Lost and Found

Art by Charlie Mackesy

Luke 15

My friend and colleague Emmy Kegler has a book release this week and her new book is called One Coin Found. Her prologue is all about this particular chapter of Luke—the LOST chapter—with three parables trying to show us what life lived with God is like. A lost sheep is found by the shepherd, a lost coin is found by a woman sweeping her house until she finds it, and then, this one… the parable of the Prodigal.

Humans make connections. Humans try to make meaning.

Amanda Brobst-Renaud writes this week that “One of the main struggles in reading this parable is that once we hear the words ‘A man had two sons,’ we quit listening -- even as preachers…”[1]

As I reflected on these words from Jesus this week, I think it’s true, it’s hard to keep listening.

First, I’m identifying with the older brother, in pain about everyone who has left… missing them, wondering where they are, why I’m still left with so many responsibilities in the family… I can get so caught up in older brother that I quit listening.

Then, I move to the younger brother… when I left my hometown, I knew I’d never move back. I’ve moved from place to place. Sure, there were brief visits, but it’s been clear that the places I’ve left will never be my community again, there’s no going back, and as I moved from place to place, sometimes it’s felt less than welcoming. There are times in my life I’ve wondered—How in the world did I get here? I’ve wished at times that I could reel back time and have a re-do. How do I renew the relationships that are gone? Is that even possible?

Then, there’s the parent, who could never give enough to his children. I’ve certainly been there, where there’s just not enough of me to meet every need, where I’m afraid that as I give attention in one arena of life, I won’t ever give enough in another… and anticipating the moment when children leave and time will tell, will they leave and never come back? And if that happens, is it a good and natural thing or is it a sign that we failed them?

And then there are all the missing characters in this parable—where is the mother? The sisters? 

If we haven’t stopped listening by this point, caught up in our own stories of how we identify and make meaning with these characters, then there’s at least one more opportunity to draw conclusions… and that’s as we think about this story and church. Who among us here hasn’t wondered why someone else is not here? Who among us hasn’t felt like leaving at some point? (or at least has been glad for or longed for a break?) Who among us hasn’t loved seeing someone return and celebrated, but then worried about whether we’ve given enough attention to the ones who stayed all along?

So…we can very easily get caught in the pain of our own stories—our stories of brokenness in ourselves, in our families, and in our experiences of church. No one else has our exact stories, but it seems like, it may be that every one of us identifies easily with one of these characters… or all of them at once… and that makes it hard for us to keep listening until we get to some good news.

Another challenge—we live in a time when withinU.S. culture, we seem especially bent toward distancing ourselves from each other. In an article from the New York Times in called “No Hate Left Behind: Lethal Partisanship is Taking Us into Dangerous Territory,” author Thomas B. Edsall describes how 42% of Democrats and Republicans think the other side is not just worst for politics but downright evil. And 20% think the other side is not fully human or even that we’d be better off if the other side all died.

Why? Well, “politics have taken on moralistic, judgmental cast.” For both right- and left-wingers, “our moralizing does not consist in pondering how to universalize the maxim of our actions or to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number, but rather of condemning, demonizing, or scapegoating a designated sinner.”[2]

“The parable of the Prodigal itself tempts us to distance these brothers, inviting us to choose who is the more beloved of the two of them… but the parable itself refuses us this luxury. The father crosses the threshold twice. He leaves once to welcome the younger son, he leaves the second time to invite the elder son to the party.”

If he was a politician, he might be called a flip-flopper… “extravagantly not able to imagine the party without both sons present.”[3]

Their needs were so different, how could this parent show each one in their own way how much he loved them? But no matter what he did to meet the individual needs of one, that move of love and attention would set off the other so that finally, one left, convinced that he needed nothing more from his family, breaking the father’s heart. It was a dream-come-true to see him again… but even then, the joy for one child fills the other with resentment… so the father bends, because the brothers don’t or won’t, and tries to make a bridge. My love, the father both says and does, is so deep and expansive that it wants to hold together all of you.

For one child, the parent throws a feast. For the other, the parent proclaims, “all I have is yours.” This is the vision that Jesus uses to describe what the reign of God is like… hoping, still hoping, that we might be able to keep listening, long enough to take in the good news…for all of us.

“The parable invites us to sit with the younger son in the mess [and welcoming embrace]; [the parable invites us to be] with the elder son in the bitterness and fear of being overlooked [and reassurance of love], and [we watch] the father as he leaves the comfort of his home to bring in all that is lost and all that feels forsaken.”

Like the God who goes out to find each and every wandering sheep, like God who picks up her broom to find her lost coin, like the parent who is watching and hoping for the return of the child who has left home and constantly loving the one who has been home all along, God’s reign is marked by meeting the need of each of us to be found, to be invited in (again), to be the love that brings us together and makes us whole.

---

[1]Amanda Brobst-Renaud, “Commentary on Luke 15,” workingpreacher.org
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992

[2]Thomas B. Edsall, “No Hate Left Behind,” New York Times,March 13, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html

[3]Amanda Brobst-Renaud, “Commentary on Luke 15,” workingpreacher.org
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992

“I long to gather you…”

Luke 13: 31-35

It is Lent… and I’ve been away for Lent’s beginning. As part of my family and I arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, our very first cab driver let us know that Lent had begun for him. He was fasting—the first of 50 days where Orthodox Ethiopians will not eat at all throughout the morning and then eat from a fasting menu (no meat) for their evening meal. I was a little sorry that I was missing our yearly opportunity here to be marked with a cross of ashes, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return…” until I realized that as a traveler along dusty roads, I was covered in dust from morning ‘til night. Remember that you are come from the earth, you are covered in it, you will return to it. There was no escaping this truth in our travels. We woke in the dark each morning to the sounds of prayer being called. At first, we heard the call to the first of five times of daily prayer for Muslims across from our guest house, but then throughout most of our trip, we heard the much longer Christian worship services, broadcast over speakers in the same way. The constant call to worship reminded us over and over of Jesus’ longing expressed this week… Christ’s longing to gather people as a hen gathers her chicks… and Jesus’ frustration that so often, we are not willing.

My friend Carrie, a pastor in Jerusalem, writes that the news says “Jerusalem is at a boiling point.” A fire bomb was thrown, the gates to the Old City closed, a Palestinian in Hebron was killed after an alleged stabbing attempt. “It’s true,” Carrie writes, “today feels closer to ‘boiling’ than it has in a long time” but she sat in the middle of it, getting a haircut. Her stylist Samer said, “Yes, take a photo to remember how our life goes on even with a fire raging…”

I notice how she persists, how all the people of that diverse, holy city—our whole world compressed into one place—continue on despite the continuous challenge to life, the constant threat of death. 

Jesus cries out, laments Jerusalem’s capacity (and really the capacity of all of us) to kill and destroy, ignore and avoid God’s people, God’s word, God’s presence among us but Jesus does not… 

Even with a threat over his own life, Jesus persists. 

If Herod—exploiter, killer—is like a fox in the hen house, Jesus calls himself the hen who protects her chicks even at the cost of her own life.

In our pilgrimage to Ethiopia, one of our visits was to Lalibela. Nine hundred years ago, King Lalibela spent 23 years of his life constructing eleven wondrous churches hewn into the stone, connected to one another through tunnels with architectural details that continue to stun architectural students and pilgrims alike. How did he do it? Well, with divine/angelic help or 400,000 workers, “You decide…” our guide said. How they did it remains a wonder but why they did it was to create a much nearer-to-home Jerusalem for devout followers of Jesus in Ethiopia. Lalibela created a church to remember Jesus’ birth—and every Christmas, thousands of pilgrims from all over this diverse nation flocks to hear the good news of Jesus’ birth announced once again. There is a church devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus. There is Bethlehem—house of bread—where those who hunger receive bread daily. There is a famous, iconic cross-chaped church… there is Golgotha, where Jesus’ passion and death is remembered and in another church is the tomb. Lalibela created this “Jerusalem” to gather people out of devotion to the one who describes himself as our Mother Hen, always determined to gather those she loves.

But Jesus weeps, we are not willing to be gathered, loved like that…

We weep with Jesus…

As we witness, powerlessly, as a flight crashes… killing all 157 people aboard that plane. A whole family going to reconnect with their father/grandfather in Nigeria, 21 United Nations employees from many countries working on global food aid, going on a routine flight for a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya…

As we witness, powerlessly, as a small group of violent white supremacists from Australia entered two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and shot and murdered people gathered for prayer and community support including those from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia…

One of our Ethiopian driver guides, who makes a decent wage in his chosen field of tourism, who ate with us at restaurants where we couldn’t have possibly finished the size of meal we were given—and we all noted that—told us this story about his parents’ village in the countryside. “Do you know that they still wonder each day if they will have a meal? The children come home from school and if their mother has something to give them, she makes eye contact and says, ‘Come and eat.’ But if she has no food, she will not even look at them… and they know, there is no food today.”

We weep with Jesus as tragedy, hate and hunger continue in our world, a world that Jesus longs to gather into one. A world that many people are working to improve…and yet, clearly, our work together with God is not yet complete. 

After the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight last Sunday, we were moved by the way that life stopped for grief. Five Ethiopian TV channels broadcast flickering candles and a message of mourning for at least 36 hours. We arrived at and then left an Ethiopian restaurant that usually features traditional Ethiopian music and dancing but was cancelled that night out of respect for those who died. Our driver pointed out so that we could notice how quiet the city was… music, not playing. All were subdued as messages of grief came in from leaders throughout the world.
At least one response during this season is to stop whatever we are doing and grieve with God and with all who mourn, for all who have lost loved ones too soon, for all that we are powerless to change…

Another response, as we witness violent hate that takes life away in a moment, that divides on purpose to cause more fear, conflict… that is unwilling to be gathered together as one human family… is to persist in following Jesus’ vision, to courageously go forward in life together, even when it may put us personally at risk… As the UN World Food Program director David Beasley noted, “As we mourn, let us reflect that each of these World Food Program colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live. That was their calling…”[1]

Our diverse world, in all its diversity, is a world that God created and deeply loves… and Jesus calls us to persist in our callings in this season—maybe it is to stop, to mourn, to cry out as Jesus did… maybe it is to keep moving forward courageously, rejecting any fear of death… but as we pause or as we persist, Jesus calls, gathers, covers us in loving protection, sheltering and feeding us so that we have all we need.

Let us pray… (with this prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book)

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.                                     -The Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book

---

[1]Tracy Wilkinson, “United Nations mourns 21 employees killed in Ethiopian Airlines plane crash,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, Saturday, March 16, 2019.

Be still… and love.

Luke 6  

This past Tuesday, Deacon Kari and I had the pleasure of worshipping at Luther Seminary chapel. We went because our former vicar, Bethany Ringdal, was the preacher. In her message, she reflected for a long time on a Psalm that rejoices in the destruction of enemies… how it can feel good that our enemies are going down for a while, but sooner or later, when the Bible is calling for judgement against the unjust, we just might find ourselves on the wrong side... we might find out we are the unjust, the  enemy of God. She invited us, in the face of all that, into God’s invitation to “Be still.” When we are still, we may just find ourselves opening up to God’s way in a new way.

So in the gospel this morning, Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Meet all that is evil with what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called “soul force,” a powerful, nonviolent response that refuses to make more enemies…

I love to watch Trevor Noah, to me this amazing South African-born comedian is still the "new" host of the Daily Show... But to be honest, I have to sort of limit my intake because although at first it's fun to laugh at my enemies, after a bit of laughing…
I can get really, really scared by the overwhelming amount of evil going on in the world and can cycle into a downward spiral of fear and despair that takes me nowhere good.
Instead, I have to claim that wise saying... “You cannot do everything, and realizing that will free you to do something.”

Last Sunday, a number of us went to a workshop with Debby Irving, the author of Waking Up White. She provided us with some very simple but powerful resources about how the culture of white supremacy in the U.S. is part of its very founding. Now, when she says “white supremacy,” she's not talking about just the KKK or active violence or prejudice in action. She's actually describing something much more subtle, hard to see and pervasive... And that's the idea that our culture is mostly white and that's mostly superior. Then, she describes how actually a culture of white supremacy has to be undone because it is destructive to us all, including people who think of themselves as white. And then she shared with us a long list of expectations of a white supremacy culture... Here are a few of the ...

Hierarchical, dominated space

One right way, on right perspective

Emotional restraint

Conflict avoidant

Sense of urgency, fix now

Be busy, Blame, Interrupt

Withholding (empathy, trust, money, knowledge)…

That’s just a little bit of a list that goes on and on, and I feel convicted…

How often I have wished that things didn't have to feel so urgent, yet I can make those who make me wait into my enemies...

How often I have missed the chance to really listen and be present as I want to because of a pervasive culture of busyness that surrounds and gets in me…

How often I have consciously or unconsciously dominated, or felt dominated by another…

So God, knowing full well how easily we project responsibility for our pain outward, blaming others, says "Try the opposite." Meet hate with love. It seems impossible and that's why it's so transformative. And we won't do it perfectly, so there's the opportunity to keep practicing.

In a diverse community like this one, we have such wonderful weekly opportunities to practice forming transformational cultural relationships across what might be deep differences... I remember one week when an Ethiopian member looked at my children and said wistfully, "They are so lucky because they don't know the deep divisions between cultures within Ethiopia..."
We could have a lot of discussion about whether any one of us is lucky, given the whole mix of sorrows and joys in each of our stories... But it also seems like if we can get to the point where we know what the deep divisions have been and we can love across those divisions on purpose, where we can actually intentionally see our differences and not only appreciate them but acknowledge how deeply we need the wisdom from each perspective, where we can bind together and oppose any ideology that wants to make some people enemies and lock them up or wall them off or take all their resources for ourselves, making the resources more important than the people... Then, we might be catching the vision of God who says let's do what all the ancient wise ones have said... Do to others what you would want them to do to you.
Because it's in loving that we'll experience the abundance that is really abundance.

My friend Kate lost her brother this week. Here's what she said about him...

Who was Andy? 

Explaining Andy was a constant task in our family. Andy had a rare genetic condition similar to Down’s Syndrome called Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome. When he was born, the doctors were unsure about his future. He was 4 lbs 12 oz, had an extra finger on each hand and an extra toe on each foot. There were other concerns as well, his parents were told by a physician that his condition was “incompatible with life”. A priest came to perform the baptism in the hospital room and told his parents, “There are no guarantees in life, you just take him home and care for him”. They did just that.

Andy did not cry to be fed like most infants, he did not naturally know how to breastfeed, nor did he even try to suckle. His mother held him close almost constantly, timed his feedings and expressed the milk into his mouth. Andy never slept well. His dad paid close attention to his needs and often slept near or with him. For every minute of his life, there was one certainty, he would have the best love and care anyone could hope for. He was completely dependent and vulnerable which was a great gift to those who cared for him because it always made us better versions of ourselves.

Better versions of ourselves… 

I heard this week that “Mercy is God's primary quality,” and I imagine that is the source of all that Jesus proclaims to us in Luke this week.

God wants to subvert things we think are important—whatever I am rooted in that is taking me away from God, whether I’m distracted in my resources or relationships (or my problems with both)... and if I get uncomfortable?
Maybe when I am uncomfortable, there is potential to meet God in a brand new way.

My friend Heidi was recently in Nepal.
Here is what she wrote about that experience...

People are poor everywhere. Sometimes that poverty is material in nature. It looks like food insecurity; illiteracy; lack of basic medical care; gender, caste-based, and ethnic oppression. Sometimes that poverty is spiritual in nature. It looks like millions of us, who have allowed ourselves to be convinced that what we need is more and more stuff when what we really need is each other. We who experience these different kinds of poverty have much to teach each other. May we whose voices echo more loudly in the global landscape find the humility to listen for and amplify the voices of those who are excluded. 

God is present everywhere. Her face is reflected in Nepali Dalit hill women and in suburban Chicago soccer moms… May we remain open to the infinite and surprising ways that God still shows up in this beautiful and broken world. 

Where we find only poverty, God invites us to remain open…

Where we find circumstances that are incompatible with life, God teaches us nurture that makes us better versions of ourselves…

Where we are surrounded by domination systems that want to divide and conquer, God invites us to work to navigate complex relationships across difference to building thriving, cohesive communities…

Rather than make enemies, God says, “Be still.” And surrounds us and fills us with love.

The Way of Love in Action

Luke 4 and 1 Corinthians 13

Karoline Lewis writes a column every week for people who need to preach (called Dear Working Preacher) and this week she puts it this way...
“In Luke, rejection to the “Good News” brackets Jesus’ ministry. Jesus’ hometown sermon in Nazareth, his first public act in Luke’s Gospel, has the crowd ready to cast him off a cliff.
And Jesus’ empty tomb will be met with “well, that’s just nonsense.” (Luke 24:11).

“What’s the offense? That Jesus is for those we’d rather forget? That Jesus is for others that just may be in line before us? That Jesus actually imagines the purpose for his ministry as coming to being and bearing fruit without our input and control? All of the above?”
Hmmm... And why did Jesus have to lead off this way? Maybe he could have been a little more... gracious? 

Karoline continues...“No one is saved by our concerns to play it safe. No one is saved by our decisions to protect each other from challenges... When we make the Gospel simply an option for living, we have forgotten that it’s also a choice about dying.”

“And so, this week we lean into the real discomfort of the Gospel, we acknowledge that what Jesus preaches is hard… and admit that we ourselves sometimes wish to call “nonsense”... or worse. We admit that it is hard to carry the weight of believing for others. It’s hard to hold the burden of faith for others. And it is hard to preach what you yourself have questioned.”

This week, several of us attended a conference at Luther seminary—Give us this day our daily bread: food, land, and sustainability...

One of the speakers, Dr. Melanie Harris spoke from the perspective of honoring faith traditions of African-American women and as part of that, she asked us to consider our own Eco-memories. I remembered my grandmother's sun browned arms as she worked in her big, shared garden plot... I remembered working in fields myself, de-tasseling Pioneer seed corn for a crew that my middle school science teacher led. It was hard work and the best money a 14-year-old Iowa city kid could make. During the season, I would wake up with my hands clenched, dreaming I was in the field. And it was also one of the first places I was awakened to the reality of injustice toward farm workers on whom we all depend. As we ate our lunches and complained about the stench of the run-off from early hog confinement barns, my science teacher pointed to a nearby crew. "You see those folks, you all are following the machines as you do your work. They aren't... They’re doing harder work and they're probably making half of what you are because they are migrant workers."

Dr. Melanie Harris, our speaker at the seminary, said that of course a huge part of the collective (and often personal) Eco-memories of African Americans is the slavery system by which they or their relatives not only were forced to work the land but within a system where relatives were themselves sold for less than the price of seeds. So coming out of a commodity system, a destructive system, and empire system where people are treated as property, as less valuable than the beloved ones of God, how do we bring all our resources to heal memories, restore faith and share together in commitment toward earth and all humans, all creatures, all life, even extending our imaginations to include the living soil on which we all depend?

Given the ways that our personal bodies hurt and the way that our shared body hurts when a part of it is in pain, given the way that the earth itself groans… and given that this is not new, although we are certainly more intensely aware of the earth’s groaning now…

The words of Paul to the people of Corinth give us a window into a more excellent way… really the only way to become new, and that is through love.

Love is present all around us—that is true, God’s love is all around us. But in 1 Corinthians, Paul describes a love that is not a noun, not simply omnipresent, but a love that is all verbs.

Paul’s teaching is all about the things we do and the things we refrain from doing if and when we are acting out love.

It’s about accessing patience when we expect instant results. It’s about showing kindness and rejoicing in truth. It’s about endurance and trust, practicing hope and shouldering burdens together.

Love is not ego-based, selfish, jealous, manipulative, arrogant… it does not cause the earth and its people, the soil and all creatures to groan under the weight of it. 

Love is saying “no” to certain behaviors, saying enough, and stopping to make space for community and personal flourishing for each diverse body, for our whole body.

Jesus comes among us and says basically, if you're looking for ministry that's just catering to you... then God wants you to pay better attention to the ones you’ve rejected or just not taken the time to notice.
An older person you think is no concern of yours.Or a child you think is annoying and distracting...or someone who is not easy to like, understand or deal with... 

As his examples, Jesus points to Naaman the Syrian... (in case we don’t know or remember), he was a powerful leader, slave owner, pompous and nationalistic... albeit who listened to his slaves (an action that saved his life)

Jesus pointed to a widow who those gathered might have thought didn’t deserve God’s constant providing as much as some others did…
As we get deeper into this vein, we can sense where Jesus is going with this and maybe begin to imagine how the crowd gathered around him with compliments in the beginning so quickly became a mob, how we might be capable of that, too, in our rougher moments.

We can maybe understand, if we realize how challenging it is to be critiqued into better behavior, how the people turned on Jesus. “Don’t you know you are one of us?... How dare you get in our face about this, Jesus?”

The community tries to harm him but rather than engage in the escalating violence, Jesus passes through and goes on his way.This is a hard word for any of us who are established, who are too unbending, who are becoming set in our ways… if we are not on the path of love, Jesus will simply move on, but we are invited on the way. And what is the way?

It's the way of love in action. It’s a kind of dying… to whatever in us makes us think Jesus or a neighbor is our enemy. It’s a kind of living in relationship that loves us from the start but that continues to challenge us to grow, so that we can live and breathe and find new life daily. So that as Jesus moves on, we might move together with the one who heals our memories, restores our faith and leads us in commitments to bear fruit for the healing of the world.

Light + Gifts + Home by Another Way

Epiphany

Today, it is Epiphany! After the 12 days of Christmas, we celebrate this day when the magi who traveled from the East and followed a star to Jesus, finally met him and we overcome with joy.  

Get the Magi & camels and bring them to the manger.

e·piph·a·ny

noun

the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12), the festival commemorating the Epiphany on January 6, a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.

[manifestation—a big word for something hidden becoming obvious, so here, God becoming seen in Jesus]

They follow the light of a star, so this season is often associated with light.

So the first thing I want to share with you is a candle. You can take it home to light it through the season after Epiphany as we learn the ways God has revealed who God is in Jesus… and as we watch for the ways that God is still revealing who God is…

Secondly, I notice that there are three gifts… actually, we don’t know from the stories how many magi or camels, but we do know there were three gifts:

… gold, frankincense and myrrh.. 

Of course you know that gold would have been valuable and the other two were used in anointing—it might have reminded people of the last great king they remembered—King Solomon…

We use this same oil to anoint a baby at baptism, to bless people along the way of life, to anoint the sick and dying… 

Lots of times as we come together at church, we bring gifts—we bring money, we give our time, we share things that are valuable to us.

Today, I’ve brought star words as a gift for each of us to receive. You’re invited to receive a star word randomly—there should be one for everybody--and then put that word someplace you’ll see it daily (on your mirror or carry it with you) throughout the year. It’s an invitation to see how God might reveal something new to you in 2019. 

Children (and ushers), will you help me pass them out to everyone?

And be sure to let me know if you don’t get one! (There are a few spares that I can share after worship).

Star words distribution

The third thing that I notice in this first story of Epiphany is the strong emotions—

The magi strangers are overwhelmed with joy to meet a completely different kind of king.

But Herod sees this little one as a threat. He is afraid “and all Jerusalem with him.” So… anyone who is anyone is afraid. Those who are afraid are missing the joy completely…
An angel comes to the magi and instructs them not to go home by way of Herod’s palace (as he compelled them to do) but to go another way…

We come to worship as we are and here, we have the opportunity to hear Jesus, to meet Jesus, to share a meal with Jesus… and then go home another way.  

Whatever may have hit home for us through the twelve days of Christmas—as we celebrated or struggled with family—as we came to worship, looking for goodness—or if we missed it completely, distracted by our own pain or grief, disappointments or judgments…

In this season, Christ invites us to change our focus.

Because if we focus only on Herod, we’ll miss the encounter with the Child.

We are surrounded by bad news and hard things—headlines, politics, maneuvering, chaos, actual tragedy, deep grief–but the narrative of despair isn’t and can’t be our dominant narrative.

It’s like the wisdom from the late Fred Rogers who said in times of disaster to “look for the helpers.” We have the ability to look for and see… God, love, another perspective.

As Christians, as people who attempt to follow Jesus’ way, we do not just rage against the empire, we look and speak and walk another way, and this is one of the places we come together to practice.

We practice welcoming all, we practice living in love, we practice watching for God’s activity.

A friend of mine says that no one goes from Thanksgiving to New Year’s unscathed… our lives are hard, the holidays can be too… and now, the January blues…

But here, we come into the presence of God who speaks to us—through the word—and feeds us in a meal—and shows up in the most unexpected of places.

We keep looking for answers in the same places... but this season, as we remember the magi and all those who have sought to follow, all those who have been visited by God’s messengers…

As God is leading, God reveals another way home.

Chalking of the door

We go through this threshold into daily life 2019, blessed, with the gift of star words to be reminders of God’s present and willingness to shape us and walk with us.

And I wonder what the magi told everyone they met on their ways home?

I imagine they shared the gift of their story countless times… spreading and spreading and spreading, until many were watching for who this child, Jesus, would become.

From Heaven Above

From Heaven Above – a Christmas hymn by Martin Luther

Meditation for Christmas Day

Who are these angels who come to earth?
Verses 1-3       The angels tell us about a child who is born low but will lift all people up.

This new child will be the joy of all the earth…

            Mangers from many places

Jesus hears your sad and bitter cry and will set you free from all that harms you.

Who are these shepherds who run to see?

Verses 4-6       We are the shepherds, invited to go and see. 

When we hear that a baby is born, we just want to go and see the baby

In a way, they don’t do very much—but we look into their eyes, we watch all their little wiggles, we listen to every little sound, we touch their very soft skin and notice everything 

Babies are vulnerable and babies are a miracle—and so we gaze at them in wonder…

Kind of like that, but even more, the shepherds went to see for themselves this wondrous gift of God.

Who is this Child, so small, so slight?

Verses 7-9       Unexpectedly… God!

O noble Guest!

How did you come to be so small?

This is the thing that is so strange and amazing about how God comes to us in Jesus (and how God comes to us again and again…) that God comes in unexpected ways, in unexpected places…

We can hardly believe it.

Who is this King, a manger his throne?

Verses 10-11 –                        We think God will only come if things are good enough, but…
Our most fancy, rich things are not even enough… velvet vs. rough manger

But Jesus came even more humbly.

So if your Christmas is not fancy, if it is not what you hoped or just like an ordinary day,
Jesus comes to you right there, where you are and invites you to love and wonder, 

Whatever your circumstances.

Who is this Child, who sends a Son?

Verses 12-14   God comes to the manger, and God comes to us today.

Make my heart (make me) like a manger where you can be born.

Since Jesus is in my heart—I want to sing and leap!

We sing together with angels (all messengers) who bring the good news about God-with-us and we start all over again—with a new year singing our joy and love for God’s great gift.

Expecting Jesus: and a Way out of No Way

Advent 2 - Luke 3

For two whole verses of the six we hear from Luke this morning, Luke is establishing the time and the place, the sources of power—the reign of the emperor Tiberias, a governor over Judea, Herod over Galilee… priests in charge, Annas and Caiaphas…
and somehow, within and beyond all that, John son of Zechariah—Zechariah who in his old age had a child with Elizabeth, a child with unusual pre-birth stories—a child who jumped in his mother’s uterus at the appearance of Mary, pregnant with Jesus. A child whose father was silenced by Gabriel until the baby was born, until he confirmed that what Elizabeth said was true - the child would be named John – a name that was not a family name but a meaningful one: God has been gracious; God has shown favor.

ThisJohn is in the wilderness and it is there that he is baptizing and calling people to turn around into a new way of life—crying out as Isaiah cried out before him:

            In the wilderness, prepare a way so that everyone can be saved by God.

John, the forerunner of Jesus, the one that we usually call John the Baptist is doing so much more. He is baptizing, it’s true. But that’s not what shows who he is… 

In fact, John doesn’t really care if people understand who he is (although the people are really, really curious about that). All John cares about is the One to come.

Who is John? He’s just the voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare the way.

Who is John? The Messiah? A prophet? No, he describes himself as not even worthy to untie the shoes of the One who’s coming.

Who is John? He came as a witness to testify to the light coming into the world.

In the work all our preparations for Christmas—snow shoveling and lights hung up, tree selection and decorating, gift-selecting and wrapping, cookie baking and meal assembling… 

John’s voice calls, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; 6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'

Light flickers in the midst of the busy, filled days and the dark, weary nights—the light of Jesus who is already among us, but whose presence we can easily miss… Jesus, who calls, “Come and see.”

Come and see. Come and know me better. Come and take in the light, glowing and growing.

This week, I had the opportunity to be at a meeting at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, and while I was there, I saw a little ad for their annual Christmas store. I remembered how years ago, very early in our time in the Twin Cities, our family was invited by Pastor Kelly Chatman to come to Redeemer Lutheran Church’s annual Christmas Store. This event was created to give neighborhood children a way to buy presents for their families. Gifts are donated from congregations throughout the Twin Cities area and children can come to buy four gifts for a dollar. We were invited to bring our children with the gracious words that we might not need that kind of opportunity but please come.

Here are some great memories from that event—

Imagine a young teenage girl who took the microphone and began to sing a song from Mary, Mary:
I just can't give up now, I've come too far from where I started from…Nobody told me the road would be easy and I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me.

Then, there was the picking out of the gifts… “Elves” from the congregation took children to pick out their gifts, assuring them that there were still plenty of wonderful items left.

Others helped them wrap and tag the gifts and each child left like joyful little Santas, with a bag of presents to share. 

This display of abundance, where everyone had the chance to enjoy music, eat lunch, take gifts home was a little glimpse of how the light of Christ can make us a beacon of hope for our neighbors. 

We use light as a metaphor because of the way a very small candle can illumine a very dark space, because of the way one candle can light another candle and the light from the first becomes no less. We use light because in both the ancient world where the scriptures were created and in large parts of our modern world light brings a sense of safety, warmth and community.

It reminds me of this prayer that comes from the Easter vigil, the prayer said as we light the Christ candle, “We sing the glories of this pillar of fire, the brightness of which is not diminished even when its light is divided and borrowed.”

What a contrast to another, louder message we hear in ads and shopping pages and even in our own minds and hearts throughout this whole season of getting ready for Christmas—the message that what we have done and what we’re able to do, from gifts to nuts, is probably not quite enough. That we must guard our little corner of the civilization and keep others out. That we must keep our focus on ourselves and our loved ones.

The message of John the Baptist, proclaiming Jesus in the wilderness among us, is exactly the opposite. This is the one who makes a way for all. This is the one who shows God provides plenty even amidst scarcity. This is the one who is preparing a place for us, but not just for us… a place where we can experience Christ’s love and peace and joy.

This week, we light another candle. The light visibly grows and grows throughout the deepening darkness of this season. May this be how it is among and inside us… as we prepare a way, as Christ makes a path home for all. For there is One who is in and around us and who will show up in the most unexpected of places—in the busy filled days, in the dark weary nights, in all joy and in pain too, giving hope—Jesus, the savior of the world.

Forever means forever

Advent One – Luke 21:25-36

Strange things will happen… to the sun, the moon, the stars… the nations on earth will be afraid of the roaring sea and tides, and they won’t know what to do… people will be so frightened they’ll drop to the ground… 

Today is the beginning of the year of Luke, from December through next November, except for the story of the Magi from Matthew and some Sundays in the gospel of John, we’ll mostly hear the gospel according to Luke this year. It’s one of my favorites because always, Luke shows Jesus turning the world right side up. The lowly are brought up, the oppressed are set free, the oppression in the world order is broken apart. But, obviously, when you’re in the middle of a world order being upended, things look terrible. So we begin Advent remembering than when everything looks terrible, there is more going on than we can see.

I’m not terribly into the apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic genres (describing the destruction of the whole world and life as we know)—in books or movies or life—but this year, I’ve brushed against these stories a couple of times. I read local author Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Future Home of the Living God. It is a near-future dystopia where because of climate change there is no longer any snow, barely even a memory of snow. On days like today, where our numbers are leaner due to the snow, it might seem like that’d be okay (!) but reading the description converted me to take snow as a gift. And in addition to the changes in weather in the story, evolution has reversed, leading to horrific changes in nature and human community. The main character, Cedar Hawk Songmaker, the book’s narrator, puts her thoughts about their lived reality this way: “Maybe God has decided that we are an idea not worth thinking anymore.”

One of my relatives this week, commenting on actual horrific fires and the threat of a tsunami in California and Alaska these past weeks wrote, “The earth isn’t very happy with us.” So, it’s not as if we can’t get our imaginations wrapped up in these stories that maybe we too are witnessing the end—when finally, although humans have been worrying about it for thousands of years, maybe this time it’s really true… of all the end times, maybe this is really it.

As the gospel writer Luke ventures into apocalyptic for a part of his story, his very early Christian community had to be wondering the same… as the temple was destroyed, and Rome fell, it looked like God (who controls all things, right?—heavens and earth, seas and skies)… God must have abandoned them. But no, Jesus says, “When all of this starts happening, stand up straight and be brave.” 

When you don't know what to do, when you’re so frightened you want to lay down and die, don’t spend all your time thinking about what you’re going to eat or drink or worrying about life… but watch and keep praying for strength and remember God’s promise “the sky and the earth won’t last forever, but my words will.”

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

Karoline Lewis wrote this week: Those are words I am holding onto dearly these days. For dear life, in fact. A promise that exposes false promises. A promise that keeps me going. While it is true that so much of life is trying to hold on to what inevitably will change, having this knowledge does not make it necessarily less difficult to cope. Do you feel the same?

On this first Sunday of Advent, moving into the season of Advent, we know ahead of time, we can see in front of us, just how much will pass away these next four weeks -- and quickly. Everything we anticipate at Christmas, everything we plan, what we try to take in, will be gone in a mere month. So, we will attempt to hang on to these moments with tried and true methods -- photographs, videos -- all the while realizing that even these go-to ways of keeping memories will themselves one day pass away. Nothing lasts forever.

And yet, perhaps there is no other time that this is felt more deeply than during the holidays, the mindfulness that nothing lasts forever. This month seems to accentuate the fleetingness of so much of life. Our attempts to remember events are also the means by which we cope with the loss -- that this moment in time can never be repeated in time, ever again.[1]

Luke tells his community that as followers of Jesus, as people trying to live in love with justice and mercy, they may experience legal difficulties, problems with neighbors, things falling apart… but that they and, as we receive his words today, we can stand up and raise our heads, knowing that God’s redemption is drawing near. Even if everything is falling apart, that’s not a sign of God’s absence or God’s lack of concern.

Even as we look ahead to the end of the story—Jesus death on a cross—death does not get the last word. Disciples’ hopes are dashed in their deep grief at Jesus’ death and then, Jesus meets them along the road and in the evening, around the table.

Starting this Wednesday, we’ll gather around tables downstairs in the Fellowship Hall for a meal and evening prayer. Through the simple food and words of that evening, we’ll practice noticing in and around the real, scary, worrisome events of our lives how Christ meets us, inviting us to be brave in the face of them. In Advent, we celebrate God’s coming in history (past), mystery (present) and majesty (at the very end). Advent isn’t just about the birth of Jesus but the many ways God comes to us—a shoot from the stump of Jesse, a lantern flickering in the wind, a deep breath… so we hope that you will make a little space in busy lives to come and share bread, pray together and find ways to be open to the mystery of the present so we can receive the love that Christ has for us.

The Wailin’ Jennys sing:

When the storm comes, don’t run for cover (x3)

Don’t run from the coming storm, there ain’t no use in runnin’[2]

Don’t run from the coming storm, You can’t keep a storm from comin’Gotta stand up and let it in, let love come through your door…

God’s work is not yet finished… God’s promises are still being kept, God is still saving and liberating people… God’s work is not yet finished. How do we wait in the meantime?
By lighting candles, sharing a meal. By loving one another as fully as possible… by letting others love us… by pursuing justice, mercy, goodness.

Jan Richardson, who has written about Advent at the Advent Door for years now says this:

The season of Advent gives us the apocalypse each year not only so that we might recognize it, should it come, but also—and perhaps especially—that we might enter more mindfully into our present landscape and perceive the signs of how God is working out God’s longing in the world here and now. The root meaning of the word apocalypse, after all, is revelation. And God is, in every time and season, about the work of revealing God’s presence. The one who came to us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, and who spoke of a time when he would come again in fullness, reveals himself even now in our midst, calling us to see all the guises in which he goes about in this world.

Advent reminds us, year in and year out, that although we are to keep a weather eye out for cosmic signs, we must, like the fig tree that Jesus evokes in this passage, be rooted in the life of the earth. And in the rhythm of our daily lives here on earth, Christ bids us to practice the apocalypse. He calls us in each day and moment to do the things that will stir up our courage and keep us grounded in God, not only that we may perceive Christ when he comes, but also that we may recognize him even now. There is a sense, after all, in which we as Christians live the apocalypse on a daily basis. Amid the destruction and devastation that are ever taking place in the world, Christ beckons us to perceive and to participate in the ways that he is already seeking to bring redemption and healing for the whole of creation.[3]

Nothing lasts forever – except God’s unending love and promise. God took on temporary life… to give us eternal life. God took on transiency to give us a permanent home with God. God took on death to give us resurrection. Because, with God, forever means forever.[4]

---

[1]Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, workingpreacher.org, December 2, 2018

[2]CBC Radio, Published on Aug 2, 2011,Winnipeg folk trio The Wailin' Jennys dropped by CBC Radio 2's Drive for a Session to perform music from their album 'Bright Morning Stars'. Watch

[3]Jan Richardson, The Advent Door, http://adventdoor.com/2009/11/23/advent-1-practicing-the-apocalypse/

[4]Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, workingpreacher.org, December 2, 2018