Seventh Sunday after Epiphany (C) - 02/24/2019

This week's gospel lesson, another section of Jesus' sermon on the plain, is a blockbuster treasure trove of things to address. It fits closely with the other lectionary texts. It had everything a preacher could want for a sermon... and that made it just a little overwhelming. The message below is the result of much journalling, talking with friends (special shoutout to Ceni and Amy!), and praying and struggling with it.

I suspect that the final version was influenced by the General Conference of the United Methodist Church that is going on this weekend and into the coming week. I am Lutheran - very very Lutheran! - but people I love are Methodist and I attended a Methodist seminary (Duke Divinity School). It is not clear what the Methodists will decide, or what will happen when the decision is made, or how that will affect the people I love. But I have some pretty strong thoughts on the process and those thoughts are reflected below. In fact, the UMC meeting was the starting place for one of the discussions Amy (who is an Episcopalian priest) and I had.

So - here's to you Methodists. May you reveal yourself as children of the Most High and act in community, even as the organizational aspects of your meeting seem to take the focus off of community in Jesus. May you pray, act, and live forward in peace.

This sermon was not preached.

The lectionary texts for this week are:
Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Luke 6:27-38

Show us, Holy Spirit, the difference between love and law. Lead us to follow Jesus. Hold us close in your arms forever. Take these words and send them where they must go. Amen


And here we are again… Jesus standing on level ground, offering a set of activities that seem to point to a certain kind of behavior:

* Love your enemies
* do good to those who hate you,
* bless those who curse you,
* pray for those who abuse you.
* If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also;
* and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.
* Give to everyone who begs from you;
* and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.

Not to mention…
* Do not judge
* Do not condemn
* Forgive
* Give

And the biggie: Do to others as you would have them do to you.

NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE.

If Jesus came to fulfill the law (as he tells says in the Sermon on the Mount… Matthew’s version of this section of Luke) then why is he standing there giving a whole bunch of rules? Don’t those sound like behavioral commands? Like rules?


In the Roman culture of the day, doing anything with the left hand was nasty. Filthy. So if someone smacked you in any kind of remotely honorable way it was with the right hand. Furthermore, the sheer logistics of it require that if you are hitting someone on the right cheek with the right hand, it was a backhanded smack (go ahead, try it… but please don’t actually slap anyone!) Backhanded slaps are the kind of smack that a master gives a slave, to show disdain and hierarchy.

BUT if you then turn the other cheek, the hitter would have three choices: 1) hit with an open hand – as an equal; 2) hit with a fist – as an equal; or 3) hit with the left hand – something extremely shameful to the hitter. In any of those cases the hitter loses culturally.

Similarly, the Romans found it shameful to observe nakedness. So if all a person has left is a shirt or undergarment because their coat has been taken, offering them the only remaining garment means nakedness – and shame for the one who took the cloak.

For those two situations, at least, Jesus is advocating a kind of non-violent resistance. He is suggesting that declining to buy into or follow society’s rules is somehow a good thing.

In the next section, Jesus acknowledges that what he is suggesting is countercultural… that followers of Jesus aren’t like other people and the measure you give is what you will get back.

That sounds remarkably like the prosperity gospel that insists that living a good life will result in material blessing from God – and conversely, lack of material blessing is a sign of leading a wrong life. But this very passage contradicts prosperity gospel in verse 35:

35But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
If Jesus was really advocating for quid pro quo, why would he then say that the ungrateful and wicked are blessed? And command that we expect nothing in return?

AUGGGHHHH… It just keeps getting more muddled up!!


So… WHAT IF these words are not a replacement version of the commandments?

WHAT IF the point is not that Jesus is giving a new set of instructions on how to behave?

WHAT IF something else is going on here?

If we look beyond the specific instructions, we see that everything Jesus mentions is something that can – no, that MUST – happen face to face, live in person, between actual people.

Even the bits about turning the other cheek and giving up your shirt are about using nonviolent resistance to confound the rules of culture – to keep the interactions on a personal level instead of allowing them to be controlled by external rules and norms that come not from human interaction, not directly from God. Jesus knew that human beings cannot help but make rules that are most likely to directly benefit the very people making the rules, in ways that are both subtle and obvious.

So while human cultural rules would say “do as they HAVE DONE to you”, Jesus is saying “do as you WOULD HAVE DONE to you.” Behave as you would like to be treated, not as you actually are treated. Behave as you have learned to behave from Jesus, not as you have learned from other human beings.

Be like Jesus.

The Jesus who is the One THROUGH WHOM ALL CREATION WAS MADE, the one who came to live on earth to demonstrate how it should be done. Because if we all managed to live the kind of life Jesus lived, it would be a perfect world. Just like in the beginning, when the world was being created through the Son… through Jesus.

Jesus is saying that people are meant to live in community.

We have a very hard time living in community these days. Our worlds are dominated by systems or rules, by corporations, by organizational principles. We say things like “We are firing you, but it’s not you, it’s just business” as if somehow the organization’s business purpose is more important than the devastation of a lost job.

Or we say “well, they broke the law” without questioning whether the law might be dehumanizing or unjust.

Or companies encourage meditation, offer comfy rooms, and generally try to increase the amount of time that people work as they encourage pseudo-communities that in the end benefit the company far more than the people who are missing out on time to relax, spend time with family, and live in the messy real communities that are based on people living in equitable circumstances, not guided by an organizational structure that dominates every interaction and that does not even pretend to offer equality to people in the company’s employ.

In real communities, people laugh together, and cry, and argue, and experience awe. But how does an organization laugh or cry or experience awe? How does an organization argue, other than go to court and show their own rules as evidence of their rightness? Real communities may develop among people working for the same organization, but the organization itself cannot be a part of that community because it is not a person (regardless of what the Supreme Court may say on that matter.)

Human beings were created by God, through the Son who came to earth as Jesus. Organizations were not. People can and do love. Organizations do not.

So what is Jesus saying to us as he stands on this level place and talks to the crowd of his followers gathered round?

Jesus is
Calling us to love people.
To love person to person.
To behave AS IF we were all actually in community.

Which might mean resisting all the ways that laws and organizations and culture try to keep us from being fully human as we were created to be.

Joseph demonstrated this countercultural humanity when he reacted to his brothers, to treat them as human beings, rather than using the power at his fingertips to punish them for the ways they trafficked his young body so many years before. Instead, he loved them, even when they were embarrassed and expecting vengeance.

Joseph gave his brothers – and all the people around him – a glimpse of how being human is more important than even-ing the score, and that the very existence of their family depended on that humanity.

Joseph showed his brothers – and us – that living humanly, humanely living like Jesus, paying attention to each other and responding out of love and compassion, will lead to more good things than following human rules and prioritizing organizations.

Jesus is telling us that being humane with each other, resisting the urge to put a single human perspective before God’s call to love as Jesus loved, doing what it takes to be who we were created to be, is the most important thing of all.

Paul tells the Corinthians that Adam was the first person and Jesus is the One who came to set right all that Adam had broken in the Fall.

Jesus showed us how to do that
Spoke clearly (especially in passages like today’s!)
Died a horrible, undeserved death,
And was Resurrected!

In that Resurrection we are freed from the power and control that we have come to expect of each other as we compete to control the largest number of people with our human organizations.

We are freed from wanting to know – and control – how things are NOW… to have everything wrapped up in a neat and tidy package (something that organizations do well – and communities do not.)

We are freed from checklists.

We are freed to love each other and honor humanity in others as we, live and work in community, carry one another’s burdens, respond to individual needs, and realize that IN OUR HUMANITY we will be showing that we are children of the Most High…. Knowing that, in God’s love,

WE ARE FREE to

* Love our enemies
* do good to those who hate us,
* bless those who curse us,
* pray for those who abuse us.
* offer the other cheek when struck;
* give our shirts when our jackets are taken;
* Give to everyone who begs from us;
* and if anyone takes away our goods, do not ask for them again.

We are freed to
* NOT judge
* NOT condemn
* Forgive
* Give

We are freed to live in community, to be able trust that we will recognize the humanity in one another and that in the end, God will offer us grace and mercy and love and peace and all good things… packed down, filling all of our containers, and overflowing the top.

We are free indeed.

Amen.

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany (C) - February 17, 2019

THE BEATITUDES! I love the Beatitudes so much. The first sermon I ever wrote that was not really really horrible was on the Beatitudes and it was an excellent experience. That sermon was on Matthew's Beatitudes, though. This week the text is from Luke, who offers blessings... and woes.

I preached at the Stewart Health Center at the Springmoor Retirement Village in Raleigh. Not only is there no recording of it, I don't even have a full script! I have been wondering if I am too dependent on scripts so I never got more detailed that the fat outline below. The notes I preached from were even more condensed. The people at Springmoor are wonderful and gracious and I love going around and greeting everyone after the short vespers service. I'm thrilled that I get to go back again in a month.

This week's lectionary texts are:
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26

The Beatitudes

* Usually think of Matthew

* Very similar passage in Luke

* Sound kind of alike with the “blessed are the…”

* But also some differences

Matthew talked about spiritual things:

* Poor in spirit

* Hunger and thirst for justice

* Mourning

Matthew 

* Jewish

* Writing to Jews

* On a hill (“Mount”)

* The image was similar to Moses on Mt. Sinai – Jews had a long faith relationship with God based on God coming to a representative of the people on a mountain – It was helpful to the Jews to think of Jesus in terms of Moses

Luke talked about more physical things:

* Poor

* Hungry

* Weep now

Luke was

* Gentile

* Writing to Gentiles

* On a flat place (“Plain”)

* The image is being among the people as an equal – in the Gentile, Greco-Roman culture the emphasis was on social activities and being together at festivals – It helpful to the Gentiles to think of Jesus in terms of their culture and beliefs

But I believe they are telling the same story – because people tell stories depending on their perspectives.

Example: The elephant story

Matthew and Luke are both trying to tell us something – the same thing.

But what is that thing?

Poor

Hungry

Weeping

Hated – excluded – reviled – defamed

That’s what Luke associates with blessing. HOW CAN THAT BE?

Poor –> the riches of the kingdom of God

Hungry –> filled

Weeping –> laughter

Hated – excluded – reviled – defamed –> GREAT REWARD IN HEAVEN

How does that work? 

Luke continues with “Woes” – not in Matthew

Woe to people who are rich – full – laughing – popular

Does the blessing come from being poor? Because that does not seem very loving, does it?

And does that mean that all the people I know who have material wealth are in for misery?

Well… maybe… I guess… because finances sure can be a hassle! But I don’t know that that is a full explanation of what’s happening here.

There is a line in this text that is very important here:

ON ACCOUNT OF THE SON OF MAN

So it is not poor = good and rich = bad

It’s poor WITH JESUS is better than rich WITHOUT JESUS

And the same for being hungry, and crying, and really, really unpopular

All those things WITH JESUS is better than their opposites WITHOUT JESUS

Woe, as used in Scripture, means “a primary exclamation of grief”

And even if you have all the money you can ever imagine needing, without Jesus your life will be one of grief. Because riches cannot give us what we need.

And weeping now, but clinging to the promise of Jesus, will lead to laughter and joy.

Hunger and being full are both temporary.

Weeping and laughter are both temporary.

Popularity and unpopularity are both temporary.

But Jesus and the love of God are permanent. And they are here for us.

Because in his life, Jesus showed us how to keep our priorities straight. He loved people. He fed people. He healed people. He laughed at weddings and cried at funerals.

He cared so much about EVERYBODY else that he made a lot of enemies. And they killed him. But death could not hold him and we now live in the Resurrection.

Jesus knew that that is how God would work, that God WHO IS LOVE would not forsake those he loved. 

Jesus was forsaken on the cross, but the grave did not hold him, and so the difficulties of this world cannot hold us.

So are you 

Poor?

Hungry?

Weeping?

Feeling like everyone is against you?

Fear not. Because the Jesus who died and rose again is here with you. You will not be forsaken. Stay with Jesus.

Or maybe you are

Rich

Full

Laughing

Beloved by everyone

Fear not. You do not have to live in woe. You do not have to cry out in grief. Because the Jesus who died and rose again is here with you. You will not be forsaken AND…

You are free!

Free to share what you have with those who do not have it.

Free to love from a place of joy and comfort. Free to be the one who brings the kingdom of God to those who suffer as you walk in the steps of Jesus, redeemed in the death of Jesus.

So FEAR. NOT.

Know you are loved and spread the love around.

Amen.

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany (C) - February 10, 2019

On February 8, 2019 I attended the ordination of Sue Holland. Sue's path has been similar to mine, but she did everything one year ahead of me. She waited 18 months after approval to receive her first call (which is a requirement for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or ELCA).  The system is not perfect, but the number and style of imperfections is no better or worse than any other Christian denomination experiences. It did have me thinking about the distinction between God's call and the ELCA's call-as-professional-position, and I suppose that thinking lead to this message about the calls that God places on our lives.

Note: After this was all done I realized I keep referring to Peter when the text from Luke mentions Simon. Simon later became Peter, and is sometimes called Simon Peter. But he was Simon, and then he became Peter. That's another place this could have gone - both Simon and Saul got new names (Peter and Paul) when they were transformed!

When the scary is irresistibly compelling and super-saturated with love, amazing things happen.

The lectionary texts for this Sunday are:
Isaiah 6:1-13
Psalm 138
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

Hear us as we pray and tune our ears to hear your call. Amen

Did you ever think that God could not POSSIBLY be calling you to anything, because that is just not who you are? You know, the type of person who gets called to things?

Or maybe you have thought that God can call, or not, but no thank you, that is not how you roll and you have no interest in THAT kind of life.

Or MAYBE… maybe you think you are EXACTLY the kind of person God should be calling, and you can’t quite figure out why everybody else doesn’t see it, since you are so clear on how things should be.

Well, if you are in any of those categories… or if you have never even heard the words “you are called”… then today is your day! This message is for you.

The three texts for today focus on five guys. Now, don’t be thrown off by all that patriarchy. What they show us is true for people of all genders. But today we read a lot about Isaiah, Simon (Peter), James, John, and Paul. And the first thing they all have in common is that when God came and called (either as the God of Israel or in the person of Jesus) their first thought was nonononononono… not me! All were terrified to be in the presence of God, and then all said “oh, ok, send me!”

And that is very very weird to me. Because why would something so terrifying lead to such an immediate volunteering?

In Isaiah’s case, there he is, and there God is, and the seraphs are flying around with their eyes and feet covered, and just the hem, the edge of God’s robe, is filling up the Temple and it’s all smoky.

For Peter, James, and John, they had heard Jesus talking as they scrubbed their nets after a completely fruitless night of fishing, and then all of a sudden their nets were breaking and there were so many fish that TWO boats almost weren’t enough to hold them!

And of course, Paul was just walking along, going to catch some Christians and throw them in jail with government approval (even if they had not done anything wrong), and he got knocked completely off-kilter by a bright light and God’s voice.

That, to me, does not sound like the kind of invitation that we think we should offer to people who are going to come worship with us. Imagine walking into your local church and it’s all smoky with weird little creatures flying around and a whole bunch of fancy cloth taking up all the space. What would you do?

Or what if you invited people and so many came all at once so we send them over to the next church over and it was so full people were spilling out of BOTH sanctuaries and the water fountains and bathrooms could barely keep up?

Or… or Paul’s situation. I cannot even imagine driving to work and being knocked over and left blind and told “ok, now it’s time.” (Well, I say I can’t imagine it. But really… I kind of can. More on that later.)

This was no viral video or CGI or holograms. This was the real life experience of some people. And, not so surprisingly, all those people were thoroughly intimidated.

Isaiah responded with oh nooooo… not me! I’m unclean! I’m just a human being! I cannot possibly survive being in direct contact with God! That from the guy who went on to preach AWFUL news to the Israelites, knowing all along that they would not listen to him.

Or Peter (and probably James and John, but James and John were being quiet and Peter was speaking up… as usual): Nonoo… I’m not worthy! Who am I to hang out with this fish magician?  The same Peter who would later stand up in from of the Jews and say “HEY! Y’ALL KILLED JESUS!” Which they had, but being so bold just does’t seem like it would have been a prudent thing to do, does it?

Or Paul, who maintained until the very end of his life that he was not worthy to do the work, and yet he had no choice because that was his calling. Paul. The guy who ended up spending a big chunk of his life in jail, and was grateful for it  - maybe because it was so much safer than the crazy danger he had been in as he went out far and wide telling people about Jesus.

These did not end up being shy guys. They were not incapable guys. But in the presence of God, they were most definitely terrified guys.


In the midst of the scariness of seeing God: robe-filled Temples and seraphs and coals, and unimaginably large amounts of fish, and bright lights and wild travel journeys, God always offered protection:
* For Isaiah, coals to ceremonially cleanse him, something he would have understood from his Jewish heritage and knowledge of Temple practices.
* For Peter (and James and John) those words “Do not be afraid!” and the direct human interaction with Jesus
* For Paul, a community of people that he did not always agree with, but that he traveled with and cared about (and they took care of him, too)

I think we should pay attention to that reassurance. It must have been really powerful, since all five of them ended up going where they were sent. Isaiah said “Here I am! Send me!” Peter, James, and John left their boats then and there and became Jesus closest friends and companions. Paul traveled all over the place, making tents to buy food and clothing.

Isaiah spoke words the people did not want to hear, and was constantly in danger. But he did it anyway.

Peter, James, and John left their daily work to follow Jesus. And although they stayed in a small geographic area, they experienced three years of more mind-blowing things as Jesus preached and taught, healed and brought back to life, challenged the existing power structures and loved people who, socially, did not have to be loved or even noticed.

And Paul went. He worked hard. He did not have the advantage of watching Jesus first-hand and being clueless about everything that Jesus would suffer. Paul (as Saul) did all that he could to eradicate the Peters and Jameses and Johns, and then ended up carrying news of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ far and wide.

WHY DID THEY DO THAT???

How did the terror of their experiences turn into that powerful spreading of the news? How did they go from ordinary folk to the powerful preachers and leaders that we are still talking about 2000 years later?

Do you suppose they were lured by the power and grandeur of that robe and the bright lights and all those fish? I don’t know… it seems like they were pretty fearful and intimidated. And power junkies usually want power they can control, not power that makes them feel so inadequate. So I guess it might have been that, but they protested SO HARD… and then went anyway.

I just think there had to be something else going on. Something that turned unclean lips to clean ones, a bad fishing day into am overwhelming one, and a life of persecuting followers of Jesus to creating a whole bunch more followers of Jesus.

There had to be something that led to major transformation.

Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and Paul were transformed by the presence of God. The power and strength that is described in such alarming ways led them to love in ways that would mediate the harsh, terrifying realities of a thoroughly broken world in which it is hard – seemingly impossibly hard – to keep might and right aligned.

Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and Paul did not just follow terrifying power. They followed the thing that was REALLY unusual about their situations. They followed the perfect love that was embodied in that person. The gentle, redeeming goodness of a God who is not bound by fear and anger and disappointment and hate.

NOW – lest you think that the terrifying, powerful love of God no longer appears, or that we are too jaded to recognize it and be frightened, or that we do not need the message and assurance of Jesus saying ‘Don’t be afraid!”…

Or that such things only happen to some men…

Please know that the story of Isaiah and Peter and James and John and Paul is my story. It is the story of my friend Sue who was ordained a couple of days after years of waiting and wondering. It is the story of myriad other women and men who have heard a call from God and been terrified deep into their marrow even as they feel an irresistible urge to follow that call, to go and do things that “can’t be done” or that require departure from “how we’ve always done it.”

Maybe you are feeling that urge today, to go do something that some system or organization says can’t (or shouldn’t) be done.

Or maybe you are hearing a calling and are frightened at the idea that things might change, and wonder why things can’t stay the way have always been.

Wherever you fall in the range of all the possibilities, listen to what Jesus said in some super-scary times:

Don’t be afraid.

Know that you can trust the love that is behind the terrifying power of God entering your life. The Jews were afraid of that power because they could not see the love. And they tried to kill it – they wanted to stop that power, or better yet, control it. It did not work that way, though. Sure they killed Jesus, but Jesus did not stay dead, and in the Resurrection, LOVE WON. The power witnessed by Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and Paul that was in fact the power of love… WON.

So please, please remember: when the power – God’s power -  shows itself, please know that the power is love, and that you will always recognize it because it will hold you. You might have this odd little feeling that you should just go with it. It might feel completely irresistible and incredibly tiny all at the same time. It can feel a whole lot of ways, but all of them will be just different enough to be compelling. To be love.

So don’t be afraid.

Listen for the love in the power, the love that IS the power. Know that whether it comes in a big dramatic way or a still, small voice, the power is the power of love, and love has already won.

Amen.

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (C) - February 3, 2019

And here we are - the message for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, presented (online at least) on the fourth Sunday after Epiphany! This sermon was not preached to a congregation but is the third in a set of three, the first of which was preached to Parkwood UMC in Durham, NC.

The reading from 1 Corinthians is a favorite of many people, commonly called the love chapter. In it, the apostle Paul talks about what love is - and is not. in the gospel lesson, the ramifications of Jesus announcing himself to be the fulfillment of prophecy come to be, as the church leaders intend to push Jesus off a cliff. It was not yet time, though, and Jesus walked away unscathed.

The lectionary texts for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany are:
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30

Here we are, in the third message in this set of three and this is the part where I review what has come before, like the little scenes shown at the beginning of the second (or third) episode of a “To Be Continued” tv show:

First, there was an underlying theme of many gifts coming from the one God who feeds all of the kinds of hunger that people can have.  

Next there was contemplation of the way we are all part of one body. That just as bodies have eyes, and years, and toes that all have different jobs but are still part of the body, so we are the body of Christ and we all contribute to each other and love each other in different ways. 

And a little review of some facts:

Who is hungry? Everyone.

Whose hunger are we called to feed? Everyone’s. Even yours. But not only yours!

And if we all bring good news in our own particular way, who benefits? Everyone.

As a result, whose gifts are important? Everyone’s.

But don’t we get confused about that? It’s so easy to think it’s good to help “the poor” until you meet actual poor people and realize that they are poor because of mental illness, or chronic health conditions, or worst of all – for no reason at all. We want to cry out “yeah I want to help the poor… but not THESE poor people!” And yet… Jesus did not qualify to which poor he came to bring good news. 

We think “oh, gosh, yes, prison ministry is so important!” until the prisoners come and they are broken after years in a grinding system. Or they were convicted of murder or some heinous crime against children. Or they were found to be wrongfully convicted but we just can’t quite believe the system could get it that wrong so we decide anyone who ends up in jail or prison must have done something really bad at some point. We want to say “oh, well, yeah, prison ministry but these people were BAD!” And yet… Jesus did not qualify that only the not-so-bad prisoners should be freed from the captivity of their actions, or cell walls.

We honor and excuse and reward those with deep spiritual (as opposed to physical or financial) needs, and give them power to act in callous ways and turn human lives into pawns in a game of power and money even as we overlook some very real spiritual needs.

And yet, money and power are necessary to function in our society. Money and power determine how resources are allocated and to the degree that money and power are more or less evenly distributed across the population, people are more or less likely to have their needs met. If our hungers arise because we are lacking in something - food, money, personal power, social respect, compassion, community -  and if we are ALL hungry…

Then how do we know where to put our priorities? How do we know if we are using our gifts in the way Jesus would?

Well, Luke and Paul have some suggestions for us in this week’s texts!  

In Luke, Jesus notes that a widow (that is, someone who did not have the privileges and protections of a husband and his family) from some land other than the land of the Israelites is the one who was fed under miraculous circumstances.

And who received healing (or said another way, the best health care)? The local leaders and Highly Respected Elders? Nope. It was an arrogant Syrian called Naaman who came from another country, an immigrant traveler.

We don’t have to go far to find other examples either:

* Rahab the prostitute, who was saved (along with her family) when the Israelites began their occupation of the Promised Land

* Mighty King David who got his start in life as the baby in a large family, sent to the fields for the simultaneously boring and dangerous work of watching sheep 

* Ruth, a Moabite, who had the baby that kept the line of King David going until Jesus himself was born!

What do all of those people have in common? The widow at Zarephath, a Syrian, a prostitute, the baby shepherd, and a widow living with her widow mother-in-law in a foreign country?

They were outsiders.

When Jesus said he came to bring good news to the hungry, the poor, the captive, blind, and oppressed, he did not qualify that. He didn’t say “even the outsiders!” In fact, the message of Jesus is much more like “even the insiders – although it can really be hard for insiders.” Of course, inside and outside are determined by where you set up the wall. But it does seem that Jesus consistently stood on the side of people who were not of the dominant cultural group. 

For all those outsiders, the gifts they received were motivated by one thing only. They did not deserve it. They could not count on the culture to carry them through a rough spot. They had to count on grace. What they actually received was… LOVE.

So! Maybe that is the answer to how we set our priorities! Maybe we just make sure that we set priorities based on Love! 

Ok.

Glad we got that settled.

That’s easy, right?

Wellllll….

How do you know if you are loving? Did anyone ever try to do something really kind for you… and it felt terrible and you did not want it and it did not feel loving at all. Or you knew JUST WHAT SOMEBODY NEEDED! But it turns out that is not what they needed at all. 

This might not be as easy as we wish it was.

But look! Paul has some helpful hints about what love is and is not! 

Love is 

* Patient

* Kind

* not envious 

* not boastful 

* not arrogant 

* not rude

* does not insist on its own way

* is not irritable or resentful

* does not rejoice in wrongdoing

* rejoices in the truth

* bears all things

* believes all things

* hopes all things

* endures all things.

* never ends

Notice that it does not say anything about being deserved. It does not say that it depends on where you were born, or how well your body or mind works, or even whether you are pleasant to be around. It certainly doesn’t say anything about being deserved, or making judgments on who to love or not love.

Let’s look at some of the characteristics individually: not rude. But rude is culturally determined! So, we are tempted to think, if it isn’t rude in my culture then I don’t have to worry about it and those outsiders just need to do it the way we do it here!

Oh. Wait.

Love does not insist on its own way. That’s on the list, too. So maybe we have some responsibility to learn about and respect other cultures. Even of immigrants. Even of people from outside our own communities. Learning about them instead of just assuming they want to be just like us.

And love DOESN’T END???? What?? But what if I really love somebody and then they make me mad? What if they break my stuff? What if they embarrass me?? What if they want to use my good stuff and don’t take care of it!  SURELY I do not have to do all that love stuff in that case… SURELY it’s not all on me?? Don’t they have SOME responsibility in this?

Wellll… yes and no. Since we are all called to love, then we all have the same responsibilities. But perspective matters. And if you are the one with more stuff and more power and more privilege, then it might mean you have to give up some of that. It might mean you have to share some of your power so that others can be empowered. 

It might mean some sacrifice, and giving up the sense of knowing how things should work. Or it might mean opening yourself to relaxing into the awkward love being offered by someone who doesn’t quite know how to do it.

It might mean giving up everything you know about who matters the most – and the least.

But no matter what the situation, it means paying attention. One of the things we learn from the life of Jesus (as found in reading and studying Scripture) is that Jesus ALWAYS paid attention. That’s why he always had a knack for knowing what people needed to hear even if it was not what they wanted to hear.

Now Jesus paid so much attention to so many unempowered people that it became a threat to the people who had a monopoly on the power. And as a result, Jesus died a terrible death on the cross. The ultimate sacrifice.

Fortunately, you will probably not be asked to make that sacrifice. Chances are good you will not even be able to love well enough to be that much of a threat. But there will be smaller sacrifices, and it might lead to awkwardness and people who do not know why you are doing what you do.

But as you sacrifice, you can know that death did not keep Jesus down, and because of Jesus’ Resurrection, your sacrifices will not be for nought. You are saved in that Resurrection.

So go ahead and feed the hungry – all the people who are hungry in all the different ways.

Know who you are in God’s eyes – loved, redeemed, gifted.

And love! Love the “outsiders” and the people who are hardest to love.  Love in a way that is

* Patient

* Kind

* not envious 

* not boastful 

* not arrogant 

* not rude

* does not insist on its own way

* is not irritable or resentful

* does not rejoice in wrongdoing

* rejoices in the truth

* bears all things

* believes all things

* hopes all things

* endures all things.

* never ends

Love knowing that God is love and that in even the tiniest act of love you are throwing open the gates so that God will shine through.

Amen.

Third Sunday after Epiphany (C) - February 3, 2019

In the gospel text for this week - the third Sunday after Epiphany - Jesus goes into his hometown synagogue and declares that he is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. We will see next week that it does not go particularly well, but Jesus declares his purpose in life as a human being, and does so in very plain language. Since Christians are followers of Jesus, when Jesus spoke of his purpose in life he was also identifying our purpose in life.

This sermon was not preached to anyone but I hope someday I get a chance to share at least some version of it with a live congregation, or at least a small group. I think it could make for some excellent conversations.

The lectionary texts for the third Sunday after Epiphany are:
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21

All kinds of hungry.

Hungry for food, hungry for companionship, hungry for connection or power or love. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus provided wine for all the people – even the latecomers who would normally have just received leftovers or nothing at all. Jesus did a lot of things like that! And at the chili cookoff fundraiser the congregation raised money to be used for the pastor’s discretionary fund. With that money she will be able to help people with all sorts of needs, all sorts of hungers.

But what does that have to do with each of us? What exactly is each of us called to do?

Well, if you have ever heard me talk before you know it won’t be long until I get around to Jesus. And to answer the question of what would Jesus do, it is super-helpful to know what Jesus actually did!
* Jesus made wine.
* Jesus raised the dead,
* Jesus healed people with mental and physical disabilities,
* Jesus hung around with his friends and taught them by being in relationship – by being together.

All those kinds of hunger, and Jesus just calmly went from place to place and fed all the kinds of hunger. He did not get in a dither or lose sleep over it. He stayed connected to God the Father through prayer, listened to the Holy Spirit blow around him. Jesus just did his thing (and made some serious enemies along the way.)

Take today’s text from Luke, for example. He walked into the synagogue, read prophecy from Isaiah, and declared himself the fulfillment of that prophecy! He said, in effect…

HERE I AM!
GOOD NEWS IS IN THE HOUSE!

What would you say if Jesus walked into your most sacred place and said that?

I think I would kind of freak out.

I would freak out because it is very hard to be around people who, like Jesus, know who he was and what he could (and would) do.

Are you gifted with that same self-knowledge? Who are you? What can (and will) you do?

Are you an ear?
An eye?
A heart?
Feet?
Hands?

Jesus came to offer good news to the poor, the captive, the blind and oppressed. He came to be that good news and spread it around as a real person living a real life.

Who will receive good news from you? Who will hear from you that THIS is the year of the Lord’s favor?

That is a big and important question. It is a big and important task! It is SUCH a big and important task that even Jesus did not take it on alone.

At the wedding at Cana, Mary was right there with Jesus – encouraging him to act, lending her maternal authority so that the servants would do what Jesus said. Those servants brought the water. The steward is the one who proclaimed the wine good.

There is no reason to think that God HAS to… but Jesus, God Incarnate, worked in community.  We do not have the option that God has, though. Jesus worked in community because he could. We have to work in community because we have no hope of having lasting impact any other way.

So who is your community?
* Do you feel a tug to volunteer to read for blind people? Does that just seem like a really nifty thing to do?
* Or is your call taking you to be the leader of a nonprofit agency, or a congregation, or a social justice group?
* Or maybe your passion is to work behind the scenes – carrying out the garbage or cleaning bathrooms, sweeping up the remains of the celebration.
* Or is your calling to speak the truth – even if your voice shakes?

Now I’m going to ask you to make a secret confession to yourself. As I listed those opportunities for serving did you rank them? Did you think that you had no desire to take out the garbage, because you are better than that? Or did you kind of wish you could be happy sweeping up but you always seem to be the one speaking truth in a shaking voice?

Now that you are thinking secret thoughts, I’m going to ask you to do a thought experiment with me. Think of a time when someone said or did something that meant a LOT to you. Maybe it was a time when you were feeling poor, or captive, or blind or oppressed in some way or another. Or a time when you were just really sad and frustrated, and someone helped you out of that dark funky place.

Got it?

Who was that person? The person who shared their vision when you were blind to something important, the person who unlocked your prison when something was holding you captive, who offered you the resources in which you were most impoverished, the one who walked you out of a time of oppression into freedom?
Or for you Harry Potter fans, who gave you a sock when you were Dobby the House Elf?

Was it someone rich and powerful? Let’s see a show of hands… How many of you received good news in your dark time from someone with a lot of power, or who is well-known or famous? Come on – raise your hands.

Now how many received good news in those hard times from a person who was present, but is not rich or powerful or on TV or particularly well-known?

I wish we could have a conversation about that right now – about who has shared good news with you, and how they shared it, and why it was good. Maybe you can talk with each other about that on the way home. But for now… we will let the fact that in our personal lives, the rich and powerful are often not the ones who bring us powerfully good news.

Of course, we need leaders (the rich and powerful) who will use their power judiciously in making policies and leading different organizations in our lives. For example, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Brett Kavanaugh and their colleagues do affect our lives in a relatively small number of ways – even if those ways are big and far-reaching.

But if I take the cumulative effect of children and the joy they bring to my life, it has a much greater effect on my life. If I think of the aggravation that my brother gave me just when we were children it far outweighs the aggravation of most of the policies that are passed by government.

When my mother died, it was not elected officials who gave me comfort, it was my aunt who brought me good news of some of the many ways my mother loved me that helped me come to terms with my grief and loss. My aunt - who lives out in the country and has almost never left Texas – has consistently brought me love and comfort and delight and good news, no matter where in the world I have been.

We see the same thing throughout the Bible, and especially in the life of Jesus. In those stories, the rich and powerful rarely came off well. Jesus consistently shared good news with the people who had the least reason culturally to expect any good news at all.

I believe that in sharing the good news Jesus was planting seeds, and the compost-like life of the less-than-rich-or-powerful was just the environment for those seeds to grow. And here we are! 2000 years later, and still tending that good news, sharing it, reseeding with each successive generation by paying attention to the lives of the younger (or older!) than us and sharing whatever good news we can muster.

Jesus lived a life that looked like poverty in some ways. He hung out with some Very Annoying and Problematic People like tax collectors and loud mouths and thieves and prostitutes. He loved so many of the wrong people, and loved them so much, that the reigning powers felt their only option was to kill him.

But!!
Jesus came back from the dead, Resurrected in glory, because that much love could not be held back. If even once Jesus had chosen human power structures over the people before him who wanted and needed love, who were poor and oppressed, blind and lame and bleeding and captive, the Resurrection could not have happened. But it did! And it happened that we might be freed from worry. We can be who we were created to be.

Jesus knew who he was created to be, and in doing so showed up what it means to be truly, completely, deeply human. It is to be in community, to care for those who cannot care for themselves, to love unflinchingly and be present with and for one another.

In the same way, we will know we are being whom we were created to be when we show up to feed the hungers of the people who appear before us. When you show up to alleviate the poverty of mind, body, and spirit in those near you. To offer the good news to people you love, or people you do not know and love but who end up in your life – even the Very Annoying and Problematic ones.

And in doing what you can, in those small interactions, you will be enough. You ARE enough. Even if being who you are created to be often feels like it is too easy, or too much fun, and you might feel guilty for not doing the impossibly hard things you do not need to worry! Jesus did all the impossibly hard things that you cannot, and as a result, we can be bringers of good news to the blind and captive, the poor and oppressed in every moment of every day of our lives.

Go forth and be the good news.

Amen.

Second Sunday after Epiphany (C) - February 3, 2019

You might notice that the messages for the second, third, and fourth Sunday after Epiphany are all being published on the same date. The message for the second Sunday after Epiphany (which was actually January 20, 2019) was preached to the people at Parkwood United Methodist Church in Durham, NC but it was preached on February 3. I wrote the three sermons as a set and waited until today to post them.

February 3, 2019 was Super Bowl Sunday. The theme for the day was "Taste," part of a series called "Making Sense of Jesus." It was also the day of the annual Parkwood UMC chili cookout and fundraiser, hence the references to eating chili in the message text.  Over $142 was raised for the pastor's discretionary fund as people voted on five different kinds of chili. The winner was "Nightshade Free Miracle Chili" - an appropriate thing for the day when we considered Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine.

The service is on facebook live, here. The gospel reading and sermon start at about the 33:40 mark, but the whole service was lovely and fun so you might just want to kick back and enjoy it.

The lectionary texts for the Second Sunday of Epiphany are:

Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11

Come, Holy Spirit. Feed our hungers. Feed our bodies, minds, and souls so that fully nourished, we go out to share your love. Amen.

So! Who’s hungry? Can you smell the chili cooking? Or maybe you cooked a pot of chili for the cookoff and have been smelling it for awhile? I’m ready to dig in.

And let me say… if you are here smelling that delicious chili then please know that YOU are particularly invited! Seriously! Please stay and enjoy some delicious lunch and pay what you wish. You can eat the chili knowing that all of it is an important part of the Parkwood UMC ministry. If you are hungry, come taste and eat.

In satisfying your own hunger, and voting with your love offering on the cook off chilis, you will be helping to support others who are hungry but for any of a million reasons cannot afford to eat… or pay electric bills… or sleep in a warm, dry place. Through the pastor’s discretionary fund the Parkwood UMC congregation shows the love of Jesus to people in need while protecting their dignity as God’s beloved children.

Which brings me back to my original question:

WHO IS HUNGRY?

• Is it the people who did not eat breakfast this morning?
• Or the families that qualify for Free and Reduced Lunch at Parkwood Elementary?
• Does being financially poor mean you are hungry?
• Sometimes we talk about athletes being hungry for a win.
• Or business people who are hungry to make the best deal and make the greatest profit.
• Sometimes we talk about loneliness as a gnawing hunger for companionship.
• People with addiction sometimes describe their addictions as an unquenchable thirst, or a hunger that they cannot satisfy and so turn to drugs or alcohol to dull the pain (even if it does not remove the hunger.)

It seems like, in one way or another, all of us are hungry. Maybe the question that I should be posing instead is what are you hungry for?

What is it like, to be hungry in the way that you are hungry?

Is it a need for nourishment for your body, and the smells are suggesting to your brain that there might be very tasty means nearby of being nourished? That is certainly true here today! But there are all kinds of ways that we need nourishment. Healthy people are routinely nourished in body, in mind, and in spirit. And today, in our gospel lesson, we see Jesus addressing all three.

Now, this wine at the wedding in Cana was the first sign that Jesus did. That’s the word John uses: “sign.” You might have heard these signs called miracles. So it was a big deal, this turning water into wine. His entrance into the fray of ministry. Up until now he has been a guy doing his thing, worrying his parents by hanging out in the Temple, getting baptized. But at this wedding in Cana, he is doing something else.

Now think about that for a second.

If this were your FIRST ACTION to show the world what is to come, where would you start? Would you want to make a big splash? Would you advertise, and try to get people to attend, and build up the anticipation?

Well, Jesus started at a wedding party that he just happened to be attending in a little village. He made party wine. How odd that seems to us in our workaholic, advertising-driven world! We are constantly bombarded with messages that WORK IS MOST IMPORTANT. That we must GIVE OUR ALL. That PLANNING IS IMPERATIVE! That if you aren’t getting sick then you aren’t doing enough and you should have an elaborate planning and journaling system to make sure it’s all happening in the right way.

That is not what Jesus did, though. Jesus makes his big entrance with PARTY WINE. Because his mother told him to, and told the workers to do whatever Jesus instructed them. This was not a big career opening this was a nice young man doing what his mother told him to do!

So… he made party wine, on the fly. When the party had already started to wind down. When the cups are sitting around, and people are a little tipsy, and everyone has rejoiced about the uniting of two families. Maybe the bride and groom have already gone off to start their married life. People who wandered in late, or who didn’t get in line in time, or who just weren’t bold and strong enough to get to the front of the line, would not have expected much, because all that anybody expected at that point was the leftovers. The dregs.

But instead the ones who would normally expect leftovers got THE BEST. Jesus brought the party home for everyone, even the people on the fringes. Everyone got the good stuff because Jesus was there.

A little while ago you heard a Mission Moment about how Parkwood UMC is working to expand our partnership by working with others across South Durham to address a certain kind of hunger. In addition to what Lisa described to you, I am DELIGHTED to announce that I have entered a formal contract with the NC Lutherans to explore the possibility of South Durham congregations and nonprofits working together on a range of outreach activities that will include work with people who have all kinds of hunger.

These are good things, for the community and for each of us who is part of the wider South Durham community. As a church community, we are called to live out our faith. We are called to follow the Jesus who went to weddings, celebrated the important ceremonies and events of life, and even made them better by including everyone – even the people who would normally have ended up with leftovers. That Jesus lived among his friends, listened to his mother’s encouragement, helped people be nourished in body, mind, and spirit.

In a few minutes we will be celebrating that very same Jesus – we will taste his body and his blood in communion. We will hear about how he was eating with his friends on the eve of his death. How he said in that saddest, most anxious of times that he was giving his BODY and his BLOOD. He had given his wisdom, he had given a newly married couple the best wine they ever tasted. He had loved people, raised people from the dead, helped people see again – not because they deserved it but because that is what Jesus was modeling for us. And now he was going to make it all possible by taking on all the things we cannot do – all the ways we are broken. So he instituted the supper that we will celebrate in a few minutes, and then he went to his death.

If that were the end of the story we would not be tasting bread and the fruit of the vine today. But Jesus did not stay dead. He was resurrected and is currently getting things ready for us in the ultimate wedding party – the ultimate party of joining together in love.

Jesus satisfied all kinds of hunger and as a result we are now free to live out all the gifts we have to help alleviate the hungers of those around us. We are free to do the best we can, and when we fail (as we always will) we are free to repent because we are already forgiven.

In tasting Jesus, we also taste the freedom to love our neighbors, and as we feed all the kinds of hunger that surround us, to be fed ourselves. We are nourished to nourish others in body, mind, and spirit, and to be nourished ourselves in the process.

Are you hungry?

Come. Taste and See. Jesus has just what you need.

Amen.