The I AM, The giver of life

John 6:35-59
Sermon found at timemark 19:00

The Good Shepherd

John 9:39-10:21(42)

Sermon can be found starting at 13:00

What is God Reconnecting you for?

John 9:1-38

The Sermon can be found starting at 12:00

Ashes and Skin

John 8:12-30 

Listen Here.

Grace, Peace and Freedom are yours from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I AM.  Jesus says.

I AM the light of the world.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about light and darkness and this biblical statement of Jesus, along with the claims made in John 1 that God has shown a light in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

It is a powerful image. 

Is it one little flicker in the giant sea of darkness?  Is it a bomb of light exploding the darkness?  Is it a search beam shining into the corners where evil hides? 

I love this image, and yet I am torn… I am torn because our Western world has turned light into good and darkness into bad at the expense of people’s bodies.  What am I talking about?  The danger of saying light = good; dark = bad is that people will look around at their neighbors and begin to apply that to the skin tones of those around them. 

Of course we all know that’s ridiculous.   But it happens. To us all. There is plenty of research to confirm unconscious bias in our perceptions of the lightness or darkness of someone’s skin and our associated fear of that person. 

Fear.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Maybe it should say, the sun shines in the fearfulness and the fear cannot overcome it.

The thing is that the Light of the World came into the world to shine like the sun for those who are hurt most by our human systems of oppression and brokenness and separation from the God who loves us.  And the oppressed are on every point of the spectrum of sun-kissed hues.

So I yearn for a way in English to say that the ash on our faces and the dirt in our souls is a very different kind of dark or black than the rich hues of chocolatey brown that humans come in.  Because it is. 

Young children have spoken of wanting to wash off the chocolate of their skin…but chocolate is beautiful, the rich, velvety darkness of skin is named and claimed as God’s very own.  Some of us were made out of deep rich soil and others of us out of clay and sand, but each and every one received the breath of God into the earth that formed us. 

We must separate, and I don’t know how, the beautiful and God-affirmed variety of people-colors from the negative, even evil, associations we have with darkness.  And I tell you this, tonight, on Ash Wednesday, because this is the kind of holy work we enter into this season.  The kind of holy work where we become more and more conscious of the things that are holding us back.  And the things that are holding our brothers and sisters back. 

Lent is the season we stop our busy-ness, reflect on our mortal reality, and begin the hard work of repentance… and repentance begins with acknowledging there is a problem.

People of Bethlehem, we have a problem.  We live in a society where the voices of some of our brothers and sisters are not heard because of the color of their skin.  We live in a society that benefits those of us with translucent skin and holds back those who have more pigment.

Here is the thing.  Most of you already know this.  Most of you didn’t come here tonight to hear something you already know.  And most of us don’t know what the heck to do about it.  We participate every day in a society that gives people that look like me the benefit of the doubt – like when I step into a convenience store and fill up my mug with ice and no one questions or even looks askance at me wondering if I might be planning to steal some of that soda.

The first thing we do is pay attention.  We notice that we have an advantage, as small as the one I just gave or as big as what kind of loan I can get for my home. 

We pay attention. 

We remember we are all, every one of us, just simply dust.  In this together. 

We begin to take it all in, to reflect on what it all means, and we pray.  We pray hard that God might open our eyes and our hearts to know the truth of the world God has made in all its brokenness.  For who knows what God has in store? 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  And Light of the World who clothed himself in a dusty body with a big more pigment than me, anyway. 

We are the ones whom God loves so crazily that he would come to wear these same ashes you and I wear – whether they come from the terra preta of the Amazon basin or the ground down granite of Minnesota.  Come to die, lifted up like a lantern on a cross, shining for the whole world to see just how much God loves us.

Time to pay attention.

Will you pray with me?
In your love, compassionate God, keep us in this tension. In your severe mercy see this pain to bring action and change. We pray this through Christ our Lord, in whom the dividing wall of hostility has already been broken down. Amen.

What would you die for? #life

John 5:9b-24

#winning #engine 

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

[engine] What is your engine?  What drives you? What makes you get up in the morning?  What drives you to do what you are called to do?

[bus]  Do you know who this woman is?  Sister Simone Campbell.  She might be most famous for her work with the Nuns on the Bus, and she wrote a memoir by the same name.  She is a woman religious of the Roman Catholic Church, a lawyer and the Executive Director of NETWORK.  Her call is to Advocate on behalf of the poor in public policy and society in general. 

I heard a story recently, told by Sister Simone.  She was in a room with a group of top executives.  They were talking about how they were going from a 10 million dollar per year salary to 11.  And Sister Simone asked them, as probably only a nun can do, “Help me understand, are you having trouble getting by on 10 million dollars per year?” 

She wasn’t being sarcastic.  She wasn’t trying to trouble them, though I doubt she would have minded troubling them either.  She sincerely wanted to understand what the reason was for making such large amounts in salary on an annual basis, especially knowing that there are many people in the country who can’t make ends meet. 

And this is what they said: “Oh, No, Sister Simone, it isn’t about the money.  I just want to win!” 

I just want to win.

Well, that’s understandable. 

Very few of us go play a game with the intention or desire to lose.  I think it’s fair to say that we can all understand the objective of winning.  We like it when our team wins a game.  We like it when our hard work is recognized with a prize.  We enjoy knowing we got top marks.  And we can’t all win.  Winning it about being better than someone else.  It just is, that’s the definition of winning. 

In fact, it has come into use now that when someone is doing well at something we just say “winning!”  (Maybe with a hashtag on the front). [#Winning] To denote anytime someone is feeling successful from the choice to eat ice cream for dinner, to the celebration of life circumstances – we are Winners.  We are Winning!

But the question that Simone Campbell asked next was this… What if we found a measure for winning that wasn’t so toxic as to have such a small percentage of people in our society with such an enormous amount of wealth?  Could we still find a way to Win that isn’t about creating a huge disparity of wealth in this country (not to mention the world)?

That is a great question, and one I would love to help answer as a Christ-follower.  But this story isn’t about the money.  Even for the CEO’s. 

The way Sister Simone Campbell tells it, it is about finding what drives a person.  What pushes us, what motivates us to productive work – what is our engine? 

In today’s Sacred Story, Jesus says there is goodness in work – in work that glorifies God, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”  I believe these CEO’s are doing good work. At least I want to believe the best of them.  That even if their work can’t possibly be worth their salaries, it is necessary, helpful, inspired effort for good in the world.  Possibly even God-given work!  Using their gifts of leadership, creativity and excellence.

And what the story tells us is that for the CEO’s, what drives them is not the money, it is #winning. [engine winning slide]

What about you and me?  What drives us? 

For those in the middle class we may be motivated more by just #keepingup.  [slide]

Or by #security #safety #gettingagrip #barelyhangingon… [slides]

But according to God there is another option.  According to Jesus, we can be driven by something else.  [engine – question]

As we ask ourselves what our engine is… maybe it would be helpful to ask… what’s God’s?  What is Jesus’ engine?  What drives God to act?  To involve Godself with us, mere humanity?  To continue engaging over and over again?  To continue giving more and more of Godself?

You read this a couple of weeks ago, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.  For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him!” 

[engine - #Love] God’s engine, God’s drive, God’s motivation to keep going is LOVE, a particular kind of love, God’s engine is GRACE [engine - #GRACE].  God is fundamentally about a willingness to sacrifice for the good of all God’s people.  For all of creation!  God is driven by an attachment to the community.  We see the existence of community even within the Godhead – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  God cares so deeply for you and for me and for US, the he died that we might have life, and came “Not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”

God is driven by grace to give us the gift of LIFE.  That is what Jesus is doing here in this story.  He tells the man, you don’t have to race down into the pool to be healed.  I’ll heal you right now.  Jesus says, I have come to give you LIFE that you might have it abundantly.  Jesus says… “I’m here to tell you this, I only do what God does.  I am only driven by God’s drive, God’s engine of Grace.  God the Father raises people from the dead and that’s what I came to do. I came to give you LIFE.  I give life to whomever I wish!  It’s a free gift!  And it’s true!  Anyone who hears my word and believes God who has sent me… anyone who does that already HAS the eternal life I am giving. This is the life of that living water the woman received last week.  The Life of living in trusting relationship with the God who is always faithful.  And with people who are living that Life together – this is the beloved community!  This is the Life I came to bring!”

This life.

The life that matters so much more than the death you are living.  The death the CEO’s live when they “need” another million dollars to proven they have won the game.  The death of trying to be the first – for that’s what the man that Jesus healed was doing by the pool, trying to be the first in to get the miracle healing.  The death of #Winning at the expense of someone else #Losing.  Because that’s not God’s definition of #Winning.  God’s definition of a #Win is when We All might have abundant life.  In fact, he says so a few chapters later, chapter 10.  And there is a clue to it here.  When Jesus says to the man, “Do not sin” he’s talking about the man’s denial of Jesus, denial of the source of the Life he has been given.  This is how the gospel of John defines sin – as denial of God’s good gifts. 

And so Jesus says to the man, and to Us…the death you are living now… you have to give that up.  Whether it is the death of taking more than your fair share, or the death of self-preservation and security and keeping up with the neighbors, instead of loving them.  All of these are the death of sin, the death of denying that God is here, now, handing out new Life!

This is what Jesus came to do.  To get us to die to that stuff.  To redefine our understanding of #Winning.  To give us Real, True Life.  Abundant Life. 

Tell me this.  What would you die for? [wait for answers] What is more important than dying?

·  Quality of life (hospice)

·  Children’s well being

·  Peace on earth

·  Respect and honor… (Hamilton)

THAT might be the Life Jesus is giving away…That IS the Life!  The Life that is for you and me and US together!  The life that is lived only in the beloved community, where we are woven together as the body of Christ.  The life where we pick up our mats and leave behind the death we have been living. The life where we are driven by Love for our neighbor, Driven by Grace. 

…Let’s redefine #Winning. [engine - #winning]

Amen.

Demons.

Year B 2018
After Epiphany 4 – January 28^th

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church

Mark 1:21-28

1:21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught.

1:22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

1:23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit,

1:24 and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."

1:25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!"

1:26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.

1:27 They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."

1:28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Grace to you and Peace from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…

This stuff gets messy.  In this very short story from the gospel of Mark we hear how the world is being overthrown… and that is hard to talk about.  It is hard to talk about demons, especially in a place I don’t usually preach!  And it is difficult to talk about the deep politics of this passage that has been so whitewashed as to make us all gloss right over the difficult and oppressed lives of those in the story, starting with those fishermen who Jesus called in the few verses before that we read last week.  Those fisherman who are standing right there next to Jesus, watching this firs public act of Jesus’ power in this gospel.    

You see, fishing was not just another career in Jesus’ Palestine.  Jesus calling fishermen can tell us something about the kingdom Jesus proclaims. Dianna Butler Bass described it well on twitter this week, you didn’t know you could get Biblical study on twitter, did you?

Ancient fishing wasn't a business that would make you rich. And it sure wasn't a hobby. It was hard work with little reward and great risk -- and it was near the bottom of the social-economic structure of the Roman Empire. 6/

Not only was fishing a low-status job with poverty-level wages, but fishing was a point of political tension in Jesus' time. 7/

For generations, those kin-groups had fished on the Sea of Galilee, barely surviving. But, in 20CE, Herod decided he wanted to impress Emperor Tiberius and build a great new city -- Tiberias -- in his honor on the Sea of Galilee, thus displacing local fishing communities. 8/

And raises the taxes and fees on fishing in order to pay for the project. 9/

When Jesus is walking along the Sea of Galilee, he's not a tourist admiring the view. He's purposefully starting his ministry in the midst of an oppressed, displaced, impoverished group of people who are being victimized in a real estate development project for the super elite.10

Jesus said to them, "The Kingdom of God begins right here. Right now. Follow me." 11/

So here’s Jesus, speaking to some of the most oppressed people of his society saying, I’ve got a new plan for you.  Let’s go fish for people.  Let’s find ourselves in God’s kingdom, not Ceasar’s.  For in Rome’s kingdom we are lost, but with God, we are found, embraced, blessed and Sent.

And then what is the very next thing that happens?  Jesus goes out into the public synagogue and shows those eager disciples, along with everyone in the vicinity, just what he means by God’s kingdom.  For the spiritual evil of the world is possessing a man.  The story calls it a demon.  And the many voices of the demon or demons speak directly to Jesus, knowing Just who he is.  And Jesus throws them out.  Just as Jesus promises, just as God promises throughout the sacred story, the evil is thrown out of God’s presence, thrown out of God’s path, God’s realm… None of God’s royal subjects will be subject to That.  

So it seems important for us 21^st Century Christians to learn to name the demons of our own world.  How do the demons manifest now?  How do they possess our brothers and sisters in creation, how does evil worm its way even into our own hearts and souls? 

I understand from scripture that Jesus is about walking with the oppressed, so that may be a place to look.  We could investigate what evils have made oppression happen.     I also understand that demon possession is sometimes Hollywood horror style, but rarely.  More often, being possessed is connected to how we follow the first commandment, or fail in doing so.  More often, we can all name things that possess us, that become more important than our identity as God’s royal subjects.  What possesses you? These are things that cause us angst…

Addiction is an easy one to point to, whether that is to alcohol or another substance, addiction possesses our lives like the demon in today’s story.  Could it be the demon that Jesus cast out from the man in the synagogue was the demon of addiction?

What others do you know…? What demons do you see possessing people today?

·         Addiction

·         Substance abuse

·         Disease

·         Fears can be demonic if they possess us

o   Xenophobia

o   Fear of Death

·         Beliefs can be demonic...

o   Sexism

o   Racism

o   Bigotry

Here is the good news for today.  Jesus has power over the demons.  Jesus has cast them out.  Already.  In God’s kingdom there are no demons.  The demons cannot tolerate being in Jesus presence, for they know Just who he is, and his radiating power will pushes them out.   For what God possesses, no demon can possess.

I was recently listening to an interview of Representative John Lewis by Krista Tippet of NPR’s On Being show.  If you don’t know who John Lewis is, he was the first person across the Edmund Pettis bridge March 7, 1965 in the Selma March, knocked unconscious by an office with a billy club.  He was a leader of the civil rights movement alongside Dr. King and has now served in the House of Representatives for 30 years.  In the interview, John Lewis said something that has possessed me ever since.  He said that when they were working during the Freedom Movement for civil rights, they were not just working for civil rights.  They were working for a new world.  A world they already knew existed in God’s kingdom.  Here and Now.  Well, There and Then, and Here and Now.  God’s reign over them was their guiding force, it was all that possessed them when they faced violence from the fearful white people who couldn’t yet imagine the world they knew already existed in God’s presence. 

That’s possessed me.  How much differently I live when I am confident that my way of life, my whole being, is a product of possession by God’s dream for our world.  When I live knowing that God’s reign is sure and present in this world, and that the demons have been cast out here, and that I carry God’s kingdom with me in my very being.  That God is moving in the world and we can see it where the demons are being cast out.  We can even participate in it, by standing up, by telling others what the kingdom looks like, and what a promise it holds for us, and for Them.  Even those who resist it. 

For that was another thing that John Lewis said… when he looked into the eyes of those who did not yet understand the freedom that he stood for, And he did look in their eyes, especially those who were spitting at them or demeaning them… when he looked into their eyes, he saw and believed that they too were God’s beloved children.  No matter what possessed them at that moment, God loved them, and so living in the kingdom: we love them.  Look at anyone, including ourselves, when we are possessed by fear or superiority or caught in the system of oppression on one side of the other, we look into each other’s eyes with love. 

There was Jesus, looking at the demon, looking into the man’s eyes and seeing the demon speaking to him, looking with deep love on this child of God and in that deep and permeating love of God’s Realm/Kingdom, the demon couldn’t stay. 

Amen.

Come and See

John 1:29-51  “Come and See” – 7 names for Jesus

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Today we dig into the Gospel of John.  We began this adventure on Christmas Eve morning, when we discovered that John is a story about the Word of God coming into the world in flesh, as Light for all people, and that we, as the ones who are created in the image of God are the mirrors of God’s light walking about our world.  Each one of us, holding the spark, as Michael said, the shining light of Christ that wants to push through our hardest encasements to burst through us into the world with love.

Today we begin to hear about how that Word of God that takes flesh.  How that Word is going to Shine.  What does this shining look like?  It’s not the shining that glints off a crown, though King of Israel and Messiah are royal names for him.  It’s more like the shining that comes from the sun in the sky as the Son of God tells us as much about his parent, as you or I would by the path we tread.  It’s like the shining that happens when new things are revealed, when an epiphany happens and we suddenly understand a new concept, as Jesus is our Rabbi, our teacher.  All of these titles for the Word, 7 in total, are represented in just this first chapter of John.  Together, all these names for the Word make the claim that Jesus of Nazareth, the fully human person is the Messianic King and Teacher of Israel AND the Son of God who will die like the Passover Lamb for the sins of the world. This is how Jesus will shine.  Through teaching about God’s reign and giving of his own life. 

But let’s not jump too far ahead of where we are in the Sacred Story. 

Here, at this moment, the brand-new disciples are just discovering that Jesus is the one who will deliver on God’s promises.  They don’t yet know how differently that will look than their expectations, but they believe that they have found him – the Messiah, the Son of God. John the Baptist bears witness to it – he saw it when he performed Jesus’ baptism.  And he points the way for Nathaniel, and all the other men named here, to see Jesus for who he really is.

It is understandable that they are excited.  And Jesus knows that he has hooked them, it appears. But rather than confirming everything they know, like a good teacher, Jesus invites them deeper into the practice of following him.  As they follow, they will learn, they will be introduced to the formation they need to share the good news about him with the whole world. 

John’s Gospel is particularly unique in its focus on the Christian community.  This may be because it was a much later gospel when the church was more developed and needed teaching about how to be community together.  For whatever reason, it can be a helpful gospel to us in discovering more and more what it means to be a community of Christ. 

In this intial story, Jesus is just forming community.  The disciples, some of whom already knew each other, and at least a couple were brothers, are beginning to spend time together.  The first key to building commumity: time.  Second, they are spending time listening to Jesus, talking with each other about his teachings.  Key to building Christ-centered community is certainly knowing what Christ said and stands for.  Something we only know from listening to the sacred story. 

The disciples are encountered by God/Jesus… how did that change them?  How do we encounter God?  How does that change us?

What does it mean to “Come and See”?  [to join the community?  How do we follow up after joining?]

How does Christ create community?  How is a Christian community different than other kinds of communities we are in?
How do we see Christ’s inspiration in community in other places, such as families… but here in the body of Christ we are drawn together in some unique way?

Unique way: Being transformed by Jesus
Being encountered by God (Jesus) and in our vulnerability being loved by God, being seen, being known
This is just a community of people who have all experienced that, or who are seeking to experience that if they haven’t yet.

Cxn community is about gathering with other people who have experienced that love of God, that encounter in order to create a group of people who have the power to change the world.  In order to be a part of a group of people who are like- minded in the knowledge that God loves us and loves the world and is calling us into a way of life that includes justice and peace for all.

And so we gather around the Word, Table, Font, we do rituals that mark our way of life.  Central symbols where we continue to encounter God.  Where all of that is not a means to an end in itself; it’s not ritual for rituals sake, creating familiarity so we can be comfortable, it’s not tradition just to keep things comprehensible and organize our lives.  All those things are good in moderation.  We need them, we are made to do them.   BUT it is the central purpose of those encounters with God that we might share the good news, we might tell this story, we might tell people that THEY are included in this story and that they are loved. 

God came to earth in this baby (now 30 years later, Man). And gathers us into community as the people around the manger, around the river, around the baptism, around the transformation of life.

If that is what it means to be church…
When you are going back to your college campuses or your homes in other states or your everyday lives away from this place, and you are seeking out a fraternity, sorority, squadron, Italian club, political organization, a moms’ club, country club, knitting group, book club… you are doing something that the Holy Spirit has seeded in you.  This desire to build community.   (This is Christ working!  And yet often we do not allow God show up in our words and give God credit where credit is due.)

And that community, as wonderful as it is, cannot compare to the community that Christ makes when we are gathered in his name.  Truly here for Christ’s sake, and not our own.  When we are embraced and transformed by the love that rules the universe.  That shows up in the darkest places with the most lonely hearts with those who are suffering and broken.  Love that comes with healing, love that comes to fill a hunger, love that comes to connect us to each other and the God who made us.  To name and to claim, to own you as God’s beloved child.  

And the only way we know that that’s what God is doing.  Is that God showed us, by coming into the world in a child, that was named and claimed as God’s, so that we too might understand how near God is…

to us. 

That’s what it means to be CHURCH.

Amen.