow his example, so what is his example? It’s taking the place of a servant to perform a menial, undesirable task, yes, but it is much more than that, it is an act of love made without the expectation of gratitude or immediate understanding. On this last night with the disciples, Jesus knows what is about to happen. By the end of the evening they will betray and abandon him and leave him to die on the cross. Jesus knows this and yet we are told that “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” This service is an act of love made knowing that it will not be reciprocated. All throughout his life this is what Jesus did he took care of people because they needed care, not because they were going to thank him or love him. Some people did have that response but others did not, and yet Jesus still served them because for Jesus, service is about the ones we serve, not ourselves and any benefits we might get from service. Because as altruistic as we may be about serving others, as humans we are so used to transactional relationships, you do something for me - I do something for you, that it’s hard to turn that off, so we still approach acts of service with the perspective, what can I get out of this? Even if what we get out of it is feeling good about ourselves, and if that is our motivation what we end up doing is serving ourselves rather than others. It’s giving pimentos to a food drive. The only reason to give pimentos, or something equally obscure, to a food drive, is to be able to participate in giving, to feel good about contributing without actually making a sacrifice, I can only think of two uses for pimentos, martini olives and that southern cheese spread. People who are food insecure don’t need pimentos, especially ones that have sat on a shelf for too long. Serving like Jesus means actually filling a need, taking the time to listen and understand what is needed or, sometimes the best way to understand how best to serve others is to be served ourselves have our needs filled by someone else and that’s something we struggle with. We see this when Jesus approaches Peter, who asks “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” then states “You will never wash my feet.” Peter doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of service, especially from someone he wants respect from yet at the same time Peter has been a willing participant in Jesus’ ministry of serving others. We like to serve, but we hesitate to be served this is a selfish approach to service because it is a position that never relinquishes power, and relinquishing power is the essence of Jesus’ life at the beginning of his ministry he refused to give into the temptations of the devil who told him to use his power and relationship with God to fill his needs and he carried this attitude all the way to the cross where he gave up his life for others, for us Sometimes serving others means relinquishing our own power, sometimes is means letting others serve us, because serving others does feel good, and builds self-esteem, and shouldn’t everyone have that experience? I had this realization in college, band would go on tour once a year and we were hosted by churches, we’d arrive set up, play a concert, take down, and then it would be time to meet our hosts for the night, since members of the congregation housed us. At first I felt very awkward about this, like I was imposing on my hosts, and I wondered why they were so interested in a couple of college kids who they’d never see again until I realized that if the tables were turned, I’d be really excited to be the host And so in accepting their hospitality In addition to having a place to sleep for the night I was giving them a chance at this excitement An opportunity to serve. We can’t always be the ones to do everything for ourselves, there are times we need to be served by others. Paul reminds the Corinthians this when he uses the example of the body to describe a community, not everyone has the leading role all the time but we need every single part to make up a whole, the feet need to be directed by the eyes at the same time the eyes need the feet to move other places for more things to see. We are part of a community, and that means at different times we have different roles to play, sometimes that means serving and sometimes that means being served, even Jesus needed the hospitality of others and he graciously allowed them to serve him. In fact Jesus calls us to serve him We serve Jesus when we take care of those in need. In Matthew chapter 25 Jesus describes the final judgment where people are sorted based on who served him during their lives or who didn’t and both types of people wonder when did we serve you? or when did we ignore? and Jesus tells them, ‘whatever you did to the least of these you did to me.’ We serve Christ when we serve others, we serve the community when we serve Christ, we serve like Christ, when we put our own needs and desires aside and focus on the ones in need of service. And we can put aside our own needs and desires, we can serve selflessly because of what God has done for us, because we are saved by God’s grace, because we have been given the gift of Christ and nurtured in our faith, when we serve it is out of thanksgiving for what God has done for us, not because we’re trying to earn points toward salvation, Jesus has taken care of that, and so having been so comprehensively served by Jesus, we in turn set out to serve Christ and community. Amen
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4th Sunday in Lent
Numbers 21:4-9 Psalm 107: 1-3, 17-22 Ephesians 2:1-10 John 3:14-21 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is responsible. Amen Who is responsible? This question is rarely asked after something good happens. A parent walks into a room to find children standing in the midst of a disarray of couch cushions and a broken lamp, “who is responsible?” They ask, as small eyes suddenly find something very interesting about that corner of the ceiling “Who is responsible?” A manager cries out after getting off the phone with an unhappy client, gazes avert in this situation as well “Who is responsible?” The people cry out after a storm leads to a flood, “was it the poor construction of the barriers? Was it government neglect? Was it God?” God tends to take a lot of the blame for things, it used to be and maybe still is in some cases that natural disasters were referred to as “Acts of God” on insurance forms. As I said, the question who is responsible? Rarely follows something good And the answer, at least the answer provided by those asked is usually “someone else” We see this today in our first reading. The Israelites are tired of wandering in the wilderness, they are getting impatient, because they are impatient they think they are suffering “why have you brought us out of Egypt into the wilderness where there is no food? To die? Oh and we hate this miserable food” they whine, even though God gives them food each morning, and when they complained about the lack of variety in the manna God added quails to the menu, and when they complained that the water was bitter, God made the water sweet, now it seems like they are complaining about God’s saving actions in the Exodus and it is too much, and we are told that God sends poisonous serpents among the people and many people die. Who is responsible? God for sending the serpents? Or the people for all their complaining? As it turns out, The people realize that the snakes are the consequence of their actions and they repent, they come to Moses and confess: “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you, pray to the Lord to take the serpents away from us.” So Moses prays to the Lord and God has a decision to make, the snakes were the consequence for the people’s actions, does God remove the consequence like the people ask? In the end God does not remove the serpents from among the people, being sorry for an action does not make the consequences of the action go away, but God does give the people a way out, God tells Moses to make a serpent out of bronze, put it on a pole and place it in the middle of the camp. When someone is bit by one of the serpents all they have to do is look at the bronze serpent and they will live God is gracious to the people and finds a way through the consequences of their sin to give them life. The gospel of John understands God’s actions in Jesus through the story of the bronze serpent. In the course of our lives we do things that turn us away from God and as a consequence our relationship with God is broken, when like the Israelites we realize what we have done, we repent and confess our sin. And like with the serpents in the wilderness, God does not take away the consequences of our actions but works through them and gives us a way forward to new life, Jesus lifted on the cross. This is the good news that we share with the world and often we share it using the section of John that we read today. John 3:16, how many times have you seen that verse on signs at sporting events, scrawled as graffiti or on billboards by the road and though it proclaims good news John 3:16 has become shorthand for the idea that unless you believe in Jesus you’re going to hell. Frankly, I’ve never understood this evangelistic strategy using God’s ultimate act of love to inspire fear that leads to someone “accepting Jesus as their personal savior” According to this perspective the one who is responsible for your salvation is you and this is a choice that you’re making not for right now but for the future, your eternal future, heaven or hell the choice is yours, you’re responsible, what are you going to do? The trouble is as humans we can’t seem to stop sinning and separating ourselves from God. Even when we try as hard as we can In fact, God knows that it is impossible for us to do and say all the right things that would lead to being in the presence of God, of bridging the gap between human and divine, so God takes care of it all for us. God works through Christ to make us alive, and through Christ brings us into the presence of God as a gift, A gift that is given right now, in this life. Jesus says a little later in the gospel of John “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” And considering all the healing and teaching feeding and forgiving Jesus did among his followers and the crowds it’s safe to say that Jesus meant abundant life now, as well as later. This is the grace of God, That God wants the same quality of life for all creation, abundant life lived in the presence of God and God offers this life to all, freely, as Paul says in Ephesians: “4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—9not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” Who is responsible? (here is one of those rare positive moments for this question) who is responsible for salvation? For life? God, God is the one who is responsible, God is the one who works through the brokenness and failings of humanity and the world to make abundant life possible, and not only possible but a reality. and it becomes a reality in our life when we trust the promise and begin to live in the presence of God and even this trust, this faith is a gift of God who continually reaches out to us, calling us, turning us toward life. Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good, for God’s mercy endures forever. Amen Sixth Sunday in Easter
Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:8-20 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21 Alleluia Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed Alleluia! We are still in the season of Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but even as we celebrate our texts are starting to turn us toward the ascension when Jesus returns to his Father and the bodily resurrection appearances stop, leaving the disciples wondering, where is God? Where is God? I think this is a question that we’ve all asked at some point in our lives, whether in the depths of sorrow or simply musing about the meaning of life, in fact, how we answer the question is impacted by who we say God is. In our reading from Acts, Paul is traveling, telling all he meets of Jesus, when he comes to Athens he encounters multiple ideas of gods, each with their own places of worship, images, and spheres of influence and though he considers them all idols he recognizes that the Athenians are very religious so religious that they have covered all their bases by even erecting an alter “to an unknown God” a God without image or idol, and Paul grasps on to this imageless God, I know who this God is Paul tells the people, this God that you consider unknown, possibly in part because you have not been able to come up with an image, is the God who made the world and everything in it, God who rules the heavens and the earth and who created all people doesn’t live in a shrine or need the sacrifices of humans, God cannot be contained in precious metals or even in the imagination of mortals because God is so much bigger than all that, and though this makes it seem like God is far away and that we humans have to search for God in reality God is never far from us “for in him we live and move and have our being” we are offspring of God, Paul tells the crowds, which means we are in relationship with God, God the creator of heaven and earth is a relational God, found in relationships rather than places. Which is good news because it means that we are not tied to any particular place for the worship of God but it does mean that we need to maintain relationships, with God, with other people whom God works through, and maintaining these relationships leads to regular places of gathering. God is not tied to these buildings and locations and yet it is undeniable that there are particular places where we feel closer to God, sacred spaces where the veil seems thinner somehow and we seem to more easily slip into the presence of the divine, and separation from these places is not to be taken lightly because they play such a role in maintaining our relationship with God. I found one of those places in college, at Gustavus there is an arboretum attached to campus, with a variety of walking paths, sometimes it seemed like the only place for an introvert to go to get away from all the people on a residential campus. There was a particular stone I’d go to and sit on and talk to God, pour out the anxieties and troubles of my late teens and early twenties and there I felt the presence of God. When I graduated and moved away, I was surprised by the ache I felt deep within at being separated from that sacred space. It made me think of the Native Americans, whose spirituality is so closely tied to the land and who were forcibly removed from their sacred spaces and the ache that they still feel generations later. Even if we acknowledge that God is greater than a single space or image, we humans still search for more solid connections to God, whether it is a place, a building, a community, or something else, and when we find one of these connections we hold on for dear life. The disciples in our gospel have found one of those connections in Jesus, in fact Jesus has told the disciples that in seeing him they have seen the father, to see Jesus is to see God. and yet now Jesus is telling them that he must go away, that they will no longer see him. And the disciples are understandably feeling some trepidation, if they can no longer see Jesus, they will no longer be able to see God and then where will God be? It’s hard not to feel like they’re being abandoned. And Jesus knows this and promises the disciples “I will not leave you orphaned” he’s using the language of relationship, Jesus’ going away is necessary but he reassures the disciples that it doesn’t mean the end of a relationship with God it will just take another form: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth.... You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” The gift of the spirit, received at our baptisms means that God is always with us, is as close to us as the breath we take, even when we feel separated from God, God is there residing in us, advocating for us. I don’t think we often think of God this way, even as we acknowledge the gift of the spirit we still think of God as separate and far off and it takes a moment where the spirit makes herself very clear before we feel the intimacy of God, for the disciples this happened at Pentecost, for the rest of us it happens at different times, perhaps in a special place, through prayer or in the course of everyday life, often it happens at times when life has changed in some way and we are feeling separate from God that’s when God, through the spirit, reminds us that God is with us. We are in a time of change right now, whether it be anticipated like the graduation from high school or other life events, or because of what is going on in the world around us, we may be feeling separated from God, but Jesus is with us sending the gift of the holy spirit, keeping the promise that he made to the disciples “because I live, you also will live.” Christ is alive, Alleluia Where is God? Right here with us. Amen Fifth Sunday in Easter
Acts 7:55-60 Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 1 Peter 2:2-10 John 14:1-14 Easter 5 5/10/20 Alleluia Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed, alleluia. This week our psalm really caught me, the image of the psalmist who has taken refuge in God seemed to speak to our time when “shelter in place” and “stay at home” have become everyday phrases, the psalmists’ crying out to God “deliver me” in one breath and “my times are in your hand” in the next capturing the multiple emotions that envelope us. As I mulled over the images, I wondered what images we might use today and so as an exercise I paraphrased our psalm for today, seeking to use the images and emotions of 2020, and here is what I came up with: In you God I take refuge Keep me from acting out of selfishness. Listen to me! Come quickly! Be my home That I may shelter in place in you. For you are where I retreat to safety. You hold me like the cushions of my couch. Take me out of the net of fear That has been woven around us, For you are my truth. Into your care I comment by body and spirit That you created, called good, and redeemed. Time is in your hands Save me from fear, anxiety, Inadequacy, lethargy, numbness And from the ones who want me to feel this way. Shine on me like the springtime sun That each year Coaxes bare branches back to life. Part of the power of the psalms and why we turn to them for comfort is that they hold so true to life, contained within many psalms are both cries of lament where the psalmist feels abandoned by God, and in the next breath proclamations of trust in that same God, in these seemingly contradictory emotions we see our own experience reflected, the times in our lives where many things are true even things that seem to be in opposition, and we see this in psalm 31 today, the first part a cry of the heart and the second part reliance on God in the midst of the unknown, and both are true at the same time, And that’s one thing that I think will help us get through this time of laments and unknowns the realization that we don’t have to be on one end of the spectrum or the other, we can both and, We can both want to see the whole way before us and trust that God will guide us, we can be concerned about the health of our community and concerned about the health of the economy, we can both understand why it is important that large gatherings not take place and grieve the loss of connection and communal observations, high school seniors can be both excited to be graduating and sad that it won’t take place in the traditional way. In times of turmoil, we so desperately want to know what’s coming next that we often grab onto one image of the future and that is all that we can see, even though there may be many different options. That’s the place that the disciples are in in our gospel for today, Jesus is on the way to the cross and is trying to prepare his disciples, he has told them what is going to happen, that he will be crucified, die and on the third day rise again but they are holding on to their own image of what the messiah will do, come in as a military leader and wipe out the Romans, Jesus knows that they will be sorely disappointed and tries to give them another idea of what is to come.. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” he tells them “believe in God, believe also in me” belief in God is the antidote to the troubled heart, and he knows that their hearts are troubled and they are wondering where do we go from here? And so he paints a picture for them, of his father’s house, a place with many rooms, enough rooms for everyone, and Jesus is going to prepare a place for all of them, he’ll go and come back and go again but where ever he is, the disciples know that there is a place for them. And Thomas, ever the practical one says this all sounds great Jesus but we don’t know the way, how will we get there? and Jesus responds, “I am the way and the truth and the life” which is not really what Thomas was looking for, he wanted something along the lines of go north for five miles until you reach a tree, then turn left, that kind of thing. But Jesus doesn’t give directions like that, his answers to questions are not easy but they are backed up by the promise of abundant life. In his I Am statements, Jesus is proclaiming that he is one with the father, when the disciples see Jesus, they see God. So where do we go from here? In this time where many things are true and many things are unknown we cling to Jesus, the way, who promises us abundant life and since, unlike the disciples, we are hearing this teaching after the resurrection, we know that Jesus keeps his promises, that he has been through our ultimate fear, death, and come out the other side and promises that we will do the same, guided by him, the way. This is not an easy answer, it doesn’t lay out every single step that we will take, like we might wish, but it does give us something to hold on to, Jesus the way, the truth and the life, who promises to be with us and guide us all along the way, who holds us when we are afraid and comforts us in the face of the unknown, who brings us to life everlasting. Amen Fourth Sunday in Easter
Acts 2:42-47 Psalm 23 1 Peter 2:19-25 John 10:1-10 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed, Alleluia! Today, the fourth Sunday in Easter, has the unofficial title of Good Shepherd Sunday as there are sheep and shepherds all over our readings for today. God, Jesus, as the Good Shepherd is one of the most common images all throughout the scriptures and has caught the imagination of many particularly those who love Psalm 23. But what does it mean to call Jesus a good shepherd? Well, what does a shepherd do? They take care of the sheep. At text study this week (done over zoom of course) we were discussing sheep, and how well they aren’t very bright and if Jesus is the shepherd that means we are the sheep, one colleague suggested that people might be offended by being associated with such dim creatures, while another pointed out that when she looked at her life she identified with the sheep, always getting into scrapes and needing to be rescued by the shepherd, and her point is hard to deny, even at our smartest and best intentioned we humans have a way of getting into situations where we at least need a little help to get out of, even if we insist that we don’t at the beginning, by the end we realize that we have need of a shepherd. That same colleague mentioned the story of Shrek the Sheep as an example of this. It’s been a few years since Shrek was in the news but Shrek was a sheep in New Zealand who decided that he didn’t want to be sheared, and so he escaped, and hid from his shearers for six years, by hiding in caves, which I think is one of the funnier parts of the story. Now Shrek was a kind of sheep that was bred for the production of wool, without a shave his wool kept growing and growing, when they finally caught him he looked like a giant cotton ball with a nose and feet. I’ll post a picture and a link to his story along with the video of worship and when they sheared him, his fleece weighed 60 pounds and contained enough material to make suits for 20 large men. Now Shrek may have thought he was free and hiding would ensure that, but the longer he hid from the shepherds the more weight he had to carry around. Imagine the freedom he felt when he finally had a haircut after six years! We humans are often like Shrek the sheep, there are times when despite the good care our shepherd is taking of us that we feel like we could be freeer on our own, and off we go, we don’t need a shepherd we insist, hey look a nice comfy cave we can hide out in, and at first it may seem like fun and freedom, but as time goes on we find that there are things we can’t do for ourselves and these things begin to weigh us down gradually accumulating until we are hauling around a fleece of monumental proportions, our sins and worries, mistakes and vulnerabilities all tangled around us obstructing our movement and only the shepherd can set us free. And the whole time the good shepherd has been looking for us. God is not willing to remain at a distance from us and so is continually calling to us and searching us out. That’s what we see in our gospel for today, the story actually starts a chapter back, with Jesus healing the man born blind, we read that together about a month and a half ago, Jesus sees a man blind from birth, heals him, and when the man goes to the Pharisees they don’t believe his testimony about Jesus and kick him out of the temple, hearing this Jesus goes and finds the man, he seeks him out and what we have today is Jesus teaching the man born blind who he sought out and the pharisees that kicked him out. Be careful he tells the gathered crowd, it is perilous to follow the wrong shepherd, the implication being that the pharisees are the wrong shepherds. But they don’t get it. So Jesus tries another image saying “I am the gate for the sheep” the gate open in the evening allows the sheep into the sheepfold and closed keeps them safe from anyone not supposed to be there. Open in the morning it allows the sheep to access food and water. And Jesus must have received more blank stares from his audience because he summarizes it for them whether he’s the shepherd or the gate or any other number of images he says look “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” This is Jesus’ mission statement in the gospel of John. The Word present at creation in the beginning becomes flesh and lives among the people so that they may have abundant life. Jesus is the way to life because he himself is life. And as all of Jesus’ varied imagery shows us, what abundant life looks like depends on the time and place, at night abundant life for the sheep is being gathered together behind a closed gate that keeps out all the things that go bump in the night that like to eat sheep. During the day abundant life looks like the ability to roam, to find the tastiest bit of grass or most refreshing drink of water, but all the while the shepherd is there watching, calling to the sheep keeping them close so that the shepherd can point them to abundant life whatever that happens to look like in the moment, and if one sheep wanders off, the shepherd goes looking for it, brings it back to the fold and the care of the community. We are like sheep, to have full abundant life we need the care of our good shepherd, Jesus, who knows each of our names, who calls and gathers us and leads us to abundant life and yes, sometimes that may actually feel restrictive we long to leave the fold and so we make a bid for freedom, we strike out on our own and Jesus notices, calls out for us, goes out in search of us for as long as it takes and when he finds us, only he will be able to set us free from the heavy load we are carrying, the load that we created. If you are a sheep who has wandered far and long and now in this time of uncertainty would like to return to the fold but fear that the load you are carrying is too heavy too much for even the good Shepherd, know this, it is not, Jesus knows your name and is calling you back and there is no load so great that Jesus can not set you free. And if you are a sheep who has remained close to the shepherd but is starting to chaff at staying within the pen at night, remember the shepherd guides us to abundant life, even if it’s not quite like we imagine the good shepherd has our best interests at heart. Whatever kind of sheep we are Jesus knows us, and calls to us, guiding us along offering comfort and life abundant, he truly is the good shepherd. Amen Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:14a, 22-32 Psalm 16 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31 Alleluia Christ is Risen, Christ is Risen Indeed Alleluia! Christ is risen and today we hear about the disciples starting to come to terms with the news of Easter morning the news brought to them of course by Mary Magdalene whose early morning trip to the tomb was full of the unexpected, the tomb was empty and the gardener was the risen Jesus, who sent her to tell the other disciples which she did, announcing “ I have seen the Lord” Now John doesn’t tell us about the immediate reactions of the disciples, whether they scoffed at Mary’s tale or rejoiced with her, by the time we see the disciples, in our gospel for today, the news that something has happened is starting to sink in and the disciples are afraid. They have gathered together and locked the doors out of fear, they are wondering, what comes next? And Jesus comes and stands in the midst of them and says “Peace be with you” Jesus comes into the midst of their fear and uncertainty, despite the measures they’d taken to keep everyone else out and offers them peace. Then just so they know that it’s him (although who else could it have been?) he shows them the marks on his hands from the nails that fixed him to the cross and his side where the soldier’s sword had pierced him, and the disciples rejoice. Then “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’” And with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples are sent out to spread the good news. And they make it as far as Thomas. One of their own who was not with them and they excitedly tell him “we have seen the Lord” and Thomas says ‘no’ I don’t believe you, I need the same experience you had, to see Jesus and the marks in his hand and side. Now I think this must have taken the wind out of the disciples’ sails, they were all excited to share the news just as Jesus had instructed and when they do, with someone who knew Jesus, who heard his passion predictions, who has the best chance of anyone at believing them and Thomas says no, they realize that this is a harder job than they thought, and as the reality sets it we find them once again, a week later, gathered together in fear behind locked doors only this time Thomas is with them. And once again Jesus comes into the midst of them saying “Peace be with you” and offers Thomas what he needs, showing him his hands and side and Thomas not only believes that Jesus is risen but he goes a step further and confesses “My Lord and my God” understanding and proclaiming the full truth of who Jesus is. Then with the truth proclaimed Jesus turns to the rest of us those who have read the story of Thomas throughout the ages and looking right at us says “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” And yes We may not have seen Jesus in the same way as the disciples but Jesus has come to us, in water and word, bread and wine, the community of believers, in other ways that we only realize well after the fact. Again and again, Jesus appears among us offering peace in the midst of fear and uncertainty, knowing that our moments of joy will be tempered by the reality of rejection and the fear of the unknown future, again and again Jesus appears among us offering peace because unbelief in one moment doesn’t prevent faith in another, indeed Jesus comes again and again because faith is a gift from God, a gift that Jesus keeps offering even though we’re sometimes reluctant to accept the gift, even though at times we misplace it, buried at the back of a closet or lock it behind closed doors out of fear and then Jesus comes once again and stands in the midst of our fear and says ‘peace be with you’ We are in a time of fear and uncertainty, and like the disciples the novelty of the situation is starting to wear off and we’re left wondering, what comes next? How will we continue to live out Jesus’ call to us when we are physically separate? And even when we try new things the reaction might take the wind out of our sails and then what will we do? I don’t know the detailed answers to all of these questions, we will uncover them as we go, what I do know, is that God will be with us, renewing our faith as we figure it out, because that’s what God does in these situations, we are not the first Christians to have our faith and way of being challenged nor will we be the last and all along the way Jesus will come to us, offering peace and faith. We hear that promise in our second reading for today, the author of 1 Peter writing to communities wondering what is next? Hear those words again: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith-being more precious than gold, that though perishable, is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” God’s mercy has already been acted out for us through Jesus’ resurrection. God has already given us salvation and is keeping it safe for us. And the difference that makes in our lives? It gives us a living hope, hope that is able to adapt to the changing circumstances around us, hope that takes disappointment in stride, hope that continues on even as our faith is refined. It's a romantic image, the process of purifying gold, we tend to focus on the end result but what we forget in the romanticism is that on the way to pure gold things are lost, the unnecessary parts burned away. And that’s the moment we are in right now, the uncomfortable part of the process where we are finding out what is gold and what is just pretending, what is faith and what is just pretending and like the disciples on that first Easter evening, we will first gather around what is familiar, we will lock the doors against the outside world, and Jesus will appear among us in the midst of our fear and offer us peace and with Thomas once we have realized who is among us, what is true we will proclaim “My Lord and my God” our hope as alive as the risen Christ. Amen Fifth Sunday in Lent
Ezekiel 37:1-14 Psalm 130 Romans 8:6-11 John 11:1-45 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who goes through death into life. Amen This lent we are telling stories of faith, we’ve heard from congregation members about their own stories and from our weekly readings, we’ve considered how stories shape our identity, our faith, our understanding of what is necessary, and how we interpret the unexpected. This week, our readings ask us to reflect on how we tell the story of death. This is a crucial story to tell, because how we tell the story of death directly impacts how we live our lives. Lately, in our society, we have chosen to avoid telling this story and that has had an impact on how we view life, part of it is that through advancements in medicine and the continued separation of people from the production of their food death is less of a daily reality than it once was, we can go long periods in our lives before directing experiencing death. I was in my early twenties and on my rotation of clinical pastoral education in a hospital before I came into close contact with someone who had died, with a dead body, going in I realized that I needed the experience and that I would probably get it, but I was also afraid. Death scared me, on many levels, some of which still admittedly exist, but what was most scary was the unknown. I knew on an intellectual level that death was part of life, but I hadn’t experienced that reality in the flesh and I didn’t know how I would react. It’s the unknown that lies at the root of many human fears, fears that turn into anxiety or anger or other emotions that tend to separate us from our neighbors rather than bring us closer together and there is no greater unknown than death. Now the way we usually tell that story, as humans, is as a cautionary story, death is something to be avoided as long as possible because it is The End, as far as we know it and even if it isn’t The End as many world religions suggest we don’t know exactly what that looks like, and so we hesitate to talk of it because no matter how we tell the story we just don’t know and we are frightened. Which is why we need so desperately to listen to the story God tells about death because this story is very different from the human story and we have two such readings appointed for today. In the first, the prophet Ezekiel is speaking with God, the spirit of the Lord takes Ezekiel and places him in the midst of a valley strewn with bones, there’s a lot of them and they are dry, they’ve been there for awhile, and God asks “Mortal, can these bones live?” which seems like a trick question, these bones are very dead, but since it’s God who is asking the question the prophet chooses the wise response “O Lord God, you know” and God instructs the prophet to prophesy to the bones to say “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord” and at the word of the Lord, the bones come together and bodies become covered in flesh, but they are not alive until the prophet prophesies to the breath, to the spirit of God and then these bodies become living beings. Then God explains the vision to Ezekiel, the dry bones are the people to whom Ezekiel is sent to speak, they are exiles in a foreign country who witnessed their city destroyed and their civilization stamped out, it seems like THE END from which there is no coming back, and yet God says no “O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live” this is not THE END God tells them. Now we might wonder why God, who has the power to breathe spirit into dry bones would allow the bones to become dry at all, just as we wonder why, Jesus in our second story, when he hears that his friend Lazarus is sick, waits two days before going to him. Martha and Mary both voice this wonderment when they say to Jesus ‘Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.’ Yes we say, wouldn’t it make more sense to just prevent Lazarus’ death? And we think this way because we’re still telling the story of death from the human perspective, where the best thing to do is to avoid it in the first place. But the way God tells the story, death is not something to avoid, death is something to go through. As commentator Melinda Quivik notes in her commentary on working preacher this week (https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4411) “Jesus does not do the easy thing (keep bad things from happening), Jesus does the hard thing, which is to reverse destruction.” The easy thing is to keep bad things from happening, the hard thing is to reverse destruction, and Jesus has chosen the hard path. Now, if we can set the question of why aside, this is the choice I’d rather God make because the reality of the world that we live in is that no matter how hard we may try to avoid it, destruction happens and rather than a god who could have chosen to avoid it, we have a God who weeps with us, and then through God’s own power, brings about new life. Did you notice that in the story of Lazarus? That the bystanders were just that, bystanders Jesus goes to the tomb and sees the weeping of the mourners and he weeps with them, then he orders the stone in front of the tomb to be removed. Martha ever the practical one protests “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days” or as the King James Version puts it “Lord, he stinketh” but Jesus insists, the stone is rolled away, Jesus publicly thanks his Father for hearing him, and then he commands Lazarus to come out. And he does, still wrapped in the grave clothes, and Jesus commands the crowd “unbind him and let him go” And those who witness this believe in Jesus. Belief comes after witnessing the power of God, power that does not depend on prior belief or petition from humans, God takes action because that is who God is, one who confronting the stench of destruction brings about new life. But I want us to notice one last thing about this story, Jesus’ last command to the crowd, “unbind him and let him go” Jesus has faced the stench and reversed destruction, but he leaves it up to those gathered witnesses who now believe in him, to clean it up. In order for Lazarus’ new life to be fully lived, those around him must also face the stench of destruction, peel away the layers of soiled cloth to free the man beneath. Even as God goes through death to reverse destruction, God expects us to follow that path as well, there is no other way to get to the new life on the other side than through death. And that’s hard for us who tell the story of avoidance to stomach. We’d much rather prevent the stink in the first place, and on our own, that’s a good strategy, that’s why we’re staying apart from each other right now, to avoid sickness and death, and sure there is some fear involved in that but also love and common sense. But if that is the only story well tell of death and adversity we end up missing out on the new life God creates when we are faced with death and destruction, new life that must be reached by going through, not around. And that’s the difference listening to how God tells the story of death makes The promise and experience of new life on the other side of death allows us to face the unknown with hope and when we have hope we are released enough from our fear to look for opportunity, opportunities to face the stench, to unbind and let free the Lazarus’s of the world, and in this way we too are unbound and set free. Set free to move through death To new life in God. Amen th Sunday in Lent
1 Samuel 16:1-13 Psalm 23 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who walks with us through unexpected times. Amen This lent we are hearing and telling stories of faith, we’ve heard from fellow members of Christ Lutheran and from our ancestors in the Bible, we’ve heard how stories shape our identity, our faith and our understanding of what is necessary. Today our stories tell of God working through unexpected servants. Unexpected. That’s a word I think we’re all too familiar with these days, if you’d asked me last week what I expected to be doing this week it was certainly not leading worship via youtube. But I had already looked at our texts for this morning, I try to go through a season at a time, go through the readings to see what’s coming and make a few notes on what I might focus on when I get to the day, and when I opened the page in my sermon prep notebook at the beginning of the week I found a note I had made, That says “Things are not going as people expect.” now when I made that note I was referring to our scripture readings but it equally applies to all of our lives right now and I think it’s comforting to know that at least God is familiar with this territory of the unexpected, in fact we find that God often seems to prefer to work through the unexpected. Take our first reading for today, Samuel the prophet, expected that he would serve King Saul until his death but God removed favor from Saul and instructed Samuel to go anoint a new king, one from the family of Jesse of Bethlehem, Jesse has a lot of sons and all God has told Samuel is that God will show Samuel which son it will be. Now when Samuel sees Jesse’s sons for the first time he sees the eldest and thinks, ‘this has to be the new king, he’s the oldest, he’s tall and he already looks like a king should look.” and the Lord tells Samuel “nope, it’s not him, don’t look at his appearance, the Lord is choosing a king based on what’s in the heart.” and so it goes with all of Jesse’s other sons until it seems like there are none left, ‘do you have anymore?’ Samuel asks, and is told there is one, the baby of the family who is out with the sheep. ‘Go get him’ Samuel instructs, and sure enough when he sees David God says ‘that’s the one’ (I paraphrase of course). None of this went as Samuel expected but God chose to work through David who would go on to become the greatest King of Israel, so important that the messiah was supposed to be a descendant. We see this again and again in scripture, God choosing to work through the least likely in any situation. We see that in our gospel, the story of the man born blind. Jesus and his disciples are walking along and they see a man who was blind from birth. The disciples ask a theological question “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” they are following the prevailing wisdom of the day, that illness was a result of sin and are curious because it is hard to imagine a baby sinning before birth, so perhaps it was the parents. Implicit in this question is the thought: how do we avoid this? And Jesus responds, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” then Jesus heals the man who becomes an unexpected witness to Jesus, one who testifies on his behalf. First it’s the neighbors who are confused but hear of Jesus through the man, then it is the Pharisees, now the Pharisees really grill the man, ‘were you really blind?’ they ask and even go as far as making the man’s parents come and tell them if he really was born blind. At the root of this investigation is the question: how did this happen? Again and again they ask the man who has no explanation other than Jesus the pharisees are confused because to them Jesus fits the definition of a sinner, he broke the law by healing on the sabbath, but how could he be a sinner if he has the power to heal? So “they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” and the Pharisees drive the man out of the temple. The way the pharisees told the story of who could be a servant of God, Jesus didn’t qualify. He acted in unexpected ways and yet God worked through him and this threw them for a loop so much so that they took it out on the man who had been born blind and healed by Jesus, who did the only thing he could, testify to what had happened to him. But the story doesn’t end there, Jesus, hearing that the man had been driven out, goes and finds him and reveals to him that he is the messiah, he makes sure that the man is a member of Jesus’ community. God works through unexpected servants, again and again God chooses the least likely, the youngest sons, the ones labeled as sinners, those at the margins of society. And it makes us uncomfortable because we can’t explain it using the stories we usually tell, the stories that say good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people and then define who is good and who is bad. because along comes God who tells us “do not look on appearance... For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” the Lord looks on the heart and calls into service whoever God needs in whatever way God needs and often the who and the how are unexpected. In this time we have all been called to serve in an unexpected way, by refraining from gathering together. Loving God and neighbor suddenly looks like empty pews and houses of worship, as we now worship from couches in our own houses, it looks like turning handshakes into phone calls, hugs into emails, finding ways of staying connected without physically being together. And all the while, even as we long to gather in one place and shake the rafters with our hymns, we know that God is with us, leading us to sources of nourishment we wouldn’t have found on our own, guiding us through the valley overshadowed by death, promising goodness and mercy and to always be with us, even, especially in the unexpected. Amen Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7 Psalm 95 Romans 5:1-11 John 4:5-42 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who gives us what we need. Amen This Lent we are exploring stories of faith, on Wednesdays we have congregation members sharing their stories and on Sundays our readings are also stories of faith, so far we have had stories of identity where we have explored how the stories we tell shape our understanding of our identity and stories of how faith is lived out, by holding on to the promises of God even as we question and grow. This week we have stories of necessity, how we tell the stories of what we need affects our relationship with God. We have two examples from our readings today, the Israelites in the wilderness and the Samaritan woman at the well with Jesus. Our first example of how stories of necessity are told and sometimes differ, is the Israelites in the wilderness. The Israelites are in a time of major transition as a people, so far in the relationship between God and the Israelites God has: appeared to Moses out of a burning bush, sent Moses to pharaoh to plead for the Israelites’ freedom, sent ten plagues of increasing intensity on the Egyptians when the pharaoh refused to let them leave, saved the Israelites from the final plague giving them the opportunity to flee, parted the sea standing in the way of their escape, traveled with the people as a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, and provided food by raining bread in the morning and quails at night. It’s been a lot their identity has shifted, they’ve moved from being settled in a place where they had a long history and though they were enslaved they knew who they were and how they fit in, now they are free but they are also homeless and they wander the desert led by a God they cannot see looking for a promised land that is just that, promised so we have to excuse, or at least understand when the Israelites don’t always come off looking the best, we as people don’t always make the best decisions when we’re stressed and in times of transition and these are a people who haven’t had to make decisions at all, which is why the time wandering is so important God is using that time to teach the Israelites how to live as free people and the first step is teaching the Israelites to trust that God will keep the promises that God has made and as they wander the desert God has promised to provide for them with manna and quails, and part of learning to trust is the instruction to only take the amount of food that is necessary for one day, the exception being the day before the sabbath. If they take more than they need it will spoil because they have not trusted God to provide for them the next day. So that’s the set up as the Israelites wander the desert, God provides for them, but this is a lesson that is hard to learn for the Israelites as we see in our story for today. In their wandering they come to a place where there is no water, or at least not enough water and rather than trusting God to provide they start complaining to Moses, now the thing I always enjoy about the Israelites’ complaints in the desert is that they get very dramatic very fast, in this case they say “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” You’d think that by now the Israelites would have known that God would provide for them but the way they tell the story of what is necessary, when it’s necessary is different from the story God tells and it strains the relationship, Moses names the place “test and quarrel” because the Israelites tested and quarreled with God wondering if God was even with them, and even though they lack trust in God, God provides water, showing Moses where to go to find water among the rocks of the desert, one of the commentaries I read mentioned that water does flow through some rock formations, the water was already there, it was just a matter of finding it. That’s another thing about God, God provides but it’s not always obvious to us humans. Another thing we humans do is that we like to make things more complicated than they need to be, relationships for instance, we all have a need to belong and yet we tell all kinds of stories as reasons why this person or that person shouldn’t be a part of the group and that’s what’s going on with our second story of the Samaritan woman at the well, her community has told her that she needs to be different and until then she will not be fully one of them, It all starts with a need Jesus has to rest, he’s been traveling, it’s the middle of the day, the hottest time of the day he’s tired, and thirsty and hungry, so he sits down next to a well, a source of water and the disciples go to buy something to eat and Jesus waits for them, as he’s waiting a woman comes to the well to draw water, now this in and of itself is not unusual what is odd is the time of day, carrying water is a heavy hard task which means that it’s best done in the mornings and evenings when it’s cooler, but here this woman comes at the hottest part of the day, now it may be that she just needed water but the more likely explanation is that she came at a time when she was sure to avoid all the other people who come to get water. Jesus, sitting by the well, asks her for a drink of water, and she’s surprised, because the story of society is that it is necessary for men and women to stay separate and for Jews and Samaritans to avoid each other, but if there’s one thing we know about Jesus it’s that he doesn’t pay attention to what society says is necessary but what God says is, and so he starts a conversation with this woman and even though she’s surprised she is curious, and after they’ve covered why they shouldn’t be talking Jesus tells her “if you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘give me a drink’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” the woman is thrown by practical considerations, she points out that Jesus doesn’t have a bucket and he responds “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Now the woman is really excited about this, she might never have to come to the well ever again! And Jesus knows that this excitement is not about the work of carrying water but about avoiding all the other people that come to the well, he reveals to her that he knows about her history, she’s had really bad luck with relationships she’s had five husbands and is now living with someone who she isn’t even married to and perhaps to change the topic the woman observes “Sir, I see that you are a prophet” and they get into a theological discussion that ends with Jesus revealing to her that he is the messiah! This is the first time he has told anyone this, and this revelation changes the woman’s life, she runs back to the city, to all those people she was avoiding and she tells them “come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah can he?” and amazingly enough they listen to her! And we are told that “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” the woman who comes to the well alone at the beginning of the story is back with the community by the end, Jesus has given her living water, that is, a relationship with Jesus, and a relationship with Jesus is one that restores other relationships. God tells the story of necessity through relationships, what we need is a relationship with God and a relationship with our neighbors, isn’t that what Jesus says when pressed about the greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and might and love your neighbor as yourself. If we attend to these relationships God says, everything else will fall into place. And yet, so often the stories of necessity we tell focus on other things, we’ve seen this first hand as COVID19 spreads around the world as we’ve heard many conflicting stories of necessity, the story that says we need lots of toilet paper and the story that says it’s not so bad, the story that says carry on with life and the story that says the best way to care for your neighbor might just be to avoid them. As we go through this time we are having to navigate the path through the many stories of necessity we hear and the ones we tell ourselves and it’s not easy, but I think it is made easier when we first listen to God’s story, the one where God loves us and our neighbors and promises to be with us whatever comes our way, and secure in that love we are then able to consider how we might best live that love out. I’ve kept this in mind this last week as each day I’ve prayerfully considered how we as a community will live out our trust in God, stay in relationships and care for our neighbors, even as this might mean changing the way we physically live some of this out. I don’t know what the future will hold but I do know that however it happens we as a community, saved by God’s grace and rooted in Christ, will continue to be nourished by worship and serve Christ and community. As we go out into a world today, where there are so many stories of what is necessary, we go having drunk from the living water of Jesus, we have been fed and forgiven, our relationships with God and others have been strengthened and so we go out trusting that God will provide for us, show us the best way to love our neighbor and care for the most vulnerable among us, and we go knowing that God goes with us. Amen Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 12:1-4a Psalm 121 Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 John 3:1-17 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who keeps promises. Amen This Lent we are telling stories of faith, last week we explored how what stories we listen to impact our understanding of our identity, this week our stories explore what it means to have faith, what having faith looks like. And I think this is something that we all wonder about, at least at some point in our lives, what does it mean to have faith? Do I have enough faith? How do I get more faith? Why do some people seem to have an easier time than others? Any of these questions sound familiar? It’s pretty easy to go down a rabbit hole of questions when it comes to faith which is why it is helpful to have some examples of what is meant by having faith and we have two good examples in our readings for today, Abraham and Nicodemus. Abraham is often held up as the model of a faithful person, Paul points to Abraham in our second reading, and Abraham’s story of faith is quite simple, God comes to Abraham and says “go to the land that I will show you” then promises to make a great nation of Abraham with many descendants and through Abraham bless the world “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him” simple right? Almost too simple, so simple as to be impossible to live up to, I know I take a lot more convincing than a single command Even from God But really when we think about it why wouldn’t Abraham go? God has made all these promises seemingly based on the one command to go. And actually On the face of it, it kind of looks like one of those transactions that Paul attributes to the law, until we remember that God says ‘go’ but does not give a destination, and God says ‘I will make you a great nation’ and at this point Abraham is very old and very childless and then it is easier to see Abraham's going as a great act of faith, because what God proposes to do seems impossible, when Abraham goes, he goes into the unknown, holding on to the promise of God and trusting that God will keep that promise. And yes this is remarkable and an ideal but I don’t know about you but I’ve found faith- the act of trusting God- much more complicated than that. Which is why I love the story of Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a religious leader, people know who he is, they go to him for answers to religious questions he’s supposed to have it all, okay well, mostly figured out but when Jesus comes onto the scene, Nicodemus is intrigued, he wants to know more, but here’s the catch, he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s interested in Jesus, so when he goes to see Jesus he goes at night covered by the darkness and he comes with an attitude that says ‘I’m going to figure you out Jesus’, he begins “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” and the way Jesus responds it’s almost as if he’s saying ‘oh you know do you?’ and goes on to utterly confuse Nicodemus by speaking of being born again and born of the spirit and when Nicodemus asks him “‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?’” I hear Jesus saying this in a rather sarcastic false shocked tone of voice, undertones of ‘what, you don’t know everything?’ I don’t think that Jesus is judging Nicodemus as much as making a point that the mechanics of God’s work in the world are confusing boarding on impossible to understand, because then Jesus gets serious and says look “we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony if I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things.” Seeing Jesus perform signs has only gotten Nicodemus so far along the path to faith, he struggles with hearing what others have experienced of God, at some point understanding will fail and that’s where faith has to take over, the trust that however it happens what God promises will come to pass. And that’s when Jesus tells Nicodemus what God is going to do - out of love send God’s son to be lifted up for the sake of the world- now remember this conversation is taking place long before the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday Nicodemus has no idea that Jesus is referring to the cross, and even if he did, he’d be stumped as to how anything good could come of Jesus dying by crucifixion, but at the end Jesus gives Nicodemus a promise he can hold on to: “Indeed God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus promises that however incomprehensibly God chooses to act, God intends salvation. Nicodemus doesn’t have to understand the how, his role is to trust that God is acting for good. And that it seems Nicodemus can do, we get no indication that when the conversation ends Nicodemus understands the particulars of who Jesus is or how God is acting any better than when he started but throughout the gospel of John, Nicodemus keeps showing up in ways that show his faith in Jesus is increasing. The next time Nicodemus pops up is when Jesus has been in Jerusalem for the festival of Booths, Jesus has been publicly teaching and people are starting to wonder if he is the Messiah and all this is making the leadership anxious, they want to arrest Jesus and it’s at this point that Nicodemus speaks up and says “Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?” (7:51) and the other Pharisees because remember Nicodemus is one of them, mock him, but also they do not arrest Jesus. Speaking up for Jesus in front of his peers Nicodemus has come a long way from sneaking out to see Jesus under the cover of darkness. The last time we meet Nicodemus is at the foot of the cross, he comes with Joseph of Arimathea to prepare Jesus’ body for burial and he brings with him 100 pounds of spices and ointments, an amount so excessively lavish that it could only represent the grace of God, and here at Jesus’ seeming defeat does Nicodemus make public his faith in him. Nicodemus gives me hope, because it means that faith doesn’t have to be an instantaneous ascent like Abraham, nor does it mean we have to believe everything as true right away, faith, trust, can start as a small seed, as curiosity paired with a lot of questions, and that seed can be nurtured to grow and God offers a promise to hold on to while faith grows, the promise that God loves us and nothing can change that. God lives out that promise by continually coming to us in love, in the water and word of the font, in the eating and drinking of bread and wine blessed, broken and poured out for us, in the stories of faith shared with us where we get to see how God comes to others and as we live both questioning and holding on to the promise of God, we may find our faith growing, we still have questions but we no longer need the cover of darkness to ask them, we also might have times where growth stalls but through it all God keeps coming to us keeping the promises God has made, and we find that ultimately what it means to have faith to is to hold on to the promises of God, to trust that God is acting for good. Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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