Make Room

Christmas Eve-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“She laid him in a cattle trough, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:7). I wonder, how often does ‘finding space’ for Jesus sound like adding another thing on our to-do list? Along with shopping, and baking, and holiday cards, and decorating, and navigating family dynamics—not to mention working for social justice and peace on earth(!)—things quickly get complicated. Trying to make Christmas happen, whether for ourselves or loved ones, becomes overwhelming—especially when added to other crises—like job pressures, money worries, illnesses, addiction, grief and loss.

So, Christmas comes, if it comes at all, when we are minding our own business like that bunch of hard-working shepherds in fields near Bethlehem keeping watch over their sheep. What could have been more unexpected or out of place than a multitude of Angels, shining with heavenly glory announcing, “Do not be afraid. Don’t be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy for all the people.”

Has that ever happened to you? I have no trouble believing, as scripture says, that this announcement, once they managed to calm down, brought the shepherds great joy. I can even understand how the incarnation of God in Christ could bring joy big enough to include not just them, but all people.

An event like what happened to those shepherds is worth celebrating even today, two thousand years later. But that’s not what we’re doing today. Incredibly, the church has always insisted that the Christ event is not something that happened in history for a particular time, but it is something that happens over and over. Joy isn’t something we accomplish. It isn’t something the powerful bring into being. It is something that God, out of deep, deep love for us, shows up and gives us: namely the divine life in our very midst.

Could this joy be waiting for you this Christmas—not just today, but every day and not just for you in the singular you as in y’all? God’s love, and therefore, joy is God’s gift for all. God is the one who comes in the flesh for all flesh.

So, what’s wrong? How do we keep missing out on this? Or at least, how do I keep missing it? Well, let me tell you how Christmas joy happened once in front of me, and, like the innkeeper in Bethlehem, the door to my heart was closed.

It was a Christmas many years ago with extended family. Victoria, (not her real name), was the youngest of four sisters. Her older siblings were in high school and college when she was born. Vicky grew impatient at being smaller and excluded all the time. She worked at being grown up almost from the time she could walk. So, it wasn’t completely surprising when she announced one September, at age 5, that she was going to pick out and pay for Christmas presents all by herself.

She saved her allowance. She quietly observed what each person wanted; what they needed; and what they liked. She made her purchases only after she was confident, she had just the right gift. She wrapped them and placed them under the tree. She beamed anytime anyone tried to peek or poke at the gifts she had bought.
Looking back, I think she considered it a kind of coming of age. She was finally as much a part of Christmas as everyone else. Except, in many ways, she had done a much better job. There was something for everyone: a deodorant (just the right brand); a pair of socks to match a favorite outfit; a small picture of John Lennon (a favorite), bobby pins (because I forget why); a shampoo gentle on hair dye; toe-nail clippers, and for me—a new tooth brush just in time to replace my worn out and frayed one.

In response to her thoughtfulness, I did the worst thing possible—I laughed. We made fun of her gifts. We joked about how bad we must smell and about the condition each other’s toes nails. There were a lot of five-year-old tears shed that night. We made her cry. She felt rejected.

After the paper was rounded up and thrown away we realized that we had left another gift unclaimed that year. We were closed off and blind to the true gift of Christmas kindness and generosity which was so well expressed by Vicky’s simple thoughtful gifts. The true gift—God’s gift of the Christ child went unopened. That night, there was more than one gift-giver who was rejected.

Kindness, vulnerability, and love are easy to brush aside. Yet doing so comes at a cost. We close ourselves off to joy. God’s gift of new life in Christ is easily overlooked and rejected. Often the gift is returned without even being opened. There was no room for Jesus in Bethlehem. There is still no room for him today. The little town of Bethlehem today must be accessed by passing through barbed wire and a 30-foot-tall security wall. The nativity scene being displayed is strewn with the rubble of bombed buildings Minds are closed, our hearts fail to yield—they will not accept or even consider the gifts the Christ-child brings.

The gift of incarnation goes ‘all the way down.’ Incarnation means that God is in, with, under, and among all flesh, including our enemies. Incarnation extends beyond human life to include the wide expanse of the cosmos. Theologian Thomas Jay Ord has said, “Whenever I see something in nature, good, true, beautiful, lovely, or loving I think God is the source of that activity.” God is present there and active.

Mary said yes to Gabriel. Mary made room for the spirit at the expense of all those things we clutch onto—safety, reputation, success, property. Did she see her flesh for what it was—weak, powerful, human, and holy?

Let us pray. “God of the womb, it is not lost on us that you submitted to the body of a woman, trusting in it to protect and grow you. As we remember the nine months you dwelt in the womb, the body of God being nurtured and carried, remind us that our own bodies are worthy of such care and tenderness. May this be a season of sacred pause, as we allow time to be near to our own bodies, to protect and strengthen them. In a world that demands so much of us, remind us that Christ did not come to us in physical independence, allowing the world to take and use him without limitation. Show us the face of the Christ who was gravely dependent, who needed to be held, fed, washed. Who needed to be soothed and rocked to sleep. If we are to honor the divine in us, may it be this divinity—fully embodied, fully dignified in the body. Amen.” (Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (New York: Convergent, 2024), 231.)

Make way, make room and Merry Christmas.

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Finding God in Darkness

Advent 4C-24

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Cast down the mighty!  Send the rich away! Fill the hungry! Lift the lowly! (Luke 1:52-53).  Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is the oldest Advent hymn. It is sung everywhere the church gathers for Evening Prayer. It is read every year on the fourth Sunday of Advent.

Mary’s song, inspired by 1 Samuel 2:1-10, was the song of another young women named Hannah. Hannah’s song was already centuries old when Mary took it up and made it her own. When her kinswoman welcomed her, Mary burst into song. That moment could be called the very first Christian worship service. Mary and Elizabeth — representing the young and the old, the unmarried and the married, the socially established and the socially vulnerable — found common ground in their love for Jesus—just like us. Mary received the gifts of community, blessing, and hope from Elizabeth. Together, they formed a church, the living Body of Christ.

Looking at the lyrics is it surprising Mary’s name means ‘troublemaker?’  A colleague pointed out this week that Mary’s name is derived from ‘Miriam.’  Miriam, you recall, was the sister of Moses and Aaron who led the women in singing and dancing after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea and were delivered from the Egyptians. The etymological root words of Miriam’s name mean “beloved,” and “bitter,” and “rebellious, and ‘troublemaker.’  ‘Troublemaker’ is an especially fitting moniker for Mary. Mary has been making good trouble inside and outside the church, for centuries.

Mary’s song is so subversive, governments twenty centuries later would ban its public recitation. During the British rule in India the Magnificat was prohibited from being sung in church. That’s why, years later, Mahatma Gandhi requested that Mary’s song be read everywhere the British flag was being lowered on the final day of imperial rule in India. The junta in Argentina forbade the singing of Mary’s song after the ‘Mothers of the Disappeared’ displayed its words on placards in the capital plaza. And during the 1980s, the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador prohibited any public recitation of the song.

Mary, Elizabeth, Miriam and Hannah show us that one of the best ways to be the church is by making a living sanctuary of hope and grace for each other. They are open, welcoming, and ready to hold one another’s story—whether that story is of pain or of joy. They also show us something else that is particularly timely. They teach us that one of ways for the church to resist tyranny is to make art.

Irish poet and theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama amplified this point for me this week while reflecting on the word ‘poem’ which comes from the Greek poiēma (ποίημα) meaning “a made thing.”  Ó Tuama said, “In the face of all pressures, and especially in the face of destructive threat I take joy in the deepest vocation of humankind which is ‘to make.’ All art is a form of making so therefore all art is a form of resistance to that which is destructive… destructive violence only has one plot line which is to win and to kill.  And that makes for a very very boring book” he said. “To make something is to lead us into the unknown to the surprise, the collaborations, communications and connections that really open us up to ourselves, the complicated beautiful selves that we are and the   complicated beautiful selves that others are and the ways we can collaborate with each other… What brings me joy,” Ó Tuama said, “is the making that is behind poem.” (Pádraig Ó Tuama, Advent Calendar, The Cottage, 12/18/24).

Mary’s song engenders hope. Singing makes those who sing into a community, however briefly. Mary’s words of grace are sewn with song like mustard seed that find the good soil hidden in every human heart.

Mary, Elizabeth, Miriam and Hannah teach us how to wait in longing when the world offers little reason to hope. Of course, this is what the season of Advent is all about. Here, in the Northern Hemisphere, on this day after the Winter solstice, we celebrate Jesus our light, who brings new life like the coming summer sun. This is the obvious metaphorical meaning of the early church’s choice of the solstice for the date of Christ’s birth (which no one really knows).

The less obvious metaphor is more profound. At this darkest time of year, in the bleak winter landscape, when the soil is frozen, we find hope, knowing the movement of God is not dependent on our ability to perceive it. God’s wait “in the womb of Mary was not time wasted but an intimate beginning in mystery, growth, and dependency.”   (Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, 2024, pp 228 – 233)

Here’s where Mary’s song stirs up some good trouble in us, because to make a home in Advent darkness we will have to clear away the debris, open windows, and bust through some locked doors we have inherited that prevent us from receiving the wisdom of hope and the gifts of blackness. The blessings of Advent have been a source of strength and comfort to our ancestors in times of uncertainty and chaos. They could be useful for us now.

On the day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King said, “Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black ugly and evil.  Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word black.  It’s always something degrading and low and sinister.  Look at the word white, it’s always something pure, high, and clean.” This deception has made us blind to the breadth of meaning found in Advent and Mary’s song.

The idea that God ordained the Americas as a “promised land” for European Christians has had devastating effects for more than 500 years. One careful study reveals that anti-black racism increases (increases!) with church attendance, even among white mainline congregations like ours. I ask myself, what can explain this?  Could it be that for most of American history, we have worshiped a light-skinned Jesus?

It’s amusing but also tragic that white Christians in America are startled when they are confronted with an obvious fact: Jesus was not a white man. Mary was a very young woman of color. “This Advent, may we reclaim the sacred Black…may we remember that Christ was formed in the holy darkness of the womb—that our origin is not the garden but the dark…May the darkness guide us into deeper rest, resisting exhaustion and overexposure.  May it be a darkness that opens us to the unknown, that we would make peace with uncertainty and marvel at mystery. And may it be a darkness that forms us into people capable of holding the lament of others, that we would never be too quick to turn on the light while someone else is grieving.  Hold us in the dark womb of Advent [O Lord].  Let us remember what glory grows in the dark.” (Riley)

“Our image of God creates us—or defeats us. There is an absolute connection between how we see God and how we see ourselves and the universe. The word “God” is a stand-in word for everything—for Reality, truth, and the very shape of our universe…. A mature God creates mature people. A big God creates big people. A punitive God creates punitive people” (Richard Rohr, “Letting our Images Mature,” Daily Meditations, 12/8/24).  A white-only Jesus makes us blind to systematic racism.

We proclaim the gospel of Jesus with art and song and hospitality for all like Mary, Elizabeth, Hannah, and Miriam so that God will again have a gracious, merciful and loving human face that we see in people of all colors and ethnicities. Living inside God’s embrace transforms our lives with love. “Unexpected and mysterious is the gentle word of grace” (ELW #258). In darkness and longing, perfect love casts out fear, kindles joy and renews our strength.  As Mary’s song proclaims, God in Christ Jesus exults over us. What is left for us to do but sing?

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A Nightmare on Elmdale Streeet

Advent 3C-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

In the eye of a hurricane witnesses say there is a dead calm. There are no birds chirping or dogs barking. Everything is bracing for what comes next. I’ve never been in a hurricane, but I feel what we’re living through now must be something like it. The frenzy of the election season has receded. The time between November 5th and January 20th is like the eye of a storm. There’s nothing to do now but wait to confront whatever is coming next.

The political crisis in the US feels like a hurricane, and yet, it’s not the only approaching storm we face. The horizon looks ominous on multiple fronts. There is a climate emergency. There is a technological revolution driven by artificial intelligence and quantum computing. There is a culture war and a fundamental dispute about who has the right to say what we do with our bodies. There is a religious battle between fundamentalisms and pluralisms across the world. Christians cannot name and proclaim the same gospel against the rising tide of Christian nationalism (an oxymoron) and Christian Zionism (a tragic lie).

This Third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete” or “Rejoice” Sunday. Yet, how are we to rejoice? John the Baptist proclaims good news to all the people. Zephaniah exhorts us to “sing aloud, rejoice, and exult” because God is in our midst, and rejoices over us with gladness (Zeph. 3:14, 17). Isaiah claims with confidence his people will “draw water from the wells of salvation” with joy (Is. 12:3). And Paul encouraged the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). Are we just supposed to act like everything is okay when it’s not? Too often I think this is exactly what ‘Christmas cheer’ amounts to.

Yet before we dismiss our scripture as being out of touch with the serious situation we are facing, we must pause and remember the Bible we read, and reverence is a wilderness text. It is a text borne of trauma, displacement, and loss, written mostly by the persecuted, the enslaved and the desperate. Our ancestors in faith lived through periods of famine, war, plague, and natural disaster. They suffered starvation, violence, barrenness, captivity, exile, colonization, and genocide. They were brave lonely voices, crying in the desert…of their sorrow…their rage, fear, horror, and pain…and most remarkable: they also cried of their hope. “Their fierce, muscular hope in a God who cares. A God who vindicates. A God who saves. Something about the wilderness experience birthed in them a capacity for profoundly life-changing hope. Salvific hope. Hope beyond hope.” A hope that gives way to joy. Hope and joy became the rocket fuel that propelled the early church. (Debi Thomas, “A Voice Crying,” Journey with Jesus, 11/28/21.) Can it offer an answer for us now?

John the Baptist is some strong gospel medicine. With fire and brimstone, he rained fierce judgements on the heads of religious leaders and political authorities. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee the wrath to come?” Throughout our bible we hear the surprising message that joy and judgment are impossible to separate. “In the language of scripture, synonyms for judgment include discernment, acuity, sharpness, and perception. To judge something is to see it clearly — to know it as it truly is.” (Thomas)
So, the terrible voice and visage of John the Baptist is the bible’s pick to announce the coming Christ child because he stands and shouts from within the wilderness of our own broken dreams and disappointments. He invites us to see things clearly.

The Holy Spirit, released into our blood stream at the table and the font, works now to bring to our awareness with brutal honesty, judgement about the sin in ourselves, our household, our church, our economy, our culture, and our nation. These may seem to us more like nightmares than the gospel. Yet, if once we follow John the Baptist into the wilderness of our guilt and shame, we discover it is from there that our true salvation comes. The good news becomes truly good news. Hope and joy become like rocket fuel once we begin to have the right nightmares.

Yes. This means John the Baptist, and not St. Nick, is that dreadful and inviting spirit of Christmas who confronts us today like the ghosts that haunted Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carole. Scrooge is blessed with the right nightmares and thus is made new. He is ushered from misery into hope and joy. Could it propel us to confront the storms that we face?

You remember the story? In the beginning, Scrooge dismissed the invitation to generosity and compassion as ‘humbug.’ A mighty fortress protects Scrooge’s heart from recognizing his own sin-sick soul and the suffering he is responsible for. But Scrooge receives grace through the intervention of his dead friend, Marley. He is visited by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Scrooge’s terrifying experience at seeing ghosts is replaced by a still more terrible vision of the waste and pain he has wrought by his own miserly, small-spirited, life. The visions end with Scrooge falling into his own grave just like we do in baptism.

Scrooge’s nightmares turn his heart toward another possibility. When he awakes, he does just that. With shouts of joy in the streets, he becomes a participant in God’s world in a new and more beautiful way. (Tripp Fuller, Divine Self-Investment: An Open and Relational Constructive Christology, Sacra Sage Press, 2020, pp. 117-118)
The priests and political powers of ancient Israel had fashioned a world in their own image. It was an upside-down world compared to the one created in God’s own image, the imago dei. John the Baptist points us to a new mind and heart in his call to ‘repentance.’

The Greek word for “repent” is “metanoia.” It is closely related to the word ‘metamorphosis’ as in to change from a caterpillar to a butterfly. It is a radical change, a transformation of mind, a new source and reason for our lives that follows the call and imitation of God’s love. Perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love lifts our spirits. Perfect love kindles our joy and renews our hope. The grace of God sets our life right side up.

In this metamorphosis the old root wrapped tightly around us like the Mighty Fortress Scrooge had wrapped around his heart, is being cut away so Christ may live in us and through us. See, even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees. With the right nightmares, our dread fear is replaced by hope and joy. This is the fuel we need. This is the right heart and mind and spirit we need. “Wakened by the solemn warning, from earth’s bondage let us rise; Christ our sun, all sloth dispelling, shines upon the morning skies” (“Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding,” ELW # 246).

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Com’in Straight On For You!

Advent 2C-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

John the Baptist, and not St. Nick is the one whom Luke calls “prophet of the Most High” (Luke 1:76). God appointed the wild and wooly John to prepare the way for the infant Jesus.

You might wonder, why on earth would people flock to the desert at considerable expense, effort, and personal risk to see John? I think it’s because John offered them grace without the Temple and its religious strictures. John offered union with God despite their uncleanness which their work life or social status made unavoidable, inevitable, and indelible. John offered them grace freely and abundantly. The price was metanoia –or repentance—a new mind, a complete turnabout. John opened the way to the life that Jesus lived, proclaimed and endured. In other words, John offered hope.

He is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. He was like the voice of one crying (Luke 3:4). For modern Christians John announces the coming of something more than piles of ripped wrapping paper, ribbons and boxes. John proclaims the advent of God. Grace un-folding and abounding is making its way again to us. Look! A royal highway is under construction. God in Christ Jesus is bringing low the high obstacles. Jesus is straightening out the crooked pathways. Jesus is working a way to into our hearts. Christ will carry us home again amidst shouts of joy from angels on high. The 17th century German priest and poet, Angelus Silesius, famously wrote, “If in your heart you make a manger for his birth then God will once again become a child on earth” (Angelus Silesius, b. 1624 – d. 1677).

John announced the coming of the Messiah from heaven to earth. In the fifteenth year of the emperor, when governor so-and-so ruled with two other people who were Big Deals, and the high priesthood of (blank) and of (blankety-blank) were in charge in Jerusalem, the word of God came—not to any of them—but to John, son of nobody you’ve heard of, in the wilderness. (Luke 3:1-2). Luke’s gospel is a shot across the bow to political and religious windbags and despots everywhere. God’s holy highway breaks through the wilderness, from the margins, among the lowly. The voice in the wilderness cries out for the way of God to be prepared with relentless urgency. John’s voice kindles hope for the lost and bewildered.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that the road Jesus opens links us with each other. The pathway to God runs to, not over, our fellow human beings. In fact, we finally arrive at home dwelling in God, not at the end of this road, but just by being on this road. Simply by walking the way of Jesus we are home. Christ is with us, and we are with one another. In the words of Martin Luther, “We are not now what we shall be, but are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal, but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”

John gave the people hope with the assurance that God’s home is here with us and in us and everyone. That’s why people matter, justice matters, how we live makes a difference not only for those around us but for us too. The peaceable kingdom is more than a dreamy vision of heaven. It is God’s dream for the world—and once we begin to live there in Christ Jesus, we are always, already home no matter where we travel. This is the gift of the incarnation. This is the source of our hope.

With baptism for the forgiveness of sins John offered the people of ancient Israel a vision of unity with God and each other that re-kindled their hope. Two thousand years later, John’s message about God building a highway to reach us and carry us home has power to restore our lives, light the fire of love to warm our households, give new life to the church, and find the common ground upon which to build a more perfect union.
John’s proclamation of incarnation has this extraordinary life-giving power because this is our founding story. French philosopher, Régis Debray, and historian, Yuval Noah Harari, point out that such Stories are the ground beneath our feet which enable homo sapiens to purposefully cooperate in collective endeavors and to build civilizations. Without a common story, societies can’t hang together and thrive, no less survive. When the story unravels, so then does the society.

What it means to be a follower of Jesus is changing as his gospel once again emerges out from under the shadow of Empire, colonization, domination, and extraction. What it means to be an American is likewise undergoing profound revision and expansion. God has placed both into the refiner’s fire of truth. We pray God will find a way lead us forward, bring us home, and rekindle our hope in a common future.

In the meantime, we are bewildered, confused, lost, at sea, stranded in a trackless wilderness with no clear path ahead. John tells us the truth is startling. We do not have far to go to find our way home. John stands in the middle of the wilderness like one of those signs you sometimes see on the highway that reads, ‘If you lived here, you would be home by now.’ God’s kingdom is already, always, everywhere, here, and now. In fact, our home in God travels with us. It’s never far away. John is standing at the off ramp signaling to the lost to be found, for those stumbling in deep darkness to find light, for the hungry to find food and for those who thirst to find living water to drink.

Just keep the dotted line of compassion on your left, and the solid line of God’s steadfast love on the right. You don’t need anything more. You don’t need special knowledge or skill. You don’t have to know where you are to find your way home and into the loving arms of God.

This is how the church becomes the gathering place of those once scattered. Diverse and different, we are one in Christ. The is the way the church sends us out knowing that we are secure in the house of the Lord—even as we stay on the move, following the way of life that Jesus did, said, and endured. The one who came and is coming draws us together into the One Life of God. Rich and poor, slaves and free, male and female, young and old, gay and straight, Jew and gentile, Christians and non-Christians. All are welcome. See ‘every mountain and hill is made low.’ We are joined in one great communion by the Advent of our God. Let the people say, Amen!

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Lord Save Us

Advent 1C-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

To understand the season of Advent picture a collapsed building in Gaza. People there beneath the rubble are still alive. Friends and neighbors crowd at the surface. They begin to work feverishly to uncover loved ones. Those trapped in the pile can do nothing. An agonizing period of waiting and dying is all that remains.

Then suddenly, voices are heard. They cry out, “Help is on the way!” The disheartened victim feels their heart leap. They shout, “Here I am. Come soon!” A final, desperate hammer blow. Just one more step and they are pulled free. Their desperate joy-filled rescue is what Advent feels like.

Advent needs no explanation to political prisoners jailed without justice, or to immigrants forcibly separated from their families, or to the sick longing for healing. Overwhelming joy rises quickly and naturally in them upon hearing the message, “Today you are delivered.”

‘Think of those who strive to lead a Christian life and yet fail; think of the son who can no longer look his father in the eye, or the husband who can no longer look his wife in the eye. Think of the addict who tells themselves, ‘Tomorrow I will stop,’ while knowing it is a lie. Think of the disruption of these lives and the hopeless mess they are in. And then let us hear again, “Look up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Inspired and from an Advent Sermon given by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in London in 1933).

Some of you will remember with me the immortal line by Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!” I confess, there have been times when Jack Nicholson could have been talking about me. But sooner or later, we all need Advent. Sooner or later, Advent comes. The truth is revealed, and our healing can begin.

Advent is the invitation to tell the truth. Advent calls for honesty, even when honesty leads us straight to lamentation. In Advent, we are invited to describe life “on earth as it is,” and not as we wish it to be or as we mistakenly assume our religion requires us to render it…. “Eschewing all forms of denial, polite piety, and cheap cheer, Advent invites us to allow the radical honesty of Scripture to make us honest, too. We’re asked to stop posturing and pretending. To come to the end of ourselves. To get real. Advent reminds us that we are not called to an escapist, denial-based piety. We are called to dwell courageously in the truth.” (Debi Thomas, “When You See These Things,” Journey with Jesus, 11/25/18).

Yes. We are not enough. Yes. We have messed things up. And yes! Despite this, Advent confronts us with another astonishing truth: the fullness of God’s grace is pleased to dwell in you, here, now, just as you are. Such grace is the beginning of our new life in Christ –a life of abundance, transformed to overflowing by the indelible dignity and love God pours out in each of us right here, right now, in this very moment, and in all the moments that follow. Look up, lift your heads for your rescuer draws near.

In his beautiful book of contemplation, In the Shelter, poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama asks, “How do we say hello to here?” That is, how do we live honestly in our own skins? How do we accept what’s in front of us? How do we guard against numbness, denial, and despair? In his opening chapter, Ó Tuama describes the challenge: “Much of our desire to not-name a place is because we fear that in naming it we are giving it power, and by giving it power we are saying we may not escape. …. To name something can be to call it into being, and we do not wish to call certain things into any kind of being.” (Thomas)

In prophetic language that sounds distressingly contemporary, Jesus describes a world reeling in pain. Roaring seas, distress among nations, people fainting in fear. “When you see these things,” Jesus says, don’t turn away. Don’t hide. Why? Because it’s only when we embrace reality — when we acknowledge and welcome the “here” of human suffering — that we experience the nearness of God.” (Thomas)

Black Friday dreams get our hearts pumping. Sparkly colored lights, and Christmas music saturate every store with the whispered promise that our not-enough lives will finally be better if we acquire more stuff. Grown-ups and sleeping children alike begin to dream of becoming a billionaire. Because, maybe then, we could be enough. But, in the light of day, this dream reveals itself to be a nightmare drowning us in debt, a way of filling storage lockers and garbage dumps more than our human hearts; leaving us to live with pollution and death more than the flourishing and abundant life God intends.

The holy season of Advent which begins today is set to a different tune. The Church begins its new year as the days are still getting darker. Our story begins — not with twinkly lights— but with the world as it really is, here and now. Gorgeous, fragile, and falling apart. “Stand up and raise your heads.” Look. Your rescuer draws near! Advent helps us say hello to here and find redemption in the most startling places. (Thomas)

Advent reminds us that next spring’s seeds break open in dark winter soil. God’s Spirit hovers over dark water, preparing to create worlds. The child we wait for grows in the deep darkness of the womb. ‘Our food is expectation,’ writes Nora Gallagher about Advent. In this season, we strive to find ‘not perfection, but possibility.’” (Thomas)

“So. How do we say hello to here? We begin, Pádraig Ó Tuama writes, by admitting that “the rotten fruit of illusion rarely fills for long.” Advent is an antidote to illusion. It cuts to the chase. It insists on the truth. It lays us bare. Advent invites us to dwell richly in the here, precisely because here is where God dwells when the oceans heave, the ground shakes, and our hearts are gripped by fear. ‘When you see these things,’ Jesus says, hope fiercely and live truthfully. Deep in the gathering dark, something tender continues to grow. Yearn for it, wait for it, notice it, imagine it. Something beautiful — something for the world’s saving — waits to be born.” (Thomas)

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Birth Pangs

Proper 28B-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Do you see these windows and that great red granite cross? “Not one stone will be left upon another,” Jesus said (Mark 13:2b). On this penultimate Sunday of the church year our focus widens. These Sundays of November are sometimes called kingdomtide. We ponder the gospel against the sweep of human history, the rise and fall of nations, the wreck and ruin of civilizations, and the shadowy echoes of human endeavors long since forgotten by everyone but God.

God is nothing if not patient. We strive to love the God who burst on the scene 14 billion years ago in all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever expansiveness, rooted in relationship and grounded in love. We see God’s handiwork in the Big Bang and more. Quantum physics teaches that the ultimate building blocks of the universe are not made of matter, but of a pattern of relationships between nonmaterial entities. If the ultimate building blocks of the universe are relationships, then is it much of a stretch to say the most powerful force in the universe is love? The God who burst on the scene 14 billion years ago in all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever expansiveness, rooted in relationship and grounded in love plays the long game and so should we. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

The great necropolis of Memphis, the capital city of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt now lies in ruins covered mostly by sand. I once rode a rented horse named Chocolate into the Egyptian desert near Cairo there, to see Sakkara, ancient Egypt’s first pyramid. Along the way I steered my horse through another building that appeared to be an ancient place of worship. As I rode through the front door, down the center aisle, across the spot I imagined the altar once stood, and out a hole in the back wall, I wondered; what sacrilege had I committed that day to whoever built that place and worshipped there? Will there be a day, when someone will wander through the remains of Immanuel? What comes of all our striving? What echo of our lives will persist in those days, when the very stones with which our church is assembled have turned to sand?
In Jesus’ day, the temple in Jerusalem was one of the most impressive sights in the world. Torn down twice since King Solomon built it, the second rebuilding was undertaken by Herod before Jesus’ birth. It was not finished until after his crucifixion.

When Jesus and the four disciples sat opposite the temple across the Kidron valley upon the Mount of Olives, looking down upon the temple, they were looking at a brand-new building. It was clad with so much gold, looking at it directly could literally be blinding. Forty years later, the Roman army knocked that temple off its foundations. They took its holy artifacts and marched them in a parade all the way to the streets of Rome. Thousands and thousands of innocent Jews were slaughtered in the streets of Jerusalem. Thousands were captured and sold into slavery. And thousands were taken from their homes and exiled into other parts of the Roman Empire. The destruction of the temple was unthinkable to the disciples. The fact of its destruction was bewildering to those who lived it. They surely thought it could only mean one thing—that God had abandoned them!

This passage from Mark’s Gospel is often described as a mini apocalypse. It may leave us feeling rather bleak and sad. The author’s intention is quite the opposite. The word ‘apocalypse’ means ‘unveiling.’ A problem that cannot be seen cannot be solved. A Christian apocalypse draws back the veil to reveal the loving hand of God at work in the world. We are meant to see what is truly eternal, to distinguish it from what is merely passing, and to glimpse the truth that will set us free. But of course, sometimes truth, no matter how liberating, is also quite painful and disorienting.

In 2016, American author and social activist Adrienne Maree Brown wrote in reference to racial injustice and the Black Lives Matter movement: “Things are not getting worse, they are getting uncovered. We must hold each other tight and continue to pull back the veil.” Brown’s words could be a summary of today’s gospel: Things are getting uncovered. Let’s hold each other tight and pull back the veil. (Debbie Thomas)

Just what is it that is getting uncovered in America today? The America I have always loved is the Statue of Liberty America. The words of poet, Emma Lazarus, are written there on a bronze plaque affixed to the pedestal, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” The America I love is a creation of immigrants who arrived here after the life they had known was shattered, by war, by despotism, by shifting political winds, and the rising tides of hatred. They come from every part of the globe, bringing remembered food, songs, prayers, customs, comforts, and worries to become new people in a new world.

But there has always been another America, just as singular and deeply rooted in the history of our nation that is being uncovered now. It is an America of, by, and for white men, built upon an economy of extraction, the culture of patriarchy, and a church corrupted by colonization and slavery. This America has re-asserted itself ever more forcefully these past ten years. It is a sickness dwelling in America’s heart that will not be healed by just pretending it isn’t there. You and I have no power to heal it. This disease lives in us. It affects and infects each of us. It cannot be healed except by the greatest power that exists in the ever-unfolding universe: that is by love and by the people who embody this love in their words, in their listening, in their discipleship, in their acts of compassion, and in their very lives.

Jesus compared the painful process of our healing to giving birth. Mark’s gospel has no account of baby Jesus, no manger, no shepherds, no wise men. Perhaps that is because Mark’s entire gospel is a nativity story. Jesus told them, “The kingdom of God has come near.” The time is fulfilled. The kingdom has arrived! Mark’s nativity is the birth of the kingdom of God in them and in us now, and about how we pass through to the next stage of human and planetary flourishing. (Diana Butler Bass, Sunday Musings, The Cottage, 11/17/24).

God is nothing if not patient with us. It began billions of years ago, from the birth of stars and the destruction of stars, from creation of the periodical table of elements, to the creation of single-celled creatures to today. In all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever expansiveness, all things are rooted in relationship and grounded in love. We look to the future. We see the outlines of a new city, the new Jerusalem, rise upon the earth where there will be no more tears. God is making a new temple in which to dwell not made with human hands in human hearts cleansed, healed and restored by grace. God will dwell there forever. This is the advent of our God Mark’s gospel cares about. This is the joyous coming which Jesus’ promises. Have no fear. Be not afraid. See! A new world is being born.

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A Passion for Justice

Proper 27B-24
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Jesus is in Jerusalem. It is the week of the passion, the final week of Jesus’ life. He rode in with shouts of Hosanna three days ago. Yesterday, he drove out the money changers from the temple. Today, he debated the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They peppered him with questions. ‘By whose authority are you teaching?’ ‘Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?’ ‘Who is the true husband of a woman who has had seven husbands?’ ‘Which commandment is the first and the greatest?’ The polls looked promising. Our bible says “…the large crowd was listening to Jesus with delight” (Mark 12: 37). But four days later the people would cast their vote for Barabbas and Jesus would go to the cross.

Jesus was executed by collaborating powers of culture, politics and religion. He rode the vision of God’s crazy abundant love straight into the jaws of Empire, the buzz saw of betrayal, State violence, and human sinfulness and has shown us that darkness did not prevail. Love conquers all. “While we were sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God continues to pour out that redeeming love on us all.

Yes. After the crucifixion the disciples would be grieving, bewildered, and in hiding.Yet Jesus’ story would not end in defeat but become the site and source of the resurrection power from which our hope now springs. The foolishness enterprise of kin-dom building love was transformed by resurrection into the hope and joy which became the rocket fuel to propel Christ’s church. This very same hope and joy propels us now.

Four days before his crucifixion Jesus motioned the disciples to come sit beside him across from the temple treasury. ‘There are those who seek the greatest respect, the best seats, and places of honor whether in the marketplace, the synagogue, or at banquets,’ Jesus said. ‘Beware of those who build themselves up at the expense of the widows and the poor’ (Mark 12:38-40).

They are seated in the temple court of the women, where the treasury was located. The historian Josephus said it was a magnificent and beautiful setting with its lofty porticos supported by exquisitely ornate pillars. There are thirteen trumpet-shaped repositories there, marked for various kinds of offerings. The place is bustling with activity: people moving back and forth, many rich people putting large sums into the temple treasury make a great show of it. Jesus had one scathing critique after another of the economic and political exploitation he witnessed all around him.

Then Jesus pointed out a single person in the crowd tossing two small copper coins—worth about a penny—into the treasury. ‘You see this woman,’ Jesus asked? ‘The others contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (vs. 44). I wonder, was that woman selfless and generous or was she also angry? You have taken nearly everything. Here, you may as well have it all! Her protest, her willingness to give her all, could have mirrored the anger, disappointment, and internal struggle going on in Jesus just then. Perhaps, she was the preacher Jesus in that moment Jesus most needed to hear? Could we be prophets and preachers for each other?

Once the widow left the Temple, Jesus left, too, and as he does, an awed disciple invites Jesus to admire the Temple’s mammoth stones and impressive buildings. Jesus’ response is quick and cutting: “Not one of these stones will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

Jesus notices the people who go unnoticed among us. Jesus will judge us, our church, our society, our political and economic systems by how well we care for the poor. The Greek word for “widow” occurs twenty-five times in the New Testament. The widow epitomizes the reversals and subversions of political power in God’s kingdom. That God cares for widows, and that his people should too, are prominent themes throughout the Bible.

In an America that has never been wealthier than it is today one way to interpret the election results is as a protest of the status quo by the widows of today. People were motivated to vote as they did because they felt sidelined by the economy. The opportunity horizon for many continues to narrow. Can we learn to listen with curiosity to those with whom we disagree politically?
Like the disciples after the crucifixion, many of us are grieving now. I am grieving with you. I fear for migrant families, for LGBTQIA+ children, and for the very future of our planet. Grief cannot be hurried. Take the time you need to respond, not react.

Respond, don’t react. We must resist the temptation to become cynical. Democracy is a gift for the human species. It is worth believing in and working toward. We must refuse inaction. It is tempting to throw up our hands and declare, ‘this is your bed, now sit in it.’ Doubtless there will be tragedy and suffering in the coming days. We must cultivate compassion. We must refuse to become hopeless because all those who abide in Christ Jesus, know that there is always hope. Hope fights with us. Finally, we must refuse to be contemptuous of our neighbors. We must recognize the frailty of human finitude in ourselves and in others. We must not render unto our neighbors a judgement which God renders upon no one. Have reverence for all for God dwells abundantly within us all.

Respond, don’t react. “Speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Speak your conscience and listen more than you speak. God gave you two ears and one month. Act accordingly. If we don’t take time to be curious about one another then we are going to put everyone in a silo and judge them. It is difficult these days to be in relationship long enough to discover what our different understandings of each other and the world are. The scale of our relationships has been so diminished and algorithm-ized by social media.

Natalie Angier, Science reporter for the New York Times wrote, “Hard as it may be to believe in these days of infectious greed and sabers unsheathed, scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy.”

We follow the way of Christ crucified. In the week of his passion Jesus showed us the power of the passion for justice. The Christ we follow used his body. He put his body among the people. His body felt the gruesome pain of crucifixion. Now we are, as a church, the global body of Christ. Our bodies—and the collective body we are a part of—are powerful. The love of God we embody has power to change the world. It cannot be not defeated or diminished but flourish and prevail wherever darkness and hatred would rule. Let hope and joy be your source and fuel. Amen.

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Come Out!

All Saints B-24

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

The ancient Celtic Christians believed the veil between heaven and earth becomes especially thin at this time of year.  Through the lens of autumn decay, awareness of the rhythm and turning of the seasons points like a compass needle controlled by the unseen magnetic force of love toward the undying life in Christ. On this festival of All Saints, the church is dressed in white baptismal colors as a sign of this life that we share. Today’s scripture makes explicit what is known in the natural world.  Lazarus stumbles from the tomb to proclaim that death is a subset of life.  Death is ephemeral and transitory. Only life is eternal. In Christ, God has swallowed up death forever.

In its place, the prophet Isaiah declares, “God has prepared 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” (Isaiah 25: 7).  Free from the sting of death, we no longer need fear anyone who would threaten our mortality. Baptism is the basis for Christian courage and joy no matter what life brings.

In today’s gospel Jesus had narrowly escaped arrest in Jerusalem when he declares his intention to return.  The disciples were astonished, “Rabbi,” they said, ‘the authorities were just now trying to stone you, are you going there again?’ (John 11:7-8).  Jesus returned to Jerusalem to confront everything we seek to avoid.  He confronted the threat of physical violence.  He confronted the hostility of the religious community. He confronted those who had given up hope.  He confronted his grief at the death of a close friend.  He confronted death itself.

Jesus wept. In fact, scripture says, he wailed. “When Jesus weeps, he legitimizes human grief. When Jesus cries, he assured Mary not only that her beloved brother is worth crying for, but also that she is worth crying with. Through his tears, Jesus calls all of us into the holy vocation of empathy.” (Debie Thomas, When Jesus Weeps, Journey with Jesus, 10/28/18)

“Jesus’ command to Lazarus (John 11:43) is symbolic of the invitation he issues to all the imprisoned, forgotten, left behind, left for dead, abandoned, and alone. Jesus calls those who, lured by the empty promises of false gods—power, things, money, prestige—are now bound by them. The God who weeps with us comes looking for us and rolls away the stone, no matter how far gone we are: “Come out!” (Michaela Bruzzese, Sojourner Magazine)

When he arrived after four days at the tomb of Lazarus there was already a stench. At home, we have a five-gallon bucket to collect food waste for compost. We get a new bucket each week. Day one it’s in the kitchen. By day four it’s in on the porch for as Martha said, ‘Lord, it stinketh.’ The story of poor Lazarus is the story of our own smelly rebirth as Saints in light.

Sometimes, I feel for poor Lazarus.  He has barely begun his eternal rest.  No doubt, it was well deserved. His eyes blinking open in the darkness of that cave could he see beyond his bandages?  Jesus commanded him to return to his life, to engage again in the deadly tension and struggle with the leaders in Jerusalem.  I wonder, did Lazarus join Jesus’ Palm Sunday parade?   Jesus calls him into an uncertain future. He knew only that he would die again. He knew, also, that he was loved. His sisters and friends were there with him. He knew, also, that the love of God was in, with, and under him wherever he might journey whether in death or in life.

  We might call this our nation’s Lazarus moment. We are forced to grapple anew with fundamental questions about governance, civic life, shared values, and the role of faith in shaping our collective future. As the recent ELCA Conference of Bishop’s statement declared, “We refuse to accept the ongoing normalization of lies and deceit” (10/1/24). Two very different and diametrically opposed visions of America lay before us. Like Lazarus, we do not know what the future holds or what kind of country we will wake up in later this week.

“As followers of Christ, we strive to meet this moment with clarity and courage, charity and conviction, drawing on the depths of our moral imaginations and theological traditions to articulate afresh a theology of democracy fit for our times…We face this moment with great resolve and deep humility. Christianity has had an ambivalent and at times hostile relationship with democracy, as evidenced in colonial domination and the dispossession of indigenous peoples, the brutal enslavement of Africans, and the denial of women’s rights. We continue to reckon with the legacies of slavery and segregation, and with the enduring racism that limits achievement of a true multiracial democracy… [Yet] core to Christianity is the belief that all people are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26-27) and that our loving God is incarnate in the humanity of Jesus Christ. God’s love, therefore, embraces all of humanity and calls us to respect every person. Democratic governance is an outgrowth of our divinely endowed dignity and corresponding obligation to protect the rights, freedom, and equality of all.” (Ecumenical statement on Christian Faith and Democracy, faithandemocracy.net).

The story of poor Lazarus is the story of our own smelly rebirth as Saints of light regardless of what happens to us this week or any other week.  Lazarus was dead in the grave. Lazarus could do nothing for himself.  He could do nothing but receive the grace of God.  The story of Lazarus assures us—do not be ashamed, do not be afraid to take whatever steps you need to take toward health and wellbeing that may be off-putting or even odious to others. Jesus commands us to come out.  Come out from whatever afflicts us and keeps us small.  I am with you.

Notice that while Jesus commanded Lazarus to come out, he commanded the community to unbind him.  Can we be that kind of Christian community where we lovingly, carefully, help each other to remove our grave clothes? Can we do God’s work with our own hands without judgment, without recoil? Jesus, and all the saints, (like those we honor today with the photos and keepsakes arrayed before us), beckon to us to step from death into life, to pass once again through the waters of baptism, just as today, God calls little Luca Irvin Cruz to do.

God has set you apart, claimed you and called you holy. Today we join with all the saints, that ragtag family of believers. Therefore, anything you do in faith and love is holy –like changing the diapers of our kids; or volunteering as a tutor; or creating a home where laughter resounds; or caring for a sick parent; or casting your vote; or visiting a neighbor; or befriending a kid at school that other kids pick on; or anything else you do in faith. There is no place in our lives that can’t become a place for God to be at work to heal, comfort, restore, and call forth new life. “See,” Jesus says, “I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

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Seeing What Blind Bartimaeus Sees

Proper 25B-24

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Fall has come to Chicago.  The incandescent season, when the trees reveal their fiery colors, the sky turns deep blue, the air is cool, and the sunlight is long even as the days grow shorter, is my favorite season.  Fall fills me with wonder and gratitude at the beauty of creation.

Wonder is the welcome and perfect antidote to fear and exhaustion. As we approach this national election, I want to unplug. I want to throw up my hands and turn away at the rising tide of lies being advanced and supported by our very own siblings in Christ. Christian nationalism is neither Christian nor patriotic but is the opposite of both. It comes to me as a surprise, but maybe I shouldn’t be. The greatest threat to Christianity is not secularism or atheism, but bad Christianity.

Bad Christianity is a problem people of faith have reckoned with before. The church is dressed in its red party clothes to signify the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in honor of the birthday of the Protestant Church.  507 years ago, on the eve of All Saint’s Day, October 31, 1517, an obscure monk, priest and bible professor, Martin Luther, sent 95 theses, or propositions, to church authorities for debate from a tiny town called Wittenberg, on the ‘Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.’  Luther’s post went viral.

One thing I value most about our Lutheran heritage is that the Reformation is not merely an historical event.  Reformation is an ongoing call at the very heart of our church to learn through humility and self-criticism. Each is called to speak their conscience, to listen more than they speak, to prayerfully discern God’s will, confident that we arrive at wiser decisions together than any one of us could on our own.

We may mourn the days when churches everywhere were filled and 1,000 people attended Immanuel on a Sunday.  And yet also give for the openness and inclusion in recent decades of women and LGBTQIA people. Reformation means celebrating the spirit of anti-racism and awakening to how the church has been complicit in perpetuating systems of white male privilege.

Reformation pulls down bad Christianity and fosters something more graceful, kind, compassionate, forgiving, and just. I celebrate the widening circle of incarnation that opens our Christian imagination to encounter God within creation.  I am challenged to conform my life to Kin-dom of Jesus rather than to consumer market of empire and extraction. I wonder, where do you see the Spirit reforming the church today?

Fear and exhaustion are tools cynically being wielded by those who would rob us of our dignity and freedom. Don’t forget to take your daily dose of the antidote.  Beauty, wonder, and awe flow from companionship and from creation. They sing to us of grace to reduce our anxiety.

And then, there is also what our gospel teaches today.  It is something which the father of Liberation Theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, who died this week, would call reading the bible from the underside of history. Understanding God’s preference for the poor, not because the poor are good but because God is good, changes everything. Bad Christianity falls as we learn from Jesus to see the way blind Bartimaeus sees.

Bartimaeus was a blind beggar.  To unseeing eyes, the blind man by the roadside is invisible, and expendable.  His cries are not worthy of attention or even curiosity. “When the invisible one dares to speak out, the only efficient and reasonable thing to do is to shut him up.  The only priority is to restore order, re-establish the social hierarchy, and maintain a status quo that keeps the privileged comfortable.” (Debbie Thomas, “Let Me See Again,” Journey with Jesus, 10/21/18) But notice, moral blindness is the first thing Jesus heals in today’s miraculous healing story.

Jesus calls Bartimaeus to him and suddenly, the crowd responded with compassion. They say to Bartimaeus: “Take heart; get up; he is calling you.”  What the blind man needs is not physical sight alone; he also needs visibility and validation within his community.  Jesus grants him both.  This is double miracle story.

Notice that Bartimaeus — in his blindness — sees what the crowd does not.  He calls Jesus “Son of David,” a title Jesus doesn’t make public during his ministry.  We might say, then, that this is one of the rare and beautiful moments in the Gospels when Jesus himself is truly seen. (Thomas)

Bartimaeus “throws off his cloak” and follows Jesus “on the way.” Bartimaeus casts aside what’s most familiar and safe, in exchange for “a way” that is new, and full of uncertainty.  In shedding his cloak, Bartimaeus sheds his identity.  In setting out on “the way,” Bartimaeus becomes a disciple, a traveler, a pilgrim.  Next Palm Sunday, imagine Bartimaeus among those marching with Jesus into Jerusalem.  (Thomas)

Reading the bible from the underside of history means taking time to learn from people who are suffering about what they need. Jesus asked Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51). Remember, last week, Jesus asked two of the disciples, James and John, the very same question.  They wanted Jesus to grant them positions of honor and power. By contrast, Bartimaeus, simply wants to see.  Someone asked Helen Keller once if there is anything worse than being blind.  “Yes”, she replied, “having no vision.”  Jesus restored sight to Bartimaeus.  He restored his vision.

The great 20th century theologian, Karl Barth, who watched and opposed Hitler’s rise to power in Germany wrote:  “The Church knows that all totalities of the world and society and also of the state are actually false gods and therefore lies. In the end you don’t have to be afraid of lies. Lies don’t have any legs to stand on. And in the Church one can know that. Whenever the Church takes these lies seriously, then it is lost. With all calmness and in all peace, it must treat them as lies. And the more that the Church lives in all humility and knows that we too are only human, and there are also many lies in us, then it will also know all the more surely that God sits in governance over and against the lies that are in us and over and against the lies in the world and in the state. And in that case, the Church, regardless of the circumstances and no matter how entangled and difficult the situation, remains at its task and knows itself to be forbidden to fear for its future. Its future is the Lord. He, not the totalitarian state, is coming to the Church.”

Learning to live as children of the reformation means centering our hearts and minds in wonder to cast out fear and exhaustion. It means learning to listen and discern God’s will prayerfully together.  It means reading the bible from the underside of history.  This is root of all good Christianity and the end of bad Christianity—when we go into the world, no longer blind but seeing; no longer unfeeling, but caring; no longer deaf, but hearing—then chaos and darkness take flight. Healing and sight, wisdom and love boundless as ocean’s tide roll in throughout the earth far and wide.  (ELW #673). Reformation is not a once-for-all event but a way of life.  Reformation came to Bartimaeus. Reformation is coming for us too, calling us to be formed again in the shape of the cross. 

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Commonwealth is God’s Commandment

Proper 23B-2024
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The young man in our gospel today does—or at least, he wants everything. He is very disciplined. He seems a little bit like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. He has tried very hard all his life to do things right to succeed where others fail. He knew all 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.’” He had kept all these since his youth. I’m guessing he already tried therapy, but still, something was missing. To his credit, the young man recognized his need. So, he ran to Jesus. Notice, he did not walk. He ran. He ran to Jesus, knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus, looking at him, loved him.

And just like the game show, Jesus said, gave him four options. Option A is ‘…go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. Option B is ‘…go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ Option C and D were the same thing.

Do you remember how the game works? Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? returned to primetime this summer to celebrate its 25th anniversary. In the show, contestants answer a series of multiple-choice questions worth increasing amounts of money building up to a $ 1million final question. They can stop anytime they like or keep going as long as they get the questions right, but one wrong and the game is over.

You can almost hear that clock ticking clock and the tense background music as the young man contemplates his answer in our gospel today. On the tv show contestants may choose one of four lifelines to help them answer correctly. There’s 50:50 (which removes two wrong answers from the four options); Phone-a-Friend (allowing you to call a contact to get help with the question); Ask the Audience (polling the studio audience’s thoughts on a question); and Ask the Host.
The young man opts for a 50:50 lifeline. Ok, Jesus says, the correct answer is either A or D, ‘…go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ He polls the audience, but their answer doesn’t help him. 25% of the audience said the answer is A, 25% said B, 25% said C, and 25% said D. ‘…go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ He could Ask the Host, but really, why would Jimmy Kimmel know? He could Phone-a-Friend, if in those days, anybody had a phone. The young man decides instead to give up the game. Is that your final answer? The young man went away grieving.

He left before hearing about the grace. Jesus said, “It 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” (vs.25). ‘But for God all things are possible’ (vs 27). To receive an inheritance someone must die. Jesus has already done that for you. There is nothing you must do. It’s just yours. The young man’s problem was that his world was too small. There can be no personal salvation without collective redemption. Grace must be shared, or it isn’t grace. There was something missing in his life—it was belonging and caring about something greater than himself. All that he had accumulated, the self-discipline, the moral uprightness, the skills, the success could not find its ultimate value unless and until he bet it all on the betterment of all.
From Hebrews, we read, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

The story of the rich young ruler pokes and jabs at us and reveals our deepest thoughts and intentions. “Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler lays us bare. Whether we are 18 or 80. There’s no hiding from this ancient story. It is a kind of spiritual lunge with a piercing attack that goes to the heart… Ours is an age of billionaires, economic inequality that is actually worse than that of ancient Rome, and the glorification of obscene wealth” (Diana Butler Bass, Sunday Musings, 10/13/24). There is indeed something missing in our lives unless and until we join with Jesus in serving the great commonwealth of God.
The martyred Hindu activist, Mahatma Gandhi, thought today’s gospel helps us measure true progress in our lives. Gandhi once said, “Jesus was the greatest economist of his time.” He argued that economic progress and moral progress are not the same. The path to true abundance is in moral progress more than material progress. Embracing a simpler lifestyle and deep concern for the poor allows modern people to regain their dignity, their spirituality and their contact with nature. The return to simplicity is the food for the soul we are craving. It is an answer to the loneliness we feel and the joy we have been missing. (Kamla Chowdhry, Havard Business School)

Just ask a monkey. It turns out you don’t need fancy equipment to capture a monkey in the wild. Just drill a small hole in a coconut, tie it to a tree, place a handful of rice inside the hollowed-out shell, and wait. When the monkey reaches for the rice, it discovers the hole is too small to allow it to withdraw its fisted paw. The monkey is trapped, but only if it refuses to let go of the rice. It may have its freedom, or it may have the rice, but it may not have both.

Mark’s gospel paints a stark and wonderful picture of God’s grace and of God’s law. God’s love requires nothing of us but only to receive it. God’s law demands everything of us –all our resources, energy and dedication. Grace and law are like the two sides of a coin. They are inseparable, but one must come first. Grace must come before law –God’s love must come before we attempt to match God’s expectations—or like the rich young man, we are forever doomed to fall short. The concept Christian stewardship offers a way forward. Understand the proper use of your God given talents and resources. “Commonwealth is God’s commandment; common goods are meant to share. [with] Tables set and doors wide open [we will] welcome angels unaware.” (ACS #1036)

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