A king dies, a baby lives

Joseph, a good guy who followed his dreams. Herod, a powerful, demanding ruler. Which one protected the son of God? Which one kept the baby Jesus alive? Who succumbed to death - and who made life possible for everyone else?

This message was shared at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Center on December 29, 2019. It's unusual that I would be at Springmoor two weeks in a row, much less three times in one month, but the people at the Health Center were not going to have a worship service. I cherish the time with that congregation and am delighted to be able too spend so much time there this year.

You can listen to a recording of the sermon as delivered here.

The lessons of the day are:

Isaiah 63:7-9 

Psalm 148

Hebrews 2:10-18

Matthew 2:13-23

Triune God – Almighty Preserving Father, Redeeming Son Jesus, Everpresent Holy Spirit – reveal to us how you would have us love. Let these words touch our hearts and bring us together in you. Amen.

Well look who’s back!

It’s our stand-up guy Joseph. You might remember that last week Joseph followed God instead of the culture of the day and did what needed to be done without saying too much. He did what God asked of him in a dream and provided for Mary and her baby Jesus.

So this week Joseph is back:

* Dreaming – multiple times!

* Listening to God’s message in that dream

* Caring for the baby Jesus and his mother Mary.

In this week’s Joseph story, Joseph and his little family could be any restless immigrants, not that different than the immigrants today who are fleeing their homelands. The places that have familiar food and culture, landscape and weather. The places that look and take and sound and feel like HOME.

No matter how lovely a place, it’s hard to leave home and go be the stranger, the different one.

There is no doubt that Joseph knew what his people had experienced in Egypt centuries before – the slavery and the exodus, the 40 years of wandering and the miraculous escort into the Promised Land. 

When the Israelites had complained it was because they wanted to go back to Egypt, back to the land of fish and cucumber, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. Tasty foods. And it was relatively easy to travel to Egypt but was out of Herod’s grasp. But it was not home. 

Still, Joseph went. Once again, he did what needed to be done to protect the baby. He didn’t try to stay and demand fairness and justice, he just stepped out of the way of Herod’s wrath.

I wonder if he thought “Oh, this is the Son of God… I have to protect him!”

Maybe.

But I’m guessing that Joseph’s concern may have been more immediate than that. A little less cosmic and a lot more practical: Herod the King had ordered that all the babies the age of Jesus. Joseph was in that baby’s life since the very beginning, Joseph loved his wife Mary and her baby, and he was going to do what he could to keep them safe.

Joseph didn’t have to worry about the Son of God, it was enough that he lived in a way that protected and preserved life – a very normal thing for parents to do.

And then there’s Herod:

Herod was a very different sort of man than Joseph.

We don’t know a whole lot about Herod, but in the text today he comes across as someone for whom power is more important than thoughtfulness.

Of course, he didn’t know the WHOLE story. He didn’t know about the angels who had appeared to Mary and Elizabeth, to Joseph in a dream and to the shepherds in their fields. 

And then there were the Wise Men, or Kings, or scientists/scholars who had come by thinking that SURELY he would know about this new king that had been prophesied but Herod did not. And when he found out?

He did not take it well.

In his world, king meant only one thing: power.

And power meant exactly one thing: winning at all costs.

And Herod was not interested in being challenged. He liked his power and the most important thing to him was to keep it. To keep the power over the people – even if it meant hurting and killing some of them.

So he gave orders:

First to the visiting scientist/scholars – go find that baby and then come back and let me know what you found, ok?

But that did not work out so well either. The scientists/scholars figured out that this Herod guy was not going to be kind. They saw that baby, they saw the miracle of it. And they just wandered home another way.

In their wisdom, and like Joseph, they just stepped out of the way of Herod’s wrath.

Herod was NOT GOING TO HAVE IT though. Herod got madder – the text says INFURIATED. Did he stop to think? Did he notice how easy it was for the scientists/scholars to sidestep his order? Apparently not.

So he gave another order. This time a horrific, terrible order. He used his significant human power to kill. He ordered that all the boy babies younger than 2 should be killed. He had decided that his human power would be enough, that he could control the world, and protect himself by harming others.

Protect himself by killing babies – babies the age of Jesus. 

So many senseless deaths, and Herod still did not get what he thought he wanted. God had selected Joseph, so the baby Jesus was not among them. It was not Jesus’s time to die.

And here is the miracle of it:

Herod, the one with all the power, power to 

* Pitch a fit rather than learn about the actual promise

* Find it surprising when people did not obey him

* Take his self-centered anger out on everyone around him AND

* Demand the destruction of two whole years’ of baby boys….

That’s a lot of power, at least by human standards.

But it is nothing – absolutely nothing – compare to what God did through individuals who had little or not social or political power.

* The three kings just went home a different way, bypassing Herod completely. I wonder how long it took for Herod to realize he was being ignored?

* Joseph and Mary, young parents of a toddler, got up and took that baby out of the country to a safer place in Egypt.

* And Joseph, Mary, and Jesus went back to their homeland, having outlived that angry king, despite all his worldly power.

And in this encounter, we see the difference between God’s power and human power:

* God worked quietly, gently, through weak (by worldly standards) human beings like Mary and Joseph and the least powerful of all – a baby. God led the kings home on a different road and stymied Herod’s plan to nab the baby.

o Herod, on the other hand, was interested primarily in himself and his earthly power. He used that power to force people to obey his anger-fueled will. He relied on power, not relationship.

* God worked under the radar – first in coming as a baby, then in Egypt, and always at a straightforward human level.

o Herod wielded power on a large scale, even to the point of destruction of a whole segment of the population.

* And here is the biggest difference: Herod died. Eventually, of course, Jesus would die too, but unlike Herod, Jesus did not stay dead.

That baby who was loved and protected, spirited away as a child, 

     who lived a humble life without anything fancy

     

      who consorted with the people that were cast out of polite society

     

      who never killed anyone but did bring people back to life

     

who loved and cared so much that the power people – the Herod’s of the time – had him killed

THAT is the Jesus of the Resurrection.

And that is where the meaning lies in our story today.

In the end, human power cannot save you.

In the end, aligning with Jesus, following Jesus, 

     Following God’s call on your life 

Focusing on God’s will by being in relationship with God and in loving relationship with those around you

Those are the outward signs of a life that has been transformed and saved by Jesus, the Savior.

Loving God more than human power… Loving each other rather than harming others to accumulate human power that cannot last. Loving Jesus.

That is how we are saved.

Like Jesus -- In Jesus -- By Jesus.

Amen.

Does it really matter?

Lots of people celebrate this time of year. Some because presents are fun. Some because it's a family or cultural ritual. Some people will recite a story of a baby and his teenage mom and stepfather/protector. There are songs and traditions. But does it matter - does it REALLY MATTER - for our everyday lives? Will it matter on January 1 or January 7 or June 14?

This message combines the Gospel lessons from the last Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve. I was speaking at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village on Sunday, December 22 (Advent 4) and Atria Southpoint Walk on Tuesday, December 24 (Christmas Eve). Since this was the only Advent 4/Christmas Eve service that the residents would have, I combined the two Gospel lessons into one message. The theme riffs off of the message in the Old Testament reading that the Messiah would come from the stump of Jesse - not a new tree, but the roots and remains of an older one. You can listen to the message here.

The two Gospel lessons were:
Matthew 1:18-25
Luke 2:1-20

These are the two Gospels that record the story of Jesus being born.

Father who created us, baby Jesus who we celebrate in this season, Holy Spirit who lives and moves among us constantly, take these words and transform them by your love that we may know you more.  Amen.

At the tail end – ALMOST TIME!

Waiting and waiting

For restoration of creation

Short days and long nights

Seeking relief from brokennss

But this story that we heard today – does it still matter today?

I mean, there were lots of babies born and we don’t think about them. They lived and died and that was that.

But this one… was it special, aside from the poverty?  

I think that if the story is to make a difference it really does need to have some application for the lives of people today. 

Let’s start with Joseph:

* Wanted to do THE RIGHT THING

* Right according to social order

* Right by Mary

* Right according to God (in the dream)

* And he chose God

He doesn’t speak much and we really don’t hear much about Jesus, but…

* Did he build a crib for that baby?

* Took some punches – when Jesus was 12 (FATHER’S house? Ouch to step dad)

* And then we don’t hear from him again

Joseph’s legacy lives today in people who show up and go unheralded.

* The people who work in the cafeteria and make sure you have nutritious food, even on holidays.

* The people who keep the electricity going to we can all be warm.

* The nurses and medical professionals

o The people who show up at churches and missions and ministries

And then there is the story of Jesus being born. Who was part of that story?

* Not the perfect nuclear family, but a teenaged unwed mom and the man who would take care of a child that was not his

* Shepherds – scoundrels who got sent out with the sheep because they weren’t nice enough or rich enough

* The innkeeper who took in that (soon to be) family that they did not know

Angels came and sang and the glory of God broke through the very heavens. But there were no tickets, it was just for who was there.

It was a foreshadowing of what Jesus cared about: being present for the people that are not all about what the social order said was most important. In particular:

* The wicked tax collectors who oppressed the people and stole from them because they could – supported by the government that absolutely knew what they were doing. There is no mention of an “honest” tax collector.

* Mentally ill people who were relegated to tombs – people that got chained up because nobody knew what else to do with, for, or about them.

* Children, who had no standing.

* Crowds of strangers who came for the spectacle, out of curiosity

That is a life that the story of Jesus being born in a stable points to. It’s like he was born in poverty and never really saw a need to go anywhere else.

He was also setting an example for the people who would follow him. A call to

* Spend time with the scoundrels – the people who do not end up at the center of power and social importance

* Provide housing for people who are poor and in need – even if they look like a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend 

* Mentally or physically ill people who are doing the best they can and who need love more than anything else

* Children, who require so much work and have so little to give back – except for love. Most of the time.

* Strangers that seem odd for whatever reason

The birth of Jesus pointed to the life of Jesus, and to the degree that we can care for all the people, not just the ones who have something to give back to us, we are following Jesus. And I see it every day in the faces and hearts of people who have need and the people who make sacrifices to meet those needs in the ways that we can here and now.

And then there is Mary. Right in the middle of all this. After she had 

* learned she was going to have a baby – despite being a virgin

* learned that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant even though she was old

* taken the trip to Bethlehem

* found a place to stay after all  

* visited by those scoundrel shepherds who had an astonishing story of…

* ANGELS

She kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

I have always wondered… WHAT DID THAT MEAN???

Until I embarked on this life of ministry. And I saw:

* There were exactly enough boxes of food for the people who came.

* There were an abundance of gifts from strangers, given to people they would never meet.

* Ministries that are touching lives despite negativity from people who think that ministry can look only one way

Daddy used to say you don’t have to believe me, just remember.

* Not disbelief; lack of understanding

* Tools before we know we need them

This pondering is our call to faith

      Notice the things that make no sense

      See how it shows up in our lives

Because that humble birth foreshadowed the REAL reason that Christmas is still important to us today.

* Jesus walked humbly

* Jesus lived so far outside of the world that valued human things, like wealth and power and privilege that

* Jesus was killed

Of course, people are killed all the time for living outside of our society’s standards.

But this is the difference with Jesus:

Jesus was resurrected. His life that started in a stable and was characterized from the beginning and all the way through by humility and caring for “the least of these” was apparently so powerful that it defeated EVEN DEATH.

And who would not want to follow that kind of life?

If we want to defeat death, then we have only one example: the Jesus who was born among strangers, announced to scoundrels watching animals out in the pasture, and cared for by his teenager mother and a man who was not his father.

The Jesus who fed everybody, gravitated to the outcasts, and turned a bunch of fishermen into people who spread a faith that we profess today.

And so yes, this story DOES still matter to us today. 

Not because a guy named Joseph did what needed to be done but because we are called to be gracious to each other and do what needs to be done. 

Not because God’s heavenly messangers, the angels, sang to shepherds in the field but because we are called as earthly messengers of God‘s will to go to the scoundrels and to give the gifts that we have been given so richly. 

Not even because a teenager named Mary was faced with confusing things and pondered them in her heart, but because we are faced with confusing things and ponder them in our hearts. 

As a result the story of that a pregnant teenager, a good guy, angels, shepherds, and a baby in a manger matters for us today. More than ever. 

So today I wish you a Merry Christmas and rejoice with you that we too will one day be resurrected. And in the meantime, we will be loved.

Amen

Stump or sapling?

It's all very upside down, this being with God. Advent in particular seems like an upside-down time. People are running around busily having parties and buying gifts and decorating and baking, or maybe working hard, wondering how they will have the resources to celebrate as it seems they are "supposed" to. But Advent in the church year is a time of waiting and wondering, which is quite the opposite of the very busy doing that consumes so many people.

That was the theme this week at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village, where I preached to my beloved congregation of people who no longer have the capacity to run around busily. Bodies and minds that don't quite work the way they used to, and yet... each and every person is completely beloved of God and can therefore wait and wonder and rejoice. You can listen to the message, recorded live, here.

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

Come Holy Spirit. Show us who you are and how you are. Let you Word be the Word that is heard today. Amen.

I have been noticing something recently. I don’t think it’s anything new, but I have noticed that we – people in general – spend a lot of time talking about how things are supposed to be.

Take the weather – at the beginning of October it was 100 degrees, way hotter than it is supposed to be! Then at the end of the month it was in the 40s, way colder than it is supposed to be.

Then there are parents and children: are children wilder than they are supposed to be because their parents are not controlling their behavior, or are parents more protective than they are supposed to be, never allowing their kids to get in trouble or learn from their mistakes?

It comes up over and over – people aren’t supposed to be so rich, or so poor, or so sick, or have it so easy.  There are even people who might say the pastor is not supposed to wear jeans and sneakers to a worship service! And yet… here I am.

We seem to have some pretty strong ideas of how things should line up.

Which is why it is always so surprising to read passages in the Bible like the ones we heard today. Those passages seem to be exactly opposite of everything we “just know” about how things are supposed to be.

Take the first reading. Isaiah is encouraging the Israelites, who are about to have a really, really hard time in captivity… and his encouragement is that the big promise – their big redemption is going to come from a stump.

Many people would not look for something new in the leftover end of a tree that has been cut down.

Or say you are a shepherd… every shepherd knows that you do not let a wolf into the pen to sleep with sheep! And yet, in this new time that Isaiah talks about, brought on by a branch from a stump, wolves will lie down with the sheep.

Is it that the sheep will no longer be in danger, or is it that the wolves will no longer want to hurt sheep?

And then there is the one that horrifies me most: a baby playing near the hole of a snake. Who would DO that?!?! And yet… what if the pains of our world were gone? What if babies were safe everywhere, even by a snake’s hole.

What if that is how creation was meant to be, and our sense of how things are supposed to be is based not on the perfect creation of God, but of our own experience of a very broken world?

Now this is a hard thing. It’s hard to remember that God is different than most of our experiences ever… that our common sense is not God’s common sense. And yet, when we have spiritual experiences, encounter God in some way, we notice how different it is than the world around us. And it is beautiful or magical or just sticks with us in some part of our being in a way we can’t seem to shake.



I wonder if that is why, in the gospel lesson, people from all over Judea came out to see John. He certainly wasn’t wearing the finery of the priests. He ate bugs and honey, not the rich meat and bread from Temple sacrifices. But people from all over the place heard something special when he spoke. Something wild and different, but also something special. Something more like God than like the broken world they were living in.

Even the well-fed, well-dressed, religious expert Pharisees and Sadducees came out to see what was up. John was not like them, but they apparently wanted to see what was going on. Was it because they sensed God’s presence? Or were they jealous that John was drawing a crowd? We don’t really know… but what we do know is that John calls them…

VIPERS. A whole brood of vipers. The dangerous kinds of animals that we keep our babies away from.

John told them that they were looking in the wrong place for their hope – that the hope would not come from what they thought was supposed to happen.

John told them that the ax was at the root and the trees that weren’t bearing good fruit would be cut down. Into STUMPS. Like the stumps of Isaiah, maybe.

John did not say everything would be destroyed and started fresh. In fact, God had promised Noah a long time ago that everything would NOT be destroyed. But the useless trees would be cut down and something new and better would come from the stumps. That is a hopeful message! Unless you are one of the trees being cut down….


It’s true for each of us: we are in a broken world that tells us that greed is good, wealth is more important than work, poverty is a moral failing, and illness is our own fault. None of which are part of God’s original, perfect creation. And the more we look to the world the more pain we feel when we are cut back to stumps.

That is why, even in the most secular parts of our world, when individuals encounter generosity, creative work, compassionate healing, and love for all people we notice that it is different. And we like it. We long for it. Even when it comes from preachers wearing jeans and purple camo sneakers. Even when it comes from the places we least expect it.

Those encounters with God give us hope. It isn’t going to fix the brokenness of the world but it does reassure us that the brokenness has not completely won the day.

It gives us hope for things that seem out of step with “contemporary” values (which are remarkably similar to the ways the world has been broken since near the beginning.)

We hope that this goodness and compassion and love can spread and we recognize it in people who love and care without regard to the prevailing society. We notice it when someone cares about children, or eats with tax collectors or criminals. We notice when people are being fed for no other reason than that they are hungry.

We notice when people (sometimes surprisingly) do things that Jesus did consistently, all the time.


And that brings us to the good news that I bring to you again today:

If you feel more like a stump than a sapling, it’s ok. Because Jesus was the goodness that came from the Stump of Jesse that Isaiah mentioned. If you feel like a stump you can remember that Jesus was a stump, too.

If you feel a little out of step, like somehow things are not as they are supposed to be, remember today’s messages that the way things are is not the way God intends and that ultimately God will have God’s way. And when that happens you will be returned to the perfection you were created to be.

In the words of Jesus, the words we will hear again at the culmination of this Advent time of hope – Fear Not.

Jesus knows you and loves you.

Jesus lived a human life and did not fit in.

Jesus was so far from what people were supposed to be that they killed him!

Fortunately for us, Jesus was also so far from what people were supposed to be that he did not stay dead. The divine Jesus was Resurrected and because of that we too will be Resurrected someday, to be fully the people that God originally created humanity to be.

So here we are in Advent. Living in ongoing hope for a Savior to come again. A Savior who would not stay dead will certainly not be held by any broken earthly ideas of how things are supposed to be.

So be encouraged.

You are loved.

You are wonderful and marvelous and can be who you were created by God to be in every moment of your life… regardless of how the world says things are supposed to be.

Amen.

Don't worry, be loved

This week's message was delivered at both Springmoor Retirement Center in Raleigh, NC and Atria Southpoint Walk Independent Living facility in Durham. I was going to record it but then forgot to turn on the recorder, so there's just the text. I don't think I followed the text that closely, but the main ideas are there.

The texts for the week are:
Malachi 4:1-2a
Psalm 98
2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19

Come Holy Spirit. Carry these words where they need to go. Let your love be the centerpoint. Amen

You know how they started putting out Christmas decorations weeks before it was even Halloween? And Thanksgiving kind of gets lost in the mix these days?

And how we say “it’s too soon! It’s not time yet! We haven’t even gotten into fall yet – how can it be time for Christmas which comes at the END OF THE YEAR?”

Well… I am bringing some news that might be a little bit surprising to some folks: The year is, in fact, coming to an end!

Maybe not the calendar year so much… quite yet…

But in just two weeks we will be starting a new church year. It will be Advent, the time of waiting until the great festival of Christmas.

So that leaves this week and next week in this church year.

We are just at the end and sometimes the end can seem kind of rough and raggedy. In fact, sometimes that’s how we know it’s at the end.
     The socks with a hole in the toe? The end.
     The slacks with the worn knees?
     Or the shirt with fraying collar?
     Or the chair with that one wobbly leg?
We know it’s at the end because it isn’t right. It isn’t how it was originally created to be.

Our lessons today talk about the end, too. About how things are not how they were originally created to be, and how that tells us something:

Here’s what Malachi says about the raggedy things that will come at the end:
* Burning like an oven
* Arrogant and evildoers will be stubble
* Without root or branch

And then in Luke:
* Not one stone left on another
* Wars and insurrections
* Nation against nation
* Famines and plagues
* Persecution

Well who would EVER want to live in times like that?? It’s tempting to think that maybe we should just give up. Throw it out like that wobbly chair. Or, perhaps if you are a more energetic sort, at least try to fix it?

Apparently the people in today’s lesson from Thessalonians felt a little bit like that. They were so convinced that the bad things were happening that Jesus would be back (quite literally) ANY MINUTE and so they didn’t need to do a thing. They could just hang out and wait.

They quit living into their calls as people – their one unique personhood that only they could fulfill.

But Paul was not having it. Paul said WHOA WHOA WHOA HERE! You can’t just QUIT! You have to keep going. Sure Jesus will come back, but you have to keep living until that very minute.

You can’t just give up. You were not made to give up.

And that is what I want you to hear today: you were not made to give up. You can still live the life you were born to live, in whatever way there is to live it today.

You do not have to be afraid.

For as long as I can remember I have heard these texts read with their laundry list of disaster and thinking (along with other people around me) IT’S NOW! THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW!

But now I am not quite so young as I once was and I have a sneaking suspicion that those words, those harbingers of disaster, are ALWAYS happening – that they always have been happening, ever since The Fall in the Garden of Eden. Because the world simply is not how it was originally created to be.



And OH don’t we love to focus on that? How bad things are?

What we are not quite so eager to focus on is the other part of our readings that are the same today and always:
* Those who persevere
* An opportunity to testify
* Do the work that you were born to do
* DO NOT PREPARE YOUR DEFENSE IN ADVANCE

Somehow, Malachi, and then about 400 years later, Jesus, seemed to be saying the same thing:

WELL YEAH things are going to be hard and scary. But that is not what is important!

Don’t get caught up trying to fix what you cannot fix!

Don’t go down the rabbit hole of academic theology (or whatever other arguments you like – politics, climate change, reproductive rights, whatever). Don’t try to systematize everything and constantly clarify and argue and pretend like it can ever all be ok.

Because it can’t.

The latest political skirmish
Scary weather changes
How women and men and their unborn babies are treated
Even the latest spat you have had with someone you love

Those are not the things that are going to win (or lose) the day. We cannot stop all those things. We cannot put the world back like it was originally created to be.

There is only one thing that matters, and that one thing is

Living in God.
Following Jesus
Living the life you are called to live.

Jesus came and lived a life steeped in all the realities of humanity. All the wars and arguments, and anger, and poor treatment, and anguish.

But do you know what Jesus never did?
* Jesus never worried
* Jesus did not argue with the Pharisees and Sadducees, even when they asked him foolish trick questions.
* Jesus did not even (as far as we know) argue with his parents!

How did he DO that?? Did you ever wonder how Jesus knew what to say to the people who tried to trip him up?

Well, of course Jesus was God.

But even though Jesus was God, he spent time reading Scripture and studying in the Temple. He took time to pray. He spent time being with alone with God.

He did not study and pray to out argue scholars though, or to get his own way. Jesus spent his time studying and praying in order to be in the company of God – of the Trinity.

Which is pretty remarkable, given that Jesus IS ONE OF THE TRINITY.

But that’s what he did. He spent time with the other two members of God. So when the questions came he knew what to say. He knew how God thought. He knew how to fit the foibles and weaknesses of humanity with the ultimate love and yearning of God.

Remember those stories where Jesus would be in trouble with the Temple officials for something or other, and he just walked through the crowd and left? Why was it different at the crucifixion?

How did he know when it was time to stay and die?

I believe it is because he stayed close to God.

He had prayed and learned as a human, listened and believed. So when times got really hard, Jesus knew what to do.

I am pretty sure that is what our texts want us to know today.

There are always going to be terrible, scary, destructive things happening, right up to the time Jesus returns.

We are at the end of the church year and we are somehow at the end of time, waiting for Jesus. And someday this life as we know it will end. But it will not end up tattered like an old sock or frayed shirt.

Someday it will be like it was originally created to be again. And God will be the one who makes it so. Not you, or me, or a bishop, or a president. Not a king or a doctor. But God. That is the promise. God will take care of the world and everything in it, and it will be restored.

If you have spent your life praying and listening and learning and loving God, then you do not have to worry.

If you are new to praying and listening and learning and loving God, then you do not have to worry.

If you know God even a little bit, you do not have to worry.

None of us is called to worry.
None of us is called to fix things on our own.
None of us is designated as the person to focus on how wrong everything is

We are called to live the life we have now.

We are called to spend time with God. To learn to know God: Father, Holy Spirit, and our beloved Jesus.

That’s it.

And when the time comes we will know what to say – much like Jesus did – because we will be who we were born to be, and we will know exactly and perfectly what God wills.

We will know that we are loved – just like Jesus was.

AMEN.

You are a treasure

This sermon was written for and delivered to my beloveds at the Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Community in Raleigh, NC. I go to visit and lead vespers about once/month, usually on the second Sunday of the month, and I have grown to love the people with all my heart. They do not always remember who I am - memories being tricky things, especially when there are more years on a body. But we all love each other. Sometimes we laugh. We sing. And I get to tell them that Jesus loves them. Ever single time.

I recorded the message and you can listen to it here. One of the congregants was very excited about singing, so you might hear her comments in the mix. Don't worry, though, there was lots of singing!

The texts for the day are:

Job 19:23-27a 

Psalm 17:1-9 

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 

Luke 20:27-38 

ON THE SURFACE, today’s lessons seem to be all about the tragedy.

First, Job. God loved him so much and was so confident in his faith that disaster fell all around his ears. So much for prosperity, right? Job started out as a rich guy, and ended up losing everything… because God thought he was absolutely the best.

But Job was adamant. Job, which is some of the oldest literature in the Bible.  WAY BACK THEN Job was saying what the Sadducees in the Gospel lesson did not want to hear:

Job said, essentially, that his Redeemer LIVES, and that he will live too.

Job said that God is about life.

So it was not a new thing that Jesus brought to the story. LIFE had been there all along.


But then along come those Sadducees who had decided that, well, sure, life was lovely but NO WAY could there be a Resurrection. Nuh-uh. And they were going to trick Jesus. Prove that resurrection doesn’t even make SENSE.

Their story had all the elements: the rule of Law in the form of a woman and some brothers who were all following the rules set down by Moses.

The rules were about taking care of women in a pretty restrictive society…. They were to protect the woman.

But that’s not exactly how the story went when the Sadducees told it. They took a law that was meant to protect vulnerable women with no means of support and turned it into a game. They turned it into a legal exercise for them to sit around and debate.

They did not know the first thing about that poor woman!

If they were really worried about her, how could they have listed it as a countdown? It’s a little like that song…

     Ten little ducks went out to play, over the hill and far away...

It reads like a countdown rather than a realization of the horrific circumstance of losing SEVEN husbands in one lifetime.

It completely glosses over her pain and anguish… not to mention the reason for continually marrying the next brother. Where is the part about protecting that woman?  Where is the realization of what that law from Moses was about anyway?

For them, it was just a legal exercise. Not a life.

How often do we encounter that kind of thinking, though?

We turn the real problems in people’s lives into legal exercises. Rules that don’t connect to humanity.

The health care system, for example… it’s all about the insurance rules, isn’t it?

My blood pressure has always run on the high side and my doctor is adamant that something terrible is going to happen to me. I faithfully take the medicines she prescribes, I exercise, I try to eat healthy food. But my blood pressure is always high.

It irritates my doctor, this situation where my body does not act like she thinks it should.

It irritates me, too, though. Because I never hear a single word of sympathy, or encouragement. Just more news about all the bad things that might happen.

My doctor SAYS she is concerned about my life, but she really isn’t all that interested in what I think are the most important parts of my life. All she talks about is how I might die. It does not matter to her that my life might be about more than the numbers connected to my blood work.

Just like the Sadducees.

They did not know that women – she was just a hypothetical case. It’s likely they had never been in a deep conversation or even close around a widow. Around what widowhood means in the life of a real human being.

They did not care about her grief.

They just wanted to prove a point – that resurrection doesn’t make sense.

They were saying, in effect, that there was only death. That only death mattered. Over, and over, and over. Laws and death. Death and legal requirements.

It seems, in fact, that their intense resistance to the idea of resurrection was more important than the life of a poor, grief-stricken woman. They did not want to think about that woman and all those men living a painless, redeemed life. They wanted to win the argument so they could keep their positions of power.

They had wandered so far away from the God that had been spoken in the earliest of stories about Job.

And I think that broke Jesus’ heart.

Because I’m pretty sure what Jesus heard was a grief-stricken family that lost seven sons. The pain and difficulty of the life of a woman who was passed down from one brother to the next as each husband died.

Jesus was all about life for everyone, especially those in the most pain He always noticed the pain because that’s what had to be healed for a fulfilled life.

Jesus was the living, breathing fulfillment of what Job said: I *know* that my Redeemer lives. The shout of joy and redemption that we cry out every Easter.

Jesus came to teach us about life in the present and life eternal. When those 7 brothers would live. When the woman would live, released from the pain and uncertainty of a family with lots of sons and very bad luck in living!


And so it is for us, too.

The Jesus who proclaimed love and life on earth

Who showed us how to live

Also shows us that we are – EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US –

100% valuable.

Jesus, the one who proclaimed that each of us is worthy of living forever.

     The one who took up the cross because we could never do it ourselves

Who was unwilling to sacrifice us, so Jesus sacrificed himself

Jesus, who died and then showed with his own body that Resurrection is real.

The Sadducees were wrong.

     There IS resurrection.

My doctor who can only see a future of disaster for me is wrong.

I can live fully now in body and mind and spirit, and I will live forever in Jesus, regardless of the medical establishment’s averages.

In Jesus, we are all free dto live the life we have been called to live right now.

And if living is hard here today, then we can know there is also a better life:

The life that God gives us in Jesus.

The life that never ends.

     Where every person is important.

Every life is essential

We all have something to share with each other and with the world.

You are a treasure, a gift, alive, and that is how you can be forever, because of Jesus.

AMEN.

ORDAINED!

On October 27, 2019, it happened. I was ordained to be a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

AND HOW AWESOME IS THAT??

When things were difficult, and it wasn't clear where it would all end up, I would say "the Holy Spirit is doing something, and when everybody gets there, it will be beautiful. And it was. It was a magnificent service, but not in a pretentious or fancy way. It was beautiful in the way my life is beautiful because people from every part of my life were there. It's taken me several weeks to come down from the mountaintop state of pure, unadulterated joy, to living in the regular world again.

You can see the service here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nlpM7uMCOQ

What my cat taught me about trusting Jesus

This message was written for the congregation at Christus Victor Lutheran Church in Durham for the October 6, 2019 Blessing of the Animals service at 8:30 am. I was going to share it at the 10:30 am service as well. But then the plumbing broke and services had to be cancelled. So here is what I would have said, or at least a mostly-finished draft of it.

The texts on which is based are:
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

In what have you put your trust?

In whom have you put your trust?

Maybe it’s politics! That’s a very popular topic in our world today.

Some people put their trust in the current state and federal administrations. Other people put their trust in anything BUT the current administrations. The trust doesn’t – in either direction – doesn’t seem to be bearing much good fruit, though. 

Maybe it’s your family. The history, traditions, sense of where you are from. If you are from Durham or North Carolina, you may feel the specialness of being native to the area. If you are from some other place, you may cling tenaciously to the traditions and customs that you grew up with, because things are so different here. There’s no place like home, right?

Or maybe it’s social position! Do you have “security” for retirement? Or a good house? Or maybe the right car? Maybe you are healthy enough to not worry about all the things that people who are sick or have disabilities face daily. You might even be healthy enough to not realize how good things are, and so you trust that all will always be well.

Or are you a hard worker? A person who struggled through to achieve an education? Maybe you worked hard all your life, did your homework, fulfilled the requirements. Are you part of the Greatest Generation? Or the Generation That Really Made A Difference? Does that feel like a safety and comfort?

Is the one, the thing, the circumstances that you trust able to guard what you have trusted to it forever?

Let me say that another way… 

Whatever you trust, whomever you trust, the thing you count on, do you trust it the same way my cat trusts me?

I know, cats get a bad rap in the relationship department. But every morning, as soon as I get up, my cat stalks over (and it cannot be described any other way)… she STALKS over and starts YELLING for her breakfast. 

There is no trace of doubt in that sound. It is abundantly clear that she is saying

HEY YOU! Up there with the thumbs! You know good and well it is time that there is food in my bowl. NOW! 

And then she STALKS over and sits in front of her bowl. She has told me of her need and is completely confident that I will fill that need. I might be standing at the coffeemaker, or gathering the clothes I will wear for the day, but she is at that bowl. Sitting. Waiting in the certain hope that she will be fed soon.

I wonder if the confidence and power – the kind my cat shows every day - is what Paul is talking about in his statement to Timothy. Paul KNOWS who he has trusted and has absolute confidence in that trust. 

But here is a big way that Paul’s trust is different than mine, and might be different than yours, too. My cat’s trust – and my trust – is in a context of a pretty good life, in a pretty safe place, where I have pretty good access to clothing and food and other basic needs, including people who care.

But Paul’s trust was so powerful that when things went really wrong, 

When Paul got beaten up and put in prison

When he was put in jail

When his friends disappointed him

Paul kept right on doing what he KNEW was true and correct. 

     He kept right on trusting his God. 

     Believing in what Jesus had done for him.

KNOWING that in spite of what was happening in the world around him, he could trust that his God was there and shaping the path.

Paul could trust that God would come through in the same way that my cat trusts that I will come through with the cat food. Maybe not this exact second… but soon. Reliably. With great certainty.

And I am going to be bold and tell you right now that I have had SO MANY MOMENTS, especially in the last six years, where I am not sure that I was as confident as Paul that things were really going in the direction that will keep me.

I want to say “well, yeah, of course, because y’know… God is God.”

But is it that easy? 

Sometimes it is… but sometimes it gets a lot more complicated. Because sometimes I get confused about who is in control, and what is causing the good things.

Take, for example, all the good things happening in South Durham right now, the things that this congregation participates in: sharing food with strangers, caring for a beautiful building and the lands around it, growing food for neighbors to access freely, taking meals to people faced with illness or injury, inviting children to music camp, making quilts to cover people in all parts of the earth. This is a vital congregation and I know the list of things you do to share God’s love for you is long.

And I know the world says WOW! Look at that group of people over at Christus Victor!

I’ve met you. I know the love you share and I know you are humble and generous.

And that’s why it is so hard to read the words of Jesus in today’s gospel. The part where Jesus says… yeah… ummmm… well…. It’s not really all that much. It’s certainly not any more than I call you to do.

And when I read that I think…. WAIT… WHAT????

I’m supposed to call myself a worthless slave? 

But…

But…

But…

Yeah. I know.

But setting aside our temptation to read this literally based on what those words mean today…

What Jesus is getting at is the same thing Paul is talking about.

Do you trust your own goodness?

Do you put your trust in this building?

Or in your service activities?

What if the building disappeared?

Or your family could no longer be there for you because of health reasons, or the kinds of pain and arguments that families are so good at falling into?

Or you had a brain injury or stroke that prevented you from relying on your education?

What if you were unjustly thrown into prison?

WHAT IF EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD ABOUT LIFE GOT TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AND BROUGHT INTO DOUBT?

Would you still know in whom – in what – you put your trust?

Well, siblings and friends and people I have not yet met, I am here to share with you the BEST NEWS EVER. 

Literally.

Seriously.

It is not about beating yourself up and thinking of yourself as worthless, because in God’s eyes you have INFINITE worth.  It’s just that if you put your trust in Jesus, completely, utterly, crazy-like (by the world’s standards) in Jesus, everything else will pale.

Your gardens can win community engagement awards but you will say, well, YEAH, but that’s NOTHING compared to what Jesus did… what Jesus made possible.

Because Jesus lived the way we were created to live.

Jesus walked with the poor and sick and hurting… but he never got too busy to go off and pray in a quiet place.

And it got him killed. Dead.

But it could not keep him dead.  In living that perfect life, and dying a real human death, Jesus broke the spell that required us to be good enough… to do good enough.

Jesus made everything right. We continue our broken and imperfect attempts at living like Jesus did (and I believe we really do yearn to live like Jesus did) but our actions are no longer the main thing. We don’t have to get it perfectly right, because Jesus did that for us.

We are free now.

We are free to put our trust in Jesus.

We are free to know that NO MATTER WHAT ELSE HAPPENS we are freed. Redeemed. No longer under that spell of trying to be good enough – or if not good enough, then at least better than…  well… pick someone that has a different weakness than you do.

You no longer have to work at being good enough because in Jesus you ARE good enough.

You are freed to maintain the building the best you can, to feed the neighbors the best you can, to give comfort to those in your community the best you can. 

And it will be the least you can do.

Because the real work is done and in Jesus you are free to love. Free to go where the Holy Spirit leads. Free to break human rules that contradict God’s loving will because you KNOW where you can put your trust and the Most Important Thing is to follow the Spirits’ calling. 

No matter how bad things look – or how good. Your situation is the same. You are a beloved, free, redeemed, treasured, and absolutely good-enough Child of God.

Amen.

BIG BIG NEWS! And an invitation

On Saturday, September 21 the Synod Council of the North Carolina Synod voted to extend to me a call to Parkwood United Methodist Church and South Durham Connections. That is a very good thing – the thing I have been moving towards for awhile now.

I will be serving as a mission developer for South Durham Connections, working in particular with people who are not participating in traditional churches. My work will be anchored in the Parktown Food Hub. Parkwood UMC is the congregation that will be sponsoring me and in which the Parktown Food Hub is housed.

This is the vision that has been growing since I told Bishop Tim Smith on October 28, 2017 that I was going to be a mission developer. At that time he looked at me and asked “what kind of mission are you going to develop?” and I could not articulate an answer - it was a calling but I did not know how I would be answering it. I know now, though! Thanks be to God who has brought this thing to pass and patiently worked with everyone involved to bring us together into this opportunity to share Christ with a hurting world.

Now, two years later, I will be ordained in a service at 4:00 pm on October 27, 2019 - Reformation Sunday - at St. Paul’s Lutheran in Durham. St. Paul’s is my home congregation and there are many details that ordination at St. Paul’s will bring full circle.

You are all invited and I hope you can all attend. I love it that my first day as an ordained mission developer will be exactly two years after that conversation with Bishop Tim. God has left no detail untended. I am currently feeling all that love in a very particular and wonderful way.

Thank you all for your support and kindness, for the forms you filled out, the feedback you offered, the opportunities you provided, and the shoulders you shared so generously.

St. Paul’s address is 1200 West Cornwallis Road, at the corner of Pickett and Cornwallis Roads. There will be a reception after the service. All are welcome to attend. If you are a clergy member, please wear the vestments of your tradition. The color of the day is red, the color of the fire, hope, and power of the Holy Spirit.

Wait... hate?

This weeks message came at an interesting time. I was visiting my father in Texas. He lives in an independent living facility and so as I was studying for this message I was surrounded by old people. Parents. Loved ones. People who share aches and pains and frustrations that younger people can't quite imagine. Many are gracious and patient in a way that only time can develop. Others are irritated and angry and wonder how they got where they are. But all of them touched my heart, and thinking about hating these beautiful people to follow Jesus gave me pause.

On top of that, this message was delivered twice - to people in two different facilities for older people. The Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village hosted me on Sunday, September 8 and the kind people at Atria Southpoint Walk welcomed me on Tuesday, September 10. There are a lot of things I could have said differently, and many other directions this message could have gone. But here is the text from which I spoke.

The texts for this week are:
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33

I have an odd request today… will you take a moment and think about a time that you hated someone?

You don’t have to say it out loud and I promise I won’t ask who! But can you remember that moment? What was it like? Did it surprise you? Or upset you?

Or was it just a little big satisfying in the way that anger and revenge can be? That way where it feels good right in the moment, but then later you feel kind of bitter and dirty and you wished you did not feel that way?

I have a youngish friend who is struggling to get along with her brother. She gets so angry, and says things like “Why do I even bother? I’m not even going to TRY to have a relationship with him anymore!” Then she will fume and fuss and talk about how terrible her brother is.

As I listen to her I think of time when I confessed, in a great deal of pain and anguish, that I once hated someone with that fire and passion and pain and anguish. It was a relief when the friend who was listening to me at that time reassured me that sometimes hate is not the opposite of love.

She said that hating someone did not preclude loving them. In fact, the fury and rage that I (and also that my youngish friend) felt arose BECAUSE of love! If we had been indifferent to those we said we hate, if we did not care at all, if we did not love them so much, we would never have wanted to bother spending all the energy it took to feel those moments of hatred.

Because hate, you see, is often not the opposite of love. In those situations – situations of close personal relationship - the hater cares a LOT. In those situations, indifference is the opposite of love.


That connection between love and hate seems really important as we hear this text today. Jesus, whose very being was grace, and peace, and goodness, and kindness, and LOVE is telling great crowds of followers to hate their families and themselves.

Now, that is a little upsetting to read on the face of it, isn’t it? Hate seems like such an un-Jesus thing! Especially the rage and frustration and distance that hate often brings (even if it is based on love in some way.)

Beyond that, Jesus doesn’t say “hate the guy who cuts you off on the highway” or “hate the person who bullied you in the schoolyard.” Jesus says to hate your
* Father
* Mother
* Wife
* Children
* Brothers
* Sisters
* AND YOUR OWN LIFE!
And indeed, Jesus said the hatred is NECESSARY to be a disciple of Jesus! Along with giving up all of your possessions. Wow. That’s really a lot.


This past week I got to spend time with my father in Dallas. He’s 88 and doesn’t move too fast. When he does move he gets tired quickly, and he spends almost as much time napping as he spends doing other things. My heart breaks when I think of the day I will no longer be able to see him. The love I feel for him is a part of my very being. There has never been a time in my life that I did not know and love my Daddy.

But here I am, being a pastor, a professional Jesus-follower. Does that mean I have to HATE my Daddy? I can’t even manage to be irritated with him, much less hate him! SURELY I don’t have to be mad at this man who has been my greatest supporter, my most consistent and long-term advisor, the one who taught me how to be the person I am today?

And WHAT ABOUT that Commandment that we love our parents? What about that? What are we to do with this contradiction? Do I hate Daddy or love and honor him?


Well, first we can return to the reassurance that my friend offered:  hating does not have to preclude loving, not if it happens in the context of relationship. We aren’t talking about the blind hate for people we have never met that dominates our political situation today. This hatred that Jesus talks about is towards the people we also love the most – our families. Ourselves. Even our things.

OF COURSE Jesus wants us to love our parent and spouses, children and siblings. OF COURSE we are to love ourselves! Of course we are to be good stewards of money and property!

But if this hating business is not NOT-LOVING then what is it? If indifference is the opposite of love, then what is the opposite of hate?

Because if we can figure that out then maybe we can figure out what hating IS by knowing what it is NOT.

* We know it has something to do with our closest, longest-lasting, family relationships.
* We know it has something to do with how we perceive ourselves.
* We know that it is something required to FOLLOW Jesus.

We also know from just about everything else in Scripture that we are to care for those around us – BUT NOT MORE THAN GOD.

In fact, we care best for others when we put God first.

We make the best choices in all of our relationships when our relationship with God comes first.

We learn who we are when we see ourselves in relation to God, and in seeing ourselves honestly we can let go of our own self-importance and see those around us as important enough to offer compassion and love.


But when we put our families before God and God’s calling on our lives, we lose that perspective.

When we see ourselves in the context of family (or self, or stuff) first, we miss out on the truth of God.

In families we fit into hierarchies but in putting God first, that hierarchy is flattened into just two levels:
1. God
2. The rest of us.

Earlier in this chapter in Luke we read stories that have the common theme of God coming first:

Jesus heals on the Sabbath, despite the religious hierarchy’s consternation about it.

Jesus tells a story and admonishes the crowds to sit in the lower spot to avoid the humiliation of being asked to leave a better seat.

Story after story in which human rules and hierarchies are called into question and God’s infinite love is spread freely, generously, and openly.

Not just to the insiders, but to anybody who happens to be around. Even those outside the hierarchy.

And that, I believe, is what Jesus means when he tells us that following him means hating our families:

It is a hatred that is relative.

It is a hatred that leaves out human hierarchies and increases love in the way that God leads us.

“Hatred” of the sort illustrated by Jesus when, instead of putting his mother first by coming down from the cross to care for her, Jesus enlisted his friend John to take Mary in. In “hating” his mother, Jesus did a very loving thing and made sure she would have a place to live, a family to care for her.

And in staying on the cross to die – and then be Resurrected! – Jesus fulfilled his divine destiny and loved God (and himself – also God) the most. In that Resurrection everyone, including Jesus’ mother, could then live a fully redeemed life.


So here I stand, once again bringing you the very best news of all:

CHRIST IS RISEN!

JESUS LIVES!

And a God who would love with such a perfect love is worth following. In turning to Jesus, loving with the freedom and graciousness that Jesus has made possible, we can love our parents and children, spouses and siblings, and even ourselves.

So today, and in all the days to come, love God so much that you can love your family in ways far better than you could by putting them in a position above God.

Follow God as if the kingdom is here and now.

Because if following Jesus means leaving our families so that God can hold and care for them, then God’s kind of hate is the best love of all.

AMEN.