If you’ve read much about this Jesus character, one of the things you may have noticed about him is that he rarely gave clear instructions on how to be a disciple. He modeled ministry a lot; that was his main teaching tool. But when he spoke, he tended to use parables that were at best vague. The blessings and woes we read last week are kind of a classic example of that. Blessed are you who are hungry, woe to you who are rich, what are we supposed to do with this information? So I wonder if at first, when Jesus moved on from there to this morning’s section, the disciples were like, great, finally some clear instructions to follow!
Of course, then, if they really started to listen to them, that would be when the trouble starts. Because at first listen, this is exactly what we’d expect Jesus to say, right. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who abuse you.” You might even, if your day’s going pretty well and you’re in a pretty good mood think, yeah, ok, I can handle that. I love people, I don’t hate anyone. I’m generous. Moving on, what’s next?
But this is the season of Epiphany, where the question we’re asking ourselves is what is epiphanic, what is revealed to us about the nature of God, the nature of Jesus, and here, I think the nature of the Kingdom of God in these texts? So I want to read this again, and I invite you to really listen to these words with the question, what if this is what the Kingdom of God is really like, and what is different between what Jesus says, and how we live, move, experience the world? And don’t worry, there will be no sharing, this is totally a rhetorical question. But I think this passage is good news for us, great news, life-changing news. But like all of the law parts of scripture, before it can change us, we need to let it make us a little bit uncomfortable.
Jesus said to his disciples, “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for this who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the other cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.” The Gospel, the good news, of the Lord.
How’d that feel? Anyone uncomfortable yet? Ever had anything stolen and not wanted it back? Or wished everyone would just come around to your way of thinking? Or not given something to someone who begged for it? And now, if you’re me, and I’m guessing, if you’re human, the rationalization starts. Well, come on now. We can’t give to everyone who begs from us. What about the guy with the face tattoo who sits in front of the post office and always needs five dollars for a bus ticket or gas money or [insert excuse here]? What about that neighbor who always borrows your tools and never returns them? Are you supposed to give your screaming two-year-old a cookie before dinner just because she’s begging you? Where do we draw the line here, Jesus!
No, right, obviously Jesus is not telling you that angry two-year-olds dictate the rules of dinnertime, that’s actually bad parenting. But Jesus is, I think, intending to make the disciples and us uncomfortable, because Jesus is trying to make us think. To make us see the difference between how we live, the motivations that drive us, and what life is like in the Kingdom of God. Remember where this teaching took place. What Jesus is doing here is bringing us back to the level plain, to the place where our work, our worth, our value are based only on Jesus and his love for us. And so is everyone else’s.
And this, friends, I get it, is super hard. Because, right, we don’t live in the Kingdom of God. We live on earth. And on earth, if you let someone steal your stuff, all you’re going to end up with is your stuff stolen. And if you turn the other cheek when someone hits you, they may well just hit you again. But this is what Jesus says to do. So how do we do it?
One of the things I love about not just our core values, but specifically about the way we arranged them, is that love and grace are first. And everything else, inclusion, social justice, action, flows from those first two. Because love and grace are the font, the genesis of everything, of how we live and act and are in the world. And I’ve told this story before, but I think it bears repeating, because for me this was the time that I truly understood what love and grace, what doing good to those who hate you and blessing those who curse you, means, and more importantly how that kind of love and grace in practice are transformational.
After college I worked at a homeless shelter in Washington, DC. The manager of the drop-in day center was a woman named Evelyn. And Evelyn was an intimidating woman. She was tall, broad-shouldered, strong, heavily tattooed, with a look that said she wasn’t messing. The day shelter crowd could be a rough crowd, but Evelyn kept everyone in line. There were rules, and they would be followed, and if they were not, Evelyn showed you to the door.
Which seemed weird to me, because we were supposed to have this broad, welcoming, open-door policy, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about people being banned from the premises. Until one day, Evelyn told us her story. Evelyn had first come to the shelter twenty-years before looking for a hot meal and a place to get her needs met. She came violent, angry, and heavily into drugs. The manager of the shelter at that time was a tiny birdlike woman named Edna. Evelyn explained how she showed up cussing, pushing her weight around, demanding things, and Edna put her out, told her to come back when she’d calmed down. Evelyn came back the next day, got a hot meal, started mouthing off, got put out again. Next day, same story, hot meal, mouth off, out. After a few times through of this, when Edna went to put her out, Evelyn got right up in her face, “why do you keep putting me out?” Edna replied, “there are rules here for everyone’s safety, and you keep deciding not to follow them. You can choose differently, but you don’t.” Surprised by the courage of the tiny woman, Evelyn then asked, “and why do you keep letting me back in?” “Because,” Edna replied, “the rules are here to protect you too. You deserve all of what we have to offer, it’s all for you. Including the opportunity to be here and to be safe. I don’t know what’s going on in your head. Just because this time you chose not to be here doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the opportunity to make a different choice next time.”
That, Evelyn explained to us, is what love looked like. A love that valued Evelyn’s right to choose while simultaneously showing her the result of that choice. That day, Evelyn was out again. The next day, she made a different choice, and a different one, and a different one. It wasn’t all puppies and rainbows, she got put out a bunch more times. But Edna kept putting her out, and letting her back in. And Evelyn got into recovery, stopped turning to violence as the solution, and started getting her life back together. She got an apartment, got reunited with her kids, earned her GED, earned a certification in drug counseling, and became the manager of the same shelter that she now credits for saving her life by dumping her out of it so many times. Friends, that’s what transformational love does. It’s hard, and it’s long, and it’s painful and it changes us.
So I want to get serious for a minute here and bring this in, and talk about conflict. Specifically about how I hope we handle conflict here at Trinity Lutheran Church. Because we’re small, but we’re growing. And we’re inviting in new people who don’t know all our norms and ways. And, we’re people. Which means, there will be conflict. So, when there’s conflict, the first thing I always find it helpful to do is take a deep breath, and calm down. I’m Swedish, and we are a passive aggressive people, so I carry conflict right here in my upper chest, like a knot. And I can’t think when that knot is pulsing. So, step one, breath. Step two, pray. Right there, verse twenty-eight, pray for those who abuse you. The funny thing I’ve always found about prayer is the person my prayer changes is always me. It doesn’t matter who I pray for, or what I pray about, I’m the one who ends up changed. So, pray. Pray for clarity, pray for understanding, pray to see the other side of the story. And then, third, talk to the person. If the other person isn’t ready to talk to you yet, or if it doesn’t go well, maybe they didn’t finish the first two steps yet, or maybe you weren’t quite as done as you thought. Either way, walk away, try again, or bring someone else in. Tell me, tell someone on council. Not in a gossipy way, but in a, look, I’m really struggling with such-and-such situation and I need help sort of a way. And fourth, be ready for the solution to not be exactly what you’d hoped for, or for the possibility that there can’t even really be a solution, at least not yet. We’re still in the not yet side of the already and not yet of the kingdom of God and sometimes people are just mean. Even church people. Even me. Ask Cat. Sometimes true love and grace is deciding that there are irreconcilable differences, and on this side of heaven that truly is a solution, and can be the most grace-filled and loving one there is. The Bible says love your enemies, it doesn’t say you have to hang out with them.
This is a bit more of a practical, how-to sermon then I normally preach. But I think it’s important we, I, talk openly about conflict, about the reality there will be conflict, and about what we can do to move through it. Not to solve it, not to never disagree, but to move through it. I think it’s important because I truly believe that as we do this. As we disagree and give each other grace, and make up, or don’t, we are not just creating a healthy church community, we are literally bringing the Kingdom of God to fruition. Conflict is natural, but moving through it in ways that are healthy and grace-filled in this broken world is not. So when we find ways of doing the unnatural, of disagreeing and moving forward together, we are modeling a different way of living, the way of the Kingdom of God. Amen.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Sunday, February 17, 2019
A Level Place: A Sermon on Luke 6:17-26
Epiphany’s one of those funny seasons of the church year that is dependent on how the other holidays fall. Unlike Advent, which is four weeks, Lent, five weeks, or even Easter’s 50 days, plus a Sunday, Epiphany begins on the sixth of January and lasts until whenever Lent starts. Which means sometimes we get four weeks of Epiphany and sometimes, like this year when Easter is just about as late as it can be, we get seven. I share this to let you know we’re in for a treat this morning, because I didn’t confirm this, but per the sermon podcast I listen to, the last time Epiphany 6C was celebrated was during the Reagan administration. So dig in friends, because you won’t get to hear these stories read in this context again for a while. Again the question we’ve been asking all Epiphany, what is epiphanic, what being revealed to us about the nature of Jesus, the nature of God, in the sermon on the plain.
a First off, a little setting of the scene. Last week, we heard about how Jesus called the first disciples and told them from now on they were to fish for people. If we read immediately before this morning’s text, verses twelve to sixteen, we would have found Jesus up on a mountain where he focused that group of early disciples to the Twelve. Disciples in Greek is mathetes, which is also where the word math comes from. Math in Greek is the mental effort of thinking through something. So to be a disciple in Greek, literally means to be a learner, to be someone who is thinking, is being instructed, is being shaped by a teacher. But Jesus called them something else as well. The text we didn’t read this morning says that in addition to disciples he “also named [them] apostles.” Apostles from the Greek apostolos meaning a messenger or one who is sent to spread the news. This ragtag bunch of fishermen, tax collectors, a zealot, and a traitor are a long ways away from being apostles, but already way back in the beginning of Luke, we see that Jesus has big plans for them, for who they are, who they will become, and what they are capable of accomplishing in his name.
But that’s in the future. Right now, our reading this morning has Jesus bringing his newly minted baby disciples / future apostles down from the mountain and onto a level plain. And let’s talk a minute about this level plain. Because for Luke, the geographical is always theological. Remember, Luke wasn’t from Judea, he didn’t actually really know the area. So when Luke describes geography, he’s telling us more about Jesus’ theological location in the Kingdom of God then he is about Jesus’ physical location as a body on the planet. And for Luke, the act of Jesus bringing his disciples down from the mountain to a level plain to meet with a great crowd of people, that’s revelatory, that’s telling us something about the kind of a God that God is. God is not the sort of God who sits on a throne in the heavens ruling over God’s people. Rather God comes to us, comes to where we are, to where we’re at, to be with us, to be in relationship with us. This leveling of the social order is an on-going theme in Luke’s Gospel, we heard it in Mary’s song before Jesus’ birth, how “he has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;” and in John the Baptist’s preaching before Jesus baptism about how “every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and ALL FLESH shall see the salvation of God.” That’s what’s happening here, that’s what Jesus is literally bringing into being. By coming down off the mountain with his disciples, by descending to the level plain where this great crowd is gathered, Jesus is demonstrating the nature of God’s kingdom, a reign not from on high, but from within, among, in relationship with, God’s people.
And what a collection of God’s people had gathered on that plain. “A great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” And they had come to learn from Jesus, yes, but that wasn’t the only reason they were gathered. They were also there “to be healed of their diseases;” and to be cured of unclean spirits. And Jesus looked at this motely crew of need, and then at his freshly chosen disciples, who have to be feeling pretty good about themselves right now, having just been selected as part of the elite group of Twelve, and he said to those disciples, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry… Blessed are you who weep… Blessed are you when people hate you….” And this is not Matthew’s spiritualized “blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness.” Luke’s beatitudes are much more physical, “blessed are you who are poor, blessed are you who are hungry.” What we see Jesus laying down here is what will become a predominant theme throughout the rest of the Gospel, Jesus’ commitment to those in need. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” and then he went out to the poor and pronounced God’s kingdom. He said, “blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled,” and he fed people. He said, “blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” and he healed, comforted, challenged, and cajoled people into a new way of being. All too often this passage is used to glorify or idealize poverty as a way to set us free from having to deal with it. But Jesus is neither idealizing nor glorifying, what Jesus is doing is overturning every conventional expectation of what it meant to have God’s favor, what it meant to be blessed. In the first century, and, if we’re honest with ourselves, also today, people of faith tended to have a very transactional relationship with God. Wealth, power, good health, good fortune, were all considered to be gifts from God as a reward for a person’s faithfulness. If you think this isn’t still true today, Google hashtag blessed. Trust me, what you’ll find will not look like these beatitudes.
And on the flip side, things like poverty, illness, hunger, isolation, these things were seen as punishment for some failing on the part of the person. Who sinned, said the crowd to Jesus about the man born blind, this man or his parents, that such an affliction would fall on him. And what Jesus says here, and practices throughout his ministry is the reverse of that. Neither your wealth nor your poverty are from God, they are both of them signs of a broken world, a world different from the one God wants for us, a world where God meets us, where we meet each other, on the level plain of mutual indwelling relationship. And so if you are poor, if you are hungry, if you are outcast, or hurt, or alone, the promised Jesus makes in this passage is that he is with you. He is for you. And not just that, but the kingdom of God is about the reversal of your life circumstance, it is about bringing you to a place of fullness and fulfillment. In the next life, yes, but also in this one. That was the work of Jesus’ ministry, and the work he passed on to the church after he ascended into heaven. That’s our work, dear people of God.
And then we have the woes. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” This does not sound like good news. It is, but it’s the law part of law and gospel, and law part is never the warm and fuzzy part, it’s always the part that’s hard.
But it is good news, because what it is is Jesus loving us enough to give us this warning. Because when things are going well, its super easy to think, wow, look how great I’m doing, and lose track of all of the things that happened to get us there. And when we get cocky, when we get arrogant, when we start to think we deserve all these good things that have happened in our lives, that’s when we can get hurt. That’s basically the story of all the prophets. Israel is flourishing and can’t see all the people they stepped on to get there, all of the cracks that are developing around them, so God sends a prophet to be like, hey guys, you need to fix all this inequality and get your community together, because the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Philistines or whoever, are knocking at your door, and it’s really not going to end well for you.
This is a sort of a poor analogy, but the best one I can come up with is the woes are sort of like one of those Danger Falling Rocks signs. The point isn’t someone is throwing rocks at you, the point is watch out, be alert, be on guard, because as beautiful as the scenery is, there is danger in it, and it is when things are going well, more then when things are going poorly, that our faith and reliance on God is really tested. If the blessings are about God bringing the needy up from the valleys and onto the plain of mutual indwelling relationship, the woes are the opposite. They are about bringing us out of ourselves when we think things are great and we don’t really need God, about coaxing us down off the mountaintops of our own egos and back to that same level plain where true blessings lie, blessings not of wealth or power, but of love, respect, and mutuality.
The best good news of all that I read in this text, dear people of God, is that wherever you find yourself, on the highest peak or in the lowest valley, Jesus is there too. But Jesus is not there just to hang out with you. Jesus is there to move you to a new location, to bring you up if you need raising, and to bring you down if you need lowering. Wherever you are, and whatever you need, that is the place where Christ is. Thanks be to God. Amen.
a First off, a little setting of the scene. Last week, we heard about how Jesus called the first disciples and told them from now on they were to fish for people. If we read immediately before this morning’s text, verses twelve to sixteen, we would have found Jesus up on a mountain where he focused that group of early disciples to the Twelve. Disciples in Greek is mathetes, which is also where the word math comes from. Math in Greek is the mental effort of thinking through something. So to be a disciple in Greek, literally means to be a learner, to be someone who is thinking, is being instructed, is being shaped by a teacher. But Jesus called them something else as well. The text we didn’t read this morning says that in addition to disciples he “also named [them] apostles.” Apostles from the Greek apostolos meaning a messenger or one who is sent to spread the news. This ragtag bunch of fishermen, tax collectors, a zealot, and a traitor are a long ways away from being apostles, but already way back in the beginning of Luke, we see that Jesus has big plans for them, for who they are, who they will become, and what they are capable of accomplishing in his name.
But that’s in the future. Right now, our reading this morning has Jesus bringing his newly minted baby disciples / future apostles down from the mountain and onto a level plain. And let’s talk a minute about this level plain. Because for Luke, the geographical is always theological. Remember, Luke wasn’t from Judea, he didn’t actually really know the area. So when Luke describes geography, he’s telling us more about Jesus’ theological location in the Kingdom of God then he is about Jesus’ physical location as a body on the planet. And for Luke, the act of Jesus bringing his disciples down from the mountain to a level plain to meet with a great crowd of people, that’s revelatory, that’s telling us something about the kind of a God that God is. God is not the sort of God who sits on a throne in the heavens ruling over God’s people. Rather God comes to us, comes to where we are, to where we’re at, to be with us, to be in relationship with us. This leveling of the social order is an on-going theme in Luke’s Gospel, we heard it in Mary’s song before Jesus’ birth, how “he has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;” and in John the Baptist’s preaching before Jesus baptism about how “every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and ALL FLESH shall see the salvation of God.” That’s what’s happening here, that’s what Jesus is literally bringing into being. By coming down off the mountain with his disciples, by descending to the level plain where this great crowd is gathered, Jesus is demonstrating the nature of God’s kingdom, a reign not from on high, but from within, among, in relationship with, God’s people.
And what a collection of God’s people had gathered on that plain. “A great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” And they had come to learn from Jesus, yes, but that wasn’t the only reason they were gathered. They were also there “to be healed of their diseases;” and to be cured of unclean spirits. And Jesus looked at this motely crew of need, and then at his freshly chosen disciples, who have to be feeling pretty good about themselves right now, having just been selected as part of the elite group of Twelve, and he said to those disciples, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry… Blessed are you who weep… Blessed are you when people hate you….” And this is not Matthew’s spiritualized “blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness.” Luke’s beatitudes are much more physical, “blessed are you who are poor, blessed are you who are hungry.” What we see Jesus laying down here is what will become a predominant theme throughout the rest of the Gospel, Jesus’ commitment to those in need. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” and then he went out to the poor and pronounced God’s kingdom. He said, “blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled,” and he fed people. He said, “blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” and he healed, comforted, challenged, and cajoled people into a new way of being. All too often this passage is used to glorify or idealize poverty as a way to set us free from having to deal with it. But Jesus is neither idealizing nor glorifying, what Jesus is doing is overturning every conventional expectation of what it meant to have God’s favor, what it meant to be blessed. In the first century, and, if we’re honest with ourselves, also today, people of faith tended to have a very transactional relationship with God. Wealth, power, good health, good fortune, were all considered to be gifts from God as a reward for a person’s faithfulness. If you think this isn’t still true today, Google hashtag blessed. Trust me, what you’ll find will not look like these beatitudes.
And on the flip side, things like poverty, illness, hunger, isolation, these things were seen as punishment for some failing on the part of the person. Who sinned, said the crowd to Jesus about the man born blind, this man or his parents, that such an affliction would fall on him. And what Jesus says here, and practices throughout his ministry is the reverse of that. Neither your wealth nor your poverty are from God, they are both of them signs of a broken world, a world different from the one God wants for us, a world where God meets us, where we meet each other, on the level plain of mutual indwelling relationship. And so if you are poor, if you are hungry, if you are outcast, or hurt, or alone, the promised Jesus makes in this passage is that he is with you. He is for you. And not just that, but the kingdom of God is about the reversal of your life circumstance, it is about bringing you to a place of fullness and fulfillment. In the next life, yes, but also in this one. That was the work of Jesus’ ministry, and the work he passed on to the church after he ascended into heaven. That’s our work, dear people of God.
And then we have the woes. “Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.” This does not sound like good news. It is, but it’s the law part of law and gospel, and law part is never the warm and fuzzy part, it’s always the part that’s hard.
But it is good news, because what it is is Jesus loving us enough to give us this warning. Because when things are going well, its super easy to think, wow, look how great I’m doing, and lose track of all of the things that happened to get us there. And when we get cocky, when we get arrogant, when we start to think we deserve all these good things that have happened in our lives, that’s when we can get hurt. That’s basically the story of all the prophets. Israel is flourishing and can’t see all the people they stepped on to get there, all of the cracks that are developing around them, so God sends a prophet to be like, hey guys, you need to fix all this inequality and get your community together, because the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Philistines or whoever, are knocking at your door, and it’s really not going to end well for you.
This is a sort of a poor analogy, but the best one I can come up with is the woes are sort of like one of those Danger Falling Rocks signs. The point isn’t someone is throwing rocks at you, the point is watch out, be alert, be on guard, because as beautiful as the scenery is, there is danger in it, and it is when things are going well, more then when things are going poorly, that our faith and reliance on God is really tested. If the blessings are about God bringing the needy up from the valleys and onto the plain of mutual indwelling relationship, the woes are the opposite. They are about bringing us out of ourselves when we think things are great and we don’t really need God, about coaxing us down off the mountaintops of our own egos and back to that same level plain where true blessings lie, blessings not of wealth or power, but of love, respect, and mutuality.
The best good news of all that I read in this text, dear people of God, is that wherever you find yourself, on the highest peak or in the lowest valley, Jesus is there too. But Jesus is not there just to hang out with you. Jesus is there to move you to a new location, to bring you up if you need raising, and to bring you down if you need lowering. Wherever you are, and whatever you need, that is the place where Christ is. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
More Than Forgiveness: A Sermon on Luke 5:1-11
My senior year of college, like you do as a college senior, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. During winter break, I went on a seven day retreat based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius. Gonzaga is a Jesuit school and St. Ignatius was the founder of the Jesuit order, so this was like a thing we did. As part of the retreat, each day we were supposed to spend 45 minutes visualizing ourselves in a bible story. We were supposed to bring up the sights, the sounds, the smells of the text, to bring the scene to life in our minds and let it speak to us. A thing I learned during that retreat was visualizing scripture is not a good spiritual discipline for me, but I digress. So, one day the text was Jesus and the rich young ruler, a story we’ll hear over the summer, and for the first time I was really doing well at this whole visualization thing. I could feel the heat of the Judean sun on my shoulders, the rough hewn cloth of my robes, smell the dust in the air. I could see Jesus in front of me, and the rich young ruler coming up to him, to kneel at his feet and ask, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life.”
I have to admit, I was getting a little proud of myself with how well this was going, when suddenly Jesus turned around, stared right at me, and said, “what are you afraid of?” And I thought, wait a minute, this is my visualization. I have created this scene in my head, this is not what happens in the story, this isn’t how this is supposed to go. And I fought to regain the scene I’d been playing out, to go back to the role of observer, to return the Jesus I had created in my mind back to the young man kneeling in the dust. But the harder I tried, the more the image blurred, and again the voice asked, “what are you afraid of?” My mind started listing off all the reasons why I didn’t think I should be a pastor. Big, legitimate fears, like I wouldn’t know what to say in a sermon every Sunday, I’m pretty introverted, and silly fears too, like I don’t like to read out loud and, sorry Travis but, “the Rev. and Mr.” looks funny on an address label. So this list grew and grew until again the voice, and it was just a voice by this time, I’d lost all control of the image, said one more time, “what are you afraid of?” “I don’t know,” I replied. And with that, the visualization was over. I opened my eyes to find myself back where I’d started, sitting on the floor of a small chapel at a Catholic retreat center, a little stiff, a little cold, and unsure what to do with the next fifteen minutes I was supposed to be visualizing, because clearly this was over for me at this point.
A lot of the stories we’ve been hearing from the lectionary this Epiphany season are call stories. Last week we heard God calling Jeremiah, this week it was God calling Isaiah and Jesus calling his first disciples. One of the things I love about call stories in the Bible, and especially the prophets’ call stories, is they always have an excuse for why God is calling the wrong person. Last week, Jeremiah said, “I’m only a boy.” This week, Isaiah said, “I am a man of unclean lips.” Amos protested he was just a farmer, Moses said he was bad at public speaking, Jonah was like, “I don’t even like the good news. You’re a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and I find that annoying.” These guys were not jumping at the bit to this work. Even Simon Peter this morning was first like, “we’ve been fishing all day, and what’s that phrase, stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but sure, one more time, on the other side of the boat, because that’s where the fish are hiding.” And then, when it turned out the fish WERE on the other side of the boat, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
The reason I love these call story protests is that God always has an answer for the concern. And like so many anxiety-ridden fears, the answer is way easier than it seems like it should be. To Jeremiah, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,’ for you shall go to all whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you… for I am with you to deliver you.” To Isaiah, “You say you have unclean lips? Here, here’s a live coal, now you’re good.” To Moses, God gave Aaron, who was good at speaking. To Jonah, God basically just dogged him until he gave in. And to Simon Peter, just “do not be afraid,” this morning’s fish debacle notwithstanding you seem to be pretty good at fishing so guess what, “from now on you will be catching people.” I relate to the prophets, because like my own experience they had created this insurmountable obstacle in their minds to whatever God was calling them to do. This problem so big, so hard, so entrenched, that there would be no way to solve it. But God, with the perspective of being the divine, could see the path forward, the in many cases very simple solution that was out of the prophets’ limited human perspective, and lead them into this new future.
Those obstacles in our path, those things that keep us from God, keep us from living the life God wants for us, God calls us to, the theological name for those obstacles is sin. Now keep an open mind here, because we’re Lutheran so when I say the word sin, your brain is automatically going to fill in the word “forgiveness.” Remember a couple weeks ago I talked about co-location, where you hear one word and your brain immediately fills in the corresponding next word? This is that. In our Lutheran tradition, sin and forgiveness is one of those paired concepts. But theologian Rolf Jacobson talks about how, while true, that can be a limiting concept. Because sin is not only the things that we do, or don’t do, for which we need forgiveness, it’s bigger than that. The theological definition of sin is “that which separates us from God.” Let me say that again, sin is whatever separates us from God. Sometimes, yes, those things are our behaviors, our actions, even our thoughts, things that we do, that we have control over, for which we feel guilty or ashamed or embarrassed. But sin, that which separates us from God, are not always things that are under our control. Loneliness, depression, fear, anxiety, worries about security or safety, struggles with our health or well-being, all of these things can separate us from God. But none of these things are things we did, they are things that happened to us, things that are a part of the human condition, a side effect of being alive in a world that is still not yet. So forgiveness isn’t the solution to these sorts of brokenness. Think about it, if someone came up to you and said, you know, I’m feeling really lonely, or I’m scared, or I’m sad, you wouldn’t say to them, “it’s ok, I forgive you.” That would be kind of a jerk response. Similarly, when Simon said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Jesus’ response to Simon was not forgiveness, it was a call to relationship. Now that’s not to say that Simon hadn’t done things that might have needed forgiving, or that Simon would never need forgiveness. Simon, you may not have caught, eventually gets renamed Peter, and he’s going to make all sorts of mistakes. But this first call, this first mending that which separated Simon from God, was not mending a bridge Simon had broken, it was building a new one where none had existed before.
In a few minutes we’re going to get to celebrate the baptism of Angeline. And one of the things I love about the fact that our tradition baptizes infants is that it reminds us that baptism, while about forgiveness, is about way more than that. Because Angeline really doesn’t have anything she particularly needs forgiveness for at this point. Not because Angeline is some paradigm of perfect human behavior, but because her options are limited. She’s a baby. It’s hard to get into a lot of trouble when you can’t actually go anywhere. And yes, she cries and is fussy sometimes, and I’m sure Mark and Leah wouldn’t mind a bit more sleep, but all told, those are parts of being a baby, not anything Angeline is doing wrong. So if baptism is only about wiping away sin and giving us a fresh, forgiven, new start, then we should wait until Angeline is older and has actually had some time to cause some trouble before we baptize her. In fact, we should have waited on all of us. Baptism should be a funeral rite. But it’s not. In our Lutheran tradition, the funeral liturgy is the fulfillment of the promises made at a person’s baptism, promises that have been true throughout the person’s whole life.
So what is happening at Angeline’s baptism this morning, if it’s not forgiving her for all the things she’s done wrong? It gets back to that theological definition of sin that I shared earlier, sin is that which separates us from God. What’s happening at Angeline’s baptism is that God is closing that separation. God is declaring that nothing can ever, will ever, separate Angeline from God. Forgiveness is a part of it, yes, and a big part of it, but it’s not all of it. What God promises at baptism is that nothing Angeline does, nothing Angeline feels, nothing that happens to her, can ever separate her from God. It is the assurance of forgiveness for mistakes she will inevitably make, and it is also this conviction of presence. That when Angeline feels alone she will not be alone. That when Angeline feels scared, she has someone to lean on, that when she is hurt, God will be there to comfort her. The promise God makes to us in these waters is that we are forgiven, yes. But it is a whole lot more than that. Thanks be to God, who will never, who can never, be separated from us. Amen.
I have to admit, I was getting a little proud of myself with how well this was going, when suddenly Jesus turned around, stared right at me, and said, “what are you afraid of?” And I thought, wait a minute, this is my visualization. I have created this scene in my head, this is not what happens in the story, this isn’t how this is supposed to go. And I fought to regain the scene I’d been playing out, to go back to the role of observer, to return the Jesus I had created in my mind back to the young man kneeling in the dust. But the harder I tried, the more the image blurred, and again the voice asked, “what are you afraid of?” My mind started listing off all the reasons why I didn’t think I should be a pastor. Big, legitimate fears, like I wouldn’t know what to say in a sermon every Sunday, I’m pretty introverted, and silly fears too, like I don’t like to read out loud and, sorry Travis but, “the Rev. and Mr.” looks funny on an address label. So this list grew and grew until again the voice, and it was just a voice by this time, I’d lost all control of the image, said one more time, “what are you afraid of?” “I don’t know,” I replied. And with that, the visualization was over. I opened my eyes to find myself back where I’d started, sitting on the floor of a small chapel at a Catholic retreat center, a little stiff, a little cold, and unsure what to do with the next fifteen minutes I was supposed to be visualizing, because clearly this was over for me at this point.
A lot of the stories we’ve been hearing from the lectionary this Epiphany season are call stories. Last week we heard God calling Jeremiah, this week it was God calling Isaiah and Jesus calling his first disciples. One of the things I love about call stories in the Bible, and especially the prophets’ call stories, is they always have an excuse for why God is calling the wrong person. Last week, Jeremiah said, “I’m only a boy.” This week, Isaiah said, “I am a man of unclean lips.” Amos protested he was just a farmer, Moses said he was bad at public speaking, Jonah was like, “I don’t even like the good news. You’re a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and I find that annoying.” These guys were not jumping at the bit to this work. Even Simon Peter this morning was first like, “we’ve been fishing all day, and what’s that phrase, stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but sure, one more time, on the other side of the boat, because that’s where the fish are hiding.” And then, when it turned out the fish WERE on the other side of the boat, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
The reason I love these call story protests is that God always has an answer for the concern. And like so many anxiety-ridden fears, the answer is way easier than it seems like it should be. To Jeremiah, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,’ for you shall go to all whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you… for I am with you to deliver you.” To Isaiah, “You say you have unclean lips? Here, here’s a live coal, now you’re good.” To Moses, God gave Aaron, who was good at speaking. To Jonah, God basically just dogged him until he gave in. And to Simon Peter, just “do not be afraid,” this morning’s fish debacle notwithstanding you seem to be pretty good at fishing so guess what, “from now on you will be catching people.” I relate to the prophets, because like my own experience they had created this insurmountable obstacle in their minds to whatever God was calling them to do. This problem so big, so hard, so entrenched, that there would be no way to solve it. But God, with the perspective of being the divine, could see the path forward, the in many cases very simple solution that was out of the prophets’ limited human perspective, and lead them into this new future.
Those obstacles in our path, those things that keep us from God, keep us from living the life God wants for us, God calls us to, the theological name for those obstacles is sin. Now keep an open mind here, because we’re Lutheran so when I say the word sin, your brain is automatically going to fill in the word “forgiveness.” Remember a couple weeks ago I talked about co-location, where you hear one word and your brain immediately fills in the corresponding next word? This is that. In our Lutheran tradition, sin and forgiveness is one of those paired concepts. But theologian Rolf Jacobson talks about how, while true, that can be a limiting concept. Because sin is not only the things that we do, or don’t do, for which we need forgiveness, it’s bigger than that. The theological definition of sin is “that which separates us from God.” Let me say that again, sin is whatever separates us from God. Sometimes, yes, those things are our behaviors, our actions, even our thoughts, things that we do, that we have control over, for which we feel guilty or ashamed or embarrassed. But sin, that which separates us from God, are not always things that are under our control. Loneliness, depression, fear, anxiety, worries about security or safety, struggles with our health or well-being, all of these things can separate us from God. But none of these things are things we did, they are things that happened to us, things that are a part of the human condition, a side effect of being alive in a world that is still not yet. So forgiveness isn’t the solution to these sorts of brokenness. Think about it, if someone came up to you and said, you know, I’m feeling really lonely, or I’m scared, or I’m sad, you wouldn’t say to them, “it’s ok, I forgive you.” That would be kind of a jerk response. Similarly, when Simon said to Jesus, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” Jesus’ response to Simon was not forgiveness, it was a call to relationship. Now that’s not to say that Simon hadn’t done things that might have needed forgiving, or that Simon would never need forgiveness. Simon, you may not have caught, eventually gets renamed Peter, and he’s going to make all sorts of mistakes. But this first call, this first mending that which separated Simon from God, was not mending a bridge Simon had broken, it was building a new one where none had existed before.
In a few minutes we’re going to get to celebrate the baptism of Angeline. And one of the things I love about the fact that our tradition baptizes infants is that it reminds us that baptism, while about forgiveness, is about way more than that. Because Angeline really doesn’t have anything she particularly needs forgiveness for at this point. Not because Angeline is some paradigm of perfect human behavior, but because her options are limited. She’s a baby. It’s hard to get into a lot of trouble when you can’t actually go anywhere. And yes, she cries and is fussy sometimes, and I’m sure Mark and Leah wouldn’t mind a bit more sleep, but all told, those are parts of being a baby, not anything Angeline is doing wrong. So if baptism is only about wiping away sin and giving us a fresh, forgiven, new start, then we should wait until Angeline is older and has actually had some time to cause some trouble before we baptize her. In fact, we should have waited on all of us. Baptism should be a funeral rite. But it’s not. In our Lutheran tradition, the funeral liturgy is the fulfillment of the promises made at a person’s baptism, promises that have been true throughout the person’s whole life.
So what is happening at Angeline’s baptism this morning, if it’s not forgiving her for all the things she’s done wrong? It gets back to that theological definition of sin that I shared earlier, sin is that which separates us from God. What’s happening at Angeline’s baptism is that God is closing that separation. God is declaring that nothing can ever, will ever, separate Angeline from God. Forgiveness is a part of it, yes, and a big part of it, but it’s not all of it. What God promises at baptism is that nothing Angeline does, nothing Angeline feels, nothing that happens to her, can ever separate her from God. It is the assurance of forgiveness for mistakes she will inevitably make, and it is also this conviction of presence. That when Angeline feels alone she will not be alone. That when Angeline feels scared, she has someone to lean on, that when she is hurt, God will be there to comfort her. The promise God makes to us in these waters is that we are forgiven, yes. But it is a whole lot more than that. Thanks be to God, who will never, who can never, be separated from us. Amen.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
With Interpretation: A Sermon on Luke 4:21-30
There is an experience I have had many times as a preacher and a congregational leader where I hear a text read in the midst of worship, a text I had spent the whole previous week in study and prayer with, as if I was hearing it for the very first time. Last Sunday I had that experience with the Old Testament reading from Nehemiah. Diane read Nehemiah chapter eight, verse eight, “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” They read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. And I thought, that’s the kicker right there, isn’t it. With interpretation. Because it’s one thing to read a text, or to hear a text read, and to agree that the words the reader said are the words written on the page. But it’s a whole other thing entirely to interpret those words, to bring those words to life, to comment on what those words mean in the midst of our real lives.
Interpretation is a funny thing, because it’s a thing we all do subconsciously, and oftentimes with no idea that we are doing it. We hear or read something and the thought we have isn’t even “this is what it means,” it is “this is what it says.” Meanwhile, someone else hearing or reading the exact same words right next to us can have the same thought, “this is what it says,” and have in their mind the exact opposite meaning of ours. It’s like one of those optical illusion pictures, is it a vase or two faces. It’s both, but if you focus too hard on one you become completely blind to the other.
As a preacher, I try to be acutely aware of this complication of interpretation, of the fact that the words I’m saying may not result in you hearing the meaning I intended, because you hear my words through the lens of your own experiences. There’s an incredible painting from the sixteenth century artist Lucas Cranach that depicts Luther preaching to a congregation in St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg, and between Luther and the assembly is the crucified Christ. The idea of the painting, and my hope as a preacher, is that the words of the sermon are not from my lips to your ears, but they are filtered first through Christ. I have many times after delivering a sermon had someone come up to me and thank my profusely for saying something that I know for a fact I did not say, because I have the manuscript in front of me, but for them it was the exact words they needed to hear that day to bring comfort, hope, and healing. Those are the days when it works well. I have also had the experience of someone coming up to me, quoting me verbatim, and thanking me for proving their point, which was the exact opposite point of whatever I had been trying to say. Many, if not most of you have probably heard me use this line, because it’s one of my favorites, but there are times when we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.
All this to say, interpretation, it’s tricky. But we have to do it because words without interpretation are meaningless, they’re just words. Interpretation, what the words mean in our minds, in our lives, in this world, that is what gives these texts staying power. Because the words stay the same, but how we hear them can change based on where we are at in that moment. I’ve read that passage from Nehemiah countless times, but it wasn’t until I was sitting in worship, in a room full of people who had been bullied, been made to feel unwelcomed or unloved, by poor interpretations of scripture, that the importance of making clear the meaning of our words echoed for me. It is not enough to say words, we have to say what we mean by them. Because what is meant by them, if they are the words of our God, is life.
Interpretation is what got Jesus in trouble in our Gospel reading for this morning. First a quick recap of how we got here. Last week, we heard about how Jesus, filled with the Spirit, began to preach in the synagogues and “was praised by everyone.” He came to Nazareth, to his hometown synagogue, and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he handed the scroll back to the attendant, sat down, and said to the people, “today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And as we heard this morning, at first, that all went rather well. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” The gracious words, of course, being the words of the prophet Isaiah. Words which everyone knew, which everyone agreed that Jesus had read just as they were written on the scroll. But Jesus, being Jesus, didn’t stop with just reading the words as they were written. He went on, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’” Then he started telling stories about the sort of people who would be freed, “There were many widows in Israel… yet Elijah was sent to none of them except the widow at Zarephath.” And, “there were many lepers in Israel… and none of them were cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Faced with these actual examples of freedom, the crowd got really ugly, really quickly, “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” Which, interesting observation that I’m not sure how much to make of, but Jesus had just said, “this scripture has been fulfilled,” and now the crowd was filled, but with rage. And, “they got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” And let me say real quick, as a preacher, that a possible response to preaching in the model of Jesus is that the assembly could turn on me with such force as to attempt to throw me off a cliff does not fill me with great comfort.
Luckily, while I think I’m a fairly good preacher, I am not so arrogant as to compare myself to Jesus, and also Battle Creek is pretty flat, so I’m probably safe from cliffs. But what I find so powerfully hopeful about this passage, is that Jesus’ love for these people was so strong, so deep, so profound, that he was willing to say these incredibly hard and challenging words to them, knowing that it would end in his being thrown out of the community, because he loved them too much to let them stay where they were. Because what Jesus said to the people of Nazareth, the thing that got them so fired up, was that this message of God’s grace and love for all people, this message is bigger than you. And it’s not enough for you to sit here in this synagogue. To truly understand the scope of this movement you’re going to have to move, to be moved. Because if you stay here, if you stay settled, you won’t get how big this thing is, you won’t get the power of what God has sent me to do for you.
What this passage says to be is that God is so determined to transform us that God is willing to use any tool to shake us out of our comfort zones and get us in motion. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, God is big enough for whatever emotion you may throw at God, even rage. You can be mad. At God. That’s legit. Read the Psalms.
And the thing about anger is, it gets you going. I hate it, I hate the feeling of being angry, I hate the out of control was it makes me feel, but I have to admit I have a tendency to overthink things and get bogged down with what ifs and with fear. But when I’m angry, I respond. I was listening to an interview with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle about courage last week, and Doyle remarked that courage often starts with rage, it’s right in the word itself.
And then, right in the middle of their anger, right on the precipice of the cliff, Jesus “passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Jesus challenged them, he stirred them up, he got them moving, but he could not, he would not, be stopped by them. Friends this is the kind of love Jesus both has for us and calls us to. The kind of love that is not afraid to face hard things. In that same interview on courage, Doyle talked about how the hardest part of being a parent was letting her kids get hurt by the world. Letting her kids know that everything was not safe and easy, and that things and people could hurt them. Watching her kids experience struggle and pain and not bailing them out. But she said she tried to let them be hurt because that was the only way they could grow, and because she and Abby were trying to raise their children not to be fire avoiders, but to be firewalkers. To be brave enough and strong enough and courageous enough to walk through conflict and controversy knowing that they would be ok, that they would survive.
Dear friends in Christ, Jesus came, Jesus has come “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is the good news that Jesus is bringing, the world-changing, life-saving, promise of grace and hope and love of God for you and all people. So do not be afraid to let this news challenge you, do not be afraid to let this news change you, do not be afraid to let this news save you. Because Jesus has already passed through the midst of us and is on his way. Amen.
Note: The interview with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle was from On Being. You can listen to the full interview here: https://onbeing.org/programs/glennon-doyle-and-abby-wambach-un-becoming-jan2019/
Interpretation is a funny thing, because it’s a thing we all do subconsciously, and oftentimes with no idea that we are doing it. We hear or read something and the thought we have isn’t even “this is what it means,” it is “this is what it says.” Meanwhile, someone else hearing or reading the exact same words right next to us can have the same thought, “this is what it says,” and have in their mind the exact opposite meaning of ours. It’s like one of those optical illusion pictures, is it a vase or two faces. It’s both, but if you focus too hard on one you become completely blind to the other.
As a preacher, I try to be acutely aware of this complication of interpretation, of the fact that the words I’m saying may not result in you hearing the meaning I intended, because you hear my words through the lens of your own experiences. There’s an incredible painting from the sixteenth century artist Lucas Cranach that depicts Luther preaching to a congregation in St. Mary’s Church in Wittenberg, and between Luther and the assembly is the crucified Christ. The idea of the painting, and my hope as a preacher, is that the words of the sermon are not from my lips to your ears, but they are filtered first through Christ. I have many times after delivering a sermon had someone come up to me and thank my profusely for saying something that I know for a fact I did not say, because I have the manuscript in front of me, but for them it was the exact words they needed to hear that day to bring comfort, hope, and healing. Those are the days when it works well. I have also had the experience of someone coming up to me, quoting me verbatim, and thanking me for proving their point, which was the exact opposite point of whatever I had been trying to say. Many, if not most of you have probably heard me use this line, because it’s one of my favorites, but there are times when we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.
All this to say, interpretation, it’s tricky. But we have to do it because words without interpretation are meaningless, they’re just words. Interpretation, what the words mean in our minds, in our lives, in this world, that is what gives these texts staying power. Because the words stay the same, but how we hear them can change based on where we are at in that moment. I’ve read that passage from Nehemiah countless times, but it wasn’t until I was sitting in worship, in a room full of people who had been bullied, been made to feel unwelcomed or unloved, by poor interpretations of scripture, that the importance of making clear the meaning of our words echoed for me. It is not enough to say words, we have to say what we mean by them. Because what is meant by them, if they are the words of our God, is life.
Interpretation is what got Jesus in trouble in our Gospel reading for this morning. First a quick recap of how we got here. Last week, we heard about how Jesus, filled with the Spirit, began to preach in the synagogues and “was praised by everyone.” He came to Nazareth, to his hometown synagogue, and read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he handed the scroll back to the attendant, sat down, and said to the people, “today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And as we heard this morning, at first, that all went rather well. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” The gracious words, of course, being the words of the prophet Isaiah. Words which everyone knew, which everyone agreed that Jesus had read just as they were written on the scroll. But Jesus, being Jesus, didn’t stop with just reading the words as they were written. He went on, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’” Then he started telling stories about the sort of people who would be freed, “There were many widows in Israel… yet Elijah was sent to none of them except the widow at Zarephath.” And, “there were many lepers in Israel… and none of them were cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” Faced with these actual examples of freedom, the crowd got really ugly, really quickly, “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.” Which, interesting observation that I’m not sure how much to make of, but Jesus had just said, “this scripture has been fulfilled,” and now the crowd was filled, but with rage. And, “they got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.” And let me say real quick, as a preacher, that a possible response to preaching in the model of Jesus is that the assembly could turn on me with such force as to attempt to throw me off a cliff does not fill me with great comfort.
Luckily, while I think I’m a fairly good preacher, I am not so arrogant as to compare myself to Jesus, and also Battle Creek is pretty flat, so I’m probably safe from cliffs. But what I find so powerfully hopeful about this passage, is that Jesus’ love for these people was so strong, so deep, so profound, that he was willing to say these incredibly hard and challenging words to them, knowing that it would end in his being thrown out of the community, because he loved them too much to let them stay where they were. Because what Jesus said to the people of Nazareth, the thing that got them so fired up, was that this message of God’s grace and love for all people, this message is bigger than you. And it’s not enough for you to sit here in this synagogue. To truly understand the scope of this movement you’re going to have to move, to be moved. Because if you stay here, if you stay settled, you won’t get how big this thing is, you won’t get the power of what God has sent me to do for you.
What this passage says to be is that God is so determined to transform us that God is willing to use any tool to shake us out of our comfort zones and get us in motion. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, God is big enough for whatever emotion you may throw at God, even rage. You can be mad. At God. That’s legit. Read the Psalms.
And the thing about anger is, it gets you going. I hate it, I hate the feeling of being angry, I hate the out of control was it makes me feel, but I have to admit I have a tendency to overthink things and get bogged down with what ifs and with fear. But when I’m angry, I respond. I was listening to an interview with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle about courage last week, and Doyle remarked that courage often starts with rage, it’s right in the word itself.
And then, right in the middle of their anger, right on the precipice of the cliff, Jesus “passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Jesus challenged them, he stirred them up, he got them moving, but he could not, he would not, be stopped by them. Friends this is the kind of love Jesus both has for us and calls us to. The kind of love that is not afraid to face hard things. In that same interview on courage, Doyle talked about how the hardest part of being a parent was letting her kids get hurt by the world. Letting her kids know that everything was not safe and easy, and that things and people could hurt them. Watching her kids experience struggle and pain and not bailing them out. But she said she tried to let them be hurt because that was the only way they could grow, and because she and Abby were trying to raise their children not to be fire avoiders, but to be firewalkers. To be brave enough and strong enough and courageous enough to walk through conflict and controversy knowing that they would be ok, that they would survive.
Dear friends in Christ, Jesus came, Jesus has come “to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is the good news that Jesus is bringing, the world-changing, life-saving, promise of grace and hope and love of God for you and all people. So do not be afraid to let this news challenge you, do not be afraid to let this news change you, do not be afraid to let this news save you. Because Jesus has already passed through the midst of us and is on his way. Amen.
Note: The interview with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle was from On Being. You can listen to the full interview here: https://onbeing.org/programs/glennon-doyle-and-abby-wambach-un-becoming-jan2019/
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