9th Sunday After Pentecost
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
​
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who is our unity and peace. Amen
 
We live in a world divided.
 I know, it’s an obvious statement,
 one so obvious that it hardly needs saying
everywhere we turn it seems like another division is appearing,
 another crack in the ground beneath our feet
separating us from our neighbor,
 it’s chaotic and tiring
 and frankly sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe
or if it will ever settle down.
 
into this division
Paul proclaims that our unity and peace come from Christ
 
And in the midst of the daily conflict
this sounds perhaps a bit hollow,
a nice sentiment to be sure, but idealistic,
out of touch with reality,
 we’ve become so tired by everything around us
that we even question the peace of Christ as hollow optimism.
 
yet, when we dig a little deeper,
 this unity and peace in Christ
 that Paul proclaims on behalf of God
 is based entirely on reality,
 
 it is a message of hope
 because it is unity and peace
 that have arisen from chaos,
 much like what swirls around us today
 
Chaos is nothing new to us humans
we heard God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah
in our first lesson,
“Woe to the shepherds who scatter the sheep of my pasture! Says the Lord.”
 
and God goes on to promise
 to gather the scattered together again
 and to raise up from David a righteous branch,
who shall lead and bring about justice and righteousness.
As Christians we believe that God fulfilled that promise in Jesus
 
Jesus,
who we see in our gospel
having compassion for the crowds
because they were like sheep without a shepherd,
 
pressing in on Jesus and his disciples
such that they couldn’t even eat,
 and when Jesus and the disciples get in a boat
 to go to the wilderness, to rest
and get back in touch with God
 the crowd anticipates where they are going and follow them,
 
wherever Jesus goes
 he creates an uproar
because the people,
the everyday people on the ground,
need so much,
 education, health care, food, hope.
And they find it in Jesus who is our unity and peace
 
Unity and peace that comes about
through the sacrificial actions of Jesus
 as Paul reminds the Ephesians: “For he [Jesus] is our peace, in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us… he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one spirit to the Father.”
 
Jesus brings peace and unity by crossing boundaries,
often invisible and stronger than physical barriers.
He sees a crack in the ground as a place to build a bridge or take a bigger step,
he sees people on the other side as friends he hadn’t met yet,
 he sees all as beloved children of God
who need the loving direction of a good shepherd
who will see the sheep through the peaks and valleys of life
 whose sheep are unified through the shepherd.
 
And ironically
Jesus’ peace disrupts the world,
because it is true peace,
where all live in harmony with one another,
 
as opposed to the peace of the world
where one group finally dominates another group
 and there is an absence of open conflict.
 
Jesus’ peace
 is a peace that must be practiced,
 it starts small and begins to grow.
 
In our second reading
 Paul is giving the Ephesians a pep talk
 before they continue with the mission of Christ
and in the part we heard today
he reminds them
 that though they are one community
now they started out as two,
 
two communities that the world said would never get along,
and even in Christ,
 at the beginning
there were conflicts,
fights over what was required for a person to become part of the community,
 
and now people who started out as divided strangers
 “are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord…”  
 
Sometimes when a community is established
it’s hard to remember just what it took to get that way
 
Peace and unity,
even peace and unity in Christ
 is a state that is intentionally grown into
which means ultimately that there’s hope for us
and the world around us
because in Christ we are called be growers of peace and unity.
 
Peace and unity grow
when we take the time to listen and try to understand
 someone who holds a differing opinion than ours,
 
peace and unity grow
when we reach out instead of pushing away,
peace and unity grow
when we build bridges and cross boundaries
to reach the children of God on the other side,
 
peace and unity grow
when we know that we have enough
 and work to share the extra.
 
And yes this is hard work,
 so there are times
 when we need to go to the wilderness,
 to reconnect with God,
to regain hope for the large task still ahead of us
 
so that when the seemingly endless crowds
 push in around us
we can still look with compassion
rather than contempt
 
as we remember that we too
were once in that situation
 but like lost sheep
 Jesus found us,
brought us into the fold
and continues to care for us like the good shepherd that he is,
guiding us in unity and peace. Amen
 

8th Sunday after Pentecost

Amos 7:7-15
Psalm 85:8-13
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ
grace and peace to you
from the one who destined us for adoption as Children of God. Amen
 
Identity and purpose,
these are the threads that run through our scripture today,
 calling us to consider who we are
 and what that means for our lives.
 
 And who we are,
 Primarily
 are people chosen by God.
 
 Our reading from Ephesians
 hammers this home again and again,
 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ… He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will...In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance...you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.”
 
God has acted decisively in regard to our identity,
there can be no question,
we are God’s
and while we use a variety of images
to try to explain this,
the end result is always the same,
 
God has chosen us,
not because of anything we have done or earned
 but because that’s who God is.
 
 We are God’s because of the grace of God.
 
And the appropriate response is to live for the praise of God’s glory.
 
When faced with such a gift,
what can we do but offer praise to God?
 
And how do we praise God?
In worship, prayer and song certainly
but also with how we live our lives,
consciously living out God’s vision for the redemption of the world,
a vision lived and taught by Jesus,
 
 one where all people have value
 and are treated accordingly,
value that is based on their God given identity
 and not on the many ways that the world has found
 to define and divide people,
 rich or poor,
 healthy or sick,
 by place of birth,
color of skin,
what value they’ll add to the economy, age,
the list goes on
 
And here’s the hard part,
 the world,
 those with power
don’t like when we live for the praise of God’s glory in this way,
 
 and sometimes we have to admit
that when we have power,
we aren’t always comfortable living for the praise of God’s glory either,
 because at times the blessings of the world
 seem to outweigh the blessings of God.
 
But that doesn’t change who we are
 and what we are supposed to do,
 and yes this is difficult,
 
our passage from Ephesians
 is a kind of pep talk to the community,
 building them back up before sending them out into the world again,
a world that is unreceptive to their message,
that will resist it in all ways possible.
 
The prophets are familiar with this resistance,
 two prophets join us today,
 in the Hebrew scriptures and in the gospel.
 
 Amos is called by God to pronounce judgement on Israel,
 and when he does he is confronted by the priest
 on behalf of the king,
who says ‘I know you have a message, just go someplace else and share it, the king and the land can’t take it, I won’t kill you, just go away.’
 
to which Amos responds (I paraphrase of course)
 ‘I feel you buddy, I was minding my own business tending my farm and my flock when God told me to go prophesy to the people. I don’t see myself as a professional prophet, just someone who is doing what God told them to do.’
 
In other words,
 this isn’t about earning a living as the priest suggests
 but a response to the call of God,
however inconvenient that may be.
God works through all of us,
 not just the professionals.
 
And then we have our friend John the Baptist
and the end of his story,
 
John who dared to tell the King what everyone knew,
 that it wasn’t lawful for him to marry his brother’s wife Herodias,
who hated John for pointing that out
because she had more power married to Herod than his brother Philip.
 
 So Herod puts John in prison
but protects him
because he has some respect for John as a holy man,
 
 but then comes the night where Herod hosts a banquet
and is pleased by his daughter’s dancing,
 and in front of everyone present,
all his officials
Herod promises to give her whatever she wants.
 
She consults her mother
and runs back to ask for the head of John on a platter
and Herod is presented with a choice:
 protect a man who he knows to be righteous and holy
 in front of all his officials
or maintain the facade of his benevolent power and do as requested.
 
And we know which he chooses
John is beheaded in prison
 and that is the end of that prophet.
Everything is at stake when we proclaim the message of God.
 John lost his head,
Jesus was crucified,
 but that was not the end.
 
God is bigger than the resistance the world puts up
bigger even than death,
in God life goes on,
and so does the message we are called to proclaim,
and more than proclaim we are called to live,
 
The message that God
 “set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
 
And when God says all, God means all.
Even the people we don’t think deserve it.
 
At the youth gathering
 Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber spoke about grace
and her struggle with the fact that God’s grace is
 “Both for me and my haters.”
 
 She confessed she struggles with the wideness of God’s grace,
Her struggle is not a particular to her
 we all do at times,
because it just doesn’t seem fair
 
 and yet the only way that God’s good news
 can be good news for us,
is if it is good news for the people we can’t stand,
even for the people who have hurt us,
 because when it comes down to it,
we don’t deserve God’s grace either.
 
And yet
God claims us as Children
Has included us in the inheritance of redemption
And marked us with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit
So how can we not live to the praise of God’s glory? Amen
 

2nd Sunday After Pentecost
Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Psalm 81:1-10
2 Corinthians 4:5-12
Mark 2:23-3:6

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you
from the one who chooses abundant life over safety. Amen
 
Jesus right from the beginning of his ministry
 chooses abundant life over safety.
 
We have two prime examples in our gospel for today.
 In the first story
 Jesus’ disciples are hungry,
 and so as they walk through a field
they pluck heads of grain to eat.
 
Some Pharisees see this
and complain to Jesus.
 The grain was not the problem
 they were not stealing it,
Jewish law demands that farmers
 leave a certain portion of their crops in the fields
for the poor, widowed and orphaned to glean,
 and that is what the disciples were doing.
 
The problem was that the day happened to be the sabbath,
the seventh day of the week
 given by God to the people to rest,
 therefore, also in Jewish law
 work is forbidden on the Sabbath
 and that is what concerned the pharisees.
 
Jesus responds to this legal question
with a legal answer
- rabbis love to debate the law so this is not unusual,
 he gives them a precedent example
of when a law was broken
because someone was hungry, in need,
and there was a higher purpose at stake.
 
It was not legal for David to eat the bread of the presence,
 but doing so allowed him to fulfill his God given call
 to become King of Israel.
 
 According to biblical scholar Matt Skinner,
none of these arguments would have been new
or even unreasonable to the Pharisees
 
 and even though the story doesn’t tell it
I can just imagine a debate ensuing
about how hungry someone must be
to justify breaking the law.
 
 But we don’t get that,
the story ends when Jesus reminds the Pharisees
 that the sabbath was given as a gift to humans,
and claims power over the Sabbath
 “So the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath”
of course the pharisees don’t like that claim of authority but that’s a whole other sermon.
 
In entering into this debate,
in effect the pharisees are valuing the law over quality of life
 while Jesus is valuing quality of life over the law.
 
His point is
what good is keeping the law
if it takes away life rather than gives it?
 
Now I don’t want to portray the pharisees as the bad guys
 as so often happens,
they are deeply religious and sincere leaders
who want the best for their community,
 
 the problem is that they have gotten caught up
in following the letter of the law
rather than the spirit of the law.
 
And if we’re honest with ourselves
 we can probably think of a time
 when we were guilty of the same thing,
focusing so much on something supposed to give life
that it actually took life away.
 
But Jesus is clear,
 if it comes down to a decision between following the rules or abundant life,
 he will choose abundant life.
 
This choice is reinforced in the next story.
 Jesus enters the synagogue on the Sabbath
 where there is a man with a withered hand
 
and now the pharisees are on the lookout for Jesus
 and his sabbath breaking ways,
they’re waiting for him to break the Sabbath
 by healing the man so they can go tell on him.
 
And Jesus knows this,
 so he tries to enter into a legal debate with them again
 offering them the familiar argument
that it is lawful to save a life on the sabbath
 
but this time they refuse to respond,
 they have passed the point of reason
and this makes Jesus angry and sad at the hardness of their hearts,
 that they are so intent on catching him doing something wrong
 that they refuse to celebrate the life giving intent of the sabbath with giving life.
 
So Jesus heals the man,
restores his ability to work
and provide for his family
 and raises up the whole community along with the man.
 
At this the pharisees and the Herodians,
presumably people with the ear of King Herod,
 begin conspiring against Jesus,
working on a way to destroy him.
 
Already at the beginning of chapter 3 of the gospel of Mark
Jesus has begun walking toward the cross
by choosing abundant life,
putting his own safety at risk
 by defying the definition of how he is supposed to act
as defined by people with some measure of power.
 
Choosing life sets Jesus on a path to his death,
a death which leads to abundant life for all
because even in death
 Jesus defies what’s supposed to happen
 when God raises him from the dead to abundant life.
 
This abundant life Jesus offers to us,
freely as a gift.
 And out of joy we proclaim Jesus Christ to others
 and offer our lives in service following Jesus’ call
to live in the same way he did,
choosing abundant life over safety.
 
Paul, in our reading from 2 Corinthians
speaks to what happens when we live lives of service to Jesus.
 
Paul notes that we have a tendency
 to forget while doing ministry
that the power comes from God and not from ourselves-
 
like the pharisees we end up focusing on the wrong thing
forgetting that God is the creator of the universe
and that we are creation.
This, is why, Paul says,
we have the treasure of life in clay jars,
our bodies are impermanent
 prone to breaking,
 a reminder that only God is forever.
 
And with our fragile impermanent bodies
we are to follow Jesus
which means choosing abundant life over safety.
 
 Paul goes into great detail about just what this looks like
“We are afflicted in every way but not crushed perplexed but not driven to despair,
 persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.”
 
In contradiction to the ways of the world
 in Jesus death is followed by new life.
 
The world around us tries to tell us differently,
playing on our need for safety and security
 to bring out fears
and pit us against one another.
 
But we have the antidote to those fears,
Jesus Christ
 
Because when we have Jesus
 we have all we need,
we have abundant life
 and nothing, not even death,
can separate us from the love of God. Amen
 

Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Mark 16:1-8

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
 
“So they went out and fled from the tomb
 for terror and amazement had seized them;
and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.”
 
I love how Mark ends his Gospel,
it is so honest,
 
I mean imagine if you were at the tomb on that morning,
expecting to care for the body of your teacher and friend
who you had seen crucified the other night,
publicly executed,
and then placed in the tomb
by other followers with a big stone covering the opening
there would be no reason to think
that Jesus would be any place other than where you left him.
 
And yet
 when the women arrive,
 the tomb is open,
 the stone is rolled away
the first sign something is up
 
and when they go into the tomb
 they find not Jesus
 but a young man dressed in white
the traditional color of garments of messengers of God,
 
a startling occurrence on several levels
and even crazier than not finding Jesus’ body
 is the message from the young man,
 that Jesus has been raised from the dead,
 that he’s alive and moving about the world
and going ahead to Galilee
 and that they and the disciples should go meet him there.
 
“So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.”
 
God has just changed the rules
on what is supposed to be permanent.
 No wonder they are afraid,
 it’s a lot to take in,
they probably wondered if someone was playing a joke on them,
and who would believe them if they told anyone anyway,
so they didn’t say anything.
 
But here we are.
 Word obviously got out,
 that seems very human to me too,
 whatever it is, everyone seems to find out in the end.
 
 Even the first hearers of Mark’s story
 knew what happened,
 and that’s another reason why I love this end
because it’s not an ending,
it’s a beginning,
 
it’s the beginning of life
 where death no longer has the last say
 and it’s an invitation to all of us
to experience that life,
 
 and if we want more than an empty tomb,
 if we want to see the risen Christ
 we must go to Galilee where he has promised to meet us.
 
Why Galilee?
Jesus brings his disciples back to Galilee
because that is where Jesus did his ministry,
 a ministry that lived out resurrection in in daily life,
 
commentator Philip Ruge-Jones remarks that
 “Sown throughout Mark’s gospel
 are stories that explain
what baptismal resurrection looks like in daily life.”
 
Jesus’ ministry is all about raising people up,
and this started long before the empty tomb.
 
So what does resurrection look like in daily life?
 It looks like Jesus
lifting up Simon’s mother in law
 
from the bed where she lay with a fever,
 healing her and restoring her ability to serve (1:29)
 returning her to her place of honor.
 
It looks like Jesus calling out to Levi son of Alphaeus
who was sitting in a tax booth
certainly collecting more than prescribed for his own benefit,
 
and Levi getting up and following him.
And later Jesus eating dinner with the tax collectors and sinners
because they needed him more than the righteous people
 that the scribes would rather have Jesus associate with (2:13)
 
Resurrection in daily life
 looks like God bringing growth to seeds scattered on the ground
 while people go on with their daily lives
oblivious to the seeds
until it is time to collect the grain from the plants that have grown up (4:26).
 
And these are only a few of the examples,
small daily occurrences,
 moments of new life
in the midst of a world that deals mainly in death,
 
 moments that affirm
 that death does not have the last say.
 
The resurrected Jesus
 has promised to meet us in Galilee,
 and while Galilee is a place you can still visit,
it is not necessary to buy a plane ticket to see Jesus
 
because the Galilee where we can meet Jesus
is right next door to us.
 
The Galilee that Jesus goes to ahead of us today
 is anywhere there are people who are hungry, cold,
abused, without power,
 
Galilee is on the margins
where ‘nice’ people don’t go,
 Galilee is where people are dying,
 
Galilee is where Jesus is needed the most,
where resurrection is needed the most.
 
If we go there,
we will see Jesus,
who knows what it means to suffer and die,
who answers death with resurrection.
 
If we go to Galilee we will see the life
that comes after the death of a relationship,
when after what seems like a long time love is found.
 
If we go to Galilee
we will see nurses and CNAs and other caregivers
taking care of their elderly charges
even though they haven’t been paid in three weeks
 and other communities giving funds
to make sure there is food and medicine for the most vulnerable.
 
If we go to Galilee,
we will see things that we thought were permanent,
sickness, addiction, loneliness,
 joblessness, meaninglessness,
 we will see all these things redeemed
 and brought to new life
in ways that right now we cannot even imagine
 
 all because even though Jesus died on Friday,
 he rose on Sunday,
overcoming the ultimate power of death.
 
Today Christ is risen!
 
And it’s only the beginning,
 
The story continues tomorrow,
 and the next day
and the next...Amen
 
Many thanks to Philip Ruge-Jones’ commentary on workingpreacher.org for shaping this sermon
 

Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you
from the one who gives life to the dead
and brings into existence the things that do not exist. Amen
 
Let’s talk about suffering.
 Not a cheerful topic I know
and something we like to avoid,
sometimes at all costs.
 
And yet, we live in a world
 where most of what is worthwhile
 is accomplished through some suffering.
 
 I mean think of all the Olympic athletes
and the amount of pain that they have endured
while building up their muscles and minds
 to bring them to the point
where they are able to compete,
 
 and all the injuries that we hear about,
 I was watching the other night
and they brought up a diagram of Lindsey Vonn
the downhill skier
and they pointed to all the things she’d injured over the past few years,
there was a broken arm, a torn acl, a concussion,
 a sliced tendon and several other things,
 all that she’d had to heal from and rehabilitate
 before going to the Olympics.
 
Or there’s childbirth,
 the great deal of suffering
 that goes into bringing new life into the world.
 
And then there is the suffering that we don’t seek out,
The suffering from being in the wrong place at the wrong time
or when the brokenness of the world breaks into our lives
but out of which, strangely
comes something good,
maybe a healed relationship,
or a new purpose in life,
 motivation for finding a cure.
But because we are human
even as we can logically lay out an argument
 for the necessity of some suffering
our instinct rejects the premise,
 our heart tells us that it should not be necessary
 and our gut tells us to distrust anyone who says otherwise.
 In other words, we react like Peter.
 
In our gospel for today Jesus is with his disciples,
Peter has just blurted out that Jesus is the messiah
 “then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”
 
Peter rejects Jesus’ teaching,
 he thinks Jesus has gone crazy,
 actually he thinks that Jesus has been possessed by a demon
 so he takes him aside and tries to exorcise the demon
that is clearly making Jesus say these things.
 
The messiah is not supposed to suffer.
 
And how does Jesus respond?
 
“But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said ‘Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
 
The human way is self-centered,
Peter is thinking about himself
when he tries to rebuke Jesus,
he’s found the messiah,
 he doesn’t want to lose him,
 he doesn’t want that suffering.
 
The divine way is other-centered,
 what is done,
anything that is suffered
 is for the sake of others.
 
What Jesus does on the cross
is done for the sake of the world,
 for us.
 
And here’s the irony of Christianity,
 in a world where things are accomplished through suffering,
we do not have to suffer to be saved.
 
 We are saved by grace through faith,
 faith in the God,
who, as Paul says in our second reading
 “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
 
And this makes no sense by our human logic,
 in this instance we could understand
 how repairing our broken relationship with God
 could involve some suffering on our part,
 
in fact we often feel like we need to do something
 to make amends
 but there is nothing that we can do,
 there is no way we can contribute
because Jesus has done it all,
 for us.
 
And having taken care of the most important part
 Jesus extends an invitation,
an invitation to set our mind on divine things,
to be other-centered.
“He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘if any want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’”
 
Here’s the key, crosses are picked up for other people.
 
We often misuse this statement,
for instance “oh my bum knee, that’s my cross to bear”
or “oh she has a wild child, that’s her cross to bear”
 
but crosses are not imposed suffering,
they are picked up for the sake of others
 in the same way that Jesus picked up the cross for us.
 
Jesus, in teaching his disciples how to follow him
 is preparing them for the fact
that when they testify to the gospel
they can expect to suffer.
 
Because the gospel message
 is contrary to what society says we should want and do,
 it is a challenge to the way of the world
which is self-centered
 
and when self-centered people,
 especially self-centered people in power
are challenged
they respond swiftly and harshly.
 
 To follow Jesus,
to not be ashamed of him,
 for his disciples is a life and death decision.
And we know that many of Jesus’ disciples
 ended up martyred, killed in various gruesome and public ways
to deter the message they were sharing.
 
In some parts of the world today,
to be openly unashamed of Christ
is still a life and death decision
but for those of us who live in relative safety
 in places where Christianity is the rule rather than the exception
 remaining faithful and unashamed of Christ
tends to happen in the smaller moments of life.
 
I like the analogy used by preaching professor of blessed memory Fred Craddock- he said:
“We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,00 bill and laying it on the table—‘Here’s my life, lord. I’m giving it all.’
But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there… Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, 629).
 
Those are those little moments,
 where you find the strength to disagree with someone
 who says if you pray enough or in the right way
 Jesus will make you rich,
 no, that’s the world talking using Jesus as a front.
 
Or the times when you refuse to believe it
when someone says Jesus hates_fill in the blank
and even more importantly
when you refuse to act on it.
 It’s the times when you set your mind on divine things,
 not on human things,
 the times when you put aside your own self-interests
 for the sake of others,
 for the sake of loving your neighbor
 
We live in a time of fear mongering,
the messages of the world
 tell us to avoid suffering,
our own suffering,
 at all costs
regardless of the effects it has on others,
 even those closest to us.
 
Fear makes us turn in on ourselves,
 the definition of sin.
 
Today Jesus calls us to set our minds on divine things,
To turn toward others
embracing the reality
that to accomplish something worthwhile
we will go through some suffering
 
and we are able to do this,
 to set aside our own self-interests
because of our faith,
faith that is grounded in the God who gives life to the dead
 and calls into existence the things that do not exist,
 
the God who finds a way out of no way,
the God who has already saved you,
who has set you free to live for others
and who promises that death is always followed by new life. Amen
 

First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who found another way. Amen
 
Did you know that it only takes five chapters in Genesis
 for God to get sick of humanity?
At the end of chapter one
God creates humans on the sixth day of creation
 and by the beginning of chapter six
God is already tired of the fighting and wars and misuse of creation
and begins planning a genocidal flood
to wipe out everything and start over.
 In my Lutheran Study Bible that’s seven pages, impressively fast.
 
But Noah found favor with God
 and so God decides to put Noah and his family
 and two of every animal on a big boat
- that Noah has to make-
 and use them to start over.
 
 And we know this story,
 how Noah follows God’s instructions
 and brings the animals into the ark two by two,
how it rains forty days and forty nights
 and everything not on the ark dies,
 
how the ark drifts for a long time
until the water begins to recede
and the ark finally settles on top of a mountain
 
 Noah keep sends out the dove to see if it’s safe to exit the boat,
the dove finally brings Noah an olive leaf
 and then on the next expedition doesn’t come back
at which point Noah and his family
 spill out of the ark and give thanks to God
and hearing their praise and worship and smelling the sacrifice that Noah makes,
 
God in chapter 8
realizes that destroying everything isn’t the answer
and says “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.”(8:21)  
 
And so God makes a covenant with Noah,
 and we get part of that in our first reading,
but only the second part,
 
a covenant is an ancient legal contract
 where both parties have responsibilities.
The human part of the covenant that God makes with Noah
is much like the first time around with Adam and Eve,
 
 Noah and his family
 are to go be fruitful and multiply,
fill the earth and care for it
 
and for God’s part
God promises not just Noah,
 but all creation, all flesh,
to never again destroy the earth with a flood
 
and even though God will not forget this covenant
God creates a sign of the covenant,
placing God’s bow in the clouds
so that when everyone sees the bow
they will remember the covenant God made with all flesh
 to never wipe out the earth again with a flood.
 
Now you might be wondering,
 why on this first Sunday in lent
we are talking about God’s covenant with Noah.
How do Noah and rainbows
 connect with Jesus being baptized and tempted in the wilderness?
 
In many ways the story of the flood leads to Jesus.
 God has promised to never again destroy all flesh
even as God realizes that there is still evil in the hearts of humans
and that it will spill over into the rest of creation as it did the first time.
 
This doesn’t mean that God is giving up on humanity and all of creation,
but what making this covenant means
is that God will have to find another way of dealing with
the brokenness and violence of humanity that spills over into the rest of creation.
 
 And Jesus is the way God ultimately finds
 to bridge the gap between divine expectations
and the brokenness of humanity.
 
Our second reading from 1 Peter
makes the connection and summarizes what we as Christians believe
happened in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
 
“For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, “
 
Jesus resisting temptation in the wilderness
before his ministry begins
maintains his righteousness,
it marks him as someone special,
who does what no other human has done
-that is resist temptation
 and it sparks the interest of the listener,
what will happen to this remarkable person?
 
We know what happens,
righteousness crucified,
publicly executed
 and yet God is able to work through all that
 to save us.
 
 God found another way to deal with humanity,
 that way was Jesus.
 
 but I want to be clear here,
 it is not the violence and suffering
that is particularly salvific,
 
 there’s been a lot of attempts at explaining how it worked
and all of them fall short,
 in the end salvation through Jesus
is both mystery and truth,
 
the how is the mystery
 but the truth is that God has healed the broken relationship between us and God
and set us free from the human need for violence
to live out our part of the covenant,
to take care of all creation.
And just like with Noah,
 God seals this covenant,
 this promise, with a sign,
 
 baptism
where we are joined to Christ’s work
 which again from 1 Peter
  “now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.”
 
God knows that we humans have a need for divine reassurance.
God was not going to forget the covenant after the flood
but humans need reassurance and reminders,
so God made the rainbow as the sign
that the promise would be remembered.
 
 In the same way
God knows we are beloved children of God
whom Jesus saved,
 
but we humans often wonder,
we have doubts,
 so God gave us the sign of baptism,
so that we can point to a moment in time
and name without a doubt
that God has claimed us and joined us to the work of Christ
 
we are God’s
and in the waters of baptism
God forgives our sins
and brings us to new life.
 
And this sets us free
to live contrary to the way of humanity,
 to respond to violence with peace,
hurt with forgiveness,
 hatred with love
 
 and when the brokenness of the world
seems to be too much,
or we give in to temptation
or are paralyzed by inaction
water points us back to the promise
that God has made,
the forgiveness God offers
 and our true identity,
 beloved children of God. Amen
 

Transfiguration of Our Lord

2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9
 
Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the beloved of God. Amen
 
“And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.”
 
Now I know what you’re thinking, it’s a Tide Ad.
 
For those of you who did not watch the Superbowl,
or follow the superbowl advertisements,
this year there was a series of ads by Tide,
the clothing detergent company,
 
their premise was that as long as there were clean clothes in an ad,
 it was an ad for their product,
 
 it was quite clever how it was done,
the commercial would start
and it would look like a stereotypical ad played during the superbowl,
 a sleek car roaring around a curvy road at dusk,
a group of friends at a bar,
a horse galloping through a pasture,
 all scenes that we as consumers
have been conditioned to associate with particular products if not companies,
 
we see a group of mature ladies playing tennis
and we immediately think
 this is going to about some medication
followed by a list of horrific side effects,
 
 but just as the commercial gets to the point
where the voice over should start talking about increased such and such
the spokesperson jumps into the ad,and says
‘no, it’s a tide ad’
 and points out that there are no stains on the ladies’ white tennis outfits.
 
Now the connection and the timing to the Transfiguration were too good to pass up.
 I mean, it’s an odd story,
what are we to make of this trip up the mountain
where Jesus is changed before the very eyes of the disciples?
 
It’s not a Tide Ad,
 that’s a joke
but the more I thought about it
the more I saw how the transfiguration story parallels these ads.
 
It is a story where people think they know what’s going to happen
And it turns out they don’t.
 
The story begins and it is a scene that those listeners who are Jewish are familiar with,
they have been conditioned to associate a story like this
with particular religious events.
We’re a little less conditioned but the cues are there.
 
The story starts “six days later”
six signals the days of creation,
on the sixth day of creation God made humanity,
 this is a cue that something important is about to happen.
 
The event this story follows is Peter proclaiming at Caesarea Philippi
that Jesus is the Messiah
and Jesus predicting his death and resurrection
an idea that Peter finds so ridiculous
he tries to exorcise whatever demon has possessed Jesus.
 
Next Jesus leads the disciples up a mountain.
 The mountain is a cue that there may be some communication with God coming up.
 In the wilderness after the Exodus,
Moses went up Mt. Sinai to talk to God,
 
 on the mountain was where he received the gift of the law
and when he came down from the mountain
 his face shone with the Glory of God
 and was so bright that the people couldn’t bear to look at Moses’ face
 and they made him wear a veil.
 
And sure enough,
 up on this mountain,
 Jesus changes before the eyes of the disciples
 the dazzling white of his clothing
 associated with the glory of God
and other apocalyptic legends,
 
 
 and then Moses and Elijah show up,
 two more important figures
 in the life and history of the people of Israel,
 both servants who talked directly with God,
 
 Elijah even ascended to heaven without dying
as we heard in our first reading.
These are important figures and they’re talking with Jesus
who has confirmed that he is the messiah
 is a new era about to begin?
 
Peter responds to the cues as he’s been taught,
 he opens his mouth and says in amazement
 that this is a good place to be
and then offers to make dwellings for each of the major figures,
 
one commentary I read said that tents or booths
were associated as the dwelling of divine beings,
there’s also a Jewish holiday, the festival of booths
that commemorates the Israelites wandering in the desert.
 
Either way these are things that Peter is familiar with,
when faced with something we are hard pressed to explain
we generally try to find a way to fit it in to how we understand the world already.
And of course only after Peter opens his big mouth
are we told that he did not know what to say for they were all terrified.
 
Peter responds to the cues given him
but just as he thinks he knows what’s coming next
God breaks in and says it’s not what you think Peter
“This is my Son, the beloved, listen to him.”
 
Jesus is in a new category,
one that Peter and the other disciples don’t yet understand
and they won’t understand for a while
at least not until after Jesus rises from the dead.
 
And Jesus knows this,
after the presence of God disappears
 leaving the disciples alone with Jesus
 it’s time to come down off the mountain,
 
 
 and as they’re traveling down
after this amazing experience
Jesus orders them to tell no one about what they had seen
until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
 
 We can’t understand the transfiguration
without the cross
where the beloved of God dies for the sake of the world.
 
And we can’t understand Jesus
without obeying the order from the voice of God at the transfiguration,
 to listen to Jesus the beloved Son of God.
 
We are to pay attention to everything he says and does
in an attempt to answer the questions who is Jesus?
And what does it mean to confess that Jesus is the Son of God?
 
And we must wrestle with these questions
knowing that we have been conditioned to respond
to the cues of past generations
that place Jesus in a framework t
hat we are comfortable with
but which fail to capture to full picture of the new life
 that the resurrected Jesus is bringing into our lives here and now.
 
There’s an old pastor’s joke, you may have heard it before, but we tell it to one another to warn about teaching these cues too strongly, There’s this pastor in worship and it’s time for the children’s sermon and the kids come up and that pastor says, kids, I’m going to describe something for you and I want you to listen and tell me what you think I’m describing, what I’m thinking of is brown, and small, it’s furry, and has a tail, it likes to eat nuts, and the kids just stare at the pastor, who is running out of descriptors until after a long pause one of the kids raises his hand and says to the pastor “I know the answer is Jesus but is sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”
 
Beware of the expected answer
Because Jesus is always beyond our expectations and
full understanding.
 
As we head down off the mountain of epiphany
 and into the season of Lent,
we are invited to wrestle with the questions of faith,
 to listen to what Jesus says and does
 for us and for the sake of the world,
 
and we’d better pay attention
because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from listening to Jesus,
 it’s that he rarely does what is expected of him,
 especially when people think they have him figured out...

5th Sunday After Epiphany
Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-11
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who raises us up. Amen
 
I’ve got to be honest with you,
this healing story has always rubbed me the wrong way,
 at least on the face of it,
it seems so self-serving.
 
Jesus and his disciples go to Simon’s house,
 Simon’s mother-in-law is sick
 so they tell Jesus about her,
he heals her and then she begins to serve them.
Um really Jesus, you heal the poor lady then have her make you a sandwich?
 
What I’m guilty of doing when I read it this way
is putting my 21st century ideas and expectations
 on a 1st century group of people,
 
and while it’s unfair of me to do that to the text
it’s also understandable,
we all bring our own perspectives to our reading of the Bible
which is why it is important,
especially in these stories where we have trouble connecting
to combine what we know from the story
 and historical research
 and put ourselves in the place of the characters.
 
So imagine with me
 being one of the disciples in the group leaving the synagogue,
 you’ve just heard your rabbi teach in a new way,
unlike any other teaching you’ve heard before,
 you’re excited about what you’ve heard
 and on top of all of that
 your rabbi just commanded an unclean spirit to leave a man
and the spirit obeyed him.
 
Your head is whirling with a thousand questions,
your heart is pumping,
 and you’re feeling like you made the right decision
to drop everything and follow this guy,
 you knew he was something special
and you feel proud of yourself for being in the inner circle.
 
Your group leaves the synagogue
and people gather around,
they’ve got questions too,
it’s kind of a mob and Simon says,
 ‘hey, my place is close by, let’s go there and get out of this crowd.’
 
 You’re relieved to have a place to go get out of the way
 and things quiet down as soon as you step across the threshold.
 Once inside the rituals of hospitality start,
 it’s an honor to host guests
and you look around expecting to see Simon’s mother-in-law,
 she’s the elder and so the honor of serving guests usually goes to her
 
but she’s not there,
 she’s sick in bed
‘ what a shame’ you think,
‘she loves welcoming people, she’s going to be really upset
and even ashamed that she was not able to offer hospitality. Hey wait a minute,
 Jesus just healed that guy at the synagogue
maybe he could do something for her,’
 
 you look around and see that the thought is dawning on everyone else
so you all turn to Jesus and tell him about the situation.
 
As soon as he hears Jesus goes to Simon’s mother-in-law,
she’s lying in bed with a fever
embarrassed that the guest of honor is seeing her in this state,
she tries to get up
 but is too weak to do it by herself,
 
 Jesus reaches out his hand and helps her
and as he raises her up the fever leaves her,
 her strength returns
 and restored to health she is also restored to the place of honor
 and is able to offer the hospitality that gives her pride in herself
and standing in her community.
 It’s a miracle!
 
 
Now that’s a much different experience of this healing story
than my first take on it
and it reveals a few things about Jesus’ approach to healing
 that we will see again and again throughout the gospel.
  
When Jesus heals
he usually hears about the person needing healing through others,
the disciples tell Jesus about Simon’s mother-in-law.
 
 It is important for us as disciples of Jesus
 to advocate on behalf of those who are sick or in need of medical care,
 especially if they are unable to advocate for themselves
 or even bring them to get care,
later that evening Mark tells us
that the townspeople brought everyone
who was sick or possessed with demons to Jesus
and he healed them all
 
when Jesus heals,
he heals more than the body,
he also attends to the social and spiritual health of the person’s life.
 
 In this instance Simon’s mother-in-law
is restored to her place of honor within the household.
 In other healing stories as when Jesus heals people with leprosy,
 he restores them to their spiritual community
which they have been excluded from because of their illness.
 
Sometimes these healing stories are hard to hear,
 especially when there’s been an experience of chronic illness
 and you’ve prayed for Jesus to heal your loved one or yourself
and the sickness only keeps progressing,
 
why some people are healed and others are not
 is one of those mysteries
that we wrestle with in our life of faith,
 
I don’t have an answer
but given the many aspects of life involved in the way Jesus heals,
perhaps one approach is to look for healing in other areas of life,
 perhaps there is not physical healing
but there is social or spiritual healing that is taking place.
 
When Jesus heals it is a gift of grace,
 Jesus heals people because they are in need of it and for no other reason.
 
Sure there are often responses to Jesus’ healing,
 praising God,
the word about Jesus being spread around,
thankfulness,
 service to God and neighbor but that is all a side effect.
 
And finally
When Jesus heals
he then moves on to the next place
even though people try to get him to stay put.
 
The temptation after a miraculous healing
 is to hold onto that experience of Jesus for ourselves
but Jesus, as he tells the disciples the next morning
came to proclaim the message to all the people.
 
Ultimately Jesus is about raising people up to new life.
 He does so most dramatically through his own death and resurrection
 to which we are joined at our baptisms,
 
which means that whatever hardships we experience in this life,
whether it is chronic illness or addiction or mental illness
Jesus promises that we will be raised to life everlasting with God
And that not even death can get in the way.
 
But in the meantime
Jesus raises us up in smaller ways,
 and calls us to raise up all whom we encounter. Amen

3rd Sunday after Epiphany
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:5-12 
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who interrupts our lives. Amen
 
This past week I had the chance to do some continuing education,
I went to a series of talks by the author Mark Tranvik on Luther and Vocation.
 
Vocation is the big church word
that means a call from God
 to do something oriented toward God
 
 we often associate vocations with work
and more specifically with careers within the church.
In fact, at the time of the reformation
the only people considered to have vocations
were monks, nuns and priests.
 
Tranvik’s point was that the gift of Luther’s thinking and the reformation
is that because of our baptisms
 we all have vocations, calls from God
and not just with our jobs
but all areas of our lives are places and opportunities
 to love and serve God and neighbor,
 
 vocation in the broadest sense of the word
is God’s call to us to let God’s love overflow
from our lives into the lives of those around us.
 
Now, figuring out what God wants us to do
is easier said than done,
it’s been many years since the skies parted
 and the voice of God boomed out with specific instructions.
 
These days God speaks in very subtle ways
which sometimes we only understand well after the fact.
 But Mark Tranvik pointed out
that one place that God seems to particularly like to work in and through
are the interruptions in life.
 
In our texts for today
We have stories of God calling people
And there are interruptions all over the place,
 interruptions that lead to those who are interrupted serving God and neighbor.
Simon and Andrew are fishing
when Jesus comes upon them and interrupts their lives,
 we are told they are fishermen,
 so they are engaged in an activity that they have done before,
 that they use to support themselves and their families
 and which they expect that they will do the rest of their lives.
 
But something in the invitation to follow Jesus
 and fish for people catches their attention
 they set down their nets
and the trajectory of their lives changes dramatically.
 
The same goes for James and John
who are helping their father with the family business
 which their father anticipates that they will take over some day
 
 but when Jesus interrupts their net mending
to call them to follow
 they leave their nets and their father in the boat
 along with the plan for the rest of their lives
 all because they paid attention to an interruption.
 
Jonah’s life was interrupted by God,
several times in fact.
 
 Jonah’s first instinct was to do the exact opposite of what God wanted.
 Instead of going to Nineveh like God asked
Jonah got on a ship headed for Tarshish,
a journey which God interrupted with a big storm
and Jonah, gets thrown overboard and swallowed by a big fish
before getting back on track
 
and when he goes to Nineveh like God asks
he interrupts the lives of the Ninevites
 with the message “forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown”
 
and the people listen to this interruption!
They call a fast, clean up their ways, repent before God
and when God sees this,
 that they’ve listened to the interruption
 God changes plans and does not destroy their city.
 
All of our lives have been interrupted as some point
 Sometimes the interruptions are as simple
 as meeting a new friend,
 often the obvious interruptions involve loss
whether it’s loss of a job or a loved one or some other kind,
 
 and the resulting call
 may also be more subtle,
 a call to increased compassion
for those who have experienced the same thing you have.
 
Many times it is only well after the fact
 that we see where God was in the interruption
and how it changed the way we love and serve our neighbors.
 
Often when we look at the story of Jesus calling his disciples,
I think we get stuck on the dramatic way
in which the disciples give up everything
 
- Jesus says ‘come fish for people’ whatever that means-
and immediately they set down their nets and go with him.
 
This seems like an impossible example to follow-
we think ‘well that’s great for them but I can’t do that,
 I’ve got responsibilities or other reasons why dropping everything would not work,
and if we think of the life of discipleship
only in this one way it seems out of reach for most of us.
 
But not everyone is called to drop everything
and live an itinerant lifestyle,
 there are other ways to live as a disciple of Jesus,
 
and that’s why talking about vocation is so important,
because vocation-
that call from God to let the love of God overflow from our lives into the lives of others-
is lived out in all areas of life.
 
Luther once said
that perhaps the most spiritual thing one can do
 is wash out dirty diapers and hang them on the line-
 
 He caught some flack from his academic colleagues
when they saw him out in the backyard
 helping his wife Katie with the household chores
 
but for Luther,
 his sense of vocation meant that he understood
 that in the realm of family life
the way he could be a disciple,
 to let the love of God flow from his life into the life of his family
 was to serve his wife and children by washing dirty diapers.
 
Discipleship doesn’t have to be dramatic or complicated
we are all called to be disciples,
 this call came to us at the biggest interruption in our lives,
our baptism.
 
The point in our life when God claimed us
made sure that we knew that we are no one’s but God’s,
 and in the water and the word
joined us to the death and resurrection of Jesus,
saying ‘death no longer has any claim on this person,
whatever hardships come their way the end result will be life with God.’
 
In our baptisms we have been set free
and our lives filled to overflowing with the love of God
and we are given the purpose of sharing that love with others
in many and various ways,
 
and so we do
resting secure in the knowledge
 that whatever interruptions we encounter in life
 God is there with us,
 loving us and working for good. Amen
 
for more on vocation and the ideas referenced in this sermon see the book: Martin Luther and the Called Life by Mark D. Tranvik

Baptism of Our Lord
Genesis 1:1-5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1-7
Mark 1:4-11

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you from the one who gifts us with the Holy Spirit. Amen
 
And just like that
 the season of Christmas is over.
It concluded yesterday with the festival of Epiphany
 observed on January 6th,
 marking the visit of the magi from the east
 and the revelation of Jesus as messiah to the gentiles.
 
Epiphany means manifestation,
and our task in this time after Epiphany
 is to explore the many ways that God is made manifest in Jesus,
the many ways that Jesus is the revelation of God to us.
 
 today we start with Jesus’ baptism.
 
As Mark tells it
Jesus goes out into the wilderness
to be baptized by John
who is clear that he is only preparing the way
for the one that will bring the Holy Spirit,
 
John baptizes Jesus,
dunks him in the river Jordan,
 and as Jesus comes up out of the water
Mark says that the heavens are torn open
and from them the spirit descends on Jesus
 and the voice of God rings out proclaiming to Jesus
“You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
 
Now if that is not an epiphany
I don’t know what is,
 and in Mark’s brief telling
several things are revealed,
 
 first the heavens are torn open,
in the ancient concept of the universe
 the heavens were where God lived,
separate from the people on earth,
 
 at Jesus’ baptism,
that which has separated the people from God
 is opened in a way that cannot be closed again
 
 Mark uses this tiny detail
The tearing of the heavens
as foreshadowing for what will happen at the end of this story,
where when Jesus dies
 the curtain in the temple that separates the holy of holies from everything else,
 is torn from top to bottom
and that which has separated the people from God
 is opened in a way that cannot be closed again.
 
At his baptism
 Jesus is revealed
as the one who removes barriers between people and God.
 
Next the spirit descends on Jesus,
 this signals that Jesus
is the one for whom John has been preparing the way.
 
Now the spirit is the most elusive member of the trinity
 I think we often have a hard time with it,
even Mark uses similie to describe the spirit,
 descending like a dove,
but what is the spirit?
 
 I think the best definition of the spirit
is the living and active presence of God.
 With the spirits’ descent
it is revealed that Jesus carries the living and active presence of God into the world.
 
Finally, the voice of God is heard
 claiming Jesus as son,
saying “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
 
We heard in our first reading,
 How in the beginning God’s spirit moved over the chaotic waters like a wind
as God began creating the world as we know it
speaking the world into being.
 
 With these words from heaven
 there can be no doubt about who Jesus is,
 the Son of God.
 
And just like that,
God’s presence on Earth in Jesus
is made manifest,
both revealing and putting into action
the scope and direction of Jesus’ life
 from this point on.
 
 Jesus, God’s Son
will bring the living and active presence of God
 to people who have been separated from God
and he will do so by breaking down the barriers that have stood in the way.
 
In our own baptisms
 we are joined to this identity and mission.
 
Our baptisms are epiphanies too,
God speaks words claiming us as beloved children,
 gifts us with the Holy Spirit
and promises that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God
and this happens because in our baptisms
we are joined to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
 
Through baptism we have life in God,
through baptism Christ lives in us
through baptism the spirit lives in us
 
 and we are charged with sharing that spirit with others,
we are called to be an epiphany to others,
 to bring the living and active presence of God into the world,
tearing apart boundaries that previously separated people from God,
speaking words of love and adoption to those we encounter.
 
And yes, this isn’t always easy,
 it is scary to tear apart boundaries,
crossing paths and walls and taboos that society says we shouldn’t,
 
and it’s scary to offer love to someone
unsure if they will return it
but we are able to do it
 because it is the spirit of God working through us,
directing and guiding us.
 
This guiding by the spirit is often subtle,
 a nudging in the gut that we should do this or that,
 we have to practice listening for the spirit
both as individuals and as communities,
 
and when we hear what the spirit is saying to us
the direction it takes us is often surprising
 but always life giving.
 
Now that the season of Christmas is over,
 after we pack away all the decorations and celebrations
we are left with a gift,
 
 the gift of the Holy Spirit
 who reveals to us who we are and whose we are
and who calls us out into the world
to make manifest the living and active presence of God. Amen