Baltimore Lutheran Campus Ministry

John 2:13-22

When I preached on this text before, in the congregation I served in Virginia, I talked about how we’re uncomfortable with this Jesus because he’s not being nice.  He’s stirring things up and not being politically correct.  He’s crying out in holy anger and that freaks us out a little.  

But this year when I read it, none of that stuff needed to be said.  This story sounded a lot different since I was getting ready to preach about it to college students.  Because I think that you all are a little more comfortable with Jesus causing a scene that some other church folk may be.  On the whole, we don’t mind Jesus causing a little chaos for the sake of shaking things up and making things new.  We often like Jesus speaking the truth no matter what other people may think.

But to explain the story a little more and make it a little less like Jesus just being a rebel, lets go with him for a moment into the temple.  In Jesus’ day, the temple was the core of Jewish life.  The center of the temple was where God was said to dwell.  And surrounding that was the place where the priests entered to offer sacrifices.  And then, outside that, was a place for people to worship and pray.  And outside that was the courtyard.  That’s where the money-changers were.  And that’s where the animals were.  And that’s where all the people coming to worship were.  And that is where we meet Jesus tonight, right in the midst of the chaos in the courtyard.  

And there were a few reasons that people were hanging out in that courtyard.  They needed to do some holy business before they entered the temple.  First off, every person belonging to the Jewish community paid a tax.  We may not look too kindly on taxes now, but it was there for a reason.  It was a way for the whole community to pay for the upkeep of God’s home among.  It was a way to define themselves as part of the community and make sure that there would always be a place to pray and worship God together.  And it was the rule that this tax couldn’t be paid with Roman coins since they had images on them- images of the emperor who claimed to be divine.  To pay a holy tax with those coins would be bringing idols into the space reserved for God.  So in order to pay the tax, you changed your regular money in for a temple coin.  

It was a symbol that the world of the temple was different, the place where God dwelt was separate from the world and had different rules from the rest of the world. It reminded people that God was the only one worthy of worship.  So that’s why there were money changers out in the courtyard of the temple.  They weren’t doing anything wrong. They were helping the people to remember the holiness of God before they entered the temple.  And we still need that- symbols that point us to God’s holiness and to our set apartness as a community of God’s people.   

And then there were all the folks in the courtyard selling animals- doves and sheep and cattle.  And they weren’t doing anything wrong, either.  They were providing a service for folks who came to offer sacrifices, because it’s a whole lot easier to travel to the temple with a few coins rather than a couple of sheep and doves.  These animal sellers were helping people to participate in a sacrificial system given to the people by God.   

And if you’re able to set aside your feelings about animal rights, there wasn’t anything inherently wrong with the sacrificial system.  It was set up to give the people tangible ways to know they were forgiven, that they were in right relationship with God.  When you offered an animal as a sacrifice for sin, you were able to see your sin burned away as a reminder of God’s freeing forgiveness.  And even though it doesn’t sit well with us now, offering sacrifices for purification after coming into contact with those who were sick or outcast was a way of welcoming people back into the community.  These sacrifices were an assurance that you were in right relationship with God, a way to see and know that you were connected to a God who loves you.  And there was nothing deeply wrong with that system.  Because we need something to hold onto so that we can know for sure that God’s love and forgiveness are real.   Although the gifts of communion and baptism may have a different understanding behind them, they are given to us partly for that same reason- so that we can know for sure we are forgiven and that we are loved by God.  

So the temple system itself was not the problem- God had created it out of love for God’s people.  It was there as a way to point to God for all us humans that don’t understand who God is all that well.

The problem was simply that humans got a hold of it.  And instead of it continuing to point to God, it started to point to itself.  The people who held the power started enjoying it.  And the deep meaning and symbolism that was a part of the system began to fall away.  The people living out these requirements understood less and less why they were doing these things and the people running the system became more concerned about the system than the God it pointed to.  That was the problem.  And that is always the problem.

That is why Jesus cries out in holy anger.  That is what drives Jesus to flip over the tables and make a scene.  He saw an institution so stuck in its traditions that it no longer pointed others to God, an institution that was no longer open to what God is doing in the world.  

Jesus didn’t turn over the tables because he hated the temple.  He turned them over because he loved God’s people more than any institution or building.  He wanted everyone to know the goodness of God.   And he knew that in that moment in the temple courtyard, the goodness of God was locked away behind a system that had gotten in the way.  It couldn’t be fixed by a tweak here and there.  It had to be turned upside down.  It had to be pushed out of the way so that God’s goodness could flood the world.  

And Jesus wasn’t afraid to tear down all those rules and traditions because he knew that God had the power to raise up a new way.  And he was the new way.  And it would be a living way in the person of Jesus- a way that is always challenging to us, always keeping us a little on edge, always keeping us questioning, always reminding us that we cannot keep our God in a box.  God will break out of any system we try to make in order to do the work that must be done in the world.  And that means even the new traditions that we make that we think are new and profound and truly what God wants.  God will never be held captive by our traditions, even the very best of them. Because at some point, all our traditions will begin to point to themselves, rather than God.  They will tempt us to listen to ourselves rather than to the movement of the Spirit in the world and among our community.  Every tradition can lead us to simply go through the motions and forget to watch and listen for the motion of God.

And whenever that happens, that’s when Jesus will cry out again in fierce, holy love to free us from what we have made.  To break open God’s freeing word again.  It may seem comfortable when we are the younger generation and we’re part of those who are longing for something new, but know that it will sometimes be painful when it is our own traditions that are broken apart for the sake of setting God free for others.    

It is good news to us, but know also, people of God, there is a dangerous temptation when we hear this story and when we’re eager to shake the church up so that it can become something new.  There is a temptation to think that it gives us the right to turn over tables whenever we encounter old traditions that we think are getting in the way.  But we are not Jesus and we don’t have the gift of perfect vision like he did.  We cannot turn over everything just to make things like we want.  That’s no more holy than going through the motions of the old traditions.  

But we do, as people who follow Jesus, as people who love Jesus and love his people, have a responsibility to care for the systems we create.   To make sure they point to Jesus rather than keeping people away from him.  So, we are called to look carefully at what we do as a community and see where our Lutheran traditions, our way of worship and our ways of talking about God are getting in the way of people coming to know this Jesus.  And we are called to speak in truth and humility about those things that get in the way, even when we fear we may be ignored or hurt others’ feelings.  

As people who passionately want others to know the freeing words of forgiveness that Jesus offers, we are responsible for listening to the words we speak in church and the ways we talk about Jesus in the world to make sure that these words are real and relatable so that they don’t hide the God who sets us free.  

As a campus ministry community that wants others to know the love that embraces us when we are falling apart and when we doubt, we need to be careful that our inside jokes and our comfort with each other never becomes a barrier to our central work- to point others to Jesus.  

Jesus loves us desperately- too desperately to let anything get in the way of us knowing his life-giving and life-saving love for us.  This is our God who was willing to cry out in holy anger and go silently to the cross so that we would know the power and beauty of God’s love for each of us. We are called to care for this love with a deep respect and attentiveness so that we might always be ones that point others and our whole hurting world to Jesus.  

Mark 8: 27-38

March 4, 2012

I hate getting yelled at.  My husband is one of the sweetest and most patient men ever and I don’t think he’s so much as raised his voice with me more than 2 or 3 times since I’ve known him.  And yet, when he says anything that is slightly critical of me, even when I know that I deserve it and that I am in the wrong, it feels like I’m being yelled at even if he doesn’t raise his voice.  So I think it’s more than being yelled at.  I don’t think I, or anyone else, like being corrected or being reprimanded.  

And maybe that’s why, with all the words that Jesus is speaking today, the words that stick out of our gospel lesson tonight are those moments of Jesus reprimanding Peter.  “Get behind me, Satan.”  They sounds so harsh that they make us want to run up to Peter’s defense and give him a hug (if we’re a hugging sort of person) or at least tell him it’s ok, to try and make him feel better.  When someone gets reprimanded we want to help take the sting of those words away.

And those words don’t just sound harsh to us.  They didn’t sound any better back in Jesus’ time.  Calling someone Satan was no nicer then than it is now.  And the word that describes how Jesus is speaking, the word “rebuke” tends to only be used in Scripture when Jesus is speaking to demons, demanding that they come out of a person and be gone.  These are strong words, not gentle ones that take Peter’s feelings into account.  They are words that assert Jesus’ power and authority over whatever gets in the way.  And, frankly, Jesus is probably yelling or raising his voice when he says them.  Jesus wasn’t so mild mannered as we make him out to be sometimes.  

When we talked about this passage at Bible study on Thursday, some of our students thought that Jesus’ words and the whole “Get behind me, Satan” thing seemed a little cruel for the Jesus we know and a little dismissive of Peter.  It just seems like a bit much to say when we could see ourselves saying the same thing.  

Because Jesus had just told his disciples that he “must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”  It’s a lot to take in if you hadn’t heard the whole story of Jesus like we have.  And it’s a lot to take in from your beloved teacher that you want to stay with you.  It’s especially disturbing to Peter who has just declared that this Jesus is the Messiah- the one that God sent into the world to save us.  So this is not how the Messiah should be treated.  It’s not the way he knows that things should go in the world.  It’s so very, very wrong that Peter can’t keep silent.  

So after all this sad talk about death and suffering, Peter takes Jesus aside and says, “No, Jesus.  This is not how it will be.  You are the Messiah.  We are your followers.  This can’t happen.  We won’t let it happen.  Don’t sound so defeated and talk so much about death, Jesus.  We have work to do in the world.  So pep up and lets get on with the healing and teaching stuff we’ve been doing.”  While we may see it as a pep talk and an honest, caring conversation, the Scripture says, “Peter rebuked Jesus.”  Honestly, after reading this Scripture many, many times, last night was the first time I ever noticed that long before Jesus said a word to Peter, Peter had yelled at him.  Rebuked him.  Told him in no uncertain terms that he should not suffer and be rejected and killed.  

Peter was trying to put his own thoughts, his own expectations and his own hopes first.  He was trying to make the future the way he thought it should be and how he hoped it would be.  He was trying to make things ok- the way he thought they should be in God’s world.  But Peter didn’t have the eyes to see the way ahead.  He only had human eyes, like all of us.  And he could not know the ways of God.  

And it is only then that Jesus raises his voice and tells Peter, “Get behind me, Satan.”  He speaks as strongly to Peter as he did to the devil in the wilderness after his baptism, when the devil tried to tempt him with worldly power and privilege.  Do not tempt me to take the easy route because it doesn’t seem right or fair.  Don’t try to protect me from the will of God.  And do not tempt me to go the way you want me to go because you are scared to follow me where I must go.  

For Jesus tells Peter and us, “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” It may make sense to you that I should not suffer, it may make sense to avoid the cross, but it is not the way of God.  You are setting your mind on human things and human values.  That’s not what I’m about.  

They are hard words to hear when most often we are standing right with Peter.  When Jesus calls us to leave all our plans and expectations aside to follow, we want to protest the same way Peter did.  When Jesus calls us to tells us that the way he walks and the way of following him leads through suffering that we could easily avoid, we want to find another way.  And the world is plenty willing to help us with that.  We can find all sorts of ways to justify wanting to avoid the suffering that comes from following Jesus.  There are plenty of ways to make ourselves feel decent about protecting ourselves and say we’re only human to make those choices.  We’ll find plenty of folks around us to support us when we make Jesus’ words easier to live by, when we try to take shortcuts, when we seek after success and privilege rather than humble following.  Seeking out our own comfort, following our own dreams, trying to make life play out the way we want it to and the way we think it should for us makes a lot of sense.  That’s what our friends tell us to do.  And our teachers.  And our world.  And it’s what we tell ourselves.  

And yet, no matter what excuses we come up with for wanting to avoid suffering, avoid following, avoid the cross,  nothing will change the fact that this is not the way of Jesus.  It is not the way that God brings life.  It is not the way that leads to life abundant for us and for all those we share the world with.  It is not the way that breaks us open to love and be loved.  It is our way, but it is not God’s way.  

And that it why we need Jesus to yell at us, even when it hurts and even when it doesn’t seem fair.  He has to rebuke in order to get past all our defenses and selfishness and our own certainty that we know the way life should play out.  Jesus has to keep reminding us in strong, uncompromising words- “Going the comfortable way you have planned may make sense to you, but it is not my way.  It may be human to want to avoid suffering and avoid the cross, but it is not the way that our God of love has prepared for us.”  You can’t fully understand God’s ways, you never will this side of heaven, so simply get behind me and follow.  Get behind me, for I am the one in charge.  I know the way that leads to life and to God.  So you, and anyone else who intends to come with me, have to let me lead.

You simply have to walk with me to understand. And the way that I will walk always leads to the cross.  It will always involve suffering for the sake of loving the world.  It will always mean choosing love and serving others rather than comfort or security.  It will always mean leaving behind your expectations of how life should go in order to be surprised by my blessings.  It will always mean letting me lead rather than choosing the way yourself.  

And, Jesus tells us, it will always mean walking the way with me, with your God.  It will always mean walking with the one who loves you so desperately that he will never lead you astray.  He will never leave you alone on the road.  And he will never lead you where he will not go first.  

Mark 9: 2-9

February 19, 2012

So, how many of you have had mountaintop experiences with God?  You know, those moments where you get a vision of God you didn’t have before.  Those experiences that you can’t fully explain, but you somehow know were God. I want you to take a moment to remember that experience, to remember when it happened and what it felt like. Remember what God revealed to you.  Remember how it changed you.   

I know my own story about how God spoke to me when I was grieving and confused.  Out of the blue one day, my college roommate suggested the thing which I hadn’t dared speak and she had no way of knowing I was thinking- that perhaps I was supposed to be a pastor.   It was a moment that was like a big flash of light, even though no one else noticed it.

And because I ask people about stuff like this, I’ve had the privilege of hearing about some of your mountaintop experiences and those of other students and youth I’ve worked with.  They are stories about how God appeared to them at retreats or while they were alone in nature or spoke through a friend or stranger that suddenly showed up at the right moment.  These are all moments that change us- where we know for sure there is something beyond us and that it is God.  Mountaintop experiences aren’t things you forget and they tend to be things you return to and tell others over and over.

All these moments are times when God was shining so brightly that they were burned into our memories.  They were moments where we heard God’s voice so clearly that we couldn’t imagine that others didn’t hear it, too.  They are shining moments so different from the rest of our lives.  They are moments of glory and brilliance in a world where things pretty much go on as we expect.  And we need those moments to point to the glory beyond what we can see at the moment.   

We need them, and yet we don’t talk a lot about glory or awe-inspiring moments in the Lutheran church.  We are down-to-earth people that tend to focus on what’s in front of us and what God gave us to do in the world.  We may talk about the joy and comfort God brings us or the blessings that come as we follow Jesus, but we don’t talk much about glory.  Because Glory is a whole other thing.  It’s something a little too big for this world.  Glory is stuff like the lessons we hear tonight- Elijah getting taken up into heaven or Jesus shining on a mountaintop.  And that’s stuff that’s hard to believe and hard to know what to do with.  And it’s stuff that looks really strange to the outside world.  So sometimes we don’t talk about it too much.  But if we are people who have had mountaintop experiences that have changed us, we know how much we need those moments of glory in our lives.

Just like Peter, James and John did.  They needed the moment that we hear about this evening.  It was a regular day and they went up a mountain with Jesus.  They were expecting a nice hike, maybe a little teaching time and deep conversation and time to enjoy the view.  But instead, they get to the top and see Jesus’ face shining like the sun and his clothes turned dazzling white.  And then Moses and Elijah, two giants of the faith, were suddenly there talking with Jesus.  And, if that weren’t enough, they hear that wilderness-shaking, cedar-breaking voice of God.  They came up the mountain with their earthly teacher Jesus and without warning they’re in the presence of the shining, powerful, Son of God.  It’s no wonder that they all fell down on the ground, terrified of what was happening!  

And it’s not until later, after Jesus tells them not to be afraid, then they realize what happened on that mountain.  God spoke to them.  God met them there and gave them a vision of Jesus in all his glory.  They got a glimpse of God that no one else did.  One that would be burned into their memory and one that they could come back to over and over.    Because Jesus being transfigured into this glowing, shining being on the mountain actually gave the disciples a glimpse of the future glory- for Jesus and for themselves.  

At UMBC a few weeks back, we discussed the question, “”Does love really win?”  In a messy world, it’s sometimes hard to believe it does, even if we want to believe it and even if we know it in our hearts.  And I was particularly struck by one of our students who commented that love does win, it just matters where you end the story.  It just matters how long you keep reading.  Like if you end with the cross, there’s not a lot of hope.  But if you read through to the resurrection, you see love winning and God winning and life winning for Jesus and for all of us.  

And that is exactly the gift of the transfiguration.  It gives us a glimpse of the end of God’s story. It announces, “This is where everything leads- to the shining glory of God.  Love does win.  God does win.  Death and suffering and pain will not be the last word.  For there is a glory and joy too brilliant to look at planned for this Jesus and for all those that love and follow him.”

And sometimes that glimpse is all we need.  There have been many times in my life that were painful and I often said, “if I just had some assurance that things would turn out ok, then I could relax and get through it.”  Whether you are hoping to get into grad school, or going through a break-up, or wanting to know what to do with your life or getting through an illness, we all want some assurance that it will be ok. We want a little peak at the last page of the story we’re living to see how things turn out.   We don’t need to know how we will get there, but simply knowing that things will some how work out is enough.  And then, we can hold on, we can have some patience, and we can deal with the struggle knowing that the story ends in love and in God.  

So the transfiguration is that glimpse of the glory that will be Jesus’ and will be ours someday.  It’s a glimpse that Peter, James and John desperately need to get through the days ahead.  You see, before they went up the mountain, Jesus had announced to them that he would be crucified.  And after he left that mountain, he would begin walking toward the cross.  The disciples may not have fully understood it at the time, but soon they would understand what this meant for Jesus and for them as followers.  Jesus would suffer betrayal and pain and death.  And his disciples would have to face the world without him beside them in the flesh.  

There would be pain and suffering in the days ahead. The road they would walk with Jesus would be terrible and painful.   And eventually they would also be called on to suffer for the sake of Jesus and for the sake of the kingdom he came to bring.  If Peter, James and John thought that this pain was all there was, that is was pointless, it would be hard to keep following on that walk to the cross.  But now they knew the end of the story.  

So when the disciples came back down the mountain, they got to take this glimpse of the future with them.  They could now walk those days leading to the cross with a glimpse of what was to come.  They would go forward knowing how the story ended- with Jesus in glory and them there with him.  The story would end with that same joy and peace they felt on that mountain.  

The transfiguration, and all those mountaintop moments for us- allow us to see our lives and the world in light of what they will be in the end. They give us hope in the future.  They don’t take us out of the world and it’s mess, but they allow us to see all that we face as simply part of the journey to the glory that God has planned for the world.  And we need those moments.  

So I challenge you this week to remember your mountaintop experience each morning or remember the transfiguration if you don’t have a story of your own just yet.  Write something down or draw something that reminds you of it and put it on your alarm clock so it’s what you wake up to.  Instead of waking up with the stress of the world, instead of waking up dreading what is to come or barely dragging out of bed, wake up remembering the glory of your God and the glimpse of God’s future. I have no idea how this will change your week, but I know that Jesus took his disciples up that mountain for a reason.  He knew they needed that glorious moment to give them strength and hope.  They needed it for reassurance when they weren’t sure it was worth it to follow Jesus.  They needed it to know that the story ended with love and with life and that’s where their following would eventually lead them.  

And we need that glimpse, too- as we enter these days of Lent and as we walk through whatever we’re facing in life right now.  Trust those mountaintop experiences.  Trust that glory of God that meets you.  Trust is as the end of God’s big story and the story for each one of us.  Trust it enough to let it give you hope and strength for the days ahead. 

Mark 1:40-45

February 12, 2012

Have you met people who think they aren’t good enough for church?  When I get my act cleaned up, then I’ll come back to church, they say.  I’ve had students tell me that they don’t think they are a good enough Christian and we wouldn’t want them as part of our ministry, as if they’d somehow contaminate us up if they were around.  It’s always something that surprises me, perhaps because I have grown up in the church.  And I know that we are often as messy a bunch of people as the world around us.  It’s just that we know the truth of a God who loves us anyway.

But there are still plenty of folks who think they aren’t good enough or together enough to come into the church.  That Jesus may be able to tolerate them, but they need to stay away from the community that worships him.  Because somehow they aren’t clean enough yet.  I may not understand that kind of talk, knowing what a mess I have been at times, but as I’ve been reading this gospel lesson, I’ve been thinking that maybe that kind of talk goes back to Jesus’ time, when cleanliness was a big thing.

Not how clean your floor was or your car was, but how ritually clean you were.   Only clean people could enter the temple to be able to offer prayers and sacrifice to God.  So staying clean was essential.  So much as touching one who was unclean meant that you were cut off from some parts of religious life and the some parts of the community.   

Cleanliness was so important for the life of the community that the rules were pretty clear about who was clean and who was not.  It was something that defined you and something you couldn’t change.  And anyone who was different was generally considered unclean- whether they had a disease, a disability, or were born looking different than others. And if you were unclean, there was nothing you could do, short of being healed, that would allow you to be a full part of the community.  

And having leprosy kept you even more separate.  Not only was it a painful and disfiguring disease, but it meant that you had to live apart- that you were cut off from his family, your community and your livelihood.  It was as close to being imprisoned as you could get.  The man we meet in the gospel lesson knew that now his first and last identity was as a leper.  Who he was really didn’t matter much.  

And to make things even worse, he even had to shout “unclean!” whenever people walked past.  Not only were lepers cut off from their community, but it was their responsibility to help keep others clean.  They had to announce to everyone that they were separate, that they were different, that they were ones not to be touched or talked to.  But we hear about the one day a leper refused.  He refused to keep everyone else safe, but walked right up to Jesus and said, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”

Now Jesus could have ignored him.  He was a faithful Jewish man, one who was considered clean, and he could have ignored this leper like all the rest.  Jesus could have clung to his own privileges and his own holiness and turned away like everyone else.  But instead, he was willing to touch this man who all the world called unclean.  To touch this man who scared people and made them uncomfortable.  To risk being called unclean himself.  But instead Jesus says, “I do choose to make you clean.”  

And when Jesus reaches out his hand, he doesn’t become unclean, but instead he brings the healing, restoring, life-giving power of God to this man.  And this man is made clean simply because he was touched by Jesus.  Now he could be welcomed back into the community.  Now his life could go in a different direction.  Now he had a name again and an identity.  No longer was he a leper to be avoided, but a brother to be looked at in the eye.  One who could be touched and spoken to and loved. One touch of Jesus was enough to restore him.  It was the kingdom at work.

You see, that is what the kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming was all about.  In Jesus, God had unleashed healing and wholeness on the world.  Instead of staying far away, God came close, close enough to touch all those who didn’t deserve to be touched, all those the world had called unclean and all those who had messed up and fallen short.  In Jesus, God came to bind up those who were broken and cleanse those who were a mess.  To break the boundaries that keep us separate from each other and restore us to community.  To cleanse the world so that uncleanliness would never again separate us from God or from each other.  

Because what Jesus says to the leper, he also says to us- “I do choose to make you clean.”  I do choose to change your life.  I do choose to call you good enough to come into my presence and be touched with the power of God.  And I do choose to restore you to health and to who God created you to be.  I do choose to put you back in your community and restore relationships of love and compassion.  And he keeps coming to us- all of us messy people and crabby people and people who are falling apart at times.  

Jesus didn’t come to hide out among people like him, people who already had it together.  He didn’t come to the people with all the advantages or the people who acted right and looked right.  He came to break apart the rules about who can enter God’s presence and who is good enough to be a part of God’s community.  He came to all those the world keeps separate, all those who have not been welcomed, and all those who don’t feel they are cleaned up enough.  

And we like hearing that when it’s Jesus doing the boundary crossing.  When it’s Jesus helping the people that make us a little uncomfortable and a make us feel a little unsafe.  We like that he’s going out there to reach out to others.  

But this is not just Jesus’ work.  We are people called to follow him wherever he leads.  And that means following him right into this work.  We don’t get the right to be too uncomfortable to reach out to our brothers and sisters.  Our discomfort doesn’t give us a free pass not to welcome and embrace those we’d rather not look at- whether that’s someone who is fighting illness, someone we’re afraid of, or someone who seems to have more problems than we know what to do with.  We may not be able to heal them- that’s Jesus’ job- but we don’t have a choice about reaching out to welcome them into our community.  

And there are plenty of days that I don’t like to hear those words any more than you do.  That’s not because I don’t love what Jesus came to do, it’s not that I don’t know how good it is to be made whole by Jesus when we are a royal mess.  It’s not that I don’t understand how life-giving it is to be welcomed into a community.  But it’s simply because it’s a lot of work sometimes.  I have a hard enough time making it through the day already.  There are days that it’s just too much to feel guilty about all the people that I neglect, all the people who are still left out.  I don’t have the energy to look all those folks in the eye that I would rather not see.  That’s Jesus’ job- the one who has patience and love and compassion that I will never know.  

But we are the community that bears the name and the blessing of Jesus.   We are ones who have been called to love and welcome those who Jesus loves so that we can see it in action.  So that we can learn what that overwhelming love means for all of us.  And that means that the church should be full of the people that Jesus came to touch.  It should be always reaching out to break down walls that keep our brothers and sisters separate, to invite them into community to be made whole by Jesus.  Our mission is Jesus’ mission and that means work for us.  

It would be nice to say that when we do this- when we reach out to those who have been left out- that we will learn from our brothers and sisters and become better people and learn things. And often that’s the case.  But the truth is also that sometimes it’s just plain annoying and inconvenient to welcome those who are different than us.  Sometimes it’s exhausting to care so much.  

Sometimes it will be joyful work and sometimes it will just be plain work.  The reality is that Jesus even got tired of healing sometimes and had to take some breaks off by himself.  Sometimes breaking down boundaries and welcoming others is inconvenient and tiring.  But it’s kingdom work.  It is living out the kingdom Jesus preaches.  It is living out the love that reached out to us.  

We don’t get to just watch God’s kingdom unfold.  We get the privilege and responsibility of working together with God to bring the kingdom to all those who long for it.  We can’t make it come, but we can announce it and share it.  It may not be easy work, but it is God’s work.  And we know that as we do it, God goes with us to lead us, support us and to restore us when we are broken.  It will always be work, but we are allowed to be a part of God’s work to restore the whole world and be people that God works through. 

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

“To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people”

In the midst of the Republican primaries, this sounds like a campaign plan by any one of the candidates.  You can hear a candidate say, “To the rich, I told them they could keep their money.  To Latino voters, I spoke Spanish and talked about fairer immigration laws.  To the unemployed, I told them I would create jobs.  I have become all things to all people.”

And yet these words this evening aren’t from a politician, but from Paul- a follower of Jesus that was so passionate about the gospel that he couldn’t help but tell everyone about it.  But he learned something in all his travels and all his preaching.  That people didn’t take to outsiders too easily.  So Paul got in the habit of connecting with people first, of walking with them and sharing life with them, of making them feel he was one of them.  

We try to think the best about people who wrote the Bible, but have you ever been around someone who was acting like that?  Who was trying hard to be like you and connect with you? It often feels forced and fake and just plain icky.  It feels like someone is trying to sell you something.  And unfortunately I’ve sometimes had this experience with my Christian brothers and sisters, too.  Of people trying to find things in common with me and agreeing with me on things so that I’ll like them and listen to their way of seeing things.  They say they’re doing it to “win people for Jesus” and “save souls,” but it always seems like they are concerned more about winning people for their side than loving people where they are.   More about getting people on their team than freeing them with the love and grace of Jesus.  And when I’m in the presence of someone trying to sell me Christianity or anything else, the first thing I want to do is run the other way.  Because when people are fake, I have no patience for them.  

And I think that most of us don’t like fake people.  We don’t trust them.  We Americans just want people to be themselves.  We pride ourselves on being authentic, of not apologizing for who we are.  So someone, like Paul, saying he tries to be all things to all people seems like a political move that we don’t trust.  And as I was struggling with this text this week, I came across a link that several of my friends were sharing on Facebook.  

It was a link to a blog by a Lutheran pastor.  A tattooed, sarcastic, irreverent pastor.  In the post she says “If you are a Christian who takes offense at swear words or believes for some reason that clergy should never be cranky or irritated, then I am not the person for you to follow.  It’s ok. But there are other folks out there who need a Word of grace which is not covered in strawberry syrup. Who need the stark truth of what it means to be broken and blessed at the same time.  They tend to not really care that I use colorful language.  If anything, they are relieved that they don’t have to watch what they say around me.”

After hearing about Paul trying to be all things to all people, it’s refreshing to hear someone unapologetically being themselves while still following Jesus.  To be someone who curses and is a little rough around the edges and still preaches the gospel.  And yet, I’ve wondered, does this, at times, end up going too far the other way? Does it risk using our freedom for our own good above the good of our brothers and sisters?  Should we be shamelessly who we are even if that hurts one weak in the faith?  Should we use our liberty to its fullest extent and put it right up in people’s faces because we know that we are truly free in Christ?  

In an age when Christianity is often defined by stereotypes and the church is stuck in tradition, maybe breaking out of the mold of a “nice little Christian” in order to be “real” is necessary to reach others.  Maybe it’s so important that we shouldn’t care who we offend.  Maybe we need to do something radically different in order to reach those outside the Church.  And maybe that’s what this pastor is doing for the sake of Jesus.  But then again, maybe she’s just doing it because she doesn’t choose to do differently.

And that seems to be different than what Paul is saying.  He says that he tries to be all things to all people so that more people might know in their bones the joy of the gospel.  He has found something so good and life-giving that he wants to share it.  And he’s willing to act a little different than usual in some situations in order to allow others to hear this goodness.  He’s willing to conform to their traditions so that they will be able to hear him more easily.  He’s not acting like a salesman, but he acts out of love for the gospel and for all the others who haven’t heard it yet.  

Paul is so free in Christ that he can willingly set aside his freedom for the sake of his brothers and sisters.  He can serve them out of love and share their customs and traditions even though he doesn’t have to.  Simply so they might have a better chance at knowing the good news of Jesus that has changed him.  The good news that we’re free in Christ to be who we truly are and still be loved.  The good news that our worth comes only from God’s love for us, not what anyone else says about us.  Paul wants others to know that joy.  And the best way he knows how to do that is to set aside his freedom out of love for others- to become what they need him to be in order to hear the news of Jesus as good and freeing for them.  

Because, Paul asks us to consider, what is the point of our freedom in Christ?  Is it just so that we have a happy life and do anything we want?  Does Jesus free us just so that we can leave some guilt behind and feel better about ourselves?  Paul proclaims what he has known to be true- that our freedom in Jesus is not all about us.  It sets us free to be who we truly are, but it’s not about us alone.  Our freedom in Christ is a trust committed to us.  It frees us from sin and from the power of evil, but it frees us also to serve our neighbor.

The freeing power of Jesus calls us to be free from all obligations and yet bound to others by a deep and genuine love for others.  So as much as they may be annoying or ridiculous at times, using his freedom in Christ to ignore the concerns of the weak in faith is just not an option for Paul.  Because he would hurt them in the process and they are the ones that God loves, too.  And it would hurt the Christian community and possibly tear this believer from their relationship with God.  So as much as he believes deeply in his freedom in Christ, he chooses not to use it if it hurts a brother or sister.  

But that doesn’t mean that he lets all their petty concerns weigh him down and it doesn’t mean he lets all their traditions and rules become more important than the joy of the gospel.  He may become all things to all people- fitting in as easily at a dive bar as he does a super traditional church service- but he is always a follower of Jesus first and foremost.  He may act differently around different people out of respect and out of deep love for them, but he is always firmly rooted in who he is.  He just chooses not to be in-your-face about who he is on the outside if it will weaken another’s faith. Paul is so deeply sure of who he is in Christ that when he does not apologize for who he is, and yet he does not need others to accept that when they first meet him.  He puts their faith and their need for the knowing the joy of the gospel ahead of any concerns about his rights and freedom.  He bears with the weak for the sake of their faith.  

He bears with those who are outcast and those who don’t fit in- sharing in their pain and sharing in the nasty looks he gets from the right people in order when he hangs out with them.  He bears with those who are told they don’t matter and those who are told they aren’t good enough to be loved by God.  He meets them in the seedy parts of the city and their homes that aren’t that clean and he is as comfortable as he is in his own home.  He puts aside his freedom to be someone that these folks can trust and someone that they can hear the good news of the gospel from.  That’s the kind of stuff we like.  

But Paul also bears with the weak in the faith that we don’t have much sympathy for.  The ones who are rich and cranky and the ones that are clinging so tightly to old traditions that they refuse to let anything new happen in the church.  Paul bears with them and is at home with them because the good news of Jesus is too good to do anything else.  And his freedom allows him to be at home among all people and to be to them one they can trust and respect.  One they can hear the joy of the gospel from.  He is free to be himself, but bound out of love to be who others need him to be.  

So what’s the line between being authentic and being willing to lovingly respect the needs of others?  I don’t exactly know.  And the truth is that the line may be different for each of us and it may be different at different times for the sake of the gospel.  But it is something we’re called to keep struggling with, because our freedom in Christ is for us, but it is also for our brothers and sisters.  And we are the caretakers of their faith and life, too. And that freedom is too good, too life-giving, too amazing to keep others from knowing it.   

Mark 1: 21-28

It was an ordinary Sabbath.  The people were going to the synagogue because that’s what good, observant Jewish people did.  They were expecting to hear about God’s rules for their lives and the promises that God had given them.  The usual synagogue stuff.  Not much different from the usual church stuff.  

But instead, there was this man Jesus, teaching.  He spoke with an authority that seemed to come from the heart of who he was.  Their minds were spinning and they were so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  

And in the midst of this hopeful silence, a man with an unclean spirit comes in.  In a synagogue, where the unclean were not welcome.  And he started shouting- “What are you up to, Jesus? Are you here to destroy us? I know you are the Holy One of God.”  These were things you just didn’t say in the synagogue or anywhere if you were in your right mind.  

But the crowds didn’t expect any different from this man.  He was one of those folks that people whispered about.  They knew that something was not right about him- something that was so powerfully wrong that he could no longer hide it.  They said he had a demon.  

And that’s where the story gets hard for us to swallow.  Many of us don’t quite know what to do with stories of demons in Scripture.  It’s something we skip over quickly when we ready Bible stories.  And it’s something we often apologize for when we talk to people outside the faith.  Because it may have been something that happened in the ancient world, but we don’t have demons anymore.  And we often assume that it was just their way of talking about mental illness.  But I think all the talk of demons goes a little deeper than that and I think we all know far more about them than we often want to admit.  

Maybe we prefer to talk about them as “unclean spirits” or addictions or compulsions or the power of evil, but whatever we call them, we still know those powers in our lives.  The ones that disfigure us like the man in the synagogue and turn us into what we are not.  These demons are all the forces that make run in the opposite direction of what God wants for us.  Rather than bless others, they encourage us to curse others, to tear them down.  They are the forces that drive us to hate, rather than love and drive us to side with powers of death and destruction rather than stand on the side of life and health.  They are powers that deform us and change us from who God created us to be.  

Maybe these powers get a foothold during the end of a relationship, when someone has hurt us more deeply than we can explain.  Right then, the power of hatred disfigures us and turns all our attention toward hurting that person back.  That power takes over and leaves no room for joy or for life or for thinking about others.        

Or maybe you have met those powers in a deep, painful grief after you have lost someone you love.  Maybe that sadness and hopelessness is so overpowering that you can’t even see through it, you can’t even remember who you used to be.  Each day begins and ends with that grief and there isn’t anything left of who you are- you’re just going through the motions of life.

Those powers may be at work through an addiction that claims that it is the thing that is control in your life.  That doesn’t even let you up to breathe.  It keeps calling out to you- whether it is alcohol or food or the desperate need to be in control.  It often feels good, it makes things ok for a time, but it also becomes something that you can’t say no to, even though you don’t like what it does to you.  

And sometimes demons hide in something that seems pretty good at the time- being successful or busy or rich.  You know, something that looks good, but ultimately changes who we are and makes us give our life to something that doesn’t matter.

These demons, these powers of evil don’t have to be dramatic.  They don’t have to be visible to anyone else like they were for the man in the synagogue, but they are real and we know what it is to fight these powers.  We know what it is to be controlled by forces that disfigure us.  Powers that make us into what they want us to be, not what we were made by God to be.  

Perhaps those in ancient times had a gift in being able to name these spirits for what they were- not just painful and destructive things, but spirits that are at war with who God made us to be.  Addictions and hatred and greed- these are all spirits other than God.  They’re not just bad habits or human nature.  They aren’t things to be laughed at or ignored.  The ancients could admit what we cannot- we are not made to be like this.  And in our finer moments, we know that’s true.  

We are made in God’s image, so we are not made to dwell in hatred and greed.  Even though it may feel good at times, we are not made to want revenge on our brothers and sisters.  We are not made for war and violence- in words or actions.  And we are not made to have anyone or anything have ultimate power over us other than God alone.  

But there is good news for us- What is true for the man in the temple is just as true for us.  

Jesus has power over all that threatens to define us and drag us away from who we were called to be.  He has authority over all the forces within us and around us that cause us to run away from God’s intention for us.  

Jesus doesn’t just help us keep New Year’s Resolutions or help us give something up at Lent.  That is too small a thing.  Jesus has the power to drive away the forces that draw us from God.  The power to put us in our right mind and our right identity.  To make us into who God hopes we will be- people of joy and love and compassion and service.

But how does Jesus do it?  How does Jesus drive away all those forces that try to own us?  I wish there were some big flash of light or some magical words or something that proved that these powers were gone, that they no longer had control over us.  Then we could have something to hold onto to trust Jesus’ power.  

But there’s not.  Jesus doesn’t so much as touch the man with the unclean spirit.  Jesus sends the evil spirits away simply by saying “Be silent, and come out of him!”  He tells the demons that they have no right to speak, that they no longer have authority.  They can no longer own this man because God has already claimed him.  

Jesus speaks and his words are somehow enough.  Because his words create exactly what they say they will.  That’s how it is with the words of God.  They do what they say. It sounds too easy.  Just as it was in creation, when God said “let there be light” and there was light, so it will always be.  When God speaks, it creates a new reality.  When God tells the waters of the flood to stop and the waters of the Red Sea to part, they do.  So when God pronounces a blessing, you are blessed.  When God gives you a promise, you are covered in it.   When God speaks words of forgiveness, you are forgiven.  

Jesus has authority over the demons, over all that tries to have control over us.   He has power over all that fights against us and he keeps speaking that truth because he doesn’t want us to live enslaved.  That’s what God declares in baptism- I choose you and you are claimed by me and no other.  These other powers may fight for you, but I will fight them even to death.  And I will fight them through death to the other side.  You are mine and nothing can take you from me.

As my favorite baptismal prayer says, “now the floods will not overwhelm you and the deep will not swallow you up.”  For you are mine and I have the power to bring you through.  This is what Jesus declares to be true.  When we are sinking deep in grief, when addictions and prejudice and hatred have a grip on us that we cannot shake, these words are like a life-preserver thrown out to us.  They may not take us out of the water just yet, but they will hold us up until the fullness of God’s reality breaks in.  

And this is no self-help talk.  This isn’t just wishful thinking or keeping a positive attitude.  Jesus declares that there is nothing in this world or beyond this world that can separate us from God’s love.  And there will be nothing that is allowed to be more powerful that God’s hold on us.  And as often as we give into those powers, as often as we choose to wallow in them, as often as we feel powerless to stop them- Jesus will keep speaking to those powers to send them away.  To tell them to be silent so that we can hear God’s hope for us and God’s plan for us far above their noise.  

God shuts those powers up, those voices, those desires and despairs so that we can hear the voice that seems too quiet and too small at times.  The voice that simply says- be silent, for that is my child.  I have claimed that one in love.  I have set this precious one apart to live in freedom and joy and love.  To live in loving community with others.  To serve me and all I have created.  And don’t you dare get in the way.  

To the man in the synagogue who could not hide his demons and to all of us who work so hard to cover ours up, Jesus’ words are still the same- none of these powers are as powerful as my words.  None have a chance to stand against all that I am.  And none have the right to claim what God already has.  It is the truth whether we believe it or not.  

And thanks be to God for that.

Luke 1:26-38

We have been busy these past few weeks preparing for Christmas.   Even amidst finals and papers, we've been listening to Christmas music and decorating our dorm rooms.  At my house, there have been presents to wrap, cookies to bake, and a tree to decorate. Advent is a time full of preparations.  

And fittingly, our gospel lesson today is about Christmas preparations, too.  Mary’s Christmas preparations.  She was the first one ever to prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth.  But, her preparations didn’t begin when Santa rode by in the Macy’s Parade.  They didn’t begin with the lighting of the first Advent candle.  Mary’s preparations began 9 months before when the angel Gabriel walked in her door to give her a message.

There she was, a young girl going about her work.  Maybe she was tending to the fire in order to cook the evening meal.  Maybe she was headed out to gather water from the well.  Or maybe she was enjoying a very rare quiet moment before she swept the floors of the house.  She was going about her daily preparations when suddenly Gabriel, a messenger from God appears at her door.  

And to this young girl, Gabriel says, “Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you.”  Not something you expect to be met with as you’re working around the house.  Not only was this an angel, God’s messenger sent to her, just a normal girl.  No, not just that, but he was saying that the Lord was with her.  

Now, Mary had grown up hearing the stories of God and the words of the prophets.  She knew that God’s presence wasn’t something to take lightly.  She remembered the story of Moses and the elders, when they climbed Mt. Sinai to receive the commandments.  She remembered that they had to fast and prepare themselves for God’s coming and then only Moses was called up into the presence of God.  Meanwhile, all the Israelites were commanded not even to touch the mountain where God was speaking to the people.  God’s presence was serious stuff!  And Mary knew that only one holy priest could enter the innermost reaches of the temple where God was said to dwell.  Only one priest, who had to prepare himself for weeks, was holy enough to stand before God’s presence.

So remembering all this, I doubt that the words, “The Lord is with you” brought Mary a lot of comfort.  The Scriptures say she “pondered what sort of greeting this may be” but I have a hunch she was thinking a little harder than that.  She probably felt a lot like I did when I heard my parents call my name when they returned home from work. She probably wondered what we she had done wrong or what she had failed to do before mom or dad (or in this case, the Lord) came back calling.  She probably wondered what she was in store for.  

And to this worried young woman, Gabriel speaks a word of peace, “do not be afraid.”  There was a sigh of relief that must have escaped Mary’s mouth. “You have found favor with God.”  She’s finally starting to catch her breath when Gabriel starts up again, “now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.”  Gabriel goes on to tell her that Jesus will be great and will be given the throne of David and that his kingdom will never end, but somehow I think Mary was having trouble listening by now.  She was still stuck on that “you will bear a son” part.  She was a young girl.  She wasn’t married yet. She wasn’t ready.  This simply wasn’t possible.  

So she asks Gabriel, trying to be as polite as possible (as one should be to an angel) “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”  She was probably thinking- “I know what I’ve done and this just isn’t possible, Lord.  Thank you for the honor, but you must have the wrong girl.”  But Gabriel doesn’t stop.  He tells her that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and she will conceive a son.  And if she wants proof that miracles happen, she can visit her cousin Elizabeth who has conceived a son in her old age.  As Gabriel reminds her, “nothing will be impossible with God.”

And so, without warning, Mary begins to prepare for Christmas.  She thought she was already preparing for the Lord’s coming- by taking care of the household, by prayer and visits to the temple, and by living a holy life.  She was going about her preparations when God comes to her and tells her that while all these things are good, there is something even better.  The way she has been asked to prepare is to look up from her work and to watch how God can work through her.  

Gabriel doesn’t give Mary a whole lot of help about how to handle all this.  No clear cut rules.  In fact, Gabriel only gives Mary one command on how to prepare for Christ’s birth.  He tells her, “do not be afraid.”  He tells Mary to hear and live this command.  “Do not be afraid.”  Now this was nothing new, this command actually appears more than any other in the Scriptures, more than 300 times in the New Testament alone!  It’s not the command to get back to work, it’s not to be holy, it’s not even to love our neighbors.  The command is simply, “do not be afraid.”  It calls us not to do more, but to simply let go of that which binds us.  To let go of the fear that drives us away from brothers and sisters that we are called to love. Let go of the fear which makes us want to hurt other people or other nations so that they can’t hurt us.  Let go of the fear that we won’t get everything done and the fear that we’re not strong enough for what God calls us to do.  Let go of the fear that makes us so worried about what may happen that we can’t experience the joys of the present.

“Do not be afraid.”  Imagine that.  Preparing by simply not fearing what will come or where we will go next.  Mary’s Christmas preparations were simply not to fear what God was doing.  They were simply instructions to stop and wonder at how God was working inside her, watching each change and reveling in each kick and movement of the life inside her.

Wonder.  That’s what Mary did as she prepared for Christmas. She didn’t just take Gabriel’s message and file it away as useful information.  You just can’t do that with an announcement like this.  No, Mary wondered.  Throughout the story of Christ’s birth, you always find Mary wondering. After she heard Gabriel’s message, she ran to her cousin Elizabeth, her old cousin who was carrying another miracle child within her.  She ran to Elizabeth to wonder together with her, to be amazed at what God was doing with both of them.  And after she left Elizabeth, I’m sure she kept wondering.  I bet her wondering woke her up at night, it came to her as she went about her chores, she thought about it as she ate and as she prayed.  Mary spent 9 months full of wonder, amazed at the life inside of her and how she was chosen to bear the Son of God.

Of course she wondered.  Can you imagine God sending a messenger to you to proclaim that you are to bear the Son of God?  Imagine being told that God will live and thrive inside you.  I’m sure many of us have wondered how we would react if we were in Mary’s place, if Gabriel walked through our door to tell us that we had been chosen to bear Christ.  But the thing is, even though Gabriel hasn’t come calling, we have received that same word from God.  Those are the words that God gives to us in our baptism- that the Spirit has come upon us and we will bear Christ in our very beings.  That is the promise we receive when we come to the table, as Christ comes to live in us through the bread and the wine. God comes to dwell inside us and we become ones who carry God within us. We have reason to stop and wonder at how God has caused such a miracle to happen.  

So, maybe the story of Mary isn’t completely foreign to us.  We have the chance to respond to that same amazing message that we have been chosen to bear the Son of God.  And during this busy Christmas season, maybe we are called to prepare for this life inside us the same way that Mary did.  Our preparations don’t have to be about doing things.   We can prepare for Christmas by letting go.  By letting go of fear and insecurity and the concern that things won’t be right.  Putting down our list of things to do to stand before our God and wonder.  To listen to the amazing words that God sends to us.  “The Lord is with you.”  That God is with us, inside of us, and we are being asked to bear the Son of God in our very beings, to live so that God may be visible in all parts of our life.  We are all pregnant with God, filled with the love of God, chosen by God to bear the Spirit.  

To all of us called, like Mary, to bear Christ, don’t think about it.  Just stop and let go of the fear.  Stop and be amazed that God has chosen to work through you. We don’t know how Mary took on this huge task.  We don’t know what she felt.  We only know that when Gabriel was done speaking, she said., “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  She just said, “Ok, here I am ready to bear your son for the world.  I don’t know what this means or how this will happen or how I’ll have the strength to do it, but here I am.  I will watch your life move and grow inside me.  I’m ready to be amazed by your presence.  Go ahead, Lord, I’m ready.”

So as we bear God within us, God simply reminds us, “do not be afraid.”  Do not run from the possibilities.  Do not hide the God that dwells within you.  Do not spend your time denying that it can happen.  It has happened, and though we can’t explain it, God continues to dwell in us.  Stop and feel the movement of God in your life.  It may not be as easy to feel as a baby’s kick, but God is at work.  God is moving in your life- so stop and experience the wonder of it.

Mark 13:24-37

“There will be wars and rumors of wars.  Nation will rise against nation.  There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. In those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the creation,” Jesus tells the disciples.  But be alert, stay awake, for the Son of Man is coming. 

And Jesus could just as well be talking to us- There will be violence in Syria and Libya and bombs exploding in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There will be earthquakes in Turkey and Haiti and droughts in Texas.  There will be fires in New Mexico and more and more hungry and desperate people throughout our city and county.  But stay alert, stay awake, Jesus tells us.  For the Son of Man is coming. 

Only a few hours into our new church year and the news already sounds terrible.  And we didn’t really need to come to church to get reminders of all the chaos in our world, all those things that make us afraid and worried about the future.  But Jesus isn’t telling his disciples about these things to scare them.  He’s actually speaking these words to comfort them. 

Jesus’ disciples lived in a world where scary things were already happening- just like our own world.  It was a place where people questioned God’s goodness when they saw the suffering around them. And Jesus knows his own disciples will be tempted to give up their hope in him, tempted to be so overcome by the things in the world that they forget the promises that God has given them. 

So Jesus tells them to keep awake.  Don't panic when someone tells you about suffering that’s happening now or might happen in the future.  Instead, keep watching for God’s promises to come true.  Because disasters have a way of making us lose hope.  Whether they are natural disasters that hurt too many,  the death of someone we love or an illness that takes us over, it’s hard to see through the struggles and keep up hope in the future. It’s hard to believe that there’s anything beyond the junk that’s right in front of us. 

AndJesus knows that and so he speaks these words to his disciples and to us. There will be disasters in the world that will make you cry and that will hurt your soul and maybe even those you love.  There will be disasters that make you question everything, but still, keep awake to what God is doing.  Even when you can’t bear it, keep watching for God to bring the kingdom and set things right. 

Because, Jesus says, these disasters are not the final word.  When you see wars and violence and earthquakes, don’t get discouraged.  When your own lives are all out of control, don’t lose heart.  All these hard times are not a sign that the kingdom that Jesus promised has been overcome or that it’s never coming.  This is the world doing its worst.  But yet, Jesus says, stay awake, for I have promised to come into this world and transform it.  And I am one who keeps promises.    

So don’t panic.  Keep awake. Trust that God is still in control. And keep waiting in hope.  We hea rthese same calls every Advent.  But it’s hard to listen.  We may know that they are God’s constant words to us, but that doesn’t make it easier.  Because I’m impatient.  And I bet some of you are, too.  I want Jesus to come into the world to clean it up.  I don’t’ want to wait anymore!  And frankly, as many years as I’ve been hearing these lessons, I’ve never quite understood how we’re supposed to wait for Jesus to come.  Should we stand by the window, watching the sky?  Should we be studying the Scriptures to try to figure out exactly when Jesus is coming back like the May 21st people? Is that the most faithful way to wait? 

Our students talked a lot about those folks as May 21st approached.  And while their hope and passion for Jesus’ return is something we could learn from, this evening Jesus tells us our waiting is to look different.  For our waiting is, like the gospel lesson says, “like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.”  Our waiting isn’t about being passive, it’s about caring faithfully for the things that we’ve been entrusted with.

Staying awake to watch and wait forJesus means living so absolutely sure of Jesus’ return that we live out that trust.  It means doing all that God entrusts us with so well and so joyfully that it doesn’t really matter what date Jesus chooses to return since we’re living out the joy of his return already.  It means living like Jesus is arriving tomorrow.  That we live as if it’s the last days while we go about our regular lives, never putting off what God has called us to do. 

When I was in high school, I would come home every day to find a list on the kitchen table telling me what I needed to get done before my mom came home. And every day, I’d come home and ignore most of it.  I would watch TV or have a snack or do anything but the work I was supposed to do. That is, I would ignore it until I heard the garage door open.  Then I would fly off the couch, flip the TV off and start unloading the dishwasher or getting dinner ready so it looked like I’d been working all along.

But Jesus is telling us that we’re not going to hear the garage door before he comes.  So we should wait for his return by working on that list we’ve been given.  We should be so expectant, so hopeful, so sure that Jesus will walk into our world at any moment that we want to have our work done and be ready to meet him when he comes.  It means working how God calls us to so we don’t have to live in fear or panic of when Jesus returns. 

Jesus is calling us to wait for his return by caring deeply for those things that God has entrusted us with.  That may mean different things for each of us.  Perhaps it means working to nurture relationships with our family and communities during these weeks- whether that’s taking time around the dinner table to support each other or calling those relatives that we don’t get to talk too often.    It may mean reaching out to folks that we know who are lonely or grieving or maybe strengthening a friendship that has lapsed. 

And maybe we’re called to care better for others that God has entrusted us with by sharing gifts with those in need.  Maybe it will mean sending a donation to World Hunger instead of buying a gift or donating food or money to a food bank so that the hungry can be filled with good things.  It may mean giving of what little we have so that others may have enough. 

And maybe we’re called to spend more time with the gospel that God has entrusted us with.  We might reread those amazing prophecies of Isaiah that speak of hope when it seemed impossible or the stories of Jesus healing and restoring people to life.  Or we might spend time in prayer as we’re walking to class or light a candle each night to have a moment with God before bed. 

And even those practical things are not always enough help for me.  Even knowing what I should do doesn’t always help me to wait well, when Jesus’ coming seems so far away.  So for those of us who need a little help, we have the Church to help teach us how to wait in these weeks of Advent.  When we gather, we will light candles to mark the time and remind us of our hope in Christ. We will sing familiar songs that speak of God’s promises so they are in our heads throughout the week.  We will turn our hearts especially to those in need and take up collections for those who go without.  We will pray with bold words, “stir up your power, O Lord, and come.”  We will read the Scriptures about hope and we will preach about light coming into the world as the days get darker. In the midst of a world getting darker and colder, we will talk about hope and joy as if it is already here.  We will defy the darkness by bringing light and we defy the struggling of our neighbors by embracing them as family.  We will practice what it means to wait for Jesus to return. 

The amazing news is that Jesus is coming into the world and coming to us.  We are promised that.  And none of the horrible things in life are going to keep that from coming true. This really is the best news that there is.  Jesus is going to return to this world to set things right and make this world like the one we pray for.  That is what we wait for.  That is what we hope for this Advent and always.  And that is what we are promised will come true.  So, ones blessed with such good news, keep awake and help each other to wait with hope, for Jesus is coming!

Zephaniah 1: 7,12-18

Bring the kids to church, that’s a good place for them.  That’s what we usually think.  And yet, the words we hear today are pretty scary.  The prophet Zephaniah has come to pronounce God’s judgment to his people.  And he’s not mincing words.  He’s painting a picture that we’d rather not look at and that we probably wouldn’t want kids to be watching on TV. He’s talking about a day when there will be violence and pain. All because of God’s anger.  

Hear the prophet- “On judgment Day, I’ll search through every closet and alley. I’ll find and punish those who are sitting it out, amusing themselves and taking it easy, who think, ‘God doesn’t do anything, good or bad.  God isn’t involved, so neither are we.  But just wait.  They’ll lose everything they have, money and house and land. On Judgment Day my anger will be paid out: I’ll make things so bad they won’t know what hit them.”

These words are in our Bibles!  In the Lutheran tradition, we don’t usually talk about the end times or judgment all that much.  We tend to focus on the good stuff- God’s love and on God’s promise of new life through Jesus.  And we focus on that so much that sometimes we don’t quite know what to do with predictions of doom and judgment.  We wonder how our God can be a God of judgment and a God of forgiveness at the same time.

So it’s tempting to write these end time words as old words- words spoken in another time to another people that don’t have much to do with us anymore. But every year, the Church chooses to have us hear these lessons again so that we can not ignore them, so we cannot forget them.  Because the truth is, the God who sent Zephaniah to speak these words is the same God who sent Jesus to speak words of hope to us.  So, as much as we may not want them to be, these words of destruction are a part of our story, too. 

They are words spoken by the prophet Zephaniah to a people who were getting too comfortable. They had a pretty good life and didn’t think all that much would change.  They thought that life would pretty much go on like it always had.  They were busy going to work and taking care of their homes and they were feeling pretty much in control.  They knew that they were the ones running their own lives and no one else.

And they got comfortable like that- living as if God wasn’t really at work in the world. They assumed that God wouldn’t go any good or any evil and that meant that were in charge.  Now, it’s not that they weren’t religious.  They still prayed when they were in terrified and worshipped because it had become part of their habit.  But when it really got down to it, they lived their lives assuming that God was mostly just a figurehead.  You know, a nice tradition, but not something they need to take all that seriously.

It’s a world that looks pretty familiar.  Zephaniah was speaking to a world that looks a lot like ours. A place where many people don’t believe that God is still at work in the world.   Where people may pay God some lip service, but live as if they are the ones who are really in control. And more often than we would like to admit, it’s not just those other people out there who act like that.  Too often we don’t act any different.  Too often we are people who believe that God is too loving to ever be angry.  Too often we are people that act like God is our buddy rather than the one who can turn our world upside down. And that is why these words are still a part of our story. Because we still need Zephaniah to speak the words of God to remind us that living like that is dangerous.   

We know full well how we act when we think the person in charge can’t do anything to us, when we feel like we can’t get in much trouble no matter what we do.  We take advantage of it.   Students don’t act as good or work as hard with the substitute teacher because they know she doesn’t have the same power to affect their grade.   Workers tend to work a little less when the boss isn’t around because they know they can’t get in as much trouble.  And most of us have a tendency to often treat people in our family worse than strangers since we know they won’t leave us and they have to love us no matter what.  When we don’t think there will be consequences for what we do, we get complacent. We start to slip.  We don’t take as much concern about how we act and what we do and start to act like it doesn’t matter.

And when we get to acting like that, we all need a prophet like Zephaniah to pull out a bullhorn to remind us of the truth.  To tell us again who our God is.  We need to be reminded that God isn’t a sweet, meek God who aims to make everyone happy. God Our God is a loving creator and the final judge.  Our God is both the one who walks with us in our struggles and the one who has the power to bring destruction. 

God didn’t just start the world spinning and step away for us to handle things on our own.  God can still bring destruction and judgment for the sake of the life of God’s children.  Our God is one whose passion burns hot, so hot that it canseem out of control and scary.  As Zephaniah tells us, God cares about sin with “a fiery passion- a fire that can burn up the corrupted world.”

And that’s the kind of God we want. One that isn’t worried about being nice and accepting everything that happens in life.  It’s incredibly good news to know that God is so passionate about our lives that God is willing to burn up all that gets in the way of our health and life.  And it is good news to know that God has the power to destroy all that is evil in this world and in us, the power to turn our world upside down to end things like abuse and hunger.  But, what else does God’s fiery passion mean for us?  What does it mean to have a God whose anger can burn so hot? What does it mean for our world and for our own lives?

It means that how we live matters.  And not just because we want to be a good person so that other people will like us and we can be proud of ourselves.   How we live matters simply because the judge of the whole earth commands us to act in certain ways. Simply because we don’t make the rules and we are not incontrol.  How we live matters because our God sometimes lets the consequences of our sin burn us a little in this world in order to bring justice.  

Zephaniah speaks the truth that we like to forget- that our God is truly the ruler of everything and is too passionate about our lives to let sin go unchecked.  Our sin and the sin of our life together have consequences for us and for our world. The things that we do and the things that we allow to happen without stopping them have consequences.  And God will not always save us from what we have brought onourselves.  A God who deeply loves justice and deeply loves us cannot do that. 

God promises not to destroy us and to always return to us in love, but God also longs for our wholeness and our health- and not just ours, but that of the whole world.  And our God loves this world and each one of us too much to let us remain a mess.  That means that the passion of our God may burn hot against the sin in our world and in our hearts. And it may come enough that it hurts as it works to make us new. 

And yet, that is not our whole story.  These words of destruction are not the whole story for us and they weren’t even the whole story for the people of Zephaniah’s time.  Two chapters after the words we hear this morning, the prophet tells the people that after all these things, there will be a time when all those who seek God will be safe and will be cleansed from all that pulls them from God.  Zephaniah proclaims what God proclaims to us in Christ, “The Lord has taken away the judgments against you and the Lord is in your midst.”  The harsh and scary words we hear at the not the end of the story for Zephaniah’s people any more than they are for us.  Our God will remove our sin far from us and care for us. 

And that means that we always have reason to hope.  Destruction may be one part of our story, the pain of this world and the consequences of our sin maybe part of the story, but they are never the final word. We live always looking to the promise of love and mercy beyond the destruction.  We always look to the forgiveness beyond our sin.  How we live matters for us and for our world- it matters desperately- and yet God’s love will always be the first and last word for all of us. 

So, people of God, people of a passionate and powerful God, live as if everything you do mattered deeply.  As if your words and your actions mattered more than you could imagine.  But also be bold in knowing and trusting that the love of God is always the last word for you and for all our world.  

Romans 6:12-23

Have you seen the new iPad?  Or iPhone?  Or iwhatever? That’s usually the topic of conversation whenever my husband and his dad and his brother get together.  I am slowly learning that I have married into a group of people obsessed by the next new thing from Apple or pretty much any other technological gadget.  Hours are spent showing what this new upgrade can do and why it’s far superior to what has come before it.  I must confess that these conversations usually inspire me to take a nap or read a book. 

But we all have those little obsessions of ours- whether its cars or clothes,restaurants or even grocery stores, we want to know what the next thing is.  And these little obsessions can be harmless pleasures, but these obsessions also have a way of making us unhappy.  Well, not really unhappy, just vaguely dissatisfied.  Like how your peanut butter and jelly sandwich didn’t seem so bad a lunch until the person next to you sat down with homemade macaroni and cheese.  That’s even the goal of advertisers.  To create a vague dissatisfaction with what you have.  Because that is how they trap you.  That is how they hold you captive- making you dissatisfied enough to always want something a little bit better but not making you so dissatisfied that you actually start to question what they are doing. 

They are trying to make us, as Paul says, “obey their passions.”  Because it’s easy to get caught up in always wanting something more and something better.  And that has a way of taking away our joy with what we have and our peace about life. Our obsessions- our need for something new- becomes what we obey.  And, Paul says, we become slaves to the ones we obey.  We give up our freedom and let ourselves be guided by our need for more. We are no longer our own. 

It’s no different than anger and lust and pride and greed and all the rest of the deadly sins we’ve been talking about on Tuesdays.  They all have a way of twisting us, of taking over our minds so that we can’t even see joy in front of us, of blocking out all that is important to us- taking over our conversations, our thoughts and even our dreams. 

And it’s no less spiritually dangerous than when addictions take hold of us- be it to food or smoking or even more dangerous things.  Like all those things that hold us captive, our addictions make us obey their passions and always ask for more in order to satisfy.  Those addictions deform us- forming us in the image of what controls us.  And distorting the image of God in which we were created and in which we were claimed in baptism. 

Our brother in Christ, the apostle Paul, knew this. Because it has been true from the beginning of time.  We are people that need to have something atour center- something that controls us and guides us and forms us.  God created us that way.  But we’re prone to forgetting what that should be.  So we let whatever comes along take that place- whether it insecurity, hatred, envy or love of things.  And Paul tells us the truth again- you are people that have given away who you are to all those forces around you. 

But, Paul says, this is not what you were created for.  And it is not who you are.  Because the end of those things is death. Those things steal your joy and your freedom, they steal your ability to live in the reflection of the God who made you. 

Andnothing else, Paul tells the Romans over and over again, nothing has the right to own you.  Not addictions, not our anger or our jealousies or our fears.  Not our bad choices or the messed up things that have happened to us in our lives.  Not our desires for money and power and comfort.  None of these have the right to control us and determine what we do and how we live and who we love. None of these have the right to define us, to shape us and to determine who we are. 

And we have a God who has walked into the ugliness of death to speak that truth again- that these things that take us over, that try to blot out the image of God in which we were made, do not get to control us.  Even when they fight hard.  Even when they seem so much more real and powerful than our God.  Even when the world encourages them and tells us we are justified in letting them control us,Paul keeps proclaiming- these forces have no right to take what God has already claimed. 

And so, since this is true, Paul tells us, since you have been freed from sin, so be enslaved to God.  And that’s where it gets hard.  Sure, we’d like to be free from our fear and our hatred and our sin, but being enslaved to God frankly sounds like it’s not much fun.  It sounds hard, it sounds like we’ll never get what we want,and frankly, it sounds pretty boring.  Being enslaved to God sounds like we’ll be stuck doing churchy stuff all the time and we’ll have to be super holy and never say another bad word and never have another beer.  We’ll have to pray all the time and give away everything we have and spend all our time helping other people.  That’s often the impression we have, but that’s not what being enslaved to God is all about. 

It is about being held captive by a love that claims us. And when you’re in love,in overwhelming, true and deep love, it changes us.  Being in love and knowing we are loved allows us to willingly give over our power and do some ridiculous things without thinking.  This kind of love doesn’t make us less, it frees us to be the best expression of who we truly are.  To be known and loved at our deepest core sets us free.

And loving our family or our friends or loving those in need, has the amazing ability to break us open and set us free from our compulsions.  Even if it’s only for moments that are all too brief, the act of loving sets us free from insecurity and destructiveness.  That kind of love holds us captive to follow where it goes, but it also sets us free to be who we truly are.  It forms us into who God created us to be. 

And God knows this.  God made us this way.  We are made to be ones who are only set free by a love that breaks us open. That’s why love is God’s first and last word to us- because it is our identity- the image in which we were made and to which we will return.  It is something we cannot escape.  Something that holds up captive.  Something that forms us into who we truly are.  Something that creates the realityt hat God proclaims.  That we are God’s-made by love and made for love and for freedom. Made to be loving and joyful and creative and deeply full of life.  Because being enslaved to God is not the boring life we sometimes imagine- it means being set free. 

But that also doesn’t mean that it’s always fun. Because love isn’t always fun. And the love that wraps us up and holds up captive is no different.   This is a love that is so good that it asks for all that we are.  And that means it will expose our greed and force us to give all we have to others that Jesus loves.  It will condemn all those rights we think are ours- the right to be comfortable, to not be bothered by the needs of others, to hurt and disregard others whenever it’s convenient.  This love will expose those compulsions and sins that we don’t really want to give up.  It is a love so powerful that it calls us to love others in the same way, pouring ourselves open for their sake.  And being captive to a love that goes to death for us means we may be called to do the same. But we cannot help it- it is who we are. 

And instinctively we know that.  Think of the stories we tell of our heroes.  They are ones who left behind everything- their safety, their comfort, their fears- or perhaps those who remained in impossible situations- because they were called by something deeper.  They are women and men who were willing to forgive and love when it seemed ridiculous, to stand in the midst of danger to speak the truth, to stand apart from everyone to testify to another way.  We hold them up as heroes because we know that this is who we were made to be- ones held so captive by something that we cannot help but live it out. Those of us made in God’s image and claimed in the baptismal waters are made to be captive to God’s dream for us. So captive that danger and hard work and losing it all mean nothing.  Because the only thing that matters is the love that forms us and is our home. 

It’s beautiful, but how do we get there?  How do we get to that place where we are held captive by God’s love?  How do we actually have the strength to let go of our insecurities and our addictions and be claimed wholly by God?  How do we, who are not often heroes, who are often too selfish and too comfortable, how do we finally trust the truth of God’s claim on us enough to change us? 

The only way I know to trust what I cannot always believe- to trust that I am captive to the God who claimed me- is to keep drenching myself in that truth.  To keep gathering with the people that proclaim the ridiculous truth that I can only believe about myself in miracle moments.  To keep being in a community that believes what I cannot always believe. I need to keep going again and again, to hear the words of God, perhaps especially when I don’t want to.  I need to keep hearing the bold and ridiculous pronouncement that the Church makes-that we are God’s, not the world’s, and those aren’t just nice words, but a power beyond what we can know.  

The only way I have any hope of letting God’s truth about me be real in my life is to keep looking at and dipping my finger in those holy, ordinary waters that tell me I have been claimed whether I like it or not and that this will always be my first and only truth.  And I know that I need to keep coming to the impossible table that proclaims that I am feasting on God.  The table that proclaims that after that meal, God’s life is now part of my own life in ways I cannot escape. And that I am held up and held captive by a love within my own flesh.  And I need those disciplines-praying before meals, praying for the needs of the world, giving away what I have for the sake of others and even marking the sign of the cross on my ownself whenever I hear the name of the One who formed me.  I need these things if I have a hope of trusting the truth that God tells us.  So that I cannot forget the love that holds me. And we all need this- for it is often a love too good and too amazing to trust without this practice. 

So people of God, do whatever you need to so that you may know the truth- you are claimed by God.   Cling to this truth in community and sacrament and in the Word that comes alive.  Know that you are set free from all that tries to have power over you.  And you are invited to let yourselves be captive to the one who sets you free and loves you even beyond your ability to understand. Let us, and all God’s Church, dare to let it be true.