Toby is the new addition to our family. He’s been with us for a week now and we’re having a blast with him. He dislikes squirrels, but enjoys chasing them.

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Plover, WI

An audio version will be available at www.eflock.org/sermons

Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

From Advent and Christmas, to Lent, Easter, and Pentecost – the life of the community of faith moves along quickly. The high festival days come all together as we walk through the life of Christ from birth to death to life. Here we are at the end, post-Easter, post-Pentecost. After all these great stories of God’s movement in the life of the church, we come today to Holy Trinity Sunday.

Holy Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday of the church year that is dedicated to a doctrine of the church. All the rest are focused on seasons, events in the life of Christ, and festivals. There are no iconic stories today. The word Trinity is never used in the bible. It wasn’t until the year 325 that the doctrine of the Trinity was finally agreed upon. The early church was trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. To put into words what is beyond words. They were attempting to explain their experience of God in Scripture and in life. And so rather than try to tell you something about God as Trinity today, we’re going to tell each other something about who God is – our God sightings. So – turn to a neighbor and share with them a time you have experienced God.
When and where in your life have you most clearly seen God?

Psalm 8-creation – glory and splendor – I behold the work of your fingers
Romans 5- falling to our knees at the foot of the cross on Good Friday
-experiencing the peace that falls upon us on Christmas Eve while singing Silent Night – through the not so silent nights of turmoil – There Christ meets us in our suffering and sorrow.
John 15-the love of community in times of sorrow and joy – the spirit will intercede for you with sighs too deep for words – The Spirit will speak – will declare -

Rachel and I have been taking some free salsa dancing lessons the past couple months. The first couple nights were enjoyable, but a disaster. In salsa dancing, as far as I can tell, there are no set moves. There are twists and turns to learn, but in the end you do whatever you want when the music moves you. It’s more about being in tune with each other and the music than knowing a choreographed routine. As the guy, I get to lead. So there are gentle nudges and twists of arms that I’m suppose to do in order to communicate to Rachel what’s going to happen next. The disaster of those first few weeks happened when I would either not tell Rachel what was going to happen next and we’d run into each other or I twisted her arm to hard and hurt her. We were a hot mess. I just assumed she knew what I was thinking or that I had to force her to move in a certain direction. Both ways left us unfulfilled – knowing there was a better way. But after a few weeks of practice – we’re getting better. We’re still not very good, but instead of each of us dancing by ourselves next to each other, we’re dancing together. Because we’re open to the each other we are beginning to recognize the nuances of the moves and can now we can listen to the music, and let it move us.

This dancing analogy has long been used to describe the relationship of the Trinity. The Holy Trinity communicates with itself in perfect love and with gentle nudges where to go next and what to do. The Trinity shows us that God’s identity is not isolated. God is in its very essence is a community of persons sharing love – sharing experience – sharing grace. And in all these ways that we have shared now, we see how the Trinity has opened up itself to us. Making room for even us.

The question for us is not do we affirm the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and reject the theological heresies that contradict it. Doctrine is important, don’t get me wrong, but only as an ordered reflection on our experiences of God and the biblical witness(thank you Working Preacher). The question that is before us is do we believe that the God who created all things – whose name is majestic in all the earth – is truly mindful of us, humans, of you and the short lives that we live in the grand scheme of creation. God is mindful of you. Do we believe that the God whose glory is magnificent and completely incomprehensible, shares it with us through our faith in Christ? That Christ would lower himself to human form and to the point of death – God dying so that we would have life to the fullest and be brought into communion with God? God is mindful of you. Do we believe that now, 2000 years after the person of Jesus died and rose, 2000 years after these stories of faith occurred that the Spirit of God is still speaking to us. Still declaring to us. You are children of God. You are not forsaken or forgotten. There is room here for you in the dance of Trinity.

When I was in middle school I went to Confirmation Camp in at Camp Mowana in Ohio. And they had a dance on Wednesday night. I was shy. I was timid. I wasn’t confident – like every other middle school boy. But they would dance. I sat on the side watching. And even when a girl would come over and invite me to get up and join them, I was politely refuse. I didn’t think they really cared. I think I thrived on my self-pity. So sat there all evening and missed out. And regretted it. We all do that sometimes, don’t we? Ignoring the hand of God that’s hand is stretched out before us.

Even on our best days, it can be difficult to trust and believe that God is mindful of us. That Christ is inviting us to dance – to be so in tune with the music of creation and the movements of the Spirit that we move in perfect harmony together. Our life of faith is not so much about knowing the steps that will come next, but rather about trusting God to guide us through the next turn, twist, or dip. Sometimes our life of faith is finding the courage to dance.

That courage comes from God’s simple touches of grace that lead us into the way of peace. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Do this for the remembrance of me. And all the ways the Holy Spirit is speaking to you each day.

We’re going to have some more participation now. Where in your life now, is God inviting you to join the dance of Trinity? Where are God’s subtle touches of grace leading you?

God whose glory is manifest in all of creation, God who glory is revealed in his suffering on the cross, God whose glory is spoken to us in tongues of fire, in a still small voice, or in sighs too deep for words. That is Trinity. God working in distinct ways in every aspect of our lives. Sometimes, like the window above us – subtly in the background, but ever present. Urging and encouraging us to dance. Turning our mourning into dancing. Dancing with joy like David and Miriam, like the prodigal son and his father’s household, or like a guest at the wedding feast. You don’t have to be a good dancer. You don’t have to know the entire routine ahead of time. The key is to follow our partner’s lead.

Easter 5C Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 147

Pastor Ben Sheets – Good Shepherd Lutheran Church – 2010

The audio of this sermon will be available at www.eflock.org/sermons

Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

It seems somewhat appropriate that on the day we welcome new members and have a potluck that our lesson from Acts deals with eating and the welcoming of outsiders into a community. Today who we are changes once again.  Our identity is altered as the community broadens to include more people.  The question, then, is: Who will we be?

The identity of 1st century Jews was wrapped up in being different from the rest of the world.  Their strict dietary, Sabbath, and ethical laws distinguished them from outsiders.  It kept them separated from idol worshipers, it kept them connected to their history of deliverance, and it kept them worshipping God alone.  From birth to death they were to be different – beginning with circumcision 8 days after being born to the years of holy eating and living they were claimed as God’s holy people.  God’s set apart people.  So it was an absolute scandal that Peter, the leader of this community of Jews following the way of Jesus would eat with gentiles.  Those who are not set apart.  Those who are not holy.  Those who do not have a special relationship with God, like Israel does.  Even Peter is so wrapped up in his Jewish identity, that he fails to see the new thing God is doing at first.  One writer says, “[Peter] almost missed this incredible, unforeseen, astounding opening up of the gospel of Jesus Christ because he sneered at those pigs in a blanket.”^[1]

It was that vision of killing and eating the unclean that changed Peter’s identity.  He had to break with years of tradition and risk his family values in order to offer hospitality to those who he was trying so hard to be different from.  Once again, in a meal, the good news was revealed.  Good news was shown at the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, good news was shown at the meal in Emmaus after Jesus’ resurrection, and now it is being shown again with those who are outside the boundaries of Jewish law.  And amazingly Peter sees that the “Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon the us at the beginning.”  The God who has gifted us with faith, grace, and salvation, is giving the same gifts to those who we’d least expect.

But we like our boundaries that separate us from what we think is wretched and reviling.  The boundaries that we are putting up don’t keep others out so much as they keep us in.  They keep us from seeing and encountering what happens in our communities.  We live in fear of what influences us and our children rather the being confident in the influences that we and our children will be.  We have built barriers to keep our identity pure and safe.  We shroud our own needs and differences from our neighbors so that we’ll fit in.  We have put up walls to keep the other out and to blind us from noticing them.

On the radio program, This American Life, a story was told of the urban legends that foreign refugees hear before they come to United States.  One man tells of the so called “legend” that there are homeless people in America.  No one in the refugee class could believe it.  It was inconceivable that in the land of opportunity and wealth that anyone would be homeless.  He recalls meeting a homeless person sleeping on a park bench.  He decides to call 9-1-1, thinking that she was in trouble.  The operator asked him “Is she bleeding.” “no” “Is she naked?” He checked, “no.”  “Sir, is she homeless?”  So he went and asked the woman, “are you homeless?”  And she simply responded “Of course I’m homeless!”  What was so repulsive and unimaginable to him, has become common and everyday, even accepted for us.  Can you imagine finding someone in deep need in a foreign place and all locals say “just ignore them?”

America the new land of milk and honey, the American dream and individualism, the land of opportunity.  There shouldn’t be homelessness here, yet the Salvation Army’s Hope Center is nearly full on most nights.  There shouldn’t be hunger here, yet every Tuesday when I drive by the food bank, there’s a line out the door.  There shouldn’t be discrimination here, yet Native Americans, Hmung, and Hispanic persons are still seen as second-class citizens.  As followers of the Way of Jesus, who, then, are we to be?

We are to be holy.  We are to be saints. We are to be different.  A people who tear down the walls of separation instead of putting new ones up.  The walls that keep us in and isolated.  When this worship space was built in 2001 it was built with temporary walls.  The I-beam across the top provides all the support so that these walls someday could be torn down and expanded. So that more people could be brought into our community.  More people could be brought into a sanctuary.  So it is with us.  Our support is from God above and not from the walls that we think keep life from falling in on us.  The good news that feeds bellies as well as souls is to be ever expanded and we are to be spread out to the ends of the earth.  We are to be different among the world, not from the world.

Jesus said to his disciples on the night of his betrayal “the kings of the gentiles lord it over them and the those in authority call themselves benefactors, but you are not to be like that.  Rather whoever would be greatest among you must be like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.” Jesus then gives us a new identity.  Jesus takes down the ultimate barrier – fear of death.  The curtain in the temple is torn, the earth shakes and heaven and earth touch.  Salvation, freedom, wholeness have come to us.  Zechariah spoke of Jesus before his birth in the first chapter of Luke “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Through breaking of boundaries – God to earth, Christ to us, Christ has become our identity – and like Christ we seek to serve.  We seek to break down the barriers that lead to violence and oppression, that lead to hunger and poverty.  Our identity is wrapped up in telling of God’s saving power to whomever, wherever we are.

If we are serious about the power of God active and present, we must be open to new understandings of what God is doing in light of the work of the Spirit.  God is not stagnant.  God who changest not is ever changing. Speaking to us through ancient words and new visions.

Whether it’s a dream of pigs in a blanket, or that our children “will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”^[2]. We have a dream today.   The dreams that we have now will transform this community into an ever opening of the good news of Jesus to a people who are overwhelmed with despair and insecurity.  To people who you know who can’t provide enough food for their family.  To people who you know who may be in danger of losing the roof over their heads.  To people who you know who have never known acceptance or welcome in a place of sanctuary because of their sexual orientation.  To people who you don’t know who sleep night after night on overused cots.  To people who you don’t know who wait in long lines on Tuesdays for a bag of groceries.  The good news of Jesus’ salvation and transformation is intended for all the named and unnamed people who cross our paths each and every day.  What dream is God giving you that will change everything?

What will define our identity in the world?  Let it be a meal here now in which we receive all that God has given – his very son; and there soon as our community grows and welcomes new dreams and new visions from these new members, and out in the world every day in which young and old, male and female, rich and poor, gay and straight, black, white, and brown, clean and unclean are brought in together by the outpouring of God’s Spirit even among those whom we can’t imagine.   Let us, a people who are saved to serve, break the boundaries of this building, break down the walls of hatred, apathy, and poverty, and praise God together for the salvation of Jesus that dawns anew each day for all.

Hallelujah!

Praise the Lord from the heavens;

Praise God in the heights.

Praise the Lord all you angels;

Sing praise, all you hosts of heaven.

Praise the Lord, sun and moon;

Sing praise, all you shining stars.

[Praise the Lord, women of faith,

Sing praise, men of devotion

Praise the Lord, beautiful voices

Sing praise, you who are tone deaf.

Praise the Lord, broken-hearted ones

Sing praise, you whose hearts are being mended

Praise the Lord, parents and children

Old and young together

Praise the Lord, dreamers of God

Let your visions show God’s salvation

Praise the Lord, all you saints of God

Sing Praise, you who are different]

Let us praise the name of the Lord,

Whose name only is exalted,

Whose splendor is over earth and heaven

The Lord has raised up strength for all people and praise for all faithful servants,

You are children of God, a people who are near the Lord.

Hallelujah!

^[2] MLK – I have a dream speech

Acts 5:17-42

GSLC – Easter 2C 2010

An audio version of this sermon can be found at www.eflock.org

Christ is Risen!  Christ is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia!

“What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  Juliet recites these words as she contemplates the forbidden family name of her lover, Romeo.  That name, Montegue,  means something as it keeps their love secret and (spoiler alert) leads to their death.  Throughout the Bible, names are powerful and important. Names are often given and changed in response to important changes in life and to share a truth about who that person is and what they will do.   Adam named the animals of the earth at creation, Abram and Sarai’s names were changed as they heard God’s promise to be a blessing to the nations.  Jacob was called Israel (which means wrestles with God) after wrestling with God, the disciple Simon was called Peter (which means rock), Saul became Paul after his conversion, and the name Jesus means “God saves.”  And while names in our culture may not carry the weight they did in the Scriptures, they still are tied to identity, it’s why we say of a newborn “he looks like an Cletus” or why some women choose not to change their name at marriage, and why Rachel and I will probably not name any of our children Poly Esther.  Names means something

The gospel writer, Luke, who also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, has these as the last words Jesus speaks to his disciples before his ascension “The messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  you are witnesses of these things.  And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:47)  And so the apostles, who were uneducated and ordinary men, received the power of the Holy Spirit and started proclaiming forgiveness.  Life. Resurrection in the temple courts day after day.

And it scared the chief priests – the men of power, the men who run things for Rome on a daily basis are jealous and filled with the desire to kill these ordinary and uneducated men.  They say at one point, “It is obvious to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable sign has been done through them; we cannot deny it.  But to keep it from spreading further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in his name” (4:16-17). Seeing the work of God in the world.  Seeing the signs of the power of the name they ignored it.  Caring more about the status quo, their power, their names being known.   So the chief priests told the apostles not to proclaim in the name of Jesus any more.  They couldn’t kill them because they were afraid of the crowds. But the apostles are witnesses, they have seen the risen Lord and their lives have been changed.  They have seen “God Saves.” How could they stop?  Nothing will stop the power of God.  Every time they are imprisoned for speaking the name, God delivers them so that the message might be continued.  There is Power in speaking truth to power.  And despite the religious leaders’ best efforts, the movement of the Way of Jesus continued to grow daily. Sometimes by thousands. Not through their own efforts or work, but through the power of the name. And they  devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, breaking bread together, prayer, and holding all things in common.

Speaking a name has power to it, as any child whose heard their entire name used by their parent knows all too well.  When we name the name of Jesus – when we speak, when we serve, when we live in the strong, powerful, life-giving, resurrected name of Jesus we are doing more than naming a historical figure who died 2000 years ago.  We are speaking more than magic words in hopes that our wishes and desires will come true.  When we witness to the name of Jesus it means that all our trust, all our confidence, all our faith is in the one who was crucified, died, risen, exalted to give us yet today his Holy Spirit.  It is to trust that God, whose transformative power we have seen in the resurrection of Jesus, is transforming our world now.  Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses in the world.”

Our witness in the world is not because we are good people or because it is the right thing to do.  Like Peter, our trust crumbles in the face of crucifixion and we deny the Lord.  Can death really lead to life? I don’t want to die to any aspect of my life. Everything is just fine.  We like Peter and John are ordinary and uneducated people. How can I witness to what I’m not sure I’ve even seen? I’m not a person of deep faith, I’m just a person trying to get by in the world. I’m not trained, I’m not eloquent, I’m not absolutely certain.  We, like the chief priests may see the signs of God’s reign all around us, signs of resurrection, signs of forgiveness, signs of new life but choose to ignore them. The status quo is easier and safer to maintain. It’s easier to buy than give.  It’s easier to stay quiet than speak up.  It’s easier to walk on by rather than stop and engage.  It’s easier to cut someone off than it is to forgive.  New life may happen in certain places of my life, but resurrection can’t be everywhere.  Can it?

If it were left to us, there would be no witness of resurrection, of God’s presence, of forgiveness in the world.  But it’s not up to us.  We have been chosen, called, baptized, forgiven, fed, and empowered by Christ.  Not a dead man walking, but a man full of grace and truth.  Who calls us by name, just as he called out Mary’s on Easter morning.  Who calls us by name just as tenderly and lovingly as we call our children, our loved ones.  Who in baptism says your name. Child of God, you have been sealed with the holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.  Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses in the world.”

Our witness in the world is because the power of Jesus is working through our being called by name, we are witnesses to the power of the Holy Spirit sealed forever in our lives since our baptism.  Discipleship with power from God.  This is life in light of the resurrection.  And being called by name, we can call on the name of Jesus.  Claiming and proclaiming that all things are in God’s control.  That God’s power and presence cannot and will not be stopped or hindered by the so-called powers of violence, hate, oppression, poverty, discrimination, and abuse.  For in the death and resurrection of Christ all these things have been claimed by God.  They will be transformed.  They will be overcome.  They are death and death no longer is the final word.  The final word that we proclaim.  The final word that we hold to be true.  The final word that has the power of God to bring about forgiveness of sins and new life to the dead is that Name above all names.  The one name by which we must be saved.  The name that transforms us and transforms this world.  The name that we are called to call upon.  Jesus.  God saves.  Yesterday, Today, and tomorrow.  What’s in a name?  The power of God.

Grace and peace to you in the strong, powerful, saving name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

GSLC Lent 4C 2010

An audio version of this sermon can be found at www.eflock.org

Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

A certain man had two sons.  We know this story well.  One need only say these few words and this most beloved of Jesus’ parables comes to mind.  It is a story that is written on our hearts and that we carry with us wherever we go.  We know the ridiculous request of the younger son, the forgiveness of the father, and the elder son’s resentment.

A certain man had two sons.  We know this story all too well.  It is the story our own family dynamics. A story that has written our hearts and that we carry with us wherever we go.  The sibling who refuses to follow the rules and fulfill responsibilities, the parent who refuses to say no or to give up hope on them, another sibling who refuses to overlook fairness for the sake of forgiveness.  Whether it’s friends and neighbors, brothers & sisters, husbands and wives, parents and children.  We know this story.

The younger son, wanting to fulfill his American dream of independence and individualism, decides that family life is just not for him.  So he leaves the family farm, sells the land that’s been passed down through the family for God knows how long to someone else, and leaves the community without any repercussions.  All the consequences are left behind for his family to deal with.  The loss of income from the land, the shame from the community, the grief of losing a family member.  The younger son doesn’t have to deal with any of that.  And in Jesus’ story, not even when he comes back home.

Many of us have come to terms with the notion of forgiveness. We’re willing to forgive as long as we can still cling to our notions of fairness.  Justice must be served.  The consequences must be reckoned.  We’re willing to forgive, but the offender needs to say “I’m sorry, I was wrong” first.  How many grudges have we held in our lives because we held out for someone else to pay their penance of humility first?  We want the younger son in our lives to stay down with the pigs a bit longer to make sure they really understand the consequences of what they’ve done.  Then when my hunger for punishment has been satiated, then the process of forgiveness can begin.  We want to be reconciled to the what, where, why, when, and how.  The details of the transgression against us need to be dealt with before anything else.

But this doesn’t lead to the healing and restoration that God desires for us.  When we focus first on the what was done when and why we find ourselves reliving the pain, anger, shame, and grief again.  When we want those things to be rectified before forgiveness is given, we kid ourselves.  The repercussions of sin echo deep through our lives and we will continually find cracks they’ve created. To patch them takes a lifetime. A lifetime of waiting to enter the celebration.  A lifetime of resentment.  A lifetime of being lost ourselves.

This beloved story that Jesus tells gives us a ridiculous alternative.  It shows us a way that is so counter-intuitive to the way we live – to the way our culture tells us is right.  It’s ridiculous because, just as the sheep does nothing to be brought back to the fold, and the coin doesn’t move an inch as the woman searches the house for it, the son’s actions do nothing to bring him back into his father’s embrace.  The lines he rehearsed the entire return trip don’t do a lick – the what was done when and why do not matter this parent.  Only “who” matters.  This is my son.  He was dead and has come back to life.  He was lost and has been found.  Nothing else matters.  Only this child in front of him.  Only this relationship that is being recreated matters.  As someone on council said on Monday night regarding the father’s forgiveness, “As a parent, how could you not.”

This is God’s outlandish generosity and grace.  New creation is how Paul puts in his letter.  It’s an exclamation.  Those who are in Christ.  New Creation!  The joy cannot be contained.  God has reconciled us to himself through a son who left his heavenly home to rescue lost sheep, to find lost coins, to return those who have spent everything, and restore broken relationships.  And God’s joy cannot be contained.  It cannot be controlled.  The joy in heaven reverberates throughout all of creation.

Whether we’re lost abroad or we’re lost at home, God comes out to us.  Calling us daughter, son, sweet child of mine.  Constantly calling us to see in ourselves, that we are more than the sum of our actions, to see in each other our own flesh and blood – sisters and brothers.  As much as refuse to acknowledge it at times. This sister, this brother, of yours was dead and has come back to life, was lost and has been found.

When we are able to face each other and focus first on the who, reconciliation between us can begin. It’s not until the elder brother enters the house will he ever forgive.  Not until he lays aside  his notions of what is fair and just, putting aside his righteous indignation, in order to see not his father’s son, but his very own brother.  There’s a service in the area administered by Justiceworks that brings victims and offenders together to focus on the “who.”  It brings them face to face, it puts them in the house together so that reconciliation can occur.  There are still consequences.  There is still legal punishment.  But healing happens as offenders recognize the people their actions affected. Healing happens as victims encounter the offender as a person, not their actions, face to face and they are empowered to lay down their anger and fear.  New creation happens.  God’s angels rejoice.  In the same way, we are called by our Heavenly father to come inside, sit down, and eat with those who’ve turned their backs on us, who’ve shamed us, who’ve wanted nothing to do with us.  Forgiveness is hard.  It often takes time and tears.

Jesus’ story ends with the elder brother outside – and we’re left wondering what happens next?  The end is for us to write.  Who do you need to forgive? to offer welcome to? to accept?  What is the cost you are unwilling to pay to lay down your righteous indignation and come into the house?

A certain man had two sons, two daughters, two children who were considered dead to each other.  And they, together, came back to life.  New Creation. A certain man threw a party.  Come in, celebrate and rejoice with the saints and angels in heaven. Come in, celebrate and rejoice with the brokenhearted and the ashamed.  Come in, celebrate and rejoice with all the new creations in Christ.  Come in and join the party.  May this be the new story that is written on our hearts that we carry wherever we go.

You can download a version at www.eflock.org/Lent

Grace and Peace to you in the namer of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Don’t go, not yet. You just got here! It’s a good for us to be here! Sensing the glory was about to fade away, Peter tries to make it last longer. He wants to build tents, dwellings for the three. The mention of tents for the Jewish listener would have immediately brought up a connection to the Festival of Booths. This was an annual celebration of harvest that was celebrated. It reminded the Jewish people of God’s provision in the wilderness as they wandered for 40 years searching for the promised land. Booths were used for rest. After the harvest is over, it’s time to relax and enjoy the fruits of creation. So this festival also became an anticipation of the messianic rest. The final rest of creation after God’s ultimate provision. Here on the mountaintop, Peter and those with him see all their hope come to fruition. The great prophets, Moses and Elijah, and now the person whom Peter 8 days previously declared correctly as the Christ are right in front of them. And they were asleep. The heros of the faith are starting to leave. As catch a glimpse of these great people of faith leaving, Peter makes his plead. It is a fine things for us to be here. To stay here. To build tents and rest. Can’t this moment last a little bit longer?

But that is not the mountaintop experience that was meant for them. A cloud suddenly overshadows them as he’s pleading. They enter into it in terror. This is the moment they were brought here for. To hear this voice descending from the clouds like the spirit that descended as a dove, echoing what was said at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my son, the chosen one. Listen to him.” Listen to him call out your name in love. Listen to him call you back down the mountain. Listen to him call you back into everyday life. Listen to him call you to serve.

When have you experienced the mountaintop times? Moments of great wonder and amazement. Moments you never want to leave behind. Moments that give you a glimpse of our eternal hope in our present life. They shape and reshape our lives. The wonder of a creation, the birth of a child, the unexpected forgiveness from an estranged loved one, mending of what was broken. They change our entire perspective of how the world works.

We’d rather stay in those moments, where the sky is clear and the crowds are far away. Where troubles are non-existent and we can’t see the suffering and injustice in the world. We’d rather stay here and wait on those who arrive in glory. Our mountaintop experiences are not meant for us forever – at least not yet. We can’t live our lives on the mountaintop. Where the air is thin and the food is sparse. They come so that we might encounter God in a new way in the world. To be overshadowed.

When the power of the Holy One overshadows us, it is a frightening thing. Like Peter, John, and James, we may be terrified, because we have no idea of what’s going on. Not knowing what is going to happen. Not knowing what is going to be born in us. Like Mary, who was visited by the angel Gabriel who said “the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” With only faith to find her way – uncertain of what God was doing, Mary responds, ” Let it be according to your word.”

I’ve found that in times of uncertainty, of being lost in the cloud, of not being able to see all that clearly of what is in front of me and what is going to come next, God encounters me most often. While on the mountaintop I am lifted up and energized, but clarity about what God is calling me to do, who God is calling me to be have come while in the shadows of life. The dark moments when I was anxious and unsure – when I didn’t know the path to take, when I was scared – there overshadowed by the clouds, God gave me sight and spoke to me. Sometimes our mountaintop experiences come in the valleys of the shadow of death.

Jesus’ face is altered today in order to face the valley of the shadow of death . The glory of the Most High God is revealed so powerfully in the magnificence of this moment. His face being altered and his clothing changing. Jesus meeting with the great prophets of the faith. Moses, Elijah, and Jesus talk his upcoming departure – literally his exodus. The leading of people out of slavery and oppression, out of burden and hardship and into the promises of God. And so soon after coming back down, down from the mountaintop, down from the revealed glory, Luke writes, “when the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.” In Jerusalem this newly altered face will be struck. In Jerusalem the dazzlingly white clothes will be torn and sold. The glory of the Most High will be overshadowed by death. The shouts of Hosanna will be overshadowed by the cries of Crucify. The earth will be overshadowed by darkness. Hope overshadowed by despair.

And there in the shadow of the cross we live. In the shadow of the cross we find our light. In the shadow of Christ’s death we are given life. A mountaintop experience in the valley of the shadow of death that changes us, that changes our perception of how the world works comes to us on the hill of Calvary. The place of the Skull called Golgotha. Jesus lifts his face up to heaven and says “forgive them, Father” and we receive a facelift, we are altered, our clothing of faith becomes dazzlingly white. The glory of the Most High is reflected through us.

Our faces are altered, we reflect a different kind of light in theworld, we bear something new in and through us. The glory of God is revealed through us for the sick and suffering, for the poor and lame, the imprisoned and the oppressed. Listen to Jesus calling us back down to proclaim good news to the poor. Freedom for captive. Justice for the oppressed. To proclaim these things in word and deed.

As we enter into the season of Lent this next week – we often think of it as only a time of self-denial. Of giving up the alleluias because they make us feel good. But this season of the Church is more than us giving up something and fasting. We fast from alleluias, from chocolate, from meat, or tv so that we might come down from the mountain. So that we might listen more clearly to the voice of Christ speaking to us. In the dark moments, the moments of yearning, in denying ourselves, we focus on the suffering and need in the world. Which is exactly where God is.

With Jesus, with faces altered, and with clothing cleaned we set ourselves toward Jerusalem and the valley of the shadow of death, confident that God meets us there in profound ways that transform us and the world so that we all may one day dwell not in temporary tents, but the in eternal presence of the Most High. Amen.

An audio version of this sermon will be available at www.eflock.org

Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
During warmer parts of the year, my wife Rachel and I enjoy going out to the banks of the Wisconsin River to go fishing. But I don’t know if you can really can what we do fishing because we rarely catch anything. We lose more lines and lures in the rocks and the debris than we catch fish. And if we do get a nibble or finally a fish they’re not all that impressive – nothing that we can take with us. We go out with high expectations every time -when we go out we have the feeling that today is going to be different. Today we’re going to catch dinner. But after a couple of hours of fixing snagged lines and trying different spots on the river’s edge, we decide to pack up and hike back to the car – tired from being in the sun and hungry with nothing to eat for dinner.

Tired from the night and hungry with nothing to eat for breakfast, Simon and his associates had just spent a long night out on the waters of the lake of Gennesaret and came home empty handed. They didn’t even have fish to sell. Today their families would be little more hungry than usual. But the fruitless night of work wasn’t over yet. They still needed to clean the empty nets. Another reminder of their failure to catch anything. It was when they had nothing that Jesus came to them so that he could preach from the waters. Simon obliged to take this teacher out for the crowds to hear him. Perhaps he’d get some fare for this little journey. Really, Simon wanted a meal and bed after a disappointing night of work.

But out on that boat that Simon knew so well, on the lake he had fished hundreds of times before he heard the word of God spoken and he was hooked. We aren’t told what Jesus said to the crowds that day or what Simon heard. Whatever words Jesus spoke, they spoke to Simon. And when Jesus had finished speaking to the crowds, he told Simon to go deeper – put out further into the lake and let your nets down. The nets that failed them the previous night. The recently cleaned nets that were packed away neatly for another time. Simon wasn’t a fool. He knew this lake and knew that the fish just weren’t there. There was nothing there because if there was, he’d have caught something the night before. “Master, If you say so.” Jesus pushes them deeper. And the catch is so large they aren’t prepared for it. The nets can’t handle it. The men in the boat can’t handle it. They have to call for help. This is the kind of help you want. The big payday. The catch of a lifetime has finally arrive. But what they’ve dreamt about their entire lives is almost disaster. Their nets begin to break. Their boats begin to sink. These hardy fishermen can’t handle what Jesus provides. It completely overwhelms their nets, their boats, and themselves. For they are all scared and amazed at this. In catching everything they nearly lost everything. Simon Peter full of fear and amazement tells Jesus “get away from me, Lord.” He thinks his problem is no longer lack of fish, but lack of faith1. He is not worthy to be in the presence of Jesus.

Then once back on the shores the true miracle happens. With boats full of fish, they left everything and followed Jesus. They didn’t stick around to sort or to sell, to make the payday pay off. In the presence of Jesus power what they wanted before seems pointless. Why else give up the catch of a lifetime? And they’re called to follow and catch people. They’ve been caught by Jesus’ words and released back out into the world.

All of us carry around empty nets back to the shore – trying to clean them up with high hopes for tomorrow. Sometimes we get caught up in the routine of it all. No longer living but just going through the motions. You know those moments when you feel like you’re just repeating the same actions over and over just with different clothes on? Kind of like Bill Murray in the movie Groundhogs Day, where he relives the same day for over 10,000 years. Waking up at the same time every morning, finding your way to the shower – not remembering if you washed your hair – but you figure you did because you know it’s part of the routine you’ve trained yourself. Then it’s the same cup with coffee in it with the same breakfast day after day. And you find your day going on like this over and over. No sense of purpose or calling. Just dragging the empty net back to shore at the end of the day to be cleaned so we can begin again tomorrow. We’d love to bring home full nets. But we fail to catch anything worthwhile.

And it’s not just our nets that are empty. We are empty – looking for fulfillment from the lures and lines of life – full houses, fully loaded cars, and full credit cards accounts. The promises that are full of it. These things, no matter how full they seem leave us empty and wanting more. Our relationships with others are empty where we’ve failed to love, to forgive, to support, to share, to listen. Seeing the other as a means to fill up what we’re lacking. We take and take, but forget or refuse to give because there’s not enough to go around.

At our emptiest – when we look at ourselves and think that we are disqualified from God’s presence, is when God most fully appears. The emptiest times of life are where Jesus shows up. When the cross is stuck in the ground. When the disciples have given up all hope and are leaving town. When we’ve given up all hope of catching anything and we stand on the shore with nothing to show for our work. When we’ve cleaned the nets and are tired and hungry and ready to go home Jesus calls us back into our boats. And he calls us to go deeper. As one commentator says, Jesus presents us “with the vision of a deeper realism that embraces [our] failed efforts as well as God’s surprising and infinite bounty.”2 There in God’s infinite bounty of grace and forgiveness of restoration and wholeness we are filled up beyond measure. In the person of Jesus God’s bounty is given. In the death of Jesus God’s love is shown. In the resurrection of Jesus God’s glory is revealed. Unworthy as we are -a people who mess up, who forget, who are selfish, and ambivalent – the word of God’s grace catches and releases us. And is now proclaimed through us.

In you and to you Jesus is coming. Into your boats, your lives, your work, your relationships Jesus calls us to go deeper and to put our nets out again and again that we would catch others. Now when I think of Jesus’ call to catch people, I think of this scene from Finding Nemo. … It gives evangelism a bad name. I sense that sometimes we are afraid of trying to catch people because we don’t want to offend anyone or be too presumptuous that the God we follow might have something that they desperately need. The good news Jesus gives us to share is more than a line and lure to snag up the slow and the weak and then drag them away to be filleted. It’s more than a net to bring people into our boat so that we can meet the budget or feel good about the numbers we write down in our annual reports.

Just like Jesus, we proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captive, freedom to the oppressed. These things are worth leaving everything for. A call to leave the old nets behind. The nets full of emptiness. To know that in spite of our propensity to mess up, that God continues to use us to change the lives of people.

This is what is means to be caught by Christ. Trusting in the face of Christ that at times overwhelms, we are taken out of our comfort zones into deep waters but in the arms of God. And once back on the shores we sent catch others. Not in the empty nets with lines and lures that we ourselves have been freed from, but to wrap them up in the embrace of God’s grace and love that we might go deeper with them into the presence of God here in this place and the in the places that we live daily.

Wherever you find yourself, in the boat again and again waiting for the big haul, on the shores empty handed, tired and hungry, or in the deep waters with nets bursting and boats sinking – Jesus is coming to you. The good news Jesus speaks is for you too. Release, freedom, life. In the life you are already living God’s call comes to catch people and proclaim their release.

Epiphany 3c
Nehemiah 8:1-12, Luke 4:14-21

An audio version of this sermon can be found at www.eflock.org

(I recommend listening to this one, I think it’s better that way)

Finally – home again. Their food pantries were restocked. A familiar place to lay their heads. Streets that they recognized. Neighbors that they knew. It had been a long time coming. Had they really been gone 70 years? They were just children when they left. And now their children have children. God again had delivered them from exile, this time in Babylon. Back to Jerusalem. The Holy City. They would not make the same mistakes this time. They would not neglect their land or their God this time. It is too precious to let it slip through their fingers again. So once the walls and gates were restored, and the boards taken off the windows, once they were settled in their homes all the people gathered together to hear the law of Moses read. The Torah, which means law, or instruction, or teachings. The first five books of the Old Testament.

Six hours, at least, they gathered and heard the word as Ezra and others made sense of it for them. They yearned to hear words that were forbidden in exile. Words that fed them. Words that filled them. And when the Torah was read the peopled wept. The people found their strength to rebuild and restore in the joy of the Lord. They ate, and drank. They celebrated. And then they went and cared for the poor – those for whom nothing had been prepared.

Finally – Jesus was home again. A familiar place to lay his head. Streets that he recognized. Neighbors that knew him. The Spirit cared for him during his exile in the wilderness when the devil tempted him. And now he was back in Nazereth – the town he had grown up in. And he gathered with others on the sabbath day to hear word of God read and to make sense of it.

For the Jews gathered, there could of been a sense of another global super-power infiltrating their land again – as Babylon did 400 years previously. This time it was Rome – collecting taxes, making idols, closing in on their land. Jesus opens the scroll to the words from the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release tot he captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” These were promises of God’s continued action and work in the world. They are promises for the future. Promises they were all waiting to come true.

Jesus proclaims that in himself, the anointed one, the beloved son of God, the messiah, the one whom the Dove-like spirit descended upon, in him these words of God’s covenant with us and all creation are fulfilled – In him is God’s fullest expression. In Jesus these words make ultimate sense.

How do you make sense of the words you heard today? How do you make sense of the words for your personal struggles of addiction, for a parent who continues to grieve without faith, for a family that doesn’t know if they can pay the bills next month, for the Lutheran pastors whose son died in Haiti and whose memorial was bodiless, for the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who lay in unmarked mass graves. How do you make sense of the words you heard today? from this word that we proclaim every week?

Sometimes there is no sense to be made. Sometimes our interpretations fall short of logical consistency. Sometimes we just don’t know why the earth shakes and the mountains tremble. Sometimes we don’t have the words to say. Sometimes all we can do is rely on God’s words. On God making sense of it all. On the Word of God made flesh. The Word that comes to us in flesh and blood. On the Word that speaks for himself, who makes sense out of the senseless. The Word that is spoken most clearly in the silence of the cross.

Jesus proclaims good news to the poor and oppressed, the blind and the captive without saying a word. He himself is the fullest expression, the most complete interpretation of God’s word. Not because he was a great teacher, a miraculous healer, or a Good shepherd, but because he is God. God who comes into a seemingly senseless world and takes our pain, our sin, our irresponsibility, our apathy, our greed, our selfishness, all the senseless things that we do to ourselves and to one another and all the senseless things that happen to us. He takes them all upon himself. And he proclaims good news. Freedom. Forgiveness. And Love.

Jesus is the Word of God that we encounter together around. And our call is to rise up and shine forth in this world, making sense of this Word so that all people might understand. Just like the Israelites who returned from their oppression, imprisonment, and judgment, who came back to the land promised them forgiven and free, we who have been fed and forgiven, who have seen the fulfillment of God’s word, gather together around those same promises of God’s word each week in liturgy, song, and prayer, we eat the fat and drink the sweet wine of Christ’s body and blood, and then we are sent away to give and serve those for whom nothing has been prepared.

For there is a world of people out there and in your lives for whom nothing has been prepared – that have not been fed the power and the promises of Christ. Who have been forgotten, overlooked, and oppressed. We are sent by God to proclaim good news to the poor and marginalized. And it all starts by being gathered together in one places to hear the Word proclaimed

Today, Jesus says, these words fulfilled in your hearing. In your eating and drinking. In your bathing. For God speaks through these words, Christ feeds you in this meal, and the Spirit washes you in these waters. Each and every time we hear these words God moves through us and acts within us. Not just here, but wherever we go we carry these word with us. This book we call Holy Scripture is a gift for us. How do we use this gift? What does this look like for us, in our every day lives? I want to share with you the something that we are encouraging our Confirmation families to practice with one another. It’s called the Faith Five. It is a simple spiritual practice for families, friends, and support groups to do with one another. It draws us closer to one another as well as closer to God.

The first step is share your highs and lows – the best and worst things that have happened in your lives since the last time you met – whether it was last night, last week, or last month. We start by sharing where we’ve been. The places of joy, the places of sorrow. The places of captivity and death, the places of freedom and life. That is where God meets us. In life. If we are to make sense of God’s Word – of the crucified and risen Christ – we need to tell one another where we’ve been.

Next you read a passage from Scripture. Use the texts from Sunday worship. Work your way through the Psalms. Use a daily email devotion. Use your child’s storybible. Whatever works for you. If we are to make sense of God’s word in the world and for the sake of the world we need to first open God’s word and hear it again and again and again. Until it rolls off our tongues when we behold the wonders of God’s creation, until it radiates in our lives as we are sorting cans at Operation Bootstrap.

After you read, you talk about how the passage of Scripture relates to your highs & lows. Do you hear assurance, a challenge, comfort, relief, anger, or joy? How do those words make sense for your lives? Then you pray for one another, for the specific highs and lows, you pray for the world. Finally you bless one another – make the sign of the cross on each other’s head – reminding one another that you are children of a loving and merciful God and nothing can separate from him. That you too are annointed in this world to proclaim Good News.

In this simple spiritual practice, we may not gain all the answers, we may even leave with more questions. But we hear again and again God’s Word of grace. We hear of Jesus and his love. We come to realize that his book that can at times be so overwhelming in it’s depth is for us. For you. In the struggle of making sense of what God has said and is continuing to speak in our lives, the same words of God become our own. They are on our lips as we rise in the morning and as we answer the stark questions our children ask when we put them to bed at night. From the joy of life to the despair of death they flow through our entire being without us even knowing it. This is more than a text to read, but a living word that brings joy to the disheartened, release to the captive, freedom to the oppressed, and forgiveness to us all.

Grace and Peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The trees have been taken down, the lights are left off at night, the countdown to the new year is over, the visiting complete, the wisemen have given their gifts and returned home by a different road. The expectations of the Christmas birth are over. 30 years pass. 30 years of waiting. 30 years of expectations. 30 years of forgetting the star and the light it gave. Is there still a star shining in the east? Bright and beautiful at one time as it patiently sat over the Christ child waiting for us and other travelers from afar to arrive. Has that star too been hidden from us by the passage of time and the setting in of reality. And there was a voice of one calling out in the wilderness…

Seeing John standing there in the Jordan, his commanding voice booming over the waters and through the crowd of people. We all had expectations. Is he the Christ – the one sent from God to set the captive free once again. I wonder if all these people know he had a miraculous birth – born of an old and barren woman, Elizabeth – who was visited by an angel to foretell his birth. Is he the one the Scriptures tell us about? Calling us to true repentance. To turn from our sin – to seek forgiveness. People were flocking to him in droves. He seemed to preach without ceasing. His intensity burned hotter than we had seen in other ascetics before. We all expected him to be the one we were waiting for for. To bring God’s promises to fruition. To bring peace to our land. To bring wholeness to our lives.

Down by the river, all of us were getting excited by his words. The line to be baptized by John slithered like a snake along the banks of the Jordan. We were all questioning to ourselves and one another if he was the Christ, the messiah. It was finally my turn to be baptized. I don’t remember what he said, but what he said he said to everyone. The heat of the day was overbearing as the sun sat directly above us, but the cool of the river as I went under invigorated me. He pulled me under so quickly, I didn’t realize it was coming. It seemed like an eternity underneath those waters. I panicked and flailed at first – wondering which was was up. Then I stopped. It wasn’t a conscious decision. My body just stopped. Just as I was getting acclimated to my surroundings, just as the peace of that cool bath set in, just as I stopped struggling and started to give up control to the hands that held me, he wrenched me back into the world.

“Are you the Christ?” I blurted as soon as I came out of the waters, still embraced in his arms. The chatter and the slithering of the line stopped. All wanted to hear. This was the question on all their hearts. Affirmation of their deepest desire. To finally have confirmation that John was indeed the Christ. The man stood me up and I took a few steps back to rejoin the crowd. “I am just baptizing with water. But someone more powerful is going to come, and I am not good enough even to untie his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His threshing fork is in his hand, and he is ready to separate the wheat from the husks. He will store the wheat in his barn and burn the husks with a fire that never goes out.” And all you heard was the rushing of the water as our expectations for this man were washed away.

The events that followed seemed to happen so quickly, his imprisonment by King Herod, his beheading, some of his most devoted followers gathered his body for a proper burial. The rest of us, we still gathered by the river, I don’t know why. I’d like to think we were waiting for the one John spoke of. I think it’s really because we didn’t know what else to do. John’s death devastated our community. It had taken the life out of us.

Then one day, as those devoted followers of John continued to baptize in his name, we saw Jesus, John’s cousin come down to the water’s edge. We had heard about him and his ability to teach ever since he was old enough to read. Along with everyone else he was baptized. Where most of us were nervous and jittery when we went down into the waters Jesus was calm about it all. When he was pulled out, he stood in place for a moment, praying. And as he did, we witnessed something that we never saw with John. The heavens opened up like an impending storm might begin at any moment. Then a form that looked like a dove appeared in the sky and came down right to him and we thought it was going to crash. We yelled at him to move out of the way, but he stood there and opened himself up to descending dove. And right when the two should have crashed, at the last second the dove changed to light and enveloped him. Strangely, we were all filled both peace and excitement like we had never known with John. And we heard a voice. I don’t know if I heard it through my ears or through my heart, but we all heard it. “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” This man who stood in front of us dripping wet like the rest of us was who we were truly waiting for. Will our expectations be fulfilled in him or will his life too end with execution?

What about us here in this room right now? What expectations do we have for this new year. This new decade. What expectations are we holding onto and are not willing to let go? Predictions for the economy and new jobs or not, health care and more wars or not, terror and violence or not are all around us. Are we expecting the world to continue on as it always has? Or are we expecting God to begin a new thing. Are we expecting God to come and deliver us through the storms of life, through the fires and firings? Are we expecting Jesus to rise again and appear with power in our lives?

We who have been baptized can expect more than mere water, but the Holy Spirit and fire. The fire of the Holy Spirit affects our baptism like a flame underneath water. It is water that is stirred up. That shakes the pot. That kills all the harmful things that lay hidden throughout. Jesus brings this kind of transformation to our lives. More than a preacher in the wilderness. More than an executed political prisoner. Jesus, the beloved Son of God, brings a fire of transformation. A fire of power. A fire that cleanses us from all unrighteousness. A fire in, with, and under the waters of baptism. In, with, and under every part of your life.

Each week in this place we give up our disappointed expectations. We give up the things that leave us wanting. And instead we open ourselves up to the down-pouring of the Holy Spirit. As we follow the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in the word, as we hear again and again God’s claim on us as children in our baptism, as we are fed Christ’s body and blood in bread and wine we are enveloped by the Spirit of God descending upon us. Whether you’ve failed in meeting your own great expectations or those of someone else there is a place for you here, in this bath, at this table.

As you soon come forward to receive your food of grace stir up the waters. Let your hand splash the cool waters. Let this small dish be a sign that the waters in which you were baptize are stirring up in you. Refining and redefining you as a claimed child of God. Thus says, Yahweh, he who created you – who formed you. “Do not be afraid for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name. you are mine. Should you pass through the waters I shall be with you; or through rivers, they will not swallow you up. Should you walk through fire, you will not suffer, and the flame will not burnt you.” Waters that bring forgiveness. Waters that never stop moving us toward our eternal home. Waters that stir us up into action.

Just as Jesus began his ministry by being claimed by God, ours begins in the same way. God’s callings us as children. From the smallest infant in the NICU to the oldest patient in ICU we are all claimed. We are stirred up and filled with the Holy Spirit for the sake serving and ministering to the world. To bring freedom to the captive, to give coats to the cold, food to the hungry, to lift up the lowly, to speak out against the oppressor, and to forgive as we have been forgiven. Whether we expect it or not, these waters will move us, these waters will transform us, these waters are our claim to God and God’s claim to us. Amen.