Lent 1 :: Feb 17 :: Luke 10:25-42

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Our two lessons for today might seem like they don’t have very much in common, but they share one, fundamental theme: distraction. Perhaps you’ve met some of the people who are the easily distractible types. You know, the one’s whose trains of thought keep hopping the tracks and you can never keep up. I know that there are even a few of you here who are like that.

Me, I’m the kind of person who has to follow a train of thought until it comes to a complete stop. But I want to twist this around a little bit and make you think about this all very differently.

Those of you who are much more like me, the kind of people who have to follow a train of thought until it comes to a complete stop, are guilty of distraction as well. How, you ask? Let me tell you.

As much as my kind of brain is applauded for being on task and for being perseverant, my kind of brain is also missing everything that it is not able to focus on. Every little piece of information that doesn’t happen to be on the same train as the one chugging through my head is completely missed. I fail to notice, when I am reading a book, the wonderful conversations going on the hallway. I fail to notice the beautiful sunset when my eyes are glued to the TV. I fail to notice my beautiful little girl twirling in her princess dress when my mind is fixated on the frustrating thing that happened at church that morning.

While I might not be easily distractible, I am also missing out on much of life. You see, life happens in the interruptions. Life happens in all the little things that go on around you, some of which you might notice and some of which you don’t. Life happens in the distractions.

Those of us with one-track minds, who cannot possible jump the track for some other distraction, are cursed with blinders, causing us to miss everything going on around us.

That’s the kind of distraction we are talking about in our lessons for this morning. It’s the kind of singularly focused, unshakable attention of the lawyer and Martha, the law keeper.

In the first lesson, we have the lawyer, who is out to test Jesus. He asks Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now, you have to understand a thing or two about Jesus if you are going to understand why Jesus responds the way he does. Jesus is the master storyteller, a master teacher, he is a true Jewish rabbi. Turning the question right back around, Jesus asks the lawyer, “You’re the lawyer. What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

And the lawyer responds with the Greatest Commandment from Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 6, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus says, “yes, you’re right. So get out there an do it.”

Imagine the offense the legal expert took when Jesus assumed he hadn’t been following the law. So, to continue to test Jesus, the lawyer asks, “Well, who is my neighbor?”

And this is where Jesus’ mastery comes in. He tells the legal expert a parable. It’s a story about a man who’d been traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho (just the opposite of Jesus who was traveling from Jericho to Jerusalem were he would be beaten a crucified). On the road, the man was mugged, and left half dead. Two priests walked right past the man left for dead, a regular priest and a priest of the Levitical order, one who knew the law from Leviticus about loving your neighbor as yourself. Except that neither one of them must have understood who their neighbor was.

And then Jesus works his story telling magic. Just then, Jesus said, a Samaritan walked by. A SAMARITAN! Can you believe it? He stopped, helped the man, cleaned him up, got him a place to stay and anything else he needed. A Samaritan! Now, Jesus reminds the lawyer, who followed that law of loving neighbor as yourself?

The one who showed him mercy, the lawyer chokes out, unable to even say the word Samaritan.

Precisely, Jesus says, now get out there and do the same.

Jesus uses the story to show just how distracted by the law the two priests were. In doing their very best to avoid being made unclean by the dying man, the priests walked right past the man left for dead. These two priests were so distracted by the law of uncleanness that they completely avoided the law to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. Their singular focus, their one track minds, led them to completely avoid a hurting, dying man on the road.

Sometimes in life, in fact more often than any of us would care to admit, we are so distracted by our singular focus that we completely avoid loving our neighbor as ourselves. Even when we are trying to be virtuous and morally good, we forget that we are called and commanded by God to love God and to love our neighbor. This great commandment goes unnoticed by us because our one-track minds are focused on other things, even if they are virtuous and good.

Our mission, our calling, God’s commandment, is to love God and love our neighbor. Loving God means stopping when someone is hurt and caring for them. Loving God means forgetting about our own, singular agendas, even if they are good, to sit with someone who is in pain, either emotionally or physically. Loving God means loving your neighbor.

Our virtues often get in our way. Our best efforts are often our biggest enemies. This is why I believe Sunday worship is so important. We are all out in the world, doing our best to live good and decent lives, but we are distracted by those things. We need someone to tell us to remember to love God by loving our neighbors. We need someone to throw us off track.

Just like in our second lesson where Martha was so distracted and worried about making sure the house was in perfect order for her houseguest, she forgot the better part of all of it: that Jesus was in town and he was there to preach and teach.

Our distractions, even if they are good ones, keep us from loving God and loving our neighbor. Our focused attention, even when it is on something worthwhile and worthy, often blinds us to the real life that is going on around us.

In the first lesson, the lawyer wanted to know how to inherit eternal life, but Jesus showed him what real life was all about. Jesus pointed out to the lawyer that eternal life has its roots and origins in what life is like here down on earth. These parables are down to earth stories about how to love God and love neighbor.

So, people of God. You are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing: and that one thing is Jesus Christ himself. He will show you what real life is. He will show you the love of God in the little princess dancing while you are distracted by that bad thing that happened at work that day. He will show you the beautiful sunset while you are sucked into the TV. He will show you the wonderful, fruitful conversations while you are stuck in a book. Even if your focus is a worthy one, pay attention. God has a gift for you. In Jesus Christ, his gift is being made known and it is life-giving.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Confessions on Ash Wednesday

Psalm 51:1-17 (Common English Bible)

1Have mercy on me, God, according to your faithful love!

Wipe away my wrongdoings according to your great compassion!

2Wash me completely clean of my guilt;

purify me from my sin!

3Because I know my wrongdoings,

my sin is always right in front of me.

4I’ve sinned against you—you alone.

I’ve committed evil in your sight.

That’s why you are justified when you render your verdict,

completely correct when you issue your judgment.

5Yes, I was born in guilt, in sin,

from the moment my mother conceived me.

6And yes, you want truth in the most hidden places;

you teach me wisdom in the most secret space.

7Purify me with hyssop and I will be clean;

wash me and I will be whiter than snow.

8Let me hear joy and celebration again;

let the bones you crushed rejoice once more.

9Hide your face from my sins;

wipe away all my guilty deeds!

10Create a clean heart for me, God;

put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me!

11Please don’t throw me out of your presence;

please don’t take your holy spirit away from me.

12Return the joy of your salvation to me

and sustain me with a willing spirit.

13Then I will teach wrongdoers your ways,

and sinners will come back to you.

14Deliver me from violence, God, God of my salvation,

so that my tongue can sing of your righteousness.

15Lord, open my lips,

and my mouth will proclaim your praise.

16You don’t want sacrifices.

If I gave an entirely burned offering,

you wouldn’t be pleased.

17A broken spirit is my sacrifice, God.

You won’t despise a heart, God, that is broken and crushed.

In Psalm 51 we wade into an ever-rolling stream of confession. Confession of sin is a Christian practice that first acknowledges that we are created beings, good but not perfect. And even in our goodness we are sinful (sin-full).

I find that this is a very foreign concept for most Americans to grasp, even Americans who have been Christians their whole lives (not to mention Lutheran Christians, who sorta have a monopoly on the fully sinner/saint language). We like to believe that we are pretty much good, most of the time. Well, you know, not always, but sorta, I guess kinda good. Right?

Yes and no. We are sinful; from our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, until the tiniest, newest born baby. Sin is the condition under which we are born; we are brought into the world sinful. It is, I admit, difficult to look at your innocent little newborn and say, you are sinful, you are mortal, and this means that you must die someday.

Even more difficult, perhaps, is when we mark our very young and very old in worship on Ash Wednesday with a cross of ashes. That stark symbol of sin and mortality, the cruel cross, placed on the forehead of our very young and our frail old is in stark contrast to the way Americans typically view themselves.

When we convince ourselves that we are mostly good, most of the time, without acknowledging our condition of sin, the cross seems like only a cruel instrument of torture rather than the instrument of our salvation. We convince ourselves that our sin does not, in fact, lead to our death. And so we begin to think that we are also immortal (though I've never heard anyone admit this to me outright).

The cross on our foreheads is a reminder that we are dust and we will return to dust. We are created beings, locked in a world of sin and we are sinful, ourselves. And that sin leads us to death. Our death. The one we don't like to talk about.

That is why, I think, Ash Wednesday is so important. You have a preacher (whether it be a pastor or some other person) physically impose the ashes on your forehead and mark you with the cross and force into your ears the words, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return." There is no escape. You are mortal, sinful. You are a creature, not the Creator.

The carbon of ash and the carbon of live, human cells meet in the cross. 

The cross is placed on the forehead, together with the truth that we are dust and we will return to it. And so, I think, Ash Wednesday is a good place for confession and Psalm 51.

"Have mercy on me, God, according to your faithful love! Wipe away my wrongdoings according to your great compassion!"

Today I confess:

 :: Lord, I don't trust you. I'm afraid of losing my job at the church I serve.

 :: Lord, I don't trust you. I'm afraid that my family will not follow and serve you.

 :: Lord, I don't trust you. I'm afraid that we won't have enough money to pay our bills.

 :: Lord, I don't trust you. I'm afraid that the whole Christian church on earth is collapsing and there is nothing that can be done about it.

 :: Lord, I don't trust you. I'm afraid of death and losing all of the good things I have here on earth.

 :: Lord, I've wronged you. I've said things about people that are unkind, mean-spirited, and just plain lies.

 :: Lord, I've wronged you. I've not taken care of the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, the frail, the homeless, the sad and brokenhearted.

 :: Lord, I've wronged you. I've not prayed like I ought. I've not read Scripture like I ought. I've not proclaimed your Word through word and deed like I ought.

 :: Lord, I've wronged you. I've not not praised you when you should have been praised.

 :: Lord, forgive me. For those things that I have not named, the lies that I've told myself, the things I've left hidden because I am too ashamed to speak them aloud.

 :: Lord, forgive me. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Today, I invite you to remember your mortality. I invite you to recall your sin. I invite you to confess. And when you do, know that the absolution is soon to follow:

In the name of Jesus Christ, your sin is forgiven. Amen.

Transfiguration Sunday :: Feb 10, 2013

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

            Today is Transfiguration Sunday in the church calendar. It is also the final Sunday of the season of Epiphany. So far this season, we have been hearing about the ways in which God reveals God’s self to us in Jesus.  Today is no different. Today’s Gospel lesson is a remarkable, and a nearly unbelievable, act of God revealing God’s self in Jesus Christ. The scene takes place on an unnamed mountaintop where, together with the three apostles Peter, John and James, Jesus goes up to pray. I can imagine the setting of a mountaintop to be a good one to pray; a majestic place somehow seeming to be closer to God than anywhere else in the world.

            At the top of the mountain, the scene comes alive with a breathtaking experience for the apostles. In the middle of his prayer, Jesus’ face changed appearance and his clothes became dazzling white. Along with this Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared, together with Jesus in glory. This scene is probably the most misunderstood gospel scene in all four of the gospels. It’s a strange scene, one that you can hardly make heads or tails of. But even if it is strange, it is pretty dazzling.
            This is a mountain top experience if ever there was one. I’m reminded of a friend from high school and college, this was a friend who had never really been financially well off. He couldn’t afford much of anything, really. I remember inviting him over to my house everyday after school to do homework and share a meal with our family. He almost always accepted because he knew that at home, he would have to eat the frozen, 50-cent tacos from Taco Bell that his parents stocked up in the freezer. He didn’t have much and while he was never looking for handouts he almost always accepted a full meal. As he and I were preparing for college we were both looking at Augustana College right there in Sioux Falls. Augie is a private college and tuition, at that time, was about $19,000 a year. This friend of mine had dreamed of going to Augie, but was sure he’d never have a shot at such a school. He applied to Augie, wishing me the best on my application and thinking he’d never even see the inside of an Augie classroom.

            The day letters were sent out he refused dinner and chose to race to the mailbox at home. Sure enough, he’d been accepted. We both had; but I can still picture his face as he proudly announced to me that not only had his dream school accepted him, he’d been given enough in scholarships to make his way through without hardly owing them anything. That image of his face was incredible; it was though he’d been given a second shot at life. The acceptance to Augie meant a lot to me, but to my friend who’d struggled for everything his entire life I could tell it meant a new life. He’d tell me after school in the months following what a blessing it would be to have the chance to reinvent himself. “You can be anyone you want to be, Chris. You can reinvent yourself and become the person you were intended. Nothing is holding us back.”
            This, too, is a mountaintop experience, a moment of transfiguration. I’m sure that many of us can relate to a mountaintop experience in our lives, and if not we know someone whose had one. And so we know all too well that eventually mountaintop experiences must come to an end. We cannot stay up on the mountain forever; we must eventually come down.

            When Jesus and his disciples came down from the mountain the very next day, Jesus was back to the old grindstone. Healing, casting out demons, preaching and teaching. In fact, it was straight from the mountaintop to the valley, deep in the muck and mess of human life again.

            With all of this dazzling stuff, its hard to think that on Wednesday night we will gather again for worship with our Ash Wednesday service, receiving the mark of the bleak cross on our foreheads. We’ll hear the words, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” With these words, we begin the season of Lent, a season of repentance for sin.

            This is probably the most beautiful part of the church calendar to me. With Transfiguration Sunday and the move into Ash Wednesday, we step into a steady flowing stream of liturgy, a stream running from the beginning of the Christian church until today. The liturgy moves us from this mountain top experience of Jesus, Moses and Elijah to the depths of the valley of sin.

            Psalm 23 says it best, “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” The move from mountaintop to the shadowy valley is part and parcel of this Christian life. Our mountaintop experiences are rare, if they ever do happen to us, and then immediately following we are sent straight into those dark valleys.
            Many commonly mistake the Christian life to be somehow easier and less complicated. In fact, the Christian life is almost always lived in the valley. This is the nature of this broken, crucified body of Christ in the world. Christian life and faith are lived here, with real people, with real problems, and real brokenness.
            Baptism is that one mountaintop experience we can count on in the Christian life. The rest of Christian life is lived in the valley, with God’s beloved people, people with real struggles. This is not to sound bleak and depressing about the life we live as Christians. In fact, you’ll discover that if you actually allow yourself to enter in to life in this valley, you will be blessed by it.
            As we move from the mountaintop experience of this Transfiguration Sunday into the valley of Lent, I encourage you to think about your own life, your own mountaintop experiences and your own valleys. And then really enter into life with the people God has made, all of the real people, with their real problems. Live there, pray there. You will no doubt be blessed by God in Christ in this valley of life. This Christian life is a true blessing.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Epiphany 5 :: Feb 3, 2013 :: Luke 7:1-17

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

I love that these two stories are placed together like this; the first story, about the Roman military leader (called the centurion) and the second story about widow and her son. I believe that you cannot read one without the other.

In the first story, Jesus was walking around in the country, teaching and preaching in the Jewish churches. He shows up to an area of the country called Capernaum. When he shows up, a high-ranking Roman soldier hears that he is in town and sends some of the old Jewish elders to go get Jesus. The soldier’s slave was very ill and close to death.

When Jesus arrives, the Roman soldier can hardly believe that Jesus had actually showed up. In fact, he sends out some friends before Jesus gets there to tell Jesus not to come.

I’ve always wondered exactly why the soldier does this. He asks Jesus to come and when he does, he tries to send Jesus home. He says that he doesn’t want Jesus there because he doesn’t deserve to have him come, but why doesn’t he deserve it? Is it because he’s a Roman soldier and not a Jew? Has he done something bad in his life that he doesn’t want Jesus to know about? Is he ashamed of the laundry on the floor and the unmade bed? Is it like when I show up for a visit at someone’s home and they feel they have to ask me to excuse the mess?

For the Roman soldier, there is something about Jesus that makes him feel unworthy. He doesn’t even want to see Jesus face to face. And yet, he still asks Jesus to heal his slave. “But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.”

The funny thing is, Jesus never really does show up at the house. But when the soldiers’ friends return to the house, the slave who had been ill and close to death had been healed. Jesus is amazed at the faith of the Roman soldier.

This first story is an odd one to me. It’s odd because the faith of the Roman soldier, not even a good Jewish man, is what seems to get Jesus to heal his slave.

I don’t know about you, but in my experience a person’s faith has never been able to predict whether a person is healed or not. More faith does not equal greater healing. And less faith does not equal less healing. The only thing that faith and healing have to do with one another, in my experience, is that having faith when you are ill means that you believe in the power of God to do anything God chooses, including healing. God could heal if God wanted to, but my having faith or not having faith won’t force God to make the decision. God will decide when and how God will heal.

So this first story is odd, because on the surface it seems like the Roman soldiers faith is what brings healing to the slave who is close to dying.

But this is why I like the two stories together. The second story is about Jesus going into another little town, called Nain. In Nain, a large crowd and Jesus’ disciples are following him. As Jesus gets to the gate of the town, a funeral procession makes its way past him. Being carried out on the funeral bier is a young man. His mother and a large group of mourners are following. When Jesus sees the young man who had died and his mother, the widow, Jesus’ heart breaks.

Interrupting the funeral procession, Jesus reaches out and touches the funeral bier. And then Jesus speaks, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” And the dead man sat up and began to speak.

In this second story, faith has nothing to do with Jesus raising the young man from the dead. Instead, Jesus simply interrupts the funeral procession, the widow, and the eternal sleep of the young man. By his compassion and his word, Jesus raises the boy from the dead. It has nothing to do with the faith of the widow, or the crowd, or the young man. It only has to do with the love of Jesus spoken through his word.

Many of us have our own stories of miraculous healing. Unfortunately, many of us also have our own stories of illness that leads to death. Sometimes it is true that God chooses to heal us. And sometimes it is not. Some of us struggle with loved ones who pray for healing for years and years and years. Some of us struggle with our own illnesses, wondering if God will ever heal our bodies, trapped as they are in sickness. Our stories are filled with struggle and illness.

But more importantly, what we learn from these stories this morning is that God will always interrupt, always break in, always intrude on our funeral processions with a word of resurrection moved by his great love of his people. When it really matters, God looks at us and in only the kind of love and compassion that God could have for his creation, raises us up and gives us the promise of eternal life.

But we don’t have to wait to benefit from that kind of love. It’s the kind of love that works even now. God has already taken one look at your life, dead in sin, and forgiven you and spoken the word: “rise!” We have a God whose compassion knows no limits, whose love knows no laws, who looks upon his creatures with stars in his eyes and says, rise up, my people! You are mine and I am yours.

The beauty of these two stories together this morning is that they are the living word of God for you, right now. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, this God takes one look at you, moved with love and compassion, and speaks that simple word of resurrection, rise!

In the name of Jesus. Amen.