Sarcastic Lutheran

Sermon based on 1 Corinthians 13

 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

     4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant  5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

     8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.  9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;  10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.  11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This week my friend Sara reminded me that the really amazing thing about  1^st Corinthians 13  is that even 100s of  thousands of schlocky wedding and inspirational posters and bad Christian coffee mugs can’t kill it.  Paul’s hymn to Love is perhaps one of the most recognizable texts in the New Testament.  And it is really beautiful… but it has just about nothing to do with romance. 

To be sure, the subject of love is a tricky one.  I think because we so often are loved poorly, loved incompletely, loved conditionally.  The subject of love is a tricky one because we so often love poorly, incompletely and conditionally.  And, forgive the pop psychology, but my theory is that when we are loved so poorly we begin to, on some level, assume that we are maybe undeserving of being loved well.   And from this state of being loved poorly, feeling undeserving and then loving poorly in return, which let’s face it, is the foundation of Oprah and Dr Phil’s entire empire….but from this state we do some stuff that’s…unhelpful. 

I’ve been thinking about the things I’ve done in my life to try and make myself more lovable.  I lost weight, I tried to not use big words, I tried laughing even when a joke wasn’t funny.  And when I was dating Matthew…and those of you who know me will get this, I went camping.  I tried showing the other person only the parts of myself which I thought were lovable and if there weren’t enough of those parts then I just manufactured some.  Because I was sure that to know me… is actually not to Love me. 

We come by this naturally…given messages as we are about what is ok and what is not.  Strong smart girls learn to act ditzy and helpless…tender hearted boys learn to toughen up.  And it’s no secret that some of these messages insisting on our fragmentation came from the church.  I remember a male Sunday School teacher in 5^th grade taking my parents aside and suggesting that they insist I stop answering all the questions in Sunday School so quickly because then the little boys, who really should be answering the questions, don’t really get a chance.

Richard Rhor has a way of assessing our spiritual health…namely what do we do with pain.  Do we transmit it or do we transform it?  Because the mirror in which we might see ourselves as God see us gets dimmer and dimmer when the pain of being human is transmitted to us and not transformed.  As our own sin and brokenness begins to be a lens through which we view ourselves and others the mirror grows dimmer. And then the pain of not knowing who we really are becomes transmitted through all the things Paul describes: arrogance, impatience, unkindness, envy, selfishness.  It can be a desperate cycle based on something as simple as the truth my mother once spoke “honey, bullies just bully out of their own hurt inside as though they have to spread it”.   But this is true of so many things when we think about it.  And I think what Paul was saying to his little church plant gone bad was: stop hurting each other.  Stop transmitting your hurt and sin.  Because from that state of being loved poorly, feeling undeserving and then loving poorly in return, we do some stuff that’s…unhelpful. 

This letter to the church in Corinth wasn’t providing a sentimental reading for their weddings,  it was a smack down.  They were bickering and dysfunctional and competitive.  Some of them had some mad skills but were being asses about it, as though being church together had become sort of a competitive sport.  They were being petty and prideful and ridiculous. They didn’t know who they were and Paul was trying to remind them.  And he told them who they were - not by telling them about history or biology or sociology - but by telling them about love. Not the emotion of Love. Not the sentiment of Love. Not the romance of Love. Because honestly I have yet to see a Hallmark card with I love you so much that I will endure you.  Or, My love for you bears all your things.  But Paul writes of Love as origin.  Love as source.  Love as God, and God as Love.  This Love has really nothing to do with feeling nice.  It’s actually not about feelings at all, it’s about truth.  It’s about the truth of who we are through the eyes of a God who knows us fully.   

This love described by Paul isn’t mushy and sentimental.  It’s  tough and unwilling to yield. This love which is patient and kind and isn’t rude or boastful and is self-giving and all that….  here’s what is scary about this kind of love:  you can’t manipulate it.  There is no amount of weight loss, piety, personality management, big smiles or strained pretense that can effect this love.  And maybe in the absence of manipulation we stand bare before the eyes of God. This love is found in the gaze of God as God looks upon us naked and whole. Because this type of love is characterized by the giver not the receiver.  Gone are the strivings and manipulations and efforts to make ourselves more lovable.  In the face to face Gaze of the beloved we are known because we are loved.  We aren’t loved because we are known. …that leads again to trying to gussy ourselves up to be lovable. 

We are known by God because we are loved by God.  Think about that.  The truth of who we were before any pain and hurt was transmitted to us by those who are hurt and in pain…before we forgot our song we were loved.  Paul says For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.   For now we manipulate our selves and our image and our loved ones and see only dimly.  Now we gaze in the mirror and see only part of who we are and even then the image is reversed.  But  we have the promise that in the fullness of time we will see face to face with God.  Because, Paul writes, now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

The truth of who you are is found in the eyes of God, not the eyes of the world.  It is the love of God who created this world and called it Good….it is the love of a God who brought the Israelites out of slavery, who fed Ruth and Naomi, who walked among us as Jesus of Nazareth, it is the love of the God who knit you together in your mother’s womb that gets to tell you who you are.  Nothing else. Not the media, not a family who wishes you were different, and not even yourself.   Only the God who knows and loves you fully can tell you who you are. And this is true of everyone – the good the bad and the boring.

In the Movie Dead Man Walking sister Helen Prejean offered pastoral care to a despicable murderer.  He was an unrepentant, wretched man.  Yet her faith in a loving God allowed her, moments before his execution, to say to him "I want the last face you see in this world to be the face of love, so you look at me when they do this thing. I'll be the face of love for you."  

I think Paul might be telling us to be the face of love for each other.  When we know that we are loved by God in the fullness of God’s knowledge of us we are free to live in this love.  Free to transmit the love of Christ in a hurting world.  Free to see ourselves and others as God sees us. Not because we are good, but because we are loved.  And seeing just a glimpse, wanting it, moving toward it, brings us closer to what is promised to us forever: that we will see God, who is love, face to face. Amen                  

 

Sermon on Haiti and the Wedding at Cana

I will not keep silent.  Says the prophet Isaiah.  I will not rest, he says, until the promises of God are fulfilled.

My family and I returned from vacation Tuesday to news reports of the devastation in Haiti.  I, like all of you, listened in shock to the reports of 10s of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands left without shelter, without food, without family.  And within hours everyone realized…and on top of it all, there’s no running water.   Knowing this was going to be on everyone’s hearts and minds I thought to myself “I have to preach Sunday I wonder what the Gospel text is …” when I realized it was the wedding at Cana I thought Great.  Jesus at a big party making sure the wine flows freely.  No one wants to hear that today.  Not today.  Nobody wants to hear a quaint little miracle story about how generous God is when poorest country in this hemisphere lays in even greater waste than it already did on Monday.  Nobody wants to hear of an abundance of wine when people on the streets of Haiti are thirsty.  Who dares speak of a party when our cantor Drew is mourning his friend Ben who died in a collapsed building in Port au Prince? When thousands of mothers are mourning their children? 

This week’s events bring with them a lot of questions about God, and none of them have to do with parties.  One atheist blog I read this week sneeringly used the earthquake to make a case against believing in God at all.  The writer implying that he could not believe in a God who would inflict such suffering on so many people, which made me admit that according to that definition I must be an atheist too because I don’t believe in that God either. 
But after reading the wedding in Cana story over and over again this week I realized that I think Mary, the distraught mother of our Lord , might just be the key to seeing how this text speaks to our mourning and confusion and the death and suffering this week has brought to so many.
Our Gospel text for today has what sounds to us to be a rather abrupt and somewhat awkward interaction between Jesus and his mother.  They’re at a wedding when Mary looks to her son and says the wine has run out.  “Woman”  Jesus says to his mother seemingly dismissive and perhaps even disrespectful, “my hour has not yet come”  To which Mary is like oh yeah?  too bad.  Ok she didn’t really say that, but she did simply turn to the servant and said “do whatever he tells you” 

Mary tugs at the shirt of God and says I will not keep silent. I will obey you and I will tell others to obey you but I will not keep silent. People are thirsty.  See, In John’s gospel Mary is not the young virgin pondering sweet things in her heart.  In John’s Gospel Mary is not surrounded by singing angels.  She is never even mentioned by name.  She is simply “the mother of Jesus”  And she shows up exactly twice in the entire book.
So Mary stands here in a long line of prophets who have not stayed silent.  The prophet Mary stands and says Lord, we’ve run out of wine and people are thirsty.
And Jesus hears her.   So Jesus does this crazy thing: He could have filled the actual wine jugs up with water to be turned to wine.  That would have been the logical miracle (if there is such a thing).  Instead, Jesus takes 6 ceremonial purification jars and has THOSE filled with water to turn into wine. Purification Jars used in his own religion, the religion he grew up in the religion of his own family.
Jesus transforms this purification water into the wine of a new creation, the wine of a radical new family.

They are thirsty says his mother.  And Jesus responds. But he responds in an almost embarrassingly excessive way.  180 gallons. Surely that’s too much.  But that’s how Jesus is.  180 gallons of fine wine which…go back and check…is not called a miracle in John but a  sign.   It’s a sign of what God is doing in Jesus, namely that the very abundance of this gift means that maybe it’s not meant only for you and me.  I mean we can try and keep 180 gallons of wine for ourselves but it will just become something we like to call “vinegar” unless it’s shared.  In Jesus God is reconciling all creation to God’s self, not just his own religion and his own people, something today we might call “having really bad boundaries”

 I think this is why Mary is called “woman”. He refused to abide by society or religion’s definitions of good and bad and pure and impure and family and stranger and who is in and who is out.  His own mother is another woman, Like every other woman, every suffering mother.
So, Mary only shows up twice in John’s Gospel and both times her son calls her “woman. “ Once is here at the wedding when she refuses to be silent because people are thirsty.  The other is when she stands at the foot of the cross.  She watches as her son and her Lord hangs innocent from a cross with the weight of the world’s suffering tearing his very flesh. 

This is our God.  Not a distant judge cruelly indifferent to our pain and not some monster causing calamity, but a God who weep.  A God who suffers not only for us but with us. Nowhere is the presence of God amidst suffering more salient than on the cross.  Therefore what can we do but confess that this is not a God who causes suffering.  This is a God who bears suffering.   God does not initiate suffering…God transforms it.

It is suffering transformed which we see on the cross when again Christ calls his mother “woman” and initiates an adoption between her and the beloved disciple. This is the new kinship we all share.   A kinship in which our identity is not based on country, blood, or religion but on our belovedness as God’s children. 

That passage in John reads like this:

standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, “I am thirsty.”   

I am thirsty he says.  I am not watching this from a distant heaven. Jesus says I too am thirsty. 

As we hear the cry of our Hatian brothers and sisters let us discern the other voice we hear with them…that of Christ saying  I am thirsty.

The reports that came in that first 24 hours following the quake said that When night fell on the streets of Port AU Prince people were singing hymns and psalms. Blessed be God, they sang.  People were singing praises to God amidst their entire world destroyed. 
Pat Robertson is wrong by the way. There is no reason for this destruction – but there IS meaning. And this meaning is to be found as we again become the human family of God’s new creation without country, religion, boundary or race to divide us. In this moment to the extent that we take up the responsibility of a mother caring for her son, a son for his mother,….In this moment to the extent that we act like Jesus and love and care for those suffering from the earthquake as if they are our own beloved family, we are all Haiti.

So we, with Mary, tug on the shirt  of God and say we have run out Lord. We need wine.  Good wine.  Enough for all, flowing over.  We too will not keep silent.  We will join with the family of God in the singing of hymns and psalms.  And then we will listen to Jesus’ command and fill some jars with water for the thirsty.
Blessed be God.
Amen

Community-created Advent Calendar

Taking inspiration from Rev. Martin Poole and Beyond's Beach Hut Advent Calendar House for All Sinners and Saints undertook to make an Advent Calendar over the days of Advent.  Different people in the community made a "day" out of shoe (and other similar sized) boxes.  We displayed them on shelves hung between ladders.  It was fun to see our calendar grow with new scenes each week.

See the whole set here at Sister Amy Clifford's flicker page!

A sermon based on Pslam 148 for the first week of Christmas

 
 

Psalm 148

¹Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights!

²Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!

³Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!

⁴Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!

⁵Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.

⁶He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

⁷Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,

⁸fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!

⁹Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!

¹⁰Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!

¹¹Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!

¹²Young men and women alike, old and young together!

¹³Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven.

¹⁴He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!

Well, To the rest of the world Christmas is over. Empty champagne bottles fill the recycling cans.  Dry needles of long dead trees fall to the floor of our living rooms.  We’ve stretched both our pants and our patience to the limits as Auden writes in his Christmas oratorio which we will hear later, “There are enough leftovers to do, warmed up for the rest of the week.  Not that we have much of an appetite, having drunk such a lot – stayed up so late – attempted, quite unsuccessfully, to love all our relatives, and in general grossly overestimated our powers.”  

The straining push to make the parties, buy the stuff, bake the goods, entertain the people, love the relatives, avoid the conflicts and enjoy the holidays is now a clamoring memory fading into our exhausted minds.  And as everyone around is returning gifts and packing leftovers into Tupperware and driving relatives to the airport, praying the flights for Duluth are actually departing….as everyone else is taking down their decorations we are finally, finally singing Joy to The World.  Having waited and longed and anticipated for 4 weeks of Advent we finally are in the season of Christmas even as everyone else has decidedly moved on.  But I think the church is at its best when the church is odd. And to be lustily singing Christmas carols on December 27th is indeed odd and pleasingly inappropriate.

But this whole Jesus thing started with inappropriate singing if we listen for it closely.  Over the din of sales clerks and Salvation army bell ringers and screaming children on sugar highs and roasting chestnuts and endless rounds of We wish you a merry Christmas it’s easy to miss the sudden sound of

a great company of the heavenly host appearing with the angel, praising God and singing,
   "Glory to God in the highest,
      peace to God’s people on Earth."

Suddenly, a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel at the birth of the Christ and praised God.  I like to think that this was one of those times when they burst forth in songs of praise even though they were supposed to keep hidden.  These heavenly beings were supposed to just witness things from the removed, quiet distance of their heavenly home and yet before they even realized what sort of protocol they were violating, they stumbled through the curtain from backstage and without realizing they were even doing it…started singing praises to God. 

Which makes me wonder…why?  I mean I can see why humanity would praise God for moving into the neighborhood in such a radical way as to be made human, We quite naturally sing praises about the one who brings God to humanity and humanity to God … but the angels and host of heaven?  What are they getting out of the deal?  Why are they praising God?  Isn’t God going to be, I don’t know, out of the office more now?  Wouldn’t the angels resent the whole thing? All through this garish Holiday season we sing about how the angels sing…. but why? I mean what had God done for them?  On what basis did these hosts of heaven and angels praise God.  Because there has to be a reason, right?  The reasons for praising God seem to fall into two categories: 1.  We’re in church.  or 2. God has hooked me up somehow.

Psalm 148, which we just sang, bids all of creation to praise God and the list is a little weird.  There are the angels and host of heaven which one might expect but then the Psalmist adds that the sun moon and stars praise the Lord.  Yet it gets better.  For those among us who think praising God is an occasional event relegated to church on Sunday or gratitude for getting a raise at work, this Psalm is not helpful.  Because the list of God praisers goes on to include fire, hail, snow, fog….sea monsters.  The praise of God comes forth also from flying things, creeping things, mountains, hills, wild beasts….cattle.  THEN and only then do we get to human beings who, if you are keeping track, come after the cattle. 

One commentator I read this week asked “What keeps us from praising like the Psalmist?” And I thought,  What keeps us from praising like the sea monsters and cattle?  What keeps us from praising like hail and creeping things?  If these can praise God then maybe the reasons for praise are something other than a) we’re in church or b) God has hooked me up. 

We imagine praise is relegated to a certain time and place and form.  But not so with the cattle.  The sea creatures and creeping things and hail and wind do not relegate their praise of God to an hour on Sunday.   Or when they have a really great day.   They can’t.  They simply are who God created them to be and do what God created them to do.  The way in which creeping things of the Earth praise God is to simply creep on the Earth.  The creatures simple praise the creator by being creatures. Their being is in itself praise of the source of their being.

If we think that the goal of the Christian life is to transcend our animal nature and become spiritual beings then this Psalm and frankly the incarnation itself is problematic.  Richard Rhor said that "most of the world is so tired of 'spiritual people.' We would be happy just to meet some real human beings. They always thrill the heart, just as Jesus did."  Our spirituality is the gift given us in the imago dei…bring created in the image of God.  Our spirituality is given to us by merit of our being the beloved of God. To praise God then is to live fully into the dignity of being God’s children…of being simply human.

Perhaps to praise God is to simply look to nothing and no one else to know who we are.  We are the creatures and God the creator.  In the end, praising God is not, as I suggested a few weeks ago, to sycophantically stroke God’s ego because God has low self-esteem and created a cosmic entourage to remind God how great he is.  I’m pretty sure the cattle aren’t doing this. I think the difference is that the cattle don’t get their identity or sense of worth outside of God.  Sea creatures aren’t looking to the Dow Jones or their Body Mass Index to know their value.  Their value, as ours, rests in their createdness by God. 

What do the angels and hail and cattle know that we don’t? What is doxological living?  Perhaps it is to tune out the cacophony of other messages and for our hearts to sing of only God.  Amidst the empty praise of dangerously misguided celebrity culture doling out warm admiration for what is but greed and vanity we do the odd thing of praising God; not for hooking us up with a Grammy or a cute boyfriend or a sweet parking space, but for being God.  And we praise God for being God by simply being God’s children with all of the inherit dignity that implies.  All other identities melt away. I think this is what is allowed by the birth of Christ,  the one who brings God to us and us to God. as the beloved carol states
 He appeared and the soul felt its worth.


amen

Sermon on the Magnificat

Luke 1

39In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country,  40where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  41When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit  42and exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  43And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?  44For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.  45And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."
     46And Mary said,
    "My soul magnifies the Lord,
  47and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
  48for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
    Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
  49for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
  50His mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
  51He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
  52He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
    and lifted up the lowly;
  53he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and sent the rich away empty.
  54He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
  55according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
    to Abraham and to his descendants forever."\

Again this Wednesday we joined the broader church in singing vespers, the evening prayer which always includes Mary’s song, The Magnificat.  We joined Christ’s church and Christ’s mother in singing about the wondrous things God has done in blessing us and in casting the mighty from their thrones and in feeding the hungry and sending the rich away empty
Some of you know that the church I went to in High School, and where my parents still attend, is a very theologically and socially conservative congregation in Centennial.  It’s, suburban, white, very upper middle class, and privileged.  Very privileged.  Well a few years ago,  over 10 years after becoming a Lutheran and singing the Magnificat in Vespers countless times and really loving how radical it was, I visited my parent’s church and was amazed to see in the worship folder that the closing song was The Magnificat.  All through the service I kept thinking “I can’t believe that this wealthy suburban evangelical church is going to sing Mary’s song of the poor being fed and the rich being left hungry”.  Finally the moment came.  The congregation sang a praise music setting of…and I can’t make this up…the first half  of the magnificat.  They proudly sang a nice praise song based on the Magnificat about how their soul magnifies the Lord who had looked with favor on them and that generations will call them blessed because the mighty one has done great things and holy is his name.”  And then the song ended.  I was speechless.  Well, not really.  As I shook the preachers hand on the way out I said that it was theologically irresponsible to allow a profoundly privileged congregation to sing only the first half of Mary’s song. 

They may not know what the Magnificat is about, but I do.  I felt pretty proud of that. 

Progressives see Mary’s song a bit differently.  Mary isn’t a docile picture of obedience singing about how great it is to be pregnant.  Mary is singing of nothing less than complete overturning of the social and economic order.  She’s basically a first century female Che Guevara calling for revolution.  There’s a reason why the magnificat is said to of terrified the Russian Czars. Because, the message is that if you find yourself rich and powerful then… watch out!  This young little Jewish girl is not singing about a whole lot of good news for you.  But the poor…their time is coming because now the poor will be the rich and the rich will be the poor.

The liberals understand the Magnificat and feel pretty proud of that.

But this explanation sounds more like retribution than redemption.   Because when the oppressed become the oppressors then the oppression hasn’t actually gone away.  It’s a zero sum gain.  It’s the exact same play with the same plot and the same ending…just with a different cast.  What Mary sings of is not an endless cycle of retribution, but a total dismantling of the entire system.  The child she bears is not coming to make the oppressed the oppressors.  He is coming to disrupt the whole notion of oppression itself.  And the way in which God accomplishes this in the birth of Christ is the same way in which God accomplishes this in the death of Christ: namely vulnerable love.  This divinely vulnerable love is the only way out of our cycle of power and oppression. 

This all makes it a bit tough to pull of being prideful about knowing what the Magnificat is really about. For me or for anyone else.   Ironically, to be prideful about understanding the Magnificat is to not understand it at all.  Perhaps it is pride itself which causes the rich to be sent away empty.  And not because God doesn’t want us fed, but because we don’t realize that we’re hungry. Maybe in Mary’s song the wealthy are sent away empty because we simply don’t need God.  We’ve got plenty of daily bread and seem to be able to handle most stuff that comes our way.  But the truly hungry… carry none of these illusions of self-sufficiency.  It is our hunger which God feeds, not our fullness.   The rich are left hungry because there is no entry point for God.

    Mary’s song is perhaps not about being proud of being chosen by God and perhaps it’s not about pride in the coming reordering of things when she and those like her will finally be the ones in power.  Maybe the Magnificat is about the entry points of God’s vulnerable love.  The cracks into which the light of the Christ enters our hearts and enters our lives and enters our world. The entry points of God’s vulnerable love are not our pride and power and self-sufficiency and wealth, but our need for God…our hunger for God.
It reminds me of the song of another prophet… Leonard Cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

It’s the cracks that allow the light to enter.
These cracks in ourselves and in the world are entry points for God’s redeeming work .  The absurdity of Mary:  Her insignificance, her poverty, her unwed femaleness, was the perfect crack for the light of Christ to enter.  And her kinswoman Elizabeth, this inappropriately pregnant old lady from the hill country was the perfect crack into which the messenger of the light of God to enter.  

So the very real suffering in our lives and in our world which makes us question if God is really just, if God is really present,  and if the Magnificat is still singable…this suffering is right where God chooses to hang out.  Ever since there have been men and women and children who weren’t allowed the dignity of heaven’s children, God has been right there, right next to them, preparing a way out of all that darkness. God has always been like this, and the ones like Mary, the ones who see that truth plainly, finally have all of the world’s power.  But this power isn’t the kind we create for ourselves…it’s the power of brokenness and humility. Power-over and retribution and vengeance and oppression be damned.  This vulnerable love of God is what claims us and what gives us hope, real hope, in a way that noting else can.  Even amidst a world in which we are all very aware that the mighty sit on thrones and the hungry are still hungry we can sing her song.  Because Mary doesn’t sing the Magnificat out of ignorance.  I’m certain that the reality of empire and oppression and poverty and the abject powerlessness of her very self in her very context was not lost on the mother of our Lord.  Quite the opposite.  I think she knew.  She knew that because of her lowliness and poverty and insignificance  - because of this and not in spite of this that God was and is doing an entirely new thing. Never had the poor been so exalted than for God to slip into their skin insistently blessing the whole world in a radical way.  She knew you simply can’t speak of such things.  They have to be sung.


(blog post script: things change a lot in a few years.  My parent's church has a new brilliant young preacher who really loves The Gospel.  We meet together once a month with a couple other pastors to talk about our work and our preaching.  If someone had told me 5 years ago that one day I would be in a colleague group with my parent's Church of Christ preacher I would have laughed like Sarah.  But God is good and not a little mischievous.  Anyway, we met this week.  He too is preaching on the Magnificat today.  The whole thing.  May it be a Gospel Word for his people. Amen.)

Sermon on the Benedictus (Advent 2 C)

   

Luke 1:68-79

⁶⁸“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. ⁶⁹He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, ⁷⁰as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, ⁷¹that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. ⁷²Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, ⁷³the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us ⁷⁴that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, ⁷⁵in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. ⁷⁶And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, ⁷⁷to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. ⁷⁸By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, ⁷⁹to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

  Last Spring at our church retreat Stuart and Krista and Jim and Andie and perhaps some of you busted out in what felt like an interminable Broadway musical sing along.  It was cute.  Kind of.  But honestly it was a little annoying too.  Because  I had never seen Avenue Q or Wicked.  And hearing people sing show tunes number for musicals I’ve never seen is just not really that fun for me.  But then they sang Take me or Leave Me from the musical Rent and well, that was wonderful.    Because I’ve seen Rent.  I could picture the characters and know what is happening in the story arch when I hear the song.  I know the story, so  that the song really means something to me….  whereas a song from Avenue Q is just …another show tune I’ve never heard.

     This is why I am preaching today on the psalm we just chanted. Zechariah’s song. The Benedictus.    

     Recently I was asking a new House person what they thought of worship here.  “It’s great”, she said…”Because I’ve always wanted my life to be like a musical where you never know when people are gonna just start singing…and your church is kinda like that”.

    The first couple chapters of Luke’s Gospel are kinds like that too – a part of the Bible which reads like perhaps it were written by Andrew Loyd Webber because Characters just bust out singing all over the place. The Holy catholic and apostolic church has a long history of acting like a musical….mostly in her practice of daily prayer when the church sings the canticles.  Like when Elizabeth is visited by Mary she sings a song, now known as the Hail Mary. Then in response Mary sings her song called the Magnificat which we sang Wednesday and is actually sung everyday at vespers, or evening prayer. Simeon, when holding the 8 day old Christ child in his arms fills the temple with his song Called the Nunc Dimittis, which has been sung by countless centuries of the faithful in the daily Compline liturgy; the final prayer before retiring to bed.  But the song we sang today belongs to Zechariah, husband to Elizabeth…father to John the Baptist.  it’s called the Benedictus, and is a song of freedom sung every day at Lauds, or morning prayer..

    And here’s the back-story: His wife Elizabeth had conceived a son in her old age…that’s one the Holy Spirit’s favorite tricks by the way …making old ladies fertile.  Anyhow, Zechariah knew this miraculous pregnancy was going to happen because he had been tipped off so to speak.  He was doing his priestly duty and burning incense in the temple when the arch angel Gabriel in all his glory appeared before him.  Which sounds nice…having angels visit you.  But we aren’t talking the little chubby baby angels of bad Hallmark cards…we’re talking a powerful heavenly being who strikes fear in the hearts of everyone he visits.  If that were’nt so Gabriel wouldn’t have to start every single conversation with a human with “Oh, don’t be afraid.” The arch angel Gabriel tells Zechariah the craziest thing: that Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth would conceive a son named John who would make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

    And instead of just shutting up and nodding his head deferentially… Zecheriah does what I’m pretty sure I would do…he questions the angel’s authority.  Zechariah says Um, are you sure because seriously…my wife is Old…how do I know this will really take place?

    To which the arch angel says “Cause I said so and I am Gabriel for goodness sake”  Then the angel made Zechariah mute until all these things had taken place. It was like a 9 month time-out for Zechariah. He couldn’t talk the entire time which is actually kinda wonderful.

    So as his elderly wife’s belly grew large with child he couldn’t say a word.  As Elizabeth’s kinswoman Mary visited and told of the child she herself carried and as Zechariah’s child lept in elizabeth’s womb he could not say a word.  As the transgressive fecundity of God that would change the entire world grew in the wombs of an old lady and a virgin teenager he could not say a word. It was as though God said “you want to see what I am about?  Well then…Shut up.  watch and listen” 

    Maybe we too should take opportunities to just shut up, watch and listen for God’s redemption in forms we least expect to be seeing it.   Maybe when our opinions and neurosis and pride and expectations about what the world owes us die down…maybe when we sit in this quiet of Advent we might begin to see where God is quietly and insistantlyt making all things new.  Things we don’t perceive until we shut up for awhile.  It was a gift really…this muteness of Zechariah’s.  Perhaps the fact that he had to silently watch and listen prepared him to burst forth in song when he was finally able to speak.  When his tongue was loosened he did not use it to justify himself or defend his position or to yammer on about himself…having been silent and watchful and receptive to the unexpected wonders of God he could not help but sing praise to God when finally he could speak.

    This old man holds his new born son and sings of freedom.  He blesses God for the ways in which God comes to us to free us.  But freedom in this context is characterized not only by justice but also by the ability to worship God.  Unfettered and unfiltered relationship between the creator and the creature.   

    This is true worship.   Not vapidly stroking God’s ego as though God has low self-esteem and created us to remind him how great he is.  But real worship - which is to see how God always comes down to us… interrupting our lives to insist on our salvation. That’s how God works. Interruption.  Just when we get a comfortable thing going and we are humming along God says “that’s adoreable.  but I have something else in mind.  namely a radical new life for you and for all creation”  Just when we are doing all the right stuff God closes our mouths until we see God’s faithfulness and burst out into song.  Like Zechariah we become free to worship God.  But that freedom comes at a cost.  The price we pay for the freedom to worship God is repentance.  It’s a little thing really.  It’s just the simple matter of admitting that God is a God an well….I am not.

    This is real worship.  To sing of a God who remembers promises and who sets us free.  We too sing of the very God who is not content to simply stand at a distance but insistently draws near to us in an unexpected child and in the waters of baptism and in the bread and wine at the table and in the community of saints who gather around God’s story. Advent is an invitation to identify with all those in the great Musical of the Gospel…all those who have ears to hear and eyes to see, and to carry good news to all those who dwell in darkness, in the shadow of death. Advent is an invitation to be prophets.  An invitation to shut up and watch and listen in a real Silent Night  until we can Sing  like Zechariah that:

In the tender compassion of our God
    the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
    and to guide our feet into the way of peace.   

In defense of congregational singing

Church music was my first language.  I was raised in a church tradition that did not allow musical instruments in worship.  Instead, 3 times a week for 16 years I sat in a congregation that sang better than most choirs; basically kids raised in the Church of Christ can sing harmonies before we can speak.As a teenager I left the church.  I would not be part of another Christian community for 10 years and did not miss most of what I left; but I missed the music.  I missed joining my voice with others and making something beautiful and transcendent.  Becoming  a Lutheran at age 26,  I fell in love with the ancient liturgy (singing the prayers and praise of the faithful as the church has done for countless generations).  But the hymn singing?  Well, it may have been ok...but mostly I heard the organ.  Occasionally people would sing out but not in harmony and more often than not they seemed to make a little sound that came meekly out of their mouth and promptly fell right in front of their hymnal.  But sometimes during a communion hymn, the organist would drop out and the congregation would sing without accompaniment and it was glorious.  In those moments people sang much differently than they had when the organ was playing...they stepped up and sang out and even picked out some harmonies.  And the emerging churches I visited were no better, often having a band playing music written by one of their members.  With unfamiliar singer/song writer music (not conducive to congregational singing to begin with) and nothing but lyrics on a screen, I seldom heard people really singing.  While I have deep respect for the impulse behind communities writing their own music I have this conviction that I cannot shake: I prefer for congregational singing to be the primary musical expression in church.  The experience of creating music in worship solely from the bodies of those present is one which cannot be matched by listening to someone else make the music for everyone else which the congregation can sing along with if they feel like it,as though singing is the optional acompanyment to the instruments.  Now, before I get all kinds of comments about how I'm wrong let me say that I fully understand this to be a minority opinion and that some churches with instruments sing well.  I am not saying everyone should be doing it like we do.  But singing is our birthright as human being and since the advent of recorded music we have lost this essential part of what it means to be human.  We have sadly left music to the professionals. People used to gather and sing together in each other's homes as evening entertainment.  But why sing somewhat poorly if you can listen to a professional make much better music?  Take Me Out To The Ballpark is about the only public singing we have left; unless you count karaoke.  When I set out to start House for All Sinners and Saints I had a few non-negotiables.  One was that this was to be a singing congregation.  And we are.  Visitors are amazed at how 40 some odd people in an old church can create such a beautiful rich sound.  They're often amazed too that (mostly) young people are singing the old hymns of the church with such passion. The result isn't always beautiful though - sometimes it's a bit shaky, sometimes it's a bit awkward.  (It helps that our motto is "We're anti-excellance, pro-participation")  But often, really often, our a capella singing makes my heart soar because when we add our voices together in harmony we are not just creating music...we are creating community.   

Operation: Turkey Sandwich

Operation: Turkey Sandwich

where we roast a bunch of turkeys, make delicious

turkey sandwiches, pumpkin pie bars and stuffing

muffins, and make them into wonderful little lunch bags

to hand out all over the city to people who are unlucky

enough to be working on Thanksgiving (bus drivers,

pan handlers, bartenders, cops, 7-11 clerks, strippers etc...)

Join us by: roasting a turkey or making a pan of bars or

a couple dozen stuffing muffins and dropping them off, or

assembling and handing out bags on Thursday Nov 26th.

or:

donate money to the cause through Paypal on our website!

(www.houseforall.org put OTS in the note)

for more information email Nadia at sarcasticlutheran (at) gmail.com

All Saints Sermon

Isaiah 25:6–9


On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
    of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
  And he will destroy on this mountain
    the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
    the sheet that is spread over all nations;
  he will swallow up death forever.
    Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
    and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
    for the LORD has spoken.

Gospel: John 11:32–44


When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.  He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Lord, come and see."  Jesus began to weep.  So the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"  But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"
     Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.  Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, "Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days."  Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"  So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, "Father, I thank you for having heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me."  When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"  The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."

And God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations;
 God will swallow up death forever.

There’s a beautiful concept within Celtic thought called the Thin Places.  These are places where the veil between heaven and earth, human and divine, temporal and eternal, the now and the not yet is especially thin Where we experience that which is beyond linear time and the limits of our 5 senses.  A thin place can be an actual place like the mountain tops and deserts of the biblical prophets or it can be an event like the birth of a child or the death of a loved one or for myself, the 4-part harmonic a capella singing of Amazing Grace. These are the moments when we who live this Earthly life  catch a glimpse of God’s promised future which is actually already happening for those who have passed on.  These are moments that feel as if we can actually taste the rich food and well aged wine of the prophet Isaiah’s vision.  The feast of God which offers us not only a killer menu but the promise of having the shroud of tears and suffering lifted when God swallows up death forever.  This is the kingdom of God which Jesus ushered in and while we are yet to experience it in it’s fullness, it’s breaking in all around us.  But it doesn’t always feel like that.  Like when we experience the very real and inevitable pain of death.

When Jesus himself experienced the very real pain of death we read that Jesus wept.  God cried. God became man, made friends and then those friends died and he cried.  Jesus friend Lazarus was dead.  And not just kinda dead.  In the Jewish tradition the soul hangs out near the body for 3 days and Lazarus has been dead for 4.  So he’s dead dead.  And his distraught sister says to Jesus “if you were here my brother would not have died”.  I love how honest and maybe a little angry she is as she looks at her so called friend this so called messiah and says thanks for nothing.  We are dying here are where were you?  She’s right though because who hasn’t felt that? …where is God when our brothers are dying?  Where is God when we hurt so bad from the sting of death that the loss of it all fills up spaces we used to be able to breath in.  Grief sucking up oxygen like a vacuum. leaving us breathless and vacant.  If Jesus were here my people wouldn’t die.

So, greatly disturbed in spirit, Jesus asks where they had lain his friend and they say “come and see” and it’s then….then he cries.  “Come and see” is exactly what he had said to them.  At the very beginning of John’s Gospel he had called to his would-be followers and said to them “come and see” and so much had happened since then.  So they say to Jesus the very thing he had said to them like a thin place between the beginning of his ministry and this moment. But they are telling him to come and see death.  Come, Jesus, and see the thing that ends life. Jesus’ friends say Come and See…this is what being human looks like God. He was for that moment their disciple as he follows them to the grave and the very stench of death - the shroud that covers everything temporal.  For to be a living being in history is to be characterized by death and separation.  And for this Jesus weeps and later for this Jesus dies.  He dies.  As in dead, dead.  and in three days he rises.  he lives.  as in lives, lives.  In his own resurrection Christ defeats death and separation but here in the raising of Lazarus before he defeats death for good he just gives it a really good slap in the face.   As though God saying here’s what I think of you death.  As though God is saying here’s what I think of separation.  As though God is saying “Death will not separate you from me because I will not for even a moment live without you.”  This event was nothing if not a thin place. God lifting the sheet between the worlds.   God reaching into the stench of death to claim us as God’s own.  This resurrection event was a glimpse of God’s death swallowing future.  And that’s why I started thinking of this Lazarus story as the first liturgy.  

         See, reading this passage this week I was reminded  of a story I’ve told you before of what my worship professor at Luther seminary said about liturgy.  He asked on the very first day of class “what is it that happens in worship” “We pray for the whole world”  one guy said  “we praise God” answered someone else.  And when we had exhausted the obvious Dr. Teig looked at us and said.  “Actually, we raise the dead.”

So that day in Bethany was perhaps the first worship service.  The living wounded gathered in love and expectancy as the people pray, hear Christ preached and are raised from the dead in a glimpse of what is to come in the fullness of God’s time. This was the first worship service. It takes 11 more verses in John until they get to the meal part though…  I guess the passing of the peace and the announcements took a long time….but the fact is that when they gathered to mourn their dead that day in Bethany they glimpsed the time of God in which all things are made new.  The shroud was lifted enough for them to see God’s future in which death is swallowed up forever. That day as Jesus slapped death in the face they got a sneak peek at God’s time slipping into our time.  Like a thin place between the now and the not yet.  Like a thin place between us and our dead. And then Jesus commanded Lazarus’ community to unbind him.  

The community was commanded to unbind the death garment from their brother As God is saying “Death will not separate you from me because I will not for even a moment live without you.”And we too participate in this thin place between our time and God’s time, between us and our dead through Word, Sacrament, Community, because in all these we are joined to the whole Body of Christ regardless of whether or not they are historically present. But that’s the way it is within the mystical body of Christ where all times are present at all times. Today as we sing hymns are hear the Word and receive the Eucharist we stand with Mary Magdalen and Frances of Assisi as real as we stand with Stuart Sanks and Victoria Shotwell and as real as we stand with those who are not yet even born. All the saints of all times join in the heavenly chorus singing the glory of God.   We acknowledge this every week as we sing the sanctus.  When with all the choirs of angels, with the church on Earth and the hosts of heaven we praise God’s name as holy holy holy. We like Lazarus need this word of God to call us out of the tomb daily to live as resurrected people, maybe still stinky from the grave, in this perverse hope of a God who dies only to be raised, who weeps for our suffering while offering provision of God’s own self for our wholeness. We are all the Mystical body of Christ gathering as the saints always have to sing the glory of God to hear Christ preached and to eat at God’s Feast that is now and is also yet to come. 
This, my friends, is the thin place called the communion of Saints where with all the faithful of all time we tell of the death defeating God who will not for a moment live without you. So as the funeral liturgy says, even as we go down to the grave we make our song Alleluia, Alleluia

Lazarus Tattoo

Tattoo by Julian at White Lotus Tattoo (Highlands Ranch, Co)

Sermon on Mark 10:17–31

17As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"  18Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.  19You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'"  20He said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth."  21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."  22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
     23Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!"  24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!  25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."  26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?"  27Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."
     28Peter began to say to him, "Look, we have left everything and followed you."  29Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,  30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions — and in the age to come eternal life.  31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."

What must I do to inherit eternal life, says the rich man to Jesus.  Which is a little weird since in family inheritance the big thing you have to do is basically try to still be alive when the other guy dies, right? but it’s a question that, in it’s utter cluelessness, reminds us that inheritance is more about the wealth and generosity of the one who is giving than the worthiness and efforts of the one receiving.

The rich man in his entitlement and comfort and confidence in his ability to obey the commandments comes and says to Jesus…if you could just give me a personal salvation management program, that’d be awesome, I can take it from there.  So Jesus looks at him, loves him and then totally freaks him out.  Ok, Sell all you have and give it to the poor.  Shocking.
So, this is the same Jesus who just a chapter ago was telling us to cut off our own hands and feet and yet we are shocked when he implies we too should cut off our bank accounts?

How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God says Jesus.  How hard it is for we who are self-reliant and smug to accept how utterly dependent we are on God.  How hard it is for those of us who don’t actually need God to see God.  How hard it is for us for whom comfort: material, financial and physical insulates us from the daily bread reality of our creator. How hard it is for those of us who dedicate ourselves to being good social justice activists to surrender to a God who is likely unimpressed with our busyness.    How hard it is for the powerful to see life abundant in giving away power.  How hard it is to die and be re-born.
So who can enter the kingdom on their own?  Who among us has done the hard things necessary to inherit eternal life? Who among us has sold all we have and given it to the poor?  Who among us has…as the reading from Mark a couple weeks ago suggested…who has hacked off our own feet and hands to ensure our salvation?
If we try to read the discipleship texts from Mark as a personal salvation manual then we imagine that it is we ourselves must cut off our hands and feet, gouge out our own eyes, give away all our possessions and shrink our camel-sized selves down to needle eye size.  But in fact it tends to  be God who does this for us...who prunes us,  feeds us, cuts us and our bank accounts down to size and shapes us. It tends to be God and not us who does the impossible.

This is how it happened with the disciples. The disciples had no personal plan or technique for following Jesus. When the disciples were called it looked more crazy than planned.  God slipped into skin and walked past them calling out ‘follow me’.  dropping their nets they didn’t count the cost, make a plan and follow the steps.  There wasn’t time…they just got swept up into the radical love of a God who comes to us in flesh and blood. Everything they had known is changed.  What they had held dear and clung to was cut away when they dropped those nets.  And you know folks thought they were crazy.
But that’s what happens. Crazy things go on when we are part of this Kingdom of God.  For instance, I never had any desire to befriend evangelical pastors.  If I’d tried to figure out on my own how to get saved and Jesus had said Nadia, for your personal salvation management program you must become friends with Evangelical pastors.  If Jesus had said you must preach at their churches, collaborate on a prayer book and develop fondness and respect for people whose theology and worship looks like its from another planet entirely.  If Jesus HAD said this to me I would go away shocked and grieving for I have many snotty opinions about these people which I’m honestly as comfortable with as that rich guy was with his wealth. I am perfectly happy not liking evangelicals    
I’m also quite happy to not like Missouri Synod Lutherans, especially – for instance- ones who have radio shows in which they tear apart my sermons and basically call me a heretic for being a woman pastor.  Who is exactly the guy I met yesterday at the conference where I was speaking, presumably he was there to get more fuel for his little radio show.  I knew he was there and I did not want to engage with him.  Why?  He spend an entire half hour of a radio show picking apart my sermon on the ELCA Churchwide assembly.  I had never met him, but I don’t like him.  Yet God paid this very little attention yesterday when, despite us both, my LCMS detractor – slash – conservative Christian radio host and I had a 30 minute long conversation which was filled with grace and honesty and in which twice he shed tears.  We spoke of how desperate we both are for the gospel.  Desperate enough to hear it even from each other.  It’s weird that beautiful conversation happened at all since it’s basically impossible.
And yet God went ahead and did this for me—Put me and my enemy face to face yesterday.  And in the past 6 months God has sent me a bunch of Evangelicals to be my brothers and sisters, to have meals with, to love.  This is what happens when God does the impossible and, like the disciples, we get swept up into it. Our Small Catechism says that I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort come to my Lord Jesus or believe in him but the Holy Spirit has called me though the Gospel and enlightened me with the spirit’s gifts.
 The impossible is what happens when,  the Holy Spirit calls us through the gospel and enlightens us with the Spirit’s gifts. I believe that by my own understanding or effort I cannot sell all I have and give it to the poor.  I believe by my own understanding or effort I cannot have beautiful collaborative collegial relationships with Evangelicals, or have grace-filled conversations with my enemies. For me this is impossible, for you this is impossible,…for God, not so much.
So like the rich man…what must we do to inherit eternal life? Still be alive after the other guy dies.  In other words in this life of discipleship – we will die and be reborn again and again in the death and resurrection of Christ as God sweeps us up again and again into the crazy impossible.  So watch those bank accounts brothers and sisters, and those snotty opinions, and your so-called enemies and those plans and management programs.  Because seriously….who knows what crazy thing’s gonna happen.

Beer & Hymns

Poster by Jim Smelser

OMG, I think I'm Belker

You know how in police dramas like Barney Miller or Hill Street Blues all the cops are hanging around the station and they either have on police uniforms or shirts and ties?  But there is always that one undercover guy who looks like the last thing he is is a cop?  He is totally a cop, he just doesn't look like it, which actually helps him do his job. Well, last night as I was heading out the door to go to a synod meeting with a bunch of other Lutheran pastors  I realized "I'm that guy".

Outlaw Preacher podcast - Law and Gospel

 
photo by Agnes Gossler (outside a Baptist church in Berlin, Germany)

Khad Young has posted his conversation with me here. We talk about Law and Gospel, and Anne Coulter at the Well.

More about being an "Outlaw Preacher" later...

Christianity 21 Conference

There has been a lot of buzz about the upcoming Christianity 21 Conference in Minneapolis October 9-11.  Here's why: This is a first.  21 Thinkers, 21 ideas, 21 minutes each.  All women.  This isn't some lame "women's voices in the church" tokenism,  This is a cutting edge conference where all the presenters happen to be female. Go check out who these women are...some will be familiar and others will be new to you.   And all the presenters are hanging out with everyone the whole time for conversations and to share meals.  They don't just do their presentation and disappear. 

For my part, I get to share 2 - 21 minute sessions with Phyllis Tickle in which we will interview each other/simply have a conversation.  Lucky?  yeah.  totally.

Here are some of the cool extras for this conference:
on-site, free-of-charge personal coaches in the areas of Spiritual Direction, Natural Health, Sexual Health, Professional Development and Job Pursuit. Also available are group sessions of yoga and a publishing seminar. In addition, the facility will serve as a living Art Gallery.

Don't miss it.  It's gonna be amazing.  See you there (come find me and say hi!)