Resurrection of Our Lord Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-8

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
 
“Mary”
It’s amazing how much
can be conveyed with one word,
 with a name.
 
With that one word
Jesus turns Mary’s life upside down
in all the right ways.
 
 She goes from weeping in a garden
 near an empty tomb, talking to a gardener,
 to beholding the risen Lord,
her teacher and friend.
 
It’s been a long journey to get to this place,
 with plenty of ups and downs,
 
we don’t know much about Mary before her life following Jesus
 other than she was from Magdala,
a fishing village along the sea of Galilee
 and Luke tells us that Jesus healed her,
 casting out seven demons,
 
since then we know she’s been one of the group of women followers of Jesus
who traveled along as disciples
and who took care of Jesus.
 
 Her own experience aside
 Mary has seen and heard some amazing things,
she’s seen Jesus heal,
she’s seen him feed thousands with a few loaves of bread,
 she’s heard him teach and debate with scribes and Pharisees
 
 she heard him weep for his friend Lazarus
then saw raise him from the dead
she’s experienced the excitement of the crowds
as Jesus entered Jerusalem
could this be the long awaited messiah?
 
 
and then two days ago
 she saw Jesus arrested,
 put on trial
sentenced to death by crucifixion,
 
and even when many of the disciples fled,
 Mary and a few others stayed at the foot of the cross
 and witnessed Jesus die,
 
then watched as Joseph of Arimathea
took Jesus’ body down from the cross,
prepared it for burial
and placed it in a tomb in a garden,
with a stone covering the entrance.
 
And with that
 all that she’s seen and heard,
the hope for the future
that had built along the way,
the purpose she’s dedicated her life to
 is gone.
 
 Dead and buried.
 
She must go observe the sabbath,
 rest and worship away from this place
 but John tells us that early on the first day of the week,
while it was still dark,
 as soon as possible
Mary comes back to the tomb,
 
 she’s so anxious to be near her Lord
 that she can’t even wait for daylight
 and when she goes into the garden
she finds that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb
 and that Jesus is not where he is supposed to be.
 
In a panic she runs and gets some other disciples
 telling them “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb
and we do not know where they have laid him.”
 
And having delivered the message
Mary fades into the background for a bit
while Peter and the other disciple race back to the tomb
and find the cloths that had been used to embalm Jesus
 lying in the tomb folded neatly
 
and while they still don’t know quite what to think,
 we who are hearing the story
 know that this isn’t a simple case of grave robbing,
grave robbers wouldn’t have unwrapped the body,
 
 and we know it’s not even a return to life like Lazarus
who was still bound in grave cloths
when Jesus called him from his own tomb,
 no something else is going on here
 
 but in the moment those present don’t know that,
 the two disciples return home
not sure what to think
 
and Mary,
 Mary stays in the garden weeping,
 all she knows is that Jesus is not there.
 
She looks in the tomb again then turns around
and there behind her is another person
and supposing he is the gardener
she asks him where Jesus is,
 
and that is when Jesus speaks her name.
 “Mary”
 that one word capturing all the moments of a life
 that have built up to this point,
that one word conveying the love and friendship between teacher and disciple.
 
And at last Mary knows who it is before her.
She recognizes the voice,
 the one who knows her intimately
and she responds in kind with a term of endearment, rabbouni.
 
So much conveyed with one word
and yet that is who Jesus is,
he is the good shepherd who calls his sheep by name,
 
 
they recognize his voice,
 the voice that they associate with care, protection, with love,
 that is the voice they will follow because they are known.
 
We all long to be known in this way,
to experience this depth of relationship,
sometimes we get a glimpse of this in the love of a parent or a partner or a friend.
I remember growing up listening to my mom answer the phone,
I could tell it was my dad on the other end
without hearing his name,
because the tone of my mom’s voice changed
from formal telephone voice
 to the voice of one speaking with someone known and loved
 
We recognize when someone knows us,
we hear it and we respond to it
even in the situations where we don’t expect it,
 
Mary wasn’t expecting the resurrection,
to paraphrase Monty Python, no one expects the resurrection,
and yet when Jesus says her name
 she knows who is speaking to her.
 
This is the miracle of Easter,
 that in those moments in our lives when dead is dead and gone is gone,
 Jesus says our name
and we know who is speaking to us,
even if we don’t recognize the person in front of us,
especially if we didn’t expect to find new life,
love and understanding in that moment.
 
Jesus the good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep,
 for us
and he rose from the dead and ascended to be with God
all so that there is a place for us
where we are loved and known,
So that we may have life and have it abundantly right now.
 
 And while we may as yet be in the garden weeping,
or staring at the empty tomb scratching our heads
trying to figure out what it means,
when we hear our name called
 we will know who it is that is calling
and we will proclaim with Mary,
 “I have seen the Lord.”
 
Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-14
Psalm 116: 1-2, 12-19
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31-35

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
 grace and peace to you
from the one who comes to us in bread and wine. Amen
 
Tonight is a night of memories.
 
memories help tell us who we are,
 both as individuals and as communities,
 they are the stories that tell us where we’ve come from
 and point us to where we are going
 
and yet the calling to mind of these stories
is as fragile
as the stories are important,
 
we’ve all experienced the sensation
of walking into a room and completely forgetting
 why we came into that room in the first place,
 
 we’ve debated with others
what exactly happened that one time,
we’ve experienced the devastation
of dementia and memory loss in loved ones.
 
 Yet some things remain clear in our minds,
 our home telephone number from elementary school
or the snappy jingle
 directing us to a particular brand of breakfast cereal,
 
part of the mystery of living
 is that we don’t always get to choose which memories
 naturally stay fresh and clear
and which fade away.
 
But we have found that there are things we can do
 to help us remember,
 intentionally hold on to,
 the important stories.
 
We do this by telling the stories over and over again,
we attach rituals to the stories
where we act them out,
 we tie the stories to our senses
the taste, touch, smell, sight and sounds
all helping us to remember.
 
Tonight is a night of remembering,
calling to mind the stories that define us,
 stories so important
 that God has told us to remember them.
 
In our first lesson we heard God telling the people of Israel
how they are to remember the defining moment
 when God brought them out of slavery into freedom.
 
 Each year, God tells the people,
they are to reenact the exodus,
and in the eating of the roasted lamb
while dressed to travel at a moments notice
the story of what God had done
will come alive once more
and the people will remember
that they are people meant for freedom
 guided by a great and powerful God.
 
“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” God tells the people
 
And that is what Jesus and the disciples are doing
 all those hundreds of years later
when they are gathered around the table
for what Jesus knows will be their last meal together.
 
And as they recall the foundation of their relationship with God,
 Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us,
who ate and drank with the disciples,
 healed and prayed, cried and celebrated
gives the disciples a way to remember this aspect of relationship with God
and the new freedom they are about to experience
through Jesus’ actions on the cross.
 
Gathered together at the table of remembering
Jesus takes bread,
the common everyday food
and he blesses it and then breaks the loaf
and gives it to the disciples saying this is my body,
do this to remember me.
 
And then Jesus takes the cup of wine,
 the drink of celebrations
blesses it and gives it to the disciples saying
 this is the new covenant, in my blood,
drink it to remember my promise to you.
 
In the future, Jesus tells the disciples,
whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup
you will remember what I have done for you.
 
On the cross in body broken and blood poured out
 Jesus frees us from sin and death.
 
At the table, in broken bread and wine poured out
Jesus forgives us,
 freeing us to move past our mistakes and our failures
 to the wholeness of new life in Christ.
 
 And what does that new life look like?
It looks like Jesus kneeling at the feet of his disciples
washing their feet,
 
an act of love and humility
that Jesus says they are to copy
 as they live out the new commandment of Jesus,
 to love one another just as Jesus has loved them.
 
This is the sign to others that you are my disciples
 Jesus tells them in the gospel of John,
the love that you have for one another.
 
Yes, we have two different stories of Jesus’ last night with the disciples,
 in Matthew, Mark and Luke we hear about the last supper,
in John we hear about the washing of feet and the new commandment,
 
 these were the stories, the memories
passed down in the communities where the gospels were first written
and while they are different,
and we might wonder at that
 
 both the stories are included in our holy scriptures
because ultimately we need both stories
 for our relationship with God.
 
we need the new commandment
that points us toward the future in Christ,
a future marked by love lived out in service to others,
and we need the forgiveness
 found when Jesus comes to us in bread and wine, body and blood,
after we have failed to love as Jesus loves
 
and we need to hear these stories again and again
as again and again we hear the command to love
and receive the forgiveness of God
living in the law of love and the grace of Jesus.
 
So we tell the stories when we gather,
we hand down memories in the telling, and acting,
 the taste and touch, the smells and the singing
 
these memories remind us of who we are,
people who live in freedom
because of the great acts of God,
 people who are to love and serve their neighbors,
people with a God who comes to us in bread and wine
to remind us that we are God’s children,
 fed and forgiven, freed to love. Amen
 

Fifth Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21
Psalm 126
Philippians 3:4-14
John 12:1-8

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you
from the one who has made us his own. Amen
 
What is most important in life?
 
Times of transition
bring this question forward,
 
those times in life when we’re saying goodbye to the way things were
and hello to new possibilities
 we are often forced to consider
what to leave behind and what to bring forward with us.
 
Lent is coming to an end
 and as we look forward to Holy Week
 and the beginnings and endings that lie ahead
 our readings for today ask us to consider,
what is most important?
 
Paul is doing this reflecting in his letter to the Philippians,
he is in prison, probably in Rome,
which even as he hopes to be released
 still puts things in perspective.
 
 As he looks back
and considers his life
he concludes that very little matters
except for Christ.
 
Paul in his characteristic humble brag
 lists all the things that he could consider important,
 being part of the chosen people of Israel,
 strictly following the law,
all these things that conventional wisdom says
 are important especially for a relationship with God
 
but then he says: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ...For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not have a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”
 
Paul realizes
that whoever he is
and whatever he’s done,
 none of that will surpass what Christ has already done on the cross,
 
 and because of that amazing fact
Paul goes on “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on the make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
 
Paul wants to know Christ
, both the good- the resurrection-
 and the bad- the suffering
 and he feels secure in seeking this knowledge
because he knows that Christ Jesus
 has made him his own.
 
And that is really the crux of the matter,
whether Paul came from the right family
 and did the right things,
or whether he persecuted the church
 or is in prison,
none of that matters in the end
because Christ claimed him.
 
 And having been claimed by Christ,
Paul presses forward
 seeking to know Christ even better,
seeking to share this with all he encounters
even if it means that by the standards of the world
 he does some pretty odd things,
like letting go of status,
 obeying God rather than Rome,
willingly suffering for the sake of love.
 
In our gospel for today
 Mary wants to know Christ
and it leads her to do some odd things
by the standards of the world.
 
Once again Jesus has come to dinner,
 he’s been hiding out a bit
but now he is about to enter Jerusalem for the last time
 and on his way he’s stopped to have dinner with his friends.
 
Jesus is close with this family,
he’s had dinner here before,
that dinner where Martha asked Jesus to scold her sister Mary
 for not helping her and instead sitting at Jesus’ feet.
 
Jesus came here when Lazarus died
and Jesus wept over his friend
then raised him from the dead
 
and now he’s here one last time
together this group is facing the end.
 And Mary takes a jar of perfume
that costs about a year’s wages
and pours it out on Jesus’ feet, anointing them,
then wipes them with her hair.
 
The use of that much perfume is extravagant,
as Judas will soon point out,
and she breaks the social dress code and norms
by letting her hair down and touching a man
who is not her husband.
 
It’s excessive,
it’s scandalous,
 it’s following Jesus in a nutshell
 
 and Mary does this
because facing the coming ending
 Jesus is what is important to Mary.
 
Of all the people present at the party
 Mary is the one who has been most intentional
about spending time with Jesus,
 
sitting at his feet listening to him,
she has seen him raise her brother from the dead
 she more than anyone
is likely to believe Jesus
 when he tells his followers
that he is the shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep.
 So her abundance of ointment
mirroring the abundance of Jesus’ love,
she anoints Jesus for his burial,
 
she lovingly sends him out to do
what he says he needs to do.
She wants to know Christ,
she wants to join in his story
and when compared with all of that,
 what is some money?
And social norms?
They are rubbish.
 
Mary and Paul are exceptional in their abandonment
of all things that are not Jesus
but they are not exceptional in their desire to know Christ.
 
At one point or another
all of us have longed to know Christ,
even if we haven’t had the words
to understand that longing
 
 and true sometimes we are like Mary
making extravagant displays of devotion
 
 but other times we are Martha
who longs to know Jesus
and acts on that longing by serving,
continually moving around Jesus.
 
Sometimes we’re Lazarus,
 we long to know Jesus
 and we’re just grateful to be at the table
because even getting to the table with Jesus
is a miracle.
 
 And sometimes we are even Judas,
we follow Jesus because there’s something that catches us
but we are so preoccupied with our own gain
 that we miss the point of Jesus and those around him.
  
There is space for all of these characters in the story
and yet, whoever we are,
Christ has first claimed us as his own
and nothing we do will change that,
 
 joined to Christ in his death and resurrection
 God promises to treat us as if we were Christ.
 
 And so whatever questions are challenging us,
whatever beginnings or endings we face,
we press on
 claimed and loved by the most important one. Amen
 

Fifth Sunday in Lent
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who wants all the children at the party. Amen
 
The story of the Prodigal Son,
 we’ve all heard it, at least a couple times
so we know what comes next
 when we hear the line “there was a man who had two sons”  
 
now these two sons are wildly different,
as often happens with siblings.
We hear about the younger son first,
 
 how he doesn’t want to wait for his father to die
to receive his inheritance,
 so he asks for it,
 and when his father gives him his half
he takes it and sets out,
 traveling to a distant country,
living in a way that uses up all his inheritance.
 
when a famine hits
the younger son finds himself starving without any money
so he finds a job feeding pigs
 
- remember pigs are religiously unclean animals
so we know that he’s hit rock bottom
when he’s hanging out with the pigs
 and the pig food is starting to look pretty tasty-
 
 and that’s when he realizes,
life in his father’s house is good, even for the servants
so he forms a plan to go home,
confess his sin to his father
and knowing he doesn’t deserve to be considered a son in the household
 asks to be considered as a servant.
 
He acts on his plan and heads home
 but before he can even get up the driveway
his father sees him and runs to him,
and before he can confess and lay out his plan
 his father is already throwing a big welcome home party.
 
And this is where we hear about the older son,
the older son who also received his part of the inheritance
when the younger son asked,
but stayed at home,
he did was he was supposed to,
carrying on the family business
working with his father.
 
So he’s coming in from working in the fields
and he hears a party going on,
 a party he didn’t know was happening,
 a party he clearly didn’t receive an invitation to,
 
so he asks one of the servants about it
 and only then does he hear that his younger brother has returned
and that dad is throwing an extravagant party for him.
 
At this he gets mad
and refuses to go in the house,
and when his father comes out to plead with him to come to the party,
 years of resentment and bitterness come pouring out,
 
 “I’ve been the good one,
I did what I’m supposed to,
I worked with you all these years
and you’ve never celebrated me,
 you’ve never thrown a party for me
and now your son
who told you he wished you were dead so he could have your stuff comes back
- without all that money you gave him by the way-
and you throw a party for him?’
and he refuses to come inside
 
 and his father reminds him that their relationship is intact
and that all that is the father’s is the older son’s,
his life is good,
but the father stands firm in his decision to celebrate the return of the younger son.
He loves both.
 
A man had two sons the story starts
and at the end it seems to ask us,
which is the better son?
 
Tradition would have us say
 the older son is the better son
but despite his honoring his father
 and the good life that he has
 he ends bitter and resentful at his father,
 
 feeling left out
that he wasn’t invited to a party in his own home,
 a place he was already and always welcome,
 and he ends up not looking so good.
 
The younger son on the other hand
shows personal growth,
sure he starts off looking pretty bad
 there’s no denying that he squanders the love of his father
and ends up hungry sitting in a mess of his own making,
 
 but when he considers the situation and realizes that life with dad was good
he repents hoping his father will treat him as one of the servants
because he knows that’s all he really deserves,
and he ends up humble and appreciative of life with dad.
 
In the end neither son is better than the other.
And yet, the father chases after both sons.
 He wants them both at the party.
 
He rushes to celebrate the son that returned of his own volition
and he goes out and pleads with the son
who refuses to come in
 reminding him that the grace and love of a father
 is not a zero sum game,
showing love for one son does not diminish the love felt for the other son.
 
God loves in a way that is hard for humans to understand,
so we apply our own standards
 
which means that whether we are like the younger son
 sitting in a mess of our own making
 
or like the older son
 filled with bitter resentment
 
 
 when we look across at our neighbor
 it doesn’t seem like they deserve God’s grace and love.
 
when we judge our neighbor our sin is exposed,
to decide who God loves is God’s role,
and if we’re honest,
 we admit that by any standards no one deserves God’s love
 but in Christ God has made it clear that God’s love is for all
 
Which is why Paul,
when writing to the Corinthians,
 instructing them in the way of living in Christ
says “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation everything old has passed away see everything has become new.”
 
In the waters of baptism Christ washes away our messes and our bitterness,
Forgiving us again and again
So that each day we are given new life.
 
 And Having been given new life in Christ
we are to look at others with the eyes of God,
we are to see others as God sees them,
 beloved children who God wants at the party. Amen
 

Third Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from our God who is with us at all times. Amen
 
Jesus is teaching,
he’s surrounded by people
 who value what he says,
he helps them make sense of the world around them
 
so it’s only natural for them
to run puzzling situations by Jesus
to see what he thinks,
 
in this case it’s about these Galileans
who Pilate had murdered and then desecrated
 by mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices.
 
 And the people around him
 tell Jesus this story
 because they have a question:
 why?
 
 Why did that horrible thing happen to those people?
 
And Jesus responds
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?”
 
 he asks because he knows that is at the back of their minds,
 it’s how our brains work,
we try to find meaning
 so if something bad happened to these people
then they must have done something to deserve it.
 
But then Jesus answers his own question:
“No, I tell you but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
 
Now this seems like kind of a harsh response
to a question about suffering
 but Jesus goes on to give another example,
 
  he tells those present
 about some people who were killed
when a tower collapsed and asks
 “do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”
 
 and again he answers his own question
 “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
 
What does Jesus mean with this response?
 
And we’re all curious right?
Because we have observed the suffering of others and asked:
 why did it happen to them?
 And right behind that question, why didn’t it happen to me?
Or why did it happen to me and not them?
 
 These questions have been raised to the surface of our own lives
in the past weeks
 as flood waters have risen
 and we’ve watched some people lose everything
while others stayed dry.
 And we’ve wondered,
why?
 
 It’s an age old question
and frankly one without a good answer
and that drives us nuts
 
Desmond Tutu in his book God Has A Dream
makes the observation
“We humans can tolerate suffering but we cannot tolerate meaninglessness.” pg 75
 
We cannot tolerate meaninglessness,
so when faced with situations of suffering
we try to make sense of it,
 and often,
the meaning we put on it is wrong,
 at least according to God.
 
We heard this in Isaiah:
 
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts your thoughts.”
 
There is often a disconnect
 between our thinking and God’s thinking,
so when Jesus tells the questioning crowd
“No, I tell you, repent”
he is telling them, us,
 to align our thinking with God’s thinking,
 
 in a way,
that’s Jesus’ whole mission,
 to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between people and God.
 
In telling us to repent
Jesus is not saying we should feel bad about our thinking,
that’s often the feeling we associate with that word,
 
but in the gospel of Luke,
a call to repent
 is a call to turn away from the assumptions and norms of the world
to live lives directed toward God,
 living God’s way as taught to us by Jesus.
 
Jesus knows that this teaching is a bit of a stretch for his listeners
 so he tells them a parable to illustrate his point,
 
 a man with a vineyard plants a fig tree,
and when he comes to the tree and finds no fruit on it
 he tells his gardener to cut it down,
 
it’d been three years,
clearly the tree was useless.
 
 But the gardener intercedes for the tree,
asks for a year reprieve,
 time for the gardener to nurture it,
dig around it, put manure on it
and if the tree produces fruit next year, great,
 if not then the owner can cut it down.
  
There is a gap of misunderstanding
 between the owner and the gardener about the fig tree,
 
 from the owner’s perspective
a fig tree is supposed to produce figs
and after three years without figs
 he determines that the tree is a waste of soil.
 
What the gardener understands that the owner doesn’t
is that it often takes fruit trees three or four years to grow
before they produce fruit,
 and so he offers to nurture the tree for one more year,
to get it to the point where it would be reasonable to expect fruit from it
 
We are often the owner to God’s gardener,
we know what is supposed to happen, or think we do anyway,
and when it doesn’t happen when we expect
we get impatient
we render judgement
and cut down perfectly good trees in our search to make meaning.
 
We do this with ourselves as well as others,
we expect things of ourselves
and when we don’t live up to those expectations
we cut ourselves down
 before we’re done growing,
before we’re ready to produce fruit
when God knows that all we need is some more time,
and perhaps a little manure.
 
And this brings us right back to the discussion of suffering
because the manure in our lives,
what seems like stinky waste
 is actually often what we need to grow into our full selves.
 
 Again, Archbishop Tutu observes: “In our universe suffering is often how we grow, especially how we grow emotionally, spiritually, and morally. That is, when we let the suffering ennoble us and not embitter us.” pg 72
 
 His point is that when faced with suffering
we have a choice in how we respond,
we can tie ourselves in knots
trying to figure out why it happened
and whether we blame ourselves or others
we end up feeling resentful,
like we got a raw deal.
 
 Or, we can turn toward God,
 face the suffering head on,
and work to lessen the suffering,
finding the humanity in ourselves
and those around us,
growing in the love of God as we do so.
 
I think it’s safe to say that most of Nebraska
has made the second choice
in responding to the suffering around us.
 
 People have already come together
to lessen the suffering of others
 and we will continue to do so
 as what needs to be done to recover becomes clearer,
 it will be a long road
but we will walk it together
 and we will grow together.
 
Why is there suffering?
We don’t really know,
 and that’s unsatisfying.
 
 But what we do know
 is that we have a God who has also experienced suffering,
 who chose to work through it
 to lessen the suffering of others,
who promises to be with us in the midst of suffering,
 that we may even grow because of it
 and that it will not have the last say,
 
the cross of Friday after all
was only a stop along the way
to the empty tomb on Sunday. Amen
 

Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Psalm 27
Philippians 3:17-4:1
Luke 13:31-35

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 Grace and peace to you
from the one who goes to great lengths to keep promises. Amen
 
The theme running through our readings for today
 is that God keeps the promises God makes.
 
 We know this,
we affirm it,
but sometimes, especially in the middle of hardship
 it’s hard to trust this,
it’s hard to see anything other than what is right in front of us
and our prayers start to sound like our psalm for the day.
 
In the face of forces working actively against the psalmist they pray,
 and their prayer alternates between statements of trust
 almost as if making those statements will help the psalmist
 believe that they are true
and acknowledging the reality of the present.
 
 The psalmist starts off
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?”
 Who indeed,
but behind these words we sense a reason to fear
and sure enough in the very next verse
 the psalmist says “when evildoers close in against me”
and goes on to describe bad things that happen in life.
 
Back and forth the psalm goes,
calling on the Lord’s promises
and seeking reassurance
in the midst of times of trouble
 
I think we’ve all prayed something like this
where we alternate between
“I know you’re great God and have made these promises”
 and in the next breath crying out
 “help! Bad things are happening, right now!”
and both are true at the same time.
We need reassurance when the way gets tough,
we need to vent our frustrations and fears
 
 after all of the emotions have been expressed
 the psalmist settles on the last two verses
“This I believe--that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!
Wait for the Lord and be strong. Take heart and wait for the Lord!”
 
And it’s true,
we do believe we will see the goodness of God,
 and we catch glimpses of it
but that second part,
 the waiting
 is oh so hard,
 
we’ve experienced that this past week
 as we’ve waited and watched the waters rise
 not knowing what the future will look like
 for communities and families around the state,
 
and as much as we’ve wanted to do something,
at a certain point all that’s left to do is wait
we’re still waiting.
And the longer the wait the more assurance we need.
 
God keeps the promises God makes
but our time line and God’s don’t always line up
and so sometimes we question God,
and God responds with reassurance.
 
We see this in our first reading from Genesis
in the conversation between God and Abram
 
This scene is actually not the first conversation between the two
earlier when God led Abram from his home
God promised him land and descendants as numerous as grains of sand,
 
Abram has been faithful in his following of God thus far
but he’s getting older
and he’s not seeing the fruit of those promises,
 
So Abram questions God
Essentially saying,
yah you made those promises but what have you done for me lately?
looking for more details
 in how this seemingly impossible promise will come true,
and God reassures him
 pointing to the night sky and saying
“look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them, so shall your descendants be.”
 
And Abram,
reassured,
 believes God.
 
Then the pattern repeats itself.
 God repeats the promise of land to Abram
and Abram questions God
 “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
 
and what follows
is possibly one of the stranger passages
 that we hear on a regular basis,
 specific animals being cut in two,
darkness,
 a smoking fire pot and flaming torch
passing through the animal pieces…
 
What are we to make of such a scene?
We know from research scholars have done on the ancient middle-east
that though it may have been terrifying for Abram
 the actual ritual would have been familiar to him
for this was the ritual of covenant or contract making.
 
Minus the presence of lawyers and paper and pen
this was how contracts were made,
 the ritual of walking through the dismembered animals
 signified an important promise.
 essentially saying, “if I fail to keep my promise, may the same thing happen to me as to these animals.”
 
God’s promise to Abram is so important
that God “considers an experience of suffering and death” (NIB 449)
in order to convey the seriousness of the promise.
 
God keeps the promises God makes
 
As Christians
we have cause to know just how far God will go to keep a promise.
In our gospel reading for today
 Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem
 
 and immediately
some Pharisees come
and tell him that he shouldn’t go
because it’s dangerous.
 
Jesus already knows that,
 Jesus already knows what is going to happen
and Jesus knows what lengths God is willing to go to keep promises
all the way to death and back again.
 
Jesus is the promised messiah
the one the people have longed for, for so long
 but true to God’s form
 the fulfillment of the promise
is beyond human conception of what it will look like.
 
 Jesus uses the image
of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings,
that is what he longs to do
and in a way will do in his outstretched arms on the cross
 
 but the people,
 expecting a hawk or an eagle
 have not been willing to come under Jesus
the mother hen’s wings,
 
in fact like a hawk or eagle
they will attack the mother hen
 as they have attacked previous prophets.
 
Jerusalem,
 the city of God,
is a risky place to go if you are a messenger from God
 but Jesus is willing to take those risks in order to keep the promises of God.
 
God made a promise to Abram,
 Abram questioned God
and God reassured Abram
and Abram believed the Lord.
 
Abram’s faith was possible
 because of God’s word and previous actions,
 which had all been true and faithful.
 
At our baptisms
God made a promise to us
 that we would always be God’s,
 
that,
 as Paul said in our second reading,
our citizenship would be in heaven.
 
And some days we question that promise,
we turn to God and say
 ‘you promised that your kingdom would come on earth as in heaven,
 Jesus said the kingdom of God has come near
and yet there are still people who are hungry
and countries at war,
And terrorists who shoot people in their place of worship
and loved ones who die,
And rising flood waters
 how can your promise come true God?’
 
and God comes to us,
 at the table
Jesus comes to us
reassuring us with his own body and blood
 the new covenant shed for us
 for the forgiveness of sins
 
Any time we gather together,
 break the bread, drink the wine
Jesus is present,
 renewing the promise of abundant life everlasting,
 strengthening us in the midst of the waiting
 Reminding us that God has kept all of God’s promises
 even to the point of dying on a cross
 and rising on the third day.
 
The life of faith is risky.
 Risky because though the promises are always kept
we don’t know the particulars,
risky because people expect hawks instead of mother hens to change the world.
 
Yet The life of faith is secure
because it is founded in the one who keeps their promises
and no matter how often we question
No matter what life throws at us,
 God is reaching out
gathering us in like a mother hen gathers her chicks
To safely in the shadow of her wings. Amen
 
 
 
 

First Sunday in Lent
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one at the center of the story. Amen
 
The season of Lent is a time of storytelling.
During this 40 day period
we tell the stories of Jesus’ last days
 leading up to the greatest story of Easter morning.
 
We tell these stories every year during this season,
 we tell them because they are important to us,
we tell them so that new people might hear them,
we tell them to remember who we are and whose we are
because stories form our identities.
 
We start with our reading from Deuteronomy,
 I love this passage because it combines the power of storytelling with worship.
 
In this passage
Moses is instructing the Israelites
 before they enter the promised land
 on how to worship God who is giving them the land.
 
It is clear that Moses is concerned
that once the people settle in
 and start working the land
 and providing for themselves through farming
that they will forget God.
 
Moses says some variation
 of “the land that the Lord your God is giving you”
six times in this short passage,
 
he has a right to be worried
it’s a very human temptation
to forget God
 when it appears that we can take care of ourselves through our own work
even though God made it possible for us to work in the first place.
 
So Moses prescribes a ritual for worship
designed to both praise God
and remind the worshipper of God.
 
When the land,
a gift from God,
 starts to produce
the Israelites are to take the first harvest,
 put it in a basket,
bring it to the temple and give it to the priest
who will put it before the altar of God.
 
Seems simple enough,
but there is more,
 in addition to bringing the first fruits
 the worshiper is to retell the story of the people and God
 
"A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me." Deuteronomy 26:5-10
 
The story puts the act of offering in context,
 the ability to offer these first fruits
 is only possible because of God’s saving actions and gracious gifts.
Telling the story this way
makes sure that God stays at the center of the story.
 
Worship is designed to keep God as the main character
in the story of life,
and let’s be honest
we need all the help we can get
 
we humans love to think that it is all about us,
and when we start to make ourselves the center of the universe
we get into trouble very quickly.
 
It is this human inclination
 that the Devil plays on as he tempts Jesus in our gospel for today
and Jesus resists
 by keeping God at the center of the story
 
 In his first attempt
 the Devil plays on Jesus’ pride and hunger
by saying “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”
 
 Now imagine if Jesus were living with the perspective
 that he was the center of the universe-
 he would be insulted at the Devil’s questioning of his identity
 and authority as Son of God,
and being hungry it would make sense to prove the devil wrong
by creating some bread,
 seems like killing two birds with one stone.
 
But keeping God at the center
Jesus, even though he is the Son of God and is very hungry answers:
 “It is written, ‘one does not live by bread alone.’”
 
So the devil tries another common weak spot for humans,
he offers power,
 all the kingdoms of the world.
In exchange for allegiance that is.
 
We only have to look through history
at the various dictators
to know how this temptation might have played out.
But again Jesus keeping God at the center
 answers: “It is written, ‘worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”
 
And now the Devil knows he’s working with a really tough case
 and so in his last attempt
he combines a question of Jesus’ identity
with quoting scripture,
playing Jesus’ own game saying “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘he will command his angels concerning you, to protect you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’  
 
there you have it,
the word of God straight out of Psalm 91,
 how can you argue with that? The Devil implies
 
this tactic has worked really well for the Devil over the years
 playing on the pride of people
 who then pressure other people
 saying: “If you are a Christian, you will go and do____ something very un Christ like”
and by backing up their claim with scripture
people fall prey to the desire
 to prove that they are Christian
 rather than to act like Christ.
 
but yet again Jesus sees through the devil’s ploy
 and keeping God at the center of the story
responds “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”
 
At this the devil departs-
 but not for good, just until another time when Jesus is ripe for temptation,
 a time like this one where his defenses are down.
 
That’s when the devil likes to tempt us,
 not when we’re at our strongest,
 but when we’re at our weakest,
 
those times of struggle
 where we desperately desire a certain outcome
 because we are so overcome with the events in our lives
 that we’ve started telling our story with ourselves at the center
 
we are so focused on ourselves
 that we give into temptation
and start testing God saying things like:
“God, if you’re really there I’ll know because you’ll make the one I love all better.”
 or “God, if you’re really compassionate make all this pain go away, right now.”
 
Of course that way lies madness,
because God doesn’t work like that,
God is not a cosmic vending machine
where if we insert our prayers like dollars
our desired outcome will be dispensed.
 
 And how do we know God doesn’t work like that?
 Through all the stories of how God has acted in the past,
 the stories where again and again
God chose to work through death to bring new life.
 
So how do we make it through the tough times and resist temptation?
Through stories,
the stories of how God has acted in the past
and promised to act in the future.
 
 In worship we hear the stories,
and we give to God in recognition that in the great story of life
God is the main character to our supporting role,
and we celebrate the life God has given us.
 
And fortified by the story,
gratitude and communal celebration
 God sends us back out into the world,
to live through death into new life. Amen

Ash Wednesday
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Psalm 51:1-17
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
 
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
 
In a few moments
we will each hear those words
 as ash, the dust of a once living plant,
is smeared on our foreheads.
 
 As we enter into the season of Lent
 where we journey with Jesus to the cross and the grave
 we take time to consider our mortality
 
Generally when we think of THE END,
that is death,
we tend to lean more in the direction of Joel:
 
“Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.”  
 
THE END is scary,
 and while Joel ultimately offers hope
 in the form of the mercy of God
we’ve gotten stuck on the scary part,
 
and we’ve become so scared as a culture
 we’ve taken to denying death,
 we hide it,
we try to pretend it won’t happen to us,
 we try to make it look less like death,
 
and the result is
that we’ve become so afraid of death
 that it gets in the way of life
 
we’ve forgotten the fundamental truth
that out of death comes new life.
  
We see this truth in nature
 after a wildfire when flowers cover a newly opened meadow,
as a bear catches a fish and feeds it to her young,
 
we’ve experienced this
when the death of one relationship
has paved the way for one more life giving
 
and most of all we have Easter morning
and the empty tomb,
 a miracle because the tomb was full on Good Friday.
 
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
 
In a few moments
we will each hear those words
 as ash is smeared on our foreheads
 in the sign of the cross.
 A symbol of death turned into a symbol of salvation.
 
Where Joel calls for repentance saying who knows, God in mercy might relent?
Paul says we know how it will go for us
 because: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
 
God knew that no matter how much we repented,
 or fasted
 or offered sacrifices
or did any of the other things that humans do
 to try to get right with God
 that we would never be able to get there,
we would never be able to make ourselves right with God.
 
 So God took care of it,
 through Jesus
and joined to Christ in baptism
God counts us as righteous
 
Which means,
 we don’t have to wait until THE END
to find out what is going to happen,
  
the scary unknown of Joel is resolved
 we know where we stand with God,
we have been saved
past tense continuing action.
 Salvation in now
 and stretches into the future
 
God says “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you." See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! “
 
Now is the day of salvation.
Right now.
We don’t have to wait.
 
 In fact God is working through us
 as ambassadors for Christ
 so that others may be relieved of fear
and the unknown
by the salvation available now,
 no waiting required.
 
But in this world where there is always a catch
it sounds too good to be true
and there are times when we doubt
even as we call ourselves Christian,
 the Corinthians doubted
so Paul wrote to them saying “As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.”
 
And that brings us right back to Ash Wednesday
 because accepting the grace of God in vain
 looks like saying we have the grace of God
 but not living like we have the grace of God.
 
 It looks like a fear of death so great
 that it gets in the way of life,
 
 it looks like storing up treasures on earth,
placing trust in ourselves
 in our own hands
rather than entrusting our lives to God
who has already saved us by grace.
 
The repentance of Ash Wednesday and Lent
 is about living into the grace of God that is ours, now.
Any fasting we do
 or spiritual practices we may add in this time
are about quieting the distractions
 that call us away from living in the present grace of God.
 
And yes this is difficult,
we live in a world that profits from fear
and seeks to quiet those who say otherwise
 
and so we start this season
by marking our opposition on our foreheads,
 embracing without fear
that which the world fears most,
and in doing so
turning as best we are able
to live in the grace of God
that is ours, now. Amen
 

Transfiguration of Our Lord
Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-36

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,
grace and peace to you from the one who speaks to us. Amen
 
Speaking and listening
 
These two actions lie at the heart of the transfiguration story.
 
Speaking and listening are the transfiguration story.
 
Jesus has been teaching
he’s been speaking to crowds,
 imparting wisdom
 and now he needs some time with God.
So he takes with him three disciples,
 Peter, John and James and goes up a mountain to pray.
 
Jesus likes to go to deserted places to pray,
less distraction that way
but going up a mountain signals that this is a special occasion,
God is often met on mountain tops,
 
 And sure enough while Jesus is praying something happens,
 Jesus’ face changes
 and his clothes become dazzling white
and suddenly he is joined by Moses and Elijah
 
they’re having a conversation about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and the cross
 and Peter, John and James witnessing the glory of God
want to hold on to the moment
 
 Peter offers to build permanent structures
 so the moment never has to end
and at this God overshadows them
and speaks to them,
telling them to listen to Jesus
 and terrified they keep silent.
 
Speaking and listening
That’s where it all starts
with Jesus going up the mountain to pray,
 
  prayer is a combination of speaking and listening,
we’re more familiar with the speaking side of prayer
but prayer also happens in listening,
 listening for what God is saying to us.
 
Jesus goes up the mountain to pray
and is visibly transformed by encountering God.
 
This is keeping with tradition,
 we heard how Moses’ face was transformed
as he spoke to God.
 
Being in the presence of God changes us.
 Listening to God visibly changes us.
 
And that frightens us.
 
Moses took to wearing a veil around the people
 because when they could see the glory of the Lord shining in his face,
 they were afraid to come near him.
 
Yet they still listened to Moses speak,
 when others are transformed by being in the presence of God
 we are afraid yes,
 but we’re also intrigued,
 part of us wants to see more,
but we can only take so much.
 
We’re like little kids experiencing something new,
 at first it startles us and we run and hide our face in our parents leg,
 but soon enough we’re ready to take another peak,
 and a peak turns into a longer look
 and eventually, step by step we move toward a full encounter.
 
It’s a different story when we’re the ones who are changed.
Peter, dear impulsive, enthusiastic Peter
witnesses Jesus’ transformation along with Moses and Elijah
and determines that this is a good place,
he wants to see more
 so he suggests building houses for the trio.
 
He wants to make this brief moment permanent
 even though that is impossible,
we are told that Peter didn’t know what he was saying,
 that this was a moment for just a moment.
 
To be fair to Peter it’s a very human thing
to suggest what he did.
We humans love to embark on building projects
around sites of significance.
 
 In seminary I got to go to Israel and Palestine
as part of a class on the Holy Land
which included visiting sites of significance to Jesus’ ministry.
 
 To be fair we were a bit skeptical
that we were visiting the exact place where Jesus appeared to the disciples
after the resurrection and made them a breakfast of fish,
or the exact place where Jesus was baptized
but our tour guide
a wonderfully faithful Palestinian Catholic named Johnny
 had an explanation,
‘we know this is the place because the early Christians built a church here’
 and there were a lot of churches dedicated to specific events in Jesus’ life.
It’s what we humans do,
we try to capture significant moments in permanent buildings.
 
But back on the mountain
God has other things in mind,
the moment is too significant to get caught up in a building project
 and so even as Peter is offering his suggestion
a cloud comes and overshadows the disciples,
 
this is the presence of God,
 when God appears to people in the Bible
it is often in the form of a cloud,
For example God led the people of Israel out of Egypt
appearing as a pillar of cloud by day.
 
And the disciples are terrified as they enter the cloud.
 Then God speaks “This is my Son, my chosen; listen to him!”
 And when the cloud lifts,
all that’s left is Jesus.
 
And this time,
their reaction is to keep silent,
and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.
 
They obviously eventually told someone
otherwise we wouldn’t know the story
 but it took them awhile to be able to tell the story,
my guess is that it was only after the resurrection
did they feel comfortable enough to tells others of their encounter with God
 and what God said to them.
And this too is a perfectly human response.
 
Because as much as we long for God
 to work in us and in our community
- we pray for that every Sunday,
 
when the time comes,
like the disciples
we are terrified to enter the cloud of God.
 
Covered in clouds we can’t see where we’re going,
even on top of a mountain
 and we don’t like that feeling,
we like to be able to look out and see where we’re going
 anticipate what’s coming next,
it’s less scary that way,
 
 and yet,
God most often speaks when we’re covered in clouds.
 
Those times in life
when we can’t see what the future holds,
 we can barely see our hand in front of our face.
 
A diagnosis,
a broken relationship,
 a job loss,
any kind of loss,
 
we don’t know what the future will bring
and it terrifies us
and that is when God speaks,
 
and when the clouds lift,
 in that first moment of clarity
 what do we see?
 
Jesus alone,
before us
who was there all along.
 
 “Listen to him” God says,
so we do,
as we move forward we listen to Jesus,
 we save the speaking for later.
 
The Church, with a capital C
 is in a time of clouds,
things that worked for decades are no longer effective
and frankly, we’re afraid,
 
 this comes out in all kinds of anxieties,
 I’m not going to list them
but I’m sure you can think of something
that worries you about the Church,
 
we’re afraid because we can’t see the path in front of us
and yet, when we pause,
take a deep breath, and a moment to collect ourselves,
 we find that we do know what to do.
 
 Listen.
 Listen to God who speaks in the midst of clouds,
who tells us to listen to Jesus.
 
I’ve been listening for awhile now,
And you know what?
 I’m not afraid of the clouds surrounding the Church anymore.
Why?
 
 Because I know that when the clouds lift
what we’ll find is Jesus,
who has been there all along
and who will lead us down off the mountain
who will show us the way.
 
Realizing this has made Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians
so much more meaningful,
 listen to them again:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.”
 
In Christ we have freedom,
 freedom from fear,
 
in Christ we see the glory of the Lord,
 
 In Christ we are being transformed,
 
In Christ we are engaged in ministry.
 
 In Christ we do not lose heart.
 
“This is my son, My chosen; listen to him!” Amen
 

Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ
grace and peace to you from the one who makes us worthy. Amen
 
Our lessons for today,
though they speak of different events
tell the same story.
 
 The story broadly goes like this.
 
The main character has an experience of God,
 and while they are wowed by this experience
 it also serves to highlight to the main character
just how inadequate they are in the presence of God,
 
the main character expresses to God
 how unworthy they are
 both for the experience and the notice of God in general.
 
God doesn’t debate this
but goes ahead and makes the main character worthy,
 then provides a way for the main character to respond in gratitude,
 which they do.
 
That’s it,
people experience their unworthiness,
God makes them worthy,
God provides for grateful response.
 
In our first reading
 Isaiah tells of seeing God in the temple
 surrounded by seraphs- a class of angel-
 whose praise of God shakes the thresholds,
 
 Isaiah’s response is: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"
 
Isaiah expects to die
 because he is unworthy and has seen the glory of the Lord,
 but then one of the seraphs takes a hot coal from the altar
and touches Isaiah’s lips with it saying:
 "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."
 
With this ceremony
Isaiah has been made worthy.
 
Then he hears  “the voice of the Lord saying,
 "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"
 and now instead of cowering in fear
Isaiah steps up and says “Here am I, send me”
 
Isaiah feels his unworthiness,
God purifies him,
 Isaiah responds in gratitude.
 
In our gospel, it’s Simon and the disciples.
 They’re cleaning their nets after a long night of fishing
 while a crowd has gathered around their new pal Jesus,
 
the crowd is so big
Jesus is about to get pushed into the water,
 so instead he climbs into Simon’s boat
 and has him put out a ways so he can teach the crowd in comfort.
 
 When he’s finished he tells Simon to take the boat out farther
 and put the nets in to catch some fish.
 
 Simon, who I’m sure is exhausted at this point
tells Jesus: "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."
 
And at Jesus’ direction they go out
 and put the nets in the water
 and catch so many fish that the nets start to break,
 
 they call for back up and the other boat comes out
 
and together they catch so many fish that the boats start to sink!
when Simon sees all this he falls “down at Jesus' knees, saying, "’Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’"
 
 Simon knows that he is unworthy to be in the presence of Jesus.
 
But instead of going away Jesus stays,
 and indicates that he wants to spend more time with Simon
saying  "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people."
 Simon is worthy enough to follow Jesus
and Luke tells us that “When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.”
 
Simon and the disciples feel their unworthiness,
 Jesus affirms their worth through an invitation,
 Simon and the disciples leave everything to follow Jesus.
 
Finally we have Paul,
 who eludes to his version of the story
 in his letter to the Corinthians
 though the full version in the book of Acts follows the same pattern.
 
 Paul or Saul as he is called then
is one of the people that is persecuting the followers of Jesus
after the resurrection,
 seeking them to send them to prison or even kill them,
 
the people of the way are afraid of him
 but they are still spreading the message beyond Jerusalem,
so Saul goes and gets permission to go to Damascus
 to hunt down people there and bring them back to Jerusalem.
 
As he’s traveling on the road to Damascus
a light flashes around him
 and he hears a voice saying
 “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? (Saul) asked, Who are you, Lord? The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’” Acts 9:3-4
 
When Saul gets up he is blind.
 Meanwhile Jesus also appears in a vision to Ananias,
 a disciple in Damascus
 and tells him to go find Saul,
 
naturally Ananias is hesitant to go
 because he’s heard about Saul
 but God tells him that he’s chosen Saul
to bring the message to the gentiles.
 
 So Ananias goes and lays his hands on Saul
and prays for him
and something like scales fall from Saul’s eyes and he can see again.
He is baptized
then begins preaching the good news that Jesus is the son of God.
 
on the road Damascus
Paul experiences his unworthiness
 in the presence of Jesus,
 
 God makes Paul worthy,
 through the healing of Ananias and Paul’s baptism,
 
and in grateful response
Paul begins preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.
 
Paul is unworthy,
God makes him worthy,
 he gratefully responds
 fulfilling the mission God provides him,
 preaching to the gentiles,
 
Now Paul is writing to some of those gentiles,
 the Corinthians,
who have also experienced this progression of events
 when Paul came to preach to them,
they were baptized and formed a community
but now they’ve gotten off track,
 
Paul is writing to admonish them for a number of things
 going on in the community
including failure to practice the Lord’s Supper in a way that honors all.
 
And here Paul demonstrates
that our story line is actually a story cycle
 because we humans have a hard time believing
that God has truly made us worthy,
 
we have an incredible life changing experience of God
and we respond gratefully to God’s call
but after a while
 we begin to doubt
because we know ourselves
and all the things that we have done and left undone,
how we’ve failed to love our neighbor as ourselves,
 
life is complicated,
God seems far away,
 and pretty soon it feels like we’re back where we started,
 
 and once again
 God comes to us,
 reminding us that we are worthy,
 there is a place for us in the kingdom of God.
 
Paul has spent his letter to the Corinthians
 detailing all the ways they’ve gone wrong
but here towards the end
Paul brings it back around saying
 
 “Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand.”
 
he’s telling them,
you are worthy,
and look he says I get it,
I get that feeling of doubt
look at me “I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
 
But Paul doesn’t stop there,
 he continues on “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.”
and goes on to detail how God was able to work through him.
 
By the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace toward me has not been in vain.
Repeat it after me,
 
hold on to these words
 
We are not worthy because of our actions,
we are worthy because of the grace of God,
 
God makes us worthy
 in the font at our baptism,
 
and God reminds us we are worthy
over and over again,
in the bread and wine at the table,
with the words of confession and absolution,
 through the body of Christ gathered here.
 
By the grace of God you are worthy.
 
By the grace of God we are worthy.
 
And now God has something in mind for each of us,
whether it is to be a prophet like Isaiah,
 fishers of people like disciples,
 a reminder like Paul
or something else entirely,
 
 and because God has made us worthy,
 when we hear God’s call
 we answer: “Here am I, send me”
 Thanks be to God, Amen.