Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

A few days ago, there was an editorial piece in the Washington Post by Minneapolis doctor Craig Bowron. Reflecting on end of life care in America, he argues that people are becoming more and more separated from death as an every day occurrence, and are less and less likely to see it as the natural conclusion to being alive.

Not today.

Today, we “remember that we are dust, and to dust we will return.”

Today, we gather together on Ash Wednesday. Today, we begin Lent, not with a tree and presents, as we begin the season of Christmas. Or with the color red and speaking in tongues, as we remember with Pentecost. No, when we begin Lent, it is with ashes, with dust, and death. We begin Lent by coming as far down from the mountaintop as possible. We begin in the dust. We begin, actually, with a proclamation of our very humanness.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Being human, being alive, means that we are mortal. We are not deities, we are not all-good, everlasting, perfectly wonderful beings. We are sinners, we are dust. We need Lent as a time to repent, as a time to call out to God, to cry out for forgiveness, and salvation.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

But, just as we are reminded of our deep humanity, we are reminded of something else, as well.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ. Who was also human. Truly God and truly human. If we are dust, Christ meets us in the dust. God meets us in our very brokenness, walks among us, gets dusty, too. And not only this, but Christ meets us on the cross. Christ meets us at the very pinnacle of our mortality, in death on a cross.

It is this sign we wear today. Not only one of dust and ash and death, but one of savior, one of God meeting us, loving us, in the most unlikely of place. This is a sign not of death: the end, but death: which is overcome by Christ and leads to salvation.

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

We are dust, but then again, so was Christ.

Amen.

Transfiguration B

I have a confession to make. I love snow. Now, we haven’t seen much of it this winter, but usually by this point in the season, people are tired of snow: the shoveling, the scraping ice off the car, the school delays and work delays… but those are the side-effects of snow, the symptoms, if you will. For me, what I love is the beauty of snow: watching it falling from the sky in big, lazy flakes, or racing out of the clouds in tiny pellets. Snow means skiing, and making snowmen. Snow means curling up in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. Snow means stepping outside early in the morning, and looking at the way the world has been blanketed, quieted, even noisy city streets, all covered with a shiny new layer crystal.

In fact, that is pretty much one of my favorite things about snow: the way it transforms the world. A rusty bench becomes an ice throne. A simple slope becomes a playground. A bare stand of trees, no longer beautiful with spring’s new growth or autumn’s array of colors, is now a shadowy, shiny invitation to adventure.

Yes, snow transforms the world into something new, something different.

Today, we hear of a different kind of transformation, one with its own light, brighter even than sunlight on a snow field. Jesus takes three of the disciples, and they go off and away up a mountain, no one else around, no one else to see what is about to happen. “And he was transfigured before them” Wow. Imagine it: here you are on a walk up the mountain, maybe wondering where you’re going, or what teaching you’ll hear next, when Jesus is changed before your eyes. And then, as you’re trying to figure that out, Elijah and Moses join him, and they start talking with Jesus. And then Peter bravely speaks up: “Let us make three shelters, one for each.” But he doesn’t get a response, because just when things couldn’t get more surprising, a cloud appears, and a voice, proclaiming Jesus, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” And then, nothing. No one there but the four who originally came up the mountain. And on the way down, they are told not to tell anyone what they had seen.

That must have been so difficult. For I imagine, that even though the dazzling transfiguration had passed, Moses and Elijah had disappeared, and the echo of God’s voice had faded from their ears, Peter, James, and John were not the same coming down the mountain as when they went up.

The mountain-top experience is often considered one of the hallmarks of faith. People ask the question “When did you experience God?” People describe the moment they came to faith, and so on. But faith is more than glory on the heights. Faith is in the transformation, and is not something that we ourselves decide to do. No, faith, the transformation, is the work of God.

In baptism, we have all been transformed: washed, made new, by the Word of God in the water. When that water touched our head, we were changed: in that moment, we are made children of God, we are promised to God’s care, and our lives, our hearts, are in God’s keeping. And God is with us throughout our lives.

Today, we celebrate the baptism of _________________________. Today, we welcome her into the family of God. When we say together, “We welcome you into the Lord’s family,” we are truly welcoming her into a life of faith, we are celebrating God’s claiming of her as one of God’s own.

Baptism is not a singular event. We do it once, yes, but it isn’t over when the service has ended and the water has dried. Christ comes down the mountain with us. In daily life he is with us. In every moment, we are touched by God’s presence. We shouldn’t say “I was baptized,” as though it happened long ago and is finished now, but “I am baptized,” we are being baptized, being transformed, changed, made new, daily, continually. Not by our own standing on the mountain-top, but by God’s transforming grace and presence: at the top, at the bottom, and on the way up and down again. Like Peter, James, and John, we are awed by meeting Christ. We are awed, humbled, shocked, terrified even, by encounter Christ: Christ who talks to Moses and Elijah, Christ who is proclaimed as God’s son… Christ, who doesn’t stay on the mountain-top. Christ who doesn’t permit us to build tents and temples on the summit, but walks down with us, talks to us, lives with us, and then, meets us at the one place perhaps most opposite the peak: the cross. Because God isn’t found only in the beautiful places. God meets us in all the places where our lives take us: The rusty bench, and the ice throne. The adventuresome woods, and the bare stand of scrubby trees. Christ walks with us, Christ meets us, Christ transforms us. Amen.

Proper 22A, Pentecost 18

World Food Day/Harvest Home

Isaiah 45:1-7

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

Today, I'd like to talk to you about “gleaning.”

In Biblical times, “to glean” meant to go through the field after the harvesting was done, collecting up what was left behind. This was often done by widows, as seen in the story of Ruth and Naomi, or others who were, as we sometimes say today, “less fortunate.” Often women, these folks would go through the fields after the harvesters had done their work, and they would gather the wheat, or other crop, left behind, taking it home with them to be their food, as, for whatever reason, they could not buy food in the markets.

But gleaning was not just an act of those who came after the harvest: it was an act prepared for by the owners of the field. In fact, it was commanded, in several different places in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, that one should not harvest to the edges of the field, or go back and collect the gleanings (meaning the bits left behind), or even go back and get a sheaf of wheat if it was forgotten. Those parts, those leftovers, it is written, should be left for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the alien.

Theologically, much can be done with this image of gleaning: It is the opening phrase to images of caring and welcoming all, even those whom society shrugs away. Leaving leftovers in the field shows that all are valued, and all are to be fed. It is providing for those who society says to leave out. In our Gospel reading, before asking Jesus their question, the Pharisees praise Jesus, saying, “we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” (pause) “You do not regard people with partiality.” None is higher than the other.

And indeed, here at this Table, we know that all are welcome. When we stand around the altar, receiving the Lord’s Supper, there is no head but Christ, there is no pecking order, no elbowing in to get the goods before they’re gone. All are welcome: the harvest feeds everyone.

(pause) We are all welcome at this table and certainly we can, should, and do wrap ourselves in the comfort of the assurance when our lives are battered by internal and external storms. But that doesn’t mean we shut out the needs of others. It doesn’t mean we start harvesting to the edges of the field, and leave nothing for those who already have nothing. When we allow others to go without, that comfort of welcome at the Table serves to remind us that we must respond. When we are fed here, can we take a moment to remind ourselves that there are those we are still unfed?

Here we can find practical application for that image of harvesting the fields, and making sure to provide for the Others among us. We cannot necessarily leave actual food in actual fields: for one thing, we are no longer, on the whole, a farming society. And for another, tractors, harvesters, and combines today are effective. To my knowledge, there is no “leave some behind for the widows and orphans” setting on the dial between “start harvesting stuff” and “stop harvesting stuff.” But are things we can do.

Today, in addition to being our celebration of Harvest Home, is World Food Day. All over, people are being educated about the issue of hunger: locally, nationally, and globally. Becoming educated is a part of the challenge of responding. And so I’ll tell you a bit: In 2009, in the Metropolitan areas of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, 17% reported food hardship. In Pennsylvania, that number was 16%, although, if you look just at households with children the number is 22%, or which is about 1 in 5. Across the whole of the United States, in 2010, that percentage was 15%, and in the entire world, 13%, or nearly 1 in 7 people are hungry. That’s 925 million people who are hungry. (pause) So there’s a bit of education there for you. There’s more to be done, of course, more to learn about the causes and possible solutions for hunger. There are books you can read, blogs you can follow, and if you need suggestions, let me know and I can point you in a starting direction.

Education: learning the scope and depth of the problem. What else? What can we do? Well, there is donating food to food banks, that’s a wonderful act and the bags we have here are welcome, precious gifts, as are financial and other donations and drives that happen, but there is still more. There are local and national advocacy groups which respond to the root causes of hunger and food insecurity. For example, Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania, LAMPa, is an ELCA public policy office in Harrisburg, working on many different fronts to advocate for “just, sound and compassionate state public policies.” LAMPa, as well as other advocacy groups, often have ways for people to get involved: be it through conversations, letter writing, or other opportunities.

So far we have education, donation, and advocacy. I’d like to point to one more way we can share what is in our fields with those who do not have. And this may be a different idea than you have heard before:

(pause) Know yourself. You are the field. You have been given the gifts, the passions, to do God’s work in the world. Part of this means that you should make sure you are caring for yourself: don’t harvest all you have to the point where you have nothing left to give. And part of this means finding your passion, your gifts. Maybe it’s not hunger. Maybe, your passion is literacy, or fair wages, or fair trade, or working with the disabled, or web design, or teaching, or... anything. Find your passion, plant the crop that will flourish in your field. Know yourself, care for yourself, and find ways to share your harvest with others: it doesn’t have to be hours and hours of time: a half hour, fifteen minutes: what is left in your field? And if you need help finding ways to do that or want to brainstorm ideas, call us: we can help you find ways to plug in, to share your harvest. And be attentive in the next few months as various ways to serve and be involved are lifted up and announced.

(small pause) After all, all we have comes from God. And as Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel reading, we are to “give to God what is God’s.” What we have, what we are, is God’s. And yes, God loves us no matter what, and we are welcome at this Table no matter what. In turn we can say “Soli Deo Gloria,” which means, “To God alone be glory.” In response to God’s harvest reaching us all, we share our harvests with all. Soli Deo Gloria. Amen.

Proper 13A, Pentecost 7

Isaiah 55:1-5

Psalm 145:8-9, 15-22

Romans 9:1-5

Matthew 14:13-21

HOD: Break Now the Bread of Life, LBW 235

Have you ever seen a small child as they try to get something just out of their reach? The sippy cup on the side table, the cookie jar on the counter… whatever it is, it’s just too far to grab. They stand on their toes, their arms outstretched as far as can go, their little fingers wiggling, trying to grow just that one extra inch…

I love this image because it shows so clearly how we reach for things in the rest of our lives. If we’re not children reaching for a sippy cup, we’re teenagers trying to fit in, or out, we’re reaching for better grades, then a job, then a better job. We reach for perfection in relationships, we reach for perfection in sports, in music, in technology. We are a people who always reach for the new, the next, the good, better, best. Then when we aren’t bombarded by external pressure, we start feeling like we should be “better people” (whatever that means).

Perhaps the disciples were only trying to be “better people” when they suggested sending the people away in our Gospel reading today? It had been a long day of teaching and healing for Jesus, and he’d originally been trying, again, to get away for some self-care. And the people needed food, and rest, and the disciples certainly didn’t have enough to feed them. Best to send them on their way now, before it gets impossibly late, so they can go to the villages, have dinner, and rest. Sounds like a reasonable suggestion… doesn’t it?

But no, Jesus tells the disciples, no they don’t need to go away. Bring me what we have, he tells them. And Christ takes the 5 loaves of bread and the two fish and blesses them, and feeds the people. And God is revealed in this moment, where there is not enough. When the disciples are shown up in their attempt to care for the crowd by Jesus’ own caring act, when there just isn’t enough, there are twelve baskets of leftovers, and God has been revealed.

We live in a world where it often seems like there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough compassion, and so we hear about one man who kills nearly 80 people in Norway. There isn’t enough medicine, there aren’t enough volunteers to respond to need in places like Haiti. There aren’t enough solutions when the economy is affecting real lives. There isn’t enough hope when domestic violence seems the safer option to some, than life alone.

We live in a broken world where there isn’t enough. And when we look at the world and don’t see “enough,” or when our daily lives do not seem “enough” to make us deserving of God’s great love, we too can feel like that small child, wiggling our fingers, wishing to be just enough taller, just enough…

But God doesn’t ask that of us. We worship a God who is more than enough. We worship a God who turns five loaves and two fish into a meal to feed thousands.

In fact, God often reveals God’s self to us in the very places where we may not expect God to be, like those “not enough” places. Or in the mundane acts of our daily lives, which may not seem like “enough,” but to God are everything. Or in the breaking of ordinary bread, the sharing of a simple cup. In water. In the death of God’s Son. In the gruesome, ugly death of one condemned as a criminal, even in that “not enough,” worldly moment, God is revealed.

So then why not in our lives? Why not in the daily tasks of washing dishes and doing laundry? Why not in the conversations at the gas station, the smiles at the Purple Cow, the passing glances at the grocery store, or any of the other moments in our lives when we are doing whatever it is we do, as children of God, whether or not we think we are “enough.”

When Isaiah says, “let all who are thirsty come to the water,” he doesn’t say, “let all who are thirsty and have done thirty push-ups,” or “let all who are thirsty and have been good people,” or “let all who are thirsty come to the water, as long as they have the right theology, read their scriptures every day, and haven’t ever broken God’s law.” No. Isaiah says, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.”

Our God is not an “if… then…” God, a God who counts up “enoughs” in a little ledger, with a shake of the head when the numbers don’t add up. Our God is God who is found in the most unexpected, “not enoughest” of places. Our God is not a God who waits for us to be able to reach the sippy cup ourselves, but a God who pushes it towards us, who picks it up, and brings it to us, cradling us in God’s arms while we drink. This is God who brings life everlasting through God’s Son, sent to us, who brings blessing and promise in the waters of baptism: plain water! Who brings healing and forgiveness in the bread and wine on this table: two simple foods. This isn’t a god of bacon-wrapped water chestnuts and triple mocha macchiatos. This is the God of bread, and wine. This isn’t a god who waits for us to be good enough, strong enough, kind enough, smart enough, rich enough, poor enough, happy enough, sad enough, or any other kind of enough. In fact, it is in our very not having enough…whatever… that God reveals God's awesome self and life-giving grace and glory. Whether it’s 5 loaves and 2 fish trying to feed the multitude, or our own shortcomings, failures, and flounderings… it is all more than bridged by God’s love and grace through Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t matter how far we think we have to go, it doesn’t matter if we are barely in reach of the cup, or if we haven’t even gotten in the same room. We can’t reach it ourselves no matter what we do. We’re human, mortal, sinful, and we always fall short, no matter how we wiggle our fingers and stand on our tippy-tippy-tippy toes. But if with 5 loaves and 2 fish, Christ makes a meal to fill the multitudes, AND have leftovers, then just imagine what God is doing with a messy world like ours, with messy people like us.

And while you’re imagining, come to the table. Come to the simple table of bread and wine, the table of forgiveness, of wholeness, of love. Come and know that you are loved, no matter who you are or how you are. Come to the table. Amen.

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. 

Post Christmas Sermon

December 27, 2009
Lessons and Carols Service

First Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6 (The Epiphany Prophecy)
Carol: The First Noel, vs. 1,3, and 5

Second Reading: Matthew 2:1-12 (The Visit of the Wise Men)
Carol: We Three Kings of Orient Are

Third Reading: Luke 2:22-40 (The Presentation in the Temple)
Carol: I Wonder as I Wander

Fourth Reading: Colossians 3:12-17 (The New Life in Christ)
Carol: Infant Holy, Infant Lowly

Fifth Reading: Luke 2:41-53 (The Boy Jesus At Jerusalem)

Carol: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

In the front of the sanctuary of the chapel at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia there is a commanding stained glass window depicting the scene from our last reading today. In the foreground is a young Jesus, conversing with several authoritative adults. In the background are Mary and Joseph, worried expressions on their faces, rushing through the door from their three day search for the boy. It is an interesting choice of scene for an educational environment, and many a professor has preached on the various layers of meaning that this window has for our community.

Stained glass windows have long been used as teaching devices in the Church. The educational tradition surrounding these windows is believed to have begun as a tool to educate a mostly illiterate population. While no longer serving this goal, church windows still depict everything from Biblical scenes to abstract moral concepts to historical moments, scenes important for the worshipping community to pass on to future generations.

The cathedral at Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, which contains nearly sixty-five hundred square feet of stained class, portrays over a thousand figures from the Bible. The nearby Chartres Cathedral, with 21,000 square feet of glass, contains images from the lives of the saints, as well as large windows illustrating such scenes as Noah and the flood, the Life of Christ, and the passion. Just down the road at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, stained glass windows immortalize various and diverse events from the life of Mary the Mother of Jesus and the last judgment to Maryland state heritage, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the lives of two Civil War generals, Robert E Lee and James “Stonewall“ Jackson, to humanity’s landing on the moon complete with an actual piece of moon rock.

Here at St John’s we have our own scene-filled windows. Not only aesthetically pleasing, their images, from the Christmas story to Luther translating the Bible to the building of the first American Lutheran church in 1646, educate parishioners and visitors alike of the events that are important to this congregation. These are snapshots from scripture and history that tell of the journey that has led to this place.

And that is what we have here in our readings today. Snapshots of Jesus’ early life. And this is pretty much all we have, this conglomeration of events from different Gospels that is put together to form our story.

It begins before His birth with the prophecy found in Isaiah. Like a sonogram picture, this snapshot is the promise of things to come, and, like some sonograms, it’s a little blurry, indistinct, and can be difficult to comprehend.

In some ways, Isaiah’s prophecy sounds a lot like the modern view of the Christmas season: “your children shall come from far away… the abundance of the seas shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.” Is Christmas not often celebrated today with families coming together and gifts being brought from around the world? But if we look closer, the deeper Christmas message is shouting itself from these words as well. The message of the coming of the light and the glory of the Lord. The message of the promise of light shining through the darkness, the gifts of gold and frankincense, all proclaiming of the praises of the Lord.

And the searching, the Christmas searching for the Christ child. How many generations have been hearing these words of Isaiah, hearing the promise in this snapshot, and searching, and hoping? And how do we today, hearing these words and this promise, search and hope for His return?

[PAUSE]

But let us turn to our next picture. The wise men. Here we have the traditional snapshot of the visitors that come to see the new baby bringing gifts and praises.

These visitors, however, are not your typical group of friends and family that may gather around the latest familial addition. These are scholars-- strangers from far away, carrying the prophesied gifts of gold and frankincense, searching for the king. The king who has been foretold of as a shepherding ruler, from a little town called Bethlehem, much like King David, the celebrated shepherd monarch of Israel. So they looked for him, following his star, to honor him.

And does this not sound so similar to our own searching? Our own quest for the “overwhelming joy” of finding the Christ Child, our own faith journeys, our own inquiries of others on how to find the way? Our own efforts to please the king and to praise him?

[PAUSE]

Our third picture: Jesus being presented in the Temple. Here we hear not only of an important religious milestone in young Jesus’ life, but of two devoted believers, who had been waiting for the Messiah. First, Simeon, a man who had been promised to see the Christ before his death. Second, Anna, herself a prophet, who praises God and spreads the word about Jesus to fellow seekers. The pronouncements here are prophecies of a similar strain to those in our earlier Isaiah reading. Except that now these prophecies have a being, a person, this young child.

Anna and Simeon are both typically portrayed as being elderly, although in our text only Anna is given a specific age. These two waited lifetimes to see the Savior. Lifetimes. In today’s rushed society, with commercial breaks every fifteen minutes encouraging shorter and shorter attention spans, in these days how long do we wait? We have been given a promise no less sincere, no less inspired, no less revelatory than Simeon’s. How long will we search?

[PAUSE]

Which brings us to our final picture. An annual family trip to Jerusalem, and a literal, physical search for a boy gone missing. The snapshot we are given is brief, and does little to describe the fervor with which his parents must have been searching. For three days they searched. Three days. And when they found him with the temple teachers, listening with understanding, not just answering questions, but asking them as well, when they found him their astonishment was echoed by his own: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

Church father and writer Origen of Alexandria reflects on this scene with the following:

“Not for nothing was it written: Your father and I have been looking for you anxiously. The search for Jesus must be nether careless nor indifferent, nor must it be only a transitory affair. Those who seek in this manner will never find him.

We must truly be able to say: We have been looking for you anxiously; if we can say this then he will reply to our wearing and anxious soul in the words: did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

So. Do we search anxiously, or do we allow each Christmas to pass, with celebration and joy, but no search, no quest for the Messiah, no anxiety. Christmas season comes each year, December the twenty-fifth will be there, right between the twenty-fourth and the twenty-sixth as it always is. So what do we search for, and how? And how does Jesus respond to our astonishment at discovery?

You may have noticed that our last two snapshots ended with similar phrases: “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” These may be all we have, but they are short stories, brief scenes from Jesus’ early life, and they don’t tell the whole story. They try, by filling in the time with a few phrases about growing and becoming strong, finding favor with God and being obedient to his parents. Eventually the words stop, though. But the story goes on.

The story goes on as our searching goes on. The stories don’t end with the end of our reading; no snapshot captures the whole picture. Ever notice that on Easter morning we say “Christ is risen”? Not “Christ was risen,” or “Christ was raised,” but “Christ is risen.” The story, the search goes on because we search for what we already have, what we continue to have, yet we cannot see it. We struggle to “lift up our eyes and look around” as Isaiah encourages us to do. But though we feel we are in darkness, Isaiah promises that “the Lord will arise upon [us] and his glory will appear over [us].”

As Isaiah’s hearers have been searching for the Messiah, as the wise men journeyed to the king, as Anna and Simeon waited lifetimes to see the promised one, and as Mary and Joseph scoured the city for their lost child, so do we search and journey and wait for the Christ, who is indeed in his Father’s house, whose story cannot be confined to the edges of a stained glass window or a selection of words on a page.

The story, the search, doesn’t end here, it didn’t end this past Friday night, it doesn’t end on Good Friday, it doesn’t end on Easter morning or on Pentecost. The story continues. Through the conversion of Paul on the window here in the front, the conversion of Constantine one down, throughout the Reformation events portrayed in the windows on the other side. The story continues. Through the invention of the Gutenberg Bible by the side door, through the building of the first American Lutheran Church across the aisle, through the formation of St John’s Lutheran church in 1920, second window from the back, through you and through me, through Christmas year after year, through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, and through, as Paul writes in our reading from Colossians today, through teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom… through all this, and through all else, the search goes on, the story continues. Amen.

Johannine Creed

For John, I have taken a bit of a different approach. Following are two scanned images of what I turned in. First, is the creed itself, in the form of a flow chart, with illustrations. Second, is a reduced copy of the flow chart, with explainations of the illustrations. Enjoy! (And remember that you can click on the images to see a larger view.)

essay + hat = essat

How to Write an Essay in the Style of Knitting a Hat

With smaller needles, CO 100 stitches
This is your thesis. You are establishing size and scope of your essat. If your essat will use multiple colors, you CO with your main color. Use a provisional CO so that you can come back and add a fancy border to your thesis if desired.

Join to begin working in the round, being careful not to twist.
This is where your essat truly begins. Your CO is all well and good, but it needs to relate to itself. Be careful not to twist, or you’ll end up with a useless essat, and when it comes time to decrease for the top, you’ll be in a world of hurt.

Set-Up Rows
Here you are getting ready. In the essat, this is commonly referred to as the “introduction” or "brim" or "hem." You are not to add anything to the thesis during this time. That would make your essat pucker at the beginning. You are to ensure that all aspects of the thesis are mentioned. Dropping stitches also troubles your essat.

Body: Switch to larger needles.
You are now working on the main part of your essat. Ideally, your essat will have three sections, as alluded to in your CO and set-up. In this case, and especially if your sections are based on changing colors or viewpoints, make sure your transitions between sections are smooth, and no puckering occurs when a new color or pattern section begins. You want a smooth line between all sections of the essat. Make sure to use all your stitches, although occasionally, for the sake of the pattern, it may be useful to slip a stitch until the next round.

Crown shaping:
This is where it all comes together. Ensuring that you are still maintaining the pattern set forth in the set-up rows, begin to bring your main points together. Ensure that, in decreasing, you are still paying mind to your thesis, and do not decrease unevenly around the essat.

Break yarn and draw through remaining stitches. Pull tight.
These are your final few sentences. What are you going to say that will tie it all together, so the whole piece doesn’t unravel, yet is still made from the material of the essat?

Weave in ends. 
Go over your essat, checking for any loose threads or pulled stitches. If you used a provisional cast on, go back and put a tidy edging on. Tuck everything in, make it neat and tidy.

Preparing for Preparation

Ever notice that you're never ready for Advent? You get your wreath out, you change your paraments (if you have paraments, or a blog that dresses according to the season), you begin to think of shopping and holiday travel, relatives and when you'll get the tree.

But these pre-Advent thoughts differ from the thoughts that happen during Advent. During Advent you think about the look on their faces as they open the perfect gift. You wonder if there'll be snow, and hope there won't be ice. If you're a student, you calculate how many pages you have left to write before Christmas. If you're a parent, you calculate how many times you'll hear questions about Santa, how many times they'll request to hear the same Christmas song again, how soon is too soon to put fresh sheet on your student's bed before they come home.

Today starts Advent, and, as usual, it hits with surprise. Even though we prepare for it, we are never really prepared for it. You show up for church in the morning and Boom! everything's blue (Lutherans use blue for Advent), the readings are from a different Gospel (each of the liturgical years follow a different Gospel: the year we just began is Luke), and suddenly we're singing Christmas songs and "People, Look East," and where did the time go? Now all those Advent questions have to be thought on. When will you get a tree and where will you put it? Who's coming over and when and what will they eat? And it's not just Christmas to prepare for, but winter. (Unless you're somewhere *cough*Iowa*cough* that already is wintered.) Do you have salt or sand in all the cars? What about emergency hats and gloves and such? If you get snowed in, do you have enough yarn?

Advent is my favorite season because it is the season that most reflects our lives. (Us being Christians.) We live in expectation that Christ will come again. In Advent we celebrate that expectation by remembering and celebrating the fulfillment of hope that was the first Christmas, and we look forward even more fervently to Christ's return. That's why so often in the lectionary the Advent readings are preparation-heavy. We "look east" and talk about John the Baptist advising us to prepare the way.

This Advent is a new adventure for me because I'm in a new preparation phase of life. We are all so often preparing for things. We spend the first 18 years of our lives "preparing" by going to school, learning social customs, language, and behavior. And we continue: we prepare for new family members, we prepare for the next holiday, we get dressed in the morning (prepare for the day), we prepare for the next big meeting, the next paper, the next performance, the next product update, the next big thing.

This is my first Advent while officially preparing for my career, and, as it's a career related to Advent, it's interesting to think about the connections between Advent and seminary.

But Advent's just starting, so they're young reflections and connections. Because the joy of Advent is that it isn't just four-ish weeks of preparation for Christmas, it's four-ish weeks of reminding us to prepare, daily, not just for who we want to be, but who we already are as children of God.

Luke/Acts Creed

Here is the creed for Luke/Acts. In case of screen resolution/width issues, I have put it in first as the form I composed it in (it ought to look like an angel), and second in typical format. It is again an acrostic.

God:                                                             God:
Glory                                                         Glory
Oh Lord                                                     Oh Lord
Obedient                                                   Obedient
Disciples                     we are                   believers
Do hear us               as we pray to you            do hear us
Receive our                                        prayers and
Restore in us                                    life to serve
Even as we are            reminded           to love you as
Each other and          as ourselves      we are commanded
Celestial beings         bring word       message from God
Cherubs and angels       glorify       God bringing hope.
Evil is fought and      overcome      by interpretation
Evil is the pain of    a society   which binds members
“In him is gladness, all bonds he breakest” and so now
In response to his calling, we now break away bonds
Vocation: we are called to worship, to prayer
Vocation: we are called into all the world
Entering the world we are sent out
Entering the world we go out
Spirit-led and guided we
Serve our neighbor with love
Giving ourselves and our lives to
God who we glorify and praise each day
Life and love and peace and hope we find
Look, he teaches us and now we must proclaim
Oh Lord, we pray to you to guide our voice and
Oh Lord, send us your Spirit that your message will
Resound throughout the earth as we interpret and teach that
Reality is divine action in the world though not all may see. We say:
Yes, to God we give praise, we pray, we sing, we dance, we pray, we proclaim
Yes, he meets us on the road, he breaks the bread, he opens our eyes, he lives!

GOD RECEIVES GLORY

God:
Glory.
Oh Lord
Obedient
Disciples we are believers
Do hear us as we pray to you do hear us

Receive our prayers and
Restore in us life to serve
Even as we are reminded to love you as
Each other and as ourselves: we are commanded
Celestial beings bring word: message from God
Cherubs and angels glorify God bringing hope.
Evil is fought and overcome by interpretation
Evil is the pain of a society which binds members
“In him is gladness, all bonds he breakest”# and so now
In response to his calling, we now break away bonds
Vocation: we are called to worship, to prayer
Vocation: we are called into all the world
Entering the world we are sent out
Entering the world we go out
Spirit-led and guided we
Serve our neighbor with love

Giving ourselves and our lives to
God who we glorify and praise each day
Life and love and peace and hope we find
Look, he teaches us and now we must proclaim
Oh Lord, we pray to you to guide our voice and
Oh Lord, send us your Spirit that your message will
Resound throughout the earth as we interpret and teach that
Reality is divine action in the world though not all may see. We say:
Yes, to God we give praise, we pray, we sing, we dance, we pray, we proclaim
Yes, he meets us on the road, he breaks the bread, he opens our eyes, he lives!

Matthew

This is part 2 in the creed series: Matthew. Where as the Markan Creed was written to be read aloud, in a rushing, rhythmic pattern, Matthew is of a more relaxed pace.

Gathered here, we are
Gathered for one purpose:
Goodness, and 
Guidance
Oh Lord who has called us,
Our deepest questions answered;
Oh Lord who has challenged us,
Our deepest beliefs realigned;
Do not leave us,
Disciples we have been
Don’t stop guiding us now that we are
Disciples no more, but apostles.

Under new authority: to
Us has been given the authority
Using us for God’s will
Us, who Jesus taught
No longer learners
Now we have been taught
Now we are sent out
Now we lead
Into the world: 
I am we and we are light.
Individuals joining to be groups:
I am we and we are salt
To serve or not to serve
To obey or not to obey
The choice belongs 
To all and all must choose
Every person has the choice
Every being has the ability
Each choice we make turns toward or away.
Even now we are called to be
Salt, we are
Salt, required for life;
Salt, we are called to be
Salt.

Professing repentance,
Proclaiming the only Father, God
Prophets and law guiding,
Praying even for our enemies.
Enemies and even evil which is temptation
Evil turns away from God’s will
Evil, the Evil, can be held back
Each must turn to the
One who is the Son of God,
Only He is our teacher,
Only He rose from the dead
Only He did we meet in Galilee.
Prescribed for us on the Mount, we
Pray as we have been taught, we
Pray as even He did that Night for God’s will, we
Pray for relationship, to be ourselves
Light, we are
Light required for life;
Light, we are called to be
Light.
Each of us is called
Each of us: to be leaders now
Each of us is called
Each of us: to do God’s will 

A silly little ghost story

Once, up on a thyme, there were three young fireflies. It is not well known, but true nonetheless, that young fireflies like sitting on thyme because it's good for hiding. For this story takes place not only in thyme, but on All Hallows Eve, a dangerous time for all young creatures.
Now this particular thyme was special, for it was an ancient plant, and had traveled long distances to reach its current situation near the fireflies’ home. In the outdoor section of the Ancient Museum there is a new exhibit being prepared for display. It is the exhibit of Ancient Plants, featuring those plants that were of various importances to the lives explained inside the museum. And this particular plant, housing our firefly friends, had come all the way from the Mediterranean. Being fireflies, though, they did not know of Mediterranean, or Museum, only of the odd changes in the wind that had led them to seek shelter.
“Is it done?” asked the first of the three, Luce, of Svet, who stood look-out.
“I’m not sure,” came the reply, for Svet was not looking-out as much as standing nearest the open sky with closed eyes.
“Wonder, wonder,” muttered Phos, “I feel so brave, so brave!” His voice grew as he inhaled the thyme, growing indeed in courage.
“HUSH,” whispered the other two, as loudly as they could, for a shadow fell at that moment over their hiding spot.
Indeed, they looked up, and through the cover of thyme they saw a horrid shape, wrapped in cloth, moving as if it couldn’t remember how. The three fireflies, though frightened, found courage in the thyme’s scent, and moved forward to watch the creature, whose scent had so frightened them originally. 
It was moving about the plants in the exhibition, slowly, slowly. As it moved about, it called the plants by name, and whispered, “Myrrh, no… no…Seker, guide me. Cotton, no… no…Athor, give me strength…” Indeed, every few steps it stumbled, and then renewed its search ever more intently.
At last it came upon the thyme plant, with our friends still inside. So entranced were they that they could not move, even as the strange voice uttered triumphantly, “THYME! My destruction! My preservation!” And with that, the creature leaned toward the plant and began harvesting, leaf by leaf, so carefully and cautiously that the fireflies, retreating toward the center, were shocked by the gentleness. At last, when nearly all the leaves were gone, and our friends were hiding only by digging into the soil below, the creature stopped.
“Why…” started Phos, before he could be quieted. 
But the creature paid no mind, and started only to ramble away. Svet flew forward, looking after the creature, while Luce and Phos looked around.
“No leaves. Where are the leaves?” Luce started to panic, “did he eat them?” For indeed, no remnants of the plant were left around.
“He wore them,” said Svet, softly. “Tucked them in and walked away.” For that is what had happened, and as Svet watched the creature tumble away, he could see the green poking out from beneath his bandages.

They flew straight home after that, no longer in the mood for All Hallows Eve tricks or treats. They were to spend the night together at Luce’s house, which suited them, for none wanted to fly home alone. Luce’s mother, Lux, noted their anxiety in their quickly flitting wings, and tucked a special herb under their pillows as they prepared for bed, to ward away bad dreams, and could not understand why they would not enter the room.

Thyme was used by many cultures for many different purposes. The ancient Greeks burned it as incense, believing it would provide courage. The ancient Egyptians used it in the embalming process. The ancient Romans used it under the pillow, to ward away bad dreams. Seker is the Egyptian god of light and guides souls to the underworld, while Athor is Ra’s daughter and the goddess of light.

Mark

So we have an assignment in my New Testament class involving each of the four Gospels. We are studying each one in turn, and as we finish each, we are to write a creed from the point of view of the specific Gospel writer. So, we just finished Mark, and I wrote a Markan Creed. 

Go now,
     Go and follow,
          Go preach what has been heard:
Out with the old
     Out with dusty prayers
          Out with rigid divisive laws
Demand change
     Desire the kingdom
          Demons, sickness, and death can no longer stand

By meeting Jesus
     By seeing him even crucified
          By acting, seeing, following, there is
Resurrection!
     Redemption!
          Rejoice!
Expect now apocalypse 
     Expect now newness
          Expect now salvation
Abandon your old life
     And move forward
          And preach repentance
Knead dough worthy
     Knead dough not of Herod or Pharisee
           Knead dough of Christ
Sown now are the seeds, though
     Seeds fall on different soils, and
           Soils determine the harvest.

Tell others
     Teach what he taught
          Tell all the world what he has done:
He spoke in parables
     He healed, he taught, he gave,
          He goes ahead to Galilee
Run to
     Run towards
           Run forward
Onward, followers
     Onward believers,
           Onward seekers!
Unbelief, if ye have it, cast aside!
     Unbelief will be your downfall
            Unbelief keeps you from healing
Go ahead 
     Go forward
           Galilee brings the promise:
Hope given for change;
     He waits ahead for us
           He promises the reign of God.