Sermon Easter 4A

Acts 2:42-47
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2:19-25
John 10:1-10

The first full weekend in May, I attended the Maryland Sheep & Wool festival. This is a yearly festival, one of the largest of its kind in the US, and I’ve been going with my mom for as long as I can remember, at least the years I’ve been close enough. There are vendors of all kinds: wool, yarn, needles, spinning wheels, […]. There are animals being shown: sheep, sheep, lambs, some more sheep. And there are, of course, competitions. The “sheep to shawl” contest takes relay teams who start by sheering the sheep, then clean, spin, and dye the wool, and finally weave a shawl, all over the course of the weekend, being judged at each stage. My favorite, though, is the sheepdog competition. which tests the training of the sheepdog and the communication between shepherd and sheepdog.

During my day at the festival this year, I was reflecting on our gospel reading for today and thinking about my experiences of sheep. We as church tend to take the images of sheep and shepherd in the gospels and we make pretty pictures out of them. I’m sure we’ve all seen it: Jesus as shepherd, clean white robe, maybe with a nice shepherd’s crook, standing with a tight little group of well-groomed sheep, who are all standing still right next to him.

Well… sheep don’t behave like that, or look like that, usually, and, after a day of working, neither do most shepherds. The pastoral care professor at the seminary, having spent some time as a shepherdess herself, does a discussion-lecture on this very topic, looking at our images of shepherd, and explaining how sheep are, actually yes, animals, who get dirty and messy and by the end of the day running around after them, so too is the shepherd dirty and messy. (Also, that shepherd’s crook? It’s not crooked so you can tell it from your other walking sticks. It helps with the herding.) Sheep and shepherding are images that we have sanitized and they have become almost fairy-tale-like in their serenity and the way it’s exotic to us. It’s certainly not an image you see walking in downtown Philly.

But the images in our readings today are real. Jesus describes the gate and gatekeeper situation as it was, and still is in some places. Thieves don’t enter by the gate. Sheep really do know their shepherd’s voice, usually by a particular song or whistle. The words we hear in scripture are real.

In our first reading, from Acts, we have a description of how the earliest Christians lived and worshipped together. In 1 Peter, we hear a response to a real issue that Christians were having: how to deal with suffering as the church, while being persecuted for following their faith, persecuted in ways that we cannot imagine. And back in the gospel reading, when Jesus interprets the parable to his disciples, we have reality. Not just a nice little story and image, but a truth about who Jesus is in relationship to us, in relationship to those who came before him, and in relationship to his mission. Jesus is the gate, and whoever comes in by the gate will be saved.

Sheep do wander. As 1 Peter reads, “For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” We go astray, like sheep. We wander, we lose our way, we take care of our own needs, with our heads to the ground: I’ll eat this grass, and now this grass, and – oh! – this grass looks tasty, and I see some grass in the shade over there, and the next thing you know we’re miles from the herd, which, made up of sheep like ourselves, probably doesn’t resemble a tight group of well-groomed fuzzballs anymore.

When I was working on this sermon earlier this week, with my apartment windows wide open to bring in the beautiful spring air, I turned to Handel, and I listened to the section from the Messiah called “All we like sheep.” If you’re not familiar with this piece, it has runs in all directions: up, down, soprano, alto, bass, tenor, notes sliding all over the place, emulating the scattered movements and bleating of straying sheep… and while I was listening to this, I realized that I was also hearing sirens go by on Germantown Ave and at first I could not hear the difference. The baaing of Handel’s choir piece, the baaing of the world around us, blended into one. Our world has gone astray, we have turned everyone to their own way.

Can you hear the bleating? In war-torn places like Libya and Gaza: baa. In the Mississippi River basin, where farms are flooded to save cities because there’s nowhere for the water to go: baa. In homes where violence lurks: baa. In churches, especially in the news here in Philadelphia recently, where clergy abuse their positions and lies are networked to cover it up: baa. In the greed hearts of those who allow others to go hungry: baa. In governments where the next election is more important than care for the people: baa. In our own hearts, in our own lives, we have turned, everyone to their own way. Baah!

It’s true. It’s true that we aren’t pretty clean little fuzzy balls of jumping peace in a serene green field. But we are sheep. We're messy, rolling-in-the-mud, faces in the dirt, animals who without guidance would hide in the thickets tending our own needs until… forever. And it’s easy to turn the bleating “baa” of the sheep into the “bah” of frustration, the “bah” of giving up and looking around at God’s scattered flock with agony and despair. But that’s not our decision to make. We’re just the sheep.

And we do have a shepherd, who does not give up on us. We have God who indeed calls us by name in the waters of baptism
And we have Jesus Christ, who here today has proclaimed himself as the gate through whom the shepherd, the gatekeeper calls us, Christ the gate through whom we are saved.
And we have a sheepdog, who would win any competition, wily and messy and disordered and scattered as we are: the Holy Spirit who runs down into the thickets and herds us back into the fold with a bark that is the Word of God.
And then we are brought, herded, to the table where we eat the true food and are loved for being sheep. No matter how far we have strayed. No matter if we come as a part of a (church) family, or if we wander alone in confusion of heart. No matter if we are poor, or rich, or whether we suffer daily in body, or mind, or spirit, or whether we don’t claim our suffering at all. No matter if we are covered in dirt, shaking from exhaustion of our wandering, wool matted so thick we barely recognize ourselves. Our shepherd calls us, the gate has been made open, and the Word of God is at our heels: we come and eat, and are made whole again.

(But don’t just take my word for it, let’s turn to our hymn of the day, in your green hymnal number 476, “Have no fear little flock,” and let’s sing together of how we are chosen, loved, gathered, and restored…

Lent 5A

(Links are to the passages on oremus, NRSV)
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:1-11
John 11:1-45

I’d like you to picture the scene with me, as if from a movie, but not a specific one: the young couple who have finally fallen in love are walking down a path under trees. The camera pans up through one green budding tree to the sky, and we see a formation of geese. The camera pans down and the leaves have changed and are falling. We follow one leaf on its downward journey, it lands on a snowman and we see the couple, older now, perhaps with children playing in the snow. It’s the classic was for movies to show passage of time: show change of seasons. Even if the time passing is much greater than just a few months of seasonal change.

There are other things besides weather and trees in our lives which signify change of seasons, the passage of time, even if we don't consciously register them: Candy moves from red and green wrapping, to red and pink, to pink and yellow; snow shovels and winter boots are traded for gardening tools and sandals; beach balls take up store fronts, then school supplies.

In the church, we have other signs: paraments change from green to blue to white to green to purple to white to red; our hymns focus differently depending on what season we are in. All these are signs of the passage of time, the fact that our lives are not stagnant pools of monotony.

In our readings today, we have examples of passage of time as well, but in more literary ways. In Ezekiel, there are dry bones. I picture the stereotypical desert scene: tumbleweeds, hot, dry wind, and the sun-bleached, dry bones, scattered across the valley. Dry bones are not freshly dead bones. In John, the passage of time is four days. Lazarus is not just “mostly dead,” but “all dead.” The crowd is even worry about the smell. He is, to quote, “really, most sincerely dead.”

But in both these stories, for all the passage of time leading to the bleakness and hopelessness of dry bones and a man dead for four days, hope abounds.

In the valley of dry bones, of long-lasting death, Ezekiel is brought. Ezekiel is brought here and told to prophesy. To prophesy, in the land of death, to prophesy the living God.
And there begins a rattling. And bone comes to bone and sinews, ligaments, tendons, and skin appear. And he is told to prophesy again, and breath comes into death and life blooms.

Then we hear again, of a man who has died, and the grief of friends and family, and though even Jesus weeps, there is hope here as well. Approaching the tomb, Jesus calls for the stone to be removed, and calls Lazarus to come out. And he comes out, and goes on his way.

There is more than just physical life and death at stake in these readings.
Ezekiel lived during the time of exile. The whole people of Israel, his nation, had been swept apart, taken from their homelands, taken from their communities, and scattered, like so many dry bones. The house of Israel is not physically dead, but their connections to each other, their sinews, have fallen off so long ago they are like dry bones, brittle, weak, dead.

We see this in our world today, too. In Libya, in Syria, in Egypt: people being wracked by the forces of life which tear them from each other, which put neighbors fighting against each other. On less international scales, we see it here: governments who are supposed to be working together becoming so divided that senators hide out in other states to avoid voting, or we see division so great that shutdown of the government is only avoided by moments. In our schools, in our workplaces, with our friends, our families, and ourselves, we are dry bones. We may not be in physical exile, but we separate ourselves from God, each other, and our own hearts.
And we do this to ourselves. As we confess in one form or another at the beginning of service each week, we “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” We human mortals, who age and will all eventually die, are not able to do any thing else. We cannot come out of the valley or out of the tomb ourselves.

But again, there is hope.

Because there is one who can and does bring us out. In a few moments we will encounter this one in the meal at the table: the Table where our bones are fed and watered, where we are joined as one body with all the other dry bones into the body of him who loves us even as we sin. At this Table, all are welcome, all are called out of the valley into relationship and life with Christ. We are not called because we deserve it, because we don’t. And none are turned away: there is nothing that you can do to be turned away. Here at this table we are one again, one whole body, ligaments, sinews, and all, in Christ.

We are human people. Time passes, we age, we make mistakes, we learn, or do not learn from those mistakes. Hey, we don't just make mistakes; we flat out make the exact wrong choices. Doesn't matter what the season, doesn't matter if it's summer or spring, or Lent, we mess up. We're human, there's no denying it. Doing won’t make it better. Praying won’t make it better. Going to church, giving up sweets for Lent, voting a certain way, acting a certain way… won’t make it better. We were told on Ash Wednesday at the start of this season that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We are dry bones.

And yet, we have the certainty that Christ grieves over our dead bodies, these merely bodies we have, which lead us into sin so plainly, these bodies which die. But Christ died for those bodies, for our sinful selves, and it is not anything that we do or do not do that raises us, but Christ's voice calling to us to “come out!” of our valleys and tombs. As Paul said in our reading from Romans, “though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life… he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.” No strings attached. Amen

Christmas 1A

Welcome to the morning after Christmas. For most of us, the presents have been unwrapped, the food eaten, the joy shared, the songs sung. Though there may still be visits to make and gifts to share, we wake up this morning, realize there’s work tomorrow, and it is as if life hits the “reset” button: back to reality.

There are a lot of “mornings after” in life. The morning after moving into a new apartment. The second day of a new job or school year. The morning after the honeymoon. The morning after the guests leave. And there are many more examples. These are the times when real life kicks in. This is when daily routine overtakes festival service, though the stores may try to prolong the festivities with “day after” sales. For every big event, there will be the day after.

Our readings this morning portray the big moments in Jesus early life. But what we don’t get to see is the daily life. We know very little about Jesus’ early life, or life at all until the start of his ministry as an adult. We have these few important pieces, and that’s all. I wonder what the “mornings after” were like for the Holy family. The morning after the Magi left, the morning after the escape to Egypt, then again after the return from Egypt. Life with small children is hardly ever routine, and with the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the events that we have heard about this morning, I wonder if daily life ever seemed “normal.”

Because really, there would have been daily life to return to. The most amazing thing about Christmas is that Christ came to earth as a human person, the same as you and me. Chores had to be done, food prepared, clothes washed, school attended. But, we don’t know what the daily life of young Jesus would have been like, or how his parents would have felt after each extraordinary event, to return to daily life.

How do we return? What do we do with our mornings after? After vacation there is often a sense of let-down, a sense of settling back in to routine. Though this can be relief, the language we use doesn’t always emphasize that. After big events we say there is sometimes a sense of disappointment, wishing the excitement could have lasted longer. After Christmas, the world becomes visibly duller, less bright, as lights come down, trees are stripped and removed from the house, and all the dazzle and glitter fades away.

So how do we, as people of faith, react? I can’t help but notice there are not quite as many people here this morning as there were Christmas Eve. At seminary, the Sunday after Christmas is well known: it may the most popular day of the year for students to be asked to preach. It’s a safe Sunday for practicing, because everyone knows that not many people will be there.

What do we do with today, this Sunday that is “morning after?” Do we come to church merely as habit, as routine, or to see the seminarian preach? Do we take down the decorations and start looking forward to the next big event that will stimulate our hearts?

Perhaps we do those things. But this day is no less important to who we are than Christmas Eve, or the Sundays of Advent, or the weeks of Lent. This day we celebrate together Christ’s coming, as we do every Sunday. This day we celebrate together Christ’s work in the world, as we do every Sunday. This day we celebrate together the gift of the grace of God, poured out in the Word, in the waters of baptism, in the meal we are about to share with each other. Each Sunday is Sabbath, is time for gathering, learning, sharing, celebrating. Each Sunday we rejoice in Christ’s advent, in Christ’s birth into this world as “God with us,” in Christ’s death and resurrection. Each Sunday we gather around this table and share in the meal which is the culmination of our celebration. The church year as a whole may follow this pattern, but each Sunday is a reminder of the whole of our faith.

So what now? What do we do today? Do we just settle into the daily grind, remembering fondly the excitement of the past few days and weeks, but with an expectation that we are now doing “just” the normal things? Do we watch as the decorations come down and, though relaxing a bit, sigh a little at the end of the season?

Or, do we carry forward the enthusiasm of Christmas? We are actually still in the Christmas season, liturgically, but soon that will end, too. Jobs, or the job hunts, resume, children go back to school, the tree comes down, and retailers move on to the next big marketing day. And this is good. It would not work for Christmas to last forever, or for everyday to be so full of energy and excitement. We need Sabbath rest, not only in our weekly weeks, but in our months and years and cycles of celebration. The time after the Christmas season, before Lent begins, gives us rest. It gives us a chance to live the lives which are so transformed by the birth of the Christ child.

But that doesn’t mean that we cannot celebrate Christ every day. Indeed, living faithfully into the daily routines of our lives, watching children grow, learning new skills and information as adults, caring for the other and the ones less fortunate in all seasons… doing life things is celebrating Christ’s birth as human among us. We can look with joy at the coming “normal” weeks and see them as a time to live into the promise of Christ’s coming, to embrace our daily lives as ones infused with the grace of God, marked with the waters of baptism, made beautiful, even in routine, by the fact that God has called each of us by name, and has known us all the days of our lives. We can look at our lives, our daily worries and challenges, and remember and rejoice that Christ came down to live among us, to worry and work with us, and we can know that the Holy Spirit continues to worry and work with us.

This morning after is not a let down, it is the continuation of the festival celebration. It is the Sabbath which gives us energy to move through the week. In Philadelphia this morning, in a little church called St Michael’s, a baby girl named Zoe is being baptized. In Iowa, a trombonist named Laura is giving a children’s sermon about how Advent is a purple traffic light and Christmas—and Jesus—were worth the wait. In southern Minnesota, a busy youth director named Dani is taking the day to relax and just worship with her church family. This day is the chance to refill our cups and be sent out to share them with the world. This meal is not dull, it is a feast! There may not be sprinkles or fancy spices, but there is Christ. Christ in this food, because Christ promises to be in this food. This food feeds not only our bodies but our souls. This Sunday morning after Christmas is joy.

So as you return to life, to job hunting or job doing, to school, to routine, remember the hymn we are about to sing: Good Christian friends Rejoice! With heart, and soul, and voice. Now you hear of endless bless, you need not fear the grace! He calls you one and calls you all. Christ was born to save. Not just on Christmas, but this and every day. Amen.

sermon, C8

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21
Psalm 16
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62

            Have you ever seen a wild herd of horses? While grazing, they may seem to be merely a group of horses who all happened to stop at the same diner for lunch. While on the move, running across country, they look the picture of freedom: manes and tails flowing in the wind, hooves gliding across the earth. And yet, these horses follow a leader, one whose experience and strengths can guide the herd to safety, food, and water.

            Or consider flocks of birds. You know, those giant migrating flocks in the spring or fall of hundreds of starlings, moving with respect to the rules of the flock, forming an intimidating whole. They are also free, but also following.

(pause)

            In our readings today, we hear both about following and about being free. Elisha seeks to follow Elijah, various people try to follow Jesus, and yet at the same time we hear Paul talk about freedom. So what is the connection between following and being free? Are not the two somewhat in disagreement with each other?

            John Denver has a song about following which has a line that says, “Follow me where I go, what I do and who I know. Make it part of you to be a part of me.” That sounds like a fairly solid definition of “to follow,” but where is the freedom?

            Most of our concepts about freedom are about individuality and the ability to make one’s own choices: school children are “free for the summer” and “freedom of speech” means you can say whatever you want. Following, which tends to indicate submission, is usually not in the freedom definition.

            So let us turn to these conflicting readings. In First Kings, Elijah throws his mantle over Elisha, calling him to follow. Elisha requests to say goodbye, which he does, and then he “sets out and follows Elijah, and becomes his servant.” In the Gospel reading, we have two folks who ask Jesus if they can follow him. This… is a little different than the way things usually go. Usually, we see Christ doing the asking.

            Where do these people think that Jesus is going that they want so badly to follow him? We have just heard that he has his face so set toward Jerusalem that the folks in a Samaritan village wouldn’t receive him. WHERE did they think he was going?

            For that matter, where do WE think he’s going? We often use the phrase “following Christ.” It’s something we strive for, something we work for.

            These folks were asking to follow him when his face was set toward Jerusalem, toward the cross. They probably did not realize that this was the destination they were trying to reach by joining Jesus. But then, this is often how God works: through revealing God’s self in the exact opposite way that we expect. It is what Martin Luther called the “revelation of God under the appearance of the opposite.” Jesus is headed to the cross where God will be most ultimately revealed in that way which is absolutely contrary to expectations.

            I do not think that pain, humiliation, and death, were what those people in our reading were intending to ask for. It’s certainly not what I usually have in mind when I think about following Christ. Social justice, beautiful liturgies, Christian community, a moral code to live by… these are the things that are associated with following Christ. In other times, in other places, following Christ really has been associated with humiliation, pain, torture, and death. This even happens today. This past November marked the twentieth anniversary of the brutal killings of eight Christian leaders at the University of Central America in San Salvador. But, to our ears those situations seem foreign, martyrs are heroes of the church, but more like legends than actual people. And in the Baltimore metro area, there is perhaps less of a chance of becoming martyrs, at least in the physical sense. Where is it that these people in our Gospel think Christ was headed?

            Yet, even so, even though we cannot comprehend the path Jesus was taking that day, nor the paths Christ leads us on today, we use following language and we do aim to follow Christ. And we use language of freedom, of Christ setting us free from the Law, free from the old, given new life in resurrection.

So we strive to simultaneously follow and be free, but… we are continuously held back from both by our captivity to the places where we lay our heads. To our own ideas of what the path should be: who should be consumed by fire, who SHOULDN’T receive heartbreak, illness, disease, and disaster. We make following into our own ideas, taking our freedom instead of living in the freedom that comes from Christ, from that very path to the cross, to death, that we shy away from. Without the cross, there can be no resurrection. Yet we are held back by our own foxholes, nests, and homes. These things which, Jesus points out to us, he doesn’t have. The Son of Man has nowhere to put his head. Well, neither do ten thousand people in Maryland, or 650 thousand in the United States total. What might Jesus have said if the man was not asking to bury his father, but instead had said, “well, just let me finish building my house so the poor can live in it while I’m gone?”

But that’s not the kind of question we ask when we go to follow Christ. Because we name the things we do as part of the following. We decide what must be done to be considered a follower. Yet Christ makes none of these demands. Even Paul’s list of works of the flesh doesn’t come partnered with a list of “things you must do.” The fruits of the Spirit are, like freedom, results of the following. They are fruits. Fruits come after the planting, and are not themselves the planting.

The planting is the Word of God, proclaimed in the Gospel, broken and shared in the Lord’s Supper, poured out in the waters of baptism, as will happen to Lucy today. This is the planting, the promise of the coming of the fruits, the promise of the one who is revealed in the most unexpected ways, the most opposite, contrary ways. The planting, which happens to each of us, regardless of what we do or say. Because it is what God does, it is what the Spirit does. And the fruit flows from that.

And so we follow and are made free. We are made free and follow. To quote Luther in his treatise “Concerning Christian Liberty,” “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.”

Remember the horses and the birds? Perhaps the most free creatures of all, one on land and one on air, and subject to none. Yet also subject each to each other, to the common flight, to the common path.

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” If we are made free in Christ, let us also be followers in Christ. These two are not opposites, but compliments. We are free to follow Christ, who gives us that freedom. Free from the “have to’s” to enter into the fruits of the planting. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” Amen.

Triduum 2010, part III: Easter Vigil

Holy Saturday is a nebulous festival in the eyes of many people. It's that random little day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, where presumably God is doing stuff, but we don't really know what to do.

And isn't it actually the case that we are impatient people, especially when we are waiting for others do something?

Consider for a moment that God is indeed working, actually always at work, in your life, my life, and all the other lives. So take a day to reflect on that, to remember your baptism, where God poured out the Holy Spirit on your form. Reflect on God's work today, even though you may not be seeing it now, for the effects are long lasting.

Triduum 2010, part II: Good Friday

Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see, watch with Him one bitter hour,
Turn not from His griefs away; learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

See Him at the judgment hall, beaten, bound, reviled, arraigned;
O the wormwood and the gall! O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suffering, shame, or loss; learn of Christ to bear the cross.

Calvary’s mournful mountain climb; there, adoring at His feet,
Mark that miracle of time, God’s own sacrifice complete.
“It is finished!” hear Him cry; learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Early hasten to the tomb where they laid His breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom. Who has taken Him away?
Christ is risen! He meets our eyes; Savior, teach us so to rise.

Triduum 2010, part I: Holy Thursday Sermon

In 1582, Charles IX changed the calendar. Previously, the new year was celebrated the last week of March, culminating in a celebration on the first of April. Charles IX adopted the Gregorian Calendar, which, among other changes, moved the start of the year from April first to January first. Because of the lack of continuity in communications at the time, the word of the change took years to reach some places, and even then, there were some who refused to change the date of the new year, and would continue to celebrate on the first of April. According to tradition, these confused folks were called April Fools, and would find themselves recipients of pranks, including invited to nonexistent “new year’s” parties. This April Fools Day tradition is believed to have evolved into the prank playing festival that delights children and adults even today.

[Pause]

As we enter into the end of this Holy Week, the culmination of our Lenten journey, does any of this start to sound like an elaborate April Fools joke? This person who had no hope of ever meeting us, at least not physically, died for us.  And, to make it even better, this person is GOD. This is Jesus, God’s own self made human, kneeling before us, washing our feet, feeding us the ultimate food. [looking around] April Fools?

I wonder how confused the disciples were that day. They may have been used to things like, "Go into town and follow the man with the water and ask the owner if we can stay there." But then, in the middle of the meal, after such an exciting entry into the city earlier in the week, while maybe expecting Jesus to start teaching as usual, things take a turn.  “This is my body given for you.” “This is the new covenant in my blood.”

Say what, Jesus?

Perhaps we are foolish ones. We eat bread and drink wine and call it the body and blood of God. We go through our mortal lives, living in the world, suffering the sufferings of the world, believing in a God who has done the same.

In First Corinthians, just a few chapters before our reading today, Paul writes, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” [pause] Now, Paul was writing specifically to a church whose default secular position was that Jesus was a wimp for serving others and being killed, and that any god who would become human and suffer was surely also wimpy. But Paul’s message holds true still today. The message of salvation in the cross has power for us who “are being saved.”

Consider that phrase. “We who are being saved.” [In the Greek, that verb is a present passive participle and translating would be a lot easier without it. But our lives would be nothing without this grammatical construction.] We are not people who were once saved, or people who will be saved, or who might be saved IF we do “our part.” We are people who are being saved. Right now. Being saved. [pause] That makes this meal we celebrate and share something quite different than a foolish celebration of things past and a God who once was with us. This is the meal of the God who is  being  with  us.

The foolishness is the world’s view, not ours. The world teaches us that we look out for ourselves. IF we do this, IF we do that, IF we just show up, push forward, reach the goal, get the work done, check off our list of things to do, THEN we will be successful,  justified,  righteous.

But, this is the world’s view. We are, at every moment, by God’s boundless grace, being saved. And we know this misalignment between these two views. We are aware of our situation from the world’s view and we see it, too. We question the foolishness, we continually ask “What does this mean?” as Martin Luther does in the Small Catechism. And we question for ourselves the rationale behind bread and wine, because that is our nature as worldly creatures.

[pause]

So what does this mean, this shared meal that the world finds incomprehensible? What does it mean living in the world and finding things a little odd from time to time ourselves? Do we see the foolishness, or do we ignore the world’s promptings? What does it mean to proclaim the “powerful message of the cross”?

[pause]

It means that we are sinners! We cannot simultaneously proclaim that Christ died for us, and take on the world’s view that we are not in need of salvation, or that we can get salvation done on our own. We fail. There is no such thing as “good enough” for God, except through God’s own marvelous gift of grace, through God’s incarnation, through God’s sharing of this meal with us.

We sin. We are April Fools. We fail to recognize the God in front of us. No, I take that back. We cannot stand the God in front of us. We plot to kill the God in front of us.

[PAUSE]

So here we are, Holy Thursday again, only a few more days until the Easter rush: baskets, candy, family, feasting. And we know what's coming next. Tomorrow’s Good Friday, then there’s Saturday and then Sunday, Easter, when we celebrate. We know the routine by now. Death, then resurrection. Death, then resurrection.

Do we still not see our own foolishness? To believe, year after year, that though we DIE to sin, we come BACK TO LIFE because of Christ's sacrifice? Is this not the most foolish of foolishnesses?

And Yet. This IS the God that we worship. This is what we celebrate, Sunday after Sunday, year after year, foolish though it may be to the world, because within its very foolishness, the cross brings all forgiveness and redemption. In a few moments we will share together the Lord's Supper, the most foolish meal of them all on this day that we remember especially the first Last Supper. We will receive, into our very physical beings, Christ, who died for us.

Right here, we heard it just a few minutes ago: He says "This is my body given for you." For you. YOU. And you can't tell in the English, but that's a plural YOU. In Greek class we translate it “y’all.” This is given for y’all. You ALL. Not just the people next to you, not just those who do “enough” or help out the most or sit in the front, not just the ones who pray the hardest, read the Bible the most, smile the best and most often. For each and every single one of us.

[pause] And we find ourselves asking, “What does this mean?” [pause]

It means we are forgiven!

We who continually turn away, who can never DO enough, who KILL the God in front of us, are forgiven, by that very God’s grace. Not because we do anything but because that is what God does through Christ. God. Loves. Us. God Forgives. Us.

This is not mere foolishness, it is the foolishness that comes with a grace that only God can give, a grace that surpasses all human understanding, a grace that we do nothing to deserve, a grace that we celebrate, a grace that we eat.

Because we are April Fools. The world tells us that we are stuck in foolishness, that the calendar has changed: Christmas is toys, Easter is rabbits laying rainbow eggs, salvation is success and the things we do. But the cross says NO! to the world and that method of redemption and so we embrace that which the world calls foolish: a God made human, dying for us on the cross. And we eat of bread and wine that is God’s Word, Jesus Christ. Amen.