IN or OUT

Sorry for the late post this week. Just got busy and forgot. Life does move forward and things get pushed to the back of the line. No matter Here is last Sunday's sermon. Enjoy...

June 23, 2013  

Gal. 3:23-29

                                                                                   There is a Peanuts comic strip in which Linus is listening carefully as his sister, Lucy, boasts about her religious faith and her potential as an evangelist.

She says to Linus: "I could be a terrific evangelist. Do you know that kid who sits behind me in school? I convinced him that my religion is better than his religion."

Linus asks: "How did you do that?"

Lucy replies: "I hit him with my lunch box."

Prayer:

This morning my reflection will detour from the normal gospel stories, to a reflection from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians. We often don’t hear many sermons on Paul’s Letters in Lutheran circles. And that’s interesting on some levels because Luther spent a lot of time in Paul’s writings… particularly in the Letter to the Romans. In fact… Luther… was an Old Testament scholar before he discovered Paul & the grace of God found in Jesus thru the gospels. For Luther… Paul’s writings were the inspiration for Holy Living which ultimately comes thru Jesus.

Another reason Lutheran’s tend to hear few sermons on Paul’s letters is they tend to be… from our perspective… judgmental in tone, rather than loving as pastors have tended to portray the gospels. Truth is… Jesus does a fair amount of condemnation in the gospel stories, though pastors tend to down play it. In reality… Paul does write about the love of God in Jesus, but we tend to glaze over and emphasis it less. However, without Paul… we as Jesus followers & Christians of all stripes would not have the fullest understanding of God’s Grace thru Jesus and the significance of the cross.

It’s true… Paul’s letters to the various churches & faith communities are letters of challenge & rebuke about how the Christian life should be lived furthering the protestant moral ethic many of have learned challenging us today as that ethic unravels. And that’s another subject for another day.

Let’s begin by looking at the context of our Galatian excerpt… this is one of Paul’s earliest writings & experiences as a new Christ followers. And in the churches of Galatia he runs into difficulty because the people there don’t trust him.

We need to remember… Paul is a relatively new follower of Jesus and his past always seems to show up when he’s around people. Remember… Paul was a Pharisee and in charge of rooting out Jesus followers by whatever means… even murder.

So… as you might imagine… Paul’s reputation precedes him and people are a bit reluctant to believe his conversion experiences. So Paul often couches his conversations around his knowledge of the Law as a comparison to his new experiences with Jesus. And he does this by challenging the Galatian church to think outside the box on who’s IN and who’s OUT?

Evangelist Greg Laurie says, “Jesus did not command the world to go to church, rather Jesus commanded the church to go to the world. What a person does with this depends on if you see yourself as “In or Out of the Box.”

So… a natural question is… “Are you IN or are you OUT?

You see… Paul is talking to mostly Jewish folk who thought they were the only ones IN… they were Jewish and God covenant people. He’s talking to those who believed in the Law and obeying all the rules of the Law… because they were the IN ones… the ones with the promised God covenant. Vs 23-24. Paul isn’t telling them the Law & rules are necessarily wrong, but that the Law doesn’t make you acceptable to God. In fact… he says the Law is good because it teaches us right & wrong. But there’s more than just the rules… in fact… the rules don’t mean anything… they don’t mean your IN… in fact they may keep you OUT!

Faith Supersedes the Law.

What Paul is saying is that there is more than just the rules… a person must have faith and that… supersedes the law. What does that mean?

It means that just because you follow the rules, or your name is on a registry, or you attend, or follow the traditions doesn’t automatically put you IN.

Jesus says in Matt. 7, “Not everyone who calls me Lord will get into the kingdom of heaven.”

Paul is saying… Faith in Jesus gets us IN and the Law, Rules, Traditions limit us in experiencing the fullness of God.

So… maybe the question should be… What gets us IN?

Faith in Jesus at Baptism

Paul states in Vs 26-27… “That All are children of God thru faith in Jesus at baptism.” In baptism… God comes to us thru faith and grabs hold of us…  Go Grab Some Hands… In baptism God grabs hold of us and never lets go. Oh… we try to turn the other way, but God is still holding on. We might think our way is best, but God still holds on tight. In baptism God makes us his own. In baptism God sets us free… as Pauls says, “we are no longer Greek or Jew, Slave or Free, Man or woman, Child or Adult all of us belong to Christ.” We are all part of the community of faith in Jesus.

WE ARE ALL IN!!!!

Faith in Jesus as Participants.

If Paul is correct… All are IN by faith, thru grace, thru baptism, then how might we begin to encourage ourselves to set aside the Law, the Rules, the Traditions so that ALL can claim faith in Jesus?

….. Pause for Reflection….

How do we participate in what God is currently doing so all can claim faith in Jesus?

 Lutheran Theologian David Lose states, “it’s about the role each of us are invited to play in sensing, experiencing, and making known God’s work in the community.”

Perhaps the bigger question is… How much are we willing to lose so that all can claim Jesus… ALL can have Faith and be IN?

I’d like to finish with all of us praying this prayer together… this prayer is from Pr. Meredith Musaus from Holy Cross Lutheran, Menomonee, Wi.

L: Let us pray together.

C: Your church is composed of people like me.
   - I help make it what it is.
   - It will be friendly, if I am.
   - Its pews will be filled, if I help fill them.
   - It will do great work, if I work.
   - It will make generous gifts to many causes, if I am a generous giver.

   - It will bring other people into its worship and fellowship, if I invite  

     and bring them.
   - It will be a church where people grow in faith and serve you, if I am

     open to growth and service.

Therefore, with your help Lord, we shall dedicate ourselves to the task of being all the things you want your church to be.    Amen. 

See You out on the Road

Really Jesus... Forgive a Sinner?

June 16, 2013                                        

Luke 7:36-8:3

Story: Bill Cosby talks about the difference between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. He insists that Mother’s Day is a much bigger deal because Mothers are more organized. Mothers say to their children: Now here is a list of what I want. Go get the money from your father and you surprise me on Mother’s Day.

For Father's Day, I give each of my five kids $20 so that they can go to the store and buy me a present--a total of $100. They buy two packages of underwear, each of which costs $5 and contains three shorts. They tear them open and each kid wraps up one pair, the sixth going to the Salvation Army. Therefore, on Father's Day I’m walking around with new underwear and my kid's are walking around with $90 worth of my change in their pockets.

Adapted from Fatherhood by Bill Cosby (Source: Brett Blair)

Prayer:

There is really a lot in this story one could talk about, but I’m going to narrow it down and focus on the two main characters… the sinful woman and Simon the Pharisee. And also Luke presents an interesting story that the other gospel writers don’t write about… in fact the others don’t even tell this story. Matt, Mark & John tell a similar story of Mary of Martha & Mary fame where Mary pour perfume on Jesus’ feet and dry’s them with her hair. However…  in this story there is a sinful woman and a righteous Pharisee… the other, a righteous woman and indignant disciple… Judas.

This story is also different because Luke’s Jesus tends to present women in a more favorable light and Luke’s Jesus tends to do a lot more forgiving of sinners than the other gospels. This seems to go against all the rules of the church because Jesus… the prophet… is forgiving sinners thus pushing aside the Pharisee’s position, and eliminating a revenue stream for them. Furthermore this also starts a cat & mouse game between Jesus and the religious elite… and we know how this ends.

This story about two completely different people is also a story about forgiveness and the gratitude that forgiveness creates. It’s also a story about hardness of heart & Judgment & entitlement as opposed to love & forgiveness & gratitude.

This story begins with an invitation for Jesus to share a meal with a top Pharisee and then goes against all conventional wisdom & rules when this so called sinful woman showers Jesus with extravagant hospitality over against Simon the Pharisee’s lack of hospitality.  And all of this changes the focus of why Simon invited Jesus over in the first place.

However… this story really begins before Jesus even gets the invite to dinner. Jesus forgave this woman previously and now she buys some expensive perfume and displays her deep gratitude towards Jesus by washing his feet. This outburst shocks Simon and his other guests saying, “If this man were really a prophet, he would know that this woman was a sinner.” But Jesus did know… that’s why he forgave her previously. Jesus then tells a short parable of who is more thankful of a person, one who owed more or a person who owed less after their debts are forgiven.

Simon says, “I suppose the one who’d owed more.” I wonder if this is how Jesus responded… Really Simon…. You suppose… of course the one who owed more!! Then Jesus traps Simon and I think us too… in our judgment with his next comments…

Simon… Have you noticed this woman? Have you really noticed her!

Simon did you give me water to wash my feet… like she washed my feet?

She washed them with her tears and dried them with her hair.

Simon… You didn’t greet me with a kiss, but she can’t stop kissing my feet.

Simon… You didn’t pour oil on my head, but she poured expensive perfume on my feet.

Yes… I forgave her of her sins and she does all of this out of great love.

What have you done… Simon?

Jesus forgives her again… in front of everyone…and SHOCK… who is this who forgives sins? What they are saying is… REALLY JESUS… FORGIVE A SINNER?

Well… YES… it’s what the ministry of Jesus was all about… to demonstrate God’s Love & Forgiveness.

For this woman… this story of forgiveness is a blessing and she expresses gratitude because she knows she needs it.

For Simon… I think he’s pretty sure he doesn’t need forgiveness.

o   He obeys the law and all the rules.

o   He’s a righteous one.

o   In fact… not only doesn’t he need forgiveness… the very mention of this is threatening & offensive.

o   And over time he becomes angry and ultimately it will lead to violence.

Closing:

This story in our lectionary when pointed out is one we might not want to hear about. But it is a story that needs to be pointed out as we in our lives often become more self-righteous than we ought to be. And we’ve all fallen into this at some point in our lives and our lives as church.

Many of us would like to identify with the woman, but often find ourselves or the church like Simon the Pharisee: Simon the judgmental, Simon the arrogant, Simon who couldn't even show the common courtesy of a welcoming kiss, but who still believed himself several cuts above the repentant woman.

The problem if we are like Simon, we are often blind to our need for forgiveness. Jesus did not tell the parable of the two debtors for the woman's benefit, but for Simon's. When a person suffers from sin-hiding blindness, it often takes direct confrontation to expose those characteristics to force insight.

If we don't see any of Simon in our own character, it may be we are blind to owning up to ourselves...but it could be because Simons always have trouble seeing themselves as they are. Jesus confronted Simon with the parable to make him see. We can use the parable in the same way to confront ourselves with the truth, then such forgiveness can take place in our lives and in the life of the faith community.

See You Out on the Road

Healing Like Jesus

June 9, 2013                                                       

Luke 7:11-17

Pr.  Jim Arends of Trinity Lutheran Church, Spring Grove, Minnesota, tells of an old cartoon that pictures a pastor at the pulpit and a deacon sitting behind him with a grumpy expression on his face. The pastor says, "So until next Sunday, remember that God loves you, I love you and Brother Al behind me is working on it."

Prayer

As I prepared this message a teenager was shot and killed in the city of Flint which is near where I live. I’m sure this is repeated in the city of Detroit as well. To say that God loves you and I love you seems like a ridiculously easy thing to do… yet ridiculously hard thing to accomplish given the places we live in.

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen expressions of both hate and love. Hate in our streets, destructive & deadly tornadoes, and love by those who drop everything to help. Even where I live where a tornado touched down and damaged several homes… people from our community showed up in droves to help and care for those affected. Literally thousands of people over the past couple of weeks have offered love & compassion to those whose lives had been turned upside down. And…. We see such love from the people in our bible story this morning.

Vs 12… “they saw many people walking and carrying the body of the widow’s only son.”

I can’t imagine what this would be like. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child… the hurt must be devastating. For this widow… not only is it her only son, but also her means of support and survival. Most women we not self-supporting in Jesus’ day and you don’t have to go back to far in this country for the same comparisons. Women relied on husbands and sons for their economic livelihood and survival. Luke’s story doesn’t mention daughters, so we assume this widow is now alone and in a world of hurt, both from an economic stand point as well as from an emotional stand point. And now Jesus and friends encounter a funeral procession. My bible version, CEV says, “He (Jesus) felt sorry for her”… The NIV has a better translation… “His (Jesus) heart went out to her.” Which I believe is the heart of the story and how Jesus wants us to respond in our lives.

What is happening here is Jesus has COMPASSION for this widow. Feeling sorry for someone doesn’t really impact a hurting person like your heart going out towards someone. Feeling sorry for someone doesn’t really inspire you to respond. But, the heart going out… that does something. If your heart is affected… you have compassion and compassion I believe not only inspires, but empowers a response.

In Luke’s story… Jesus not only heals the son, but resurrects him back to life. This is 1 of 4 resurrection stories in the gospels.
    Mark 5… Jairus’s Daughter

     John 11… Lazarus… and of course Jesus’ resurrection.

While Jesus has the authority to heal and bring people back to life… and while we don’t have the authority to raise people from death back to life… I do believe we have the limited authority to heal people from hurts & pain. And we do this when we have compassion and love for others. When we open our arms to others hurt and pain we are embracing them in God’s love and compassion… this plays a huge roll in a person’s healing.

How does this happen?

First… by Paying Attention.

Are we paying attention to those around us? Jesus is walking along, sees a funeral procession & notices the mother… and then responds. Not only does he notice her… His heart went out to her… he has compassion. Whose hurting here at Cana? Are we noticing them? Do we see their tears… their hurt… their struggle? Are we paying attention???

Second… Do we Care?

A colleague says it this way, “Do we give a crap about others? It’s easy to just keep walking like those who didn’t stop in the Good Samaritan story in Luke 10. How many people walked by the beaten and hurting guy? But the unlikely Samaritan cares and stops to help. Do we care? Or are we so tied up in our own stuff… our own politics, rules, church prerogatives we don’t even notice? Do We Care?

Third… Are We Willing to Feel?

Jesus’ heart went out to her… Jesus was willing & open to feeling the woman’s hurt. This is compassion… and I admit that I sometimes struggle with this… I believe we all do in some fashion. Feeling… having Compassion is at the heart of healing.

For us as Christians… the dead are healed… they are made whole in Christ… there’s no more hurt & pain. Salvation has come. The living however… there’s where healing needs our attention.

Diana Butler Bass states in her book, “The End of the Church & The Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening,” she says, “The word Salvation has come to mean eternal life in most religious circles, it is helpful to return to the words Latin root… “Salvus”… meaning Whole, Sound, or Healed as a way to understand health and wellbeing.”

What she’s saying is healing doesn’t only upon death… healing can happen when Salvation is expressed as Compassion we embrace the healing of one’s spirit. So… can we in this faith community have compassion for others? This is an important question to ask ourselves. There are some of you that are hurting... you’ve lost your pastor. I want you to know that I understand… I’ve had to endure this kind of hurt as well… I feel your hurt… if you want to talk… I am available for you… to listen, to love, to embrace you with compassion.

Church… can our hearts go out to those hurting? Can we embrace one another in love? If we can… healing will take place… it may not be all that supernatural or immediate, but the pathway to healing will happen. If we can demonstrate as individuals… and as a faith community this kind of love & compassion… then we will heal like Jesus.

Closing:

Ask congregation to clench their hands to make a fist… Do you feel the tenseness.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, said this: "Because of our faith in Christ and in humankind, we must apply our humble efforts to the construction of a more just and humane world. And I want to declare emphatically: SUCH A WORLD IS POSSIBLE.

To create this new society we must present outstretched, friendly hands, without hatred, without rancor - even as we show great determination, never wavering in the defense of truth and justice. Because we know that seeds are not sown with clenched fists.

TO SOW WE MUST OPEN OUR HANDS."

--10 December 1980 Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, as quoted in Anne Broyles, Meeting God Through Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 84.

We mustn’t only open our hands, but open wide our embrace of the other.

Can we open our hands and arms wide to embrace love and compassion of others? Can we have a wide embrace of the other to at least begin the healing?

See You Out on the Road

Faith Transitions

June 2, 2013                                                         Luke 7:1-10

The new pastor was standing in a receiving line after his first worship service. Everyone was telling him what a 'nice' sermon it was, when a strange-looking guy came through the line, grabbed his hand, and said, 'Pastor, that was the worst sermon I ever heard.'

The pastor was a little surprised, but went right on shaking hands. A few minutes later the same guy came through the line again. This time he said, 'That sermon had nothing to do with the text.'

Later, this same fellow showed up a third time: 'Pastor,’ 'If all your sermons are as boring as that one, I'm never coming back here again.'

At that point, a long-time member of the congregation took the pastor aside and said, 'Don't worry about him. He's just a little crazy. He just repeats what he hears everyone else saying.'
As retold by James A. Harnish, First Things First, 14 June 1992, Tampa, Florida.

Prayer:

Well… here we are… as Bob Dylan has sung… “The times…. They are a changing.”

Faith transition are upon us again for many of you, and for some this is a new experience. So… this Faith Transition will be different and will likely produce a variety of emotions. Some of these emotions will tug at your hearts and others will cause you to reassess what you once may have thought or believed. This transition… I hope… will be a different journey, and like the image on the screen of the new growth taking place… will be a journey of new growth taking place here art Cana.

There will be some of you who will wonder why we don’t just get on with it, and yet for others this is a time of sadness and anxious time… an uncertain time. For other this journey will feel at times like being on a roller-coaster… and at other times like you’re walking in a dry & dusty wilderness. Please know that this is normal… and I promise you that no matter what happens… we will walk through it together, and it will be OK.

No matter how you feel about this journey… journey’s are not by nature meant to be quick and fast. And… NO… I will not be able to pull out a magic wand and make everything new… or better… or fixed. But I promise you… at in the end… you will experience GREAT joy as you will be ready & prepared to call your new pastor. And I can tell you… God has already chosen the person he wants at Cana and is preparing that person to come. Until that time… we have work to do… ministry to carry out… preparations to make… so there is no need or reason to worry.

I believe Jesus spoke about several times about not worrying. So… I’m not worried and neither should you be…

After-all you have “me” as your pastor… and I will be here for you and for all those special moments we will experience together.

You will also be empowered to live out your giftedness and passions for serving the Lord. And you will discover new opportunities for ministry.

“Great Opportunities” 

You are going to have great opportunities to…

-       Rediscover Cana Lutheran

-       Opportunities to deepen your faith.

-       And …Opportunities to open yourselves to being shaped and formed by a loving and grace-filled God.

This might sound freighting to some of you, but transitions are nothing new. They’ve been going on since the beginning of time and they will continue as much as we might not like them too. Our Psalm reading today speaks of transition… The Psalmist says, “Sing a new song to the Lord… everyone sing praises to the Lord… day after day the Lord has saved us.”

Think of the transitions of Abraham & Sarah… Being asked to give up their homeland and move to a place they had never heard of. Think about having children in their 90’s. Is there anyone here in their 90’s? How would you like that transition? Not me. Yet God’s promise of something new would come from them. There were obstacles & delays, but in the end God kept his promise.

In our Gospel story Jesus is asked to heal the servant of a Roman Soldier… a person who is occupying their homeland… a person who is hated by the Jewish people… think of it… this Roman comes and asks a Jew to help him. And Jesus does help this guy. There’s no mention of his faith prior to coming to Jesus. The Roman Soldier however, does understand Jesus’ God-given authority and because of this recognizes that Jesus has the ability & the authority to do something pretty amazing… like healing people. Then the transition takes place. Jesus is stopped prior to getting to the officers home and is asked to heal the servant from a distance because the Soldier doesn’t feel worthy that’s when Jesus shocks the people around him when he says, “In all of Israel I’ve never found anyone with this much faith.”  The people are shocked because they thought Jesus was for them only.

In this transition of Jesus… Jesus reaches beyond the Jews and loves someone new. Jesus opens his arms wide to embrace someone whom might not have any kind of faith at all. It’s a transition that was particularly difficult to walk through, but Jesus walked with his friends and they experienced newness and growth.

What Does this Transition Mean for Cana?

It means, “The process by which individuals and congregations deal with change, and discover new options by which they will create the new opportunities to grow in faith, mission, and God’s vision.”

It is only thru transition that we become transformed people of God to claim our place and purpose in God’s neighborhood.

Some of you may be thinking… why all of this is necessary?

As Rev Dr Les Robinson says of interim ministry, “The Interim time is an opportunity for the faith community to look at how the community of faith relates to one another, the surrounding neighborhood, and the wider church. It is a time for the congregation to discover their identity apart from the pastor of the church. It’s an opportunity to develop a vision of the spiritual needs of people, and empower ministry beyond themselves.”

I would add…it’s an opportunity to find clarity in what God is calling you to be about.

And this is my role as Interim Pastor, to help you discover these elements of ministry and to keep you focused on God. To keep you moving forward and focused on what God desires of you.

We can look at this a couple of ways… Pr Ray Kerley shares this story of a pilot.

"Pilot to tower ... pilot to tower ... I am 300 miles from land ... 600 feet over water ... and running out of fuel .... Please instruct!"

"Tower to pilot ... tower to pilot ... repeat after me: 'Our Father, which art in heaven ...'"
--Ray Kerley, ECULAUGH, April 12, 1998.

Or as one of my favorite authors and mentors the late Henri Nouwen says,

“Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness. Hoping is knowing that there is love; it is trust in tomorrow; it is falling asleep and waking again when the sun rises. In the midst of a gale at sea, it is to discover land. In the eyes of another, it is to see that he/ she understands you. As long as there is still hope, there will also be prayer. And God will be holding you in his hands.”
--Henri Nouwen, With Open Hand, 85.

My new friends… I believe we are living in a new hope. The journey of something new begins… Over the next weeks & months you will have opportunities to express what & how this new thing might look. There will be opportunities to reflect on the past and to celebrate all the good that has been accomplished. A time to grieve the sad, and to bury the not so good. And then dream big dreams of what God will do thru us. Jesus says, “If you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourselves, take up your cross and follow me.” We are looking for some faithful followers of Jesus… are you one of them?

Transitions take time… we mustn’t be in a hurry… this is an important time of discovery. God already knows who your next pastor will be, and is preparing that person to be your pastor. You must also prepare to receive this person.

Our goal is to remain faithful to God’s process and to remember....

The LORD said: One of my Favorite passages… Isa. 43:19

                                 I am creating something new.                         

                                There it is! Do you see it?                                                                                               

See You Out on the Road