Christ at work, making things new… Alleluia!

Easter Sunday

John 20: 11-18  

In the gospel of John, Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb in the early morning, alone. The stone is missing so she runs to get the others—Peter and John come running. John arrives first but hesitates outside the tomb. Peter rushes in. They didn’t understand exactly what had happened at this point… and they went home wondering, with a glimmer of belief… but Mary stayed there at the tomb, weeping. She bent in to look again, and saw angels through her tears. “Why are you crying?” they ask. But she doesn’t wait to hear their answer.  Maybe in her distress, she is still searching for the lost body of Jesus… or maybe she saw some look of recognition in their faces…and turns…      Mary turns and there he is
but she doesn’t recognize him. She assumes the person standing there is the gardener.

Jesus the Gardener (on this Easter & eve of Earth Day)… I imagine Jesus bent down with dirt under his fingernails, planting seeds, watering tender plants… Well, what would youdo first if you were raised from the dead? “Oh, you know… a little gardening.” Like God the creator in the first garden, Jesus—who has been with God from the very beginning—the risen Christ is tending a garden when Mary turns toward him. 

And then we get to look on knowingly in this story, we know it’s Jesus while Mary figures it out.

“Why are you crying?” Jesus asks, and once more she tries to find her lost Beloved One.

Jesus says her name, and Mary recognizes her Lord—alive!

As unbelievable as it was, somehow she knew it was true.

Resurrection is like that. When we have resurrection stories, we usually start kind of like this… “Now, don’t think I’m crazy but…” And then we tell our story of life coming right out of near-death, or actual death.

When we’re in the middle of times of betrayal, suffering and death, when we’re in trauma or grief-filled waiting, it’s hard to hold on to hope of resurrection.

When we are able to hold onto hope even through the worst times, it’s a gift.

Like Jesus who on maybe the most disappointing night of his life created a meal for us to share every time we gather where we remember and experience Christ’s living presence in the ordinary things—bread, gluten free wafer, juice, wine—ordinary things, and the words “for you,” and in everybody who receives those gifts.

When we are able to hold onto hope even through the worst times, it’s a gift.

Like Jesus who from the cross as he was dying forgave strangers and promised paradise to criminals. Who from the cross created family between his mother and the disciple he loved, making sure they would care for one another when he was gone, so that when it was all finished they would able to be a blessing as family, to family that would one day extend all the way to us.

When we are able to hold onto hope even through the worst times, it’s a gift.

When we’re waiting, because we reached over and felt our loved one was cold as stone. When we feel like we’re in a tomb because everything we own is disrupted, or our relationships are strained, or we’re facing challenges that are completely overwhelming but we’re trying to move forward into new visions into a new day…

Holding on to hope for spring through snowfalls in April, with our chalk in hand, our bubbles to blow, our seeds ready for planting… this is all gift. Right now, we wait, but in time, we’ll be looking back at the waiting time, remembering how resurrection was both happening and on its way all that time, already and not yet. It was just hard to wait.

Mary’s gift was holding onto hope of finding Jesus’ body, just as tenaciously as she stood by through his ministry, even when he went to Jerusalem, even at the crucifixion. Once she realized Jesus was alive, she was prepared to hold onto him and never let him go again… but in this moment in his journey, raised from the dead but not yet ascended, Jesus points her forward. Your gifts of hope, love, and telling the story can’t be contained right here—I need you to bring these gifts to my disciples, hovering in fear and disbelief. 

Now, here in the garden, Jesus points out to Mary that he is no longer God’s Only Son… now, they are all God’s children. They are invited to have the same close relationship with God, kinship with each other, closeness with God’s purpose. They are asked to replicate Jesus’ relationship with God far beyond what they could have ever imagined.

So, what about for us? Today the apostle Mary comes to us and says, “I have seen the Lord! I thought it was the gardener, but when I heard my name, I knew Christ was alive! And listen to this—he said something so much like his ancestor Ruth. She said, “Your people will be my people, and your God, my God.” (Ruth 1:16). Jesus said to go to Galilee—our home territory—where he will ascend ‘to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

I can only imagine that once she delivered the message, she traveled on… back to Galilee, to her synagogue in Magdala (5 kilometers from Tiberias) to share the news of love and deep joy.

And I can only imagine that this is what God hopes we might do today… like Mary of Magdala shared the news of love and deep joy, that whatever our circumstances, the risen Beloved One calls our names and invites us not to hold on tightly to the source of love so much as spread it, break up evil from the inside with unfathomable love.

Maybe you’ve read or watched the film version of A Wrinkle in Time—it came to theaters about a year ago—based on the science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle (first published in 1962). At one point, a wise character says about the uncertain 14-year-old main character, “I think we need to tell her something, I think we need to show her why this is so important…” and then they begin to show a greater reality to Meg than she could have ever discerned on her own. They’re involved in a cosmic struggle between forces of hate and forces of love, and they ask her to use all her faults…
and the gifts she doesn’t really know she has yet in this cosmic struggle. She learns that finally those who are different, who have had wounds, who have doubts and struggles, but who practice deep love-in-action—these are the very gifts that are needed most.

Madeleine L’Engle’s vision was very shaped by the gospel of John—who also saw the influence of Christ as cosmic, and the need for knowing our belovedness to God as critical for this time, for every time.

But just in case we get to mystical, too out-of-body, too big, John also places the risen Christ firmly on the earth—gardening—and later on he’ll breathe on them and invite them to touch his wounds. They’ll cook and eat roasted fish together at the lakeshore. It’s all very down-to-earth. You’re invited to take this down-to-earth love to a family gathering today or to the next place you encounter a stranger. You’re invited to practice it as you share a ride, give an offering, sing and pray. As you finally plant your spring seeds!
Christ is alive and is already at work—making all things new—tending roots and branches, with buds that will become leaves and fruit.

Yes, this is all for you.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Love's Risen Body

Easter Vigil

John 20:1-10 

Tonight we began with light, the light of a new fire, the light spread to candles lovingly given to us by bees… we moved into this sanctuary space where we told some of the great stories of God’s creation and deliverance. We tell them to help us know—over and over again, God keeps creating and God keeps saving through all of history. And then, we remembered together the gift of Baptism, how God brings this saving gift to thistime, to ourlives. It’s from this rich seedbed that we come to the tomb. It’s still dark as Mary arrives still wondering about the horror of the cross, still wondering where everybody else was now…

Preacher Barbara Lundblad reminds us. Mary had been there when he died (John 19:25). When she saw the stone rolled away she didn’t shout, “Christ is risen!” She didn’t assume resurrection, but ran to tell Simon Peter and the other disciple, “the one whom Jesus loved.” We last saw this unnamed disciple at the foot of the cross with Jesus’ mother. He is the only disciple who stayed [with the women and] with Jesus through the crucifixion (John 19:26-27).[1]

These two, Peter and John, ran to the grave and noticed that the garments of death were folded… why would grave robbers unwrap the body? But what else could be the explanation? 

The rules of death and the grave couldn’t be broken, could they?They went home wondering. Tonight, after a long day of waiting and wondering, we remember how over time, over thousands of years, we have been able to see not just the horror of the cross but now it’s beauty. From Jesus’ side flowed blood and water. It’s not just a sign shared to proove that he was truly dead, so that we might be able to imagine Christ actually raised from the dead. It’s poetry. From Jesus’ death and resurrection come our sacraments—water and blood—Baptism and Holy Communion—actions where God makes ordinary things into extraordinary gifts… that bring diverse people into one family, into one living, breathing community.

In this excerpt from a poem by R. S. Thomas called “The Answer” we hear a glimmer of resurrection breaking through:   

… There have been times
when, after long on my knees
in a cold chancel, a stone has rolled
from my mind, and I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie 
folded and in a place 
by themselves, like the piled 
graveclothes of love’s risen body.[2]

We have our questions still… it’s hard to believe the impossible. But on this night, with the beloved disciple, we dare to also believe in “love’s risen body”—Christ who once was dead, raised by love. Alive, with us and in us. In the love poured over us, in the love we’ll take and eat. And so we can’t help but proclaim on this Resurrection eve… Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

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[1]Barbara Lundblad, “Commentary on John 20,” March 27, 2016, workingpreacher.org. Accessed April 16, 2019.

[2]R. S. Thomas, Poems of R. S. Thomas (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1985) 128

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.

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[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

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[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.