Christmas Faith

“We act in faith - and miracles occur. In consequence, we are tempted to make the miracles the ground for our faith. The cost of such weakness is that we lose the confidence of faith. Faith is, faith creates, faith carries. It is not derived from, nor created, nor carried by anything except its own reality.”

From Markings by Dag Hammarskjold (Vintage Books, New York 2006) p. 145.

The Miracle of Christmas

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. (Matthew 2: 1-4)

On a website called The Bethlehem Star, the science and truth and meaning of the star that led the wise men to Christ’s manger-bed is explored. In an effort to “set the stage” the authors of this site pose the following thoughts for us to ponder.

“THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM FASCINATES. For millennia, believers, scoffers and the curious have wondered at the Biblical account of the Star. The Bible recounts unusual or even impossible astronomical events at Christ's birth. For many doubters, the account of the Star is easily dismissed as myth. For many believers, it's a mystery accepted on faith. But what happens if we combine current historical scholarship, astronomical fact and an open mind? Judge for yourself...”

Is the star an impossible astronomical event? Would your faith in the events of Christmas be changed if you found out that the star wasn’t real, that it had been an illusion? Or even a myth?

In the introduction to “The Martin Luther Christmas Book” (translated and arranged by Roland H. Bainton) we find that Luther himself was not primarily interested in the miracles surrounding the Christmas story. Did angels really appear to the shepherds? Did, as the carol has it, “ox and ass before him bow?” Luther believed that the purpose of these stories, whether factual or fabricated, help us to understand the impact of the real miracle.

Bainton writes of Luther’s faith in real miracle of Christmas. “Christian teaching is that in Christ, God became flesh. Compared with that, no particular miracle matters much. If one could but believe that God lay in the manger, one could let go the star and the angel’s song, and yet keep the faith. The question was not whether God could or would make a special star, but why the Lord of the universe should care enough about us mortals to take our flesh and share our woes. The condescension of God was the great wonder.” (p. 12)

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" (Luke 2: 13-14)

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time. On this platform of peace, we can create a language to translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other. At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ into the great religions of the world. We jubilate the precious advent of trust. We shout with glorious tongues the coming of hope....Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at the world and speak the word aloud. Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves, and we say without shyness or apology or hesitation: Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul. (From Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem by Dr. Maya Angelou)

Are You Ready?

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without truly being poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God – for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, they will have someone. That someone is God. Emmanuel. God-with-us. Without poverty of the spirit, there can be no abundance of God. ~Oscar Romero~

At church last Sunday, I asked most of the people with whom I chatted before and after services, “are you ready?” and the most common answer was “not at all!” We are busy with our preparations, our baking and cooking, our shopping and everything else that comes with Christmas anticipation. We have to be ready!, to have everything done by December 24th so we can enjoy a leisurely holiday, give our gifts and share a festive meal with family and friends.

In an Advent devotion, Bishop William Willimon wonders, in this season of generous giving, if it is more difficult for us to be the receivers than the givers. He writes, “We enjoy thinking of ourselves as basically generous, benevolent, giving people… Yet I suggest we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people, but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story [according to Luke] is not about how blessed it is to be givers but how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.” (p. 143, 44)

In the biblical account of the first Christmas, “we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were, but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we – with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities – had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins, and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was receive it.” (p. 145)

“This strange story tells us how to be receivers. The first word of the church, a people born out of so odd a nativity, is that we are receivers before we are givers. Discipleship teaches us the art of seeing our lives as gifts. That’s tough, because I would rather see myself as a giver. I want power – to stand on my own, take charge, set things to rights, perhaps to help those who have nothing. I don’t like picturing myself as dependent, needy, empty handed.” (p. 147)

“It’s tough to be on the receiving end of love, God’s or anyone else’s. It requires that we see our lives not as our possessions, but as gifts. ‘Nothing is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace,’ wrote John Wesley a long time ago.”(p. 148)

God’s love comes to us in a way that we don’t expect. We receive a gift that “we thought we didn’t need, which transforms us into people we don’t necessarily want to be. With our advanced degrees, armies… and material comforts… we assume that religion is about giving a little of our power in order to confirm to ourselves that we are indeed as self-sufficient as we claim.

Then this stranger comes to us, blesses us with a gift, and calls us to see ourselves as we are – empty-handed recipients of a gracious God who, rather than leave us to our own devices, gave us a baby.” (p. 149) Are you ready for that?

Adapted and excerpted from “The God We Hardly Knew,” by William Willimon, found at religion-online, and also in the book, “Watch For the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas” Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 2004, p 141-149.

Believe!

The theme of Macy’s 2009 Christmas promotion is “Believe!” The following invitation appeared on Macy’s website. “This holiday season we believe more than ever. In the spirit of Christmas and the power of community, join the fun and tell us why you believe. We can’t wait to hear from you!” The website includes a link to the story “Yes, Virginia” and also to Santa’s post office. The “believe meter” shows the words “imagine, wish, dream and believe.” Just exactly what does Macy's want us to believe?

In a tongue-in-cheek article in this month’s Christian Century magazine (December 01, 2009 Vol. 126, No. 24, p. 13), Bishop William Willimon writes an imaginary editor’s rejection letter to the evangelist John regarding the forth Gospel. As editor, Willimon points out that John doesn’t make Jesus come across as someone who we would necessarily “like,” and John doesn’t write in a way that would attract readers. “Surely,” Willamon writes to John as he criticizes his style, “you can find more efficient ways for Jesus to convey his message.”

It is a criticism I sometimes get as a preacher. Scripture doesn’t always give us the easiest, most uplifting, or inspirational material to work from. Sometimes, Jesus comes across as a mean and surly leader who can’t get anyone to do what he wants. “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2: 16) Sometimes, he speaks in confusing parables that are almost impossible to understand. “You must be born from above. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3: 7-8) Sometimes Jesus challenges us with words that make us uncomfortable. “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you.” (John 15: 19)

And then, sometimes, Jesus’ words are filled with love and hope and direction that is simple to understand and to follow. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13: 34-35)

We have to live and work with all of it, the good, the confusing and the difficult. As preachers, it’s not always easy to speak words that light a fire in the bellies of our listeners. And to be honest, we are not in the fire-lighting business. We preachers are in the business of reminding you, our hearers, over and over again, that whatever Jesus says, he says it because God loves you so much “that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

In a column called “Life, Death and the Task of Preaching,” Dr. David Lose writes, “We preach the Christian story, and by preaching it we invite our hearers into it so that it becomes their story. So that the promises the Christian story revolve around become promises they hear and believe, and through believing discover hope, meaning, and courage.”

That hope, meaning and courage may inspire you to head out of church and change the world. It may simply comfort and strengthen you in the face of a frightening situation.

In this Advent season, my prayer for you is that you hear and remember the true message of Christmas, and that you find, in listening to the familiar story again, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,” (Phil 4: 17) and that you believe! Amen.

Holiday Strangeness

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Luke 14: 26


“The holidays” are upon us. Starting last week with Thanksgiving and continuing on through Christmas and then New Year’s Eve, we gather and celebrate with loved ones and acquaintances as we mark the important events of our faith life and of our secular life. This celebrating usually involves our families in some way.

For some of us, gathering with family is relaxing and joyful. For some of us, it can be stressful and feel like hard work. Even so, family is important. Although it may sometimes feel difficult to spend time together with family, it would be much worse to be separated, estranged.

The dictionary definition of estranged is to be removed from the customary environment or associations; to arouse mutual enmity or indifference where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness. The word comes from the same Latin root as strange. It would be strange to be removed from family. I can’t think of any circumstances that would make estrangement feel right.

I know people who are estranged from their families for reasons I don’t understand. How could someone give up a relationship with their parents, their husband or wife, their children, or their brothers and sisters over money, or over possessions, or over politics, or over religion?

And so, when I think about Jesus’ words in Luke’s gospel it makes me very uncomfortable that this is exactly what Jesus asks us to do. Actually, he doesn’t even ask. Jesus tells us that this is what we MUST do in order to follow him.

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14: 26

Especially coming from the mouth of Jesus, these words sound strange. The ambassador of love, the one who once said to a rich young man that in order to have eternal life, he must keep the commandments that include honoring your father and mother and loving your neighbor as yourself, tells us here that we must hate not only our own family, but even our own life in order to follow him.

Something must have provoked Jesus to use such strong language.

Jesus had been traveling and preaching and telling parables. Along the way, huge crowds had accumulated, and were traveling with him. He wanted them to know what they were getting into. Maybe as he looked out over the masses he saw people who weren’t really committed to his cause. Maybe he saw people who were merely swept up in the movement, along for the ride, so to speak, traveling with the crowd because they wanted to see what was going to happen. Maybe he saw people who didn’t understand what he was going to do for them, that he was passionate with love for them, passionate about their salvation, and that he expected them to be passionate, too. Maybe he wanted to kindle a heavenly flame in their bellies, to startle them into action.

I searched for the commentary that said that Jesus didn’t really mean hate. I looked in my Greek books, and learned that the word had been translated correctly. Jesus really did say that we should hate our families, and even hate our own lives to follow him.

One scholar did say that the word hate was a Semitic term expressing detachment or turning away from, and was not the emotion filled word we think of if someone screams, “I hate you!” But even then, Jesus says turn away, detach yourself from what you love, and follow me.

What do we do with this? I, for one, no matter how annoyed or angry I get with them, will not turn away from my family. I’m sure most of you feel the same. But Jesus is telling us in no uncertain terms that becoming a disciple is not going to be easy. Becoming a disciple may create tensions in an already crowded life. When asked for loyalty in many different places, Jesus wants us to clearly understand that he desires and calls for primary allegiance. There is tension. We are not prepared to, probably not even able to hate the people we love. We can’t carry the cross like Jesus did. We are simply not capable of it.

Most of us can’t even get rid of our stuff.

We know the terms of discipleship, and we can’t accomplish them. And so instead of carrying the cross, we fall at the foot of it with all of our inadequacies and failures, and we remember that because of that cross, nothing is required of us.

God’s grace and mercy for our poor selves will help us hear Jesus’ strange words and remember that we can hand all of our relationships and plans and possessions to him, and that he takes care of us. What he started for us at that first family Christmas in a stable in Bethlehem, he will finish for us. Amen.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

O Divine Gift-Giver,

I stand beneath the endless waterfall

of your abundant gifts to me.
I thank you especially for the blessing of life,

the most precious of all your gifts to me.
I thank you, Ever-generous One,

for clothing to wear,

for food and drink to nourish my body,

for all the talents and skills that you have bestowed upon me.
I thank you for the many joys of my life,

for family and friends,

for work that gives to me a sense of purpose

and invests my life with meaning.
I thank you as well

for the sufferings and trials of my life,

which are also gifts

and which together with my mistakes

are among my most important teachers.
Grant that I may never greet a new day

without the awareness of some gift

for which to give you thanks.
And may constant thanksgiving

be my song of perpetual praise to you.
[Generous God], a needy one stands before you,

I that sing am that one.
Native American Omaha Indian

(from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim: A Personal Manual for Prayer and Ritual by Edward Hays (Forest of Peace Books, Inc. Leavenworth, KS, 1989.) p. 197-98.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended to the dead. On the third day He rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father; and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

If you come to church with any regularity, you will recognize the Apostles’ Creed, the confession of our Christian faith which we recite together each week during worship. The Apostles’ Creed explains and helps us to understand the Holy Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

At first glance, the Creed might seem like a simple expression of what we believe as Christians. It is anything but simple. In his little book, Living in the Kingdom; Reflections on Luther’s Catechism Alvin N. Rogness writes “It boggles the mind to say, “I believe in God the Father.” (p. 50) In the creed, we are confessing that we believe in something unbelievable – that there is a God at all, and that God is indeed our father, a personal parent, someone who knows each of us and loves us individually, unconditionally.

Martin Luther devoted ten pages of the Large Catechism (Luther’s basic teachings on the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments) to the Creed. After much thought and prayer, he concluded that we should understand and study the Creed in reverse. We simply can’t believe on our own. Belief starts as a gift from the Holy Spirit.

“Because the Holy Spirit makes us believers, it stands to reason that we experience the Trinity backward – that is, only when we believe in Christ, (the work of the Holy Spirit, who does not indulge in self-revelation bit in revealing the Son) do we pierce God’s judgment and arrive at mercy.” (Martin Luther’s Catechisms; Forming the Faith Timothy J. Wengert, p. 45)

Even after witnessing Jesus perform an amazing, grace-filled miracle; the father of a young boy who Jesus healed from his convulsions cried out, “I believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) How much more do we, who walk by faith and not by sight, have to rely on the Spirit?

The Third Article of the Apostles' Creed Explained – from Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.

I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy catholic church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.


What does this mean?

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life.
This is most certainly true.

King David knew how to wait. Do we?

Map of David’s Kingdom

So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron; and King David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign and he reigned forty years. (2 Samuel 5: 3-4)

By the time he became king over all of Israel, David had been anointed as king three times. First, the prophet Samuel anointed David when he was still a child. The only witnesses, besides God and Samuel, were David’s brothers. (1 Sam 16: 13) The second anointing was by the people of Judah, the southern part of ancient Palestine (2 Sam 2: 4). Only the people of Judah acknowledged David as king. The rest of Israel wasn’t yet united. When David was about 37, he was finally anointed king of all Israel.

David had to wait a long time to become the king that God chose him to be as a child. In his commentary on 1 and 2 Samuel, Eugene Peterson writes, “David knows how to wait. His waiting is not procrastination; it is not indolence. It is poised submissiveness, a not-doing that leaves adequate space and time for God’s initiating actions through others.” (p. 156-57)

Waiting is never easy. We want things to happen now, and we want them the way we want them. Sometimes, even though we hear it again and again, it’s hard to remember that God’s time is different from our time. Sometimes the waiting - the time before something happens - is the time that God gives us to get prepared, to become educated, to grow mature enough to handle the experiences that come our way.

Do you know how to wait? Do you leave adequate space and time for God to work through you and through other people in your life? God has great plans. You might not see what they are right now, but remember that God is working through you even as you wait. God invites you be patient, to learn and grow, and to anticipate what is to come.

This past Sunday at Trinity, almost fifty new members were welcomed into our congregation. I ask you to keep our new members, and our congregation in your prayers. Together in faith, we will continue the tradition started with a dream more than 90 years ago. We have things to do! Baptizing, worshiping, sharing the sacrament of holy communion and so many other important meals, raising new saints and caring for each other and for the world, and sending saints into eternity - how could we do all these things alone?

We know that even as saints, we aren’t perfect. We struggle and we stumble, we fall short, we disagree and sometimes we even fight. But it is in our imperfections that we bear witness to the abundant love of God in Jesus, who washes us clean, and receives us only by grace. It is God who knits us together in this one holy church which is the body of Christ.

My prayer for myself, and for each of you, for our congregation and for the whole church, is that, together with all the saints, we share our time and our talents and our treasure, and we to continue to make a difference for each other and for the world. I pray that we continue to live a resurrection life during our time here on earth, even as we look toward heaven. We are all part of something greater than ourselves, “part of the unending ribbon of God’s children, walking wet from baptism to eternity, walking by faith and not by our own meager efforts.”

I know, O Lord, that the way of human beings is not in their control, that mortals as they walk cannot direct their steps. Correct me, O Lord, but in just measure; not in your anger, or you will bring me to nothing. (Jeremiah 10: 23-24)

Sometimes it feels like things are falling apart around me and I don’t have control over anything. Living in a house with 3 other adults and 2 dogs, life often feels messy and hectic and chaotic. Three blocks west of my house, noise from the famous I-35W/Hwy 62 Crosstown reconstruction project, which began in June of 2007 and is scheduled to be completed in December of 2010, is constant and traffic is jammed on 35W even when I come home on Sunday afternoon or Wednesday night at 8:00.

The uncertain economy, terrorism and war, global warming, it’s no wonder I wake up at night in a cold sweat. All is not right with the world, and apparently there is nothing I can do about it!

Yesterday was Reformation Day in the Lutheran Church. We celebrated our Lutheran “birthday” and our realization, thanks to Martin Luther, that God is in control and we are not. Dick Rice, our visiting preacher and director of spiritual care at The Retreat in Wayzata, spoke about our human need to be in control. He called our desire to change things that we cannot change pride and arrogance. Who are we, he asked, that we think we can do work that belongs to God?

When we finally realize most things in this world are not in our control, only then can we rest in the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. As everything around us changes, even as it falls apart, we can remember that it is only God who never changes. God is the solid ground upon which we stand. Then our hearts and minds can find peace in this chaotic world. God has something great planned for us in this life, but that is not all there is. God has something even greater planned for us – something beyond this life, beyond this messy world.

Following her divorce from Lance Armstrong, Kristin Armstrong turned to God for courage and strength. Her daily devotional has been helpful to several of my friends, and although I haven’t personally experienced the pain of divorce, I have found many of her reflections comforting.

She writes, “Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. (Heb 13:8) He is our Rock. He is in the boat with us, calm and steady despite the turbulent seas. We can look forward to the future with unwavering confidence when we approach it from solid ground. We don’t need to fear change when we know it cannot disturb the peace at our core. If the circumstances surrounding us are unsteady, we cannot waste our energy attempting to control them. But we can focus on our efforts inside, allowing Christ to change and fortify us. We can work on our core, on our own personal steadiness. Perhaps we can’t change where we are, but we can change how we respond while we are here. (p. 285, Happily Ever After, Armstrong, 2007)

Is faith blind?

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I recently had a conversation with a friend following a presentation by a Martin Luther scholar. The discussion centered on the subjects of grace and faith. One of the things we talked about was doubt, and how doubt relates to our faith. “So, we’re just supposed to have blind faith?” my friend asked, “Is that what God expects?”

There is so much about our faith of which we cannot be absolutely sure, and so in some things we must have blind faith. We must trust God wholly and completely in all that we do and in all that we are. But I also believe that doubts and questions are an integral part of our faith. We can’t know the mind of God.

The NRSV translation of 1 Cor. 13:12 is positively poetic. “For now we see in a mirror dimly.” Now we can’t see clearly what God has in store for us. The Greek word that is translated “dimly,” is actually “in a riddle.” Now we can only see in a riddle, but then, the riddle will be solved for us, we will know everything.

In John Irving’s wonderful book A Prayer for Owen Meany, the young narrator John Wheelwright compares the pastors of the two churches in his small Canadian town. One believed absolutely, and was “blind to doubt or worry in any form.” What made the other “infinitely more attractive was that he was full of doubt; he expressed our doubts in the most eloquent and sympathetic ways…” The gift of having faith, he said, was that it was necessary to believe in God without any great or even remotely reassuring evidence that we don’t inhabit a godless universe. I agree.

Dear God, Help our unbelief. Help us to know that, in wondrous time when we will see you face to face, all things will be perfectly clear. Amen.

Beautifully Imperfect

SnowCrystals.com

Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible." (Matt 19: 21-26)

This morning I woke up at 5:30 to a barking puppy who needed to go out. I threw on a sweatshirt over my pajamas and out we went, into the snow. It was puppy’s first experience with snow. She was delighted, I was not.

But we live in Minnesota. We know that there are certainly a lot of wonderful thing about snow. In his amazing book “Snowflakes,” Ken Libbrecht writes, “Many people are under the false impression that all snowflakes are beautifully formed and all are almost inexplicably symmetrical. To dispel this myth, spend a mere ten minutes with a magnifying glass during any snowfall. The quintessential, well-formed snowflake is actually quite rare. The vast majority show imperfect symmetry, if they show much symmetry at all…. There are many potential problems that can interfere with symmetrical growth.” (p. 48)

As Libbrecht says, perfection is quite rare. Jesus gives the rich young man a radical idea – a way to attempt human perfection. “Sell all your possessions and give your money to the poor.” And the rich young man walked away because he couldn’t do it.

What is Jesus doing to us when he speaks these difficult, law-like words? He is giving us commands that we can’t fulfill. We know that even if we sold everything and gave all of our money to the poor, we still wouldn’t be perfect.

It is an ideal. Jesus is teaching us that this is what we should strive for. He doesn’t call our wealth evil, or make any judgment on wealth at all. What Jesus is calling evil is what our wealth is doing to us – causing us to be dependent on what will not save us, instead of trusting completely in him. He is teaching us that we need to change our focus, to change our definition of what gives us life.

Perfect or not, we are not saved by what we do, or by what we give, or by what we have. We must learn to trust God, who loves us so much in our beautiful imperfection that he overlooks what we can’t do, even as he rejoices in what we actually do. It is impossible for us, but all things are possible with God.

“Snow crystals are wonderful examples of nature’s art, even as they are wrapped in the cold winds and dreary skies of winter. When you stop to notice them, snowflakes are a delight to find on your sleeve and are absolutely fascinating when viewed under a microscope. Their complex structures grow and develop as they tumble through the clouds, each design ephemeral and never again to be repeated.” (p. 111, Libbrecht)

Why do we have to read that? Mark 10: 2-12

Yesterday, my sermon was about Jesus’ words on divorce. As I prepared to preach about this difficult topic, I consulted some resources and commentaries, and I also spent time in prayer trying to understand what Jesus was teaching us. One commentator said, “If you are going to read this text in church, you need to preach about it. You can’t just leave it hanging out there.” The tension between our Lutheran understanding of law and gospel seemed particularly important to discern in these complex passages.

I want to be clear about WHY I chose Mark 10: 2-12 as my sermon text.

The sermon is the tool that we, as pastors, use to proclaim the gospel to our congregations during worship. Our sermon preparation always starts with a text from scripture. These texts are not randomly chosen. We preach using the Revised Common Lectionary, a collection of readings or selections from the Scriptures, arranged and intended for proclamation during the worship of the people of God. Lectionaries were known and used in the fourth century, where major churches arranged the Scripture readings according to a schedule which follows the calendar of the church's year. This practice of assigning particular readings to each Sunday and festival has continued through the history of the Christian Church.

These common texts are used by churches worldwide, and across all denominations. If you visited several different churches on a Sunday morning, you would probably find that most of the pastors and priests were preaching on the same text. It would be an interesting study of theology! There are many reasons to use the lectionary, but one of the best, I think, is that by using the lectionary, we are invited to address all different kinds of texts and not simply choose our favorites week after week.

And sometimes, a text pops up that we would rather skip because it makes us uncomfortable, or it is difficult and harsh. It is our job as pastors, to work and to pray and to study so we can find the grace in even the most judgmental sounding scripture. And we know, because of our trust and faith in the unconditional love of God for us in Jesus that grace, the gospel, is always found there.

I hope that you all heard a word of grace yesterday if you were in worship. It is never my intention to hurt of offend anyone with my preaching, but God calls us to look at ourselves in the mirror and to realize our brokenness (with the law) – we are all broken in one way or another. It is that brokenness that shows us our need for a savior. Thanks be to God for giving us once for all, what we so desperately need – Jesus Christ – unconditional love, and forgiveness, and grace (it’s the gospel!).

Be Quiet!

For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him Psalm 62:5

Last weekend I gave the 9th graders at the confirmation retreat a very difficult assignment.

We were at Green Lake bible camp. At around 9:30 on Saturday night, our education time was done, and we were finally outside, and preparing for evening worship. We had to walk on a path through the woods in the dark of night to our destination, the outdoor chapel.

Walking through the dark woods, imagining what could jump out at us, hearing all of the night noises, was both frightening and thrilling. But we all made it safely. A bonfire was blazing by the time everyone arrived at the chapel, and spirits were high. And there was a lot of noise.

Chattering, laughing, singing, shouting, we were in God's great outdoors and the energy was boundless. As everyone sat down for worship, I gave this simple (yet difficult) instruction. Everyone must be quite. Completely silent. It is impossible, I told them, to listen to how God is speaking to you if you don’t sit quietly, at least for a little while, and listen. And so we sat, quietly. I had to shush them a few times. But it was beautiful – the night noises were clear and comforting, and I hope that some of those kids had a chance to listen to something that God was saying to them that night.

In an article called Why Be Silent?, Margaret W. Jones reminds us of the importance of taking time to be quiet to listen for God.

"Silence is a lost art in a society made of noise. What God works with in my silent times is ME. It is only with ME that God deals when I permit myself to be quiet.”

God is always speaking to us, but how much of what God says to us do we hear? If we are always in conversation, or listening to the news on the TV or the radio, or even listening to religious music on our IPOD, we are drowning out the voice of God, who might have a very important message just for us.

Take some time today, and every day, to be quiet and to listen. God is trying to tell you something that only in the silence will you be able to hear.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. James 3: 13-18

Yesterday God spoke to me as I was sitting in church listening to these words from the book of James. I believe that it’s important to pay attention when God has something to say – especially when God is speaking directly to you.

It’s a busy time of year for all of us. School is starting; programs at church are being kicked off. My daughter is filling out college applications and planning campus tours. And then, forgive me for being a broken record, but, the dogs… A puppy, Rosie, and her five year old sister, Penny. Two dogs in the house create some stress. I know that things will get better, probably very soon, but my husband tells me that I’ve been unusually crabby lately.

So this week, God had a message for me. “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

God has given us many gifts, and one of those gifts, wisdom, actually does work in us if we pay attention and let it work. With wisdom from above, we can be peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, and full of mercy.

Yesterday after church I was exhausted. I’d spent Saturday night with the confirmation kids at Green Lake bible camp, and by 6 am Sunday morning, I was on the road from Spicer so I could be back to Orono in time for 9 am worship. The first 10:10 was kicking off – subject, Lutheran Basics, teacher, me. After visiting with a few people following 10:45 worship and stopping for a quick errand, I arrived home later than expected, famished, and discovered that I missed lunch. A perfect storm – there could have been harsh words exchanged that would have ruined a peaceful afternoon.

Thank you, God, for giving me what I needed yesterday, for your wisdom, for your Holy Spirit working in my life. Thank you for reminding me that I can be peaceable, gentle. It is ok to be the one to yield.

After taking a deep breath, I greeted my family with a cheerful hello, ate some leftovers, and, along with the dogs, took a much needed and wonderfully refreshing nap. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. Amen.

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6



The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Ecclesiastes 7:8



When I went out with the dogs this morning, I noticed how beautiful the morning glories have grown around my lamp post. I started these lovelies from seeds way back in March, and it took the longest time for them to get going. Even up until the middle of July, they still looked spindly and I had almost given up any hope of flowers. Then all of the sudden, with the late July rains and some warm weather, they simply exploded. We will enjoy their bright pink blossoms until the first hard frost.

Last week, my daughter Sophie and I attended the funeral of our beloved friend, and Sophie’s piano teacher, Marilyn. Sophie only took piano lessons for a couple of years, and then the demands of teenage life, school, sports and a job made it hard for her to find the time to continue.


Marilyn, however, had planted musical seeds in Sophie that have been germinating and growing. Unbeknownst to either one of them, in the months that Marilyn was her weakest, Sophie would sit down at the piano almost daily and play for an hour or so. Sometimes she would practice a song that she and Marilyn had worked on together, and sometimes she would try something new and work at it until she could play it through.


Before she died, I sent Marilyn a note telling her that the good work that she started in Sophie, although she was not able to hear it for herself, was sprouting new growth. I pray that it will continue to grow. It is the way that Marilyn will live on in our lives.


We don’t always get to see the results of the seeds that we plant. But it is our job to plant the seeds nevertheless, when we share our faith, our talents, and our stories with the people around us. It is by God’s grace that the seeds sprout and grow, that the good work that is started will come to completion.


Thanks be to God!

A Humble and Sincere Expressin of Faith

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone. Mark 7:24-30


We will always have questions about what Jesus the person was really like. When we imagine him in the world, we think of him as love and peace and grace personified. The gospel of Mark, however, shows us a very different picture of Jesus. He is a strong and compassionate leader, but he is sometimes stern, harsh and impatient with the Gentiles, and even with his disciples who don’t seem to understand much of what Jesus does, or what he teaches them.


The story of the Syrophoenician woman’s faith shows us that Jesus is driven by his mission to the people of Israel. It’s possible that Jesus was responding to this Gentile woman’s plea for help with a well known proverb similar to our saying “charity begins at home.” Jesus was on an urgent mission to the Jews, and his initial response might be the same as ours would be when we need to prioritize and take care of first things first. Even some of our very important work might have to be put on the back burner because we can’t be all things to all people all of the time.


The difference with Jesus is that he stopped and recognized the woman’s faith, and he made time to help her. He made an exception to his rule. He patiently and lovingly responded to her humble and sincere expression of trust in him, and by doing so, he acknowledged that she, the Gentiles, and all of us are included in the promise, and in the kingdom. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Fear Not

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
It will be a healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body. (Proverbs 3: 7-8)

It’s the beginning of the program year at Trinity, and at churches everywhere. Adult education, confirmation, and choir are revving up and there’s wonderful energy around here. It’s exciting – and scary. Most of the legwork goes on behind the scenes, weeks and months before the first class, or the first rehearsal, or the first Sunday of TK. Curriculum and music are planned, calls are made, postcards are sent out, publicity gets written and published and then we pray.

What if nobody shows up? What if the speaker bombs? What if the topic is a dud? What if what if what if…

There are lots of things to be afraid of and to be worried about. I’m sure you all can think of things in your jobs or in your life that worry you, that you think you may fail at.

And we are living in fearful times. We fear terrorists, we fear job loss, we fear the weather. We fear sickness and loneliness and anything that is strange, uncertain or new.

We know that fear has its place, of course. It is wise for example, for the Californians in the path of the fire to fear it and evacuate. But when fear is the guiding principle of our lives, when we fear so much that we can’t live, that is a path that leads to our death.

In his book Hope Against Darkness, Richard Rohr observes, “People more easily define themselves by what they fear, by what they are against, by who they hate, by who else is wrong, instead of by what they believe in and by whom they love. It’s much easier to build our identity on our group, our wounds, our angers, our agenda, our fear; that’s the more normal way, unless you’ve been taught by the way of Jesus.”

That “way” to which he refers is both radical and hard. It is nothing less than living in the faith that God is God and we aren’t. It is knowing in our bones that God is good, and that in spite of appearances, evil and hate don’t have the final say. Does such knowledge guarantee that we will never again be afraid? Not at all. What it does do is enable us to live with confidence and joy and hope in spite of the things we fear.


God is God and we aren’t. So let God be God. One of my favorite bits of wisdom from Martin Luther goes like this. "Pray as if everything depends on God, but act as if everything depends on you." We do have responsibilities. There are some things to fear. We may fail, and things may fall apart, but God never abandons us in our struggle. And God has arranged for us this promise – no matter what we fear, or how we fail, finally we will succeed safely and joyfully in the arms of Jesus, who gave himself for us, to sooth our minds, to calm our fears, and to save us. Ultimately, we have nothing to fear because our lives are encompassed in the love of God, by the protection of the Holy Spirit, and with the salvation of Jesus.

Change is never easy

Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. 2Titus 3:16

Change is never easy. In her book “The Woman Behind the Collar,” The Rev. Joy Carol Wallis describes the journey, sometimes rocky and emotional, that the Church of England traveled as they discerned God’s call for women to become ordained clergy. A similar rocky path was trod by my predecessors in the Lutheran Church in America before the ordination of Elizabeth Platz on November 22, 1970. I am thankful for those smart and tenacious women who blazed the trail that some people thought was wrong, against the teaching of the bible, and just not a woman’s place.

Elizabeth Platz, described some experiences of those early years.

“While strolling down a convention hallway with Barbara Louise Andrews, the first woman ordained in the former American Lutheran Church two women approached warmly. But the tone changed when they quizzed the pastors about how they expected to pastor as wives or mothers. ‘There was a lot of hate mail. Ugly ideas, like I was ruining the church,’ Platz recalls. ‘Some would walk out when I was invited to speak.”

In a letter to the brothers and sisters of the Minneapolis area synod on Friday, Bishop Craig Johnson commented on the changes happening in the ELCA following the church wide assembly last week in downtown Minneapolis.

“…Many in our Church will be bitterly disappointed and angry. I ask everyone to remember the words of the Apostle Paul, "Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body." (Colossians 3:14-15a) Let us strive to live together as the Holy Scriptures call us to live together even amid our disagreements. Our Church has gone through very difficult votes before in our history. I believe if respect is given for bound consciences, prayers for peace are offered to God, and the Scriptures are the central, authoritative norm for our life together, we will also find our way together with God's help.”

More information on the ELCA 2009 church wide assembly

Servant or Slave?

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. (Romans 1: 1-6)

In the beginning of his letter to the Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul introduced himself with a traditional salutation that included a summary of the gospel. He carefully chose the words that he used to describe himself, servant of Jesus Christ and apostle.

In her bible study on the book of Romans in the September issue of Lutheran Woman Today, Sarah Henrich points out that the Greek word doulos from which servant is translated in most bibles really means slave.

The concept of slavery, especially when we remember and acknowledge the appalling history of slavery in our own country, makes us uneasy. It’s difficult for us to reconcile slave and Jesus in the same thought. These days, we carefully distinguish between the words servant and slave. They mean very different things to us.

But Paul uses the word slave, even though translators have softened it for us. By calling himself a slave of Jesus Christ, Paul is teaching us that he “not only serves Jesus Christ, he literally belongs to him.” (Henrich)

What would it mean if we were to claim to be a slave, to literally belong to something or someone? What it would mean for our lives and for our world if we would claim to be a slave to Christ?

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

In her book, The Mermaid Chair, Sue Monk Kidd tells the story, of a young monk, Brother Thomas, who experienced a terrible loss in his former life. His pregnant wife was killed in a car accident weeks before their child was to be born. Unable to bear his grief, and searching for God, Brother Thomas retreated to the monastery on Egret Island to live and pray and learn, to find his true self, and eventually become one of the monks.

One day, he is asked question about heaven. “This experience of the eternal you mentioned, what is it exactly?”

His answer was this. “When I first came here, I had the impression that transcending the world was superior to simply being in it. I was always struggling to meditate, fast, detach, that kind of thing. One day I realized that merely being here, going about my work was what made me the happiest. I finally figured out that what matters is giving over to what you love. “

What would it look like if we were true to ourselves and to our heart, giving ourselves over to what we love? Jesus teaches us not only how to pray, but he is teaching us what we need from God, and what God would like from us. Jesus is telling us what our life on this earth should look like, what the kingdom of heaven, the experience of the eternal, can and should be right now for each one of us. “Your kingdom come to me now, Your will be done, God, on earth, with me, just as it is in heaven.”

It’s a tall order, and sometimes I think we are very bold to ask God for the things we do when we pray the Lord ’s Prayer. But then I remember, these are the words that Jesus taught us. Jesus is simply reminding us that God’s kingdom is here with us on earth, and it is what we hope for in our eternal experience.

It is in our relationship with God, our acknowledgement of Christ’s presence in our lives, that we become part of the kingdom of heaven on earth. In the name of Christ, give yourself over to what you love, and remember that it is God who loves you, unconditionally, just as you are. The experience of heaven on earth is truly in our relationship with God, so try to be aware of God’s presence in your lives. God will guide you through this life in spite of yourself.

"What then shall we do?"

And the crowds asked [John the Baptist], "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages." As the people were filled with expectation, all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah. (Luke 3: 10-14)

I read a column in this week’s Sunday Startribune about one of the businessmen in Minneapolis who has recently fallen. The story was about his excesses, and how it doesn’t yet appear that he “gets it.”

Then, this morning, I read about John the Baptist in the gospel of Luke. He was preparing to baptize the crowds. The people had been waiting for a messiah, and when John appeared, gaunt and serious from his time in the wilderness, they wondered if he may be the one. John cleared up their confusion right away, answering them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Luke 3: 16)

Jesus was coming. The people were expecting a savior and John was merely the one to prepare the way for him. John was not going to save them, but he did have some suggestions about how they should live as they waited. It was really common sense instruction about how to live in the world, how to get along and care for one another as they anticipated the messiah. It was a message about distraction.

John lived in the desert. He wore simple clothing and ate simple food. It was his call to bring the news of Jesus, and that is what he devoted his life to. He was not distracted by anything. He didn’t suggest that the people live like him, but that they pare down their stuff and live more simply, sharing what they had with those who didn’t have as much, and making room for spiritual things.

He invited them to find their own desert.

In the early Christian era, “there was a Hellenistic notion that provided a romantic nuance to the desert as a place of solitude, to which the weary person of the city could retire in order to regain peace and involve oneself in philosophy or meditation… In Jerome’s Life of Paul, a fictitious work modeled on the Life of Antony, the desert was portrayed as a place inhabited by strange and sympathetic animals, as well as a place of miracles. This kind of writing would generate an enduring literary picture of the desert as the place where God dwells, as the scene of battles of heroic monastic men and women with demons of human passions, and as the paradise regained where humans and beasts dwell in idyllic harmony.” (from Praying with the desert mothers, by Mary Forman Liturgical Press, Saint John’s Abbey, 2005 p 29, 30)

Our stuff won’t save us. We have read enough about that in the newspaper recently. Take some time to find your desert. Give some of your stuff away to someone who needs it. Make some room in your life for spiritual things.

"Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” (Luke 3: 4b-6)

God Our Host

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." (Psalm 23:5)

God is not only my shepherd; he is also my host. The shepherd protects me from harm and guides me on the right path; the host welcomes me and gives me a good meal and fine accommodations.

The battle rages; enemies approach. They sharpen their weapons and take aim. What does God do? He fixes a meal for us. Right in the middle of the battle, right where the action is most dangerous. The verse is so powerful because it arises as a direct response to the feeling expressed in a verse in Psalm 78.

Psalm 78, the second longest psalm, describes the history of the people in Israel until the kingship of David. When it speaks of Israel's wilderness wanderings, it stresses the disobedience of the people. They lacked food and, thinking to mock God, said, "Can God spread a table in the desert?" (v. 19) The question reverberated through the corridors of time until our author decided to give a decisive answer to it. And what an answer! God can and does spread a table for us--a sumptuous feast. The psalmist takes it even one step further. God supplies our need, not simply in the desert but also in a place of great, immediate danger.

The spirit of Psalm 23:5 is like that of Paul, who says in Romans 8 that we are not simply conquerors in Christ; we are more than conquerors (Rom. 8:37). We not only have a feast in the desert but we have it in the midst of enemies. And the portions are not small. We don't have to eat and run because an impending rainstorm might wash out the church picnic. rather, "my cup overflows." Every need is taken care of amid our foes.

Thinking about foes leads to a final thought. When I think of enemies, I think of being chased. My heart pounds, sweat bathes my brow, my breath becomes a series of gasps. I've got to escape! The psalmist is also thinking about being pursued, yet he is being pursued by God.

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long." (Psalm 23:6)

Oh, what a triumph! The voice at my back, the sound at my heels is the sound of the hound of heaven who pursues me all the days of my life. It is a friend who comes after me, to embrace me and wash over me with cups of goodness and buckets of love.

Don't you feel pursued at times? When I am pressured, I feel like I am being chased. My heads starts to hurt. I take deep breaths. I don't know if I'll be ready on time. Even if I am ready, I worry that I will fail at the presentation. What a joy to think that the sounds I hear pursuing me are really the graciousness and love of God. They are not following to pummel me or to exhaust me, but to set a table for me, to calm me, to restore my balance and rhythms, to say, "It's OK to slow down and breathe, because I'll let you feast in the middle of life's battles."

What more can I say? God has given his invitation to the great feast while the battles of life still rage. Let's sit down to the table and sup with him. The table is every meal, but it especially points to that meal called Communion or the Lord's Supper, in which we celebrate the Christ who gave himself so that we may live.

So come to the table. The cups are brimming. The feast is prepared. Don't wait until the battle is over to sit down for the meal. The battle will never be over in this life. God calls us now. Let him be our shepherd and our host now in the midst of life.

Article written by Bill Long http://www.drbilllong.com/Lectionary/Ps23II.html

I'm not afraid

God, my shepherd! I don't need a thing. You have bedded me down in lush meadows; you find me quiet pools to drink from. True to your word, you let me catch my breath and send me in the right direction. Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I'm not afraid when you walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure. You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing. Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I'm back home in the house of God for the rest of my life. (Psalm 23, The Message)

Do you recognize these words? In his translation of the bible called The Message, Eugene Peterson wrote Psalm 23 in a way that is contemporary and easy to understand. But when it comes to this very special and well known psalm, some people may prefer the more traditional language found perhaps in the King James Version of the bible.

I experienced this once while visiting a young woman at her deathbed.

As I walked into the room, her mother, who was sitting at her side, requested that I read Psalm 23 from the King James Version. Even though I had memorized the KJV of the psalm in confirmation many years before, I did not have the words at the tip of my tongue. I believe I disappointed the mother as I opened the small travel bible that I carried, the New International Version, and read the psalm from there. Surprisingly, the less well-known words of the very familiar psalm flowed easily off my lips and still felt familiar and comforting.

Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us that Psalm 23 is a psalm that “answers the question, ‘how do you live in a dangerous and unpredictable world?’” Psalm 23 reminds us, whatever translation we read or memorize, that when we have God at our side, we are protected and guided even in the most frightening and dangerous situations. Life in this world is not safe or easy. But Psalm 23 reminds us that God’s beauty and love chase after us every day of our lives. And no matter what happens on earth or in heaven, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.

[Jesus] left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 0n the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” And he could do no deed of power there, except that. And he was amazed at their unbelief. And he went out among the villages teaching. (Mark 6:1-6)

I have spent the last few days at home. Not my own home with my husband and children, but my childhood home. My two sisters and I, along with my daughter and my niece, are visiting my parents for the weekend. You’ve probably heard people say that as soon as they go home, no matter how old they are, they are the become 15 years old again. It’s comforting to know that this also happened to Jesus.

When he visited Nazareth, his home town, Jesus was grown up, and deep into his ministry, but people still couldn’t fathom who he was. They were astounded by his wisdom and power. They were even offended that this “kid,” the carpenter’s son, would presume to teach in the synagogue.

Jesus was more gracious, of course, than most of us might be. He acknowledged their lack of belief, and even while they scorned him and pushed him away, “he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them” before he left town. He didn’t get angry, or discouraged. He loved them for who they were, blessed them, and went on his way.

Maybe we should follow his example, but surely we should give thanks for his love. We are all, at one time or another, the people from his town who can’t believe. But still he touches us and heals us and then he goes out, in us, among the villages.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Submit to the Lord with fear, and with trembling bow down in worship; lest the Lord be angry and you perish; for divine wrath is quickly kindled. Happy are they all who take refuge in the Lord. (Psalm 2: 11-13)

I am on a never ending quest to find the best way to spend time in daily prayer and devotion. I have several resources that I use, but I keep going back to the Psalms. The Psalms are not always easy to read or to understand. Some of the Psalms are worshipful, joyful and full of praise and thanksgiving. Some of them are full of anger and fear and wrath toward God. The Psalms contain the range of human emotion, and for that reason, they make some pretty good prayers.

Many years ago I discovered this directive for praying the Psalms in a little book called Prayer of the Faithful by Walter C. Huffman (Augsburg Fortress, Revised Edition, 1992, p. 9-10). I find it very helpful. Huffman writes,

“An ancient approach to praying the Psalms is to pray them in a given order, fitting oneself into a biblical or liturgical pattern rather than forcing the Psalms into our own. Instead of asking what they have to do with us, we must ask what we have to do with them and what we hear of God’s will through them. In Psalms: Prayerbook of the Bible, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:

It does not depend, therefore, whether the Psalms express adequately that which we feel at a given moment in our heart. If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray… The richness of the word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.”

Huffman continues,

“To be honest, to be valid, many feel that prayer must surge from the heart in a stream of original sentences or stammerings. While there will always be the prayer of the heart and one’s inarticulate reaching toward God, there must come again emphasis on the “givenness” of biblical praise-speech so characteristic of the Psalter. Daniel Stevick states:

No language, however eloquent or nuanced, could capture or define the specific quality of any moment. Even under intense emotion, I do not seek for some novel mode of expression. It would be like writing all new Christmas carols every year, or like searching for alternatives, having decided that the phrase “I love you” has grown hackneyed. I return gratefully to the simple, familiar, general allusive terms that I and thousands of others have used before.”

Try praying one Psalm each morning, in order. Find in them the richness of the word of God and then listen to how God is speaking to you. You might be surprised.

How blessed is the one who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the assembly of scoffers! Instead he finds pleasure in obeying the Lord’s commands; he meditates on his commands day and night. He is like a tree planted by flowing streams; it yields its fruit at the proper time, and its leaves never fall off. He succeeds in everything he attempts. Not so with the wicked! Instead they are like wind-driven chaff. For this reason the wicked cannot withstand judgment, nor can sinners join the assembly of the godly. Certainly the Lord guards the way of the godly, but the way of the wicked ends in destruction. (Psalm 1)

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with my friend Kim about faith. It’s always interesting to hear how people believe, and what they believe. To some people God looks very different than to others. This particular conversation was about salvation. What if, Kim posed, someone decides just before death to confess faith in Jesus, as the thief did on the cross? (Luke 23: 42) What if they say they believe, but they really don’t believe? What if they are just talking to try to get to heaven?

Of course, I replied, God doesn’t fall for false confession. God knows what is in our hearts before it is even on our lips.

Psalm 1 has often been called a psalm of law, so sometimes it’s not a favorite.

I see Psalm 1 as a psalm of instruction about the world we live in, and also a psalm of grace. God guides us with the law, and guards us no matter what we do. Our wicked ways, ways that we choose for ourselves, lead us to our own destruction. We are blessed when we follow the law because God put it in place for our safety and well being. But God doesn’t abandon us if we stray. God is still with us in our wickedness. God continues to guide us by his word.

Life is all about making hard decisions, Kim concluded. We are faced with choices every day that we have to wrestle with. We get to decide whether we walk in the way of the Lord, and live in the blessing that comes with that way, or in the way of the wicked, suffering the consequences. God is with us no matter what.

“It’s not all about you”

I have been suffering with “gardener’s” elbow, for the past month or so. In my zeal to get ready for summer and to provide the longest possible growing season for my garden, I labored for long hours in May to dig, plant, and mulch. I guess I overdid it because my right arm aches at the elbow. It hurts the worst first thing in the morning, and on some days it is tenderer than others. When I make a motion that irritates it, I know it immediately.

This weekend, I was complaining about the pain to my husband, and I told him that I didn’t think I would be able to do any work around the house. The pain, although it isn’t severe, affects my whole attitude and energy level. It brings to mind Paul’s words “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12: 26a)

In today’s Luther Seminary God Pause, Pastor Jill Bergman writes about the suffering of Job and asks the question, "why do people suffer?"

She writes, “Sometimes when we suffer, we allow our suffering to define us. We make our pain our identity. We become the center of our own universe. When this happens, we are separated from God and lost in chaos with nothing to hold us steady.”

The gospel text this week is from Mark 4, the story of Jesus calming the storm. When the winds start to whip around the boat in which Jesus and his disciples are crossing the sea, they cry out to him, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” They can’t do anything to help themselves because of their fear of impending trouble, possibly even of their death. They’re in danger and it’s all about them.

Pastor Jill reminds us that even in our pain and suffering, it’s not all about us. God’s words to Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding,” (Job 38:4) sound harsh, but they remind us that someone greater than our self, Someone greater than our suffering, is at work through our crisis. God will care for us, and God promises us something more than this momentary affliction. It is God who will save us from the storm. We are not our own best hope.

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6)

Whenever anyone finds out what I do for a living, the first question they ask is, “How did you decide to become a pastor?” I wonder if they’re disappointed when I tell them my story – when Sophie, my youngest, went to kindergarten, I felt like I should have a job outside of the home. I had been a stay-at-home mom until then, and the church seemed like a good place to work. There was no bolt of lightning, no voice of God telling me in what direction I should go. I just started thinking and praying and talking to people around me, and finally, I enrolled in my first semester of seminary, not completely sure that I was pastor material. Now, almost twelve years later, I am still not completely sure. I am not the smartest, the most prayerful or the most reverent person that I know. But every day, I am surprised at how God uses me to do God’s work. One thing that I have learned is that God uses each of us to do God’s work in the world and God doesn’t care if we are the perfect vessel. God created us – we are not only God’s children in this world, we are God’s workers, created for God’s purposes, whatever they may be.

Last week I came across an article about Denise Cerreta, owner of the Salt Lake City restaurant One World Everybody Eats, a pay-what-you-want restaurant that helps feed the world. Denise developed this concept when, while struggling to run an acupuncture clinic and a small café, she hit rock bottom, and God sent an unlikely helper who changed her life.

“Realizing that she couldn’t run two businesses at the same time, she folded the clinic, let the coffee shop staff go and ran Smoochy’s herself. She opened an hour earlier than before, hoping to bring in more customers. “I honestly wasn’t sure what was coming next. It was like throwing myself down the Grand Canyon,” she says. For the next four months, she struggled, doing all the food preparation, shopping and cleaning. She maxed out her credit cards and could barely pay her rent. Then came the lowest point: Her car was repossessed. Concerned friends told her she was crazy to keep the shop going. Still, Cerreta was positive that food was somehow in her destiny.

Although she isn’t a religious woman in the conventional sense, Cerreta says her faith and prayer allowed her to persevere. One particularly stressful day, when Cerreta had run out of sandwich meat and had no money to buy more, a local street person named Doggers entered the shop and handed her $50. “He said, ‘Denise, I have some money but no place to cook. If I buy you some food, will you make it for me?’ ” Cerreta remembers. She walked with him to the grocery store, and when she explained her predicament, Doggers offered to buy her the roast beef and turkey she needed. “Now he can eat at One World anytime he wants for free,” Cerreta says. “It’s amazing how the answers to your prayers aren’t what you think they’re going to be.” (copied from More.com)

Watch what’s going on around you, and inside of you. When God created you, a good work began. All we have to do is pay attention to whatever gifts we have been given. God will bring that good work to completion. Be open to the possibility that when God answers our prayers, we might be amazed at what happens, even if it’s not what we’re expecting.

Pentecost Blessings

I often turn to my computer for my daily devotion. Although a good chunk of quiet time, just me and my bible each morning would be ideal, I don’t always feel like I have that luxury. Instead, I spend a few minutes with a website called Sacred Space which guides me through a morning prayer.

A friend recently reminded me that for people of faith, quiet devotion time, whether it’s as short as ten minutes or as long as an hour, is not a luxury. It’s a necessity if we want to nurture our relationship with God. It’s not always easy. She described it as a discipline and compared it to exercise. At first, we might not want to do it. We might feel like we don’t have the time. But once we get into a routine, not only do we feel better, we may find that everything is better – God’s presence is more apparent, and God’s guiding hand can be more easily felt as we struggle with our daily tasks and decisions.

Each week, Sacred Space gives me something to think and pray about for the week. Take a moment after you read the following paragraph to think about how God is speaking to you today.

“This week leads to Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Spirit. We speak of the Spirit guiding us. Quakers wait in silence for the Spirit to move them to speak. How does this work? The Holy Spirit does not normally work by telling us things we do not know, or by extraordinary revelations. The Holy Spirit introduces no new ideas, but improves and deepens my knowledge of what I already know. Jesus said, “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all I have said to you.” (John 14:26) We shall sometimes, but not always, be conscious of a special divine influence, and we may feel sure that the action we have received is from God. But God’s action, though strong, is often quite imperceptible, for instance as the grace of fidelity in a time of great aridity.” (Taken from Sacred Space for the week of May 25, 2009)

I have a plaque on my wall that daily reminds me, “Bidden or not bidden God is present.”

Pentecost blessings, Pastor Carrie Scheller

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, "Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me." The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. John 13: 21-22

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…

I am going back to a petition of the Lord’s Prayer that I have already thought much about. As I write this devotion, I am surprised by the plethora of new insights that this prayer provides.

I receive a daily devotion from Luther Seminary and today the comments were about the story in the Gospel of John that we read on Maundy Thursday (tomorrow). Jesus is sitting at table with his disciples celebrating the Passover meal, which will be his last, and after dinner, he looks around and announces that one of them will betray him. It’s amazing, not only that Jesus knew all the events that were about to take place, but that, as he announced that one of his beloved and trusted disciples would betray him, they looked around at each other, not sure of who he was talking about.

“Betrayal. Lord, who is it? Even Judas seems curious. We ask, but do not want to know. It is like Hemingway's bell for us. We are the ones who have betrayed, denied, abandoned. It is true of the apostles at the table with Jesus. Which of us can assume superiority?” (from God Pause, Wed April 8 John Martin Mann)

We are all the ones who need forgiveness. Maybe we don’t even realize what we’ve done, but when we look into our hearts, we cannot accuse or judge anyone. God loves each one of us, even when God knows what is in our hearts.

Look around. Which one of you will be the betrayer? It is each of us.

Prayer for today

Lord, we thank you for your mercy for each of us, poor and miserable sinners. We need it – if we didn’t, it wouldn’t be mercy. Forgive us for our trespasses and help us to forgive. Amen.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36)

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil…

This weekend I watched the movie “Rachel Getting Married,” the heartbreaking story of Kym, who has spent the past nine months in rehab and is released for the weekend to attend her sister’s wedding. The family is close and affectionate, but at the same time, dysfunctional. Underlying the family's dynamic is a tragedy that occurred many years previously and for which Kym is held by some to be responsible, the accidental death of Kym and Rachel’s little brother Ethan.

This is a conversation that takes place between the sisters when the painful and tender emotions come to the surface.

Rachel: Kym, you took Ethan for granted. Okay? You were high for his life. You were not present. Okay? You were high.
Kym: [Whispering] Yes.
Rachel: And you drove him off a bridge... and now he's dead.
Kym: Yes, I was. Yes, I was stoned out of my mind. Who do I have to be now? I mean, I could be Mother Teresa and it wouldn't make a difference, what I did. Did I sacrifice every bit of... love I'm allowed for this life because I killed our little brother?

In her book A Place to Pray: Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer, Roberta Bondi writes about the gift of temptation. “[A]s Christians, we can never honestly set ourselves self-righteously apart from any other human being, saying, ‘The sins of this person are so unimaginable that he or she has forfeited any claim to my love or to God’s.’… [N]one of us can ever look at someone else’s crime and say, ‘I would never do anything like that!’… The implication here is that if we are to learn compassion – a fundamental disposition if we are to love our neighbor – then we must be able to see, not how we differ from others from whom we would separate ourselves, but how we are similar. It is our temptations that let us see this.” (p 122)

“There but for the grace of God go I,” is sometimes what I say to myself in order to remember to have compassion for the people that I might tend to separate myself from, that I might tend to judge. I pray that I am spared from temptation and evil, but I also acknowledge that I am imperfect, fallible, a sinner who has been redeemed only by God’s grace. I thank God that Jesus has compassion for me, harassed and helpless as I am, and I pray for the strength and wisdom to show that compassion for others, no matter what.

Prayer for today

Compassionate God, you did not choose who you would save - you came to save the whole world. Help us to remember that we cannot choose upon whom to have compassion if we follow your example, but that we must have compassion for the whole world. We pray with the example and in the name of the great compassionate one, Jesus. Amen.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 38-39)

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.

When we pray these words that Jesus taught us, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” we are praying for God to guard and protect us from the things of this world that could harm us or change us. But we are not only praying for ourselves. We are fervently praying that God would help each of us, and all of those people around us, to be safe from the things that would test our faith.

Because of a sad and tragic event in the life of a friend last week, I have experienced what it means to have my faith tested, to ask God questions like – how, in a world that you created, can you allow tragedy? Where are you in tragedy? And how will you protect me from tragedy happening in my life?

Maybe these are not rational questions to ask God, who after all, does not cause bad things to happen, and in fact, experienced the suffering that we experience in this world when he became flesh and lived with us for a time. But these are the thoughts that have been going through my mind in the last week.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We are all children of God, created in God’s image, given the freedom to make whatever choices we are faced with in our lives. Part of our life-long education, and especially our Christian education, is teaching us about these choices, helping us to understand the difference between right and wrong (Martin Luther calls that LAW) and knowing that, being faced with all of the choices that we will encounter in our lives, sometimes we will make wrong choices in spite of our best intentions.

Sometimes we will succeed and sometimes we will fail. Because we live lives that are connected to other people in so many and various way, whatever we do has an impact of others – and whatever others do has an impact on us. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are not just praying for ourselves. “We pray for each other, not wanting anyone to be tempted into the arms of evil or fall victims to those who have.” (French p 103)

But we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world, and so sometimes, no matter how fervently and earnestly and honestly we pray for deliverance from evil, evil may enter our lives. What I hope and pray for you and for me is that in the circumstances of sadness or hardship or illness or tragedy in my life and your life, your relationship and your communication with God remains fervent and earnest and honest.

We live in a time between the suffering of Jesus who took away our sins, and the perfection that he will one day bring into the world and into our lives. We live in a world where we have to trust in the power and in the love of God, but also in a world where evil exists.

And so, “when we pray to be saved from the time of trial, we pray that our faith would not be tested, but if it is, we pray that God would be with us throughout and beyond the trial.” (French p 113)

Finally, we come to the end of our petitions to God with the words, deliver us from evil.

“There is, in this petition, a hint of longing, the longing that things will finally come out right for the world God loves. There is a yearning for God to put things right, to replace human sorrow with joy, human tears with laughter, human fear with peace.” (French p 118)

In the meantime, we hope and we trust, and we continue to pray.

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. (Romans 7:15)

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…

This petition of the Lord’s Prayer has always been important to my prayer life. It is in these words, spoken and taught to us by Jesus, we acknowledge not only that we are weak and sinful, but that in our imperfect human state, drawn to temptation, we can and do turn to God to help us. I am so grateful that Jesus just laid it out there – lead us not into temptation – naturally assuming that this is the direction we head, asking God to deliver us from the very thing we hate, but cannot help ourselves.

Martin Luther teaches us, in the Small Catechism, that it is not God, but the devil who is responsible for the evil in the world, and who leads us, and even tried to lead Jesus, into temptation.

“It is true that God tempts no one, but we ask in this prayer that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice, and that, although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail to gain the victory.” (From Martin Luther’s Small Catechism).

In my own prayers, and especially in prayers for my children and their friends, I pray that God gives us the strength to prevail over the many dangerous temptations that we face in our lives, and live in the light of Christ that God so graciously shines on us.

Prayer for today

Protecting God, guide our paths and keep us safe. Lead us not into temptation. Amen.

My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Galatians 6:1

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Matthew 6:12

I’ve had a lot of practice forgiving since I have become the parent of teenagers. My 18 year old son and 16 year old daughter are wonderful people, but I have to remind myself of that at one a.m. on Saturday night when I should be sleeping, getting my rest for church on Sunday morning, but instead I’m pacing the floor and wondering where they could be – late again.

It’s a small but real example of my parenting challenges and frustrations. You can probably think of your own, or maybe you can remember the nights when you caused your own parents to worry when you were growing up.

My children don’t always apologize right away when they have done something that I think is irresponsible or disrespectful. Sometimes, they get mad at me, thinking that I am mean or too strict or I don’t understand them. We might argue and fight – but so far, we have always made up, come to some sort of understanding, and eventually apologized to each other, and forgiven each other for any transgressions, any disrespect shown or angry words spoken.

I am thankful that, with the example of God’s love in Jesus, we learn, and we live in an environment of unconditional love, first from God, and then in our family. Without that divine love in our lives, how could we ever do it?

Prayer for today

God, thank you for your spirit of gentleness on our lives that helps us to forgive each other as you have forgiven us. Amen

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4: 31-32

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. Luke 11:4

It seems like we’re always talking about how hard it is to forgive. Actually, the older I get, the harder I find it not to forgive. Forgiveness is what God asks, and requires us to do, and as it turns out, God only asks us to do what is best for us.

Have you ever been so angry at a person that you imagined that you never wanted to see or speak to them again? I certainly have. I fret and I stew. But, I’ve gotten to the point in my life, and maybe in my faith, to take Paul’s words to the Ephesians seriously. Anger and grudges don’t do anyone any good. In fact, they can kill you.

An angry heart is dangerous to both body and soul. Along with recognizing what makes you angry, taking a deep breath and talking about the problem, try a healthy dose of forgiveness. It might save a life. When God does it, it saves ours.

Prayer for today

God, teach us to love each other as you love us. Help us to forgive each other as you forgive us. Amen.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors… Matthew 6:12

When we come to this petition in the prayer that Jesus taught us, we sometimes use different words. Trespasses, sins, debts, these words all describe offences, transgressions, ways we turn away from God and from each other.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask to be forgiven for our offences. Then we remind ourselves, and God, that because of that grace-filled gift of forgiveness that we receive, we also should (must) forgive those who commit offences against us. It’s the Christian thing to do.

It’s also a very difficult thing to do. If you have been wronged, depending on the severity of the transgression, it might be impossible for you to understand how you will be able to forgive.

Remember that forgiveness does not mean condoning. Forgiving does not mean forgetting. It means moving on. Forgiveness is as much for you as it is for the person being forgiven. I once heard that holding on to a grudge, not forgiving in your heart, is like eating poison, hoping that it will kill the other person.

Roberta Bondi writes that there are two essential elements of forgiveness. “The first is that we give up the notion of revenge (“turn the other cheek”) and the second is that we pray for the well-being of our injurer (“pray for those who persecute you”)." (p 93-94)*

It sounds so difficult to do, but it is essential to our own well being and to the well being of our relationships with other people, and with God.

Prayer for today

Gracious God, help me to understand how to do, and then do the difficult things that I should and must do, and that includes practicing forgiveness. I ask for strength and guidance. Amen.

*Bondi, Roberta C. A Place to Pray; Reflections on the Lord's Prayer Abingdon Press, 1998