Serving our Communities with Delight (3/5)

B Pentecost12 2015

August 16, 2015

Mark 10:35-45

BLC Value #3

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We are on the third Sunday in a series on Bethlehem’s Core Values – Today’s value is “Serving Our Communities with Delight.”  Since our value is to serve with delight, I’d like to give you the opportunity to have a little fun with a game during this sermon.  So if you think it would help you stay focused upon the message of service, grab that BINGO card out of your bulletin and play along.  No need to yell out “BINGO.”  I’ll take all your cards at the end – and everyone who plays will be a winner.  We can all thank Camp Calumet for the inspiration for fun and games, and family BINGO.

When we read today’s gospel, we hear something that has become very familiar because of its use in our everyday language “the first shall be last, the last shall be first”… and if we let it blow past us: well, that is clearly a part of the biblical message.  But what Jesus actually says today is about leadership – and all the relationships we have with one another.  The story is a set-up for us… James and John are more caught up in their ego, in getting top status, than in being good listeners.  At least for this moment, they are more interested in Jesus for his charisma and glory than in being molded and shaped into the kind of people, and leaders, Jesus wants them to be.  Meanwhile, Jesus is in training mode.  He’s got a limited time with these guys to give them everything he’s got about what it means to lead the church that is about to be born.  Jesus knows that their training is the raw material he has to work with when he comes back as the advocate, the Holy Spirit, to empower them to build the church.  And he’s not going to waste it.  So when James and John ask their wildly inappropriate question, but a question that any of the disciples wanted to know the answer to… Jesus brings them right back to their training. 

“whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve...”

There are a few articles floating around the business literature – Harvard Business School, Forbes, etc. all about what Jesus is talking about today.  Jesus’ definition of leadership.  They don’t state that Jesus is the originator, in fact, sometimes they may not know.  But we do. 

Here’s how the article in the Harvard Business Review says it… A quote in an article titled “Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Feirce Resolve” about Jim Collins research on good to great companies:

Collins argues that the key ingredient that allows a company to become great is having a Level 5 leader: an executive in whom genuine personal humility blends with intense professional will. To learn that such CEOs exist still comes as a pleasant shock. But while the idea may sound counterintuitive today, it was downright heretical when Collins first wrote about it [in 2001]—the corporate scandals in the United States hadn’t broken out, and almost everyone believed that CEOs should be charismatic, larger-than-life figures. Collins was the first to blow that belief out of the water.

Well, we knew that.  That is, we know that now.  After the last 15 years of financial meltdown, we might be looking for something different in our CEO’s.  We might be looking for a little more Jesus. 

The article written Feb 2005 goes on to say that HOW to become a humble and clear leader is still the next challenge to identify.  A quick google search will lead you to that…

Or you could just follow Jesus.

Because Jesus is clear, he is clear that his purpose is to serve with his whole life, to empty himself for others, to pray with them, to listen to them, to teach them, to show them God’s love breaking in with healings and reconciled relationships.  Jesus has “intense professional will” and humility wrapped up.  And as his followers who imitate him, we get to practice it too. Like when you serve your kids by showing kindness in the midst of their limit-testing, or when you serve your coworkers with whole-hearted teamwork and uplifting words.  You serve your friends when you remember them in prayer.  We serve when we stand up to the bully in peace.  In all areas of life, we serve with love... we put God’s will for the world before our own. 

And we do put God’s will of servant leadership into action here at Bethlehem!  In fact, let me tell you that there are two big questions that most every new person I encounter asks about our congregation: 1) what do you have for kids? And 2) how do you serve the community?

And I love these conversations because, Church, you have a big heart for service. You love to show God’s love. 

We serve God and each other when we show up for worship and faith formation and Bible Study – it is there that we are community for each other with mutual support – you never know who might need you in worship or at a study this week.  We serve God and each other in this congregational community with various roles in worship, leadership on Council and in committees (and I’m not just talking about the committee chairs, anyone who serves on a ministry team leads this congregation as a servant). 

And we serve the community – in such an array of beautiful ways!  We are focused to feed, shelter and clothe our neighbors.  We run our clothing store, Bethlehem’s Closet, we reach out with those clothes to Concordia Lutheran in Worcester and other places in our community. 

We feed people through donations to Food Share out on that table and with special offerings to them at our ecumenical worship services and we are about to begin stocking their shelves with produce from our very own garden!  We help keep our neighbors sheltered in our partnership with St. Vincent de Paul in Southbridge and Sturbridge.  And did you know that this congregation once participated in a local shelter called Grace House?  It doesn’t exist anymore, but the need for a leg up into self-sufficiency is still great, and so what was once Grace House is about to become a household management coaching program where you can volunteer to give a hand up, not a hand out, through teaching budgeting, grocery shopping, anything that will give a chance at dignity to our brothers and sisters who are vulnerable to losing their housing.  It’s going to be awesome.  Let me know if you want to jump on board. 

You, church, you do this well: let God use your hands and feet.  We… Serve Our Communities with Delight.  Both this congregational community, and we look outward to our neighbors, especially the most vulnerable.  And with great joy!    Maybe most of us aren't going to be CEOs of the companies, but we are leaders in our community when we serve. We can make big changes happen with our humility and focus on the will of God. Listening and acting upon God’s Illuminating Word, to participate in what God is already doing to change the world into a whole bunch of beautiful servants.

Well, now, to wrap this up… Who has a completed BINGO card?  Please pass them up…
[Have all participants give cards to me (Have one set done, just in case) - Spell out God’s Love.]

Amen!

Seeing All People and Perspectives (2/5)

B Pentecost11 2015

August 9, 2015

Mark 8:14-25

BLC Value #2

Elevate the Gospel for the Alleluia and Response

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

¹⁴Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.¹⁵And he cautioned them, saying, "Watch out — beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod."¹⁶They said to one another, "It is because we have no bread."¹⁷And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?¹⁸Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember?¹⁹When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" They said to him, "Twelve."²⁰And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect? And they said to him, "Seven."²¹Then he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"
²²They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him.²³He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Can you see anything?"²⁴And the man looked up and said, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking."²⁵Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.    

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is really peppering them with questions:

·        “Why are you talking about having no bread?

·        Do you still not perceive or understand?

·        Are your hearts hardened?

·        ¹⁸Do you have eyes, and fail to see?

·        Do you have ears, and fail to hear?

·        And do you not remember?

·        ¹⁹When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?...

·        Do you not yet understand?"

Well, no, not really, Jesus.  While the disciples stare blankly off into space, grasping at the concrete questions Jesus asks – “Oh, I can answer that one!  There were 12 baskets leftover, then 7!”  “But Jesus…” I want to say with them, “Am I supposed to know some fancy numerology for that?  Is there a code to crack here that I haven’t picked up on?  And what does that have to do with yeast and Pharisees?” 

Do you not yet understand?  No, not really. 

We’ve been reading through Mark this year, maybe we are starting to see some patterns.  This question gets asked frequently, “Don’t you get it?”  Even when Jesus tells them flat-out exactly what is going to happen, the disciples have a hard time integrating the information.  This section of Mark from chapter 8-10 is especially this way.  Over and over again, Jesus does a “deed of power” as Mark calls them, revealing again and again God’s kingdom of wholeness – where deaf and hear and blind can see – and over and over again, the disciples, those who are most consistently with Jesus and receive special instruction and empowerment, over and over again they forget Jesus has the power to feed, they seek to be on Jesus’ right and left in glory.  I feel sorry for the guys, I mean, Jesus is asking them to completely change everything they have been taught about what the Messiah will do and how power works… they just don’t get it.

And well, neither do I.  It makes so much more sense that the first will always be first and the last will always be last… that’s sure what it looks like from our news headlines.  Ok, so one guy says that by being rejected, he will change everything, but the times I’ve been rejected, it has not been immediately apparent how God plans to use rejection for redemption.

Except… well, I know the end of the story.  And so do you.  We have seen redemption come out of rejection, haven’t we? 

In fact, two people I was speaking with this week have experienced redemption out of rejection this summer.  Both Thad and Tina gave me permission to mention this.  Their redemption is coming in different ways out of the rejection of losing a job.  Redemption that brings back into focus the important things in life, that brings clarity to our values and re-connection to our relationships.  When have you have seen new life bursting out of a suffocating death-experience like losing a job?  The death of one thing is necessary before new life can appear.

We know this.  We know the end of the story.  We know that God overcomes the grave.  We know how it works.  And yet, it can be hard to see. 

It can be hard to see.

The disciples, who don’t have our advantage of knowing the end of the story, are struggling with their ability to see.  This blindness is what he is warning them about when he speaks of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod.” They have chosen blindness, rather than see God’s way being demonstrated over and over again in the deeds of power Jesus shares.  And so Jesus teaches them, yet again, this time with the visual of the blind man from Bethsaida.  This is a unique healing story.  Other times Jesus heals with his saliva, in other gospels this story is cleaned up into an instantaneous healing.  But the gospel-teller Mark does this on purpose.  This is the only time that Jesus heals in two phases – he checks back in, asks if the man can see yet…sort of like he’s been doing with the blind disciples, mind you with what appears to be a tone of exasperation, “Do you understand YET?”   In these three chapters of the gospel Jesus will directly tell them three times that he will go to Jerusalem and be killed by temple authorities.  Though he draws them a clear picture, they cannot set it.  There sight is clouded by their preconceived ideas…

Call it blindness –by accident and sometimes by choice – but it can be so hard to see how God sees. But you, Bethlehem, have named it.  Our second core value as a congregation is “Seeing All People and Perspectives.”  The other three are: The illuminating Word of God, Serving our communities with delight and Opening the eyes of Faith at every age. By the Word we See  and Serve in Faith.  We take seriously seeing as God sees.  

I used my eyes this past Thursday for some very exciting video watching!  I don’t know about you, but I was anticipating all week the live-action conversation that I could stream on my iPad.  No, it wasn’t the Fox News GOP debate, or the last episode of the Daily Show with Jon Steward – though they are no doubt much excitement on their own.  But the streaming I was checking into on Thursday evening was a conversation hosted by our national Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton, who is the head church leader in our church – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  In a webcast entitled “Confronting Racism” Bishop Eaton and the President of the ELCA church council, William B. Horne II, had a conversation about race.  How as a white woman and a black man, they have very different experiences of the world, the Bishop said they are leading “parallel lives.”   This image of parallel lives can be helpful for us as we think about how sometimes it is hard to see the people and their perspectives when they are so different from our own. 

In describing these “parallel lives,” Bishop Eaton talked about how her colleagues in ministry who are people of color experience things that she, as a white woman has not.  She talked about how painful it was to hear the stories of her friends and colleagues people who “want to make a difference in Jesus name,” who are followed or profiled in their interactions in stores or with law enforcement.  Mr. Horne, a city manager, shared his experience of the economic and emotional impact of race (riots?) of growing up in segregated Tulsa, OK.  And specifically talked about how his father taught him how to act anytime he might have contact with the police.  Both Bishop Eaton and Mr. Horne shared much more of their own stories than I can share now; we will watch the video in full as a part of an adult education hour this fall. 

We lead parallel lives, we see people like walking trees; we who are privileged with whiteness cannot see clearly the lives and experiences of people of color.  People like me, who do not experience racial prejudice, usually can’t see it. So our fuzzy vision, or even blindness, allows us to believe that it doesn’t exist.  At the least, we can forget about the racial discrimination others experience on a daily basis because, we don’t walk into a store and get followed and questioned about our purpose there.  We don’t have to adjust our name on our resume so that it will get read and considered.  So if we’ve had these positive experiences of how we think the world should be it is hard to remember that it may not be that way for everyone.  We live our lives, blind to the hardship of people of color. 

When you identified this core value, church, in the cottage meetings, the CAT assessment and in other conversations, the goal of this core value was that we can be a welcoming place to a wide swath of people and that we can hold safety for people with diverse life perspectives. This is a beautiful and a challenging value. Seeing all people and perspectives is a powerful way for us to shine beyond the trees.  Racism in our culture is just one issue that matters to God and to us.  When visitors experience the warmth of this place, they are often swept up into the community by it – and so excited that they have found this place to be church.  The challenge is to take that welcome to a deeper level.  To enter into deeper and deeper faith together through conversation and commitment to learning God’s Word.  The gift is in being able to live with one another in faith and to continue to love each other and to hold one another accountable to Christ, regardless of our disagreements.  This is what will continue to weave us into a community that stays together and grows together. 

Like the disciples, we won’t always understand what Jesus is trying to tell us.  There are plenty of times that we will be like the blind man, seeing just trees walking.    But we trust that God will do what God promises, restore our sight to God’s will – God’s kingdom vision that Sees All people and perspectives in love.  Please pray with me...  

Jesus, open our eyes, open our ears, break open our hearts that we might see as you see.  That we might love as you love.  That we might see and hear one another with all our varying perspectives, unified in the one thing that holds us together – that we are all redeemed in you. Amen.

The Illuminating Word of God (1/5)

B Pentecost10 2015

August 2, 2015

Mark 7:1-23

BLC Value #1

Elevate the Gospel for the Alleluia and Response

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

¹Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?"⁶He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
 'This people honors me with their lips,  but their hearts are far from me;
 ⁷in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
⁹Then he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!¹⁰For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.'¹¹But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, 'Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban' (that is, an offering to God) — ¹²then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother,¹³thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this."
¹⁴Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand:¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
¹⁷When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable.¹⁸He said to them, "Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile,¹⁹since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.)²⁰And he said, "It is what comes out of a person that defiles.²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder,²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Some of you may already know this, but my family has a tradition of eating white rice with butter, mlik, sugar and cinnamon on Christmas eve.  I do not remember a Christmas eve without this special, Danish, way to celebrate Christmas eve.  Each year we would eat our rice dinner, go to Christmas Eve worship together, then come home to open our presents –as soon as the dinner dishes were done. 

The tradition came down through my maternal grandparents, Carol and Emery Petersen, who had four girls.  Emery was a Lutheran Pastor from the 1940’s through the 90’s, and as a busy pastor on Christmas eve, all meals and other celebratory activities were Carol’s responsibilities.  And she was a master hostess, and she liked to have things under control, so it was all good with her.  The first time my dad came to Christmas Eve with his new wife’s family, he was introduced to this meal.  A energetic 23 year old man at the time, he was a bit shocked to be offered nothing but rice to eat on Christmas Eve.  His family had also celebrated Christmas on the Eve (a lot of Scandinavians do that)  but with a feast!  So he smiled cheerfully and then went on a fast food run on the way to church.  Truth be told, a few of my cousins did the same thing from ages 14-24. 

When my grandmother was dying, she was 96 and completely lucid.  Our family was doing the usual reminiscing that becomes a special blessing when you know the matriarchs and patriarchs of our lives are about to die.  My aunts and I were talking about this tradition of Christmas Eve dinner and how we had all kept the Danish tradition faithfully in our households, when Grandma Carol piped up to say… “Oh girls, that meal isn’t particularly Danish… that was just the quickest way for me to get dinner on the table between Christmas Eve worship services!”

We looked at each other in surprise… we had carefully stewarded a meal that had become a cherished family tradition, based on nothing more than the expediency of a pastors’ family on Christmas Eve.  J  

The Pharisees in our Gospel for today?  They are pretty concerned about white rice.  I mean, the washing of hands was sort of the same idea. 

The tradition of that rice meal is beautiful, but it was a family tradition celebrated for a particular time and place… in this case, a family who did not have high caloric needs, and not to be confused with the real celebration of Christmas.

The tradition of washing hands had become more about the performance of obeying every word of God and making sure everyone around you knew you did… not about the actual purpose and reason for God’s Word.

Today we begin a sermon series on our Core Values. You remember, church, you have been working on these for almost two years now!  Our vision for a Kingdom of God world where we “Shine a light so brightly that everyone is drawn in to God’s love through this community.”  Our Mission to “welcome all through the light of Christ by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and being a place of shelter.”  Our values:

1.     The Illuminating Word of God

2.     Seeing All People and Perspectives

3.     Serving our Community with Delight

4.     Opening the eyes of Faith at every age.

I’ve been memorizing them by saying, “Word, See, Serve, Faith… Word, See, Serve, Faith” over and over.

We have named the values that hold us together, and now we are seeking to discern God's will in light of them.  We are working together on a ministry plan to keep our energy focused!  That starts with us talking about these values today, and the next four weeks. 

So, if our first value is “The Illuminating Word of God”… what is the Word of God? 

We use this phrase a couple of ways. 

1.     Scripture

a.     Luther talked about sola scriptura (word alone), along with sola gratia (grace alone) and sola fide (faith alone).  Luther wanted to be clear that our faith practices are not based on just some good idea someone had for some particular time and place (because that is what happened in the church of his time too), but that we go back to God’s word in scripture over and over again.  We read the Bible to seek what God is saying to us now, and we keep our hearts and minds open to interpretations of Scripture appropriate to our time; knowing that God keeps speaking to us in new ways through these old words; because our God is a God of new life!

b.     Genesis: Scripture, God speaks and things come into being.  The Word of God is God’s will – simply spoken and it happens!

2.     Jesus!

a.     Genesis to John 1 –scripture is the cradle of Christ

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.²He was in the beginning with God.³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

b.     This work is ongoing by the Holy Spirit, advocating for us; God is still speaking… (as the UCC tagline says.)

So there is a lot packed in to that one little phrase – The Word of God!  This is our foundation: God’s very will revealed to us in scripture and especially in Jesus.  And this revealing is what we mean when we say the illuminating Word of God. 

Sometimes the word of God shines a light on things we would rather not see.  Like todays gospel reading... about Tradition vs. scripture. Jesus is pointing them back to their core, pointing us back to the central things of being church… it’s not about the buildings or the programs, it’s about living as a community who loves God.  And people who love God share it!  With service!  With a hunger for learning more about God – in prayer and scripture!  Tradition is needed!  The question is: How does tradition serve this purpose, to be a shining community of God’s love… and serve the world? Like in the story of the Pharisees, God is not interested in the tradition serving us.

But it’s not all negative… by any means!  The Word of God lights us up!  God’s Word is centered on justice and love for all.  That’s what Jesus came for, right?  Why he lived for us – to show us the way.  And died for us – to claim us for eternity.  We light up with this hope!  Knowing we have been given the greatest gift!  New Life that starts here and now, a life of freedom – for all!  A life of such strong love that even death cannot stop it. 

SO>>> How might we show in worship, and our other gathering times, how central this Word of God is to our community? Might we begin a Gospel processional in our liturgy to remind us that this Book, and all God says to us is our central purpose for gathering together? In September we'll begin using the narrative Lectionary, so that we might follow the arc of God's story through from the beginning, to see where it goes and how it gets to Jesus. 

We also might join a Bible Study or the Adult Study on Sunday mornings – where we will be dancing with the Word of God around the central beliefs and practices of the Lutheran church.   We can read a piece of scripture, a couple of verses, or a story every time we gather – at choir practice, for a meal fellowship, for a campfire.  We can bring scripture home.  Read it as a family – an easy way to do this is to use the Faith5. Confirmation students can show us the way, they do this in their lessons.

We gather around the word, here on Sunday mornings, and other times where we can go more deeply in relationship and learning.  Because we hold the Illuminating Word of God as our first core value, we arrange our faith life, our whole life, around it.  For us faithful people, what the Word of God says to us is the most important voice in our lives. 

It’s tempting to be like those Pharisees that Jesus chastises, to grab hold of human traditions as the familiar way of doing things.  It brings us comfort.  And that is nice, and even needed sometimes.  But the Word of God is not always comfortable or nice.  The Word of God gives us light and life, but often through the challenges of change and discomfort.  Sometimes even messing with something as sacred as my family’s Christmas Eve plans.  Because the Word of God is always about what God wants for all of creation, and not what we want.  And so we pray:

May our wants align with your wants, O God.  May our hearts and hands and minds be open to your will being done.  May we see your kingdom come among us, Lord.  Illumine our lives with your Word.  Amen. 

Chains of Fear

June 28, 2015

Mark 5:1-20 (Off Lectionary)

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2And when [Jesus] had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8For [Jesus] had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.

14The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it.17Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. 18As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19But Jesus refused, and said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.” 20And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I read for you this gospel story – the story about Jesus landing on the beach he was headed to last week, rather than skip ahead as the lectionary would have me do.  Because I want you to know what happens.  What happened after Jesus rebuked the squall of the wind and the disciples in that boat.

Jesus takes this nervous, confused, fearful group of men out of the boat, the ones who just got to see God in full glory, master of the very elements of creation… But before Jesus could even pick them up by the scruffs of their necks like a mother cat and say, ok, guys, let’s do this.  The demons show up.   

Up rushes a man possessed with a legion of demons! The wild-eyes, the self-inflicted bruises, the inhuman strength, there is no question what we would do today if we encountered this man.  Exactly what the Garasenes have tried to do: lock him up.  Though our drugs might be more effective in subduing him than their chains, our intent is the same – remove this dis-ease we do not understand from our community.  It’s the way we know how to handle things – on our own.

But this legion of demons rushes to bow before Jesus, recognizing the power that the disciples have just completely missed out on that boat.  The demons bow down before the God most high, knowing their heyday is about to end.  Jesus commands them out of the man, and at their request, sends them into the pigs who, in the demons continued pattern of destruction, drown in the sea.

Those demons.  They know who Jesus is.  Their only fear is what will happen to them now that Jesus knows the rucous they’ve been causing.

You might think the people would be happy to be rid of them, once and for all. 

But that’s not how the story goes.  The people of that village, rather than be elated at the reuniting of the man with the community and overwhelmed with joy at the power Jesus uses for good – instead they are afraid.  Just like those disciples were on that boat. 

We might understand if they were just mad at Jesus for killing their pigs. But notice. It’s not anger over their pigs, it’s fear that drives them.  They just want Jesus back on that boat heading back home to Galilee.  

Now remember, the Garasenes were not a group of people that Jews generally associated with.  It wasn’t the disicples’ idea to cross over to the other side.  Jesus and his followers were in a culture and with a people that were not their own.  But as it turns out, the Garasenes aren’t all that different than the 12.  Regardless of ethnicity or cultural, we are all human – every single one of us would have eaten that fruit in the garden of Eden.  We all want to grab for control, to pretend we can better orchestrate the world than the God who made it.  And we all are prone to react the same way when God’s true power is revealed – we run scared.  The Garasenes react just like Jesus hometown did a few verses ago – Please leave, Jesus!  You are disturbing our comfortable, settled, ignorant, demonic peace. 

When Jesus frees the possessed man, he lets loose the demons of fear.  Instead of the people, being able to segregate their fear.  Instead of being able to confine it to the graveyard like a bad halloween movie.  Instead of being able to try to lock up the fear far away from their consciences and daily lives, now, they are scared.  Because now they don’t have a place to point to, a place to shove-off anything different from themselves.  The fear might be anywhere.  They don’t have a place to contain it anymore. 

Whether it is the disciples on the boat, or the Garasenes on the shore, that’s it, it’s Fear.  It is fear that makes us want to push out the hope and new life, because it is just too unfamiliar.  It’s fear that urges us to try to have as much power over others as we can.  It’s fear that decides we are better off away from people who scare us, whether because they are mentally ill, because they are GLBTQ, or because they have a different color of skin.  (The headlines have brought us many opportunities to think about who we fear in America today.)

When we are doing the tough work that we started last week, the tough work of listening to other voices, seeing other faces, hearing other stories and grieving with those who are “other” to us.  We are doing the tough work of “Seeing All People and Perspectives” – one of Bethlehem’s four core values (1)The illuminating Word of God, 2)Seeing All Peoples and Perspectives, 3)Serving our Communities with Delight, 4)Opening the Eyes of Faith at Every Age).  Last week and this week, we are beginning this hard work to examine our white privilege and systemic racism. 

We are ready to face our fears.

Will you speak them with me, Church?  What are you afraid of?

Me?  I’m afraid.

I don’t know what to say or how to say it.  I don’t know if someone who we all label as “non-white” is going to perceive me as a friend or as someone who will wield the power of how I look to get what I want.  So I am afraid at times to even try to build a friendship.  Why should they trust me?  It’s been generations and generations of white people doing just what they suspect. 

I know I have received benefits that cannot be measured just because of the color of my skin.  Other white people are more comfortable with me than they would be with brown or black people, and so I have an “in” with them.  I have access to conversations about everything from job possibilities to grant funding for my favorite charities that many people of color do not have access to.  I smile at me on the sidewalk, usually, if I smile first.  People lend me an extra few cents if I can’t find the right change in my purse.   

And yet, I am afraid.  I am afraid that this system that privileges me means that people who do not benefit from those privileges will see me as demonic.

And that’s how racial privilege works.  It’s all about the fear.  And keeping it in place. 

If we stay afraid, if we let fear stop us.  If we let fear hold us to our normal habits and what comes easy, then we are locked inside ourselves, in our privileged world, dragging around these chains.  We get so tightly locked in on ourselves that we forget there are people who are not experiencing the world the way we are.  There are people, less than a mile from us in any direction, who are followed when shopping in a store, who aren’t given the benefit of the doubt when the police officer pulls them over, or who have to give a wide berth to white people on the sidewalk, lest someone’s forgotten handbag become an accusation of theft. 

And this, my friends, is the shame of the racial system in America.  That our fear of changing it is continuing to solidify it day by day, our fear of reaching out to people who are not in our comfort zone.  Our fear of having a real conversation about the tough issues of race, is perpetuating the very things that God wants to change.  Fear is the opposite of Faith.

God wants change, God’s will is to eradicate racism.  We believe God’s kingdom is coming.  We have seen Jesus calming storms and casting out demons over and over again as God steps into our world and uses every gift God has at God’s disposal.  We pray, at least weekly, as Jesus taught us,Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Our eyes have been opened God, by the events of this past year, these past 50 years, these past 300 years!  God is giving us eyes to “See All People and Perspectives” in ways that we never imagined. Our eyes have been opened to the ways that God condemns racism and how it imprisons us all.

And we have seen freedom.  We have seen grace.  We see forgiveness.  We saw people studying scripture extend a hand of welcome to the Garasene in their midst.  We see people who are mourning extending a hand of forgiveness.  We see people who history tells us should be the most afraid, as they are the most likely to end up imprisoned or killed, yet, they are the most free!  Allowing God’s light to shine through them to us!!

Today Jesus says, God is in control, not us.  And that is a wonderful freedom.  We don’t have to fix all racism everywhere, that’s God’s job.  But, we get to do our part!  We get to be a part of this beautiful coming kingdom!  And God will be with us, just like Jesus in the midst of the storm and in the strange new place, never leaving his disciples. Like the man in our story today tells us, God’s freedom is better than our fear.  God is offering us freedom today.  WHAT DOES THAT FREEDOM LOOK LIKE? 

Like a man, possessed by a legion of demons, who were tormenting him and making it impossible for him to live a reconciled life with his neighbors, impossible for him to experience the fullness of love.  Freedom looks like that man experiencing what was thought to be impossible: having new life, human connection, love in community, the love of God. 

God offers us that same freedom today.

Please pray with me…

We pray for your way, Lord, we pray that everyone in our beloved church may know the good news that you have freed us from this fear.  This fear that is holding us in captivity, the fear that drives us to care more about keeping the status quo than entering into a new life of freedom. 

We pray that your light may come into the darkness of racism in the United States of America  and shine so brightly as to expose it, that we might be freed, together with our black and brown brothers and sisters, from the insanity that binds us.

Amen.

In the Boat.

June 21, 2015

Preached by Kirsten Nelson Roenfeldt

For Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Sturbridge

For AUDIO Click Here.

B Pentecost3 2015

Mark 4:35-41

Jesus Rebukes the Disciples

Prayer of the Day:

O God of creation, eternal majesty,

you preside over land and sea, sunshine and storm.

By your strength pilot us, by your power preserve us,

by your wisdom instruct us, and by your hand protect us,

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

The Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]

35On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].

+          +          +

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Did you know that the The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Senior Pastor of “Mother Emmanuel” AME church in South Carolina was a graduate of one of our ELCA Lutheran seminaries?  So was The Rev. Daniel Simmons, another one of the congregation’s pastors who were in that Bible study Wednesday night.

Pastor Pinckney went to seminary my colleagues, specifically my friend Mark Petersen, a pastor here in Massachusetts. 

It is easy to think racial problems are all below the Mason-Dixon line. But with these victims, we are connected as believers – somehow that hits home more because we walked in the same institutions – of our same beloved church. 

But the fact remains that, if I so chose, I could quickly delete every email or pass by every Facebook link offering a conversation or voice about this event.  That’s my privilege.  And for any of you that share society’s perception of you as white, that’s our privilege.  White privilege. 

African American men and women hearing this story cannot sweep it under the rug as a random act of isolated violence by one insane man; it is too easily connected to every roughed up young man or woman or teenager by a white person in authority.

What does it mean to be privileged? 

It means that when a storm is raging outside, we can choose to stay inside.  I’d like to say we “get off the boat” because that fits so well with our parable for today, but the truth is that we rarely get ON the boat in the first place.

We decide to choose a different form of transportation.

We ignore, or maybe acknowledge, but never GREIVE this loss.

The loss of human life.  The loss of black lives.

Today we grieve.  Today we get real.  Today we get scared.  With our black brothers and sisters.

We are on the boat with the disciples of Jesus of every color.  We are scared out of our minds.  We are grabbing Jesus by the shoulders and saying “Wake UP!  Don’t you know we are perishing!  Help bail us out!”

And Jesus gets up—and does something.  He does something amazing. 

But we aren’t ready for an awake Jesus until we are awake. Awake to the very real storm of racism and violence raging around us.  The storm that has taken petty criminals and innocent lives, and parishioners in Bible study.  

Did you know that the suspected shooter at that Bible Study that night was a member of an ELCA Lutheran congregation? 

He almost changed his mind.  Because they were so nice.  But his heart was too hard.  There were 12 people in that study, 9 of them died.

We need to deal with this; it is our problem.  Have people in our Lutheran pews heard the good news?  That we are all liberated from the slavery of sin: those with skin of black and brown and white? We are liberated, when we are together?  Have people in our Lutheran pews heard the good news?  Guns are not trustworthy.  God is trustworthy.  He alone will deliver us from evil.

We have ties to both sides of this event, through our expression of our denomination, and more importantly, the one Body of Christ.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus rebukes more than the wind; he rebukes the disciples—Don’t you trust me? Don’t you get it? 

Jesus reminds them again of the good news: I can stop the wind and rain!  I am the source for every tiny atom of the creation.  I am the strength of love in every interaction.  Because of who I am, you can do scary things.  I make you who you are, People of God.  So you can and will live through storms. 

We who have let evil make this storm—we can weather it.  We – black and brown and white together- can live through storms.   “Just trust me,” Jesus says. 

We trust Jesus.  For our God who creates, redeems and sustains; God who is LOVE will be with us in the storm.  Until we come through the other side united together in love.

We trust Jesus to bring us together to knit us into one Body of Christ—and that is no small feat.

Did you watch the video of the bond hearing?  The family members of those who were killed that night forgave him.  They spoke words of truth about what happened, about what he did.  They named the sin.  And then, the very people who have the most license to be outraged and retaliatory, they began forgiving the murderer. 

We start with love.  We start by reaching beyond ourselves—reading the stories and knowing the faces, feeling the pain of this tragedy, yes, of Baltimore and Ferguson and Walter Scott and Trayvon Martin and all the others we must name…. Yes all that—the deep historical ongoing tragedy of racism.  To listen and learn and talk with the people experience it every day because we are IN THIS TOGETHER.

In this life.

In this Body.

In this world.

So when shall we have this conversation, church?  This conversation about race.  And maybe a whole separate conversation about gun violence?

This matters.

In Pub Theology last night we talked about it.  We scratched the surface on all the various social issues we are addressing and how racism is a product of our culture, and our fallen humanity. 

But we need to go beyond grand philosophy and scratching the surface.  We need to seriously examine the white privilege and most of us here benefit from.  And if we have any willing partners, we need to be in real relationship with people who experience the world from the underside of that privilege.  These are complicated issues, and they deserve our time and attention.  For though we may not change the world on our own, we can join God in what is already being done – we can see where God is breaking in, over and over again to reconcile and redeem that which has been broken and lost.  We can see the act of forgiveness breaking in through the broken voices to a broken man.  We can see through the cracks of our brokenness God’s light shining through to us.

Jesus has gotten into the boat.  He has invited us to join him.  Jesus is crossing over.  Crossing into alien territory where people of different religions and roots are.  To be with them.  To be as one body.

When we are in the boat, we will get to see the storm stilled.  We will get to see God’s power change the pain and hatred we thought was impossible to stop. 

Jesus gets up and says, “Peace, be still.” 

And the raging storm stops.

When peace is put into action. Not immediately, we have to live through the storm together first.

But peace, precious peace, is our hope.

Please pray with me:

Almighty God, look with mercy upon this fallen world, again the subject of violence. 

Be with us in our grief, that we may know your consolation. Be with us in our anger, that we may receive your peace. Be with us in our confusion, that we may be led to your truth. And be with us in our fear, that we may delivered into your surpassing love.

We pray this day for the victims of violence in Charleston, South Carolina

We pray for the families of Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Ethel Lance, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Myra Thompson, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Daniel Simmons, and Susie Jackson.

We also pray for Dylann Roof, that he may come to repentance, and for his family.

We pray for all those touched by racism and violence in so many other places. Strengthen us as your people to be with those in need, in their grief and the tough conversation to dismantle racism. Lead us to forgiveness and help us to make our churches safe haven, that your grace may be our sustaining Word, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Prayer adapted: Paul Bellan-Boyer, St. Matthew Lutheran Church)

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