Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent: "Disgrace of Egypt" and Reconciliation

Scriptures for the Fourth Sunday in Lent Year C, RCL:

• Joshua 5:9-12  • 
 
• Psalm 32  • 
 
• 2 Corinthians 5:16-21  • 
 
• Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
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“Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” Entering the land of Canaan for the Israelites was to come to finally achieve being freed from slavery.  The manna which was the provision of God in the wilderness came to an end once they were in the land of Canaan, the land of promise, the Promise land.  The words of Marin Luther King Jr. in the sermon the day before he was assassinated “I’ve been to the mountain top and .....and I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land” echo here.  I can’t help but think that he also had in mind this passage in Joshua and the rolling way of the disgrace of Egypt.

I request your patience. What follows is a winding road.  The path I’m asking us to walk down has its dangers and at moments will look hopeless.  It may bring up fears, or shame, or guilt.  I request that whatever is brought up, that you let that come without judgement and without fleeing from what these words evoke. I encourage us to follow through this path, to come to a place where we can truly be on the path of reconciliation and liberation.  Some of what may be evoked in you as I guide you through this path is that the Kingdom of God, the Promised Land remains for all of us uncharted territory, and may always remain so, because that space is about union and unfettered relationship with each other through God whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are to our thoughts.

I’m walking a tight rope of interpretation.  I want to encourage us to hear our texts and the story of the people of God, and yet at the same time there are ways of interpreting these stories and text that will inevitably lead us away from Christ, or towards a Christ of our own invention. we can too readily identify with Israel and miss how we aren’t Israel and how we are connected to Israel, if Gentiles. For White Christians this danger is an already realized fact of our interpretation of Israel.  We see ourselves as Israel when we have actually been Egypt, when it is the system created by European Christians as white that created the conditions of Israel in Egypt for African people as we enslaved them and justified it through appropriating to ourselves the identity of Israel. Europeans justified slavery in part by seeing themselves as the new Israel.  The American version of it is to see the U.S. as that city set on a hill the beacon of freedom God Chose to bring enlightenment and democracy to the world all the while enslaving and oppressing Africans.

So, let’s be clear this passage can’t be applied to White Christians, not at least as White Christians have done so.  Gentile believers can be joined to Israel, but only through the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, a Jew.  Only through this mediation of Christ can any Gentile become part of Israel and then hear these stories as our stories.

For Christians in the United states there are two distinct ways in which America carries with it the disgrace of “Egypt”. For black people it is the same as with the generation of the Israelites who entered Canaan in this passage, that they were formerly an enslaved people.  For White Christians it is that we were and are Egypt. (And Babylon and Rome) White Christian and the White Church is a gentile religion without Jesus Christ, the Jew of Nazareth the God the Son incarnate. White religion and Christianity. This is admittedly a depressing way of looking at this.  It starkly puts the point of division, a division that violently happened at the red sea, the division of Israel from Egypt, for the freedom of Israel and for God to begin to join with humanity through Israel. To the extent that White Europeans have enslaved and resisted the freedom of Africans and of Black people in the U.S. this division of Egypt for Israel reverberates for us in our day.

So, after White supremacy after African enslavement after the holocaust how can white Christians take up and read the Scriptures?  Can Egypt become Israel?  How then might Egypt read and properly identify with this story and the words of Joshua to Israel that the disgrace of Egypt has been rolled away.

 this depressing picture of division and the impossibility of a meeting between Egypt and Israel is to be looking at things not from the perspective of being in Christ but of seeing things from the point of view of flesh and the human point of view. But today we hear Paul calling us to no longer view anyone or anything form the point of view of flesh, the human point of view.

If we judge from the point of view of the flesh we may hear Martin Luther King Jr.’ preaching as addressing the U.S as Israel or the Black Church as Israel.  Such a reading though only offers division from Egypt, it doesn’t provide a means to enter the promised land and for the disgrace of Egypt to be rolled away, for Egypt remains other and negatively so, Egypt in this universalizing and abstracting appropriation of Israel leaves Egypt as only representing evil and slavery. It offers no hope of reconciliation Between White people and people of color. No hope of transforming relations of oppression into relations of liberation and love.

But what if we hear all of this King’s words “I’ve been to the Mountain top I’ve seen the promised land.” from the point of view of being in Christ?  From within Christ we may be able hear King’s vision from the space of being in Christ can see the disgrace of Egypt in its duality for American Christianity.  In that space we can begin to see it as something beyond the history of the United States, beyond the history of European colonialism and White supremacy.

Incredibly what Kings vision may illumine, if viewed from being in Christ, is that Egypt is among the nations that come to Israel along with all other gentile peoples who’ve suffered the disgrace of Egypt.

The trick here is that we all are so familiar with the view point of the flesh, the human point of view. That it  is difficult is for us to fully accept being in Christ and to thus stop viewing others from the point of view of the flesh.  How do we with Paul no longer view other form the perspective of the flesh?

The starting point is something we all if we have received the sacraments of the Church.  The starting point is Baptism and Eucharist; through these we do have access to this other point of view.  Through baptism and Eucharist, we have entered the promised land, that King glimpsed.  Yet, like our ancestors in Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, we have to be willing to enter in, to face our fears and walk through them. We have to accept our death in baptism, we must accept God’s substance in the manna come down from heaven.  But how do we embrace this unrealized reality that most of our ancestors who walked out of Egypt never fully embrace with only their children stepped into that Promised land.

How do we step in to this place, how do we walk into the Promised Land King glimpsed before his death?  Howe do we take up a position from within Christ, from within the promised land and no longer position ourselves in the flesh, no longer seeing anyone or anything from a human point of view?

Let us hear our brother Saint Paul. What does he say?  Are you in Christ?!  The answer is yes, through faith and baptism and consuming Christ in the Eucharist!  What does Paul tell us if we are in Christ?  Look, all things are new!  Do you hear that, can you grasp this, can you stand now, right now in this newness?  Chicago even as the old age continues to assert itself, Chicago is new, New Chicago (King speaks of needing to live in and seek this newness.)  But how?

This view from within Christ is twofold:

1)     it is to be in a new creation that is to be in the promised land

2)     It is to be reconciled to God and to be then with God in reconciling.

This is to no longer see anyone from the human flesh point of view.  It also means for us now being in two times and places at once.  This being in Christ is to be simultaneously in the desert that is in the age that is passing away and in the promised land, the new creation.

From this point of view and not the human point of view. Israel’s entrance into the promised land of Canaan, that strip of land between modern day Egypt and modern day Lebanon, was the beginning of the whole world and cosmos becoming the promised land.  All of creation is to be the place of our being with God.

From this point of view in Christ, what then of us who are Egypt and enemies of God and God’s people oppressors of other human beings?

Paul says again Are you in Christ!? No longer view anyone including yourself from the point of view of the flesh, but from the newness of the promised land.  Look at yourselves and all with the eyes of God incarnate, Jesus Christ.  In that space, in such a moment of newness we who are oppressors and we who suffer oppression no longer need to view each other according to our flesh, according to the color of our skin as Whiteness dictates.  We must view ourselves and all from the space of being reconciled. Be Reconciled to God!  If you are reconciled with God, you no longer view any person from a human point of view, from that space of reconciliation there can be no enmity, nor lessening of the other, no disparagement of self or other. Yet to remain here, to enter here, to see with the eyes of God the Father, this is the constant challenge, and the place of our constant failure, where we fall back into the desert and the human point of view.

And so Jesus told them this parable. Jesus tells this and several other parables when certain religious leaders were grumbling at whom Jesus Christ was welcoming.  Those being welcomed and those grumbling were Israel. Even in Israel there was division and looking at people accord to the flesh and the human point of view. 

we are perhaps too familiar with this story usually titled the Prodigal Son, but it could as easily be entitled the Loving/forgiving Father, the parable to the two brothers.  For our purposes today I’d want us to hear this parable under the title the parable of the new creation in Christ.

15:11b "There was a man who had two sons.
15:12 The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them.
15:13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
15:14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
15:15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.
15:16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
15:17 But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
15:18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
15:19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'
15:20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
15:21 Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
15:22 But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
15:23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;
15:24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
15:25 "Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
15:26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.
15:27 He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.'
15:28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.
15:29 But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.
15:30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!'
15:31 Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
15:32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"

It is possible to find ourselves in many places in this parable.  But if we’re to see this parable from the POV of the new creation and not stuck in the flesh we should place ourselves in the place of the father (which is the place of reconciliation and new creation.)  If we continue to interpret this parable either form the point of view of the younger son or the older brother we have yet to enter the feast that is prepared, we have yet to fully embrace our baptism and the Eucharist, we have yet allowed ourselves to be transformed by our consuming of Christ week after week.  The reason for this is that both sons remain representative so seeing others and ourselves according to the flesh, the human point of view.  The younger is caught in self condemnation, the older brother is caught in continual condemnation of others.  Yet to be in Christ is to be in the place of the father. The Place of the father is to be in the place of simultaneous the desert and promised land, that is to be actively waiting and looking for moments of reconciliation, of return and repentance, of the newness of life.  This space of the father in this parable is the space of knowing ourselves to be already reconciled to God and thus by god to all others including those who we have harmed or who have harmed us.  We are in the space of the father in the feast of the new creation in the world that still need God’s reconciling work accomplished in Christ Jesus.

Yet to come to the moment of the father actively seeking reconciliation, we must come through the moments of the two brothers. In the desert fleeing oppression, slavery and abuse, that Egypt will come to Israel is unimaginable. The oppressor, the powerful, the one who has inflicted harm and has robbed others of life and wealth and land and freedom, must accept the depth of their sin and turn and repent and not expect a joyful embrace.

Yet in Christ, in God all these moments are held together in a loving reconciling embrace that forgives without denial, offers repentance with responsibility, but without guilt or shame.

Here is the place of hope without fear that all the same sees clearly, to see trump and his supporters not from a human point of view but from the point of view of the father, who holds us all in Christ both those who are far off and those who are near.

Step into the promised land, have glimpse of this yet unrealized reality of being in Christ, where all is new. But first we must come with our fears our doubts our grumbling our judgments, our fears and anxieties and say I’m still in the desert, I’m afraid of what it might mean.  I need to hold on I need to protect myself, even in that moment in Christ, God embraces and says, come put on new cloths, come and feast, come and be reconciled to God. Or maybe you are standing outside, confounded by why God hasn’t struck down Pharaoh like he did that one time, why there are still people who lash out, who are bigoted who threaten your very existence, and you say how can I enter in, and God comes to you and says you are mine, you always have been mine, I’ve never abandoned you and never will, come see all is new, death and fear and tears don’t have the last word, they are all passing away. Come eat, dance, drink, behold in Christ, already now even when this age is crumbling around us, there’s the new creation.  There God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself like the father waiting to embrace a son who selfishly rejected all the father had given him.

Know that oppression and death don’t have the last word and the oppressor can return, Egypt will be among the nations turning to Israel, and you are already proof that this is so, for you are already in Christ, have already begun to enter, you are reconciled to God. This is the space of the promised land of being in Christ of no longer seeing rom a human point of view makes many things possible. Among the things it makes space for it makes space for the oppressor to repent and the oppressed to be freed from oppression and both to be reconciled to God and each other. This is the hope repentance and liberation. This is no longer seeing from the human point of view. Amen

Desire, Thirst, and Living Water: Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

Readings:
Exodus 17:1-7 • Psalm 95 • Romans 5:1-11 • John 4:5-42

Sermon:

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

Lenten Series on Spiritual Pracitces

This Lent together with Immanuel Lutheran Church, St. Elias Christian Church, and the Community of St. Francis we are having a series on Spiritual Practices on Wednesday evenings.

The evening starts at 6:00 p.m. with Lenten Soup supper, followed at 7:00 pm with Lectio Divina.

At 7:30 p.m. there will be presentations on 5 different Spiritual Practices appropriate to the season of Lent.

March 16th focus on Fasting

March 23rd focus on Lectio Divina

March 30th focus on Giving/Alms/Tithing

April 6th focus on Walking Meditation: Labyrinth

April 13th focus on Walking Meditation: Stations of the Cross.

Ash Wednesday Sermon: Tearing Open Our Hearts

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 • Psalm 51:1-17 • 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 • Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Sermon:

The Many Layers of Lent: Update Reflection

Today is Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of the season of Lent. The 40 days of Lent remind us of Jesus' fasting and temptation in the desert, which in turn reminds us of Moses' 40 days on Mount Sinai receiving the Law from God, and the 40 years of wondering of the people of Israel in the desert before entering the promised land.

Lent then has many layers. Lent can be a time of pilgrimage and journey, as we move towards and through the Passion of Jesus Christ. Lent is also a time of preparation, of testing, and purification. Lent is also, a time of encounter and revelation. Now most likely each Lent is not all of these to all of us all at once. As we begin Lent I encourage us to think about what is God calling you towards in this season. Are you being called on a Journey that will lead you to the Cross? Are you being "driven" into the dessert by the Spirit to be prepares and be tested? Or are you being called to a new encounter with God? As we go and receive ashes this day and we enter this Holy Lent I encourage us to ask what are we called to this lent, where is the Spirit driving and leading us? What is God seeking for you in this season? Consider then how you are being lead to engage this season of penitence and reflection and intensified discipline: be open to the guidance of the Spirit.

Most of all I wish all a holy and grace filled Lent, as we contemplate the great mystery of the one who is truly the Lover of humankind.

Preparing for Lent: Update Reflection

I hope this season of Ordinary Time after the Epiphany is one in which the light of Christ is shining into your life, providing you with light to see the way, and even exposing things in your life that have been hidden.
Lent is rapidly approaching. Ash Wednesday is February 17th. Lent is the time that church prepares to recieve again the mystery of salvation. the preparation for the church's greatest feast Easter, where we remember that Christ for our sake passed over from death to life.- That Christ "..beat down death by death." As the Orthodox liturgy of Easter proclaims.

In preparation to receive again this mystery the church fasts, and engages in other disciplines, that are contemplative and encourage self-reflection. In Lent the church also identifies with the suffering of Christ, his temptation and overcoming of temptation and sin in the dessert. So Lent is a time to allow God to come and meet us at the point of our sin. God comes not to condemn us but to further liberate us from those things in our lives that continue to bind us, that we still hold on to even though they are destructive and bring death into our lives, our work, our relationships. In the day to day bustle of life these things can at times seem to be small things, and yet they are contradictions within ourselves as followers of Christ. Lent then is a time of grace where we can return to God, in those very places where we have run or hid ourselves from God. It is a time of grace to discover through the illumination of the Spirit areas of our life still bound to Sin and Death, which we have possibly never noticed before.

Allow God this Lent through Lenten disciplines of fasting and contemplation, through pastoral conversation and confession, to prepare you for receiving again the great mystery of our Faith. In this season after the Epiphany we have celebrated Christ as the light that shines in darkness. Lent encourages us to let that light shine into those areas of our life where we still cling to darkness. May the Life, Suffering, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ sustain us and embolden us as we face again our deep and persistent need for God's liberating love.

In Christ,
Larry Kamphausen
Pastor
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
For announcements follow this link:
'Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler: Update'

Sermon Third Sunday in Lent-

Exodus 20:1-17 •
Psalm 19 •
I Corinthians 1:18-25 •
John 2:13-22 •
There is something confounding about Jesus, and his actions in our Gospel today.  As I prepared this sermon I felt that these passages are in some way about faith. However, as I pursued this idea  that the Ten Commandments, God's foolishness being more wise than all human wisdom and Jesus driving money changers out of the Temple all point us to the nature of faith, giving expression to this thought has eluded me. I wonder if this experience of pursuing yet never catching hold is an aspect of the experience of faith.  I do not mean that this experience is faith, but part of what it means to be a person of faith.  I wonder if at times we are drawn into that which will elude us and be on the edge of our understanding and comprehension, and thus eludes a certain type of articulation.

I recently saw the movie "No Country for Old Men", at the end of the film I did not know what to think.  I was at a loss, It was clearly an excellent film, not being familiar with the book upon which it is based I had not expected, the story line, nor the violence nor the ending and the lack of resolution.  The movie ended and it had told its story and yet nothing was resolved.  Things had happened, and things were different, things had come to a conclusion but nothing resolved.  At the end of the movie I simply felt adrift at sea.   The movie, its images and its story have stuck with me like few movies I have seen.

No Country for Old Men is many things, a horror film, a hunt and hunted film, but it is also a movie about a sheriff Tom Bell struggling to comprehend a world he thinks he knows turning more violent and incomprehensible: the unrelenting and at times seemingly random violence of a mob hit man is part of this changing world that Sheriff Bell can't comprehend. This inability to comprehend and control leads him to retire.  The hit man believes in fate and that anyone who crosses his path is fated to die unless chance or fate says otherwise when he decides to flip a coin.  Anton Chighur believes in fate and necessity and leaves a path strewn with dead bodies.  Only one person in the movie refuses his sense of necessity and fate and throws his violence on him and his own choices, Mary Jean, Llewelyn Moss' wife.  Bell can't comprehend such a criminal, at one point he is talking with a sheriff in El Paso about this. The Sheriff talks about how he would have never believed it if someone told him someday he'd see teenagers walking the streets in green hair, to which Ed Tom Bell responds "Signs and wonders!"   Bell is looking for something, some sign that will allow this all to make sense somehow, and also refuses to fully enter the events to understand them because he does not want to be pulled into this new world of which he is also part, whether he wants to or likes it or not.

I want to sit with this feeling of speechlessness of confusion puzzlement and incomprehension.   One way to interpret Paul is saying that what God did in Jesus Christ doesn't make sense.  It leaves everyone dumbfounded that a crucified man could be the savior of the world and God in human flesh.  And the stories of Jesus don't always make sense either, like the story of Jesus chasing out merchants and money changers from the temple, with a whip he made of cords.  Neither the disciples nor Jewish leaders of the time understood Jesus actions, and left them scratching their heads and asking for explanations and proofs.

Jesus' actions are not always understood.  Jesus becomes violent here, and it isn't in response to the Roman occupation and its injustices but in response to a practice that had grown up around the temple because many no longer own flocks or other animals for sacrifice, and even if they did many Jews came from lands very distant from Jerusalem and could not bring their sacrificial animals with them even if they had them.  The practice Jesus objects to is one of acculturation and cultural and historical adaptation.  But it is an adaptation that has negative consequences, sacrifice and worship has now become at least in part a commercial transaction, one in which one can surmise that some are making a profit off the worship of and sacrifice to the God of the universe.   Jesus responds in a premeditated and measured violence against this affront to God and the worship of God, this adaptation to the times.   The response of the leaders is one of bewilderment:  How are people to offer the appointed sacrifices if they can't get the appropriate animals.  Jesus' actions don't make sense and so they ask for a sign. Jesus, in a saying misunderstood and used at his trial to condemn him of blasphemy, says The sign he offers is his crucifixion and resurrection.

What Jesus offers as a sign Paul says is foolishness to everyone.   What God did in Jesus Christ makes no sense.   God's actions in history in the life death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, leave us with a quizzical uncomprehending feeling based on human evaluations, whether cultural, political, or interpersonal.  These logics run up against a wall in Jesus Christ. Faith makes connections beyond these.  Faith does not demand signs.  Faith works on a different logic than the wisdom of the world.  What is the logic of our faith this way of the cross, this being open to God and God's ways? The sign Jesus offers is the sign of God's wisdom and action in the world, the logic of the cross and resurrection.  That overcoming the world and death, means passing through death.   Life comes only in its seeming loss.  Why does the selling of animals for sacrifice and money changers in the temple contradict this logic and wisdom of God? This is not clear to those who observe Jesus' action, the cross and Jesus death as truly what saves and brings an end to evil and injustice, can baffle us especially when all these things did not cease to be. God's actions and wisdom don't always make sense to us.

However, this does not deny that there is a real, true and good human desire for things to make sense.  It is the pursuit of truth, but it can also be, and usually accompanies this pursuit, the desire to be in control and thus to be able to predict.  This is part of how the pursuit of knowledge in the hard sciences is to proceed ideally.  In life , in faith, in following Christ this can be a barrier to truth and can lead to destruction, largely because the Truth we are ultimately seeking is God who is totally other.  Yet it is also because control does not lead to understanding nor provide the resources needed to sustain oneself in life.  This is part of what I am taking away from No Country for Old Men.  The three main male characters all believe that in some way they are in control and in the course of the movie this unravels for them (thus the feeling of no resolution and being at loss at the end of the film), but in very different ways for each. Sheriff Bell control is having a world that makes sense, dealing with criminals he knows, terrain he can interpret actions that are predictable.  For Llewelyn Moss Tom Bell understands his actions and motivations, but Anton Chighur and to a lesser degree the drug runners, actions do not make any sense and seem to have no reason behind them.  Moss sees himself as someone in control through expertise of the hunt and his tenacity.  Moss is in control through action ingenuity and perseverance.  He is capable and resourceful and this will get him through any difficulty or challenge. Anton Chighur controls the world and comprehends it by being a simple force of fate, necessity and nature.  As far as he is concerned his actions and every death simply follow the logic of consequence and necessity.  Mary Jean Moss rejects this sense of control and in the face o her death becomes the strongest charter in the movie.  Ed Tom Bell is offered through two dreams another world , an acceptance of limitations and of an offer of grace- but he must give up trying to make sense of it all and accept he isn't and never was in control, nor ever comprehended the world.

Reconciler Update

My hope for all of us this Lent is that we may find our faith renewed and find ourselves growing in the love of God. Yet, I am aware that even in my own spiritual life that Lent can have an opposite effect. I can feel burdened by a fast or other discipline I have undertaken. If I break the fast or am inconsistent in keeping to a discipline I can feel like Lent was awash. This is a temptation of Lent and of the spiritual disciplines in general. An other temptation can be to be quite proud of our being able to keep our fast or other discipline through out Lent. I think there are in these temptations a positive and negative impulses. In the positive both can be born out of a desire to follow in the way of Christ perfectly, For we know as our closing hymn on Sunday says "Forty Days and forty night thou was fasting in the wild; forty day and forty nights tempted, and yet undefiled." (#150 Hymnal 1982, Episcopal Church). We want to be "undefiled", yet this desire turns into a work that we feel we must do. We then become burdened and either stumble under this burden or become prideful that we have carried this burden.

So Lent can become quite distressing and especially so, as our Lenten discipline brings to light sins or failings we have and we then encounter them in stark relief, which is suited to a time of repentance and self-examination. However, if we have succumbed thus seeing Lent as a time of Spiritual accomplishment and perfection, finding our dark selves rising to the surface can lead to confusion and distress. The closing hymn from this past Sunday offers us the solution to these attitudes: "Then if Satan on us press, Jesus, Savior, hear our call! Victor in the wilderness, grant we may not faint or fall!" We are not the victors in this wilderness, nor is it upon our own resources that we are to rely in Lent or the Spiritual life, but upon Christ who is the Victor and who has fulfilled the Law and all the requirements of the Spiritual life. If we are to find ourselves perfected it is in reliance on and faith in Christ. We are to rely on Christs strength having faith that Christ has already overcome and is victorious.

So in a sense Lent is nothing special, in our life of faith. What applies to Lent always applies. We keep Lent because it can help us refocus and return to our call and to that reliance on Christ, which is our faith. We undertake these disciplines and we fast, we take this time to focus intently on our Spiritual life and our selves so that we may open ourselves ever more to the tranforming power of the Resurrection. We enter a desert and intensify our struggles with ourselves and sin and temptation, not to make ourselves perfect but to be perfected by God, as we are formed ever more into the image of Christ. A subtle distinction but one essential for a Holy Lent and for our entire spiritual journey in this life.

Sermon Second Sunday In Lent- Acts of Faith

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 •
Psalm 22:23-31 •
Romans 4:13-25 •
Mark 8:31-38 •

Acts of Faith

What is Faith and are their acts of faith that are not works? Tonight I proclaim to you that it is by faith alone and not by works that we are righteous. This may seem to be a contradictory proclamation to that of last week. Last week I spoke of "faith" in terms of what you or I posses consistently over time of our own belief and trust in God that comes of our own accord. So then what is the faith that produces righteousness? Last week I attempted to put forward that this true faith was not devoid of acts. Today I must say that this faith cannot be by works. However this faith is not about simple beliefs held or a trust that comes from my own resources that makes one righteous or saves. In this distinguishing of faith from faith, the faith I spoke of last week, the faith that is as often as not the faith of Protestant forms of Christianity, is a work as much as trusting and living according to the Law. On the other hand the faith that Paul is talking about is that which is connected to the reality of loss of self and identity in Jesus Christ. Paul's use of Abraham as the father of faith or our father in the faith, shows us that he does not see faith as something we do or hold over a lifetime but is a faithfulness that in doubt in confusion in lack of belief continues to hold one self open to God and God's faithfulness, and receives faith as a gift, and not a possession of one's own. Last Sunday I was attempting to say that according to catholic faith and practice baptism, fasting lent, liturgy etc. are not works but acts that open us to Gods grace, thus properly understood these things are acts of faith. There are many acts of faith, following Christ demands acts of faith, which are not works. To understand this we must explore the nature of faith that is not bound to works of the Law and which does not become a work and Law of its own.

The fulcrum here is Paul. As Protestants we know well Paul as that teacher of the nature of faith, the very place we have gone to for the doctrine of "alone by grace through faith." This sumary of the Gospel has had all sorts of misunderstandings to lifting from simple belief completely seperated from any form of life reflecting the Gospel, such that to encourage people to live out their faith it was feard that this was to introduce works into faith. On the other end faith becomes this thing that one manufactures that must be without doubt or question and is shown in a life a near moral perfection or at least keeping to a strict outward moral and ethical code, which can include such things as no smoking, drinking or veiwing or participating in entertainements of varius kinds. At this end of the pedulum swing one must constantly prove ones faith based on various external standards of belief and behavior. The passage before us tonight in Romans is one of the prooftexts of the assertion that it is by faith alone that we are righteous, or to use the theological term Justified. Paul argues that the promise of Abraham was not according to the works of the Law but the righteousness of faith. A key peice of his argument is the assertion that Abraham exhibited great faith. However, in Pauls argument the point isn't simply Abrahams faith, but that Abraham and the promise of God comes before the Law. Paul's claim then is that Abraham lived according to faith and not according to the works of the Law. In faith not his works of the Law was the basis for God reckoning Abraham righteous. To rehetorically drive his point Paul use a seriese of intensifieres concerning the greatness of Abraham's faith, which may give us the impression that the faith he speaks about has no room for doubt, no place for our own individual belief to falter. yet Paul should be read in light of Genesis and Genesis in light of Paul. Let us accpet as true that Abraham was a person of great faith and that God declares him a righteous person not based on his works but upon his faith. Accepting these things as true let us see what such a person full of faith is like. To do so we must turn to Genesis and the stories of Abraham in Genesis speicifically our text in chapter 17.

How does the story of Abraham's life in Genesis match up with Pauls praise of Abraham as the father of faith? We are getting toward the end of the overal story of Abraham. It has been a long time since Abram and Sarai left their home in Ur and travled to canaan based on the word and promise of God. They have endured much and prospered some, but remain semi-nomadic herders of sheep and cattel. God on several occasions after the first call promises Abram that he and Sarai will be the beginning line of a great nation. Yet through it all and despite the repetition of the promise Sarah her self does not bear a child. In their desperatin to have a child (and help God along with the promise, or in an atempt to live into the promise on their own) Hagai becomes suragate to Sarai and Abram has the son Ishmael by Hagar. This brings us to our story today, and again God reiterates God's promise to Abraham. This great person of faith how has he been unwavaring and without doubt? In our passage we see Abraham in responce to Gods promise bring to God his solution, Ishmael. But God's plan includes Sarah who has taken part and walked in faith as well as Abraham. God does not accept Abrahams feeble attempt to live into God's promise. From the first of Abraham's travels from Ur, in responce to God's call, this story of faith includes lying about his relationship to Sarah to save his own life, having a son by Hagar his wife's maidservant as a means to fulfill God's promise, arguing with God about the destruction of Sodom and Gemorah which occurs after this theophany in Genesis 17. Abraham and Sarah struggle with Hagar and Ishmael after Isaac is born. Fear and jealosy drive Abraham and Sarah to send Hagar and Ishmael away to an almost certain death except that God intervenes. The unwavering faith and hoping against hope and steady belief in God was part of a life that included all these false starts, attempts at self preservation and attempting to help God out with God's promise. Faith that Paul is talking about must be something more than always believeing and never doubting and always acting out of belief in God.

What if our fiath, the faith that Paul is talking about has as much to do with God's character as with ourselves? What if faith isn't something we own or posses of ourselves as something earned or naturally posessing? What if faith is a gift recieved through certain acts? Reading Paul and Genesis together suggests to me that faith is larger than our consistency, larger than any presentation of ourselves to the others or to God. In the midst of all Abrahams false starts, failure to trust God and attempts to help God along with God's plans, there is one consistent thread, Abraham is always open to God as God, as the totally other and the very substance of life. This is one side of the faith that leads to the accounting as righteous. This is such a faith because it allows God to work it trust that no matter what God is the faithful one. We like Abraham are inconsistent and faithless, we try to keep up a good image but we are inconsistent, but Abraham trusted God's unfailing love and unwavering faithfulness. God is full of faith and so as Abraham remains open to this faithfulness never claiming any right before God, he becomes a person of great faith through God's faithfulness. Abrahams faith, which God reckons as righteousness is a gift of God's faithfulness to Abraham, not what Abraham earns because of his faithfulness to God. So that the source of Abraham's faith is God, not Abrahams own works.

What then does this life of openness to God look like? How do we know if we are open to God? Jesus tells us: " If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 8:35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it." "Mark 8:34-35) Taking up the cross is an act of faith that is not a work of the Law. This loosing of oneself and taking up the cross is an act of faith but not a work. The act of letting oneself and identity go and taking up the cross is an ongoing activity that perfects. But it doesn't necesarily mean having it all figured out, the disciples and Peter in the text certainly don't! The Life of Abraham and Sarah are examples of taking up the cross and letting go of the self. They travel from their home and become nomads, never settling down after taking up the call of God. In the midst they have their failings, they fail to understand what God is doing and they try to help God out. Their selves still raise their heads and at times they continue to act out of selfishness and mere self-preservation. But in the end when the entire story is told they perservered and they no matter the moments of self, or of doubt or failure of nerve they never gave up on God, they alwasy were open to God's appearing and God's word to them, they never settled down. God had sent them on a journey that lasted their entire life time. They are examples of deing to ourselves letting go of what people tell us should be done when we know God has called us to other things. They lost their selves and found new names, that were more themselves given to them by God.

Faith is not something you drumb up in yourself. Faith is not banishing all doubt and never asking a question. Rather faith is the letting down of ones defenses and the walls of human identity and opening oneself up in trust to the faithfulness of God. This faith does require or should have resultant acts things that could be described metaphorically as taking up ones cross and dying. But the act itself does not make one perfect or righteous. God is not asking that we live perfect lives, but in the messiness of our lives, and even when we know we have sinned and messed up that we do not let those things close us to God, that we in faith await the presence of God in our lives. This is much easier now that Christ has come and fulfilled all righteousness and perfectly fulfilled the Law of God, so that we now can do this in assurance that we are Christs.

Sermon First Sunday in Lent

Genesis 9:8-17
Psalm 25:1-10
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15

Recently when cleaning I came accross an old airline boarding pass stub on the back it said "get the 411 on your 737". At first I thought nothing of it. I knew more or less what it was saying, though I did not know how one was supposed to get the information on the airplane. but then I was struck at how strange this sentence was: being told to get a large number on a much larger number" What would four hundred and eleven have to do with seven hundred and thirty seven. If I didn't know the context that one dials 411 to get informatin and thus the number four hundred and eleven especially if one says "four, one one" communicates "information" and that the number seven hundred and Thirtyseven again when said as "seven, thirtyseven" indicates a type of aircraft, then the message on the back of the boarding pass is either nonsense or cryptic. If for some reason this stub of a boarding pass was passed down from generatin to generation until a time when airplanes and telephone service as we know it had faded completely from memory, the sense of this message that I redily understood would be lost and seen as either non-sense or perhaps some mysterious message in which 411 and 737 would have some mystical meaning. In a sense they do. Only the initiated into phone service and airplanes attach any particular singinficance to those numbers beyond numerical value such that they make sense of the above sentence. When it comes to Lent and Baptism, the liturgy, sacraments in general we as Protestants are often like those in my thought experiment to whom this boarding pass stub has been passed down but for whom the necesary assumptions and context have been lost. For me the work of ecumenism and the vision of this ecumenical congregation is to regain the context of the entire faith of the church. Thus the conjunction today of passages on baptism with the first Sunday in Lent may seem unintelgible to many of us.

On this the first Sunday in Lent we have very similar texts to the Baptism of the Lord. We return to Jesus' Baptism. But now we follow Jesus into the desert and then on to Jesus' proclamation to repent and believe the good-news of the fulfillment and the presence of the Kingdom of God. Peter talks of a baptism that now saves us prefigured by the flood, and we read that God made a Covenant not to destroy the earth in a flood again. Reflecting on baptism at the beginig of Lent places Baptism as a key to the life of discipleship. This suggests that Baptism is a place of beginning of faith. Yet, this is a difficult thing to assert here at Reconciler we have differing emphases on baptism and differing experiences. Some of us have been simply baptized as infants, others as children or adolescents, others as adults. Some of us have not been baptized at all coming from traditions that emphasize the interior experience of faith in Christ over the external sacramental sign. Some of us have been baptized several times. In the season after Epiphany as began our reflections on discipleship I attempted to talk about baptism and its place in Christian faith. We are here again and I feel the need to both assert the centrality of baptism and admit this is adifficult thing to assert in our context. We have a variety of approaches and various understandings of baptism in part are due to perceived and real abuses and misunderstandings concerning baptism and its spiritual reality. Christians have often made the sacraments a magical rite. For Protestants this misunderstanding was often attributed to accretions to the basics of the faith and so Protestants attempted to scrape away the unduly mysterious elements, and at times to the point of finding little or no meaning in the rites, rituals and sacraments of the Church. These external things may be nice but they do not make us Christians, so those who have come before us have said with differing emphases. However, Baptism, the liturgy, communion, Lent, spiritual disciplines are not and were never intended to be things to mark off that one has done to assure one has got the spiritual life under ones own control, rather the forgotten meaning is that all offer us the support of grace and produce in us an openness to God being at work in our lives. They are to use the theological terminology "means of Grace". We are physical creatures what supports our spiritual life is aspects of our physical world infused with spiritual power truth and meaning. This is why Baptism is central to the life of discipleship according to the catholic faith of the Church.

The story of the flood causes us difficulty. We have difficulty assimilating its message. On the face of it God in furry unleashes a great and worldwide devastation. All life except what life can fit on the ark, is destroyed, and then God promises not to do that again. Yet, the story can be read as being about the human capacity to ignore God and life, and the consequences of this and God, seeking to both bring an end to violence and evil and to preserve life. I see such a reading as fitting into our current debate about Global warming. We have an awareness of pollution and debates over how we raise our food, and I think can appreciate that human actions and carelessness can have physical destructive consequences that effect more than just those most directly responsible. However, the overall story of the flood is also about how God has held back the full consequences of humanities collective actions, by preserving a few. Also God puts a reminder in the physical cosmos not only to us but to God's self regarding God's promise not to bring such destruction upon the whole earth. Peter also points out that from the point of view after Jesus Christ we see that God has moved from simply holding back the ultimately destructive consequences of our fallenness and propensity to be forgetful and careless and has offered a solution, and we enter into that solution in faith and Baptism.

So, Peter says that Baptism now saves. Does this not sound strange to us? Have we not lost the ability to hear Peter on this point. I know that I am prone to read that and say Peter didn't really mean what is plainly there before us. And it is easy to do so because Peter does not dwell on this for long the original readers shared Peter's assumptions. Though he does need to explain that "baptism now saves" Peter does need to offer a a corrective: this is not merely an external act of bathing, but of something deeper, and bringing us in connection with the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul in a few of the epistles speaks of it more deliberately and clearly, saying that in baptism we are buried with Christ and raised with him. We are identified with the one who from his own Baptism he was sent into the desert for 40 days to struggle with the devil. so this Baptism is also a place from which we are sent by the Spirit, who is given to us in Baptism, who descends upon us like Jesus Christ. While Baptism is to be something that happens to us once, we are to our remember and return to our baptism recalling its grace and power our entire lives. Once we are Baptized it is a great spiritual resource for us. Baptism is our salvation because it is the vehicle through wihc God unites us with Christ. Due to the presence of the Spirit in the waters of baptism and that through the Spirit we are identified with Christ out of baptism we live out the life of discipleship.

Faith alone is not enough! My faith, all by itself, in as much as it comes from me is weak. My own ability to trust God is poor. Thankfully God does not expect us to drum up continually faith in God and Jesus Christ, rather through the Church we have been given supports of our faith, reminders, spiritual resources of Grace. Holy Communion is where we receive the body and blood of Christ as the spiritual food and the medicine of immortality that gives us the strength to live out the calling of our discipleship and the medicine that heals us of the wound of sin, and thus give us life. Baptism does not replace faith but is the source and foundation of faith. Baptism is the support of faith because it is that which unwaveringly connects us to the objects of our faith, the life death and resurrection of Christ. In baptism we are fully brought into the solution God has provided for human tendency towards destructiveness. In baptism we are made one with Christ and thus can hear the voice that speaks of our deep and abiding connection with God. In baptism the recreation of the world begins, not through destruction, but through rebirth. All that we have in faith in Christ, begins and is grounded in baptism and is gift as the Spirit marks us as Christ's own. And so the waters of baptism now save us.

Lent recalls to us the full impact and reality of our faith, those parts of the faith we individually or corporately have forgotten. In response to this confrontation we can try to focus on the externals, or we can try to force ourselves to be conformed to the image of Christ. We can see Lent as a time of wilderness where we on our own power imitate Christ. And certainly Christians at times have chosen to so see Lent as such: a time to get themselves cleaned up for God. Ironically those who rejected these outward and purely fleshly interpretations of religious observance and sacraments, rejected baptism or that baptism was anything more than a thing we did in obedience to Christ. In rejecting this outward form of faith and the place of physicality as a site of the Grace we failed to see that faith, at least Christian faith, is faith in the creator of all things seen and unseen, material and immaterial, physical and spiritual, and thus we are not caleld to live beyond the physical. Being the creator of the physical world God never intended faith to be internal and "purely spiritual". God never intended that we reject the salvific path found in the stuff of the earth. God puts a visible physical reminder in the sky, not only to remind humans but to remind God's self. God is not disconnected from Creation, never was, and certainly is not now after the coming of the Son in human flesh in Jesus Christ. Our Protestant forbearers were right if our faith is merely external and we think that walking through the correct rituals, saying the right things, getting doused with water, smeared in ash, lighting enough incense, and eating or not eating the right foods means God must accept us, then our faith is empty and idolatrous. However, what many of our protestant forbears failed to realize is that our faith is equally powerless if we turn our struggle into a merely internal and disembodied one. If we make our faith and belief into the key without any physical expression or support then we lock ourselves into the grand swings of faith and doubt, and a life unremitting and merciless self-examination. In such a state for most of us then the freedom and joy of the faith is rarely ours. My sisters and brothers the catholic faith of the Church has always been that mere faith that refuses the physical world is without power and trust in the mere externals of religious ritual is foolishness and an empty shell. The catholic faith has always affirmed that true faith begins in acknowledging that God is creator of all, and as creator brings about our salvation through physical things and by becoming eternaly connected with the physical in joining divinity and humanity in the person and body of Jesus Christ. Baptism and communion, incense and fasting, are not just nice things they are the way God gives us God's grace and the way we remove ourselves from having to do it ourselves. In partaking in the rites, sacraments and spiritual disciplines we allow God to transform us. This is the meaning of these things we Christians often forget and we Protestants especially. Faith is not something we drum up in ourselves or something that comes divorced from our bodies and our physicality. Such a divorced faith has little staying power in the face of doubts, and only in the most fastidious produces a righteousness able to counter sin. However, we in water, in eating blessed bread and wine, in being anointed with holy oil, in hearing words spoken of forgiveness receive from God the gift our our selves being renewed in a world being reborn.

This Lent, remember none of what we do is about getting cleaned up. We can't clean ourselves up. We can't make ourselves right. We cannot image Christ by our own effort. There is no work or ritual any of us can perform no word I can say based in my own wisdom that will cause you and us to reflect Christ and be Christ to the world. But God in baptism makes us new, upholds our faith and gives us Grace. We come to Lent to remind ourselves that we can't do it by our own striving. In whatever we do in Lent, in fasting, in giving alms in returning, to disciplines we let drop, in taking up new ones, we remind ourselves that we are weak and in need of God at all times and in all ways and that without God's grace our own efforts amount to nothing. So, I encourage you if you still have questions about your baptism whether you were baptized as an infant or baptized more than once or never been baptized, maybe this Lent and Easter is time to accept the gift of grace in baptism and find yourself afloat in the waters of new birth. After all we are on the journey to Easter. Perhaps this year Easter will not be about believing in the Risen one but about the Risen one bearing you up and transfiguring you with the uncreated light of God. And may we all remember that what we do, we do so that we may be born up in our life of discipleship by the grace of God offered to us in and through our physicality. Amen

Lent

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. In my sermons in the season after the Epiphany I have been encouraging us to reflect on the meaning of being disciples of Jesus Christ. The accounts of the apostles and disciples in the Gospels I believe are encouraging. The Apostles, who eventually would go out proclaiming that in Jesus Christ God had come and lived in our midst and had begun the transformation of the world and died for this message, in Gospels aren't so bold, and not so sure of themselves. They don't always understand Jesus and often misunderstand very direct things Jesus tells them. At times we all are very much like the disciples in the Gospels. We are on a journey from Glory to Glory, we have encountered Christ and have felt the transformation of that encounter but we aren't always sure we are living into that work of transformation nor are we always sure how to go about it.
Lent in part exists because we need a time to be reminded of certain things. So we come to Ash Wednesday and we repent. We acknowledge the ways we have not lived up to the call of discipleship. We acknowledge that we have been here before and are forgetful. We come to Ash Wednesday and we walk in the desert of Lent with Jesus to be reminded, and to grown in our understanding of the life of faith. We come again to learn what it means to be a Christian, and to meet God and be renewed and refreshed. This is the strange logic of Christian faith in passing through the desert one is refreshed and renewed, passing through death we find life, in letting go of our hard fought and won identities we find our true selves in Christ. None of this is simply a one time thing and then done. We begin at first faith and baptism and we return to this place again and again, hopefully always going deeper finding that our grip on ourselves is less tight, that our sins (no less great) are smaller hidden things we had never noticed before. This is sanctification the realm in which we open ourselves up to grace fully confident of our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. As we journey together this Lent towards the Cross and Resurrection, my hope is that we can begin to share with each other our experiences, struggles and triumphs in this life of discipleship. This it the stuff of our faith, in Lent a time of repentance, desert, fasting, and self-denial we find the power of the Gospel.

Preparing for Lent

Lent is approaching. As we prepare to enter Lent this Sunday we reflect on the Transfiguration of Christ in the midst of his earthly ministry. This lent we will have the opportunity to come together and share with each other each week Lent about our spiritual life what helps us in our relationship with God and following Jesus, but also our struggles. Christian faith is not meant to be a solo activity. Also, these are times to reflect on why we take time to fast (give things up) or take on certain spiritual disciplines for Lent. Many of us do not come from traditions that keep Lent, some of us do. What about Lent makes sense? What questions do you have about the keeping of Lent.
To prime the pump let me briefly put forward some thoughts about Lent: Lent is a time of preparation and self-examination. Lent is a Journey to the Cross and then to the Resurrection. The church year brings us back again and again to this central and crucial aspect of our faith that Jesus died upon a cross, was buried and rose again. Our actions as followers of Christ should be motivated from this center of our faith. Our sense of justice, our works of mercy and advocacy, what we do from day to day all should be informed by this great mystery of our faith. Yet, we are also continually learning what this means for ourselves and for the church as a whole, we will never stop being able to appropriate in new ways this great mystery, Lent offers us a time to return and re-appropriate this mystery of our faith into our lives both as individuals but also as a body of believers. What ever you decide to do for lent or not do, may this Lent allow you a time to re-appropriate the central mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is Risen Christ will come again.
In Christ,
Larry

Ash Wednesday Service

Our Joint Ash Wednesday service with Immanuel and St Elias is at 7:30 PM.

Reconciler Update

Our Annual meeting is coming up and Lent closely follows upon our annual meeting. The beginning of Lent, Ash Wednesday, is February 5th. Our Annual meeting is Sunday January 27th. The annual meeting of Reconciler is for any and all of us who attend Reconciler regularly and/or consider Reconciler to be one of your church homes. It is a time for us to gather and hear where we have come from in the past year and to make decisions of where we want to go and confirm together where the Spirit is leading us at this juncture. It is an important time for us as a worshiping community to reflect on who we are and see how we might continue to live into our call and vision as a congregation, for the coming year.

Lent also is a time for reflection and preparation. As we journey towards Holy Week and Easter we prepare for remembering the passion of Christ and his Resurrection. Part of this preparation or reflection is often to do some sort of fasting, either from food altogether on certain days during lent or from particular foods or activities for the entirety of Lent. Part of the point of fasting is to turn to God in prayer and meditation, and if one is fasting from a meal or meals on particular days to plan to give away the money one would have spent on that meal or activity or item of food during Lent. It is good to remember as we journey through Lent that this time of reflection is to be a time of renewal so that we may see and act more clearly with God in the world. Setting aside money to give away one would have spent on food or an activity one is fasting from can be a good reminder that our fasting meditation and prayer is to both transform us and the world. We stop and reflect because we can loose sight of why we do what we do, because we can get bogged down in the normal stresses of life and become absorbed in the small things that can consume our life. Thus lent is also a time of repentance and self-examination, where we are called to turn back from possible patterns of sin that may have crept into our lives over the past year.
Announcements:
Our Annual meeting is on Sunday January 27th beginning at 2 PM with a potluck in the 'Nidge, the at 3PM in Immanuel's parish hall we will begin our meeting. We will have our worship service at the normal time of 5PM following the meeting.

On January 27th we have the Rev. Doug Harris one of the pastors at North Shore Baptist Church ,presiding at communion.

This Sunday the Rev. Jolene Bergstrom-Carlson the Associate Superintendent of the Central Conference of the ECC will be worshiping with us.

In an effort to coordinating the care of the space Immanuel shares with us we are looking for people to coordinate with Immanuel's alter guild and Properties committee to help maintain this space and Immanuel's property. A couple of you have responded but if others are also interested please talk to Larry or Laura.

Immanuel is looking for members of Reconciler who would be willing to serve as ushers and greeters at our joint services on Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday Services. Talk to Larry if you would like to serve in this way at any of the above mentioned services.

Ash Wednesday February 6th we will be having a joint service with Immanuel and St Elias of the imposition of Ashes at 7 PM in the Sanctuary.

In Christ,
Larry

Sermon: Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday, Year C
April 1, 2007
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
The Reverend Laura Gottardi-Littell

RCL Readings: Liturgy of the Palms: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Luke 19:28-40
Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Ps. 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56

***

Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem starts out so well. A crowd has gathered to welcome their champion. They strew his path with palms and shout “Hosanna!” What a wonderful welcome into the city of prophets.

And so today, as we re-create that hero’s homecoming, we begin with a joyful noise, palms, and a procession. But not far into our service we sense the change. What started off well is not going so well. Suddenly we are singing mournful hymns and there’s tension in the air, foreboding. Jesus has come to Jerusalem not only as beloved hero but also as martyr. He has come… to die.

Many had hoped he would be a great leader, a warrior king to free them from the oppression of Rome. They will be gravely disappointed. Those who love him and have to watch him die, will be heartsick.

Many in 1st century Palestine wanted a liberator who with great power and might would topple the dominion of Rome. That’s not what they got. They got Jesus, who was not about force. The revolution he sought was not a violent uprising. His power to liberate was of another kind. Although he has delighted and healed so many, Jesus has angered and disappointed others.

We are not so unlike the people of Jesus’s day.
We have many of the same hopes and fears.
We too can feel angry and cheated when we don’t get what we want. Or what we think we want.

I remember a song from my coming-of age-years, a Rolling Stones song, that said: “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find….you get what you need.”

How does Jesus give the world not what we want, but what we need?

As it was in Jesus’s day, our world is a competitive, stratified place that tells us what we should want. Status. Power. Money. We should be winners, we should be tough, and it’s OK to step on other people to get where we’re going.

But Jesus was a savior who emptied himself, as Paul writes to the Philippians. Jesus didn’t try to exploit his power, like the Roman emperors and other power brokers of his time. Jesus didn’t see his equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself of the need for power, status and wealth. He hung out with poor and sick folk, outcasts, and people on the wrong side of the Law. He didn’t placate the Roman or Jewish authorities. In fact he challenged them.

SO if Jesus walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we label him a fool, loser, or rebel? And cast him aside? Would we say that he was not the kind of leader we wanted? Would we shout “Crucify him!”

As it was in Jesus’ day, our world is not only hung up on power and money, it’s also a violent place. And Jesus was not into violence. When Jesus is captured in the garden, one of his disciples cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave to try to free Jesus. “No more of this!” Jesus tells his disciple. If violence is what’s needed for Jesus to save himself, than he wants none of it.

So if Jesus, who rejected the use of force, walked among us today, and we didn’t recognize him, would we call him a wimp, a crazy pacifist, unpatriotic? Would we reject him and shout: “Crucify him!”

The Christian message is deeply challenging. It challenges what we want, or think we want. What our world tells us to want.

But God likes to give us what we really need.

God gave us Jesus to meet our deepest human needs.
To show us where real power lies. Not in status or money. Not in the use of force.

Jesus is a winner but of a different kind.
By losing at the world’s games, he wins by the heavenly standards.
By emptying himself, he changes the world forever.
In dying, he destroys death.
Now that’s power.

Ghandi, Martin Luther King and others have known the power of this self-emptying, nonviolent love. And living it out, made enormous changes.

As Christians, we live in tension between earthly and heavenly notions of power. The power of the sword versus the power of the cross.

The Christian life, if taken seriously, is largely about self-emptying. Giving up our desire to be first, right, powerful. Giving up, or at least questioning, much of what we want and becoming more and more open to what God wants. Trying to weed out parts of ourselves that are self-absorbed cruel, that accept the need for violence. The parts that shout “Crucify him!” and mean it in today’s passion play.

To be honest, there are times when I’m not sure how much self-emptying I’m willing to do. I’m a human being, and Jesus is asking me, asking all of us, to evolve, to be nearer to the angels than the beasts. To go against, or at least seriously grapple with, some core values of the world. I love Jesus so much and yet…he asks so much. It’s hard.

So if you feel conflicted today, at this Palm Sunday service, you’re not alone. And you have good reason to feel that way. A king rides into Jerusalem in majesty and ends up on a cross. We start out thinking we’re at a party and end up at a funeral. We watch a good man, the best kind of person, God’s own son, handed over to an inhuman death. And worst of all, he dies in part because of us. Because of the way the world is, how human beings are. Because of what we think we want: power, status, the use of force. He hasn’t played those games. So now he must die. All hope seems lost.

And yet………God knows our deepest needs. God knows we don’t need more domination. We don’t need more violence. We need a savior who through self-emptying, non-violent love can show us the path of life. Can help us evolve. And God provides that. God has given us a way out of our endless cycles of sin and death. It is joyful and liberating to break out of those cycles by following Christ. Yes, there are some losses when we empty ourselves, but the gains are incalculable. We gain freedom and peace when we lose our bondage to self-seeking and violence. And that is the good news today on Palm Sunday. That is the joy of Easter. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has given us not what we thought we wanted, or what the world tells us to want, but what we needed most. AMEN.

Sermon: Third Sunday of Lent

3 Lent, Year C
March 11, 2006
Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
Readings: Isaiah 55:1-9, Ps. 63:1-8, 1 Cor.10:1-13
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9
The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell

How often do we read in the news about a kid caught in the crossfire of a drug deal on the south side, a really nice kid, an A-student, who shouldn’t have died, but did? Our news accounts flood us with examples of decent people, both old and young, caught up in tragedy. Ordinary people killed on their way to work, school, worship. The bus accident last week that took the lives of baseball players at a small college…who among them deserved to die? So many other examples in the headlines, or in our own lives.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he’s teaching. Some people in the crowd tell him about several Galileans who were brutally killed by Pontius Pilate’s solders while they were presenting their sacrifices. Jesus responds by asking the crowd if they think these Galileans were worse than any others, any more deserving of such a fate? Jesus goes on to tell them about 18 people who died when the Tower of Siloam in the Jerusalem wall fell on them. Jesus then says that neither the Galileans killed by Pilate nor those struck by the Tower were any more sinful than anyone else.

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So much of life seems unfair, or at best random…and that’s hard.

If we’re doing our best to be faithful and good, if we’re minding our own business….shouldn’t there be some guarantees?

Where’s the good news here?

Today’s gospel contains good news for us, as the gospel always does, though sometimes we have to dig a bit to find it. A former pastor of mine used to say: “The good news is the bad news is the good news.” The good news sometimes masquerades as, or is found in the midst of, the bad news. This pastor should know: he lost two sons to cystic fibrosis. He was no stranger to life’s difficulties.

The good news here is… a loving God is present to us, even though there’s much of life we can’t control. It’s a subtle, complex message. And it may not sound like good news, for those of us who like to be in control, or when we desperately need to feel some control…but control is actually a very mixed bag. Once we start feeling we have to be in control, it’s hard to stop. We end up controlling things – and people -- we’ve got no business messing with. Sometimes we even try to control God. And we can’t.

God asks us to do our best with life, in all its unpredictability. God asks us to turn to and trust God, who will love and be present to us in all things. Today’s gospel and epistle ask us to get right with God – and stay right -- even though much of life is out of our control.

Can God control everything that happens? That’s debatable. Theologians differ on that point. But we know for sure we can’t control everything. That’s beyond cavil. We’re noticeably out of control on this island planet, as we spin through a vast desert of space.

Sometimes we invent a sense of control when we have none. It helps us cope. We seek to put God, and life, into neat little packages.

If something bad happens to someone, they must have sinned. God is punishing them.
If someone lives a charmed life, they must be good. God loves them.

That was the prevailing worldview in Jesus’ time.

But life is not that neat and clean.

Bad things happen to good people.

Good things happen to bad people.

Would any of us say to a person dying of cancer: “What did you do to deserve this?” Who among us would say to a rape survivor: “I bet it really was your fault.” No. All of us in this room are too sensitive and aware for that.

Still our human minds often struggle to understand the “Why’s” of life. And we can spin on that hamster wheel a long time. A mentor once told me: “We don’t have good answers to the why questions.”

We do, however, have some very good answers to the how questions. How can I live well knowing the reality of suffering. How can I help others with the empathy and experience I’ve acquired through my own struggle. How can I try to be right with God in a world where so many things go wrong? How can I take responsibility for my actions, and work on the parts of life I can control?

Our gospel today calls us to do our level best with the non-level playing field that is life. To accept that we’re not always in control, yet we still need to take responsibility for our actions.¹To know that rain falls on the just and the unjust, and try to be the just, anyway. Because…God expects it of us. Because….ultimately there’s more joy in it. And because…as Jesus says, there’s a both/and here: the love of God and the wrath of God. God the gardener, lovingly tends us fig trees, and gives us many chances to be fruitful. Yet God is also capable of cutting us down if we continue to be unproductive and unhealthy. Or perhaps it’s we who, by our own actions, wither away if we keep wasting the nutrients we need, keep turning away from what truly nurtures us. As one author says “Seen in theological terms, judgment is God’s grace. This grace says that life is too precious to be squandered by living apart from Christ. The parable says that there are limits to this wastefulness, and it is for our sake that there is a deadline, since rarely do any of us change without the impinging of consequence.”²

Jesus is saying that the Galileans murdered by Pilate and those crushed by the Tower of Siloam were no worse than anyone else in Galilee or Jerusalem. But he also says that unless his listeners shape up, they might meet the same fate. He’s trying to instill holy fear in them. Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “[For Jesus] it is not a bad thing for them to count their breaths in the dark – not if it makes them turn toward the light…it is that turning he wants for them, which is why he tweaks their fear. Don’t worry about Pilate and the other things that can come crashing down on your heads, he tells them. Terrible things happen, and you are not always to blame. But don’t let that stop you from doing what you are doing. That torn place your fear has opened up inside of you is a holy place. Look around while you are there. Pay attention to what you feel…

“Depending on what you want from God, this may not sound like good news. But for those of us who have discovered that we cannot make life safe nor God tame, it is gospel enough. What we can do is turn our faces to the light. That way, whatever befalls us, we will fall the right way.”³

Being a good person of faith is not a talisman against misfortune. It’s no guarantee. Life is life. God is God. There’s much we can’t control. But there is a promise we can lean on: God is with us in everything. In all the vagaries, unfairness, and beauty of life, a loving gardener attends us, cajoling, nurturing, and stretching us into bearing the fruits of the spirit. We’re asked to trust God, turn our faces to the light, and “grow and flourish like a fig tree in bloom, doing [God’s] will.”⁴ That’s what our gospel gives us. That’s the good news. That’s what we have. Amen.

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11 For assistance in recognizing the both/and – there’s much we can’t control yet we’re still responsible for our actions -- as those ideas relate to this gospel – I’m grateful to my colleague M.E. Eccles.

2 Synthesis, Sedgwick Publishing Company, March 11 2007 issue.

3 Barbara Brown Taylor, as quoted in Synthesis, March 11, 2007 issue.

4 Synthesis, March 11, 2007 issue.

Sermon First Sunday in Lent

Tripp was sick and this Sunday he was slated to preach. On Friday I agreed to preach on Sunday. So no manuscript. However, I have posted the notes I preached from on my blog.
There was a good discussion during the discussion time after the sermon. One person said it was the craziest sermon I had preached. I believe that was meant to say that it was a good sermon.