Sermon: Overcoming the fear of conflict (June 22, 2014, Pentecost 2A)

Pentecost 2A

June 22, 2014

Matthew 10:24-39

            Did anyone watch the US beat Ghana this week in the World Cup? Watching soccer at this level always amazes me – to see the players throw caution to the wind as they do anything and

US Player Clint Dempsey gets kicked in the
face, resulting in a broken nose.

everything to get to that ball. This is the first soccer match I have watched in a while, but as you may know, I have played soccer most of my life. When I was playing as a teenager, I was, like all teenagers, invincible, and would use similar recklessness in my efforts to get the ball, which was of course the only thing that mattered. Now, twice as old, I get nervous just thinking about it! I still like to play, but now I’m much more likely to duck when the ball comes flying at my head than I am to throw myself in its path. Where my teenage self thrived on the excitement of the game, my 30-year-old self is more prone to feel the flip side of that emotion: fear.

            Did you know that excitement and fear are physiologically identical? Breathing, heart rate, chemical response – that’s all the same whether you are excited or scared. The difference is the mental response to it. Excitement makes us bolder and more confident, and fear makes us nervous, tending toward flight instead of fight.

            I’m talking about fear and excitement today because there is a lot of that in our Gospel reading this morning (and our other readings, for that matter!). Jesus is about to send his disciples out on a mission to heal, cast out demons, and proclaim the good news. I can imagine the disciples are excited about that! To be given such power, and to use it to proclaim good news to the world – wow! But their excitement quickly turns to fear as Jesus tells them what it’s going to be like out there: they will be like sheep in the midst of wolves. Not everyone will receive what they say. People, even their own families, will get nasty, and violent. They will tear them down mentally, emotionally, even physically.

            To embark on such a journey as this requires immense trust and deep courage. Or said another way, it requires faith. I think we are often inclined to think that the opposite of faith is doubt. Not so, in Matthew’s Gospel. For Matthew, the opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Now don’t get me wrong, doubt can be a difficult thing, too. It tends to creep in when you really could use some conviction, and makes you feel ungrounded and uncertain. But in my experience, it is not so much the doubt that causes pain, as it is that doubt often leads to fear. If you doubt your spouse’s fidelity, you begin to fear you will be left alone. If you doubt your ability to do something well, you fear you will fail, and you fear judgment. If you doubt you deserve something, you fear you will lose it. And then those fears can begin to take over, and that is when faith begins to suffer.

            One of our greatest and most pervasive fears is a fear of conflict. We often try to avoid it, because past conflict has hurt us too many times in too many ways. So we either avoid it entirely, letting it fester until it finally explodes one day, either all over someone we love, or on some undeserving stranger… or we project it, directing all of our aggression about the issue toward something completely unrelated… or we confront it, but in unhealthy ways, insisting on our own rightness to the point of being unable to truly hear anyone else’s perspective. By and large, people aren’t very good at dealing with conflict, whether in the family, in the work place, or even in the church. It’s no wonder we fear it.

            Unfortunately, this is a fear that really keeps us from living, growing, witnessing, and hoping as much as we could. We keep our hopes and dreams in check because pursuing them may upset someone, and that might lead to conflict, which might lead to more upset, so it’s easier not to even try. Hence our witness becomes muted, and our dreams put aside, lest they cause too many problems. And we are unable to fully be the people that God created us to be.

            It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus decides to address and confront this fear head on. He does this first of all by naming it: he tells the disciples that in the mission he is sending them on, they will face persecution, rejection, even violence. Even though it is God’s work, and the good news of the gospel, they will face conflict. Sometimes naming our fears is the first step in moving past them, because naming them takes away some of their power, and knowing to expect them allows us to prepare ourselves for them. Jesus does this for the disciples in our reading today, preparing them for the various conflicts they might encounter – with strangers, friends, and family members alike.

            Naming is important, but even more important is the word of hope and comfort that Jesus offers them in the midst of it: “Have no fear,” he says. Jesus has lived through what he is asking them to face – the persecution, the rejection, even the violence eventually – and so he speaks from experience. “Have no fear,” he assures them. “Instead, have faith, because God is going to win in the end. Even the hairs on your head are counted. If God knows you and cares for you enough to know that, then you have no reason to fear!”

            Instead, he is saying, have courage and trust. And root that courage in the promise of God – the promise that God knows our most intimate selves, and things about us that even we don’t know, and also the promise that while others may try to hurt you physically, no one can take away from the power of God’s promise to know you deeply and love you truly, no matter what.

            If we could remember this promise, how might we view the conflict or the possibility of conflict differently? One way, I think, is we might move away from viewing all conflict as something inherently

bad, to viewing it as something that could change us for the better. I posted a quote on our Facebook page this week (maybe you saw it) from Christian writer Max Lucado: “The circumstances we ask God to change are often the circumstances God is using to change us.” We are so eager for things to be just so, just as we would like them to be, and for God to take away all conflict, that we often fail to see how God might be using a conflict to turn us into stronger, more faithful people, more equipped to witness to God’s love and serve those in need. This can be hard to hear, because it sounds a lot like, “God makes conflict happen for our own good.” That is not what I’m saying. What I am saying is this: that if God can use something as terrible as the cross to bring about our redemption, then maybe, just maybe, God can work through all hardships to bring about life.

            So have no fear. Know that conflict happens, and it can be scary, and it can be painful inside and out, but that conflict is not the end. The end – and the beginning and all the way through – is God’s promise that no amount of human conflict can ever be stronger than the love and power of our Lord Jesus Christ to overcome fear and death. May we approach all our conflicts and fears assured of that promise.

            Let us pray… Gracious and loving God, we face so much conflict in life, and it is often so painful. Help us to face it with confidence instead of fear, trusting ever in your promises. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"Come follow follow follow follow follow me..."

(The title is a reference to this round I used to sing as a kid, in case you didn't catch that.)

As you may remember, after all this breast cancer business was over, I asked if I would still be followed for all the Hodgkin's treatment side effects. Seemed to make sense, since the Hodgkin's treatments are what likely caused the breast cancer. So I went to Dr. Constine, who specializes in long term survivors of childhood radiation treatments. Ding!

Okay, now that you are caught up, last week I had all the scans he ordered. Basically, he wanted to check out all the areas that were in the field of radiation, and then continue to check them at regular intervals. So the scans he ordered included: chest X-ray, neck ultrasound, and stress echo.

The first two were straightforward. The X-ray was just like dozens of other chest X-rays I have gotten in my life, and the ultrasound was like the many breast ultrasounds I have had, except this was (duh) of my neck. (By the way, neither breasts nor necks are nearly as interesting to watch on a screen as hearts or, I suspect, babies.)

The stress echo, on the other hand, gave me a wee glimpse into the complexity of life-after-breast cancer, at least as far as following me medically. If you are unfamiliar with this procedure, here is how it goes: you have an echocardiogram of your heart at rest, which includes many cords hooked up around the chest, and a gooey wand, and then you can watch your heart pump on the screen. That part is cool. Then they put you on a treadmill and you start off walking at a slight incline, then after three minutes the incline and speed increase, then again after three more minutes, then again... you get the idea. You do this until your heart has reached what you think is maximum capacity, pounding as hard as it can. Then you jump off the treadmill and back onto the echo table and they take more pictures, now of your heart working as hard as it can. You only have about a minute to do this, especially if you are in decent shape and your heart rate quickly drops after exercise stops.

Not the most fun test, especially if you're like me and you're very competitive and never want to admit that yes, this is as hard as my heart can work. (Instead, it was a race with the clock, an insistence that I can make it just one more level... Silly Johanna.) But it is pretty straightforward at least.

Or, it is if you don't have implants, and haven't had lymph nodes removed. The first problem was the implants. They cast a shadow on the heart, and the silicone is not easy to see through. He tried every angle to get a good view, but not always with good luck. No problem - they have a dye they can inject that lights everything up and makes it easier to see. It needs to go in via an IV. I can't have IVs in my left arm because I had lymph nodes removed on that side. So it went into the right arm. But then, they also have to take my blood pressure at various intervals during this process, and I also can't have my blood pressure taken on my left side because of the lymph nodes, and the right side already had an IV in it. Oy. I'm not sure what they finally decided to do - it was some different sort of cuff - but they got it working well enough to get the gist of it, I guess. Then when it came time to run, I had thoughtfully worn a sports bra, because the plastic surgeon's office had insisted I must avoid bouncing and always wear a sports bra when exercising with the newbie boobies... but it didn't occur to me that a sports bra would get in the way of the echo. Yeesh!

So there I ran, sports bra pulled down around my waist, hospital gown taped shut, cables hanging off of me, and at the height of all this, when I feel like I'm gonna keel over, the nurse trying to inject this special dye into my arm (which was the arm on the wall side, of course) as I huff and puff and sprint up a 16% incline. Needless to say, it was not my favorite 10 minutes of the day.

But the good news is that my blood pressure is enviable, and my heart rate dropped back to normal after only a couple minutes, which means I'm in great shape! They don't get such healthy people in the cardio unit very often, so they were very pleased to see this. At least I have this going for me.

Now if I could just get back to using my strong heart on the soccer field!

Sermon: We come from a God who... (Trinity Sunday, June 15, 2015)

Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2014

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

            A couple weeks ago I was in downtown Rochester with a friend, and we wandered into a deli

Boss Sauce is a sweet and spicy sauce that is
made in Rochester by American
Specialty Manufacturing, Inc.
(RocWiki)

for dinner. We ordered sandwiches, and there was a sheet to fill out that had all the different items we could have on the sandwich. One of the offerings was something called “boss sauce.” Does anyone know what that is? Well, we two people who are relatively new to Rochester didn’t, so we asked, “What is boss sauce?” The guy looked at us askance and said, “You’re not from around here, are you?” Well, I guess that much was clear!

            Where you’re from can play a big role in how you relate to the world. That’s why it is one of the first questions people ask when they meet someone for the first time. What’s your name, what do you do, are you from Rochester? And sure, all those things do play a role in who you are: I am and always will be, to some extent, a Northern California girl, raised in a small, gold rush town in the foothills in a pastor’s family. The fact that I am a pastor also says a lot about who I am, as people’s careers of choice often do.

            But what if we thought bigger when we consider who we are and where we’re from? Today texts, especially the one from Genesis, urge us to think about where we are from in a different way. This creation account from Genesis 1 is so rich and beautiful, but I think often skimmed over because we think we know it so well. Or because it brings up baggage, or because the scientist in you readily dismisses it. Or any number of other reasons. But here is my challenge for you today: read this account not as a factual history, but as poetry, or a hymn, or a doxology, which praises God, and the many aspects of God that are worthy of praise. Read it as prose with a truth that is deeper than the words, a reflection on who God is, and who we are because we come from that God.

            That’s the other challenge for today. Instead of thinking, “I’m from Rochester,” or, “I’m from Webster,” or, “I’m from America,” let’s focus on a larger truth: that we are from God. Today on the church calendar is also Holy Trinity Sunday, a day when we reflect on the mysterious and wonderful nature of God, and by extension, who we are as people of that God. So let’s do it – let’s think together about some of what we know about God, and so what it means for us to say, as Genesis makes clear, “We come from God.”

            We come from a God who sees and reflects. Each time God creates something, you’ll notice, God stops to consider the creation, and sees it, and decides each time that it is good. Despite the ordered nature of this account of creation, in fact God is not utilitarian about it. Rather, God relishes in what is made, whether it is a sweeping blue sky, or a child’s laughter, or trees producing fruit and seed, or the way the sunshine sparkles through the leaves of those trees. God is an artist who is a keen observer, perceptive, and patient. We come from a God who observes, attends, perceives, and takes delight in what God has created. Do we take the time to observe and delight in what is around us?

            We come from a God who made things good. Before there was evil and sin, there was goodness and blessing. Just look how often God looks upon creation and deems it “good” or even, “very good.” It’s a very world-affirming account of creation! And yet, all that goodness and blessing – it is so easy to forget in midst of all the greed, violence, back-biting, and devastation we see all around us. But what would happen if we viewed the world as if it really functioned according to its “very good” default settings? What if we viewed people through this lens, even when they said hurtful things? What if we always strived to see the goodness in people and things, rather than get stuck on everything that is wrong? “God saw everything he had made,” after all, “and it was very good.” Could we live into our goodly heritage?

Creation by Igor Paley

            We come from a God who makes new things. It is easy to see this in the creation account, in which God makes new things every day. But what about now? Does God still create new things? Do we still believe God is an innovator, a creator? Looking around, it is hard not to see destruction – rain forests disappearing, landfills increasing, solar caps melting, fires, floods… The world that God made is breaking down, and when we think of creators and innovators, we think of people like Steve Jobs and other human innovators. But is it true that humans are the innovators nowadays, not God? We come from a God who makes new things – so do we still believe in a vibrant and active God, or one who has become stagnant?  

I believe God does still make new things – each day creation is changing, and so are you, and so am I. As Frederick Buechner writes, “Using the same old materials of earth, air, fire, and water, every twenty-four hours God creates something new out of them. If you think you’re seeing the same show all over again seven times a week, you’re crazy. Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again. And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again either.” We come from a God who makes new things, which makes us, too, an ever-changing and every-growing part of creation.

            We come from the likeness of God. These words in Genesis 1 always take my breath away – that we might in any way be in the likeness of God! It is at once grace-filled and frightening to imagine. How does that affect my life, the way I interact with others, the way others see me, to think that in all that I say and do, there is some sort of imprint of God? Debie Thomas says it well: “Whether I acknowledge it or not, I reflect something of God’s joy, God’s intentions, God’s love, and God’s beauty just by the virtue of existing on the earth. I am [God’s], and so [God] is mine.” Let it be so!

Rest Work (after Millet) by Vincent Van Gogh

We come from a God who rests. This is a hard one to hear for first-world work-a-holics. Who has time to rest? There is too much to do, work to be done, a house to be cleaned, dinner to be made, the kids need a ride to lacrosse practice and piano lessons, even church has so many demands! We are busy people. This can even turn into a point of pride, can’t it? To be busy is to be important and involved. To be busy is to embrace life and live it to its fullest! But to look at this account of creation, to see that even God took a day of rest… what makes us think we don’t need one? More than that, notice that while all of creation is repeatedly called good, this 7^th day, the Sabbath day, is the only day that is called holy. Sacred. We come from a God who calls rest holy, and we would do well to take that seriously!

            Finally, at least for today: We come from a God who delights in community. We see this in the creation story, with God’s making not just one human, but both man and woman, to be partners and till the earth together. But we also see this in God’s very nature. As I mentioned, today we celebrate Holy Trinity Sunday, and reflect on the mysterious triune nature of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God’s very nature, you see, is a communion of three persons, dancing together and igniting the world. How appropriate, then, that God’s church would also be a community – a community who, like that first man and woman, are brought together to work together, to till and care for the earth, who

Trinity by Andrei Rublev

become the image of God, reflecting that image to the world. God delights in such community, and that makes us, too, a people who become better when we’re a part of a community.

            These reflections merely scratch the surface of a God who is so beyond our comprehension that no amount of talking or thinking about it will ever bring understanding – and that is a good thing, because if God could be comprehended by our human minds, then God wouldn’t be much of a God! But there are things that we can understand about God: the inclination to see and reflect; the insistence that creation is, at its heart, good; the innovator and creator of continual newness; the embrace of humanity as made in a godly image; the insistence that rest is a holy thing; and the delight in community. These lovely attributes are a part of us, as well. May we, even as we fall short of understanding God, always remember where we come from, and strive to live into that godly heritage.

            Let us pray…. Mysterious God, we desire to know you, because who you are and what you do is indeed our heritage, and what makes us who we are. Help us to know you, and to know what you want from us, your people. In the name of the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

*** Note: This sermon draws heavily from this lovely reflection by Debie Thomas: http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20140609JJ.shtml

As the Breath gave them ability

From Concentus' 2007 season.

This past Sunday my wonderful women's choir, Concentus, sang its spring concert: "The Many Languages of Love and Nature." When Gwen, our conductor first told us about her plan for this concert - that we would be singing in many different languages, and several folks songs from different countries - I admit I felt a bit of dread. The skill I bring to this group is strong rhythm and a knack for sight-reading. I learn notes very easily, and then sing them confidently in the right place.

Singing in foreign languages is decidedly not my gift.

Why am I not good at languages? As a musician with a good ear, I should be. As someone who grew up singing and praying in German, I should be. As someone who has always grasped grammar rules intuitively, I should be. And yet, I struggle: I struggled in German class (one of few Bs I received in college); I struggled in Slovakia (after a whole year of being immersed, I could barely follow a conversation or express my basic needs). It is continually frustrating for me, because I would so love to be able to speak another language well.

So even the day of our concert, I went in with trepidation. Though I had all the notes, there were texts I was still fudging my way through (one in Japanese and one in Romanian, in particular, and even one in Gaelic where we literally sing the same phrase over and over). I decided I would do my best, and hope no one would be there who could speak those languages.

It was not lost on me that this concert was to be sung on Pentecost. In the church year, this is the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit coming. You see, Jesus promised at his ascension and several other times that he would send a Holy Spirit, an Advocate, to be with his disciples after he left, so they would not be left orphaned. And so on this dramatic day, 50 days after Easter, the day we call the birthday of the Church, here is what happened:

"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?"

(Acts 2:1-8, NRSV)

How appropriate, I thought, that we would be singing in eight different languages on Pentecost! I joked to myself that maybe that good ol' Holy Spirit would chime in at just the right moment and I would suddenly be able to sing in Japanese, after all. I even quipped to my congregation during the announcements that, if they would like to continue the celebration of Pentecost by hearing music in many languages, as the Spirit gave us ability, they could come to my concert.

October 13, 2013, Artisan Works.

What started as a joke turned into a profound experience. A few minutes before the concert, one of our members, a counselor whose particular interest is in the many benefits of mindfulness, led us through a breathing meditation to center us for our performance. As she kept talking about breath, I kept imagining Breath - Divine Breath, entering me, calming me, giving me the life I needed and the peace I craved, enabling me to sing and praise and rejoice. And I did feel the Comfort and Encouragement that is promised to come with that same Holy Spirit.

I will tell you, I did not sing all the right words on Sunday. I still fudged my way through Romanian, Japanese, Gaelic, and e.e. cummings English. But you know what? People understood what we were saying. The breath, and the Breath, that carried our melodies gave us the ability, and spoke to us and to our audience; everyone understood what they needed to because of that Breath.

Often Concentus sings religious music. This concert, for the most part, that was not the case. It was almost all secular text about nature and springtime and love and longing and homeland. But for me, considering the breath and the Breath turned it into a religious experience, an experience in which it didn't really matter what words we said or how well we said them. Because what mattered more was what carried the words, and how they were received and embraced by the ears and hearts that heard them.

I believe we all experienced a Holy Breath that afternoon... right pronunciation or not.

Pentecost Sermon: The movement of the Spirit, then and now (June 8, 2014)

Pentecost

June 8, 2014

Acts 2:1-21

            The disciples were feeling, once again, abandoned. Apprehensive. Uncertain about their future. They believed in new life – Jesus had shown them the power of that when he rose from the dead, now some two months ago. They knew that God could do great things, bringing newness and growth out of deaths and dead ends. They believed in this Risen Lord, Jesus, and in his power, even if he did not look much like the Messiah they had expected. But now this Messiah had departed from them once again – had left earth on a cloud, before their very eyes, and ascended into heaven. He had promised them that he would not leave them orphaned and alone, and in fact promised specifically that he would send them a Holy Spirit, an Advocate, who would instill power in them, and make them witnesses. They had left that strange encounter confused, but hopeful, and they went straight away to a find a place to pray, along with several others, including certain women. For ten days now, they had prayed fervently, prayed that this promised Holy Spirit would come, and they wouldn’t feel orphaned any longer.

* * *

There is nothing quite like sitting with 500 people in silent prayer together, knowing that every person there is praying for the same thing: for the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of discernment and power and activity and gifts, to move among us and lift up a leader, a bishop, for the Church. This sort of silence is not passive; indeed there is no stillness that is more active. As I sat with over 400 voting members plus visitors at our Synod Assembly this week, the presence of the Holy Spirit was palpable in a

way I have rarely experienced. Having never participated in a bishop election, I admit this surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. After all, our synod

mission statement says that, “We are a resurrection people who pray first…” and so of course we prayed before, during and after each of the five ballots cast for bishop. The way such an election works, at least for our synod, is that a number of candidates – in our case, six – were nominated several months ago, and at Synod Assembly there are five ballots cast, each one eliminating one or more candidates until we have a bishop. Before each vote, we heard each candidate answer a question – about their personal faith, about their vision for the Church and the synod, etc. – and then we took time in silent prayer, and then cast our vote, and then we prayed some more. With six excellent candidates, each ballot we cast caused me much anxiety, as I listened fervently for the Spirit to tell me which would be the man or woman to lead this Synod, this Church, into the future.

* * *

After ten days of fervent prayer with others in the community, the disciples found themselves, on the day of Pentecost, all together in one place. And suddenly there was this sound, like strong, forceful gale of wind – no one could tell where it was from, but it seemed to come from heaven. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through the entire group, and they started speaking in a number of different languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Jesus had promised them the power of the Holy Spirit, and finally, after much prayer, it had come – and what an entrance!

* * *

By Tuesday morning, we had whittled down our pool of bishop candidates from six to two: the current bishop, Marie Jerge, and Pastor John Macholz, who is the pastor of Atonement Lutheran Church in Brighton and has served for many years as the dean of our Rochester area conference. Both were excellent options – Bishop Jerge has served the synod faithfully for 12 years and navigated it with grace through 

some very tough times. She is a deeply faithful person with a strong prayer life, and is well loved and respected among the other bishops in the ELCA. Pastor Macholz is a man of deep faith and good humor, a wise and capable leader with an exciting and realistic vision for the future of the synod. Even though I know Pastor Macholz both as a friend and a colleague, as I watched and listened to him during the 30-minute question and answer time we had with the two candidates, I found myself stunned. But it wasn’t by his eloquent articulation of his faith and the faith of the church, nor his inspiring words about our future – though both were stunning. I was stunned because it was so abundantly clear to me that while he was the instrument, the breath that caused such an inspired thread to come out of his mouth was something that was other than him. It was a Sacred Breath, a Divine Wind… a Holy Spirit that was speaking through him. He was the instrument, and the Holy Spirit provided the power behind the words. I couldn’t recall witnessing something quite like this before.

* * *

When the Divine Wind came sweeping through that place on that Pentecost morning, people didn’t know what to make of it. What was this thing? They had not experienced something like this before! Finally, Peter stood up, and reminded them what the prophet Joel had said: “I will give my Spirit to everyone. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will have dreams. In those days I will give my Spirit to my servants, both men and women, and they will prophesy. I will work miracles in the sky above and wonders on the earth below.” And then Peter urged them to be baptized in this Spirit. So began the Church.

* * *

When it came time to cast that last ballot for who would be the next bishop of our Church, I knew with certainty that Pastor Macholz was our next bishop. While I had cast votes for other candidates on earlier ballots with anxiety and uncertainty, this one I knew was right. And though I checked the box with sadness, because a vote for John meant a vote to send my friend to live in a different city, I also checked it with gratitude that the Spirit had spoken so clearly and powerfully to me through this man. I checked it with excitement about how God would use him to bring about God’s mission. I checked it with hope for the future of our Church.

I was not at all surprised, then, when the results came back and Pastor John Macholz was elected by a significant margin as our next bishop. I was, however, completely surprised and overwhelmed by the immense variety of emotions going on in and around me. As a brief escape, I pulled out my phone, like any good

Otillia Gracia, born June 1, 2014

millennial, and opened Facebook. The first post that appeared was from one of my dearest friends, who posted the birth announcement and picture of her first daughter, Ottilia Gracia. She was born last Sunday morning. It was not lost on me that my first look at the world outside of this assembly was of a new birth, a new life, whose middle name means Grace.

The theme of this year’s Synod Assembly was “Going Public: Poured Out for the World.” Truly we experienced how God makes that happen. We celebrated baptism, and reflected on how those baptismal waters prepare us to be poured out for the world, serving others and being witnesses to God’s love and grace. We learned about how our synod is poured out for the world through the many missions and ministries going on around upstate NY, from hunger appeals, to youth ministry, to camps, to Disaster Relief, to the Malaria Campaign. And we experienced the Holy Spirit being poured out on us and on our leaders – not in quite the same way as Pentecost some 2000 years ago, but in a way that was meaningful to this Church today.

Bishop Elect John Macholz and his wonderful wife, Lin.

I won’t remember everything that our new bishop said that day, but I will not soon forget the power behind his speech. He said himself that this whole experience was a lesson in getting out of the way and letting the Spirit do the work. In fact, he confessed to me later that his prayer each time he was asked a question during the public Q&A time was, “I hope you have something to say through me, because at this moment, I’ve got nothing.” He left it completely to the Spirit. And that is what we are to remember this Pentecost: that when we were baptized, the power of the Holy Spirit came on us, and when we are willing to get out of the way and let that Spirit be poured through us out onto the world, we might just be surprised. Newness can come. Growth can come. Transformation can come. And we may find ourselves in a new and unexpected position to be poured out for the world.

Let us pray. Holy Spirit, we give you thanks for how you have moved through the world, and through us. Make us always open to your movement and the newness that you bring. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Vocation in a deli

This past Sunday I gathered with members from 175 Lutheran congregation in Upstate NY, for our annual Synod Assembly. (More on that in a later post!) This event has been held in downtown Rochester the last few years, so it has been fun to be a sort of host for the event, one of the ones who knows the city.

It didn't take long before I realized I didn't really know the city. Just before the assembly officially started, I ventured out with a fellow pastor (also not from around here) to find some dinner. The Convention Center is right in the heart of downtown, on several bus routes, so the sidewalks were active. As we walked down the street, I realized how seldom I have walked the streets of Rochester City. I have driven them many times, and I have walked short distances, like from the parking garage to my destination, and I have walked them when they are closed off for street festivals, but I tend to avoid simply walking around outside because, well, Rochester is not known for its safety. Furthermore, being a car owner, I have never found need to use the bus system (though I have thought many times that if I really want to know my city, I ought to just make it my activity for a day to figure out how to use it, thereby also getting to know the people who ride the bus).

My ignorance about Rochester became very clear as my friend Greg and I went in search of a deli for dinner. Here was a whole segment of Rochester personnel that I rarely or never see. Here was a part of the everyday life of Rochester I have never experienced. I suddenly felt like a stranger in a place that has come to feel like home.

We arrived at a deli/market, and made our way to the sandwiches. There was an energetic young man working there. He told us about what he had to offer, and I will tell you, I have never heard someone make cheese sound so exciting. What joy he shared! He told us with enthusiasm how he makes all the food, what a nice, quite sitting area they have, and how when no one else is around, he turns on the music and dances in the kitchen... and sometimes he even does it when other people are around. He introduced us to something called "boss sauce" - when we asked what it is, he said, "You're not from around here, are you?" I suppose not! He eagerly gave us samples, waiting to see our reactions. (It was good! Would be good for dipping chicken fingers in.) When he told him at the end that we didn't need bags, he looked crestfallen and showed us the nice bags he had, which say, "Delicious!" on the side. "But don't you want my nice bag?" he said? We agreed to take the bag.

As we walked out, Greg said, "Talk about someone who does a pretty undesirable job, but does it with joy!" He was the living example of vocation, of seeing whatever you do as your unique calling, your way to glorify God. To bring joy to yourself and others, even in the most mundane of tasks - that is vocation!

I'm glad we ended up in that kinda sketchy deli. Best 10 minutes and $4 I spent all day.

Sermon: Looking back, looking up, looking back (June 1, 2014, Easter 7/Ascension)

Easter 7A

June 1, 2014

Acts 1:6-11

This past Thursday, the Church recognizes the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Because it never falls on a Sunday, always the Thursday 40 days after Easter, it is easy to gloss over it. How many of you were familiar with the story of Jesus’ ascension, beyond just that it happened? … Well, it’s not one I had spent much time on, so I couldn’t have recounted all the details that we heard in our Acts story. The short version of the whole story, just so you’re aware of the context here, is that after Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, he spent 40 days on earth hanging out with the disciples and teaching them about the kingdom of God. Then he ascended into heaven – that’s the story we hear today – and then 10 days later (that’s next Sunday) we celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the promised Holy Spirit.

So today, let’s dig more into that ascension part of the story, and let’s do that in three parts: looking back, looking up, and looking out.

First, looking back: At the beginning of today’s passage, the disciples come together and ask Jesus, “So, Jesus, is it time yet? Is now the time that you’re finally going to restore Israel?” This had been their hope for the Messiah all along, you see. When the Messiah came, they thought, it would be with power. He would destroy and tear down the oppressive Roman government, and bring Israel back to her former glory, like it was under King David. What they got instead was a baby in a manger, someone who spent time with outcasts, and told strange stories and told them to do things like turn the other cheek. But now that Jesus had done all this teaching and healing and whatnot, and died, and now rose again – surely now he was finally going to do what a Messiah should do, and restore Israel to her former glory, bringing them back to “the good ol’ days.”

Their desire is not such a far cry from the church today, is it? Just as the first century Jews longed for a kingdom like when David was king, we are a people who often long for the better days of the past. How many of us have, at one time or another said, “When is the church going to be like it was back when all the Sunday School rooms were full? Remember Luther League, and how involved the youth were then? When will we be restored to the glory days, when we had this or that pastor, or this or that kind of worship service, when we had people filling our pews every Sunday, and we had so many wonderful ministries? When will it be like the good ol’ days?”  It’s not just in the church, either. We often glorify the past. “Back when I was growing up, children respected their elders.” “Back in the day, we didn’t have nearly so much gun violence as there is now.” “What is happening to this world? It used to be so much better.” The disciples are like us – looking back to good times, and wanting those good times to return – even if, if we’re honest, the goodness of those times is more in our memory than it was in reality. But while celebrating our history is a good thing, looking back and craning our necks to keep an eye on our past is not the way to see God’s mission for us today.

Ascension by Jacques Le Breton; Jean Gaudin (from Art in the Christian Tradition, 
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.)
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-viewimage.pl

As it turns out, neither is looking up. After Jesus tells them the future mission he has in mind for them – that is, to be his witnesses to the ends of earth – he ascends into heaven on a cloud. They watch as his feet disappear into the sky… and then they just stand there, brows furrowed, gaping slack-jawed into the sky, astonished and paralyzed. What…?? And they just stand there, looking up toward heaven.

I can see a lot of reasons for their slack-jawed paralysis. Perhaps they are feeling abandoned – again. After all, Jesus had died 43 days before and then rose from the dead and they probably thought that was that, and they wouldn’t ever lose him. And yet here he goes, leaving them again. Even with the promise of the Holy Spirit, I can imagine they feel pretty let down by that. Or perhaps they are lost once again in their grief and dread about life without Jesus, or their disappointment that once again, he is not doing what they thought the Messiah was supposed to do. Or to put a more positive spin on it, maybe they are just caught up in this glorious act of God! A man being lifted up on a cloud and carried into heaven? Yeah, I imagine I’d be pretty astonished, too! And just letting yourself be enveloped in the glory of God isn’t such a bad thing!

All valid reasons to be standing there, looking up. And yet, they can’t stay in any of those places forever. They can’t wallow in their grief and dread, or dwell on their disappointment, or even soak up God’s glory in that place all day long. Being caught up in God’s glory is a good thing, but it isn’t all we are here to do. Jesus gave them a mission to fulfill.

 Which is what two men in white robes remind them of momentarily. “Why are you just standing there?” the men ask. “Why are you still standing and looking up into heaven? Didn’t you hear him? There is work to be done! You are his witnesses! Your mission isn’t in the past, and it isn’t up in heaven. Your mission is right here, right now. Your mission is to look out into the world, to see God, not disappearing into heaven, but all around you in the needs of the world.”

“You will be my witnesses,” Jesus told them. What does that mean? Methodist theologian Leonard Sweet said at a synod assembly some years ago that no church needs any more mission statement than this. You will be my witnesses. But it helps to understand what that means, right? So, what is a witness, and specifically, what does it mean to be Christ’s witness?

This week I had a wonderful conversation with someone about whether and how we experience God. Back and forth, we shared stories. It occurred to me that, as we were sharing stories, we were witnessing to each other. Just telling stories about faith and life – happy stories, sad stories, stories of hope… Witnessing! Then this weekend, I had breakfast with a friend and she told me about some struggles she is going through, and this time I mostly just listened compassionately – this, too, was witnessing. In both of these instances, I felt the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised, present in those conversations, allowing me to show the love of the God I know to others. I felt the power of the Holy Spirit allowing me to look out, beyond myself, to be present with people in need.

Being Christ’s witnesses, you see, can happen in so many times, places, and contexts. It can happen overtly, by telling others about how God has worked in your life, how you have seen new beginnings, new life come from an ending, how the power of the Holy Spirit has been apparent to you. It can happen by physical means, when we serve one another and all those in need. It can happen more subtly by simply showing someone love, by listening to them in a time of need, by offering compassion.

Witnessing can be fulfilling and even fun, but just as often it is extremely hard and scary and vulnerable. That is why Jesus makes this promise: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” In other words, you are not in this alone. We celebrate that arrival next Sunday on Pentecost, the day the Spirit came rushing like a great wind into the Church. But we also celebrate it every day, every baptism, every prayer, every encounter with someone, every act of service, every time we look at the world as it is and strive to be God’s presence in it. Our God is a God who is Emmanuel, God with us, in many and various ways. This is the promise at Christmas, at Easter, at the Ascension, and every single day. May we be inspired to witness to that love!

Let us pray… Glorious God, we often get stuck looking in the wrong direction, and getting bogged down by the burdens of this world. By the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to look out to see the needs of the world, and to be your witnesses to the ends of the earth. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.