Sermon: Transformation is possible (May 27, 2018)

Trinity Sunday

May 29, 2018

Isaiah 6:1-8

Romans 8:12-17

John 3:1-17

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Do you believe that transformation is possible? Or is there any situation in

which transformation is not possible?

            I ask this because I think transformation is a pretty important part of Jesus’ mission, yet I think a lot of us live our lives as though some things are more powerful than God’s ability to change them. I hear it in statements like, “They are just evil,” or, “He’s never going to change,” or, “All of this certain kind of people [black, brown, white, gay, women, men, Muslim, immigrant] are that way.” But it goes even beyond the way we label others. I wonder if we also have convinced ourselves that we will never be different or better than we are. “I can’t do it. I’m not good enough, smart enough, brave enough. I will fail at that,” or, “I could never forgive that person,” or, “I will never forgive myself.” I get it – I have felt that way too, about myself and others – but I do wonder: have we convinced ourselves that there are some things in this world that are simply beyond God’s power to transform?

When Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, Jesus tells him that he must be born anew, born again, born of water and the spirit. Normally we associate this famous verse with baptism, or in some circles, re-baptism. But this week I’ve been thinking about it more broadly: when Jesus tells us that we are to be born anew, is he, in fact, telling us that transformation is and must be a part of a life of faith, whether that transformation is of ourselves, or of others, or our perception of others?

            Furthermore, what, then, counts as a transformation? Only big things? Or even the mundane things of life? What brings about a transformation? Major life events or epiphanies? Or could something very small also be a sort of transformation, or a step on the path to one?

            I’ve been thinking about this question this week, prompted by a number of stories and incidents I have come across. Allow me to share a few.

            The first is right out of our scripture for today. A young man named Isaiah was a sinful man, from a sinful people. He lived in a time that seemed completely beyond restoration or redemption, in which people had turned from God and engaged in evil acts. Yet one day Isaiah has a vision. In that vision, he is in God’s Temple, and God is there, surrounded by heavenly beings. Stunned by the magnificence of this vision, Isaiah is moved to lament that he is sinful and unclean. In response, an angel touches his lips with a hot coal, and voila, Isaiah is made clean. He is forgiven. And so, forgiven, he is also transformed: when God asks whom he will send to bring an important message to God’s sinful people, Isaiah is able to say, “Send me.” And suddenly, Isaiah becomes God’s prophet.

If you have ever forgiven or been forgiven, you know, forgiveness brings about a change – change of heart, lightening of a spiritual load, and perhaps even a call into a new way of living. Because of forgiveness, you see, transformation is possible.

            The next story is closer to home. Last weekend we had a wonderful conversation with Pastor Julie Cicora, who works with Rural Migrant Ministries, one of the recipients of our annual Christmas Stocking Program. She also pastors a church close to the city, and she was telling us about some of the youth programs they have there, aimed at children of the migrant workers. Many of these young people have endured significant trauma in their lives because of the harsh conditions under which their parents live and work. Some have seen their parents taken away in handcuffs and deported, some have hidden under beds during ICE raids, they’ve witnessed violence of various types, most live in abject poverty, itself a trauma. Enduring childhood trauma is a key risk factor for engaging in future violence. Pastor Julie said, almost off-handedly, “I think the church ought to be a healing place, so we focus our programs on helping these kids heal from the trauma they have experienced.”

The church ought to be a healing place – this has been ringing in my head ever since! And when healing, whether physical, spiritual or emotional, takes place, we are born anew. When our deepest pain is acknowledged, when our story is heard, when we find companions who will walk with us and love us, transformation is possible.

            The last story I want to share today is the story of a young man who was a part of a college field trip through a program called Sankofa, in which 20 pairs of students, generally one black and one white, traveled to the south for what amounted to a tour of the history of racism. Their first stop was a plantation in Louisiana, where the cheerful guides went on about “happy slaves” who sang in the fields, who lived under good conditions and whose fingers never bled. At the end of the tour, the students all had a chance to pick some cotton out in the fields.

Back on the bus, the black students were angry and the white students were confused about why the black students were angry, dismissing their friends’ feelings and knowledge of their history in favor of the “expert” tour guides. Surely if the experts said they were happy, they were!

They went on to their next stop, a museum whose only exhibit was a history of lynching. Here they saw horrifying pictures and letters, reflecting some white people’s pride of this practice, pictures showing white families smiling in front of hanging bodies. The students walked silently, stunned, through the exhibit.

This time, back on the bus, the white students did their best to separate themselves from this history: “My family didn’t own slaves. I didn’t even know these sort of things happened. I’m not a part of this.” The black students were even more outraged by the white students’ unwillingness to own this history, or truly recognize their pain. The tension on the bus was palpable.

            Then one white student stood up and changed the whole tone. She said, “I don’t know what to do with what I’ve learned. I can’t fix your pain, and I can’t take it away, but I can see it. And I can work for the rest of my life to make sure your children don’t have to experience the pain of racism.” Then she added, “Doing nothing is no longer an option for me.” (Christian Century, “Talking about racism on a college bus trip,” https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-person/talking-about-racism-college-bus-trip.)

            Would she have been so changed if she had walked through the exhibit on her own? I doubt it. There was something about seeing and hearing the pain from friends and colleagues with whom she had just traveled hundreds of miles, that brought about that change. When we build relationships with one another, see and listen to one another, seek to understand and bear with one another in our pain, transformation is possible.

And this, this is a wonderful gateway into understanding the Trinity. Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the day when we celebrate the triune nature of God. It’s a difficult doctrine to understand – how God is three-in-one and one-in-three. So instead of trying to wrap our heads around it, think of this: God is, by God’s very nature, a relationship, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As our hymn of the day says, the Trinity is a sort of dance, always moving, working, impossible to be apart yet each its own. Our God is a relational God.

            And when we are baptized, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we indeed join that dance of Trinity. Or as Paul says in our epistle reading today, we are adopted, we become a part of the loving, living, relationship that is our God.

            So what does that mean for us? As a part of that divine relationship, we, too, are pulled into the transformative work of the Triune God: we love one another, we forgive one another, we walk with one another as companions, we bear with one another in pain as in joy.

            And as we live out this life, as children adopted and baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we are continually born anew, transformed. We are daily assured that transformation is possible – for ourselves, for our friends, and for our enemies – even when all hope seems to be lost.

            Transformation is possible, brothers and sisters in Christ. Thanks be to God! Let us pray… Three-in-one, One-in-three, we give you thanks for pulling us into your joyous, transformative dance. When we have lost hope that anything will ever change, assure us that you are more powerful than anything that could bring us down, and as long as we are in relationship with you, transformation is possible. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pentecost Sermon: A violent and surprising wind (May 20, 2018)

Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

May 20, 2018

INTRODUCTION

            Though we hear the story of Pentecost every year, the story of the Spirit of God coming down as wind and fire and birthing the church, our understanding of what’s going on here could really benefit from a bit of context. So first, what happened right before this story, is that Jesus ascended into heaven. After he rose from the dead back on Easter, he hung around Jerusalem with the disciples for 40 days. At the end of this 40 days, Jesus tells them that they must not under any circumstances leave Jerusalem yet, because they were, very soon, going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Excited, the disciples ask, “Oh, so now you are finally going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” If you know your Jewish history, you remember that several hundred years before Jesus came, the kingdom of Israel had split into Northern and Southern kingdoms, and had eventually fallen to the enemy, and Jews had been sent into exile all over the known world. Some had returned to Israel, but it remained that the former kingdom of Israel was severely fractured, both by location and belief. They had hoped and believed that the restoration of the kingdom of Israel was the whole purpose of the Messiah, and so here they are, still waiting for that.  

            But Jesus says, “That’s not for you to know. But what you will get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Spirit comes, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, and all over the world.” And with that last promise/charge, Jesus floats in a cloud up to heaven.

            Since then, 10 days have passed, and it is the day of Pentecost. This is a Jewish holy day that falls 50 days after the Passover. It’s more often called the Feast of Weeks (7 weeks and one day), and it’s a day when they celebrate the spring harvest. It was also a day, and this is significant, when Jews around the world made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to sacrifice their “first fruits” of the harvest at the Temple. Consequently, Jerusalem at this point is full of people from all over the place – and although they all identify as Jewish, they come from different sects of Judaism, and speak different languages.

So that’s the setting. About 120 Christians, including the 12 apostles (they had replaced Judas by now), are gathered in one place, wondering what the heck is going to happen next and when, and… well, let’s listen and see. Please rise to welcome the Spirit!

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            How must the disciples have felt at the beginning of this story?

            Ten days prior they watched Jesus float up into the sky on a cloud. They lost him once, he came back, and now he’s gone again. What an emotional yo-yo! Plus, all this time, they had been thinking Jesus would restore the kingdom of Israel, and they had yet to see it happen – in fact, things seemed worse now! Their deepest desire, to go back to this time when everything was hunky dory and everyone got along, seemed to float off into the sky right along with Jesus! Jesus said that really soon they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit – whatever that meant! – but already it had been 10 days, and nothing!

            Not to mention their questions and fears about what would come next. Jesus had appeared to some 500 people after his resurrection, but now here they sat only 120 strong. With only 120 people, would this movement even last? Would they be able to grow their numbers? Would people believe this amazing story about a man who rose from the dead? They’d given up so much for this man and his message, but now – how would they even survive?

            They are full of fears and questions. And honestly, theirs are all questions and concerns that we have today, as individuals, yes, but also as the church. We, too, long for the past, for a time when the world seemed better and safer, when our Sunday School was full and families weren’t so busy and we had a baseball team and went on camping trips with our church friends. It was a time that, if we’re being honest, may or may not have ever actually existed as we remember it, but which has nevertheless formed itself in our memories as something pretty great.

In the present, we are confused, wondering what we are supposed to do now, in our new normal, desperate for some guidance, or for someone to step up and take the torch from our tired leaders, so that we can continue to function as we always have.

And, we fear for the future – what will tomorrow bring? Will our church grow, or dwindle away? What do we do about the drop in giving – how will we pay the bills? Who are we if we aren’t what we have always been?

            And into the Early Christians’ longing, distress, and fears, comes whooshing a violent wind and tongues of fire. Not, I suspect, the comforting presence they were hoping for! The text doesn’t say, “And like a cool breeze on a summer day, the Spirit nestled in among them.” No, the Spirit comes like a violent, rushing wind! Like fire! It makes me picture that wind storm we had last year that left trees and electric cables down all over town – violent wind is no comfort!

            Now I think sometimes, the Spirit is very much a comfort. But this initial appearance after Jesus’ ascension is not one of those times. And, turns out, the Spirit is often not much of a comfort. It does not always provide the answer we were hoping for or expecting – more often, the Spirit pushes us in directions with which we are not comfortable, into new situations where we are not comfortable and don’t know how things will turn out. The Holy Spirit is much more likely to move us toward a reality we would never have imagined on our own.

Just look at when the disciples ask if Jesus will restore the kingdom of Israel. He doesn’t say, “Yes, we’ll put everything back just as it was before.” In truth, “how it was before” wasn’t really even as good as they think; their memory of this great, united Israel – it never existed! Israel was always at war with someone. They had a string of bad kings, and even David, the greatest of all the kings, was a murderer and an adulterer. Plus, it was never Jesus’ mission to put things back the way they were – Jesus was always about newness of life, about reaching out in love to the outcast, the stranger, the poor and vulnerable, not about restoring the political power Israel once enjoyed.

            And so he doesn’t promise them the nationalist glory of old that they crave. Instead, he promises them something much more powerful and effective for accomplishing his true mission: the Holy Spirit, he says, will empower them to become witnesses, to bring the good news of the Gospel to all people, to tell this story – about how life always wins over death – to tell it in a way, in a language, that people can truly understand.

In short, the gift of the Holy Spirit brings with it the power to participate in bringing about God’s hope for the world: a hope of peace, love, justice, reconciliation, redemption, mercy, grace, and above all, newness of life. That is the mission and message of Jesus Christ – not that we would return to some past, but that these things, this life, is possible, right now, and in the future… even though it might look different from anything we’ve ever seen before. Bringing about God’s hope for the world is the mission the Holy Spirit empowers us to live out – in our families, in our congregations, and in the world.

And that is the mission into which we will, in a moment, bring Audrey and Luci/Emmett. It’s no small thing, being baptized. When we baptize a child, even one so small as these/this, we are calling upon the Holy Spirit to enter this child, and to encourage and empower her/him also to live out this mission we all share. There is some comfort in a baptism – the washing away of sins, the promise of forgiveness, the welcome into the community of faith – but a life of faith is not always one of comfort. It is also one of surprising inspiration. It is one in which we listen and respond to the urging of that whooshing, violent wind, still active in our hearts, blowing us toward sometimes Big, Scary Things that will change our lives or the lives of others, for the better. A baptized life of faith is one in which every day we look to fulfill Christ’s mission to love and serve, to reach out to the outcast with compassion, to forgive and reconcile, to feed the poor and hungry in body, mind and spirit, and to be gracious and merciful, just as God is to us.

And thanks be to God, a baptized life of faith is also one where that same Spirit accompanies us all along the way, offering all of those things also to us when we are in need, guiding us in right paths, and lifting us up when we are discouraged.

What a gift to be here today, not only to witness as these/this child/ren of God is/are brought into the promises, hopes, and expectations of baptism, but also to remember that the Spirit moves also in us, blowing us toward new and sometimes scary ways of witnessing to and living out the mission we all share in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us pray… Spirit of God, descend upon our hearts. Move in us, breathe in us, and help us to listen as you urge us toward ways of being your church that may scare or surprise us. Make us always ready to trust your guidance. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: On emptying (May 13, 2018)

Easter 7 (NL4)

May 13, 2018

Philippians 2:1-13

INTRODUCTION:

            Last week we started working through the book of Philippians, and I told you a bit about the Philippian congregation, telling you that Paul really loved them, and was grateful for them, and that they had actively supported him while he was imprisoned. In fact, the part of the letter to the Philippians that we read last week even takes time to commend the Philippian Christians for their faith and service. Yes, Paul loved the congregation in Philippi – but that doesn’t mean they were without their problems! The part of the letter we hear today speaks to that.

            One thing I really like about Paul’s letters to the various Christian communities he starts is that they show us that the Early Christians had some of the very same challenges and spiritual and personal struggles that we have today. Every single Christian community since the beginning has had their challenges because every single Christian community has been a collection of sinful people in need of God’s grace. After all, that’s why we’re here, right?

            In today’s portion of the letter, we see that the Philippians were struggling with some selfish behaviors, and Paul urges them to be more humble. Selfishness and a need for humility… I can think of a time or two when these issues have come up in my life, and yes, even in the life of the church – can you?

            So listen to the advice that Paul gives to this fledgling Christian congregation. Think about when you have needed to hear that same advice. Listen to the beautiful hymn that Paul includes in this letter, about how God “emptied” himself to become like us, and why such a move would matter to the particular struggles the Philippian church faced – and the struggles we still face, as the church, as families, and as friends.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Well it’s finally springtime, and with spring comes that itch to do some spring-cleaning! In particular, I always get the itch in springtime to do some de-cluttering – all this stuff I have been collecting over the winter… okay, over the past several years… I am motivated to get it out of my life!

            But it never fails: no sooner have I decided, “Today is the day!” than I start looking at my stuff and thinking, “Oh, but I don’t want to get rid of that because… And I can’t rid of this… And this I might need, you just never know…” Sound familiar? This is a challenge for a lot of us, I think: even though we have a desire to get rid of the junk in our lives, it can be really hard to let go. We want to hold on tightly to what we know, to what is familiar.

            I’ve been thinking about all this in the context of Paul’s words to the Philippians that we just heard. He starts by urging them toward humility, telling them to “do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” He says to “let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” then quotes a beautiful, ancient hymn about how Christ obediently “emptied himself,” giving up all his godly glory to come down and be with us in the dirt and grime for a while, and, in the utterly selfless act of dying on the cross, brought us salvation.

            This hymn Paul quotes is called the kenosis hymn, named for the Greek word meaning “empty.” As in, Christ’s self-giving humility was expressed when he “emptied himself.” So I started to wonder, is self-emptying the way for us, too, to find this humility that Paul encourages the Philippians to strive for? Is it a part of the Christian life?

Think again about that de-cluttering image. Getting rid of our physical stuff (emptying our closets, so to speak) is difficult, but even harder is letting go of the junk in our hearts – the emotional and spiritual stuff that bogs us down. Do you know what I mean by spiritual junk? Spiritual junk is… that thing that we just can’t forgive that someone did, or that thing we did to someone else for which we can’t forgive ourselves. It’s all those regrets we carry around with us – those things we missed the chance to do right. Spiritual junk is all the guilt – for not being a better parent, or son or daughter, or spouse, or friend, for the ways we’ve let down people that we care about, guilt for not being the Christian we think we ought to be.

Really, a lot of the spiritual junk we have crammed into our hearts comes down to one thing: pride. Pride is what keeps us from forgiving people – because we think as long as we can hold something over someone, we maintain some control over the situation, and keep ourselves safe from future pain. Pride is what makes us think that our actions or inactions are more powerful than God’s own mercy and grace. Pride is believing that God wouldn’t be able to take these broken vessels that we are, and use us to do extraordinary things in the world. Pride keeps us focused on ourselves – whether our best traits and moments, or our worst – and keeps us from turning our eyes toward God and toward the world to see God’s own marvelous hand at work.

What would it be like to de-clutter our hearts of all this spiritual junk? To kick pride to the curb?

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” Having thought about how hard it can be to empty ourselves – of both our physical and spiritual junk! – makes this statement all the more remarkable. Jesus had every reason to “grasp,” to hold tightly to all that he had. A seat at the right hand of God, a heavenly existence, pure bliss… yet he gave it all up, and for what? Us bunch of sinners?

Yes, us bunch of sinners! Even though we did nothing to deserve God’s self-giving love! This, God shows us, is what obedience, and humility, and above all, what love look like. This is what it looks like to live a Christian life: it looks like letting go of our judgments of others, our resentments, our regrets and guilt, all those things that would keep us from living a full and generous life. A Christian life looks like letting go of our assumptions about who deserves our help, love and generosity, and simply giving it, because that is what God commands of us. Being of the same mind as Christ Jesus means that we also practice self-emptying, doing our best to rid ourselves of all the pride that keeps us from kicking our junk to the curb. Once we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, there will be even more room then for us to receive Christ’s joy, to be filled up with that instead of with our pride.

But there’s another important part of the Christian life. Thanks be to God, that living a Christian life also means knowing and trusting that when we fail to do this – because try as we might, we will sometimes fail – God’s grace and mercy are bigger than our failures. It is absolutely worth the effort to clean out the closets (in our house and in our hearts!), but the reason we can even attempt this work with confidence is because we know that God is with us each step of the way, holding us up, empowering us, and forgiving us when we just can’t let go of some things quite yet.

God is at work in us, brothers and sisters, enabling us both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure. Let us lay aside the junk that keeps us from living the fullness of a life in Christ, so that we might serve our neighbors without judgment, forgive without resentment, give without regret, and love without guilt. And let us be confident that in doing this, we are indeed confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Let us pray… Self-emptying God, we hold onto so much junk that doesn’t at all serve us, or our neighbor, or you. Help us to let go of it, to empty our hearts of all that would keep us from you, so that there would be room instead to receive your grace and your joy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.