Holy, Perfect, The People of God: A Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, 2017

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How many of you have ever read the book of Leviticus? Did it make sense? Did it put you to sleep? It’s a difficult text because it’s primarily legal material, and I’m guessing that even the lawyers among us don’t find state or federal statutes easy or enjoyable reading. Leviticus is the third book of the Bible, of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. It’s complicated and confusing and while there are a few bits of narrative, it’s mostly like the material we just heard, a series of laws or instructions. What’s more, much of the material has to do with temple or tabernacle rituals, and priestly behavior. It’s only very occasionally, as in the verses we just heard, that the laws relate to daily life and ordinary people. Continue reading →

You have heard it said of old: A sermon for the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany, 2017

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“You have heard it said of old…  but I say to you…”

Laws, rules, regulations. We don’t like them. They cramp our style, make life more difficult, arouse guilt and shame. For example, how many of us actually drive the speed limit? In fact, how annoyed do we get we when we encounter someone who is driving at or under the speed limit?

Who of us waits for the walk signal before crossing the street? I remember how amazed I was in 1980 in Germany to see university students waiting for the walk sign as they returned to the dorm after a night of drinking. There wasn’t a car on the streets, but still they waited for the walk sign before crossing. Continue reading →

Salt, Light, Hope: A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, 2017

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A little over a year ago, Chaplain Christa Fisher preached at Grace and shared with us some stories about her work at the jail and challenged us to get involved with the Madison Jail Ministry. That challenge has weighed heavily on my heart over these last months. I toured the jail last May and in conversations with Christa since then we’ve been exploring together whether volunteer chaplaincy, one afternoon a month, might be a good fit for me.

On Tuesday, I went with Christa to see what volunteer chaplaincy might involve. We spent three hours in two different pods. She brought with her a bag full of things to hand out—from reading glasses to Bibles. We sat down at a table and waited as guys looked through what we had. As the crowd died down, individuals who wanted or needed to talk would sit down and talk.

Imagine the scene. They’re called pods, for whatever reason; perhaps because the men are packed in like peas in a pod.  Large rooms where the incarcerated men sleep, eat, hang out all day. There are a couple of television sets; several tables with stools attached to them so they can’t be removed. There’s a laundry area; but that’s only accessible if one of the guards unlocks it, and he relocks it as soon as you’ve put your clothes in the washer. There are no windows, no daylight. The only time you might see sunlight is if you are permitted to go to the exercise area (1 hr a week, and it doesn’t really meet the regulations for outdoor exercise).

You’re stuck there—and you probably don’t know how long. It could be a few days, a few weeks. It could be months. We talked to guys who had been there for six or seven months and still had not had a hearing on their case. There’s no privacy, no silence, no way to plan, because you have no idea when you might be moved. In fact, while we were there one of the guys we had talked to briefly earlier, was escorted out. He was going to Huber, for work release.

It’s not just the inhumane setting. It’s the uncertainty. At least if you’re serving a sentence, you have some idea how long you’re in for; but for most of these guys, they had no clue. They’re not supposed to be kept in jail for longer than a year, but from some of the stories I’ve heard, that rule is often broken.

The stories we heard were unsurprising, testimonies to the difficulties of turning one’s life around as well as to the arbitrary nature of the criminal justice system itself. What was surprising to me was to encounter hope in the midst of this demoralizing, dehumanizing place.

But it’s one thing to hope for oneself in such a context; it’s quite another to be an agent for hope for others. One of the men we spoke with, I’ll call him Jim, talked with us about his engagement with the other men in the pod. He prayed with and for them; he offered bible study; he offered encouragement to them. Even as he struggled with his own situation, he was able to support others, to bring hope in hopeless situation.

Today’s gospel reading follows immediately after last week’s—the Beatitudes. The two opening statements: You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world are as familiar as they are puzzling. We wonder what Jesus means by them, what their significance might be for his disciples. Are they commands? Are we somehow supposed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world? If so, what would that look like?

Salt and light. I’ve been mulling over those metaphors all week, trying to think of something new and interesting to say about them, struggling to understand what Jesus might have been getting at. For all of their familiarity, the images, and Jesus’ sayings that make use of them, aren’t particularly clear at all. We can see that lack of clarity in the very way “salt of the earth” has been reinterpreted in our culture. I’ve heard it used a good bit over the years and it always seems by the speaker to mean, something like “he’s a really good guy, down to earth, dependable,” a “mensch” to use another term, a stand-up guy. And it’s pretty much always a guy who is being referenced in that usage.

Are they statements of fact, descriptions of Jesus’ disciples? They are declarative statements. Jesus says “you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.” Not, “you should be.” Our impulse when asking these questions is to focus on what salt and light are. But perhaps to understand these metaphors, what Jesus meant by them, and also, what the gospel writer meant, we have to look at the larger context.

The lectionary makes the same break that most bibles do. In fact, if you look at a NRSV for chapter 5 of Matthew, it’s likely that in addition to a paragraph break between v. 12, which ended the gospel reading last week, and verse 13, which begins this week’s reading, there is some sort of heading “Salt and Light” for example, that suggests a shift in theme. It’s important to remember that there was another shift that took place in last week’s reading. Matthew’s version of the beatitudes has Jesus speaking in the third person: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, and the like. In v. 11, Jesus speaks directly to the disciples, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you.” He continues speaking to the disciples directly as he calls them salt and light. So the disciples, and by extension, all of us, who have been baptized into Jesus Christ, are salt and light.

By their very natures, salt and light do things. They transform the things they touch. Salt preserves, salt makes food flavorful, salt melts ice and snow. Light shines in the darkness, it makes the night livable for us, a time when we can be productive or sociable. So, if we, Jesus’ disciples, are to be salt and light to the world, what might that mean?

The obvious answer is that we are to be transformative in the same way that salt and light are. We are gathered here for all sorts of reasons, to learn, to worship, in search of the sacred or meaning, for healing, or hope, out of duty, necessity, or curiosity. We come to this place, to this table bringing all sorts of questions and burdens, seeking solace and help.

We come, and even as we grasp and yearn for solace and healing, Jesus challenges us to take what we receive here and offer it to others. Jesus challenges us to be salt and light. The reading from Isaiah puts it just right. In a passage that begins with criticism of the people’s tendency to put worship obligations—fasting—in front of ethical obligations, the prophet announces:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;

I think of Jim, stuck in what seems to be a hopeless situation. If he finally gets a hearing after all these months in jail, he might be sent back to prison for several years. He’s in the limbo of our mass incarceration system. He’s living in a demoralizing, dehumanizing place. Yet he greeted us with a big smile, a hearty handshake, and a loud hello. He talked about his life of prayer, the bible study he attends, the work he does in the jail. He talked about how he tries to encourage and mentor the younger men in the pod. Jim is salt and light. Jim is an inspiration to those around him. Jim inspired me. Jim is salt and light.

To be light, and salt, is to reach out to those in need, to share our bread, clothe the naked, provide shelter for the homeless. To hope in what seems to be a hopeless or desperate situation. That is being light and hope. Those are the things we do as followers of Jesus. Whatever else we come hear for, for solace and healing, for hope, we also come to receive strength and inspiration to do those things, to be salt and light to the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We are strangers and foreigners

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I have struggled over the last months to find my voice as a pastor and theologian. So much of my fear, anxiety, and anger at our current situation is connected to my identity as an American citizen that it’s been difficult for me to separate out my commitment to following Jesus Christ and my calling as a minister of the Gospel from my concerns as an American. Last week brought an end to that struggle and provided clarity of vision as I live out my calling as a Christian and an Episcopal priest. I am to follow Jesus and to preach the Gospel.

The immigration and refugee ban is profoundly evil, a repudiation of Christian and Hebrew Scriptures and the very words of Jesus Christ. Throughout scripture, there is a consistent and powerful command to offer hospitality to strangers, to welcome the foreigner, and to treat foreigners and strangers as one would treat one’s own family.

One of the great biblical stories is of Abraham’s welcome of three strangers at Mamre. In the course of that encounter, it becomes clear that those strangers are messengers from God (Genesis 18). Two of them go on to Sodom, where Lot’s nephew welcomes them into his home and protects them from other Sodom residents who wanted to rape them (Genesis 19:1-9). The sin of Sodom was the failure to extend hospitality to strangers (Ezekiel 16:49).

In the law of Moses, there is a consistent and strong insistence that the Israelites treat strangers and aliens as if they were their own:

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

Jesus was himself a refugee. After his birth, his parents fled with him from Bethlehem. Herod had all of the children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem executed in his rage (Matthew 2:13-18).

Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors and our enemies. He broke bread with foreigners and told stories about reviled foreigners who helped Jews (Luke 10:30-37). Jesus commanded his followers to welcome the stranger, telling us that in helping strangers, we are helping Jesus, that in the face of the stranger we encounter Christ:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. (Matthew 25:35-36)

Hospitality toward the stranger and the foreigner is emphasized in different ways throughout the New Testament, most eloquently perhaps by the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, who wrote: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2, in a reference back to the story of Abraham’s encounter with God at Mamre)

That same author went a step further, reaching back to the key value expressed in the Mosaic law that linked Israel’s treatment of foreigners to their own experience of being foreigners in Egypt to assert that we followers of Jesus are strangers and foreigners here, that our allegiance is to God, not to the country in which we live:

They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. (Hebrews 11:13-16)

To think of ourselves as strangers and foreigners requires an act of the imagination that challenges us to imagine ourselves in contexts outside of our control, experience, and comfort zone. But that is the gospel imperative.

The Christian tradition bears witness to the struggles of Christians to live out the words of Jesus and the values of scripture in vastly different and changing contexts but throughout Christian history one can detect an effort to embody those values. In St. Augustine of Hippo’s City of God, for example, the great theologian argues that Christians’ primary and true citizenship is to the city of God that includes people from every nation, the living as well as the dead.

Ironically, the very word “refugee” bears witness to both the cruelty and the magnanimity of Christians. It comes from the French word “refugie” which was first used in reference to French Huguenots, French Protestants, who were expelled from France after King Louis XIV revoked their religious rights. The Huguenots found refuge in many Protestant territories across Europe and in North America.

Refugees fleeing religious persecution or war need our assistance. Whatever their nationality, religious commitment, or ethnicity, they are, like us, human beings created in the image of God, whose lives are in danger. They have the right to food, shelter, and the opportunity to flourish. The faces of refugees are the faces of Jesus Christ. In our encounters with them, we meet Him face to face.

But there is another, deeper issue in the debate over refugees. Our fear of refugees is tied up with nationalism. The United States has a constitution that promises freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Yet most American Christians live a religion quite different from that articulated in the letter to the Hebrews or by Augustine in City of God. Most American Christians live a religion that has more to do with devotion to the United States than following Jesus. We view the United States as the greatest country in the history of the world. Our wars are always just; our democracy above reproach. We can do no wrong and those who criticize the US for its policies, its actions, or the continued injustice and oppression that occurs within its borders or in its names are heretics and traitors.

Such a view of the United States is idolatrous. As Christians whose allegiance is to Jesus Christ, we are called to name the sin of idolatry when we see it and repent of it when we commit it. As citizens of another country, “resident aliens” as Will Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas named us, we Christians know that our values and our lives are shaped by the cross and resurrection, not by political expediency or the idolatry of nationalism.

The future remains uncertain. One thing is clear. As the Christian martyrs of the Roman Empire showed us, we must refuse to worship at the altar of empire. We must show in our words and actions our allegiance to Jesus Christ, embodying in ourselves our love of our enemies, our love and care for those who are rejected and discarded by the nation in which we live, our embrace of the foreigner, the widow and orphan. We must make the love of Christ apparent to everyone we meet, following the example of Jesus Christ, who in his love for the whole world, gave his life. Our faithfulness to Jesus Christ and to his vision for the coming reign of God will fill us with hope, nourish us for the journey ahead, and transform the world and nation in which we live.

In the name of Christ, the stranger.

 

 

Where is Jesus calling us? A Sermon for the third Sunday after the Epiphany, 2017

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Yesterday, we opened our doors during the Women’s March on Madison. It’s something we’ve done before—in 2011 and last year, during the Latino Day of Action. In response to people’s questions yesterday, including a TV reporter, I replied, “It’s what we do; it’s who we are.” Continue reading →

Being disciples, staying with Jesus: A Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, 2017

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We are in the season after the Epiphany. It varies in length depending on when the date of Easter, (and hence Ash Wednesday) falls. This year is relatively lengthy as Easter falls on April 16. The word epiphany comes from the Greek and roughly means manifestation, revealing, or showing. Usually it is connected with an appearance or manifestation, presence if you will, of the divine. In the Christian context, the feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the magi coming to worship the newborn Christ at Bethlehem, although in ancient and Eastern Christianity, the Epiphany also connects with Jesus’ baptism, which is in part why we commemorated his baptism last Sunday, and with other miracles, like the Wedding at Cana, when Jesus turned water into wine, and as the gospel of John says, “revealed his glory.”

This season is a time when we celebrate and reflect all of the ways God is present in the world, in the glory and goodness of creation, but especially in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And although this is the year in the lectionary cycle when we read the Gospel of Matthew, on this Sunday, as in every year on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, we read from the Gospel of John. That makes sense in a way, because the themes of John connect very well with the themes of Epiphany, and nowhere is that more true than in this first chapter—the first 18 verses of which we heard on Christmas Day.

In today’s reading, we get John’s interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, as well as the story of the call of the first disciples. Coincidentally, this past week I was reading two books that I purchased as possible subjects for Lenten study this year. Both of them began with a discussion of this encounter between Jesus, Andrew, and the other disciple as a way of getting at the meaning of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

You may recall the story of Jesus calling the first disciples from the synoptic gospels, especially Mark. Jesus is walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee. He sees Peter and Andrew, James and John repairing the nets on their fathers’ fishing boats. Jesus says to them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” The four get up, leave the nets, the boats, and their fathers behind, and follow Jesus.

There’s a completely different dynamic here in John’s gospel. In the first place, Andrew and the other disciple (We never learn his name, by the way) are already disciples, but of John the Baptist. John and his followers come across Jesus in their wanderings, and John points Jesus out to them, saying, “Look, there’s the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world!” The next day, the same thing happens, and two of his disciples, follow Jesus. Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” And they respond oddly, by asking “Where are you staying?” To that question, Jesus answers, “Come and see.”

“Where are you staying?” What kind of question is that? What might the disciples learn about Jesus by staying with him for the day? To understand what’s going on we need to put this question, and the event itself, in the context of John’s gospel. Staying… to use the traditional language of the Authorized Version, to abide… is one of those themes that is repeated throughout the gospel. In fact, we heard the theme sounded already in John’s testimony about Jesus. When he reports that he saw the Holy Spirit come down like a dove, he says that “it remained on him.” In today’s gospel the words is used at least four times in quick succession. Much later in the gospel, in the lengthy farewell discourse that John puts in Jesus’ mouth at the Last Supper, he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

These two questions, “What are you looking for?” and “Where are you staying?” get at the heart of what the Gospel of John understands by discipleship and the nature of faith. More than that, these two questions, and the understanding of discipleship they open up, invite us to a new understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in our present day.

Discipleship is a word we use a great deal in the church but is easily misunderstood or distorted. Indeed, to the extent that it is a grounding metaphor for the Christian life, it can be as misleading as it is helpful. For one thing, we often think that faith, our Christian life, is primarily concerned with knowing a certain set of ideas, or holding a certain set of beliefs. But note that Jesus did not ask Andrew and the other disciple, “What do you know or want to know?”, or “What do you believe? He asked them, “What are you looking for?” Or perhaps, “What do you want?”

Posed in those terms, Jesus’ question gets at the very core of our being, our deepest desires and hopes, who we are and what we want to be. It’s a question of identity

And the question Andrew poses to Jesus in response, while seemingly unrelated to Jesus’ question, is very much of the same nature. “Where are you staying?”

Andrew’s question is an expression not of a desire to receive a set of instructions, or learn a set of doctrines. Andrew wants to be with Jesus. He wants to stay with Jesus so that he can experience the relationship that Jesus offers him. By abiding with Jesus, by staying with Jesus, Andrew will begin to experience the abundant life that Jesus talks about throughout the gospel.

Thus for John, discipleship is about relationship, not right doctrine or the transmission of a body of knowledge. Discipleship is about being in community with Jesus, and with others who seek to follow Jesus. And there can be nothing more important than that, being in community in these uncertain and frightening times.

We have been experiencing a great number of shocks to our worldview over the last months. Many of us are confronting the fact that we are living in a very different nation than the one we thought we were living in. Institutions that used to function and create stability seem to be out of whack—like the news media. Old alliances are collapsing and being reshaped. We are afraid of what might happen to our healthcare and our planet. Many of us wonder whether we will lose basic rights that we hold dear or for which we or our parents or grandparents struggled mightily. Christianity itself seems to be on the brink of collapse in the US, and with so many conservative Christian leaders preaching a message of hate, we may not even want to be called Christian anymore.

In all of this disruption and disorientation, negotiating a path forward is perilous. We’re not quite sure what to do, how to act, how to be in the world. Here’s where this gospel reading offers a model. Relationship—abiding with Jesus. In the first place, we are called to open our hearts and our lives to deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, and through that relationship begin to experience and to live in the presence of God’s love for us. To open our hearts to Christ’s love is to begin to know the love of the God who became one of us and loved us and the world so much that he gave his life for the world.

And as we open ourselves to Christ’s love, experience Christ’s love, abide in Christ’s love, we also will begin to open ourselves to those around us, to others who experience that love of Christ and abide in that love.

All of this is quite abstract and you may think it has little to do with our daily lives. But I wonder. In the midst of all that we have to do, do we take time to be with Jesus? Do we take time to be fully present to our loved ones? Do we really know our fellow members of the Body of Christ in this place? What might it be like for us to nurture deeper relationships with each other and with Jesus Christ in the coming months? What might it be like for us to take the time to get to know one another better, to listen to each others’ stories, to their hopes and fears? By nurturing those relationships, with Christ and with each other, not only would we be strengthened for the journey but the world around would catch a glimpse of the possibilities of new life in Christ’s love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beloved children of God: A Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord, 2017

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There’s a story behind my name—a story tied up with my family and roots, and it’s a story and a name with which I’ve always struggled. It’s not just that my surname is both awkward and uncommon—should it be pronounced Greezer or Greizer—or, heaven forbid, Greaser. BTW, I had a German prof in college who took great delight in addressing me as Herr Greaser…

It’s a German name, so it’s Grieser, of course. And while it may be rare in Wisconsin or worldwide, my hometown was full of Griesers. My grandfather, great-grandfather, and great great grandfather all had lots of sons who had lots of sons, and most of them stayed in the area. At least back home, they know how to pronounce it.

But there’s also the matter of my first and middle names. My parents wanted to call me Jon, but they wanted my initials to match the initials of my deceased grandfather—so DJ—but in my case the D stood for Dale—my father’s first name. So growing up, I was Jon, even though at least two other Jon Griesers in my elementary school, which led to infinite confusion. For example, I once wore a pair of prescription glasses for a week that was meant for one of the other Jons.

That particular confusion came to an end when my fifth-grade teacher, calling the roll on the first day of class, saw my first initial and promptly named me DJ. The name stuck and by DJ I was known until I graduated from college. That brought its own set of confusions and challenges—the inevitable question—are you a DJ?

So I’ve struggled with my first name and when I’m dealing with doctors or business or what have you, if I identify myself as Jonathan, they won’t be able to find my record. And then there’s the whole issue of my surname which is uncommon, unattractive, and confusing to pronounce.

Names are funny things, and we’ve just learned this week that our nation’s political polarization extends to preferences for naming babies. Apparently there are different lists of the most popular name in blue states and red states. Perhaps like me you’ve struggled with the name your parents chose for you, or you struggle with the surname that you carry with you.

The story of Jesus’ baptism is puzzling and problematic on several levels. In the first place, while the synoptic gospels all tell some version of the story, there are significant differences. Remember that the gospel of Mark was probably the first of the gospels to be written, and that Matthew, which we are reading in this year of the lectionary, draws heavily on Mark as a source. But Matthew changes Mark in some important ways. Only in Matthew, for example, do we have the dialogue between John the Baptist and Jesus, in which John protests saying that Jesus should baptize him.

More significant is another slight change. In Mark, after the baptism, the voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” In Matthew, the voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In other words, in Mark, the voice seems to be speaking directly to Jesus, naming him as God’s Son; in Matthew, the voice speaks to John, and or to the crowd, identifying for them who Jesus is.

In these different accounts of Jesus’ baptism, we can see early Christians struggling to make sense of this event. It’s a problem for them for a couple of reasons. First, of course, is the obvious one. The gospels tell us that John baptized people for forgiveness of sins—baptism was a symbol of repentance and amendment of life. But if that was the case, why would Jesus, who presumably being divine was without sin, need to be baptized?

The second problem is perhaps less obvious but equally troubling among the first followers of Jesus. That he was baptized by Jesus implies that John somehow had as much, or more, authority than Jesus. We know from other stories in the gospels, and from the book of Acts, that there was something of a competition between followers of Jesus and followers of John, and it didn’t strengthen the position of early Christians in this controversy that John baptized Jesus. We can also see that as time goes on, there’s an attempt to erase the act of Jesus’ baptism. Thus, in the gospel of John, while we read about John the Baptist and learn of encounters and conversations between Jesus and John, if you look carefully, you will note that no where is it stated explicitly that John baptized Jesus.

All of that is of historical interest, but the story of Jesus’ baptism is not important only for the problems it presents to the gospel writers and perhaps to us; it is also important for the meaning the gospel writers attach to it. Although the voice from heaven says slightly different things in Matthew and Mark and may seem to be addressing different audiences, the message in both instances is quite clear, that Jesus is God’s Beloved Son.

To state the obvious, Jesus’ baptism is about his identity, making clear who he is. It’s not coincidental that in both Matthew and Mark, the very next event recounted is Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, which was about Satan testing Jesus’ identity.

This is where Jesus’ baptism connects with our own baptisms. In our baptisms, we become children of God. As I remind you regularly, when I make the sign of the cross with the oil of chrism on the forehead of the baptized, I say, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

In baptism, we become sons and daughters of God. In baptism, we claim our identity as Christians. That identity, that belonging to God, cannot be taken away by anyone or anything. I’m not even sure we are able to renounce that identity, even if we want to. Our identity as Christians, as beloved of God, is a reminder of who we are, a reminder of our value and worth, in the eyes of God and of the world.

It’s a message we need to hear regularly, in a world in which there are so many other claims on our identity, challenges to our identity. We need to be reminded that we are God’s, that we are beloved of God, especially now, when there are many who would deny the value and worth of so many of us—that because we are not white, or male, or heterosexual, that because we were not born in this country, our lives matter less, our hopes and dreams are worthless. We are all beloved of God.

But don’t take it only from me. Right now, I would like you to turn to your neighbor, introduce yourself if you don’t know each other’s names, take your thumb and make the sign of the cross on each other’s foreheads, and as you make that sign, say, “You are God’s beloved child.”

That, my friends, is the meaning of baptism. Let us claim it, and let us claim our shared identities as God’s beloved children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#Worstyearever: A Sermon for Holy Name, January 1, 2017

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Today is an odd day in our liturgical calendar. It is New Year’s Day, and most Americans are slowly waking up, arousing themselves from a late night welcoming in the New Year. They might be settling in to watch the Rose Parade, or making final preparations for the final games of the NFL regular season that is about to get underway, rooting for their team to make it into the playoffs.

In our liturgical calendar, January 1 is known as the Most Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, or the commemoration of the circumcision. Although we don’t usually have a Eucharist on this day, it is traditionally an important feast, commemorating the gospel story we just read, Jesus’ circumcision on the 8th day after his birth. In spite of that, and in spite of the fact that today is the 8th day of Christmas, our minds are not really focused on the continuing celebration of Christ’s birth, we’re thinking about a lot of other things and to recall this story from Christ’s infancy seems little more than a distraction.

 

Today ushers in a new year and many of us are glad to see the end of 2016. In fact, there’s a hashtag on twitter #worstyearever that has chronicled the various calamities and tragedies we experienced in 2016. We’ve seen the passing of a number of cultural icons—in popular music: Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, George Michael. Just this last week, the deaths of both Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. The terrorist attacks of 2016 which were so shocking as they occurred but have been forgotten as new attacks and new horrors grab our attention. And we forget that for all of the suffering and shock of attacks like Brussels and Orlando, Kabul, Bagdad, Mogadishu, even Istanbul have suffered such attacks on a regular basis.

For those of us who are struggling to make sense of political events here in the USA or in Great Britain, worry about the future of the planet, our nation, and civic community, 2016 was more than a shock—it has upended our sense of who we are as a nation and a people. The old story of progress, that we are moving toward greater inclusion, diversity, openness and tolerance, has given way to a new story. We may be only in the first chapter of that story and we’re not sure how it will turn out. Importantly, we’re also not sure where we fit into this new story. Some of us, many perhaps, wonder whether this new story is one in which we will have a part to play, whether this new story will write us out of the narrative.

While we are happy to say good riddance to 2016 and to the hashtag #Worstyearever, we are full of apprehension about the future.

It may be helpful for us to think again about the importance of our Christian faith in this context, to think again about the God in whom we profess our faith and whom we believe we see most clearly in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. All this may give us direction as we negotiate the uncertainties of the coming years.

It’s natural to be fearful, to lose hope in the present context—whether we are thinking of our individual situations, or the world as a whole. It’s easy to imagine a bleak future, that our lives will not get better, and that the lives of our children or grandchildren will not see the economic prosperity, peace, or security that we have experienced. Indeed, we see signs of such change all around us.

But it’s important to remember that as Christians, we put our hope and faith, not in our own futures, the futures of our descendants, or even our nation. We put our hope and faith in God, a God who rules history in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

As Christians, we put our faith and hope in a God who intervened in history by becoming incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, a God who entered history in weakness and vulnerability, a God who by entering history, changed history.

We have experienced the power of that change in our own lives, in our baptisms, and in the ongoing transformation of our natures in the newness of life brought about by relationship with Jesus Christ. We know that newness of life but we also know the fragility and tentativeness of that change.

We experience in our own bodies and in our own lives the tension between what St. Paul calls the “already” and the “not yet.” We know salvation, but we also know sin. We experience redemption and forgiveness, we struggle with our ongoing sin and brokenness.

As it is in our own lives, so too with the world, with history itself. Jesus was born into a world of suffering, evil, and oppression. He suffered the full brutality of that evil and oppression in his crucifixion. But the life he lived, the death he suffered, were vindicated by his resurrection on the third day, and in that act, we experience the fullness of God’s power over death, the grave, and evil.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are key to helping us as we journey through these uncertain and possibly dangerous times. To bear Christ’s name in these days, as we all do by virtue of our baptisms, to bear his name in these days, is to claim allegiance to the one who died for us, died for the world, died because he loved the world. To bear his name is to share in his suffering but also to share in his love. To bear his name is to bear witness to the God who loves the world. To bear his name is to bear witness to the God of history, the God who rules over history. To bear his name is to deny the power of evil and oppression, to challenge it wherever it appears.

To bear his name, to bear the name of Christ, is to put our faith in him and in his love.

We may very well be in a moment of great world-historical significance. We may be in a moment where the church, Christians, are being called to witness and to faithfulness in ways and to an extent few of us have ever witnessed. If that is the case, and it may be that we won’t know it for some time to come, we will need to draw on all of our resources of faith and prayer, and the deep bonds that tie us together as the body of Christ.

We don’t know. We don’t know what the new year holds. Our world, our lives are full of uncertainty. But there are things we do know, things of which we can be certain, on which we can rely. We know that God is here with us, in Jesus Christ, in Word and Sacrament, in the fellowship as we gather. We know that God is the God of history, that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, God is at work in the world, creating, making things new, bringing justice and peace. We can be certain that in the end, God will reign.

Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Word became flesh and tented among us: A Sermon for Christmas Day, 2016

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“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”

We live in difficult times. The world is a dangerous, scary place. The future looks bleak. Not only are the problems we face apparently beyond our will and capacity to solve. It’s not just the ongoing wars, a challenging economy; Climate change seems to be occurring at a frightening pace—with reports this week about warm temperatures in the Arctic causing unprecedented ice melting.

It’s not just the immensity of the problems, in recent years truth and reason themselves have come under attack. First it was Stephen Colbert and “truthiness.” Now, we are victims of “fake truth” the manipulation of the media, and a widespread and vicious attack on science.

Some of this latter can be blamed on a certain understanding and worldview within Christianity. It’s been a practice among some Christians for centuries to draw a sharp contrast between faith and reason—to argue that one must believe in spite of evidence to the contrary; that faith in God goes against reason. In recent decades, that view has led to some Christians making contortions in their efforts to explain away the theory of evolution, the fossil record, the big bang, arguing that scientific evidence like fossils were given by God to test our faith, or worse, planted by Satan to deceive us.

In a way all of this has led us to this point; where we’re not quite sure of anything; that every position no matter how supported by scientific evidence, is only a matter of opinion.

These majestic, transcendent verses from the very beginning of the Gospel of John reflect and present us with a very different perspective. John is writing from within a particular worldview that permeated the Hellenistic culture of his time. In the beginning was the Word, in fact, in the beginning was the Logos—more than word, it could be translated as reason. You could understand it as the underlying order of the universe, natural law, if you will.

John is asserting not just that God created the universe, but that this created universe is imbued with divine order and reason; that it makes sense, and also, that by exploring the universe, we can come to know something about the nature of God.

Of course, to translate logos as “word” is to make another important theological point—that at the very beginning of things, the second person of the Trinity was present, involved in creating the universe. Indeed, in Genesis 1, God creates by speaking the universe into existence—God said, “Let there be light.”

This is all well and good, but the reality is that the world we experience only dimly reflects the divine order and creative power that brought it into being and maintains it. Our fallen natures have clouded our reason, and creation itself bears signs of our disobedience of God.

We experience our own sin and fallen-ness, we know our broken-ness and the broken-ness of the world, and we struggle to know and to love God and ourselves. Given that, we’re tempted to experience or understand God as utterly beyond us, beyond our comprehension or understanding, remote, uncaring, unmoved or unmoving.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. This is the heart of this passage, the heart of the gospel, it may very well be the heart of Christianity. The God who is utterly beyond us, incomprehensible, infinite, has become one of us, has dwelt among us. The God who created the world and us, has come to us in human form, becoming human, sharing our lives and our existence.

But more than that, the word we translate as “dwelt” could be translated as tabernacled or tented—it’s a reference back to the experience of the Hebrews in the wilderness when they created a tabernacle to be a symbol of God’s presence among them as they wandered through the desert.

That’s one way we should think about it, that in the Word becoming flesh God tented among us, taking on a frail, temporary body like ours, but also that God journeyed with us, that God journeys with us, that God is with us as we wander through our lives.

It’s a remarkable journey that we make through our lives, it’s a remarkable journey of struggle, change, and love. There’s a remarkable journey in this text, from before time and the universe existed, to the Word becoming flesh and tenting among us.

To ponder that mystery, not just what the words say, but the mystery of the nature of God to which it bears witness—a God beyond our comprehension and imagination, but a God who so cares for us and loves us, that the very Word of God comes to us, becomes one of us, dies for us.

To contemplate that God, the God we see dimly in the beauty of creation; the God we see clearly in the incarnation; the God we see in the words and life of Jesus Christ; the God whose self-giving love embraces the whole world in his outstretched arms.

To contemplate that God, to contemplate that love, and to begin to express and share that love; that is what and who we are called to be by Christmas. Thanks be to God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What wondrous love! A Sermon for Christmas Eve, 2016

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“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus.”

They would claim that he was divine, a son of God, Savior. His reign ushered in a new age, a new beginning, world peace. Heralds of his rule would travel throughout the known world, proclaiming the good news of the peace and justice that he would bring about.

Caesar Augustus, Emperor.

There is another side to the story. Thirst for power, brutal repression; execution and assassination of his competitors and opponents. Underneath the glittering facades of temples, fora, and other public buildings that he constructed throughout his empire, was brutal tyranny.

It was now, during the reign of this emperor, that the events recorded in Luke’s gospel occurred. It was during the reign of Caesar Augustus, who symbolizes both the glory and the evil of Rome, another story, a different reign, begins to unfold.

It’s as if Luke wants to present us with the two options as clearly and distinctly as possible—on the one hand, all of the Glory that was Rome, Caesar Augustus in all his splendor and power; on the other hand, Bethlehem, the manger, Jesus Christ, in all his poverty and weakness.

It should be easy for us. Rome is reduced to rubble and ruins while Christianity lives on. But let’s be honest. In fact, it’s not that simple. For fifteen hundred years, Christianity has been intertwined with empire and power. For over 200 years, Christianity has been enmeshed with the American Empire. And maybe, that’s the way we want it.

We want the show, the power. We want the bread and circus, the Hollywood entertainment. We want something, anything to numb us from the brutal reality in which we live.

We see a bit of that brutal reality in this story. A ruler’s whim, to count all of those he ruled, so that he could tax them more efficiently, control them easier, meant that in distant lands, people were forced to move from place to place in obedience to his power and might.

We are all too familiar with such movements by people, forced by events outside of their control. The sheer immensity of the refugee crisis throughout the world as people flee their homes because of bloodshed, and terror, and climate change. Human catastrophe on a scale not seen in generations. Just this week ending a 4-year horrific spectacle as the world looked on, forces backing President Assad of Syria seem to have reconquered Aleppo. The rubble, carnage, and human suffering went unabated while we watched, the international community’s efforts to end it ineffective, half-hearted.

Syria. The word evokes for us the immensity and intractability of the problems we face as a world. Suffering humanity, horrifically efficient technologies of war, unspeakable human evil, helplessness, futile diplomacy. Syria—a word, a region that links current events with the events of 2000 years ago.

The suffering has continued for so long. The endless war that began in 2001 shows no sign of coming to an end; the divisions, hatred, and distrust in the region show know sign of ending. We have grown so accustomed to it that we hardly notice, or care anymore. And we can’t imagine a world at peace.

With such enormous, intractable problems, we grasp for solutions and saviors: More and better weapons, more resolute use of power, political strong men, easy answers. If only someone with the political genius and ruthlessness of Caesar Augustus could save us.

Such desires, such hopes are not only on a geopolitical scale. They are also on a personal, intimate scale. Our private concerns and worries, our fears about our own lives, our families, our futures—we pin our hopes on miraculous, magical deliverance; a superhero who will make all things right, fix our problems.

We even treat religion like that. We believe in a God who will intervene and make things right, delivering a miracle when we need it most, or perhaps coming soon, at the end of time, to rescue us and make everything right.

We want easy answers, miracles, fireworks, and spectacles.

Instead of that, we hear this simple, familiar story from Luke, the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger, in a tiny town, on the edges of empire.

Christmas tells a very different story. God came to us, not as a superhero, not as easy answers. God came to us as one of us, in all of our frailness and messiness. God came to us, God came to the world, in the embarrassment of a stable, in the weakness of a newborn baby.

But you know, I don’t think we get that. I don’t think we understand or take to heart what it all really means. Oh, sure, we say the words, we sing the carols, we come to Christmas Eve services, light our candles, say Merry Christmas, but I’m not sure we grasp what it’s all about. Quite frankly, I’m not sure we’re able to grasp what it’s all about.

God came to us became one of us, as a tiny, weak, powerless baby, utterly dependent on others for survival. It was a life that began in poverty, humility, and obscurity. It was a life that ended with an ignominious an excruciatingly painful execution. To all appearances, it was a life lived in futility, without meaning.

Think about lives like that in our day—refugees fleeing the violence of Syria; mothers here in Madison worried whether there will be food to put on the table tomorrow, let alone whether there will be gifts to share with their children; the men sleeping in the homeless shelter across our courtyard this evening. Lives today lived in pain and suffering, loneliness and despair.

This is our world; the world we have made and inhabit, a world in which the glory of God is overshadowed by the lights of commercialism, and the beauty of God’s creation is destroyed by our hubris and greed. This is our world, in which we belittle, despise, destroy other human beings, created like us in the image of God, bearing like us the image of God.

This is our world. The amazing thing is that God loves it still. This is what we have made of our humanity, what we have done with the image of God in us. The amazing thing is that nonetheless, God became one of us.

In this story from Luke, we are presented with alternatives. Here, at Christmas, we see the power and hope of God’s love expressed in a baby, showing in weakness, vulnerability …

When the angels came to the shepherds, they were not coming to the powerful, the connected, the wealthy. When the angels came to the shepherds, they were coming to the marginalized, outsiders.

Jesus was born, God became flesh and dwelt among us, not among the powerful, the wealthy, the connected, but to poor, oppressed peasants in a backwater of empire.

If we only allow ourselves, we can see in this story, in the babe in a manger, the wondrous love of God. What wondrous love it is, that God took our human form, that God emptied Godself, as Paul writes in Philippians, to show us what humanity could be, what we might be.

What wondrous love it is, that angels appeared to shepherds, the Jesus Christ was born among the poor and oppressed.

What wondrous love it is that the Word became flesh and lived among us, to show us the power and possibility of love.

The manger, birth of Christ is a challenge to us. It is a challenge to us to hope and to love in spite of everything. It is a challenge to us to love our neighbor and our enemy. It is a challenge to us to love outsiders and outcasts, the homeless and the hungry, refugees, the marginalized.

The manger, the birth of Christ, is a challenge to us to see the world through new eyes, to see the world with hearts filled with hope and love bursting to share with others.

The manger, the birth of Christ is a challenge to us. It is a challenge to us to receive the love of God in Christ, to be remade fully in God’s image. It is a challenge to us to love like Christ loved, to go to the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the outcast ,to offer them food and shelter, to share with them the love of Christ.

What wondrous love—seen in the birth of Christ, seen in his giving himself on the cross. What wondrous love we’ve received. What wondrous love is ours to share. w

 

 

 

 

 

 

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