Lean Back, Kick Forward

All Saints C-22
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago
November 6, 2022

For those
who walked with us,
This is a prayer.

For those
who have gone ahead,
this is a blessing.

For those
who touched and tended us,
who lingered with us
while they lived,
this a thanksgiving.

For those
who journey still with us
in the shadows of awareness,
in the crevices of memory,
in the landscape of our dreams,
this is a benediction.
(Jan Richardson, “For Those Who Walked with Us” The Painted Prayerbook.)

Each season offers insight into the character of God our creator. But for me, chief among them, is the fall. We’ve had a spectacular fall! We are thankful for perfect shirt sleeved days stomping through fallen leaves. We are grateful for horizontal sunshine that bathes the world in dramatic light and shadow. We are grateful for the spectacular kaleidoscope of incandescent colors which reveal themselves after hiding in plain sight during the rest of the year. And there is the somewhat mournful turning inward quality of the fall. After the leaves fall you can see further into the forest. Today, in grief and love, we pause to gaze further into the mysterious inner working of ourselves inherited from those that came before us who journey with us still.

We—each of us—are the product of people. People who nurtured us, taught us, and formed us. Yes. After the leaves fall, we can indeed see further into the forest. Today, we give thanks the loved ones who went before us. Today, at the Table and at the font, we gather with the generations in faith, who, even now, accompany us, cheer for us, and pray for us along with all the saints in light in Christ Jesus.

One of those gathered here with us today, who lingers large in my memory, is Pastor Stephen Swanson. Pastor Steve was my teaching parish pastor more than thirty years ago while I was still in seminary. I spent a little more than a year working and attending at Resurrection Lutheran in Lakeview. Yesterday, I attended his funeral. I credit Pastor Steve with awakening a love for the liturgy in me. Worship at Resurrection Lutheran brought worship to life. I believe my first experience of the Triduum and the Easter Vigil was at Resurrection. Pastor Steve was a remarkable example of a parish pastor who seemed always ready to respond to injustice. Steve hosted Bishop Medardo Gomez of El Salvador many times to raise support and awareness in Chicago who was arrested and tortured for speaking out against the death squads and other abuses of human rights taking place there. While I was still in seminary and doing field work at the Chicago office of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (as it was known at that time), the staff was desperate. They had just five days to prepare for a family of 23 Somalis coming to Chicago. Where could they find a host congregation for so many? I called Steve. Almost without thinking, Steve said yes. A cry of joy rose up in heaven and in the LIRS office that day.

Children playing on a swing lean way back and then kick forward to go higher and higher. Lutherans lean back into the gathering of saints, lean back into the wisdom of the ages, lean back into Word and Sacraments, lean back into Solo gratia, sola scriptura, sola fide, and sola Christos, (by grace alone, by scripture alone, by faith alone, and by Christ alone) and then kick forward. We generate momentum to swing higher and take flight by leaning on the wisdom of the past as a springboard.
St. Paul writes, “And [God] has put all things under [Christ’s] feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:22-23). The Eucharist presents the truth of this gospel in a mixture of words and actions. You cannot think about such a universal truth logically; you can only slowly digest it! “Eat it and know who you are,” St. Augustine said. Baptism is the same. In water and the Word we rise daily to discover yet again who we are truly created to be.

Only slowly does the truth become believable. Finally, the Body of Christ is not out there or up in heaven; it’s in you—it’s here and now and everywhere. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Slowly, little by little and sometimes, all at once, you and I are the second coming of Christ. We do God’s work with our hands. Together, we are a living sanctuary of hope and grace where we and all who are hurting now may take shelter and grow in grace.

We fall into the rhythm of discipleship, lean back and kick forward following the example of Jesus. Can the gospel’s mission impossible become more possible? Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, look them in the eye and offer the other cheek also. If anyone takes your coat offer them your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you. If anyone steals your stuff, don’t ask for it back. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.’ (Luke 6:27-31)

Theologians will say these Beatitudes are descriptive of God’s kingdom, not prescriptive of what we need to try and be more of. Regular people say, ‘Sure Jesus, in an ideal world, I might be willing to do all these things—but in case you haven’t noticed—this not an ideal world!’ That’s when the Communion of Saints begin to speak to us from the shadows of our awareness, from the crevices of memory, and in the landscape of our dreams. Yes, they say. The power of evil is real. But there’s no way to begin making a better world unless evil is returned with forgiveness and mercy. Let all the Saints sing alleluia!

I go to prepare a place for you. There’s a reserved seat for you right at the great banquet with all the saints in light Jesus has laid out for us. Come, share in the inheritance of all the saints. Come to the table prepared for you.

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Join the Parade

Proper 26C-22 – Reformation Sunday

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

“Zaccheus was a wee, little man, and a wee, little man was he.” It’s hard for me to read this gospel without that bible song running through my head. “He climbed up in a sycamore tree, For the Lord he wanted to see.” This wee little story, found only in the gospel of Luke, holds obvious fascination for children. Yet, it is no mere plaything. We are living in the age of Zacchaeus. For all our privilege, education, and wealth the Church finds itself looking again to Jesus hoping to learn what we’re missing. I wonder, what’s more surprising, that rich little Zacchaeus was curious enough to climb a tree to see Jesus; or what happened after he climbed down? He was open enough to follow with him.  Can we, like Zacchaeus, climb down from our own privilege and our modern life-style, to follow Jesus?

This Reformation Sunday would be impossible without Luther’s famous hymn A Mighty Fortress (ELW #503-505). There are no less than three versions in our hymnal! Luther’s hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 46, which sings of a river “whose streams make glad the city of God” (46:4). Rivers bring life-giving waters, and rivers flood and reshape the terrain despite our best efforts to control them. The Holy Spirit is such a river. Reformation is the Spirit’s never-ending work. The Spirit upended the life of little Zacchaeus, knocked blind Saul from his horse on the road to Damascus, blew the doors off the Church in 1517, and courses through our lives today.

Our Lutheran ancestors were protesters before they were reformers—they accused the church of their day of being too rich, too political, in thrall to kings and princes, having sold its soul to the powerful.  They taught, and argued for freedom—spiritual, economic, and political—and for God’s justice to be embodied in the church and the world. (Diana Butler-Bass)

 “[Luther] removed the barrier which put priests nearer to God. He encouraged priests to marry. Ordained ministry suddenly became about preaching and teaching rather than acting as civil judge, tax collector, and/or manager of large estates. One surprising consequence of the Reformation was that, by the 1550’s, the number of clergy persons in Protestant cities dropped by as much as two-thirds (Stephen Ozment). Priesthood became less profitable. Now, the faithful could serve God by being a shoemaker or blacksmith as well as by being a priest. Empty monasteries became hospitals, hospices, and schools.

Before Luther, the notion that every individual should read and interpret the bible for himself or—worse—herself, instead of deferring to learned authorities, would have seemed outrageous and dangerous in premodern societies everywhere else in the world. Luther’s Sola Scriptura, the belief that every individual should read and weigh biblical teaching for themselves was astonishing on many levels. It led to an explosion of literacy among both men and women, that literally radiated out from Wittenberg, spread throughout Europe, and later across the globe. Sola scriptura is credited with energizing innovation, with laying the legal groundwork for representational democracy, modern economic prosperity, and the flourishing of the science. (Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World.)

That’s the good news. The Protestant Reformation brought profound and positive social change. Yay God. Yet we now see it also cast a very long shadow. European wars of religion stretched on for 125 years. The natural world suffered as it was emptied of value except for what could be extracted from it.  The diverse peoples of the world became subjects to be ruled, converted, killed, or enslaved—and the Church enthusiastically lent its stamp of approval to the whole project of global domination. No. The Spirit is not yet done with us. Could it be time, finally, to climb down from our lofty self and join the all-people’s parade?

I challenge anyone to be a better, more industrious, or more creative servant of the gospel than Emmy Evald. Emmy, our hero, the ultimate matriarch of Immanuel, was college roommate and life-long friend of Jane Adams. She was the ally and friend of Susan B. Anthony. Yet, like all of us, Emmy could only see so far. Emmy was a suffragette but not an abolitionist.  She built schools, hospitals, and homes for poor women throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, China, India, Africa, and the Holy Land to bring good news to lost souls she believed were living in darkness and lost to God without Christianity. Yes. We, like Emmy, once were blind, but now we see, don’t we? How service to the gospel became tragically mixed with the poison and arrogance of white supremacy?  Jesus bids us come down.  He wants to make a home with us.

Like rich little Zacchaeus we stand high up in our lofty perch of accumulated Western wealth wrung from the sweat of other people’s labor, living on stolen land waiting, watching, and hoping for Jesus to show us again what our lives are missing. Jesus sees us. Jesus bids us to learn from our mistakes. As we stand near the end of 2022 and look over into 2023, we know the terrain ahead has been flooded is being reshaped and will be changed. We are living amid a new reformation. Yay God?

The story of rich little Zacchaeus points the way to forgiveness and inclusion. These are Jesus’ most urgent and often repeated lessons. Forgiveness and inclusion are the practical names of love. Without them love is no more than a sentimental valentine. Forgiveness and inclusion are also the two practices that most undercut human violence. (Richard Rohr, Things Hidden, 150-151).

Notice: Jesus didn’t ask Zacchaeus to confess his faith or pass a spiritual litmus test. Jesus does not condemn, lecture, or ignore him but simply challenges him to true conversion. Zacchaeus response is equally surprising. He says yes with his whole being, transforming his life without hesitation. Grace is that simple. It’s that amazing. There is nothing to do but climb down from our trees and join the parade.

Zacchaeus was a sinner by anyone’s standards, supporting the occupying Roman government through tax collection, cheating his own people in the process, and becoming a very rich man. Jesus’ words scandalize the crowd and stun Zacchaeus: “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house” (Luke 19:5). Without hesitation, Zacchaeus responds to Jesus’ invitation with equal generosity. He opens his house, heart, and life by proclaiming that “half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,” and from those he has cheated, he will “repay it four times over.” In other words, Zacchaeus is even willing to pay reparations.

The Baptist theologian A.J. Conyers called the ongoing work of the Spirit “correcting the correction.” The work of genuine reformation, whether of the institutional church, or that of our individual lives, is never finished. We stand here in need of renewal and restoration of mind and spirit.  We come here to stand in the light of grace and to shine once again with some small portion of the image and likeness of God. This is our story.  This is our song. God who formed and reforms us calls us out to join the Jesus parade.  Amen.

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When It’s Wrong to Be Right

Proper 25C-22

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Today’s gospel is like a Far Side cartoon. It tells an entire story in a single frame—only not a very funny one. The Pharisee in our gospel today was, as Mark Twain might have described him, “a good man in the worst sense of the word.”  I wish I could say I don’t recognize him. Will religion ever be free from those who use it merely to aggrandize themselves? Our evangelical siblings in faith have sparked a fire fueled by conservative religion and politics which now burns beyond their control and that threatens to replace democracy with their narrow-minded theocracy ruled by men like this Pharisee in our gospel today.

The Pharisee was religiously righteous. The other, a tax collector, was universally despised, a traitor to his people, and aid to the foreign oppressor in Rome. The religious expert was smug and confident, the outsider was anxious and insecure. The self-appointed saint paraded to the temple, the sinner “stood at a distance” from that sacred building—a nonverbal expression of his spiritual alienation. The righteous man stands up; the sinful man looked down. In an act of shocking narcissism, the Pharisee prayed loudly and only “about himself;” whereas the tax collector could barely pray at all. The Pharisee puffed out his chest in pride; the publican beat his breast in sorrow.

Yet, Jesus said, the respectable, reputable believer, so competent and accomplished, who had done everything right, was rejected, whereas the secular sinner — the disreputable, inadequate, and incompetent failure — “went home justified before God.” (Daniel Clendenin)

Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Luke 5:32). His words echo the accusation of his enemies who complained: “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2).  In fact, many sinful people followed Jesus. Today, we might call them “failures.” Failures flocked to Jesus. They felt safe, somehow sheltered rather than judged; valued rather than dismissed; called rather than belittled; transformed rather than labeled. When they were with Jesus, the kingdom came to earth just as it is in heaven. Can Jesus accomplish the same today among us?

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke contrasts two characters set in bold relief. Together they paint us a picture of two ways of being religious. One way is death-dealing, the other is life-giving. In the kingdom of heaven ruled by our Lord Jesus Christ, the winner loses, and the loser wins.

Lutherans know this. We are sanctified by grace alone. Yet, like the Pharisee, somehow, we keep trying to make religion a ladder that leads up to God –or that takes us at least one step higher than the rest of our neighbors. But self-justification doesn’t work, and neither is it necessary. God accepts me “just as I am.”  Full stop. We have a hard time accepting that God comes down to us, which, after all, is the meaning of the Incarnation (see Philippians 2:5-8). We must stop running up the down escalator!  We will miss Jesus on the way—as he descends into our so very ordinary world.

Christians have named this paschal mystery, this path of descent, the Way of the Cross. Jesus brings it front and center. A “crucified God” became the logo and central image of our Christian religion: a vulnerable, dying, bleeding, losing man. How often do we have to look at the Crucified and miss the point? Follow Jesus on this pathway of descent. Walk the way of his cross. Learn the wisdom of winning by losing so that you may be more kind, that you may be a better listener, that you may grow thicker skin, become more compassionate, more ready to cry foul when others suffer injustice, that you may be more generous, more welcoming, more hospitable, that you may be a better lover, friend, parent, spouse, sibling, and neighbor and may we let the kingdom come among us.

Remember how Luke’s gospel begins.  In the wonderful, famous prayers Zechariah and Mary from the first chapter of Luke, each of them gives thanks to God.  God has sent the rich away empty and filled the hungry with good things (Luke 1:53). God’s grace is paradoxical: only the merciful can receive mercy, and only those who forgive will be forgiven (Luke 6:36-38).  The Pharisee had enough religion to be virtuous, but not enough to be humble.  As a result, his religion drove him away from the tax collector rather than toward him. (Culpepper, Luke, New Interpreter’s Bible).  Ironically, his religion became an obstacle that stood between him and the saving power of God.  D.L. Moody once said, “God sends no one away empty except those who are already full of themselves.”

It’s like one of those quizzes you take on the internet. Which type of Christian are you today?  Are you channeling your inner pharisee or your repentant tax collector? We take the measure of our faith by its fruits.  A humble heart and a hunger for justice offer more evidence of grace than does any religious success.

Luther encouraged Christians to awake each morning and rededicate themselves to the spirit of reformation found in baptism. Baptism makes us all equals –equally unable to be righteous in God’s eyes –equally lucky and blessed by God’s generous mercy and forgiveness. The grace of God poured out for us in Christ Jesus sets us free to love and serve one another as equals; to embrace our inner-pharisee and be healed.

The punchline in Jesus’ one-panel parable-cartoon from our gospel today is the realization that God loves both. God loves the tax collector and the pharisee the same. Grace opens a door out from anger, division, grievance, and tribe. To find our way into that place, into what has been called the peaceable kingdom, Jesus says, we need only seven words — the same ones mumbled by the tax collector as he stood at a distance from the temple and stared at the ground: “God, have mercy on me, a failure.”  Cast your unadorned self upon God and experience the inward flow of grace. This is the love we need to heal and to feel confident in our connection to God and each other.  We are made human again.  Enemies become friends and allies. This is how the kingdom comes and we are a living sanctuary of hope and grace. We become circles of people here at Immanuel around the altar, at the font, at the tutoring table, and among neighbors including children, and youth in which it is possible to glimpse and to feel the power and the presences of God.  How great is that?

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Can I Get a Witness?

St. Luke, Evangelist 10-22
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

It happened so quickly. We were sleeping with the windows open. It was early May of last year. I woke up to a scratchy metal-on-metal sound, like someone dragging a file cabinet across the sidewalk. Then, more awake, I heard it again. I stumbled onto the balcony in time to see Russell’s 2008 Prius being lowered to the ground. Two men dressed in black had just stolen the catalytic converter. Catalytic converter thefts are on the rise and have nearly tripled in Chicago this year!

What happened next was like an episode of the Keystone Cops. I yelled and they rushed to get away. 10 or 12 stolen converters spilled out of their van onto the road. As they raced to pick them up, I fumbled with my phone, still half asleep without my glasses and took a video. Later, talking to the police, I realized I was just another eyewitness with a fuzzy story and a blurry video not helpful at all to the police.

At his Ascension Jesus told the disciples to go and tell what they had seen and heard, “You are witnesses of these things,” Jesus said (Luke 24:48). As eyewitnesses to criminal activity, we often get the facts wrong. But there is another way to witness that we are often right. Our lived experience is more reliable, and even, invaluable. This type of witness goes by another name we call wisdom. Wisdom stories, from people who gave witness to what life has taught them fill the pages of scripture and are to be treasured. This is the kind of witness Jesus to which Jesus calls us today.

I am such a witness. I tell you, some of the most alive people I have known have been people living near death. I can attest that hospitals rooms are as good a place to encounter the living God as church sanctuaries. In a hospital room I helped a man dying of AIDS plan his funeral. In the hospital I spent an unforgettable night with my grandmother before she died. In intensive care, I spent the last 20 minutes of a man’s life with his family gathered around him to say goodbye while he slowly and irreversibly bled to death.

Each of these sad events (and with many others I could recount) are engraved upon my memory in a way I think I will never forget, yet, not in the way that you might think. Each of these occasions is memorable to me—not for their horror– but for their gracefulness. I am a witness. These events stand out for me as moments filled with the presence of God. Each was an occasion to glean wisdom—no about death or dying, but about life and living.

On this, the festival of St. Luke, we remember the traditional author of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, who is identified with the Church’s ministry of healing. In Jesus Christ, the dominion of God has broken into our world, bringing wholeness, and peace. One-fifth of the gospels relate to Jesus’ ministry of healing. It is a misconception to say that Jesus came to save “sin-sick” souls. Jesus didn’t stop there. Jesus brought both physical and mental health to those he healed. He restored balance and vitality to the wider community. His mission was to defeat the powers of evil that permeate our world and our lives. Health is not the absence of illness. It is the presence of God reaching into every aspect of our community, joining our lives with all life in the universe.

This Spirit of Life is upon you. It is the Spirit of God’s shalom. We bear the mark of health and healing upon our foreheads in the sign of the cross from baptism. Where there is any weariness, we are called and strengthened to be bear witness in solidarity. Wherever people are hungry, we are called and strengthened to be food. Where there is bitterness and strife, we are called and strengthened to be agents of reconciliation. Where there is illness and despair, we are called and strengthened to be gospel medicine. We acknowledge and repent that so much disease is not caused by viruses or infections but by poverty, which, so often, is the result of human oppression, exploitation, and war.

How can we do this? Is it by an act of will? Shall we set personal goals or make resolutions? No. So often, we hear this default advice on growing in Christ and making change, It can be summed up in five words: ‘Try harder to be better.’ “It’s a form of growth-by-management that uniquely appeals to people living in Western culture, where ‘pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps’ is the 11th Commandment” (Rick Lawrence, Friday Thoughts, Vibrant Faith, 10/14/22). It’s not only a failed strategy, but also it is not biblically true. It does not build us up; but rather, only wears us down.

Our ancestors in faith offer us wisdom. They tell of a road less traveled. “Jesus did not promote a “try harder to be better” approach to growth, or as a response to sin. Instead, He urged us to “abide in Him,” so that the life that emanates from Him would flow through us.” That’s it. “Jesus’ invitation is not a call from the boss to up our production; it’s a call from our Lover, who wants us to come to bed. Our lives are really about drawing ever nearer to Jesus, the source of ‘living water’—not trying ever harder to be a better Christian” (Lawrence).

Upon his death, the curtain in the Temple was torn in two (Luke 23:45). The kingdom of heaven is nigh. Salvation and healing in the bible, often go by the same word, ‘sozo.’ Both are at hand. ‘The world, the universe, is the “body of God:” all matter, all flesh, all myriad beings, things, and processes that constitute physical reality are in and of God’ (Sallie McFague, The Body of God: An Ecological Theology). See, the world is heaven adjacent. Wellness and peace are restored in us as we step across the threshold of faith and into the embrace of Christ our savior.

The renewal of our lives and communities is not something we achieve all by ourselves. Shalom –a balance of mind, body, spirit and community—is a product of healthy communities with Christ in the center. With God as our companion, the prophet Isaiah testifies, ‘the waters shall appear over the burning sand and the thirsty ground shall become a pool. The tongue of the speechless shall sing for joy and the lame shall leap like a deer’ (Isaiah 35:6-7).

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Who Will Be Neighbor?

Proper 22C-22

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

A hymn inspired by today’s gospel sung in Austria goes like this:

Lord, we are your worthless servants

Doing only what we must

And our deeds would be amazing

If our faith were specks of dust

But, instead, we cause to stumble

Little ones who come to Thee

Tie a millstone ‘around our necks and

Drown us in the deep blue sea. (Austrian Hymn)

I promise.  You won’t find that hymn in the ELW!  But you will find these words in the bible.  They cause us to wonder, just what kind of friend do we have in Jesus?  The demands of discipleship are daunting.  Sometimes faith feels heavy.

Columbus Day is now also Indigenous People’s Day. Mass incarceration is the New Jim Crow.  What we called ‘progress,’ is killing us. Weighed down by problems of our own making, added to the needs of the poor, piled on top our personal struggles, faith can feel like a millstone tied around our necks.

Feeling something like this dreadful weight, the disciples felt inadequate. “Lord, increase our faith!” they plead (Luke 17:5). They are on the way from Galilee to Jerusalem. They walk.  Jesus talks.  The disciples take notes.  Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and wealth” (Luke 16:13b). ‘Offer forgiveness to everyone who asks –not seven times, but seventy times seven!’ (vs. 4). When the crowds were hungry the disciples wanted to send them away; no Jesus said, you give them something to eat (9:12-13).  When a father with a demon-possessed boy asked the disciples for help, they didn’t know what to do. Jesus called them faithless and obtuse, unwilling to learn (9:38-41).  When the twelve heard about a successful exorcist working independently from them, they wanted to stop him; no Jesus said, leave him alone (9:49-50).  When Samaritan villagers refused to give them shelter, James and John asked God to send down heavenly fire upon them; again, Jesus rebuked them (9:51-55).

When the disciples returned from their mission with the 70, they felt powerful and were filled with joy.  But now the weight of Jesus’ expectations filled them with dread. They are painfully aware of what they lack. We’re going to need more faith Jesus—more people, more resources, more strength! (As we prepare to discuss the 2023 budget today after worship, I can relate to that.)

Their urgent plea was reasonable. After all, what can you accomplish in this world without capital, competence, ambition, and power? I wouldn’t say their requests fell upon deaf ears. Yet, Jesus knew it was not going to play out that way for the disciples. Yes. Even what little they had would soon be taken away. Jesus would be crucified, die, and be buried.  Jesus knew what we, looking back, now know, even their meager gifts would be enough!  Somehow, despite everything, the world was about to turn.

The disciples were learning. When it comes to faith, more doesn’t matter. Faith is not a noun but a verb. There on the road to Jerusalem, the disciples still equate faith with a power they might possess –as though it were a skill they had yet to master. They are thinking of faith as like magic hocus-pocus wielded by fairies and wizards. They just need the right prayer or incantation. Soon, they would learn faith is not something you can add to or subtract from. It’s not a skill set. It’s not an incantation but an invitation to relationship. Here’s the thing. Faith is trust in Jesus.

Look how often and how lavishly, in contrast to the disciples, Jesus commends the faith of those who seek him out. “Your faith has saved you,” he tells the woman who anoints his feet (Luke 7:50), the Samaritan leper who returns to thank him (Luke 17:11), the hemorrhaging woman who grasps his cloak (Matthew 9:20).  “Your faith has made you well,” he tells a blind beggar (Luke 18:35).  “Such faith I have not seen in all of Israel!” he exclaims about a Roman centurion (Matthew 8:10).

“What is it that Jesus commends in these people?  As far as I can tell, the only thing they do is turn to him.  Orient themselves in his direction.  Trust him.  What earns his admiration is their willingness — even in difficult, painful, and potentially risky circumstances — to lean into his goodness, healing, justice, and mercy.” (Debi Thomas, Doing Faith, Journey with Jesus, 9/25/16).

Faith is when I can’t –I turn to Jesus because Jesus can. Jesus pressed this point with the disciples. He asked them, which one of you would say to your slave, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? (Luke 17:7).  The answer –no one would. ‘Or, which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, would leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one?’ Nobody would do that.  But Jesus does, and that’s the point.  Which of you, after your waiter came in from working all day would tell him to sit down while you served him?’ None of would do that; but Jesus does. We don’t deserve to be served, but in fact that’s what Jesus does for us.

One of my favorite hymns, which (unlike the Austrian hymn) is in the ELW, may be unfamiliar because it is meant to be sung at Evening Prayer or Compline, services which we rarely do together. It’s called, “Now it is Evening.” “Now it is evening: here in our meeting may we remember Christ our friend. Some may be strangers, who will be neighbor? Where there is welcome, Christ is our friend” (ELW #572).

Neighborliness is God’s gift for faith. In history and around the world, neighborliness has been and continues to be our superpower. Through faith, we are transformed into neighbor, and this is the beginning of changing everything –from our closest relationships to our economy and our democracy.

Here’s where the world turns.  Here’s where the weight is lifted, and the scales fall from our eyes. Finally, we move beyond the impossibility of ever being perfect into joy and praise. Faith is born from God’s gift, not from God’s demands. Receiving the good that only God can give, faith opens our hearts and minds to God’s abundant grace. Our poor gifts and skills will never be enough, yet we trust God will use all we have to move heaven and earth.

“‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’” (Matthew 11:28-30). The yoke we wear through faith in Jesus is simply to be friend and neighbor.  Where there is caring, Christ is our light.

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Across the Divide

Proper 21C-22
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

This is a terrifying parable. Yet, it seems fitting, somehow, for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. The celebration, which begins today at sundown, ushers in ten days of repentance culminating in the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. Each is consistent with the warning of the prophet Amos in our first reading: let all couch-surfers, and La-Z-Boy riders beware. The revelry of the loungers shall pass away (Amos 6:7).

The bible is sometimes called the ‘Good Book.’ It’s ‘an owner’s manual,’ or a ‘handbook for life.’ Yet those labels fail to capture the spirit of readings like these. Today, the bible more closely resembles ‘The Monster Book of Monsters’ of Harry Potter fame which was not just about terrifying magical creatures, but the book itself was a terrifying magical creature. One mistake at opening the latch on that oversized textbook and you’d be attacked by its razor-teeth. Author J.K. Rowling told an interviewer that she meant to create a “vicious guide to monstrous creatures”—a book that can (literally) eat you alive (Rick Lawrence, De-Boring the Bible, Friday Thoughts, 9/23/22).
The Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor once famously said, “the more you poke the bible the more the bible pokes you back.” Indeed, as Christians have always claimed, 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” (Hebrews 4:12).

Poet Ogden Nash wrote, “There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.” Having no conscience isn’t really an option for Christians. Eating and drinking the living Word of God ensures there will always be something gnawing at us. Whatever comfort and compassion we receive from grace also afflicts and convicts us whenever we would withhold that very same compassion from any other human being who is suffering and in need.
Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus underscores the extreme urgency of now. There is such thing as being ‘too late’ to stop the unnecessary and unjust pain of today. Our inaction and indifference can launch a thousand indelible consequences for which we must all account for tomorrow. A heavy conscience is God’s way of steering us toward greater peace and wellbeing for everyone. With our own hands, grace would span the chasm between the haves and the have-nots.

This time of year the classic tale, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol warms our hearts as the days of fall turn to winter. Our gospel today tells much the same tale, except the characters receive no warnings. The angels carry Lazarus to Father Abraham while the rich man descends to Hades to live in agony among the flames. The grace of God is a great comfort for the afflicted but a terrible affliction for the comfortable.

Mary the mother of Jesus sings this same tune in the famous poetic words of a different song. The Lord God “…has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty (Luke 1:52). How beautiful the Magnificat sounds at Advent. Yet how terrible and unfair it sounds in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

Lazarus was chronically hungry. He wore rags. His body was covered with lesions. And, as much of the art about this parable emphasizes, the dogs licked his sores. We cannot be followers of Jesus and indifferent to human and non-human suffering.

The first-century hearers of Jesus’ parable would not have assumed that the rich man was evil or that the poor man was righteous. On the contrary, wealth in the ancient world was often viewed as a sign of divine favor, while poverty was viewed as evidence of sin. The rich man’s sin was not that he was rich, but that, during his earthly life, he did not “see” Lazarus, despite his daily presence at the entrance to his home. In fact, the first time he ever sees Lazarus is when, from Hades “he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side” (v. 23). (Daniel Clendenin)

As for Lazarus, we aren’t told he was faithful, but his name means “God helps,” which implies righteousness. Lazarus’s hunger and willingness to eat whatever was at hand remind us of the Prodigal son’s famished, desperate condition in the previous chapter (Luke 15:16). God shows a preference for the poor—not a preference for poverty. Whether our gospel as a parable, or a literal description of the afterlife, the point is the same. To censure your compassion is to make God’s grace an exile.

We know many Lazarus’ in the bible. He is Elizabeth, whom ageism casts aside. He is Mary, whom classism deems unworthy. He is the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet, whom sexism makes sure to spend more time pondering the possibilities of her sin rather than the power of her tender and generous act. We know many Lazarus’ in our own time. He is anyone deemed unworthy to be a true American or to have their vote counted. He is the forced laborer who makes our shoes and our jeans. He is the unseen, the disenfranchised, the hungry, the naked, and the oppressed.

As I say, this is a terrifying parable. For Jesus, exclusive concern for one’s own self-interest qualifies one as a “fool.” The ghost of Jacob Marley fashioned a chain of greed he must carry for eternity. The rich man created a chasm between himself, and Lazarus, fashioned by his own indifference. Yet, before the chasm, there was a wall between the rich man and Lazarus. In the wall was a gate at which Lazarus sat. Opening the gate to become neighbor yields moments of resurrection and new life for us. Opening the gate brings moments of joy. These are the moments that give us peace the world cannot give and that bring the dead to life. (Karoline Lewis, Dear Working Preacher, 2016.) The cruel chain of indifference is broken.

I wonder, can we here at Immanuel help one another loosen our chains, and to open the gates of our hearts and minds, to live the gospel with greater integrity without judgement but with creativity and joy?

Scripture makes clear, justice isn’t God’s job. It’s ours. Justice is God’s will for us. Shalom, harmony, and balance among diverse peoples living as siblings is God’s vision for us. For Luke, this is the God’s-eye vision for our lives we first glimpse not from the mountaintop, but standing shoulder to shoulder upon the plain. With the Prophet Isaiah we proclaim “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? (Isaiah 58:6-7)
Let God’s people say, Amen.

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Welcome for the Weary

Proper 20C-22
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

This week I am re-reading, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander. A book which Cornell West described as “the secular bible for a new social movement… [and] a grand wake-up call in the midst of a long slumber of indifference to the poor and vulnerable.” Released twelve years ago, I know many of you have read it too. So, you know Alexander traces the brutal control of black people from the beginning of slavery to the creation of Jim Crow and the so-called ‘Black Laws’ (which operated in States like Illinois) to mass incarceration today.

At its root, Alexander observes, ‘It is the failure to care, really care across color lines, that lies at the core of this system of control and every racial caste system that has existed in the United States or anywhere else in the world” (Alexander) It is this indifference which promotes a superficial ethic of success—money, fame, and pleasure—that leaves too many of us well-adjusted to injustice’ (Cornel West)

It’s amazing! At every turn, the effort to uproot and remove the stain of America’s original sin is countered and thwarted by conscious, and often, subconscious demonic hatred. How shrewd. Could we be just as cunning to advance the gospel? Maybe that’s the point of Jesus’ strange parable today.

The parable of the dishonest manager is often regarded as the most puzzling. I mean, what is praiseworthy about this guy? The dishonest manager does all the right stuff for all the wrong reasons. Should we cheat, or lie, or squander someone else’s money, or forgive debts that are not ours to forgive? No. But could we be more cunning to produce better results for Jesus? Yes. In God’s economy, people matter more than profits. Rather than personal gain, or the perpetuation of racist structures and systems, could we be more creative, persistent, and adaptive, to enlarge the Beloved Community?

Both Amos (8:4–7) and our Psalm (113) speak of concern for the poor, the needy and the barren. How we handle money and the way we treat the poor are two sides of the same coin. The psalmist sings of a high and mighty God who “stoops down” from the heavens to tenderly care for the poor. God longs to “raise the poor from the dust, and lift the needy from the ash heap.” God would reverse their fortunes, and “seat them with princes” (Psalm 113:5–8). (Daniel Clendenin, My Journey with Jesus)
“You cannot serve God and money”, Jesus says, in our gospel today (Luke 16:13). The message about the dangers of wealth pops up throughout Luke’s gospel.Whether it is in Mary’s song (1:46-55); the sermons of John the Baptist (3:10-14); quotes from the prophecy of Isaiah (61:1-2 [4:16-30); Jesus’ sermon on the plain; (6:20-25); the parable of the rich fool (12:13-21), warnings about anxiety (12:22-31); advice to guests and hosts (14:7-14); or now these two parables in chapter 16—the dishonest manager and the one for next week—the rich man and Lazarus—Luke’s gospel is serious about the crippling dangers of wealth to our spiritual health.

Can we be both shrewd and saintly? Is a shrewd saint an oxymoron? Must being faithful mean, we must also be naïve? Hmmm…. Jumping to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells us be “as wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Martin Luther King Jr. put it this way, ‘be lovestruck with each other, not colorblind toward each other.’ To be lovestruck is to care, to have deep compassion, and to be concerned for everyone, including the poor and vulnerable.

Or, put it another way. “The unanimous witness of the ancient fathers and mothers was that hospitality was the primary Christian virtue. From New Testament texts that unambiguously urge believers to “practice hospitality” (Romans 12:13) through St. Augustine in the fifth century, early Christian writings extol hospitality toward the sick, the poor, travelers, widows and orphans, slaves and prisoners, and the dying” (Diana Butler Bass, Radical Hospitality, Sunday Musings, 9/17/22).

This past week we saw what Christian moxie looks like when 50 migrants from Venezuela landed unannounced in Martha’s Vineyard. The Martha’s Vineyard Island Clergy Association did what faithful people do when a crisis happens: They jumped in to lend a hand. For two nights, they hosted the Venezuelans at St. Andrew Episcopal church, providing meals and a place to stay at the parish house, which hosts a shelter four nights a week during the winter. The church hall is already equipped with cots, a large kitchen, showers, and laundry for the shelter. Other churches and community members sent food, clothes, and other supplies. The Martha’s Vineyard Community Fund collected money to support the Venezuelans. Immigration lawyers and other volunteers showed up to help them figure out where to go next. Many were in the U.S. to seek asylum and have contacts here but needed help connecting with them.

The Rev. Janet Newton, a minister at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard, said that clergy, like other community leaders and residents of the island, had no idea the migrants were coming. “Ironically,” she said, “we were prepared, even though we had no warning.” In the off-season, she said, many people struggle on Martha’s Vineyard. Affordable housing is hard to come by, and at times, folks who work seasonal jobs can’t make ends meet. As a geographically isolated community, Newton said, year-round residents have learned to take care of each other. “That’s probably a bit of a surprise to the people who sent the planes here,” she said. “They didn’t understand how our community operated or that we could be prepared for this. Hospitality matters here.” “We are taught to welcome the stranger.” (Bob Smeitana, “Little Churches Still Matter”, Religion News Service, 9/16/22)

Likewise, here at Immanuel, it is a joy to see our building begin to return to life not only on Sundays but also on weekdays as we host neighbors and friends at tutoring, compass, the preschool—and today–godly play.

The word for hospitality in the Greek New Testament is philoxenia, which means ‘love of the stranger.’ Its opposite is xenophobia, hatred of the stranger. Philoxenia turns strangers into friends” (Letty Russell). Can you imagine? What a difference savvy, creative, persistent, adaptive philoxenia would make in our world — and in our politics — right now.
Early Christians found both spiritual and social power in acts of creative hospitality to create inclusive community. They also discovered a community of radical welcome and love, could put them at odds with ungodly authorities. “It is our care of the helpless, our practice of loving kindness that brands us in the eyes of our many opponents,” claimed the African, second century theologian Tertullian, “’Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another!’” (Diana Butler-Bass)
‘Would that every faith community was like a swarm of bees, running out to meet the displaced, the lost, and the unexpected strangers with the same delight, zeal, and alacrity as the earliest Christians’ (Bass).

In the words of today’s sending hymn, “Your city’s built to music; we are the stones you seek; your harmony is language; we are the words you speak. Our faith we find in service, our hope in other’s dreams, our love in hand of neighbor; our homeland brightly gleams. Inscribe our hearts with justice; your way—the path untried; your truth—the heart of stranger; your life—the Crucified.” (Let Streams of Living Justice, ELW #710)

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Hope for the Hopeless

Proper 19C-22
Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

When they were little, I sang to my kids at bedtime. Always the same three hymns, “Silent Night,” “Spirit of Gentleness,” and “Amazing Grace.” I wondered, did the words and images seem odd to them? Dad, what’s a round, yon virgin? Or a Spirit of restlessness? What dangers, toils, and snares? When did grace saved a wretch like you? What’s that about? Fortunately, they didn’t ask and didn’t seem to mind. Although, for years, Leah insisted to her friends Silent Night was not a Christmas song because ‘dad sings it every day all year!’

I admit, I sang in those days as much for myself as for them. It was a once-a-day dose of spiritual medicine during divorce. Amazing Grace is the sending hymn today. When I wasn’t sure who I was anymore – or who I would become those words written in 1772 by John Newton, a slave ship captain turned pastor and abolitionist, sought me out, found me, and walked me out of the wilderness. “I once was lost but now am found. Was blind but now I see.”

I am a witness, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, laid me on his shoulders and carried me. God is with us when we are lost. God finds and brings us through disasters and upheavals like divorce, illness, job loss, or tragedy. God’s grace is truly amazing, not only in times of acute distress but also in the fast pace of every day. Because the truth is my lostness isn’t over. “We get lost over and over again, and God finds us over and over again.” Maybe the great good news of the gospel today is lostness is not a blasphemous aberration; it’s part and parcel of the life of faith. (Debi Thomas, “On Lostness,” Journey with Jesus, 9/08/19

Look at the children of Israel. They were lost, and found, and lost again. It’s one of the great stories of the Hebrew bible. In mid-conversation, on top of Mt. Sinai, God ordered Moses, “Go down [the mountain] at once!” (Exodus 32:7). Impatient at waiting for Moses to return, and with the help of his brother, Aaron, the people had melted their jewelry, molded it into a golden calf, and began to worship it in place of the living God.

Hadn’t they experienced the plagues of Egypt? Could they have already forgotten the pillar of cloud that guided them by day and the pillar of fire that led them by night? Didn’t they walk upon dry ground after God parted waters of the Red Sea? Had they not tasted the quail, or eaten the manna, or drank the water gushing from a rock which God provided to sustain them in the desert? God was, understandably, exasperated!

In fact, as the story goes, God was ready to destroy them—these children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He proposed to start all over again, beginning with Moses. You might think that would sound good to Moses. But Moses talked God down. And remarkably, scripture says, “the Lord, changed his mind” (Exodus 32:14) So, what did Moses say to persuade God to change their divine mind? Notice that he didn’t try to defend the people. In fact, he didn’t appeal to God on behalf of the people at all. Instead, Moses appealed to God’s own character. In essence, Moses asked God, ‘Who do you want to be? Do you want to be the God of steadfast love? –the God who keeps a promise? –or not?’ God relented and the people were not destroyed, and the divine-human drama begun with Abraham and Sarah, that always reaches forward to encompass the present moment, and stretches beyond it toward a hopeful future, continued up to and including this very day.

We, like the children of Israel, get lost. We, like sheep, will go astray. Like a precious coin gone missing, we are often unaware just how lost we are. Yet, the great shepherd, our great Father and Mother, the great lover of our life and soul, whom we know as Christ Jesus, seeks us out and brings us home. Like the children of Israel, lostness happens to God’s people. It happens in the most basic and exasperating ways. It happens within the beloved community. Yet, God has chosen the path of steadfast love, forgiveness, and mercy. God calls us to walk the same path showing forgiveness and grace to others.

“What does it mean to be lost? It means so many things. It means we lose our sense of belonging, we lose our capacity to trust, we lose our felt experience of God’s presence, we lose our will to persevere. Some of us get lost when illness descends on our lives and God’s goodness starts to look not-so-good. Some of us get lost when death comes too soon and too suddenly for someone we love, and we experience a crisis of faith that leaves us reeling. Some of us get lost when our marriages die. Some of us get lost when our children break our hearts. Some of us get lost in the throes of addiction, or anxiety, or lust, or unforgiveness, or hatred, or bitterness.”

If only we had learned the lessons of Mt. Sinai in the days following 911. How might we have responded differently to that tragedy? Instead of vengeance and righteous violence that led to two wars that stretched over two decades, I wonder, could God have shown us a different pathway bending more toward restorative justice?

It seems our lostness has only multiplied since then. Pandemic, systemic racism, climate crisis, a threat to democracy, and anxiety about the future of the church—to name but a few. We take comfort knowing “God is where the lost things are. God experiences authentic, real-time loss [with us]…God searches, God persists, God lingers, and God plods. God wanders over hills and valleys looking for his lost lamb. God turns the house upside down looking for her lost coin. God is in the darkness of the wilderness, God is in the remotest corners of the house, God is where the search is at its fiercest.” If we want to find God, we need look no further than to seek out the lost. We have to get lost. We have to leave the safety of the inside and venture out. we have to recognize our own lostness, and consent to be found. (Thomas)

In her book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor makes a strong case for these virtues. She argues that lostness makes us “stronger at the edges and softer at the center.” Lostness teaches us about vulnerability. About empathy. About humility. About patience. Lostness shows us who we really are, and who God really is. From lostness comes wisdom and maturity. The 16th century Spanish noblewoman turned Carmelite nun, Teresa of Avila, wrote, “When one reaches the highest degree of human maturity, one has only one question left: ‘How can I be helpful?’” Like a loving parent, God’s righteous anger on Mt. Sinai turned from destroying the children of Israel to guiding, reforming, and transforming them…very slowly, over time.

“The 13th century Sufi mystic, Rumi, said, “What you seek is seeking you.” This is true, and this is grace. But maybe it’s even truer that what I can’t or won’t seek is still seeking me. God looks for us when our lostness is so convoluted and so profound, we can’t even pretend to look for God. But even in that bleak and hopeless place, God finds us. This is amazing grace. And it is ours.” (Thomas)

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Living Stones

Proper 18C-22

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

Clarence Jordan was the author of the “Cotton Patch” translation of the New Testament, and founder of the inter-racial Koinonia farm in Americus, Georgia.  As he tells it, one day, he was getting the red-carpet tour of another pastor’s church.  The pastor pointed out the rich, imported pews and luxurious decoration.  As they stepped outside, darkness was falling.  A spotlight turned on that shone on a huge cross atop the steeple. “That cross alone cost us ten thousand dollars,” the pastor said with a satisfied smile.  Jordan replied, “You got cheated. Times were when Christians could get them for free.”

According to Martin Luther, “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing is worth nothing.”  Today we are challenged by the call of Jesus’ gospel.  We are not called to leave the world and join the church.  Rather, we are called to enter the world and be the church.  Today’s gospel would be much simpler if only it called upon us to build a temple rather than to become a temple.  We are called to be the body of Christ, a temple of living stones, dedicated to our mission, striving to be a living sanctuary of hope and grace.

Our lives, as followers of Jesus, are played out between the gift of grace, and the costly call of discipleship.  Like piano wire, or the strings of an instrument, the music of faith arises in us from this tension.  The pull of the divine lure summons out our response as we commit what we have: our life, our love, our family, our wealth, our energies, and our soul into making the music for which we are specially prepared and gifted, by which the wounded are healed, the prisoner is set free, and the world is restored, according to the demands of God’s peace and justice. ‘Take up the cross and follow me,’ Jesus said (Luke 14:27).

This week, we were told once again, there is a battle being waged for the soul of the nation. Can nations have souls?  Some labor with the notion that God intends for America to be Christian or Judeo-Christian nation and no one else.  Their goal, therefore, is to weed out those who live by a different covenant. Others labor with the notion that the constitution and our form of government is Divinely inspired. Their goal, too, is often to impose their narrow version of the faith into laws that affect us all. Churches, let alone governments, often have a very difficult time distinguishing God’s purposes from human ones. To believe a political community is also a religious body is one of the most egregious and often repeated mistakes of western history.

Misunderstanding soul as somehow special for only certain people and nations is, perhaps, the source of our deepest sadness and most profound divisions. It will help resolve our conflict to recognize a different message found in scripture, that God creates all, dwells in and with all, and everything dwells in God. “In effect, everything is chosen, everything is soulful, everything bears the imprint of the divine, and the holiness of spirit gives life to all. Perhaps it is time to end — not continue — the battle for the American soul. Instead, it is time to envision the shared soulfulness we inhabit.” (Diana Butler Bass, The Cottage, “Do Nations Have Souls,” 9/02/22) Could this be the song rising up in our hearts which we are called to sing? A song to hold both heaven and earth in a single peace. A song to shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give peace in our church, peace among nations, peace in our city, peace in our homes, and peace in our hearts, through our savior Jesus Christ.

Many people do not see the tension.  So, they are apt either to worship a loving Jesus who makes no demands, or to worship religious correctness and without grace.  Both kinds of religion seem to abound in America today.  Many see no tension between the way of Jesus and the common everyday aspirations of American middle-class selfishness and self-centeredness.

The Buddha is supposed to have taught, “attachment is the root of all suffering.”  Today, we read something similar in the challenging words of Jesus, “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions” (Luke 14:33).  Child psychologists know that a secure emotional attachment between primary caregiver and infant is a fundamental key to setting children up for the happiness and success they will experience in adulthood. Not all of us had such good and loving parenting. Yet here we have a good and loving parent in Christ Jesus and a secure attachment to the living God through faith in Christ Jesus.  It is the one possession we cannot do without.  It is the indelible mark of identity and dignity that gives us courage and confidence now to be the church in the suffering world and to sing the song of God’s amazing grace even when all else appears lost. This is how we walk the way into the abundant life of God and follow the way of Jesus’ cross.

You can pat yourself on the back and congratulations are due all around, because today, we read all but three verses of one entire book of the bible.  Paul’s letter to his friend and co-worker, Philemon, on behalf of Onesimus, Philemon’s slave, is testimony to the sibling solidarity we all now share in Christ.  In today’s gospel and elsewhere in scripture, Jesus redefined family life, rejecting blood ties in favor of the faith-based sibling-like bond of found-family the Holy Spirit creates among everything and everyone with soul.

Paul profoundly affirmed and implemented Jesus’ vision of a society based on the surrogate kinship of faith-related siblings. Paul’s basic model for the new communities he founded was a family of such “brothers and sisters,” without any person in the group, including himself, enjoying the traditional authority and privileges of an earthly parent. The Greek words for “sister” (adelphe) and “brother” (adelphos) share the same root: delphys, meaning “womb.” In the most literal sense, persons of faith are born from the same mother. As Paul wrote to the Christians in Galatia, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Once Onesimus became a believer and follower of Christ that made him an equal part of the family. He could no longer be treated as a slave but must now be an equal.  Such radical social consequences of the gospel stare us in the face and are met serious resistance and willful blindness among Jesus’ converts. Why?

Jesus’ invitation to follow him is a summons to a whole new orientation to life, where life is seen, not in our possessions or accomplishments, nor in our family connections, but in emptying ourselves to be filled with God’s power and purpose.  We are filled with a new song. With God as our mother and father, we are brothers and sisters now with all creation. As St. Francis of Assisi proclaimed, we are one family with sister sky, and brother earth, and including all people.  Oh, what peace there is walking in the way of Christ! See you become a royal priesthood. You have a message to preach and a song to sing rising within you. It rises from the tension between the gift and call of grace. We are a temple not made with hands, a temple of living stones moving into the world. Together.

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Dreaming Dreams

Sermon, Fifth Sunday of Easter
Immanuel Lutheran Chicago
May 15, 2022

Easter 5C-22

Dreaming Dreams

Peter saw a vision in a trance (Acts 11:5).  John “saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1).  Jesus gave the disciples a new commandment, that they should ‘love one another as he had loved them’ (John 13:34).  And with each revelation the faithful were challenged to embrace a radically new vision of life and faith—and they did!

I wonder, how’d they do that? What can we learn from Jesus’ first followers about how to follow God’s prompting? We find a clue in today’s gospel. In Jesus’ last words before his arrest and crucifixion it’s interesting to notice what he didn’t say. He didn’t say, ‘When I’m gone, keep a systematic theology.’ He didn’t instruct them about proper worship, the sacraments, the priesthood, or even what to say or write down as gospel. He simply urged them to love. In fact, he commanded them. Discipleship consists of loving one another in the same perfect and unconditional way that God loves the whole world.

We see love is a theme that weaves through all three of our readings today. The love command is a trusty compass needle that always points the traveler in the direction God is going. Yet, be prepared. The consequences for life and society are can be earth-shaking.

Look at our reading from Acts (11:1-18). It is impossible for us to understate the impact of this staggering love story. Peter’s vision on a roof top in Joppa transformed the early Jesus movement from an obscure subset of Judaism to a world religion open to people of every tribe, race, gender, and nation. Yet, it required early Christians to set aside everything they were taught since birth about how to serve God.   How’d they do that?

Peter’s vision proves especially incredible when you consider what the Hebrew Bible says, ‘Clean are cloven-footed animals that chew their cud—except for camels, rock badgers, rabbits, and pigs; “Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you” (Leviticus 11:1-8). On and on the Hebrew Bible goes about fish, and birds, and insects clean and unclean.

The book of Leviticus (chapters 11–26) specifies in minute detail purity laws that encompassed every aspect of being human—birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and certainly ethnicity, for Gentiles were automatically considered impure. For a Jew of Peter’s time, avoiding unclean people wasn’t just a theological idea, everything he was taught up to that point would have just made it feel icky.

In Peter’s vision he saw God’s love blow whole thing down. In contrast to the purity system with its “sharp social boundaries” (Borg), the emergent Christian movement substituted a radically alternate social vision. The new community of Jesus was characterized by compassion for everyone, not external compliance to a purity code –by radical inclusivity rather than by hierarchical exclusivity, and by inward transformation rather than by outward ritual. In place of “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2), Jesus deliberately substituted the call to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).  (Daniel Clendenin, My Journey With Jesus)

Knowing how the wind is blowing makes it easier to hoist a sail to follow the Spirit. You don’t need a mystical experience to mostly understand what God wants us to do—and not do—in our lives. The first answer Jesus’s early followers teach for how to discern the will of God is the love test.  Whatever extends love in us, or among others, or in society is the right way.

But there’s more. We notice John has a vision in Revelation. Peter’s story features a trance, strangers who coincidently show up, an angel, and a big church meeting. Peter and the early Jesus community were willing to explore the promptings of their hearts and dreams. They tested them through prayerful dialogue. They dusted for God’s fingerprints through examination of scripture.

Bible scholar Robert Tannehill sees five components here in the Book of Acts the first followers used to discern God’s will: First they were open to divine promptings; second they took these messages seriously; third they sought confirmation from other people of faith to shake their heads in agreement; fourth they asked if the visions could be replicated. We come to find out other people have dreamed the same dream—and finally, number five, public conversation and even debate.  (Acts 11 and, eventually, Acts 15).  Of course, each step along the way requires personal courage and faithfulness.  Discerning and carrying out the will of God is rarely free of the weight of personal controversy and consequences.

Like Peter, St. Paul’s advice to the Christians in Corinth for seeking the guidance of the Spirit was to “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said” (1 Cor 14:29).  Paul taught the Corinthians to think out loud with one another as they weighed the Spirit-prompted utterances offered by the prophets.

In Acts, Peter conveyed to the church his vision of the action of the Spirit. The church weighed what he said and rendered a judgment: God has granted repentance even to the icky Gentiles (11:18). If the God of all creation did not exclude Cornelius and the Gentiles as impure or unclean, Peter realized, neither could he (10:34, 36, 45).  The first followers teach us how to kindle the dreams and visions of God. What is God yearning to tell us today? The winds of God’s love are changing the landscape of faith. Our children dream dreams of justice and inclusion. Our prophets lament how, in the name of the God of love, our church built and promoted institutions of slavery, colonialism, the systematic destruction of native peoples, and an economic system that has brought the world to the brink of ruin. In the name of love, there are many today who would have us embrace religious intolerance and the oxymoron of Christian nationalism.

The church seems to find endless ways to resist the vision, to reject the Spirit, to wall off God’s grace, and to set up distinctions. To embrace the inclusive community Peter envisioned, the new heaven and new earth glimpsed by John, the radically loving community commanded by Jesus leads to life. (John 18:34) By contrast the old distinctions produce death everywhere by way of fear, of anxiety, exclusion and sometimes violence.  (Walter Brueggemann)

As we become rooted and alive in Christ our community also comes to life.  Like all living things it grows and responds.  It becomes tenaciously resilient, self-replicating, and renewing. As Christ breaks bread and bids us share each proud division ends. We walk with the Spirit as children of a new humanity, citizens of the New Jerusalem, residents of a new heaven and a new earth, one people with God in harmony and solidarity with all the people of God.  And all the people say—Amen!

 

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