ROI

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Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 

The Holy Gospel according to ______. Glory to you, O Lord.

1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears listen!" 

18 "Hear then the parable of the sower. 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. 22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23 But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."  

The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.

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

In our Sacred Story for today, Jesus tells a parable.  A parable is, literally, a story that puts two things side by side, similar to a metaphor or simile, except bigger – parables are stories that paint a picture, using familiar scenarios in ways that teach a spiritual lesson.  Often, Jesus uses parables to teach about what the Kingdom of God is like, and he will get there… Here, however, Jesus uses this first parable in Matthew to paint a picture of how the good news about the kingdom will get out to people.  How it is that the Word of God will be spread. Spread like a sower tosses out seed. 

I thought it might be helpful to think of this parable as Jesus explaining God’s Business Plan.  God is going about God’s business – that is, to spread the good news of the kingdom. So let’s take a look at it.  [God’s Business Model ppt]

First we have our raw materials: soil and seeds.  The seeds are God’s Word, so God has an infinite supply of that.  The question is: where will he invest it? Let’s talk about God’s investment opportunities here.  We have rocky soil, hard-packed path, thorny patches and good soil. [soil] Well, that sounds like the whole earth!

God invests the Word into the soil… and do you remember, if you took catechism, what is the Word?   Scripture is always the first thing we think of, but scripture only cradles the Word, not every jot and tittle of scripture is necessarily God’s Word….who is the Word?  Jesus! [investing God’s Word – seeds]

And what is God looking for here?  What will be the Return on Investment, the ROI, of God’s enterprise?  Fruit! The Fruit of the Spirit, even, that Paul talks about in the latter verses of chapter 8 of Romans that we read today. [Return on investment is Fruit]

First we learn that God scatters seeds everywhere, we are going to assume an equal distribution – because it is random distribution. [pie chart]

25% will produce ALL of the ROI, not most of the ROI or the biggest percentage… ALL.

Why is it still important to do the 75%?  Because we have no idea which seeds will get rooted deeply enough to produce ROI.  

Now back to the types of soil we are investing in again.  Imagine who is whom. We won’t share this out loud. Think about a person that you know that you would guess is rocky soil… hard packed earth?  Thornbrush? And Good soil…It wasn’t too hard to come up with someone for each category was it? We think we know people, we think we can tell which is which.  Who is worth our time, our sharing with them the transformative power of the gospel…

No one has developed this technology, and no one ever will.  No matter how precise we get at farming, with our puff-air planting technology and our soil chemistry…we will never be able to tell the precise chemical equation of the growth of the Word in the human Spirit.  The Spirit of God that lives in each of us, planted there by the hearing of the Word, by the gift of baptism, nourished by the ongoing Word and feast on Christ’s body…we usually want to know how to have the most “success”  how to be sure that the efforts we put in will produce more believers…how to pick the most likely candidates… 

Maybe we think that young families will be most likely to produce fruit, or maybe we think it is the elders of society, or maybe we think it is those who already know the church culture, like those who grew up in it, or maybe we think it is those who have the most visible gifts already…

But The truth is, no matter how we judge others, only God knows what the Word will produce in them.  

This whole parable gets misunderstood when we seek out the “right” people to bring into our church… because we think we are the planters, the farmers, the agent of change, the ones who take action.  But that’s not what God says. It is not our job to make the church grow, or to convert everyone to our beliefs. This is the key point of our faith: God does the planting. All we get to do is receive the gift, like soil receives the seed. 

God is investing in Cali Bella today as the Word is proclaimed in baptism and as she is washed into the family of God.  God is investing in each one of you. You are God’s investment opportunity. And God has invested in you. Today, and each time you hear the Word of God – through the Scriptures, through a word of grace and forgiveness, through a retelling of the sacred story in your own life, anytime you encounter Jesus in your neighbor… and notice that God has come to dwell among us, has fully taken on human flesh and has died on a cross to take away the brokenness of the world.

And you… you are good soil. You are growing good fruit.  You are the first fruits of the harvest, groaning as we await God’s good work in us, and as we see it come to life: the fruit of love for the world. 

Amen.

I'm having Difficulty Remembering...

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

Recall with me a time in your life when you were thrilled with a new turn of events… Maybe you just found out your best friend was moving to live in your town or you had gotten a slot in the perfect summer camp.  Maybe you were about to take your dream job, or had just learned you were becoming a grandparent for the first time.  Maybe you just realized that you found the love of your life, or even, you recently learned that you were, finally, cancer-free…   

In those first few days, weeks or months that you were still new to that reality.  Life was totally different, and yet, exactly the same.  You knew that something very good had happened and it probably buoyed your mood throughout the days, but…  Did you ever forget?  You know, in your day-to-day life, just going about your business – forgetting about it – not remembering that a whole new world had come to you and then… something would tug you into to the reality that something Truly Great was happening… ?

It was like that for me when I was pregnant for the first time, I would go about my day and forget I was becoming a mom.  Then someone would ask me how I was feeling and it was like hearing the news for the first time all over again – Wonderful!  I am feeling wonderful!  A new life was beginning, and not just the child, but a mother was about to be born.  Each time I remembered that tiny new life that would be coming sometime soon it was like a fantastic gift over and over again.

Now, 6 years later, I have some significant moments completely amazed at the honor and joy of motherhood.  And I also spend – probably more – moments forgetting what an honor and joy motherhood is.  We all know what those moments look like… How quickly we can forget. 

It’s easy to forget stuff.  But Remembering is a tricky thing. 

We forget stuff all the time.  Simple things like keys and phones or even big enormous things like a new baby growing or a major life change. Remembering is a strangely passive process.  Sometimes we know we have forgotten, and so we wait around, trying to remember… but usually Remembering happens when we are just going about our work and it suddenly comes to us.  Even when we use tricks like walking back to the spot you last knew that thing, it is up to our environment, often the people around us, to help us remember. 

What if God designed it that way?  What if God gives us families and friends and communities to help us Remember?  Because Remembering – even the most important things – is hard. Especially alone. It is much easier to forget.

Just ask the women in the Easter story. 

“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again. Then they remembered his words.”

Here’s the tricky thing about remembering.  Before that very moment, when the light shines bright and the men encountered the women in that tomb.  The women had forgotten.  So they were living in the old reality, the one that has actually passed away but they had forgotten because they didn’t remember!  Remembering changed their world.

These women have been through a lot the past few days.  They woke up very early this morning remembering certain things… bleary eyed from their three days of weeping.  They remembered the people’s cries for a King that day he rode on a donkey.  And they remember their cries turning on him.  The unjust trial.  And the pain of that cross.  They remembered where they saw Joseph lay his body. Remembering, like any of us who have lost a loved one do… it is fresh each morning, each time we drive down that same street or think we need to check in with them, and they are no longer there.  All they could remember confronted the reality of their friend, their teacher, their beloved connection to God – dead, on a cross, killed by Romans because his own people wanted it so.  We weep with them and feel the searing pain slicing through our hearts each time we recall it.

They go to the tomb, because they remember Jesus’ death. 

But they have forgotten something. 

“Suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them: Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

The women find themselves lying on the ground as if pleading in prayer. And then They. Remember!

The women, frozen in fear, are stunned.  They remember.  Jesus told them.  This would happen.  He would not be in the tomb.  He would rise again. 

This Remembering rips them out of their painful reality with the hope that… he lives! 

Everything that Jesus has been teaching us about… Remember!  Remember your life is not your own, but God has saved you!  Remember, you have been given abundant daily bread!  Remember, Our God finds the lost at all costs – even the cost of his very own life.  Remember, even if this is the one person you would rather die than take help from - He has given you life. Remember, God’s will is for a life lived in connection to God and to each other. Not even death can separate us from God’s love. …Remember?

The women could not do this remembering on their own.  They needed those men to show up. Those dazzling white, frightening men who clearly knew something the women did not – the women needed those angelic “men” to remember with them.  The ones who live with God and have experienced God’s reality.  God’s will for Life.  God’s drive that led God to let the evil one think he had won for a time, so that God’s reality might break open the world that thinks God is captive. 

The women show up at that tomb thinking Jesus has been defeated, and as it turns out it was in the defeat that the reality of God’s power over this world could be realized.

God changed the world order.  He who died – Lives.

Those women ran from that tomb, entrusted with the greatest news of all time – He Lives!  And the disciples think they speak nonsense.  But it isn’t nonsense.  It isn’t nonsense to believe the world can be different than it is.  “It isn’t nonsense to believe that weapons of mass destruction are not necessary, and that war is not inevitable.  It is not nonsense to believe that a child’s race and class and sex will not always determine their future share of happiness and well-being.  It is not nonsense to believe that we who have been divided from each other can, and will one day sit down together at the welcome table of God’s love and God’s grace.  These are not nonsense thoughts. With the Easter eyes of resurrection faith, we can see that this is hope…Hope is the door from one reality to another.”  Hope is not about a feeling.  Hope is action based upon faith.  Hope is what happens when we Remember!  The world has changed!  And though the disciples think they speak nonsense, we all sit here today because of the hope of those women.[i] 

It’s a lot to remember.

I cannot remember by myself. 

None of us can.  

But that’s why God gives us to each other, The church.  We are a Remembering Community.

We’re here every week.  Each week, God re-members us.  Brings us into one body by assembling us together here.  Gathering together, we remember that Easter happens every Sunday. Every day in each one of our lives as we remember together that we have Easter Hope! Hope found because we have died with Jesus in the waters of baptism and are raised with Jesus to new life here and now. 

Remembering not something that happened in the past but remembering the new reality we live in now!  Together we Remember God’s promises of life and salvation. We remember that we Easter people have hope. Hope for the world to be different than it is.  Acting in Hope for God’s love to be made real in the world. 

You are God’s beloved child, it is for you that God has done all this – come to suffer, die and rise again.  Is that hard to remember? Well, yes, it is.  But don’t worry, we’re here for you.  We’ll help each other Remember.

Amen.

---

[i]Jim Wallis, Sojourners magazine “While the Men Were in Hiding, Women Delivered the Greatest News the World Has Ever Known.”

Connect

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

Our theme this Lent is “Connect.”  Last week I talked about “connectors” in scripture – those little phrases that string together the narrative like “Once, Then, Now, While this was happening, On the next day, etc.” Today our piece of the sacred story starts with a similar connector: “Just then.”  So as we pay attention to these connectors, we wonder: What happened “Just then” before the lawyer stood up to test Jesus?

This is when we are all sad that we do not have pew Bibles.  Though if you want to get out your smart phone to pull up your Bible App, please do – it’s Luke, chapter 10.  If you do, you can check out the verses immediately before our “Just then,” …/// Here, Jesus is rejoicing upon the return of the 70 returning.  The 70 disciples had been sent out to minister to many places and they returned, surprised of the great power the Spirit of God had done through them – specifically to cast out demons!  - Remember last week’s reading, when Jesus cast out a demon that the disciples could not?  So Jesus rejoices – in verses 18-24, I’ll read just 19-20:

¹⁹ See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. ²⁰ Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus is celebrating with the disciples and praising God for the work God is doing to bring in the kingdom.  To heal the world, and “Just Then”… a lawyer stands up.

What do you think he was thinking, that lawyer?  What is he trying to do? Is he challenging Jesus, or is he trying to connect with Jesus?  Is he setting up a road block, or inviting Jesus to explain further?  Something else entirely?

You have probably heard this parable before – the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Parables are great fun for they give us a story to unpack again and again in new ways for every new time.  Today we look at the connection of the parable to the people who were listening to it.  The context of this parable isn’t simply that a lawyer or scribe is asking Jesus a challenging question.  That question is asked “just then” after Jesus has been rejoicing with the 70 disciples who have just gathered together again after doing powerful ministry among the people.  Was this lawyer one of those disciples?  That’s what I am going with today.  Rather than the lawyer being an opposing force, what if he is one of those 70 disciples who has just had the awesome and life-changing experience of casting out demons with his own hands?  What if he is simply, being lawyer-like, trying to pin down that experience in words and rules he understands and can defend in court?  What if he is looking for the way to spread this good news further?  To explain it in plain terms?

Ok, Jesus… make it clear: what must I do, precisely, to harness this most amazing power I have seen working through my very own hands, this “Eternal Life”?  How do I make this feeling last forever? How do I give it to more people?  What’s the formula?  How can I codify this transformation happening, even now, in me?

And Jesus tells him a story.

But we cannot attempt to grasp this parable without knowing who Samaritans are.  For us, due to our Good Samaritan laws, “Samaritan” is generally thought of as a positive word.  But, let me remind you… a only a few verses ago, in chapter 9, verses 51 and following:

⁵¹ When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.⁵² And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; ⁵³ but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. ⁵⁴ When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”^[k] 55 But he turned and rebuked them. ⁵⁶ Then^[l] they went on to another village.

These Samaritan villages rejected him.  And it was a sore point for the disciples.  This is not a new sore point.

Samaritans were the people who worshipped the same God (Yahweh), but came from the northern tribes of Israel, the kingdom which was destroyed before the southern kingdom of Judah.  The people from the Southern tribes were called Jews.  These are all descendants of Abraham.  But the Jews, when they came back from the Babylonian exile, did not recognize the Samaritans as people worshipping God rightly, as, of course, they were.  So the nation of Israel was split, along kingdom lines… that kingdom that God had not wanted in the first place, remember?

Religiously, Samaritans are the first cousins of the Jews of Jesus’ day.  And like often happens with tribes, it is easier to let the differences divide us, no matter our many similarities.

And so when the lawyer stood up in the midst of the rejoicing over the 70 who had just had such a beautiful experience of God’s restoring work… He speaks the same sentiment that Peter spoke on that mountain top at the transfiguration, “Tell us Jesus, how do we make this last?”

And Jesus’ response is… less than satisfying.  Did he really have to bring up the Samaritans?

How do you make this last?  Jesus says…You know the law and the prophets, what do they tell you? 

Love God, love your neighbor, replies the Lawyer.

Do this and you will live. Says Jesus.

But this is not enough for the lawyer. 

Who is my neighbor? 

Well, everyone knows the answer to that… “You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34).

It is a basic tenet of the Jewish Faith, and therefore the Christian faith.

But who is a “neighbor”?  Who is an “alien”  the one we have never met?  The one who lives next to us?  The one that is so strange to us… the one we despise and reject? 

And then Jesus tells the story.  Not about the Samaritan in the ditch, that would not have been so surprising – we all know that the one in the ditch needs a neighbor. 

Jesus tells the story starting with the men in front of him, Jewish man.  And says, suppose one of you was in a ditch, robbed and beaten. 

Now imagine who would come along to help you.  Would it be a priest?  A levite?  A scribe?  All Jewish authorities… well, not these, Jesus says. 

But imagine you are in a ditch, Jesus says.  And another man comes along who is not of your tribe.  The one person you would rather die than take help from. 

Who would that be for you?  

·        The brother you haven’t spoken to in years

·        The junior high bully who wouldn’t leave you alone

·        The investment banker who cheated you

·        The people who ignored you in a time of need

·        The politician you most despise

The good brother, the good bully, the good cheat, the good politician…That’s the Good Samaritan. 

…

The theme for us this Lent is “Connect.”  Jesus invites those faithful, dedicated disciples to consider with whom they may be denying their human connection.  Us too.  Jesus invites us, to think about what that kind of re-connection would mean for our lives. 

Who are our neighbors? 

·        The person across the street we just can’t stand?

·        The one who has more than us? The one who has less?

·        Those we serve at The Closet?

·        The Muslims who came to visit us last week? 

·        The Jews from whom we came as Christians?

·        The ones who are suffering hate at the hands of others?

And in re-defining “neighbor” one more time, Jesus invites to connect with God.  This is God’s will, that we might connect with God and each other. It’s as simple as the lawyers first answer, and as hard as the parable lets on. 

It’s as simple as serving with Martha’s heart and listening with Mary – not thinking we have to choose between one and the other.  And as hard as not resenting our sister may be. 

As we connect with God this Lenten season in prayer, fasting and giving, may God transform the connections among us at Bethlehem, and between each of us and the world. 

Amen. 

Back Down to Lent

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

“Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.”

Today’s gospel is a long one for us in a Lutheran worship service, we usually read just a snippet of scripture at a time.  But it is part of the gift of the narrative lectionary that we begin to embrace how those snippets fit together to make the whole story of the Good News of God. 

Notice how in our reading today there are several bridges from one scene to the next.  It starts off with “Once Jesus was praying alone…” as the gospel writer begins a new section of his story.  Then these bridges, “Then he said to them all,” “Now about eight days after these sayings,” “On the next day,” and “While everyone was amazed” serve to connect the action in the story.  What happens in one scene connects to the next.

Today’s good news is incredibly basic to our Christian faith, and also the greatest stumbling block for many.  So much so that Jesus has to tell the disciples three separate times.  Two of them frame our story this morning.

The story begins with Jesus in a time of prayer, engaging his disciples, his students, in the primary lesson of his life.  “They say I am John or Elijah reincarnated, but you know differently…” and Peter confesses, “Jesus, you are the Messiah.”  Then, their teacher
reminds me of an adult speaking to children who need to understand the dangers they may find themselves in if they are not careful: The fact that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of Man, as Jesus says, is a dangerous idea.   If caught thinking this way, the students will be in danger.  When the authorities hear this dangerous idea, Jesus’ life will be threatened.  In fact, Jesus clarifies.  It isn’t just a threat.  This will happen.  He will suffer, be rejected by their own beloved tribe and be killed.  Then, on the third day be raised. 

I wonder if the students could even hear that last bit.  By the time Jesus had brought the danger of the situation to their attention, could they even hear through their own hearts beating in their throats that Jesus would be raised again after death?

But Jesus plows ahead, apparently disregarding their level of comprehension. Or maybe he’s trying to make them understand? 

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. ²⁵ What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves? ²⁶ Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷ But truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”

These are powerful words: Shame, Deny yourself, Take up your cross, voluntarily lose your life for Jesus sake.  Jesus doesn’t mince words.  Following Jesus is not about getting power, profit and glory for ourselves.  Being a student of Jesus is about learning from him how we should live, even to the point of denying ones’ self for the sake of Jesus.  The sake of those in whom we see Jesus.  The sake of our neighbors, like us and unlike us – for this is where we know Jesus comes to us. 

Now about eight days after that conversation.  That’s when they go up to the mountain to pray.  Goodness knows, I am looking for more opportunities to talk with God after hearing that speech from Jesus. 

Since there is nothing between these two scenes, it leads us to believe that even if there was healing and preaching going on in those 8 days, everyone was a little distracted by that speech.  And I have to wonder what God was doing.  Did God make sure to put some space between the speech and this Transfiguration moment?  Did God give them plenty of time to excuse themselves from being Jesus students any longer?  Certainly, God knows we humans cannot handle all the information at once – and a little time between these events helps us to integrate them into our experience. 

On that mountain, there they are praying and Jesus starts shining – and it probably makes those students think about the other time in their Israelite history that someone’s face glowed – when Moses was up on the mountain getting the ten commandments from God!  And then, lo and behold, who shows up?  But Moses himself!  And Elijah, the whispered name of the prophet that people have been thinking Jesus might be. 

Then Peter, the spokesperson for the bumbling disciples, says “let’s build some houses up here!”  What was Peter hoping to do?  Mark the place like Jacob did at Peniel?  Naming that place “the Face of God”? But as the words are falling from his mouth, a cloud comes over them, they are terrified – because our God is a Fearsome God.  And they hear these words, “This is my Son, my Chosen;^[i] listen to him!”  

It’s true!  Jesus is the Son.  This isn’t just an amazing experience of encountering God on the mountain, this is God revealed in the human before them!  It isn’t even just that Jesus is the Messiah, the human who would save them from their oppression.  Jesus is actually God’s Son. And all he has been teaching them is more than just another wise man’s words.  This is divinity.  Fearsome, Awesome, Overwhelming divinity. 

“And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.”

Because wouldn’t you?

Then on the very next day.  Peter and the rest of the disciples, still grappling with the reality that has been revealed to them once again, and a father comes to plead with Jesus.  I imagine the disciples, continuing their stunned silence, gazing every so often at Jesus, the God-Man.  I imagine they have no doubt that Jesus can heal this child, though they could not when they were sent on their missionary journeys earlier.  And I imagine that they have a whole new understanding and empathy for Jesus when he says, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you?”   And they notice when he also says, “Bring your son here.” 

For this God does not leave the desperate father and the tortured son.  This father IS the desperate father and the tortured son.

…though they may not yet be able to comprehend it.

“Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.”

Let us enter Lent this week, letting it all sink in… God the desperate father, God the tortured son, God the one who will not let us go. 

Amen. 

Cracked Open

Christmas Eve 2016

Holy Storytelling

Tonight we hear the Christmas story from two different perspectives: Luke and Matthew… from the shepherd and the magi.  I invite you to consider how the stories each have a different focus, but moreso, what it is that each of them tells us about the good news of the coming of Jesus Christ.

Gospel 1: Luke 2

1 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. 8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" 15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Gospel 2: Matthew 2

2 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

    who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9 When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,

    wailing and loud lamentation,

Rachel weeping for her children;

    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

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

The children had set up the crèche in their sanctuary.  It was one of those beautiful ceramic sets, probably Italian, and the children had carefully carried the pieces over the stone floor of the cathedral.  The Mary, the Joseph, the Shepherds, the sheep and cattle and oxen.  This was one of those times where they even put the Magi in place early, all of them facing towards the manger, anticipating the coming Christ.  On the night of Christmas Eve, finally, after watching the empty manger for days, the shepherds and wisemen were getting their due.  Finally, in comes the child carrying the baby Jesus… and on his way to the scene, baby Jesus slipped from the small hands, falling to the stone floor.  The cracking sound, the gasp.  And baby Jesus’ head came off. 

The beautiful manger scene, with the light of the room glancing off that white porcelain, awaiting Jesus on Christmas Eve…. was broken.  Cracked open to reveal the gasping and faltering that we encounter in the Christmas Story.

Cracked open to reveal what we know, and what we don’t know.  Cracked open to reveal the pain of the world.

One wonders about those cracks. 

When we read these two stories side by side, one with shepherds, one with wise men, both telling of the wonderful news of Jesus’ birth.  We hear these two perspectives, one with ordinary laborers doing the good work of daily bread for themselves and the owners of those sheep, the other with bizarre sages from a far off land bringing a message of political upheaval, both stories revealing cosmic intervention.  We see cracks in the story that leave open questions for us and reveal brokenness, spaces, gaps where the story lets us wonder… what is God doing here? 

In Luke’s telling of the story, Mary is expecting a child.  Mary, the story tells us, was an unwed pregnant young woman.  Probably 14 or 15 years old. You all knew that already.  But there are some big cracks in the story on either side of that birth.  Anyone who has ever visited a baby in a hospital, or had a baby of your own, know there is a lot of story to be told around a birth.  How did the labor start?  How long was it?  How difficult?  And most of all, was anyone’s life in danger at any point? A very young woman like Mary would have brought more concern to labor and delivery, just as it would today.  The sacrifice she made was to risk her life to bring this child into the world.  Were there midwives attending?  We can only hope she wasn’t alone.  Where was her family?  And really, people saw a 9-month pregnant young woman and no one was willing to give up their bedroom?  Really?  Really. 

The story leaves out most of the domestic details, which leads us to wonder about them.   Especially when we are faithful people seeking a story that resonates with our own experience.  And through these cracks we wonder.  We may never have been shepherds, but we have been mothers and fathers.  Yet, the Shepherds themselves are focal because they represent us all.  The shepherds are the common folk who hear the good news!  The shepherds are, fantastically, the ones who come and see, and go and tell.  The shepherds show us that the story is for us and told through us.  If you come here seeking a story tonight because the realities of life for you are about relationships and love and kindness and mercy.  Even if the church is a struggle for you because Christianity seems preoccupied with institutions and meaningless rituals and abstract doctrines[i].  This is a story with cracks.  A story about you and me, about an unwed mother and her baby, about a guy who does the noble, foolish thing of marrying a young woman who has a baby that is not his own.  About the common people of the day, even those at the bottom rung of the social ladder being entrusted with the most important job – to tell of God’s wondrous work in the world.

In Matthew’s gospel, there are a lot of cracks around those Magi.  They can seem like such an unexpected imposition on the story!  (Especially if we only ever read Luke on Christmas Eve.)  We wonder how those magi found him?  What was this miraculous star?  Such a story is this that even Thursday on NPR they were talking about what phenomena this star might have been, planets aligned, comet bursts…?[ii]  What was so strange as to lead men to travel from their home country to a foreign place seeking a newborn king?  It’s no wonder they ended up in the story with their wonderings and wanderings like ours – wandering into Herod’s court, specifically.  Naturally!  The epicenter of power is where one would go to find a baby king.  But instead of finding him, the magi unintentionally set off the alarm.  Herod the puppet king fears the threat of this new king to his own power, and along with the chief priests and scribes, murderous intentions lurk.  It is a foreboding scene, anticipating the political turmoil that will end Jesus’ life.

It almost ends right there.  The whole story of God’s great work and intervention for us almost stops with the magi finding him.  For as they tip off Herod, any hope that this time it would be different is abolished.  Any hope that our infant king might win the world over with his tiny fingers and soft skin and cuddly packaging.  Any hope that our God might simply melt our hearts into good behavior evaporates.  Even God coming to earth does not stop conflict and political maneuvering, and acts of terror. 

We watch Rachel lamenting in Ramadah once again.  Crack, the perfect story breaks away from the “Perfect” we pretend is real. The cracks in these stories, the pieces that have fallen out of the memory of history, connect like threads when we remember that Rachel, Jacob’s wife, died here in Bethlehem, in childbirth.  This can make us all the more grateful for Mary’s safety, and aware of the danger she was in.  Rachel had longed for children, and upon her second child’s birth, she paid with her life for a son that she would never nurse or raise.  Her pain of longing for children becomes pain of loss of children here when Herod’s evil slaughters the innocents.  The story makes it hard to ignore the pain of our modern-day Syria, and the loss of its children.  Acute this week, when we stumble across film of a room full of children who have died, being marked with the sign of the cross on their foreheads.  With this holy story of unjust death due to Christ’s birth, we commend them to God.  And we wonder at the story when Jesus survives childhood only because he is allowed safe-haven as a refugee in Egypt.  We wonder what the story asks us to do with refugees fleeing violence like our Lord…?

The cracks left by the storytellers, allow us to see the world as it is.  Cracked and broken.  Hurting and begging for healing.  For wholeness. For peace.

And there is one more thing that the storytellers, with all these open cracks, lead us into infinite wonder.

It is into this world the savior comes.

This cracked and broken world, where the beautiful things entrusted to us regularly need to be put back together.  Where the porcelain baby Jesus has glue around his neck.

This world where the gift you gave to your family member was met with a forced smile and longing for a stronger relationship.  The world where the empty space in your heart remains for the one you have lost, if not an empty chair at the table.  This world where we let innocent children be massacred.

We can wonder over the beauty of God’s response. 

God comes to be with us.  God CHOOSES to come into this busted up world.  Over and over and over and over and over and over again.  God chooses to be BORN.  In BETHLEHEM.  The place where Rachel wept and Mary pondered.  The place from which Jesus fled, and shepherds ran to the manger.  The place where Shepherds and Magi told Everyone the good news, every day people and kings in their palaces. That Christ, our savior is born.  God has come to us, and is coming to us, and will come to us.  Through every cracked open life who longs for love.  God is there.  God is HERE.  Come to be with us in every crack, filling it with the bond of love, filling it with the glue of community.  Putting us together, over and over again, broken and cracked pieces fit together into the one Body of Christ. 

Amen.

---

[i] Sam Wells 2009 Christmas Eve Sermon Duke Chapel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDkinPZZD4U

[ii][ii] NPR http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/12/21/506395770/the-star-of-bethlehem-and-the-magi-myth-or-reality

Visiting the Islamic Society of Greater Worcester

Hello Friends!

I have had a few of you express interest in our visit to the local mosque yesterday.

It was beautiful.  Beautiful.  I am very sorry I didn't take more pictures for you to see what beauty is captured by people from different places sitting around one table.  Talking about their common American pride, their children, their different faiths in one ancient Abrahamic tradition.

I had gotten in touch with the lay leadership of the mosque by email a few weeks back.  I told them that I was beginning an adult forum in my congregation to talk about Islam, which prompted me to reach out.  In the short number of years I have been in this area, I have not yet had the pleasure of getting to know any Moslems.  Their immediate reply was to invite me to come visit, and to bring some friends.

Two weeks later, there we were around one table.

As Steven and I walked up to the building, we were greeted by teens and children enjoying the beautiful day in the parking lot.  The entryway held shoe cubbies and shoes of all shapes and sizes.  We found our way into a large carpeted room, our feet padding quietly across the floor to meet the padding feet of our hosts, eager to greet us.  Eight men and two women welcomed us with bright eyes, warm smiles and handshakes.  We sat down around a large table and talked about Bethlehem and our class on Islam being a blind-leading-the-blind kind of experience.  They offered to come help us!  We talked about our common religious heritage through creation to Abraham. We talked about the different ways we understand Jesus and other messengers of God. We were invited to observe one of their daily prayers and I admitted to some holy-envy for their communal commitment to the daily ritual of prayer.  We were grateful to be in one another’s presence so recently after the election, over which they expressed concern about the Islamaphobia that has been encouraged, especially for people in other parts of the country, and they affirmed the blessing of the timing of our meeting for them.  They even expressed that they feel it is important to engage in the political leadership of their communities, state and nation and how proud and blessed we all are to be a part of a democracy with the freedom of religion.

And it was easy.  To be together, to celebrate how much we have in common, to feed the curiosity that God put in each of us, and to wish we had brought our children, that they might know and grow in friendship with children from another religion and with skin tones different from their own.

It was easy.  And it was beautiful.

Moving through Fear.

20161106

After Pentecost 24

Isaiah 6:1-8

The Sacred Story from the book of Isaiah:

Isaiah: In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: 

Seraph: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.

Isaiah: The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: 

Seraph: Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.

Isaiah: Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 

Lord: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Isaiah: And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Word of God, Word of Life. 

Congregation: Thanks be to God. 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

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

Fear. 

And it is real.  And it is valid.  Fear that you can’t cover your mortgage this month.  Fear that people have been given public permission by someone who will hold the highest office to demean women.  Fear that our families are tearing apart under political divide. Fear that President-Elect Trump will say something foolish and our international relationships will be strained or worse.  Fear of being one medical disaster away from financial ruin.  Fear that our friends who are brown, black, LGBTQ or Muslim will experience more psychological and actual threats on their life than they are already experiencing.  Fear that we are impotent to do anything about any of it.

These are real and valid fears. Democrats and Republicans alike are fearful.  Of different things maybe, but too many of us on both sides of the political divide have been overtaken by it.  Fear is the enemy.  Not democrats, not republicans.  Not independents, and not abstainers.

Dear friends who are afraid: You are loved, by God, by me, and by many, many, many people who will work to the death for love, compassion, inclusion and embrace of all our needs and all our diversity. Bless you. I will pray for you and all the fears you feel.

What does the Sacred Story have to say about this?  What does God have to say about this? 

Today we hear of Isaiah.  He is a prophet, much like Samuel, the man we heard about a few weeks ago who told David it wasn’t his job to build the temple.  Prophets are in the business of telling us what God says, and what jobs God has to give us.  And before they can do that, they themselves have to hear from God.  Like Isaiah does today. 

Isaiah has a vision.  It’s possible that he is in the temple, in the holy of holies, the place where only certain priests could enter to encounter God.  God’s strength is felt powerfully there, where the ark, the throne of God now resides.  But Isaiah’s vision allows him to see the power of God beyond what he can access in that central temple room.  God’s power is magnified and telescoped for Isaiah all at once. He sees the enormity of God, whose robe’s edge brushes into the temple and fills it completely. 

Isaiah is unexpectedly before God, and in the holy presence, Isaiah suddenly knows his own unworthiness – he says he is “unclean.”  Isaiah is full of fear.  He has found himself in the court of the most high God with nothing to offer.  The God who has made all life, and holds it all in the palm of his hand.  The God who gives life and takes away.  Isaiah fears because his life is surely nothing of value to this God.  Isaiah fears because he has no ability to make himself right and pure by God’s standards.  Isaiah fears because he knows precisely how poorly his whole nation is at following God’s commands, these people with unclean lips.

Reasonable fears.  Real and valid fears, that finding ourselves in the midst of God’s glory, we would experience as well. No matter who had won the election on Tuesday. 

The God of the galaxies and the ladybugs holds all of creation in the balance.  Giving us the gift of fear to know when we are near the edge.  When things are not right, not in line with God’s intentions for us.  

Yet, what is the first thing that is said often when angels show up on earth?  Do Not Be Afraid. 

In today’s story, rather than words, the angel responds to Isaiah’s fear by dispelling the reason for the fear.  Isaiah, the angel seems to be saying with the action of the coal.  Do not be paralyzed by your fear.  God has equipped you.  You are able to serve.  

Because what happens next?

God asks “Whom Shall I Send?”

And Isaiah is ready. 

Whether we are red, blue or purple, we too are made ready…through Christ, our purifier.

Christ is found in today’s scriptures in the equipping.  Christ came to die that our sin might be blotted out as the coal did for Isaiah.  Christ came to show us how God works in the world so that we might show up and work with God, rather than against him.  A little fear, when we have something big and new happening is an appropriate human response.  But God gives us what we need to not stay paralyzed by it.

No, we can go forth to speak the truth, as Isaiah is called to do.  We can go forth to tell the good news of God’s love in our actions.  In standing shoulder to shoulder with any who will speak against suffering, poor working conditions, unfair wages, predatory consumerism, abusive religion, or bullying of those who look or worship differently than we do.  

God has something for you to do, for us to do together. Prayerfully, keeping ourselves exposed to and listening for Christ in the sacred story and in our neighbor, we move through fear and into love for our neighbor.

Adult study today begins a new series, “My Neighbor is a Muslim.”  I hope you will all join us.  This is going to be a discovery of the faith of Islam and a conversation about the relationship between Islam and Christianity.  /This is an opportunity to move through fear.  We may be afraid of people who are Muslim, or of their religion.  We may fear an Islamic attack on American soil, yet know very little about the motivations behind such attacks or what the Muslims that live in our communities think about it.  There are lots of ways we can and will stand up for Christ in response to this week’s raucous election.  Here is an appropriate place for a faith community to start.  Later today I will be visiting the Worcester Islamic Society and speaking with two gentlemen in hopes of building a relationship with them.  And maybe finding a way to involve us all in interfaith dialogue.  But before we do that, it is respectful and helpful to learn something together about the conversation we might have.  Is God calling you to this today?  If so, the conversation will be happening just down the hall.

Let us pray,

God, we stand in awe of you, too often filled with fear because of things happening around us.  Give us strength to listen carefully to each other and to those we do not yet know.  Help us to listen with hearts open, and without fear.  For you say to us, “Be not afraid” and “Come, follow me.”  

Amen. 

For our sacred space today we will be blessing your hands as a sign of your baptismal calling to work God’s justice and peace in the world.  Please visit me at the font for an individual blessing and prayer.