Sarcastic Lutheran

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!)

my church peeps

3 HFASSers in their Sinner/Saint shirts outside church last night.

Greenbelt

The Greenbelt Festival is a faith-based justice, music and arts festival (20,000+ people) held every Summer in Cheltenham, England.    The remarkable thing about Greenbelt is the way in which people of faith come together in a very open environment in which conversation and the arts are shared.  Conservatives and liberals - free church and Anglican - all share in this festival despite their differences; what unites them is Jesus and a heart for justice.   There really is nothing like it in the US.  Although that may very well change; i went to a meeting about "Greenbelt in the US" - a potential festival called "Wild Goose" which may take place in a couple of years. 

There were 8 HFASSers who went, including my husband, Matthew.

Here are some highlights:

Thursday
A global emerging church meet up at Gloucester Cathedral the night before Greenbelt.  We had this 800 year old church to ourselves. 

Gloucester cathedral (photo by Amy Clifford)

Friday

Ikon (Pete Rollins' collective in Belefast) did a theo-drama piece clalled Pyro-theology.  I'm still thinking about it today.

Saturday

House for All Sinners and Saints led our Bluegrass liturgy.  Steve Collins shot a bit of video you can see here.  I was a bit nervous about the whole thing since we were in the New Forms venue which generally is where really alternative forms of worship are experienced...lots of multi-media, interactive, deconstructed stuff and we were coming in and playing old Americana hymns and doing a traditional liturgy with confession and absolution, a sermon, and the Eucharist.  But it worked.  The service was everything I could have hoped for.  Much to our surprise we topped out the venue at 250 people, sadly leaving about 120 in line unable to get in.   I'm so grateful for the musicians, most of whom were from the UK, who stepped in and made this service happen.  The HFASSers there really did a great job, especially Jessica who sang like an angel.  The individual absolution with the laying on of hands was beautiful.

 

Sunday
 
I got to be on a couple of panels Sunday.
The first of which was hosted by Doug Gay and was on Leadership and Authority in the Emergning Church.  My fellow pannelists included two beloved friends of mine - Cheryl Lawrie and Cary Gibson

The second panel was on the liturgical year and celebrating feasts and fasts in the emerging church, hosted by Maggi Dawn and included someone I have a deep respect for, Ian Adams

Monday

I gave a talk Monday on being both emerging and denominational. 

(photo Amy Clifford)

What was really amazing was being able to share Greenbelt with my husband and parisioners.  Also spending time with my friends, many of whom I only get to see one a year, fed my soul.

a sermon following the ELCA church wide assembly

Gospel: John 6:56–69

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.  Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.  This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."  He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
     When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?"  But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you?  Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.  But among you there are some who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him.  And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father."
     Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.  So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

In our text for today Jesus is teaching in the synagogue and when he’s done a bunch of his followers say “This teaching is haaaard.” and Jesus is like, O I’m sorry, does this offend you?” and several of them left right there on the spot.  He then asks “Do you also want to leave?” and Peter replies “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life”

As many of you know, my denomination – the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America met in church wide assembly this week.  The highest governing body of the church.  Among the business at hand was deciding on a full communion agreement with the United Methodists, which passed.  And several historic decisions to be made around what this church’s stance is on issues of human sexuality. In the end, we approved a social statement as well as policy changes which now allow congregations to bless and hold publicly accountable those in same sex life long monogamous relationship as well as to call GLBTQ pastors in such relationships to serve as their clergy.  
The debate on the floor between those at the green microphones who support these steps and those at the red microphones who reject these steps was sometimes inspired and sometimes insipid.   Those in support urged the church to be open and loving as Jesus had been.  Those opposed urged the church to heed the Bible.  Both sides were passionate and faithful and I’m proud to say that throughout the debate the assembly paused every 20 minutes to pray together.
As an ELCA pastor serving you,  a community committed to the full inclusion of all GLBTQ brothers and sisters in Christ, I  watched the proceedings with my heart in my throat.  If these policy changes hadn’t been approved I honestly had no idea what I could possible come back to you and say.  Watching people’s comments I would try to fight off thoughts like “man, that guys an idiot” with more or less success.  I watched people say prayerful things, hurtful things, thoughtful things, and idiotic things on both sides of the aisle. Yet there several of my friends were: standing faithfully at the Green microphones.  Standing faithfully to make this church a house of prayer for ALL people.  And I couldn’t help but think…if Jesus was here, he’d be standing in the green line.  And then a young pastor got up to speak at the green microphone and the first thing he said, in a quivering voice was “anyone else frightened to speak?  I’m shaking.  Please pray for me” and the man standing right next to him in at the red microphone reached over and laid his hand on him and prayed while his brother of the opposing view point spoke.  Then I knew that Jesus was really in between the red and green microphones. Not in some sort of neutral “Jesus as Switzerland” sort of way, but in the you must lose your life to gain it sort of way.  Jesus is between the red and the green microphones…between the red and the blue states offering us life and salvation in the Words of eternal life and in the Sacrament of his own body and blood.  Jesus right there between the liberals and conservatives speaking the word that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.  Jesus standing there between those who are harmed and those doing the harming saying forgive as you have been forgiven. 

Part of me is with the disciples who say These teaching are difficult, who can accept them? So when Jesus says Do you too want to leave….I think the only reasonable answer is well yeah.  I do.  cause these teachings are haaaard and I’m very aware of how much these policy changes mean to this community I love but I’m also aware of how painful these policy changes are to a minority in this denomination I love.
So after the vote went the way it did people keep calling and emailing and texting me saying “Are you celebrating?  Aren’t you so happy we won?”  I am, of course.  But I am also deeply aware of the faithful people in the Lutheran church whose hearts are breaking and who now feel as though THEY are the alienated ones.  So how do we celebrate?

To be sure today there are some places to go in the ELCA for super-gay triumphalism…but while celebrating a well won victory is understandable…these are not the words of eternal life. 

To be sure there are some places today in the ELCA where you can hear the words of angry indignation and revolt….but while disappointment is understandable…. these are not the words of eternal life.

To whom shall we go?
Shall we go to partisanship? Shall we go to gurus or celebrities…or both- like Oprah?  Surely Oprah has the words of eternal life.
To whom shall we go?  Fox News?  NPR?  Shall we go to the self-help section of the tattered cover for the words of eternal life?
There are words of eternal life, but they are not our words.  So Let us not go to ourselves because as deeply as we hold our beliefs about inclusion, or social justice, or as deeply as we hold our beliefs about social conservatism or personal morality…we do not have the words of eternal life.  We have our beliefs, our convictions, our understandings of scripture and hear me clearly…these are not to be taken lightly or walked away from.  But they are not the words of eternal life. Jesus, the true Word of God standing between red and green, points us to life and life abundant.  Not the empty satisfaction of being right  because we are the majority or because we are the righteous minority, but counter-intuitively the words of eternal life tell us that we must die.  We must die to self and live to Christ.
At the beginning and the end of these debates Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson reminded us that “WE MEET ONE ANOTHER FINALLY, NOT IN OUR AGREEMENTS OR OUR DISAGREEMENTS, BUT AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS. WHERE GOD IS FAITHFUL, WHERE CHRIST IS PRESENT WITH US, AND WHERE, BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, WE ARE ONE IN CHRIST.

So let’s again look to Christ and not ourselves because in the end there are no winners and losers, there is just what there has always been, the good news of Jesus Christ The Holy One of God.  To whom else shall we go? He has the words of eternal life and offers all the inexplicable gift if his own self, body blood and word. And bid all come and eat.
So today church as we celebrate  …. And there is reason to do so.  Let us pray that the Lord make us one and have mercy on us all and let us recognize that he is already doing  so. amen

My Speaking Schedule

 

If you are around any of these places on any of these days then come by and say hi!

Speaking Schedule:

Sat August 29th Greenbelt (UK) 9p New Forms

House for All Sinners and Saints
“O Sinner Where Art Thou?”
A bluegrass Eucharist

Sun August 30th  Greenbelt (UK) 2p New Forms

Panel discussion: Worship and leadership: a conversation about leadership and worship generally.
 

Sunday August 30th Greenbelt (UK) 3pm New Forms

Panel discussion: Rhythm & calendars, feast-days & fasting: Maggi Dawn hosts a conversation exploring the attention paid to the ebb & flow of the Christian calendar in emerging worship

Monday August 31st 10a Greenbelt (UK)

Talk: “Being denominational and Emerging”

Wednesday September 2nd 7p-9p

Lecture at Preachers seminary Ludwigslust Germany

Thursday September 3rd7:30p-9p

Reading+Speaking at EFG Berlin-Schöneberg; Hauptstr. 125; 10827 Berlin, Germany

Sunday September 6th

Preaching at Elia, Erlangen Germany

Monday September 21st-Tuesday September 22nd

Metro Chicago Synod’s Rostered Leaders’ Conference

Tuesday September 22nd Seabury Seminary
4:45-5:45

open conversation

6-9p

Hosting Emerging church Theology Pub
Seabury Seminary (Chicago Area)

Thursday October 8th Noon-3p
Minneapolis area (check site for details)

Luthermergent National Gathering

Friday October 9- Sunday October 11 Minneapolis, Mn

Christianity 21

A parishioner's status update on Facebook after church last night

The broken and whole beauty of my church (House for All Sinners and Saints) heals me a little bit every single week. I may never be completely whole but then again, I'll never be totally broken again either. Can I get an AMEN.

amen.

HFASS air conditioning system

Old School.

Sermon on the Bleeding Woman

 

Text is from mark chapter 5

21When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.  22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet  23and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."  24So he went with him.
    And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.  25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.  27She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,  28for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."  29Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.  30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"  31And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'"  32He looked all around to see who had done it.  33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.  34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."
     35While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?"  36But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe."  37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.  38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.  39When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."  40And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.  41He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!"  42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.  43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

    There were a lot of things and people in the time of Jesus that were considered unclean.  The list is long and found, not surprisingly,  in Leviticus.  To be unclean means that you are unfit to enter into the temple.  To be unclean is to be unholy and therefore unfit to be in the presence of a Holy God.  And to even touch someone deemed impure…like a bleeding woman or a corpse is to defile yourself so that you too are now impure.  In this system things were clear and everyone had an identity.  But Jesus messed the whole thing up.  Which…is just like him.

    I love that today’ gospel text is about Jesus touching people he shouldn’t be touching.  Jesus defiling himself and breaking all society’s rules about purity.  Making all the wrong people worthy to be in the presence of a Holy God.  I love that this text comes to us on this day… the Feast Day of the unclean…otherwise known as Gay Pride Day.  It is fitting that we sit here and read this text as the trannys and drag kings and fags and dykes and all the other people who society treats as bleeding women and dead girls walk the streets of Denver.  There’ a famous episode of the Simpsons titled “Homer-phobia” where Homer’s wife Marge makes friends with an interior decorator voiced by the very famous and very gay film director John Waters.  He and Homer make fast friends until Homer finally suspects his new friend is gay.  The John Waters character has been trying to tell Homer that he is gay for most of the episode until finally Waters says “Homer – I’m queer” to which Homer replies “You can’t call YOURSELF queer. That’s our name to make fun of you and we neeeed it”.

    We need to have the clean and the unclean.  We neeed it - to know who we are.  We need “those people” to point at whoever “those people” are to you: The intolerant conservatives or the immoral liberals.  The filthy poor or the filthy rich.  The atheists or the Evangelicals. 
    Last week we read the story of Jesus and the disciples crossing the choppy dangerous fearful sea from the Jewish side to the gentile side. And today in Mark’s gospel we are all of the sudden back at the Jewish side but what we missed in-between is amazing. See, while on the Gentile side of the pond Jesus casts out an entire legion of demons from this crazy homeless dude.  Great story.  And while you might think that the town would be happy that their crazy homeless dude is now clothed, in his right mind and … you know, eating with utencils and everything.  They’re not.  They’re fearful and furious.  Because as long as he is the town crazy guy they don’t have to look at their own crazy. Jesus disordered this little purity system and they were angry.  They neeeed that guy to be what is un-holy so that they can feel right with God. They ran Jesus out of town because he took something precious from them…namely the identity they had in relation to who they deemed unclean. 
    But Jesus will have none of that.  Instead he actually touches everything we deem impure, defiling himself again and again.   
    But that’s the way this crazy kingdom of God thing happens.  It brings healing and a disordering of our identities and our purity systems but the thing is…. Sometimes healing can create it’s own wound.  I wonder about our sister the Bleeding woman.  I wonder what her life looked like after that moment.  I wonder if it hurt to be healed.   Like a frostbite patient … when the blood comes back into the extremities it’s incredibly painful.  It’s actually more comfortable to allow parts of ourselves to die than to feel them have new life.  It’s actually more comfortable to cling to the identity of being unclean because then at least we know where we stand.  At least it’s an identity.  But while everyone else neeeeded to call her impure, call her unclean, call her un holy,..…he called her daughter.  In that one word Jesus tells her who she really is and even if that word caused pain as it surged through the parts of her that had been deprived of love and life– child of God is what she is.
    And when it comes down to it, any identity we cling to or insist is primary becomes nothing less that an idol for us to worship and is not IS NOT the word of God. The radical reign of God that Jesus ushers in destroys the systems that say who is clean and who is unclean.  In the radical reign of God anything that I use to define who I am… and anything I use to define who everyone else is  other than the gospel is going to be taken away and I’m going to hate it and It’s going to hurt.
     Because what ever it is that you cling to: money, status, education, marginalization, victimhood, political correctness, moral superiority, resentment…what ever it is….it can never love you like your Jesus can.  These things we choose to keep us safe and comfortable they will never confirm the only identity that really matters…the only identity that brings us  healing, wholeness and salvation.  Because when our impurity and isolation touches even the garment of God it all falls away.  We no longer remain who we say we are or who society says we are or who our families say we are…because as Paul of Tarsus tells us if anyone is in Christ they are a new creature.  A new identity.
But then what?  To where do the formerly unclean go?
      I like to think that maybe the bleeding woman met often with the other lepers and rich young men and prostitutes and tax collectors who had an encounter with Christ.  I like to think that they gathered and ate together and sang of God’s salvation and reminded each other that they are a new creature.  When they lived in a world that wanted them to remain the identified problem.  When they lived in a world that wanted to give them a identity based on something false and small and insignificant to God.  In a world where it’s easy and feels safer to cling to marginalization and victimhood like a blanket.  When they perhaps felt drawn back every day to being what they had been because it’s familiar and comfortable. I hope they became community.  Because it is as the broken and blessed body of Christ that we share the discomfort and joy of healing and remind each other of the Gospel which rings with pain and beauty as it rips away that which we cling to. I hope that the bleeding woman had the other healed freaks over on a regular basis because it is only in this way that we remember who we really are.  Not the unclean, or the impure, but beloved children in the presence of a Holy God who has made us so.
AMEN