“What do you want me to do FOR YOU?”

Mark 10:46-52 (NRSV)

46 They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” 50 So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51 Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher,[a] let me see again.” 52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

October 22, 2015

Lectionary 30, Year B (October 25, 2015)

Since yesterday was "Back to the Future Day," I thought it only fitting to go back in time, so I hope you will indulge me.  It is April Fool’s Day, 1996.  Giessen, Germany, about a half hour northeast of Frankfurt.  I had been officially pregnant for exactly 292 days, and it was finally my daughter’s due date.  So far this day had lived up to its name.  It had been raining, the car was in the shop,  so I took a bus to my midwife’s, since I thought my water had broken.  She checked it out, shook her head and sent me back home  — on yet another bumpy, painful bus ride (complete with Volksmusik, which needs to be experienced in order to be understood.  It's a little bit like a blend of German folk music and American country) back to our little village.

The day dragged on, and I spent much of it sitting on the porcelain throne, not daring to move from this place because every second felt like something was about to happen, only it never did.  I felt like this oversize water balloon with a slow leak.  It was a vague but increasingly real discomfort that left me stuck.  Already, but not yet.

My mother was visiting us at the time, in hopes of sharing this blessed event.  I called her over and told her that I couldn’t go on this way, it must be time to maybe do something.  She convinced me it was high time I call the midwife again, and that’s all I needed to hear.  In my magical way of thinking, calling the midwife might be the answer to my problems, at least the uncertianty.  

My mother dialed (yes, dialed!) the phone and talked to her first.  In a tone about as decisive as mine (the apple fell not far from the tree), she pleads, “Frau Heidorn, we don’t know what to do.”

Already I’m shaking my head, knowing what she’s going to say.

“What do you mean ‘we’ don’t know what to do?’” Let me talk to the Mother,”

(yeah right) So I get on the phone.  The words crackled on the other end of the receiver (yes, “receiver!”) because in those days I was still tethered to a landline.

“Frau Thomas, what do you want me to do for you?”

Not exactly the most comforting words a woman in labor wants to hear.  I wanted her to tell me what to do, to bail me out of my discomfort!  At first her words irked me, but then I understood. It really put matters into my OWN hands, and in a strange way empowered me, because I had to be the one to decide whether or not ir was time to go to the hospital.  She said, “Call me again when you’re ready.”  She didn’t want to take that power away from me. I ended up having no choice but to run with it and trust my own ability to make decisions, and ended up having a drug-free birth with no complications.  

Even if we don’t realize it at the time, this kind of empowerment can be a gift that leads to wholeness and healing.  Please pray with me.

Loving God, we thank You for your presence here with us.  We thank you for your power in both the stillness and the storm.  Thank you for loving us enough to call us, and trusting us enough to let us act so that we in turn can cast all our cares upon you.  May your Spirit speak to and through us now.  In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

• “They came to Jericho.”  Jericho, that city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank, as volatile a city now as it was in the time of Jesus and before.  It’s a disputed fact, but Jericho may well be the oldest continuously occupied city in the world.  The springs in and around the city attracted human habitation dating as far back as 11,000 years. It was the city which Joshua and his army circled for seven days, until they blew their trumpets and, as the song says, the walls came tumbling down.  Even the city they are coming from holds implications for what we’re going to talk about today. 

Jesus is traveling with his disciples and a large entourage.  And then he encounters Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, the blind man.  Wait a minute.  Didn’t Jesus just heal a blind man a couple of chapters earlier?  How is this different?

• The blind man back in Mark 8 is pretty passive, but Bartimaeus is not.  He takes the initiative and makes himself known.   In a literal “shout-out:’ “Jesus. Son of David, have mercy on me!”  we notice that perhaps Bart is not as blind as we make him out to be.  Could it be that here in this story, he functions as the one who truly “sees” Jesus for who he is and what He is capable of doing?  

I don’t  know about you, but if you heard Dr. Wiseman in Chapel yesterday, you may have learned a thing or two about countercultural shouting.  (song?) According to this text, there were many folks around trying to shush Bartimaeus — and for a number of reasons.  It was a pretty monumental thing to refer to Jesus as the Son of David, implying that he was in the royal line of the great kings of Israel.  In fact, this is the very first time in the Bible in real time, if you will, that Jesus is actually  referred to as the Son of David.  Many in that crowd must have feared a major scandal.

• Monumental, countercultural, and dangerous.  They are probably embarrassed by this motely, blind dude, and trying to protect Jesus as well. Remember, he hadn’t yet made that triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  That happens right after this, in the next chapter.  And so they did more than shush him.  The Greek uses the word epitimao, which means “rebuke,”  the same verb Jesus used to cast out demons. So it was probably more like “Shut up!”  

Jesus stops and stands still.  “Call him,” he says.  He doesn’t single out Bartimaeus, but calls on the disciples to bring him over.  (God doesn’t call the equipped, but equips the called).  What follows is a sort of commotion as he throws off his mantle and comes to Jesus, actively insistently, empowered. 

Everyone is waiting for Jesus to zap Bartimaeus to witness yet another amazing miracle, but what happens?

• Jesus’ words are very specific.  His answer here really jumped out at me from this passage, so I walked around for a while trying to remember it, and I’d always mistakenly paraphrase it to myself as “What do you want me to do?”  

But that’s the human version.  It’s a phrase we hear a thousand times per day — at least I do (with four kids , whenever I try to get any one of them to do anything!).  We often say it in frustration, in desperation — its subtext being the equivalent of shrugging one’s shoulders, or basically giving up, saying “I can’t, that’s all I’ve got.  What can I do?”

What Jesus says is different. He adds just two words, and asks,  “What can I do FOR YOU?” 

• Now, I’m pretty sure Jesus would have healed Bartimaeus even if he didn’t respond to his question, but here he puts the ball into Bartimaeus’ court, and he replies, “Teacher, let me receive my sight.” And IMMEDIATELY he received his sight and followed him on the way.

FOR YOU.  That’s huge.  It not only sums up the Gospel message, the Good News that Christ gave His very life in order to save us from the even-Steven game of sin and sacrifice.  God loved us enough to send His only Son to atone for us — bring us back, restoring us to live as one with the Creator ’s purpose and Promise, through Jesus Christ.

• Jesus Christ, our great High Priest — our second reading, from Hebrews  — “the former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever…the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.”  Jesus did it once for all.  

For you.  For me.  For that homeless family in Love Park last weekend, whose 2-year old was found wandering around in the middle of the night.  For that person you might see across the street and don’t even know.  But we are all still growing, and we can all echo that first blind man’s words from Matthew 8, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed.” 

• My friends, God IS faithful, and does so much more than help those who help themselves.  God is in the transformation business!  We move from being conformed (which can include being curved into ourselves) to being transformed, as we read in Romans.  And that transformation leads us to reformation as individuals as well as the entire body of Christ. God’s Holy Spirit helps us come to Christ so that all of the Healer’s abundance can come to us.  That’s how our weeping turns into joy, as the Psalmist tells us this week.

It’s in moments like these that the Holy Spirit grabs hold of us. God knows precisely how each and every one of us is wired, and at the Spirit’s prompting, we may feel like crying, we may feel a warmth, we may feel the wind knocked out of us…but whatever it is, the Spirit calls us out of those everyday ordinary moments to stop, stand still, and in that stillness we are called to act, using the very words that Jesus said to blind Bart.  

• Stop, stand still, ask, and go.  “ GO, for your faith has healed you.”  In asking this question, Jesus gave Bartimaeus permission to excercise the faith that led to his healing, and Jesus question now becomes our own:   —  “What do you want me to do FOR YOU?” AMEN.

GOSPEL SUMMARY

GOSPEL SUMMARY - Lisa Helmel Thomas


Several weeks ago on Facebook, one of my childhood friends posted the following statement: "I'm thinking of becoming a Catholic."  In her case,  this is a somewhat loaded statement that requires further explanation.

Chloe (not her real name) grew up with me in an Assemblies of God church, a very conservative denomination much like those we find in the news today, protesting contemporary human rights issues "in the name of God."  Therefore, her post was borne of a sense of frustration over how her faith was being represented in the media.  Chloe, now having moderate to liberal political views, no longer wanted to be associated with this particular point of view, and felt that her answer to this was to "convert" to Catholicism.

I had no qualms about her decision, but in an effort to inform her of other options, decided to tell her a little bit about my journey as a Lutheran.  While I was baptized in a German Lutheran church at the age of six months, my mother had discovered the Assemblies of God church down the street not long after, and my two siblings and I were raised there for the next twenty years or so.  It was not until after I completed my graduate work and began a career as a church musician that I would "rediscover" Lutheranism and learn to cherish the Gospel in a different way from how I was raised.

This is how I responded to Chloe's post:

Chloe,  I can only speak for myself, but my discovery of the ELCA denomination was truly refreshing, especially after being raised the way we were.  I love the structure and the liturgy and I especially appreciate how they allow EVERYONE to come to the Lord's Table.  Similar to Catholicism, what sets Lutherans apart from most of the other Protestant denominations is their belief that the elements of Holy Communion literally become Christ's Body and Blood (I.e. not only symbols). It (not the Sermon as it was where we grew up), is the high point of their worship service.  I will not speak for Catholicism, but I have heard that they do no welcome everyone to the Table, though I'm not 100 percent sure.

As a Lutheran, the Gospel makes much more sense to me now in spite of all the "good Bible learning" we had while growing up.  The difference is that it enables me to put my faith to good use, truly knowing that we are 'saved' -- not by anything we do ourselves, but because God came down to us in the first place.  Therefore, we don't have to "decide" or earn Brownie points in order to get to heaven. It's already been done for us, as God's idea and plan!

This is really so amazing that we, in turn, as Gods creation, want to serve and follow God out of our gratitude and the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.  It then becomes not so much about getting to heaven as it is about responding to God's great love for us in the here and now, not waiting for glory or focusing on the future, where there is a sure and certain hope of the Resurrection  just as Jesus was raised back to life.

Yes, we have a choice - we are all both sinners and saints at the same time - but His grace compels us, not His wrath.  I hope this makes some kind of sense and might be of help,to you.

Our hymns are many, varied and great, and we do throw in some praise songs in there too depending on which church you go to.  Check it out. Sorry I'm so heavy and preachy  on you.  I guess it's my thing and I can't help it.  Take what works and leave the rest.  Best of luck wherever your path will lead you.  Love you!

A few days later, one of the members of our church's Praise Team seemed a bit disillusioned by some of the things he read in another Facebook group known as "I'm Fed Up with Bad Church Music" -- not exactly an uplifting group, and one hat can be rather daunting to lay musicians caught unawares,  The postings here are often fraught with snobbery and judgmental attitudes.  In my response to him, I was trying to explain music selection from a Lutheran's perspective on the Gospel:

My friend, you are great just as you are and God can use you!  There is no such thing as a perfect Christian OR a perfect musician.  We need to remember that ALL we have comes from God, and we're just giving back to Him what is actually His. If we end up having fun in the process, or feeling fulfilled during a really awesome jam session, then that is God blessing us and just an extension of His grace and free gifts.

Part of the reason why I love Luther(anism) is because of,the Latin phrase similar justus et peccator.  This means that we are  simultaneously sinners and saints. We are human, and praise God we were made that way.  God loves us.  In turn, we care -- and because we care, we serve.  Because we serve, we grow into a community of,faith, and our own faith grows as a result.  There is nothing you have to DO to become a "better" Christian.  The Holy Spirit will lead you toward wanting to "walk the talk."

Though both of my friends know Christ and had some familiarity with the Gospel, I was grateful to be able to share my perspective with them, not in an effort to correct or change them, but in the spirit of encouragement inspire them to to perhaps dig deeper in their faith.

As for me, I find connection to the Gospel in the simplest things of everyday life.
 The Gospel feeds me.  It brings miracles, large and small, seemingly out of nothing.

Lately, I have taken time to bake bread.  Especially now, when funds are scarce.  My husband was home all summer, which is an extremely rare occurrence. Usually we pack up the household and travel to wherever he happens to be contracted to perform.  For the past ten to fifteen years, this has generally  been summer opera  festivals, where the family comes along.  Now, because he is less employed, he becomes grumpy at times.  The smell of fresh bread seems to cheer him up, if only momentarily.  But it seems to translate into hope. it makes me feel, if just for a minute, that the stress and uncertainty  surrounding uncertain income, guilt that I am not doing enough to contribute, is lifting. I can always combine the simplest of ingredients, almost magically, into a dough that soon becomes a sumptuous loaf of bread.

Tonight, there happens to be a glorious sunset. I wonder how this happens, especially after a cloudy, rainy day.  But it does.  While it isn't a rainbow, its striated colors bring promise just the same -- a promise that tomorrow is on the heels of this closing day, with another chance to renew itself.

The Gospel feeds me and with it brings the hope of healing.  The Gospel feeds me and the healing brings faith.  Faith comes by hearing the Word, which is where doubt and fear intersect with hope and resurrection. The Cross.

The Holy Spirit, the very Essence of Love itself. creates and sustains life.  Through it, through love, God is able to create life and humanity.  God's Son, Jesus Christ, assumes the very Image of God in human form yet exists eternally and in essence through the Holy Spirit, Who continually reminds, renews, and rejuvenates us in our daily lives.

Thus, the Gospel produces a chain reaction that connects us to God our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.  Thanks be to God!

Kein Wiedersehen

Silence, distance, space
Choke, alienate
Alone.
Missing everyone.
Life passes by.

Nicht genug.

"Reverse the Curse:" God Calls Us Beyond Ourselves

This is a new sermon, the basis of which will be preached to a congregation of young families at Townline Lutheran Church in Alden, NY, a suburb of Buffalo.  I will be guest preaching there next Sunday, March 16, 2014 for an LTSP seminary trip.  There will most likely be variations, using more references to the immediate area (I am a native of Rochester, NY) and less about Philadelphia, as well as my perspective of what it's like to be a second-career seminary student.

I hope to convey that God is able to call each and every one of us to places we could never think of or imagine on our own, and that He will be with us throughout the process even though visibility might be less than zero.

Texts:  Genesis 12:1-4a; John 3:1-17 (Lent 2, Year A)

Those of us who know the Philadelphia sports scene know better than to wear a hat like this.  For me, this is unprecedented for a number of reasons.  For starters, I'm not too sports savvy, but I was always impressed by preachers that were.  Ordinarily I would insist there be a piano nearby that I could run behind for cover if the need arose, so that we could all just break into "Shine, Jesus Shine" in a pinch, but today we're talking about going into uncharted territory without a map, so why not bring baseball into it for the first time?

I should have done my homework and worn this cap out in public last week in an effort to crowd source and gather some reactions, but I'll admit I didn't have the courage.  Philly sports fans can be ruthless.  They have become more notorious for their senseless behavior than for their major sports accomplishments.  Besides not having experienced a sports championship since the 2008 World Series, Philadelphia sports fan have become known for their bad behavior.  A day after the Phillies saw their first fan tasered for running on to the field, another fan jumped the fence and ran around the outfield, led out in handcuffs.

It's not like the Phillies are really alone when it comes to long waits for championships. Take the Boston Red Sox.  I took pity on them one summer in New Hampshire, when a pink hat similar to this one caught my eye at a convenience store, of all places. What attracted me to this specific hat were the words embroidered on the side saying, "Reverse the Curse."

Some of you may be aware of this story, known as "the Curse of the Bambino."  

In 1918 the Red Sox won their 5th World Series, the most by any club at that time. One of the stars of the Boston franchise was a young pitcher by the name of George Herman Ruth, aka The Babe or The Bambino.  The Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises.   

In 1920, however, Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needed money to finance his girlfriend's play, so he sold Babe Ruth's contract to the New York Yankees for $100,000. After the sale they went without a title for decades, as the Yankees became one of the most successful teams in professional sports.  The curse became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years.  For 86 years,  the Sox had not won a single world series, until they managed to face the St. Louis Cardinals -- in 2004 and, finally winning at home this past year in 2013.

Needless to say, by the time I bought this in '07, the Curse had already been removed three years earlier, so I could truly say this was "old hat."  But in some strange way, when wearing it, I felt like I at least temporarily "belonged" to this summer community in New Hampshire.  It gave me a sense of solidarity.

Be it the Red Sox Nation, the Nation of Israel, or our world today, nations are often called to a place beyond themselves without necessarily knowing where they are going.  It happens all the time, throughout the Bible, when people are called  to "hope against hope" at times when the end is far from sight, if it can be seen at all.  Abram was certainly no exception.  God simply told him, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to find the land that I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation."  Contrary to our contemporary story, here Abraham has a blessing rather than a curse hanging over him.  Abraham, Sarah, and their offspring actually serve as God's last hope for the world.  If the blessing fails to work -- the alternatives are unthinkable, even for -- and especially for -- God.  Things fell apart at Eden.  This is the chance to reverse that curse.

Though all kinds of things seem to be in store for him,  we really don't know all that much about Abraham.  We know nothing of his pedigree, his credentials.  Was he a righteous man?  The text is silent, but we do know…because of the ways God works through our experiences today.  We also know that Abram was obedient, both to God's command to "Go," and later, when he was asked to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  We know that later, God changed his name to Abraham and his wife's to Sarah, reflecting His promise toward them and the fact that God has called them as His own.

But let's go back to where we were a minute ago.  God just told Abram that he would become the father of nations.  Mind you, he was 100 years old at the time.  We all know the scenario, we all remember how Sarah laughed.  Whether in ancient times or today, for a person to be 100 years old and have a child is OLD.  

My 6-year-old son just had to dress that way for his one hundredth day of school and with all the walkers, canes, plaid pants, grey hair and glasses that day these youngsters had transformed their classroom into a veritable retirement home.  

100 is old.  Having babies at that age just doesn't compute.  But Abram and Sarai trusted God, and it came to pass.(It was unprecedented).  God "blessed them to be a blessing."  He already destined them for good, to bring forth nations that numbered as many as the stars in the heavens.  

This continued on to Moses, whom God meets in Deuteronomy and declares, "See, I have set before you blessings and curses…"  Here we go again.  The nation of Israel was established, along with an extensive set of laws and regulations designed not only to protect their society, but to get as close as possible to restoring that close relationship with God that had originally existed in the Garden of Eden.  Even though it was a fractured relationship, God AND the people took great pains to hold on to that relationship, though many times, they were unable to hold up their end of the bargain because of  their failing human natures.  In order to atone for their sins, a system of sacrifice was set up --  from the time of Abraham and Isaac and on through the rituals of the Levites -- so much so that the Law was firmly established.  God's people felt safe.  He was on their side in times of war, IF they kept His Commandments.  It was a strong safety net for the people.  But it became so strong that it was inflexible.  So strong, that they couldn't see what was coming.  After all, the way they lived their daily lives was their way of reversing the Curse.  All good -- but THEY were doing it, not God.  All the while, playing into the Enemy's clever plan to convince  humanity they are destined to fail unless THEY do the work to better themselves.

The time was right, the stage was set.  The stars literally aligned themselves -- and the Son of God was born.  Soon after, people were called outside of themselves, into the unknown - Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, the twelve disciples, the saints throughout the ages, right up to you and me.  

In his famous prayer, the late Archbishop Oscar Romero wrote, "The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision."  This does not deter us from responding to our call.

In today's Gospel we come to the Nick at Night story.  Since he was a temple official, he must have found it difficult to seek Jesus in the light of day.  He didn't want to be seen with another hat on, consulting Jesus, so he goes to Him by night.  He calls upon the Teacher, he wants to know how he can be saved, how to reverse the curse upon  his life.  Jesus responds, telling him he must be born again. Interesting, how Jesus doesn't take things literally.  Nicodemus had a similar problem to Abraham's.  Maybe he didn't laugh, but he asked, incredulously, "How can a man re-enter his mother's womb?" just as Abram and Sarai laughed at the fact that they were too old to bear children.  With God, all things are possible.

But we live in a broken world.  A lot of times we struggle because we think we can't "see" God in our daily lives.  Yes, we can see evidence in Creation, in the small and large miracles we witness.  But these tend to become hypothetical in the face of other things, like accidents, planes disappearing over Vietnam, families breaking up, cancer, heart attacks, unexpected deaths, or expected ones through disease, unrest in the Ukraine, misappropriations of justice.  There is pain, there is agony that feels all too real.  We can't do it on our own.

And then we come to John 3:16.  That verse we often see as posters in the stands of baseball and football stadiums.  God, out of infinite love for His creation, sent His only begotten Son to us that we might have new life -- and in that sense, yes, we are born again, if you take the term for what it is and not the many things it has become over the years.  This life comes freely to us when - not if, but when -- we believe. We can rest and rejoice in that love - the same love that brought Jesus down to us in human form, clothed him in flesh, healed the sick and brought sight to the blind -- is the same love that is with us each and every day, guiding us in blessing and loving us through life and death, because of what He did through Jesus' death on the cross.  

God is  not sitting up there somewhere, waiting for us to stumble and fall over the next obstacle heading our way.  As the Creative Source, he is not about to destroy something He made with His own hands.  He is our advocate, and moves throughout the earth today as the Holy Spirit, who guides and comforts us and reassures us of this great blessing that has been with us since the time of Abraham.  

So it is during quiet time, perhaps in worship on Sunday mornings, or time spent relaxing with friends, sharing our stories, that we feel God breaking through.  Many times this is all we have to find the clarity we need to move beyond ourselves. Time to reflect during the quiet and the praise, time to consider the nearness of our Lord when we celebrate Holy Communion…that indeed Jesus' very body and are blood shared with the entire world…over and over reminds us that we ARE one body, the Bride of Christ.  

Suddenly it's no longer a small matter.  Suddenly we're no longer small, and we do matter.  We are loved -- that much.  The stakes are high -- high enough to meet the curse of the accidents, death, and disease.  The Curse has met its match, and we CAN "hope against hope," and GO  -- "blessed to be a blessing" -- into areas of uncertainty knowing we are called by God  "into ventures of which we cannot see the ending" because our Lord has promised to be with us, bringing us abundant life through the Holy Spirit each and every day, for you and for all.  Amen.

I Dropped the Ball Today

Sometimes we make unconventional choices, ones that do not seem to make much sense in terms of our welfare in the world.

Today is one of those days. I had a chance to redeem myself of a rather abysmal grade on an Old Testament exegetical paper. I decided to drop the ball. Not only had I run out of time, but my resources were unavailable to me. These factors alone made it very difficult to follow through, but at the core of this conundrum lay that pesky thing called "will."  You just couldn’t drag it out of me.

Unfortunately, there will likely be a very ugly grade on my transcript now. I can’t call my professor merciless. Ultimately, she was extremely fair and gracious in offering me the opportunity for a do-over. But the real point remains: I didn’t get it, and I didn’t want to. Don’t get me wrong. It was arguably the most engaging, fantastic course of the year. But in all honesty, I remain just as bored by the Old Testament as I was sitting in mother’s third grade Sunday School class some 44 years ago.

Maybe something’s wrong with me. When reading historical accounts, I like my fare to be as accurate and close to reality as possible. I love verismo opera, for instance. I do NOT like " maybe" in history OR in life, and find conjecture a wholesale waste of time. So what possible good would it do for me to speculate what Hosea really meant by his marriage metaphor in Chapter 2 when, more than likely, it wasn’t even written by Hosea himself? I’d rather be analyzing Verdi's "La Forza del Destino" because I know for sure that it exists. I’m 52 years old. "Maybe" doesn’t cut it anymore. Even creativity needs to be concrete.

I could guilt myself into having chosen the wrong priority (lying in a hammock on a beach in the Caribbean) or not prioritizing altogether, but what I really boiled down to was the will. It wasn’t there. So should I feel badly, or suffer? I made this unconventional choice, and choose to live with it.  Not a report you want to hear from a second-year seminarian, but there it is.

On to dog walks, garden work, rehearsals, gigging, organ lessons, Field Ed reports, entrance essays, and CPE applications. It's a new day! 

The Road to Emmaus: From Broken Hopes to Burning Hearts

Easter doesn't always happen in three days. 

We may hear all the signs, sing all the songs..but for some of us, it may feel like someone else's story, not our own -- not the least of us, those who work or study in the church.  It can be a very stressful time even three weeks after Easter, especially as finals week looms ahead.

            

Even though it may be cold outside, rainy, with little sign of Spring, each Easter Sunday, as though on cue, we gravitate toward the hothouse tulips, lilies, hyacinths, bright colors, trumpets and chocolate bunnies, not entirely convinced we're really there yet, but the calendar tells us so.

            

Yet our hearts are unresolved.  We want desperately to believe the resurrection story.  Some of us, like Thomas the disciple last week, insist on seeing the bold evidence -- the empty tomb, the very nail prints in Jesus' hands and feet.

            

When we can't see the signs and just hear the story, the words may sound hollow and empty; because -- let's face it -- that job interview last week that looked so promising fell through,  that relationship is still broken, the cancer we thought was in remission has returned.  Planes don't just fall out of the sky these days.  In some cases, they just plain disappear without a trace, to the point that no one can be found even months later.  There is no closure.

            

People around the world and in our own back yards are still hungry.  Violence escalates on a daily basis. We are still alone.  What should we do when we have reached our wit's end, when what we once thought was worth our lives has left us washed up?

            

Easter may also sound like someone else's story because of all the noise, all the hope infused into the end of the three days.  It's almost like a timer gets switched on at Good Friday and the seconds start ticking away until the Sunrise Service.  "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!" shouts Tony Campolo, who happens to be one of my favorite preachers.  I don't mean to sound cyncial here.  I really want to believe it, but is that your story today?   If so, how did you get there?

            

Three days, three weeks, three months, years, or a lifetime….Easter can be a journey.  Whenever our own stories don't jibe with "The Big Picture," they become our own personal journeys.  We find ourselves on our own particular "road," away from the big city where everyone else is.  We seek to escape.  We take long walks. To ponder.  To get ourselves into that space where perhaps we can look back with a better perspective, confront ourselves in the here and now, and if we're lucky, meet someone along the way, share a meal, and come away with a better vision of the future.

            

And so it was with Christ's followers on the Road to Emmaus.  It is midday of the same morning Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb, just three days after Jesus was crucified.  They arrived, only to find a pair of guards lying on the ground, struck down as good as dead -- ironic, when you consider that the man who was supposed to be dead was missing from the very tomb he had been buried in, two days earlier.  As if that weren't enough, the stone covering the tomb had been rolled away with what I picture as this sassy angel sitting right on top of it, giving Mary explicit instructions to go to Galilee, find Jesus' followers and bring them the news that He is risen, and that is precisely what she did.  So these disciples heard the story, but despaired and became confused.  

So Cleopas and another one of Jesus' followers (some scholars think it may have been a woman, "Mrs. Cleopas," as Jay introduced her earlier!) set out to take a long walk to Emmaus, a town about 7 miles west of Jerusalem.  Not a trek, maybe not even a journey per se, but a hike nonetheless.

I'm not a runner or even a hiker, but I am one of those people that benefits greatly from taking long walks -- time spent away from the hectic stresses of life as a student and parent.  It helps me process things.  I become energized by the fresh air and the perpetual forward momentum I generate.  It usually helps me get past the mental hurdles and get "un-stuck."

            

The disciples must have sought this kind of respite, especially since they had just spent a bit of an irregular week, what with the celebrating Passover and especially having undergone all the tumult of the past three days. Their words and their hearts are heavier than any of the supplies they are carrying home from their annual pilgrimage to their holy city Jerusalem, now a city of horrors.  They have heard that it is "Easter" from the women at the tomb, but as of yet they do not know it in their very guts or souls.  Walking, getting back to a routine -- this, they hope, will eventually bring them some sense of comfort. 

So they keep walking, "talking and discussing." Perhaps they were debating Mary's story about the tomb earlier that morning.  Was it true or just "idle chatter?"  Whatever the subject, it was clear that they were in despair over the past three days' events.

On this road of broken dreams, they meet a stranger.  It was Jesus, but they had no clue.  Why couldn't they recognize Jesus?  Maybe he looked different.  Maybe they looked at him differently and didn't expect to know him because he presented himself as a stranger.  Maybe they were so caught up in their own grief, despair and frustration they they didn't really bother to look closely.  Yet the very embodiment of their freedom was right next to them!

And we do know a little bit more.  We read that "their eyes were kept from recognizing him."  It was one of those God-orchestrated things -- like the time Jesus tells his mother at the Wedding at Cana - "Woman, my hour has not yet come," or in today's second reading from 1 Peter:  "He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake."  God temporarily shut their eyes until the time was right to reveal Jesus' identity.

            

"What are you discussing with each other while walking on the road?" asked Jesus.  

 They ended up standing still.  At the crossroads.  

Suddenly it was no longer about the miles before them, but the moment at hand and Cleopas answers, "Where have you been?  Have you been living under a rock (Well, indeed, He kinda did!)? You must be the only stranger in Jerusalem that does not know the things that have taken place in the past few days."

"What 'things'?'" asks Jesus.  And Cleopas goes on about the prophet Jesus of Nazareth, how the chief leaders and priests handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.  "But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…"

"We had HOPED."  At the crossroads between life and death, dreams and reality, hope and despair.

The stranger retells the story.  Jesus talks about how the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory, and goes on to interpret all the things about himself in the scriptures, beginning with Moses.

They were approaching the village.  Jesus walked ahead as if he were going on.  But they urged him, "STAY WITH US, because the day is almost over."  He went in to stay with them,  they broke bread, and their eyes were opened.  Once they recognized him, he vanished from their sight.

They turned to each other and marveled at their own transformation - "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"    Their burning hearts illuminated their blindness.  We all have our own experiences of how the Spirit has revealed itself to us.  My grandma helped me find it long ago by explaining that warmth in my heart, or how I would feel a faint tug that almost made me cry, and to this day I know without a doubt that this is my perception of the Holy Spirit's presence.  It's different for everyone, but in this case the disciples felt their hearts burning.

They became so energized that they returned to Jerusalem that same day, their burning hearts giving them a sense of mission, going back to tell their fellow disciples what had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Despair.  A walk.  A stranger breaks in.  Conversation.  Hospitality.  Sharing a meal.  Recognition.  From broken hopes to burning hearts.

Sounds somewhat familiar - Despair. Gathering. The Word.  Breaking Bread.  From broken hope to burning hearts.  Our worship.

When we are in despair on the road to nowhere in particular, can we see who walks with us?  When has God's Word interrupted our own idle conversation and called a halt to our own frantic forward momentum?  When was the last time God's hospitality energized you? 

Easter doesn't always come in three days.  Stones are rolled away, but sometimes we stay in the tomb.  Stones sealing the tombs of our hearts can be rolled back, too.   Hopes entombed can be illuminated.  We CAN leave our graveclothes behind.  Sometimes it means letting go of our own dreams and expectations. Sometimes it means inviting in a stranger that we have known all along, and this very act of invitation, of hospitality, opens us up to God's infinite promise of grace…the promise for you and for me.   

The fire of recognition and the light of clear sight spurs us on.  We become Easter people, and the Easter story becomes our own.

Stay with us, Lord Jesus.  AMEN.

Dec. 1, 2013 Sermon - Hope (scribble notes version - not a finished copy)

December 1, 2013

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Yes, on top of everything else -- Thanksgiving, Chanukkah, and Advent -- today is the beginning of the Church Year. 

We have just survived one of the most recent forms of American commerce and consumerism, that giant hashtag known as "Black Friday."  It got its name not because of anything to do with the holiday, but it is traditionally that day of the year in which businesses finally end up back in the black with their profits. But the "blackness" also denotes a bit of gloom and doom as we recall some of the horror stories we hear about people being trampled underfoot in order to get the best deal on a flatscreen at Wal-Mart.

As if that weren't enough, this is followed by Cyber Monday.  I just saw a cartoon that said, "May your Black Friday injuries not be so severe as to keep you from clicking your mouse on Cyber Monday."

All in good fun -- but is it?  Could it be that we might be missing something? 

Please pray with me.

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Ring! Ring! Ring!!  

WAKE UP!! it's the alarm clock!  How many of you actually get out of bed the first time the alarm goes off? 

 How many press the snooze button and listen to a little more music, dozing for another 10-20 minutes before getting up?

As I was pondering this sermon, I was actually quite excited at all the possibilities to be found in today's readings.  It's almost impossible, especially for me, to focus on just one.  "Sleepers, Wake!"  seems an obvious enough theme for the first Sunday in Advent.  But how do we preach being awake when we're not really dealing with a sleeping society, but a sleep-deprived one? 

How many of us actually get the recommended 7 or 8 hours of sleep?

It seems to me that one of the newer phenomena of late is not a drowsy, sleeping people, but an overstimulated. anesthetized one.  We may not be awake or paying attention, but instead of being asleep, we tend to hit the cultural snooze button.  Just a few more minutes before we really have to face reality. Can't we just buy a little more time to maintain our comfortable, painless, buzz?  Even in Jesus' day, as in the days of Noah, before the Flood,  people were anesthetizing themselves in routine and entertainment -- eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.

Today, we hear alarming statistics.   Apparently 58% of smart phone users don't go ONE HOUR without checking their phones, and I, sadly, am probably among them.

I was looking for further statistics when I happened to stumble on a startling headline from just this past week:  "San Francisco Train Passengers Too Distracted by Phones to Notice Shooter's Gun in Plain Sight."  I am not making this up!  "According to surveillance video, (the gunman) pulled out a .45-caliber pistol, raised it, pointed it across the aisle, put it down and continued to pull it out multiple times , even wiping his nose with the handgun.  Absorbed in their phones, not one of the dozens of passengers reacted until he fired a bullet into the back of (one of the passengers)."  Shocking.  Our phones, helpful as they may be, have become a form of a cultural snooze button.

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way, "We must accept finite disappointment but never lose sight of infinite hope."  

Today we are talking about HOPE.  I've shared a couple of Debbie Downer stories with me, but neglected to mention that fantastic article about Pr. Tricia, Feast of Justice, and the marvelous things God does in this place.  Thanks be to God, Amen?

Todays' reading from Matthew's Gospel - Not entirely words of hope to me.  I admit to having some baggage about this.  As many of you know, I was baptized Lutheran but raised in a Pentecostal denomination, which I now call interesting.  I will always be grateful for this upbringing because it really helped me "learn my Bible," but it was very much a certain version of the Bible with a whole lotta attitude thrown in.  Back in those days verses like those from Matt. 24 scared me.  Like a thief in the night.  Suddenly Jesus was a thief?  He was going to creep up on me in the middle of the night?

As fourth or fifth graders in summer Bible camp, we were fascinated by all the trappings of End Times theology.  We read fiction books, similar to those "Left Behind" series that came out about a decade ago (which my very Lutheran Church History professor affectionately calls the "Home Alone" series).  They were modern adaptations from The book of Revelation -- the Mark of the Beast, the Rapture with its ensuing chaos that included cars running off  roads and airplanes falling out of the sky.  There was persecution of Christians, even to the point of high-tech guillotines.  Stuff perhaps fourth-graders shouldn't read, but I did.  (Harry Potter?) To us at that time, it was exciting in a twisted sort of way.

BUT -- What if Jesus came back and we were at the movie theater?  What if He came back and we were out dancing?  Would we still be able to hear The Trumpet?  What if we missed it?

And so, for several years, particularly in any given stressful moment, I would try to stop and listen for some kind of arpeggiated  brass motive in D major.  Nope, never happened.

But I did get nightmares.  I was afraid.  For a long time.  I began to ask questions.  

some very real questions that all of us ask ourselves at one time or another:

Is Jesus trying to scare us?

When is He coming back?

 Am I ready?  Are WE ready?  How will we know?  

Does the world have to end violently in order for Jesus to return?  

The real question becomes, Will fear get us closer to God?

And the answer is ….?

Been there, done that.  That's called the LAW.  In today's lesson from Isaiah we read that the Law comes from  Zion ("for out of Zion goeth forth instruction") -- and that's what the Law is.  The Israelites needed it as they became a community, leaving Egypt and traveling to the Promised Land.  Many times then, as now, the law created fear.  Fear of condemnation if the laws were not adhered to.

Verse 3 continues = "For out of Zion goeth forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."  I may be reading too much into this --because technically, Zion and Jerusalem can mean pretty much the same thing -- but for some reason the slight difference in these words of Isaiah jumped out at me and made me see it as another form of prophecy -- How cool that Isaiah mentions the WORD (Jesus) and his use of "Jerusalem" makes it more specific, more personal, suggesting what is to come -- the Coming of Christ, the very Word of God come to transform the very way we see and experience God.  Seeing the WORD in OT context gives me HOPE.

No matter how we interpret the story of the Second Coming, we can all agree that no one knows that day or the hour -- that it will be a SURPRISE.  And Surprises bring HOPE.

Just a little over 2000 years ago, the coming of God's Son in human form was a surprise.  We all love surprises, and this is reflected in the way we celebrate Christmas, by giving gifts.  

There are few things more exciting than receiving a gift. (Amen?)  And a gift implies so many different things for many people.  It could be waiting for the birth of a child, it could be knitting, crocheting a scarf or afghan, or making a quilt… As we get older, PROCESS of making a gift for someone else is often as or more fulfilling than receiving it.  

Usually, in Advent, we focus on the process leading up to the celebration of the greatest free gift of all.  We begin in the gloomy, solemn darkness and gradually move into the light by Week 4. We have to do this all the time when we buy gifts.  Once we grow toward adulthood, we realize all too soon that they don't all magically appear.  Just as Isaiah in this morning's reading envisions the weapons of war transformed into instruments of peace, we need to be able to envision where we are going, and do what we need to do in order to make them a reality.  Isaiah had a few other visions, among them, in Chapter 6, which we will be singing about during Communion,in which he saw the Holy One on the throne surrounded by angels.  Or the vision in Chapter 11 about the lion lying down with the lamb.

 This morning I'd like for us to challenge each other, close our eyes, take a deep, long, breath, and envision Christmas Morning 2014.  What do you see?

What have you accomplished in those four weeks? What would you like to see?

Will we finally see Jesus?  Where and how?  What does He look like?

Now, open your eyes. (WAKE UP!)  Go back.  We are at the beginning of the road.  What will it take for you to get where you want to go?  We now have a vision!  With a vision, there is HOPE.

All signs seem to point to HOPE.  Yet I am sure there are quite a few of you who are struggling with this.  The holidays are not your favorite time of year, for any number of reasons.  There may be struggles with finances, family, grief, illness or loneliness.  But try not to stay alone in those struggles.  You have a community in this House of the Lord, and each and every one of us here is called in the name of Christ to BE THERE for you, just for that purpose.  "Bear Ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ" - Galatians 6:2.

I just want to put this out there, and although I can only speak for myself, I have heard similar versions of this from many of you as well.

I can be goofy.  I am awkward.  I am messy.  I am late.  But I am here, and I want to be used by God.  I want to be here for YOU and with you.  I am ready to help you bear your burdens, not as your Music Director or Seminarian, but as your sister in Christ. I come to you, and this is what was on my heart this morning before I opened my eyes.  I didn't even need an alarm clock -- but I DID need my cell phone so that I could quickly type it out and save it somewhere:

**Our true Hope is in our Lord, Jesus Christ.  Not because of anything we have done, but because of His amazing, un-humanly-explainable love for us.

We sin because there is a void within us, created by the sin before us which separates us from God.  At one time or another, we end up doing wrong and destructive things (sin) in order to fill the gaping void we feel when that love is not returned.

We are forgiven because the love God has for us is greater than any of our sin. He longs to fill that void within us and is the only One who can. 

Our surrender cones when we realize we cannot prove or create our own goodness by our own strength, or by anything we do. The spirit of criticism abounds in this WORLD, making us think we are the wrong ones. But we are declared righteous not IF, but WHEN the Spirit leads us to repentance and we accept that free gift if salvation through Jesus Christ."

Gifts are fun.  And gifts are FREE.  They don't depend on an "If-Then" contingency, such as "You better watch out, you better not cry, or else…" What are we really teaching our children?   One of our seminary professors, wrote a poem about Elf on a Shelf that really made me think:

I do not like that smirking elf,

the one that sits upon a shelf.

He spies on children every day

reporting all they do and say.

Of course, you know it's all a scam,

disguised as Santa's "Naughty Cam,
 It's meant to keep the kids in line

eliminating Christmas whine.

And yet I think it's more than cruel

and shows that Santa's just a tool.

This season should be filled with joys

instead of frightened girls and boys.

who come to think that love is earned

and you've been bad, , if you get spurned.

I'd rather have my children see

that love's a gift we give for free

And working together we are able to keep that hope in sight.

HOW DO WE GET THERE? Romans 13 shows us how.  Paul even says, "You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers, the night is far gone, the day is here, let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."

LIGHT.  Today is the 5th day of Chanukkah - (unique story)

THE GOOD NEWS

My earlier story at the beginning - Law (fear)

Walking in the light, with a vision = Gospel (hope)

Christ came down to us

Just as the first time Christ came down to earth, He  comes to us again -- as a surprise…A Surprise that is every bit as exciting and pleasant as your favorite present on Christmas Day -- only a million times more.  Hope. With no fear attached.

God lives among us, in Community. (House of the Lord, Isaiah)

God's Voice is heard in our own voices as we sing and worship Him

God's Spirit is on the face of the little baby being dunked in the waters of Holy Baptism. ("This is My Beloved Son…"

God  comes down to us every time we come to the table and celebrate the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion. ("Ye do show the Lord's death until He come…"

God comes to us in the form of the stranger, in people we  might often overlook or pass by.

God comes down by grace, every second of every day, reminding us of His life-giving work on the cross, FOR YOU.

Jesus is our wakeup call!!  But don't stay on your phone -- don't hit the snooze button, but LIVE in the light and love of the Savior who on the cross has triumphed over fear, sin, and death, giving HOPE -- for you and for me.  AMEN.