Reformation Sunday Message

Since I last posted, much has happened. Through one of my classes I spend several hours a week with a wonderful rural congregation and their pastor. The pastor and her family were away this weekend, so I had the opportunity to supply preach and conduct a service of the Word. Here is the passage and following that is the text of my sermon. Enjoy!

John 8:31-36

³¹Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” ³³They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” ³⁴Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

As Americans, freedom is a concept we’re very familiar with. We fought for freedom from the British to form our own nation. Throughout our history we have fought on behalf of others for their freedom from oppression. We have parades on various patriotic holidays to help us celebrate our liberty from oppression.

We know a lot about freedom… or do we? Just what is the kind of freedom Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel text?

This passage begins in a curious fashion referring to the Jews who had believed in Jesus. But what about the Jewish groups like the Pharisees who were always trying to trip up Jesus? There are several meanings for the word translated Jews. Here it refers to the Jewish people in Jerusalem who had been listening to Jesus' teaching in the temple and had believed his claim to be the Messiah. So this group already believed in Jesus, but the exchange between them has an odd twist.

Jesus said to them, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." There are two unusual things about this statement. First, if they were already believers in Jesus, wouldn’t they already be disciples who knew the truth? Are there levels of discipleship? Is Jesus saying that there are those that follow from a distance and those that follow more closely? Are we among those who casually follow Jesus or are we seeking to continue in Jesus’ word to truly be his disciples? I believe that here Jesus was challenging those Jews who believed and that he is challenging us today as well about how committed we are to discipleship.

And just what is truth? In our day, isn’t truth considered relative? What’s true for you may not be true for me and vice versa. Truth here refers to the revelation of God that Jesus brings or perhaps, to Jesus himself for what he actually is as the revelation of God according to one scholar.

Another curious thing is the way the Jews respond to Jesus’ statement. Jesus speaks of spiritual freedom and they understand it as political freedom. Have you ever had disconnects in conversations where you’re just not on the same page? This happened to us regularly when we would order pizza from various places in Gettysburg. If the delivery person didn’t know anything about the seminary, we would eventually get a call. “Hello, I’m here at Gettysburg College, where are you?” Well we don’t live at Gettysburg College, but at the seminary. “Did you say you’re at the cemetery?” No, not the cemetery, the seminary! We have finally found one pizza place that can always find us, so it’s the only one we order from.

These Jewish believers were not on the same page as Jesus. If Jesus is saying that the truth makes them free, then they would have to be in some kind of bondage, otherwise there would be no need for freedom. They took offense at this and responded that they’d never been slaves of anyone. Oh really?? What about the story of Moses who set the Jewish people free from Egypt? And what about the time the people were taken into captivity in Babylon? And if that’s not enough, what about the fact that at the time of Jesus they were under Roman occupation? Never been slaves to anyone????

What is it about this freedom Jesus offers that is so different? One writer suggests:

Only in this passage does "freedom" language appear in John. Jesus' mention of freedom offends his hearers, who insist they have always enjoyed freedom (even though, ironically, Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries live under Roman rule). But Jesus contends that without him they live as slaves. First, they are enslaved to sin, living as oppressed people. Second, this slavery relegates them to inferior status; because of it they cannot claim a permanent place or identity in God's family. Jesus then shifts his household metaphor to suggest that, as "Son," only he can ensure true freedom and secure membership in God's family.

The sin to which they are enslaved is unbelief, not moral error. Sometimes we think because we don’t do awful things, we aren’t so bad. But we all struggle with unbelief from time to time.

How does Jesus’ claim apply to us? What should our response be? One commentator writes:

To take seriously Jesus' claims about setting us free is to take seriously the proposition that we are all enslaved to powers beyond our ability to master. Reformation Day offers a suitable occasion for considering the ways in which we often find ourselves enslaved to particular religious identities, heritages, and practices, all the while pretending that dwelling in those things is the same as dwelling in Jesus and his word.

Continuing in God’s word, being a disciple, knowing the truth and being set free is not about our heritages and practices. Truth in John’s gospel is the revelation of God in Christ. Discipleship is knowing the Truth. In fact it’s more than just knowing the truth; it’s the basis for living.

So, we can look at what Jesus is saying as a type of equation: If you continue in my Word, then you are truly my disciples, you will know the truth, the truth will set you free. We are freed from slavery to sin, but we are also freed for something. Through remaining in or welcoming Jesus’ word, we know the reality about God and this reality is what frees us. We do not have to fear divine punishment. If we sin, and we will, the word assures us of forgiveness, not punishment for those who believe. This frees us to serve not only God, but our neighbor.

Because of reformers long ago like Martin Luther, we have the freedom to read the Bible in our own language, the freedom to partake of both the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, the freedom to serve God as a pastor and be married and the list goes on. But mostly, as we gather together today as a community of faith, we celebrate the freedom in Christ that has brought us here to this place and made us brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

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The Proof of Christianity

I read the following tonight during my devotions using Minister's Prayer Book by John W. Doberstein. Each day of the week is devoted to a different aspect of ministry. Tuesday concerns the minister's life. One of the reflections included for today was written by Kierkegaard (pictured at right). I found it very thought provoking and sobering.

Order the parsons to be silent on Sundays. What is there left? The essential things remain: their lives, the daily life with which the parsons preach.Would you, then, get the impression by watching them, that it was Christianity they were preaching?

By God's grace, may our lives speak of the life of Christ and him crucified, buried, and raised.

Picture from Encarta

Prayer for Sunday

Thanks to Rev Abi for this morning's prayer.

Lord,
Come be the salt in our life that we then can be the salt in other’s lives.
Lord, Teach us how to not be stumbling blocks in the little one’s lives.
Lord, teach us to accept each other even though we are different in our practices and our form of worship and church government.
Lord, Teach us to be the salt that this world needs.
Lord, help us in our walk to be your disciples.
Lord remind us it is for such a time as this that you have called us to be your disciples, to spread the salt of your grace and love in this world.
Lord remind us to spread your hope in a world that sometimes feels hopeless.
Amen

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On Being Found

I read the following tonight for my own night prayer. God spoke to me so profoundly through the words that I practiced lectio divina (meditative reading) with them. I was brought to a place of feeling like a lost little girl being shown the way home. It's from the book Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Deignan, pp. 66-67.

And he called out to me from his own immense depths.

Silence

Litany

Teach me to go to this country beyond words and beyond names.

Teach me to pray on this side of the frontier, here where these woods are.

I need to be led by you.

I need my heart to be moved by you.

I need my soul to be made clean by your prayer.

I need my will to be made strong by you.

I need the world to be saved and changed by you.

I need you for all those who suffer, who are in prison, in danger, in sorrow.

I need you for all the crazy people.

I need your healing hand to work always in my life.

I need you to make me, as you made your Son, a healer, a comforter, a savior.

I need you to name the dead.

I need you to help the dying cross their particular rivers.

I need you for myself whether I live or die.

It is necessary. Amen.

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Summons to Service

It's been a very long time since I posted. I've been juggling sickness and classes, but I think I'm back now. Here is a sermon I preached for my Preaching Mark class based on tomorrow's gospel text.

The Holy Gospel according to Mark.

“What did you say? What were you talking about?” Many of us have heard the all too familiar answer, “Nothing.” Of course that’s because the children know they have been caught. The disciples’ responded to Jesus’ similar inquiry with silence, perhaps because they were ashamed, perhaps because Jesus had just been teaching them of his upcoming death and resurrection. And the topic of their conversation—who is the greatest?

The setting is Capernaum in Galilee, Jesus’ home base there, It is from this place he began his Galilean ministry according to Mark. This passage follows the Transfiguration and some healings. For the second time, Jesus teaches of his approaching death and resurrection.

In verse 33, “After Jesus was inside the house he asked them, ‘What were you discussing on the way?’” Ask, in this context can have a variety of meanings: inquire, interrogate, demand of. These other shades of meaning show us what a serious matter this was for Jesus. The disciples just kept getting it wrong, missing the point.

Verse 34 says, “But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.” This was not an abnormal thing for the time, to compare rank and dignity. The operative social system in Jesus’ time was based upon honor and shame. To increase one’s status and standing could be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as affiliating oneself with and serving one of higher status. Argue can also be translated contend or dispute. This is what they fought about—concerned themselves with… status. Doesn’t this sound like us today in the 21^st century? Jesus’ told them repeatedly that he would embrace crucifixion, the ultimate act of sacrifice and shame. What irony.

Jesus’ teaching that follows this incident stands in sharp relief to the actions and attitudes of the disciples. In verse 35, Jesus sat down, in the typical posture for a rabbi, and called the disciples. This call of Jesus is laden with meaning. One commentary suggested this may indicate a renewed call to discipleship. He called them to himself. He summoned them.

The summons was, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." What’s going on here? This was a call to a role reversal unlike any other. Here was a summons to service.

Service is good, but is that what most parents think of wanting for their children? We want them to go to school, get a good education, so they can get a good job. Yes, it’s important for them to be happy and to be good people. But to be last, to be servant of all is not the way we would imagine life for our children. It counters the nature of our social order. Jesus’ summons however is to service. It was the call Jesus challenged his disciples to then and it is the call for us as well.

Jesus’ comparing of first and last in this verse is the way one would compare a series of objects or events. (that’s first, second, third, and last…)

What kind of servants is Jesus asking for? This is not the word that is translated as slave in other parts of Scripture. The servant of all is diakonos. It’s the word from which deacon is derived. The servant of a king would be a diakonos. Figuratively speaking it concerns those who advance the interests of others even at the sacrifice of their own welfare. Let us make no mistake…the call, the summons of Jesus is to sacrificial service. In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers this perspective, “When Jesus calls us, he bids us come and die.” That is the sort of service to which Jesus calls.

“He took a little child and had him stand among them.” Much as the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures did, Jesus acts out a parable. Some of us need to see, not just hear how to do something. Jesus did not have this child stand off at a distance, but among them, in their midst. Such a child was far more than a prop or visual aid, but belonged there, in the home where the teaching was taking place.

Children in Jesus’ culture were not given the type of consideration ours are today. This whole scene has nothing to do with the inherent innocence or faith of children. I can remember many times my own children were anything but innocent. Children were considered weak, insignificant, of low status, nuisances that did nothing useful. They were not considered, but were like non-entities until they grew enough to contribute to society.

Now Jesus takes this one step further, not only did the child stand with Jesus in the midst, but Jesus took the child into his arms. This person of little status and stature, a seeming non-person without rights was embraced by Jesus.

Jesus then proceeds to tell the disciples, ³⁷ "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

In this one statement, Jesus uses “welcome” four times. Just what does this mean? It goes beyond the confines of our words welcome, accept, or receive, but is like receiving a child into one’s family in order to bring up and educate. This is not mere toleration of such little ones, but making them part of your family—those who have nothing to give you in return, who cannot help you get ahead.

In the honor/shame world of Jesus and the disciples, a time when people sought connections to those who could help them achieve a higher station in life, Jesus connected himself with those who could do nothing for him and taught his disciples to do so as well.

There is also an implied hierarchy in this last verse: God with Jesus as representative, Jesus with the apostles as his representatives and so forth. If you receive Jesus, you receive the Father. If the children are welcomed, Jesus is welcomed. If that happens, then the Father is welcomed. If the children, those of low status are welcome, the Father is welcomed. Receiving and serving those the world discounts is welcoming God. Eugene puts it this way, “Alongside the ‘official’ apostles stand the weak and vulnerable, who also mediate the presence of Christ” (p. 281).

As God summons us for service, how will we respond? Will our concern be the pecking order? Are we jockeying for position on one committee as opposed to another to have greater leverage? Or will our concern be how we are to answer Jesus’ call to serve those no one wants any part of? Let us not miss the presence of Christ in all God brings our way. ³⁷ "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

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Laying Aside

I was moved to tears by Bishop Mark Hanson's closing charge at the end of this afternoon's plenary session of the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA. Overcome by emotion himself, he pleaded that we in this church refrain from labeling each other; that rather we remain in conversation with those whom we may disagreee with, that we tell the story of what God in Christ Jesus has done.

The particular label Bp. Hanson referenced was fearful. After the decisions made this week at the assembly, there are those who are fearful of what this means for our church. With Bp. Hanson, I would call each of us to lay aside the labels: conservative, liberal, progressive, fearful, bold...whatever they may be that we so dismissively affix to ourselves and others. Once labeled, we don't have to listen to these people because we think we already know what they're going to say by virtue of the label we have classified them with.

For shame! Such diminishing of one another as God's children is sinful. It is also not helpful. This is the challenge before us:

Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! (Hebrews 12:1, The Message)

The NRSV translates it thus.

Let us lay aside the labels as the sin they are and keep our eyes on Jesus. As we were reminded yesterday by Bishop Hanson,

"We meet one another finally, not in our agreements or our disagreements, but at the foot of the cross -- where God is faithful, where Christ is present with us, and where, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are one in Christ."

We have good news to share!


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Confessions of a Non-Signer

I have followed most of today's and some of previous days' online coverage of the ELCA Churchwide Assembly. My opinions have changed radically not just in recent years, but in recent days. I was impressed with the passion and hearts of all who spoke for and against the proposed ministry policies.

A while back an online petition was circulated that was a letter from seminarians to the ELCA in support of LGBT persons in monogamous relationships to be included in rostered ministry in the ELCA. At that time, I could not in good conscience sign said petition. I could not come down on one side of the other. God kept challenging my long held positions. Particularly today, however, as I prayed and listened to the CWA plenary session, I had to add my opinion to that of the majority. Listening and hearing people's hearts is something I have learned during CPE this summer. As I practiced that skill today, the issue was not one of sexuality, but of love, the fruit of the Spirit, and the God that does what God wants to do in choosing whom God wills. There were faces, prayers, words, people before me now to consider rather than black and white words and sides of an issue.

I am brought back to a fairly contentious church council meeting back at my home church in RI. We were discussing and considering becoming a Reconciling in Christ congregation. I was dead set against it and felt like we would be on a "slippery slope." God and others have challenged me over the years. Months ago I could not have agreed with today's decisions. Today, if I was a voting member, I would have voted in the affirmative.

True confessions: when the petition was circulated favoring change of "Visions and Expectations" and supporting rostering of those in same-gender lifelong monogamous relationships from seminarians, I could not sign it. That is not the case today.

Bishop Hanson's remarks sum up my heart's cry at this time for our church,

"We meet one another finally, not in our agreements or our disagreements, but at the foot of the cross -- where God is faithful, where Christ is present with us, and where, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are one in Christ."

Here is the link to the video of his remarks. Listen with your heart.



picture from ELCA website