The slave with one talent – Matthew 25:14-30 – Pentecost 24 – Pastor Goede
The slave who buried his one talent needed to play the zero-sum game. It’s easy to get caught up in what Gianfranco Grande last Sunday called the cycle of scarcity. At our stewardship luncheon last week, he talked about his experience with churches that find themselves with too little money to continue as they have.
Gianfranco says that they want to be good stewards, but they get scared. They pull back at every turn, trying to save money by trying to do as little as possible, sort of like the slave with one talent. This isn’t enough, we have to hold on to what we have, and things keep shrinking and shrinking. Even that one buried talent shrinks in value as time goes on.
Gianfranco didn’t bring up this parable when he spoke, but it’s a good illustration of the cycle of scarcity. In his experience, churches that take risks and try to find ways to expand the pie often enter a cycle of abundance, a time when they find that their opportunities expand rather than contract. It isn’t magic, they just don’t let fear overcome them at a time when being all in and taking risks is what’s needed.
In Jesus’ story, that’s what makes the master angry, that the slave wouldn’t take any personal risk. The slave doesn’t care about possibilities raised by having this talent, he doesn’t care about the master’s fortunes or even the wider economy that might benefit him from a lift in that master’s fortunes. He just fears taking the risk to do something unknown. It’s hard to know what this slave really wants, rather than just knowing what he fears.
Certainly, lots of people might agree with this slave that God is a hard master. A lot of people would say, yes, that slave is right, you should fear God, because God seems to love making good people suffer. God must be an angry God, because all I see is judgement and punishment.
That kind of understanding of God can be contagious in a time and place when the future looks very uncertain. Lots of people see automation threatening their jobs, climate change and gun violence threatening their homes and way of life, political leadership that seems to be driving the train as fast as possible over the cliff, and they wonder,
why is God doing this to me and mine? Am I being punished? What do I have to do to stop this? If that’s what God in the world looks like to you, you can understand why you might decide to just keep your head down and go stand in the corner quietly. Don’t move and hopefully at least nothing bad will happen.
The gospel of grace that we know is like a bright light in the midst of this very dark picture of God and the world that many people share. We Lutherans believe that the powers of death don’t have the last word in our lives. We see ourselves as God’s partners in transforming a world that is enslaved by sin. And as partners, we extend a hand of invitation and hospitality to people who would like to live a different life. If you see that things can be different, better, you have hope, which begins that virtuous cycle of abundance.
What the slave with one talent needed was for someone to say to him, this is no good, hiding in the corner, knowing that nothing good is going to happen but just hoping that nothing bad will. Come out, come walk with me, come walk in the light and let’s live in hope. I know God is full of grace and mercy, and I want you to find that, too.
Matthew 25:1-13 – Pentecost 23, 2017 – Pastor Goede
There are aspects of being prepared that are important to a healthy spiritual life. For instance, good relationships depend on being all in. What I mean by all in is you need to be committed to the relationship, for better or for worse, so that you’re ready to respond the way you want at every crisis point, rather than react. If there’s a possibility you might back off or back out, that will quickly crack your relationships. For instance, if you feel ambivalent about a child, if you find your child difficult or disappointing, at some point they’re going to sense that, and that can fracture their sense of self-esteem and their relationship with you. The love and affection that should be between a parent and child can be strained if your child is difficult or disappointing, and it gets to be a vicious cycle if you can’t commit to being all in as a parent.
A few lucky parents skate through without serious challenges from their children, but most parents at some point are challenged to be as mature as they can be by their children. If you have a difficult child, you find you have to sacrifice things that are dear to you. Difficult children can cost a lot of money and a lot of time and effort. Your difficult child can lead to endless difficult encounters with teachers and principals, doctors and therapists, police officers and judges, neighbors, in-laws. Many of them probably believe that your child’s problems are caused by you, and that sets up its own ambivalence and more cracked relationships.
It might seem like the best way to deal with this is to try to put as much distance as possible between you and your child, between you and the rest of the world. But this is a moment when your relationship with Jesus can be a help. Jesus goes all in for his disciples, friends for whom he is willing to lay down his life, even when they abandon him.
That seems nonsensical to much of the world. But it turns out to be the way in which the forces of sin and death are overcome. Love has the last word because God is all in with us, completely invested in us, willing to keep trying with us.
In the same way, parents who are all in for their children end up sacrificing what seems like an insane amount in their lives, but sometimes they find that sets up a virtuous cycle, very different from the one that ambivalence can fuel. You may be at odds with a lot of people over your child, but you find solidarity with so many other suffering parents. You may spend insane amounts of time dealing with your child, but you may never know another person who needs your help more. You end up ministering to those most despised and in need, which sounds very much like someone we know.
We’re thinking about stewardship right now in our congregation, and this example of dealing with a difficult kid is stewardship in action. Stewardship is a huge part of our lives, because it involves the big questions, what’s the purpose of my life? how should I live? Those big questions are stewardship questions, how should I use the hand I’ve been dealt to serve God and serve others? What am I called to do? Answering these questions often involves contemplating the most difficult parts of our lives.
For most of us, the most important stewardship in our lives takes place away from this building, maybe apart from this community. We’re dealing with children, marriages, jobs, difficult and disappointing things, big things. We come here to recharge our spirits, to commune with God, to walk with other people who also seek God. When we come together in worship, in service, in fellowship, we make a public witness, we tell people, this is life-giving for me, my hope for you is that you will begin to feel God moving in your life.
Next week, we’ll bring our offerings forward to the altar, both our offerings for the day and our pledges for what we’ll offer in the year ahead. This week is a time to reflect on our commitments to support this place and this congregation. It’s a time to think about what it means for us to be all in, to commit to God and to one another, to give back what we’ve first been given.
Pentecost 19, 2017 – Pastor Pitts,
Grace and peace to you,
My sisters and brothers and siblings in Christ
As seasons wane,
And Creation draws its energy inward
To sustain life
In these days of stillness
May we turn towards the One,
In these days of chaos and uncertainty
Who will shepherd us O God,
Beyond our wants
Beyond our needs
From Death into Life
Amen
(pause)
Every Thursday,
As time transforms from the end of the day,
Morphing into something new
I sit in the silence,
I lament to the Holy Spirit
My struggles with the small
But mighty number of students
That gather for a Word and a Meal.
And in conversations with fellow colleagues,
It seems my experience
Is not isolated.
And the why’s begin to reverberate
Perhaps its due to the beginning of the academic year,
Perhaps the word that comes from within,
That they are receiving,
Along their spiritual journey
Is just to remain still,
Perhaps even,
Is because they see the flaws
Of the rhetoric that we subscribe to,
Instead of the WORD from GOD we should cling to.
(pause)
We profess publicly
That we believe in this life altering
Reformation
Movement.
This movement which opened up a starving people
To the life renewing Spirit of truth,
Giving them life,
Through the Scriptures
But did we leave
That transforming revival moment,
Nailed to that ancient door?
(pause)
Such a juxtaposition
of images
in our Scriptures
before us,
about God,
that causes me
to question
how would someone who is still wondering about faith
about how Grace
and Mercy,
and Peace
And community
Is defined
Here?
(pause)
In the Psalms,
Words spill out from within
A nameless poet and singer
Of an ever present Hope
Regardless of what we are facing
Loss
Frustration
Abandonment
Even
Bewilderment
At the state of this,
Our world
Outside our door.
(pause)
The Creator God,
Always
There
Always
Loving us
Marking and
Sealing us as God’s Own
(pause)
And we can imagine
That this Psalm
Is being chanted
Whispered
Spoken
In many sacred and ordinary places
Like in the tattered remains
Of the echoes of thriving life
In Puerto Rico, and many other places,
Where we, here in these “united” States
Have long deemed as
unimportant
(pause)
These words,
are giving comfort to those gathered
In living rooms
And around dining room tables
Trying not to acknowledge the void left,
The empty chair,
The light diminished,
Emulating from a sister or brother,
A parent or a friend
Who simply wanted to enjoy a night out,
Dancing at a club
Or listening to a concert
Or simply walking down a street,
Enjoying the last bit
Of a fading summer’s breath.
(pause)
This Psalm
Reminding us
That we should not fear,
Because the comforter is among us,
Is spoken during weeping
Outside of doctor’s offices
Community clinics
And hospital rooms
Where families are caught between
The care that needs to be given,
And the emptiness in their pockets
And the absence of access
To health insurance,
So much so
That their bodies will
Always remain
Physically broken
And scarred
(pause)
So,
We should not be surprised,
When people shy away from the proverbial four walls
Because if we are confessional,
We have built up a façade
Of what it means
To be Christian
Because it seems,
As the collective body of believers,
And if we are bold to say,
Christians,
Especially as confessing that
This is a Christian nation,
Christians have abandoned the Table
Where the gift of Life,
The Bread and Wine
The Body and Blood
Of Jesus
Is there,
For us FREELY
Without cost
Without price.
(pause)
Instead,
We have replaced it
With an ideology
Of the dominant, oppressing culture
That offers grace,
With narrow conditions
We have replaced the shepherd
With a callous King,
Who seemingly has no patience
Instead of teaching,
He demands obedience
Instead of freedom to experience life
He demands perfection
And those that he gathers at his table,
Is merely just for show
Parading his brute force
And false might
There is no room for error,
with this king,
I cannot see this king
In our Gospel
As Jesus nor the One,
Who loves us
Forgives US
In spite of everything that we do.
(pause)
Because we have allowed ourselves,
Collectively as
A dysfunctional body of faith
We have preferred to segregate ourselves,
With people that we are comfortable with
Instead of those that express their righteous anger
Jolting us back to kneeling at Jesus’s feet,
To do the work that we are called to do,
Because of the forgotten commandment
Of loving one another,
Which means
Working for wholeness
Equaling wellness and health care
Which means
Mercy,
Equaling restorative justice
Forgiveness of those who break the law,
Which means
Grace
Equaling understanding
Not reluctance and apathy
Which means
Peace
Equaling cooperation
Not
Devastation.
(pause)
We have replaced
A theology of the Cross
With one
Of glory
A Theology of Glory,
As one Elder stated on Facebook yesterday,
“is Jesus without the wounds of suffering
And death.
Ultimately,
That depiction of Jesus
Ignores real suffering
And death
In the world.”
Are we,
In our constricted understanding
Of the liberation
Of God’s Word
Projecting this miseducation out
From these collective spaces
Until,
Psalm 23
Becomes this desperate CRY
Of where is Our Shepherd
When we don’t hear an answer?
(pause)
No wonder,
Psalm 23
For many of us
Broken
Searching
Fearful
Is a constant chant
Because
We are not ashamed
To say,
We
Need
God!
(pause)
But even here,
In these words
There is Good News
It is because the Creator
IS AFFIRMING
IS PRESENT
We have NO REASON TO FEAR
It is because the Creator
Calls ALL OF US
To the Banquet
REGARDLESS
Of our shortcomings
Our failings
(pause)
It is because
We are shown love
Through being FED
We should be MOVED
To do what we have been commanded
THIS important work of building one another UP
That lies before us.
Because this
Reformation movement
DID NOT END
500 years ago
It is a battle CRY FOR THE HERE AND NOW
IT is what we need NOW
So that
Psalm 23
Becomes a prophetic proclamation
“The Lord is my Shepherd
I will never,
Ever
Be in want!”
Thanks Be to God.
Philippians 2:1-13 Pentecost 17, 2017 – Pastor Goede
This is one of my favorite pieces of scripture. We hear it every
Palm Sunday, and at a couple of points through our lectionary years. Our second reading is part of a very brief letter that Paul writes to the church at Philippi on the coast of northeastern Greece, but it’s not really Paul writing. Rather he’s quoting a hymn that he knows, perhaps one that the Christians at Philippi know as well.
Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of why we gather for church each Sunday. This passage reminds me why. We gather to praise God and to move through the cycle of contrition and confession, forgiveness and reconciliation. We gather so that we can pray with other people and for other people. We gather to learn from Christians who have gone before us and the saints all around us, and we gather to learn from Jesus. This hymn outlines one of the most important things that Jesus teaches us through his example, to empty ourselves for the sake of others.
We often talk about being filled up by worship. Filled with energy, filled with the Holy Spirit. We don’t often think about the value of emptying ourselves. But it makes a lot of sense when you think about what Jesus does during his last few hours before death. He could be, should be we might think, filled with bitterness to find that his former trusted friend, Judas, betrayed him for money. His best friend, Peter, denies him when it counts most. He faces torture alone, and only his mother and a couple of her friends stay with him until he dies. It seems like everything he’s done has been for naught, and he could easily be bitter and angry. But Jesus emptied himself. He not only gave up his life to accomplish God’s plan to overcome death. He also let go of all of his understandable feelings, so that there was room for forgiveness and acceptance. He didn’t let his feelings consume him, he didn’t let anger overcome him.
This doesn’t mean that being unfeeling is a good thing. But sometimes, you have to let go of some feelings for the sake of others, to make room for other people. For instance, at funerals when I preside, I need to hold it together so that other people have room to grieve. So I find it’s helpful to imagine my grief flowing out down through my feet and into the ground. I don’t try to suppress my feelings, but I need to put them aside for a time, for the sake of others.
This idea of emptying is just good spiritual practice, so other faiths use it, too. Many Buddhist practices are aimed at helping you let go of desire, emptying yourself. Christian Benedictines talk about staying in the moment, not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed with all of the feelings that go with remembering the past and peering into the future. In Benedictine meditation, you empty yourself of everything but what you need in the moment, so that you can really listen to a passage of scripture, or pay close attention to someone talking to you, without thinking about everything you have to do later today, or obsessing about past mistakes.
If Jesus’ teaching ended there, it would just be self-help. It would be good self-help, but it would be all about us, which, ironically, is not so good for us. Instead, letting go helps us to face ourselves outward, so that we can forget ourselves and serve our neighbors. This is one of the things about Jesus that makes him such a good teacher for us, such a good example. Jesus is always faced outward, which is very hard for us to do. He’s not self-absorbed. We’re usually self-absorbed, which leads to a lot of sin and misery for us.
I hope you’ll take your bulletin home with you today and leave it out where you can see it. Read through the hymn a couple of times this week. Think about emptying yourself and about turning outward. Sometimes it’s helpful to physically turn, while you pray for God’s help to keep you pointed in the right direction, following the one who is a master of spiritual practice.
Pentecost 15, 2017 – Pastor Pitts
This is going to be
One of those sermons,
Where the only thing
That the Good News
Of Jesus Christ
Points us towards,
Reminds us
That no matter what we have done,
We are always
Forgiven,
Even
When we mock Jesus
Upon
The
Cross.
(pause)
Forgiveness
Is one of those tricky concepts in life
Where we have not quite mastered
As humanity.
Forgiveness,
Does not flow as freely
From deep within our very being.
Instead,
It is our pride,
Our honor which crowds that space,
Sacred space deep within
Where the Creator first
Poured life,
And those seeds
Seeds of Grace,
Love,
Mercy
Humility,
That should transfer into our open hands,
As we embrace (word/line)
“Lord,
If another member of the church
Sins against me,
How often shall I forgive?”
(pause)
Forgiveness,
Is counter-cultural because
When someone breaks a vow,
A Trust
When someone deliberately
Does not honor an agreement
Stand by their word,
The situation,
Must be rectified
And when they refuse to respond,
Out of their selfishness
Unwillingness
Then,
As simple as cutting off a switch
We cut them out of our lives.
Who have you not forgiven?
(pause)
So,
Now that I have officially been installed,
You,
Augustana
Are stuck with me,
And my weirdness
(pause for laughter)
A bit of trivia
About your Campus Pastor,
My favorite type of genre,
Is Japanese anime
The Crunchyroll app,
Is on my phone,
I watch this,
More than I do
Whatever “regular” TV is.
For me,
Anime indeed has evolved
From the days of me watching
Robotech and Captain Harlock,
And recently I have been intrigued
By the theological theme,
Of the absence of forgiveness
The subject of revenge,
And the consequence of it all,
Through an anime series called
Hell Girl.
It centers around human emotion
And reaction
To what happens when,
Because we are bullied,
Being perceived weak by others
Whether it is because of our gender,
Or the broken relationships within our family
Or that achieving and cementing our place
At the top of the food chain,
Means pushing others,
Down into the dust,
Our outrage,
Our pride sullied,
Our spirit shattered,
We must have compensation
For our pain,
Our sorrow
These are not simple cases either.
These are rather most horrific situations that people find themselves in,
To where
The question of forgiveness
At this point,
Is moot.
When these actors have reached their limit,
In the anime,
They log onto this website,
And type the name of the one who has offended them
Hell Girl,
As she is called,
Then appears
She hands them a straw doll with a red string,
Telling them
That if they want revenge,
By pulling the red string,
They send that person,
To hell.
But,
(pause)
There is a price,
Enacting vengeance upon one person,
Means that they too,
Have damned their own soul
To hell,
When their life is over.
(pause)
“Lord,
If another member of the church
Sins against me,
How often shall I forgive?”
(pause)
That seems to be unjust,
And even as they demand of Hell Girl of answers,
She cannot comment
Or pass judgement.
What is this conveying to us?
That the idea of justice is fleeting to us in this life?
That it is not up to us?
That we truly should lean upon the one,
Who forgives
Simply
Because we are God’s children?
That the responsibility
Of making the determination
Of whether we are worthy
Or not
Even those who hurt us,
Belongs
To
God
Alone?
(pause)
How,
Can this be Good News,
To an entire Nation of Peoples,
Whose Ancestors were mocked,
Murdered,
Sacredness of land
Ridiculed
And stolen from them?
How,
Can this be Good News
To Mothers,
Who because simply their children spoke out,
Called out
Government officials for neglecting their duties
To protect,
To secure equality
Whether it was socio-economics
Or political
Or educational
For all people,
And instead,
Those voices of protest
Have gone missing
And silent.
(pause)
How can this be
Good News,
That we must forgive
And not squeeze our reparations
Out of the very hands,
That sometimes attempts,
To deny us
Our humanity
Our rights
Our ability to breathe?
How can it be
Good News,
When you tell
An oppressed people
That they must forgive
Their oppressors
Simply because
The truth
About how we treat one another
Is too unbearable
Is too uncomfortable
And the road into accountability
Is too long,
And too harsh?
(pause)
“Lord,
If another member of the church
Sins against me,
WHY are you telling me,
I have to forgive?”
(pause)
Forgiveness,
And anger
Are two different things,
Right?
Is this a deeper rooted missing piece
Of this question posed of Jesus,
About forgiveness?
Because it’s the norm, right?
We are told we must forgive
So that we are not carrying the weight
Of bitterness within us.
But,
Forgiveness
And
Anger,
Are two different things.
(pause)
Nowhere,
In these words,
Does Jesus say,
We should not express
Or experience
The human emotion
Of anger.
Jesus Himself
Got angry,
When the temple
Was corrupted
And polluted
With economic greed.
And yet,
I wonder,
Did Jesus forgive them,
in their human foolishness?
(pause)
Matthew 18:15-20 – Pentecost 14, 2017 – Pastor Goede
Some things about our modern life are indeed very different from Reformation times, and from Jesus’ time, but some things never change. For instance, we still spend a lot of our time, every day, binding and loosing. Jesus’ words today might sound formal and foreign, but we still all bind and loose. For instance, if a waiter is inattentive and rude when you visit a restaurant, you have choices to make. You can say nothing while you’re there, go home fuming and blast the place on Yelp. You can write a review that many people will see and, depending on how many people review the restaurant online, could really put a dent in the restaurant’s rating. Or, you could rewind to the restaurant, say something gentle to the waiter, like, we’ve been waiting a long time for our food, and they might say, oh, sorry, we’re so busy but shorthanded in the kitchen and out here, I’m so sorry, I’ll go see what I can do. That doesn’t always work, there are rude waiters in the world, but you might speak to a manager before you go, and complain in a way that might have more impact than a nasty review.
Restaurants and waiters and Yelp are part of our world, not Jesus’, but even in the small, very modern interactions in our lives, we’re still binding and loosing, just as Jesus’ is trying to teach the disciples to do. You might think, those words binding and loosing sound familiar. We heard them a couple of weeks ago, when Peter confessed that he believed Jesus was the messiah. Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon…I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
We’ll hear a similar passage next Saturday, during Pastor Pitts’ installation service. When we ordain or install pastors, we usually hear a passage from John. Jesus appears to the disciples’ as a resurrected being, and John says “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’” Slightly different words, in both our English translation and in the Greek of the New Testament, but a similar meaning.
Jesus doesn’t make this up, this idea of binding and loosing. He and all of the disciples are familiar with this idea as Jews who observe the Law. Binding and loosing were powers exercised by religious authorities in Jesus’ time, like the Pharisees. If you’ve ever wondered, why does Jesus keep engaging the Pharisees, it’s because they hold the power of binding and loosing sin.
Jesus teaches his disciples that the power of binding and loosing doesn’t just belong to the Pharisees, it belongs to them as well. As they move from town to town, encountering people who gladly receive them and others who are hostile, as they deal with Pharisees and Jesus groupies and waiters in inns, Jesus’ followers have the power to forgive or to condemn.
I love the scope that those terms binding and loosing have. You can bind, and then pull a bit tighter, or you can loosen by degrees. You have a lot of decisions to make about how your wield your power to bind and loose sin. We don’t often think of forgiveness as a power, but it is. You can withhold it, or you can let go of your anger and be free with your forgiveness. You can see what long-term anger does to you or others. We say it eats you up, because it’s truly corrosive. That doesn’t make it easier to deal with or control, but it’s helpful to recognize how powerful anger is. It helps you recognize the wisdom of trying to be intentionally free with forgiveness.
Likewise, it’s useful to understand the value of binding sin, of retaining it. That’s an important part of the process of seeking justice. We’re rightly outraged when sinners are let off the hook too easily. That’s the dynamic behind police violence and large protests and legal action right now in our country. Police officers hold a position of authority, but for a long time, some abused that authority and no one brought them to account. Now, they are being held, rightly, to a higher standard. Now their sins are being retained. Forgiveness is possible, newness of life for both officers and the community are possible, but the sin can’t be forgotten or ignored any longer. Binding and loosing have real power.
Jesus knew that many of the Pharisees had a very developed sense of the power of binding and loosing sin. They wielded forgiveness of sin like a weapon, using it to keep people in line. Jesus handed it back to the disciples, and for awhile in the early church, the power of forgiveness was widely shared. But because humans love to consolidate and exercise power, it didn’t take long before the power of the keys was taken from the many and only given to a few.
Remember that Jesus told Peter, I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and so this power to bind and loose is called the power of the keys. Peter was the leader of the church at Rome until he was killed by the Romans, but he was not called a bishop in his own time. As one person and then another stepped into his place, those men were named bishops, until eventually, in the middle of the 400s, Peter’s spiritual descendant, the bishop of Rome, began to be known as the pope, a leader of the church that had spread far beyond Rome. Bishops ordained priests, and the keys were again back in the hands of just a few religious authorities.
The Reformation was all about taking those keys and handing them out to the many once again. That’s how you know you’re a member of the household, you have a key. Lutherans say, we are part of the priesthood of all believers. We are all priests as we move through our lives, binding and loosing, forgiving or not. Sometimes we exercise that power to bind and loose on a large scale, as we do when we confront police violence, or climate change or any other issue that involves power and money and which is vulnerable to sin and injustice. We often exercise that power on a smaller scale, in our neighborhood, our family, in the restaurants we visit. We are all priests who have the authority to bind and loose, and so we all need to continually look to our master, Jesus, for guidance in how to wield this awesome power.
Matthew 16:21-28 – Pentecost 13, 2017 – Pastor Goede
You probably heard this week about the Nashville Statement. It’s a document with fourteen short points, issued by a fundamentalist theological group and signed by conservative pastors and religious leaders all over the country. It’s a statement about sexuality that condemns anything that’s not one man and one woman in marriage, but it especially addresses transgender people. All the signers are hoping that the Nashville Statement will become their 95-Theses moment as we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. They’re hoping that it will be a stand that defines them and mobilizes Christians to follow behind them.
Like us, fundamentalist Christians are products of the Reformation. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we’re all evangelicals together, but the Reformation unleashed a huge spectrum of belief. When the heavy hand of the Roman Catholic Church was lifted, Christianity exploded in all directions. If you try to draw a map of what happened to the Christian Church after the Reformation, it looks like a family tree, growing exponentially in every direction, until you end up with the thousands of denominations and sects and cults and independent churches that are the American religious landscape today.
The Reformation period was exciting, exhilarating and edgy and violent. In a few weeks, we’re going to celebrate the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. It’s a scene that lends itself to reenactment but which was probably not as dramatic as we now imagine. In just a few years, though, we will likely skip celebrating the start of the Peasants War, in which 100,000 peasants were slaughtered in just a couple of years all over German-speaking Europe.
We’ll have lots of similar opportunity in the next few years to remember all the violence of the Counter Reformation. Martin Luther started a movement that burned across Europe, but it didn’t burn everything to the ground. The Roman Catholic Church didn’t disappear. Rather, it doubled down and launched the Counter Reformation, another movement that’s written about with a capital C and a capital R. The Counter Reformation produced the Inquisition and the Thirty Years War, and lots of other violent horrors. Luther pushed, gently at first, then harder, and more and more people kept pushing behind him, but of course the Roman Catholic Church pushed back, hard, and the reformers had to decide how to respond.
It’s as important for us to know this part of Reformation history as Martin Luther nailing his document to the door, because we are experiencing the same kind of pushback, the same kind of religious conflict, in our time and place. The Roman Catholic Church pushed back after the Reformation, of course. They had a lot to lose in terms of money and land and power, as we always remember when we celebrate the Reformation. But there were also faithful Catholics who saw themselves as the keepers of a 1,500-year-old tradition, and they were willing to do anything to defend it.
Likewise, today we have a lot of fellow evangelicals, our sisters and brothers of the Reformation, who are fearful of what they see around them on the American religious landscape. They see themselves as the keepers of a religious tradition, and they are dedicated to defending it. If you identify as lgbtq, it probably feels to you like change has been agonizingly slow. But in the bigger picture, events have moved at an amazing speed.
Ten years ago in the United States, only a tiny sliver of people could explain accurately what the t and q of lgbtq meant. Today, the writers of the Nashville Statement didn’t even bother to define “transgender,” because they realize that now everyone know what that means, and most people accept it with a shrug. Conservative evangelicals are trying to push back, hard, because they feel, rightly, that they are the keepers of a tradition that is under attack, and of course, they’re pushing back, hard.
When Peter confesses, you’re the messiah, that was the easy part. Peter and the disciples are busy thinking about the glory ahead, for them, as others realize who Jesus is and begin to follow. But as usual, Jesus sees the bigger picture.
He’s pushed the religious establishment, again and again, harder and harder, with more and more people behind him, and he knows that of course the establishment is going to push back. When Peter says, this cannot happen to you, Jesus tells him to get real. Of course, the religious authorities are going to push back.
Jesus can see that the disciples aren’t ready for what he can see ahead. They might want to fight back, to lead their fellow Jews in a revolt against the Romans, but they aren’t ready to engage in the way Jesus is asking them to engage. Take up your cross and follow me, Jesus says. Get ready to confront enemies who will use violence, and get ready to withstand them by only returning evil with love, which might kill you, but will save your life. Everything that Jesus teaches the disciples is to get them to understand this kind of divine love and be ready to proclaim it and live it, confess it. It’s so hard.
The most heartbreaking thing I read about the Nashville Statement was in an article in the Jackson, Tennessee, Sun, which included a short interview with a woman named Elizabeth Waibel. She was upset that the president of her college had signed the statement, and so she signed a petition circulated by a fellow alum saying, we’re upset. She said she didn’t realize when she started college that the institution was so conservative, even though it’s a school of the Southern Baptist Convention. She didn’t know what that meant. She couldn’t believe the president was being so mean, and she was sure he was wrong.
‘“I’ve become, I guess, more liberal in the past few years, and it’s disheartening to see the statement on gay relationships are wrong,” [sic] Waibel said. “The Bible allows for homosexual relationships and transgender rights and affirms gay marriage.”
‘Waibel said she was unable to provide specific examples of passages from the Bible that supported her view.
‘“I can’t see how Union or any institution of higher learning can be successful if they don’t allow different viewpoints to be allowed in dialogue on campus,” Waibel said. “And there were parts of this statement that indicated there’s no room for discussion with the administration on this.”’
No, there’s no room for discussion on the basic confessions of the Southern Baptist Convention if you go in armed like this, with an assertion about the Bible that you can’t back up and some weak-kneed talk about different viewpoints and dialogue. What Ms. Waibel needs before trying to go another round is to arm herself. Yes, I’ve signed a petition, a blow for justice. Now what?
Now, she needs to learn to confess, like the disciples. She needs to learn how to state what she believes in a credible way. Fundamentalist proof-texting is not going to help her here. Our Lutheran engagement with Scripture over decades of wrestling with sexuality might help her.
She needs to live as though she believes what she says. No more enrolling in a college as if that doesn’t endorse everything they stand for. She needs to make every decision as if she really believes in a Jesus who counts transgendered people among his followers.
She needs to be ready for pushback, and think ahead about how she’ll respond. Paul offers good advice today:
“Hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good…be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer…Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them…Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Paul took Jesus’ teaching seriously. He became a formidable confessor, but he defended himself without getting physical. He lived in a way that spoke volumes about Jesus, without words. That’s the way we want to live in the face of Christianity that we find not very Christian. We want to learn how to confess Jesus Christ in a credible way, and we want our lives to speak for us without words.
12th Day of Pentecost, August 20th 2017, Pastor Pitts
Grace and Peace to you,
My sisters, brothers and siblings in Christ
“The spirit of the Lord God is upon us,
because the Lord has anointed all of us
Through the waters of Baptism
Through the sign of the Cross
Through Jesus’s ultimate gift
So therefore our Call now more than ever;
Is to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners”
Amen.
(pause)
Joan Osborne’s,
“What if God Was one of US?”
Caused quite the controversy
When the song debuted in the mid-1990s
Because of the questions that it posed,
And if we as followers of Christ
Understand and are rooted in the fact,
That Jesus indeed came among us
To live with us
And experience every aspect of humanity
Alongside us,
Then Joan’s song should have provoked
Deeper theological and spiritual conversations
But instead,
People were angry
Especially by the lyrics in the chorus
“Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home”
(pause)
And yet,
This morning
We are faced with some uncomfortable truths,
And the Words
That come from Jesus’s lips
Just as,
We as humanity
Can no longer ignore
The hatred that comes
From humanity’s collective lips
(pause)
Racism,
Is
A
Sin.
White Supremacy,
Is
A
Sin.
Having apathy,
For those who are hurting
Suffering
Anguished
Is
Living into shame
Not doing,
SOMETHING
For those who are oppressed,
Simply because of how God Created Them,
And using the LAW,
To back up our excuses,
Leads to a disconnect
And the fragmented relationships
That seem to be acceptable by our society
(pause)
That indeed,
Is the elephant in the room,
In this sacred space,
That we,
As beloved Children of the Creator God
Wrestle with
Because of what is continually unfolding before us,
Out in the wider expression of the community,
What is our call,
Our purpose,
What do we do,
As followers of the One,
Who calls us into the Light,
Who gives us new Life?
(Pause)
Practicing what we preach,
It’s a mantra that many of us cling to-
But it is hard for us to execute,
Because sometimes
We, as humanity
Are influenced
And blinded
Led astray,
By what ultimately consumes us,
Especially that which does not come from God.
Practicing what we preach,
Was an accusation laid at the feet
Of Christianity,
When I attended several #BLM marches
And Police Brutality actions,
Especially from young people of color,
Angered of having to now hold memories
Of those who had perished
At the hands,
Of officers who reacted out of fear.
“Practice what you preach,
You-you pastors and ministers,
Otherwise what comes out of your mouth,
Are nothing more than lies,
And we cannot trust you,
Because you will not publicly put yourselves on the line,
Against hate.”
Standing in a crowd of other Seminarians and Clergy figures,
In my clerical
Hearing this
Was uncomfortable.
What do I do?
But this was indeed valid-
Because if we as followers of Christ believe
Jesus’s commandment,
Of Loving One Another
Calls us to actually DO LOVE
And not just lip service,
Then we would indeed
Be practicing what we preach.
And this is so needed right now,
Because there is too much preaching,
And not enough practicing.
There is too much condemning
And not enough accompanying
There is too much quietism,
And not enough activism.
That means,
Being uncomfortable,
So that the Holy Spirit can root even deeper within us,
Transforming us,
So that we are bold enough
To do the work that Jesus left for us
To be good stewards of one another’s lives.
(pause)
But,
Along the way,
We as People of Faith,
Have to deal with the ugly cracks,
Especially as Christians,
Because many
Are not practicing what is being preached.
There are ugly cracks,
That we can no longer ignore,
That are eroding the foundation
And no amount of duct tape,
Or paint
Is going to make anything new again
We cannot hide it anymore
This is unfortunately what has happened,
So amplified so, in the past week-
If we claim as Christians,
That we follow Jesus,
Then we must do what He calls us to do.
But,
Sometimes that is difficult, right?
Even Jesus had that difficulty,
Right?
It’s uncomfortable to think about,
Jesus
Making a mistake
“What if God was One of Us?”
And Jesus indeed was one of us,
Lived like us
Weaved into community,
Just as we do
And was influenced and exposed
To prejudices
And
Bigotry
Just like we have.
(pause)
That’s uncomfortable isn’t it, right?
Jesus is perfect!
Jesus would not let the world,
Which was imperfect
Defile Him
Right?
But He did.
Jesus contradicts Himself
In our Gospel this morning
Because Jesus is teaching His disciples,
About the dangers
Of allowing the world to influence them
Allowing humanity’s judgement of one another
Consuming
And
Affecting relationship
To the point where
They would be blinded
And deaf
To the needs
Of those Gentiles,
Canaanites
Who were struggling as much as they were
That they too were from the Creator God
Whether they knew them
Or not.
(pause)
Jesus,
Is teaching us something important
That simply because we are
Of African Descent,
Or Native
Or struggling with Bipolar
Or have ADHD
Or that we identify
As LGBTQA
Or that we call God Allah
Or Great Spirit
These are things that make us wholly unique
And wholly the Creator’s
Because our bodies,
Our lives
Are
SACRED.
What defiles us,
Then
Is hatred
Is Greed
Is Apathy
Is Violence
What defiles us,
Is when we allow the world
To take root,
Where only the Holy Spirit
And God’s Love
Should reside.
And yes,
Even Jesus would be impacted by this.
(pause)
If we believe that Jesus Christ,
Came to live among us
As us,
Then the racism that existed
Between those who were “God’s Chosen People”
And the Gentiles-
Those who did not believe in what the Israelites believed
Or followed the traditions
Or could boast of the lineage from the line of David,
Therefore
Hearing the stories
Being taught the stereotypes
More than likely,
Jesus experienced all of this.
And we witness this contradiction,
When an unknown woman,
An indigenous Canaanite woman
Falls at Jesus’s feet
For Mercy
And what does He say?
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Are we shocked?
Are we confused?
Jesus rejecting one who cries out for mercy?
Rejecting her simply because
Of her ethnicity
Her Tribe
And how she worships God.
That is uncomfortable for us to witness
Even though,
Sometimes we as People of Faith,
Reject others
Refuse to help others
Refuse to advocate for our neighbors
Based on
Their race,
Their culture
Their religion
Their disability
Because we misinterpret
Sacred texts
Because we forget,
Humanity writes rules and laws
Sometimes,
Without any grace extended.
That is the elephant in the room,
(pause)
But,
Just as those women before her:
Hagar,
Tamar,
Rahab
Just as those women before us,
Dorothy Day,
Rosa Parks
Sojourner Truth
Nevertheless,
She
Persisted.
“Yes, Lord,
yet even the dogs eat the crumbs
that fall from their masters’ table.”
(pause)
All this indigenous and unknown woman wanted
Was Mercy,
And Peace!
She wanted to know,
That God indeed
Stood with the oppressed and afflicted
Regardless of the systemic hatred she knew she would face,
That she was not of the House of Israel
She is even of another FAITH,
SHE REMINDS JESUS,
That the Creator gave life to all of US,
And that God’s Love,
Is vast,
Surpassing anything we can fathom
(pause)
She also recognizes that through Jesus,
The Son of God
God indeed does heal,
Will never forget us
Always forgives us
Even when we falter
Even if we are rooted in faith-
We are HUMAN,
(pause)
Isn’t it Good News,
That Jesus Christ was sent here,
To be just like one of us?
So that Jesus,
Because of the Creator God,
Could, and does
Heal US.
And the Good News is,
Sometimes we will experience the Gospel
Through other people
Other faiths
So that,
It breaks down what the world has been force-feeding us.
12th Sunday of Pentecost, 2017 – Pastor Pitts
Peace to you,
My Sisters, Brothers and Siblings in Christ
Even when we are questioning
Who the Son of Man is
Jesus,
Reminds us
That we are always invited
To lay our burdens
Our fears
Our worries
Down,
When we are weary,
Because Jesus is always there
To give us rest
And
Peace
Amen.
(pause)
During my routine visits to my Grandmother,
Now Ancestor
While a Seminarian,
Her deepest concern was that,
My Aunt
Did not attend church regularly
Granny, I am sure
Had a direct line to Jesus
But in all seriously was rooted in her faith,
And taught her children this,
And was a model for those of us
Who were proudly her Grandchildren
So she did not understand,
When my Aunt
Or my cousin
Didn’t attend church.
I shared with her that,
Sometimes the wider Church
Was as corrupt
And unloving
As the world could be.
Adding to that argument,
My Mother would disavow that answer-
That we are all to have a relationship with the Triune God,
That not attending church was an excuse.
And yet,
As one who follows the Risen Christ,
I really can’t blame people,
Especially at the mixed messages
That the institution of Christianity pours out
Contributing sadly,
To the brokenness
Of our society.
(pause)
There are so many people who claim to follow Christ!
They proudly declare their membership in well known Churches
As if that’s all it takes to cement their relationship with God
But ignore the poor as they are leaving.
Spouting scriptures that “the poor are always with us,
Therefore they just don’t want health care!”
They LOVE that verse,
That Jesus states the poor will always be with us,
And that poverty is a moral failing,
And not the result of us
As humanity
Failing to live out the commandment of Jesus
That we are to love one another,
Through action.
(pause)
They proclaim loudly that they worship Jesus Christ,
And not Mother Earth,
That they are good stewards,
So that they don’t have to care about global warming,
Not acknowledging our complacentcy
In inflicting damage upon Creation,
Because of the misinterpretation
That domination meant we had free reign
To take from Creation.
(pause)
So imbedded in American culture,
It was the same thought pattern
Immersed in the upbringing and teaching
Of the dominant culture,
That people were taught by the Church
If they led chaste lives,
Through the 10 Commandment,
And believed in Jesus Christ,
That it would be okay
To own slaves,
To baptize slaves so that they would be saved
But not seen,
As their sister or brother
As Baptism bonds us,
Making us one
Beneath the Cross
And that it was okay,
To label Black bodies
As inferior.
(pause)
Who was Jesus to them,
And what did Jesus Christ mean for them?
(pause)
Music,
Accompanies throughout the week,
As I am discerning
Listening
To She,
The Holy Spirit
As how the Word
Is leading me,
And so this question that is continually raised
About
“Who do you say the Son of God is?”
Found me humming the song,
“Who is He
And what is He to you?”
By Meschelle Ndegeocello
Who covered the original
Bill Withers hit.
However,
If you know the song,
You realize quickly that it has nothing to do with the Gospel,
But
This question,
We cannot ignore
“Who is Jesus,
And what is Jesus
To us?”
Is important for us
As People of Faith
To really determine
What the presence of Jesus Christ means in our lives
Especially,
In these times
When the institution of Christianity
Is on trial,
Because of the contradictions
The world is seeing
A people who confess every Sunday,
A Creed
That we, believe in the Creator God
And in Jesus Christ,
Our Savior and Lord.
We pray the Lord’s Prayer
We come to the Table,
To receive substance
And forgiveness
But is that for our own personal salvation?
Do we think that Jesus Christ,
Will absolve our sins,
Simply because we follow the rules?
And yet,
When we leave this place
We ignore those outside who are wandering
Hurting
We dismiss when statistics
And images
Of atrocities
And oppression
Are made public,
We are silent
When legislation further digs us into the systemic racism
That this country was founded on
And instead blame those victims
That they weren’t strong enough
Or didn’t pray hard enough
Or pull themselves up by their bootstraps
That Jesus was only speaking metaphorically
About welcoming in the stranger,
Caring for the sick
Feeding the poor.
(pause)
That when it clearly says in Scriptures
That Jesus Christ healed,
Helped
And died
For ALL,
It literally means all of humanity
And all of Creation,
Not just those of the House of David,
Or those who stood up in Church
And profess that Jesus Christ
Was their Lord and Savior.
Who is Jesus,
And what is Jesus to us?
(pause)
My own relationship with Jesus,
Has always been rather complicated
Because although I clung to the feet,
Of the Creator
I was conflicted in cementing a relationship
With a Man,
Whose very name,
Guaranteed someone passage into heaven,
While ignoring the vast throng of Ancestors
Who perhaps,
Did not know Jesus,
Merely because that is not how they related to Him
Favorite Gospel hymns,
Which boldly proclaimed
The only way to get into the door,
Was through Jesus
And that you had to be saved,
Even though
Because of the ways we have learned to condemn people
There are those who will never step into a church
And we ignore that
Even if they have never been baptized,
They are still
A beloved Child of the Creator God,
And that they will return to the Creator God,
Regardless of our verdict that we cast upon them.
But now,
My only struggle with Jesus,
Is that the knowledge that if we do indeed
Confess our shortcomings and our failings,
In our moments alone,
With the One,
Who continually calls us into the Light,
When we fall back
In that second,
We are forgiven
Regardless of what the world says.
And I think this question that Jesus places before Peter,
Of “Who do you say the Son of Man is?”
Is not about stating who Jesus is,
But where we place ourselves
If we allow the Holy Spirit to move,
And freely live into the LIBERATION
Of what the Gospel is calling us into.
Jesus then,
Does stand with the oppressed,
And the (word/line)
And the (word/line)
Jesus is the one,
Who I shamelessly fall before the Cross
And submit of myself
Because Jesus calls us,
To then turn around,
And to actually DO
Jesus is more than just a figurehead of holiness
Or a prophet that spouts morality and perfection,
Jesus calls us to break boundaries
To flip tables
To express righteous anger,
When families are separated because of unjust immigration laws
When bodies are battered because of unfair policing practices
When the mentally ill are forced out into the streets to die,
When its okay for the poor to perish since that means we are sacrificing them
So we don’t have to feel the (word/line) of
By a society,
That is selfish,
By the wider Church,
Who has run to Calvary
And refused
To do what Christ has called us,
Commanded us
To do.
Jesus is not some figurehead
Jesus is,
Martin,
Malcolm X
Jesus is
Tamar Rice
Sandra Bland
Jesus is
The Charleston Nine,
Every unknown leper in the scriptures
Every unknown Palestine who has been attacked for who they are
Every victim of poverty,
And slavery
Jesus is,
The One who comforts those,
Battling disease and illnesses,
Never leaving their side
The One who comes to those,
Because of trauma and the ugliness of life,
Take their own lives,
And Jesus then,
Gives them LIFE
And the One who I submitted to
When my Bishop laid his hands on my head
Because of the power of the CROSS,
(word/line)
Jesus cannot be shoved in our theological boxes for our comfort,
Jesus is
the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation;
for in Jesus all things in heaven and on earth were created,
things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers
all things have been created through him and for him.
Jesus came for us,
To love us
And to Transform us
So in turn,
We would share that Good News,
And continue the work,
That Jesus gives to us.
So,
Who is Jesus
And what is Jesus
To you?
Thanks Be to God.
