Sermon: On being accepted (Baptism of our Lord, Jan. 11, 2015)

Baptism of our Lord (B)

January 11, 2014

Mark 1:4-11

            If you were here last week, you received a new “Star Gift.” We did the same thing last year. This is an Epiphany exercise meant to carry you through the year, an opportunity to notice and focus on the gifts that God has already given to you. So each person pulled a colored star from the offering plate that had one of God’s gift written on it: gifts like assurance, hope, peace, listening, singing, laughter, and so on. I suggested you put that star someplace where you will see it every day, so that you will be reminded every day to look for that gift, and see how God is making God’s self known to you through that gift. (If you weren’t here and want to participate in this year-long exercise, there are more stars, so feel free to grab one this week!)

            Some people, I know, really liked the gift they got. But I also got some complaints from people about wanting to trade in their star for a different one. I admit to you that I was one who

I include this with much sarcasm.

wanted to trade mine in. The gift I drew was acceptance. The first emotion I felt about it was fear. When I thought of acceptance, I thought about how often we have to accept things we don’t want to be true. You accept a diagnosis, a death, a break-up, an undesired outcome. You move through the various stages of grief and finally, hopefully, land on acceptance of your new reality – and while the final product is somewhat freeing, the way there is extremely painful. And it scared me to think of going through that this year because you know what? There are a lot of things I want right now, like, really, really want – I’m not talking about physical things that I could buy, but outcomes, dreams, life goals. And when I saw that so-called gift of acceptance staring back at me from the star, I did not want to face the possibility that I may have to accept not getting those things that I want so deeply, and somehow seeing God in that.

            I know I’m not alone in this. Who would want to accept anything less than their heart’s desire? I think this is why so many of us make New Years resolutions. We know that our lives are not entirely as they should be, and that there is room in us for growth. We know that our relationship with God could be better, that we often overlook the gifts we have in our lives, that we can be lazy, or that we can be workaholics, or that we can participate in activities that do not build up others or ourselves. There is a gap between who we are, and who we think we should be, and we fear that if someone else perceives that gap, we might not be accepted. Or maybe worse, we might not be able to accept ourselves. Negative self-talk is some of the most destructive stuff we can engage in. So we try to take matters into our own hands and “fix” ourselves, engaging in New Years resolutions and goal-setting in an effort to become better so that we can more easily accept ourselves as worthwhile people, and hope that others will be able to do the same. It is certainly a noble effort, and often the resolutions we make are important and healthy ones.

            The problem, of course, with seeking acceptance from others and ourselves by taking on our shortcomings ourselves and hoping that, “This year, I will have the willpower to stick to that diet, to exercise regularly, to floss daily, to read more books,” is that more often than not, we fail. We fall further down than we were in the first place, because not only do we have bad habits, but also when we tried to save ourselves, we failed, so we must be even worse than we thought. Acceptance becomes even harder.

            You can see why I was so adverse to my star gift of acceptance this year. All this and much more ran through my head as I stared down at it. The thought that I had the rest of the day was, “Acceptance seems less like a gift and more like a struggle.”

            But then Monday morning rolled around and I started to study the familiar text of Jesus’

By He Qi

baptism. I love this Sunday when we hear about Jesus’ baptism because it helps us think more deeply about our own baptism. I think that many of us don’t think much or very regularly about our baptism, am I right? I mean, that happened for most of us when we were only babies, so we don’t remember the event itself. It may be significant to us that it happened, but we see it as a once and done event, something that got taken care of when we were young and now we’re good to go. We have the same thing done for our kids – it’s tradition, after all – and that may have been very meaningful, but is it something you think about daily? I doubt it.

            But as we read about Jesus’ baptism, we see that, remember it or not, there is no more important and life-giving event in our whole lives than our baptism. Let me explain. I talked earlier about my fear of my star gift, acceptance. I had pictured it as my ability to accept things that come my way, but of course acceptance goes the other way: we also long to be accepted. I’m sure you can all think of a time in your life when you did not feel accepted – by your peers, by your work place, by your in-laws. For me, it was middle school, when one day I was apparently no longer cool enough to hang with the “in crowd.” I felt it also when I met a former boyfriend’s family who was from the South, and this California girl with a big mouth didn’t quite fit in with the southern politeness of that family, and I didn’t feel accepted.  

Not being accepted can be devastating. I remember well the anguish of 8^th grade, when I longed to know why no one seemed to understand me and why my peers couldn’t just accept me as I

was. Our lives are full of surface affirmation – “likes” on Facebook, certificates and trophies just for participating – but what we really long for is not a huge social network, but a sense of true belonging, the promise of acceptance.

            And that, my friends, is precisely what we receive in our baptism. We see it right here in Jesus’ baptism. Notice two things about what happens here. First of all, God’s words to Jesus as the Holy Spirit descends like a dove onto Jesus are personal and direct: “You are my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.” You are. They are the same words God will say to Gracie and Sofie when they are baptized in a moment: “You are God’s beloved. God is well pleased with you.” That is what happens in baptism, you see. We are claimed as God’s beloved, just as we are, accepted and promised that God will never ever let us go.

            The second thing to note is that immediately after this moment of loving acceptance, Jesus is sent out into the desert to be tempted by the devil. That is, he is sent out into the world, where struggle and temptation and pain and suffering are real. But he goes out still wet with the promise of baptism: “You are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus’ baptism begins his ministry, but it also carries him through it. The promise of God’s love, God’s care, God’s delight, follows him on his journey through life.

            And we were given the assurance of this promise in our own baptism, as well. It is a promise that God will never abandon us; through trials and dangers, through temptation, loneliness, and fear, God continues to promise us eternal love and acceptance, even when we struggle to love and accept ourselves. Wherever we may go, and whatever we may do or have done, God does and will continue to love us, hold onto us, and accept us. That is a gift worth remembering every single day of our lives.

            Let us pray… God of love and acceptance, we know that we often fall short, and try as we might to fix things, we still struggle sometimes to love and accept ourselves. Help us to remember that in our baptism, you promised to love and accept us on that day and everyday thereafter, and help us live into that promise with joy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

The gift of acceptance

This past Sunday, my congregations once again did "Star Gifts" - an exercise in noticing what gifts God has already given us. Each person was given a paper star with one of God's gifts on it, and charged with the task of noticing how, through that gift, God is made manifest in their lives.

Last year, I was given the gift of time. It was a great gift for me to notice, and noticing it in fact helped me to make positive changes in my life, changes which still benefit me. It was a nice, concrete gift to focus on, very accessible. I enjoyed it.

This year, I got the gift of acceptance. And the first emotion I felt about it was fear. "Huh," I said, then quickly hid it so no one else could see.

Why did I feel fear? Because my first thought about acceptance is that it is required when you are faced with something you don't want to happen, and you have to accept it. As in, it is the final stage of grief (not that I have ever experienced grief as linear, but you understand what I mean). And you know, there are a lot of things I want right now, like really, really want, more deeply than I have ever wanted before, and I do not want to accept that I will for some reason not get them. The possibility of having to experience acceptance in anything more than a trivial way this year frankly terrifies me.

But today, I started thinking about acceptance a little more broadly. First, I thought of acceptance in terms of call. I accepted a call to ministry about nine years ago. Three and a half years ago I accepted a call to serve Bethlehem and St. Martin Lutheran Churches. These were big decisions, but they weren't all that hard for me, and they were far more life-giving than scary. I felt a healthy amount of anxiety, yes, but not fear. In these cases, acceptance was a good thing.

Then I started thinking about it in terms of generosity. The year I spent as a volunteer in Slovakia (a Young Adult in Global Mission), I thought I was there to serve, but instead I found that I relied heavily on the generosity of others. As it turned out, some of the best "giving" I did was instead graciously receiving - receiving meals, receiving care, receiving a free room to live in. Being willing to receive, or to accept, a gift from someone else is sometimes the most generous thing you can do. Being willing to accept requires a level of vulnerability, an ability to admit I can't do this alone, and I depend on the love and care of others. Acceptance.

Then I started thinking about it in terms of being accepted. There was a time in my early teens when I suddenly no longer felt accepted by my peers, and it was some of my most difficult years. Though I floated between social groups and people didn't mind my being around (and maybe even liked it - I may have a negatively skewed perception of this time), I didn't feel particularly accepted into any one friend group. I didn't feel I truly belonged anywhere.

Except in my church youth group. What a gift it was to be a part of that group, to be with them and be able to be fully myself, and to be loved and accepted for that. They loved me and held me through my cancer treatments. When we went to the western states youth gathering in the midst of my chemo treatments, and I had to wear hats and bandanas to hide my bald head, they all brought hats and bandanas to hide their own hair under, so I wouldn't be alone. In that group, I truly felt the gift of acceptance.

I guess it isn't such a terrifying gift after all.

Star gifts 2.0 (Epiphany reflections)

Epiphany A

January 4, 2013

(Please note: for further background on this activity, read this.) 

  

            If you were here at church last year on January 5, you will remember that it was the day we passed out “star gifts.” This was an exercise in living out the promise of Epiphany – a day on which

we celebrate the manifestation of God in our lives. Epiphany falls on January 6, and in the Christmas story, it is the day the magi arrived to greet Jesus, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But before they gave those gifts, of course, the magi had first received – received the gift of God through Christ; their giving was in gratitude and praise of that gift. Still today, we receive all kinds of gifts from God – our family, friends, homes, etc., but even more abundantly, more abstract gifts like love, forgiveness, mercy, prayer, peace, truth…

            But we don’t always notice these gifts, do we? They are ignored, or taken for granted, or misunderstood. And that is why last year we handed out “star gifts.” Each person received a paper star with one of these gifts written on it, and then the charge to consider for the upcoming year how God has been and is being made manifest in this gift. It was not a charge to use that gift, necessarily, though you certainly may have. Rather, you were asked to notice how you have already received it, how God has already been made known through it, and how God continues to be made known through it in our daily lives. And, last year I warned you that I would ask you to share some of your reflections today with the congregation. So, the day has come for you to share with one another your star gift experience.

            I’ll go first. The gift I drew last year was TIME. This could not have been more perfect for me, as I am always running around like a crazy person and frequently hear myself saying, “I’m too busy,” or, “I don’t have enough time.” That is often what we do with God’s gifts – we view them not as abundance, but as scarcity. We skip right over gratitude for what we have, and focus instead on how there is never enough of it. So this year, to help myself get over viewing the gift of time as scarce instead of abundant, I made a conscious effort to avoid saying, “I’m busy,” and whenever I was in a hurry to get somewhere, I said to myself, “Johanna, you have time.” I wasn’t perfect in this

effort. But whenever I did remember to do it, I could almost feel myself relax, as I accepted that God gave me just as much time as anyone else, and I was the one responsible for stewarding it and using it to God’s glory. That sometimes meant I was late to a meeting, because I had spent a little extra time in prayer that morning. It sometimes meant I didn’t get everything done that I intended because instead I took seriously God’s command to take a Sabbath – time for rest. An evaluation of how I was spending my time also helped me see that I wasn’t always using it wisely, in ways that would please God. So last year I reconsidered my schedule, allowing more time in my day for exercise, prayer, and quality time with my husband. In these small efforts, I could feel God’s pleasure, even as I could feel my heart and body growing stronger instead of more weary.

            That’s my experience. How about you? Who would like to share about their star gift?

[Leave time for sharing. Close with this:]

            Thank you, everyone, for sharing. I hope that even if you didn’t share today, that you will share with someone privately, and that you found this exercise fruitful… because we’re going to do it again! I’d like to invite the ushers to bring forward the offering plates. Usually we put something into the offering plate (and we still will do that later!), but today, we are first going to take something from the plate, to receive God’s gifts for us. Don’t look first – just draw! If someone isn’t here and you think they’d benefit from this, draw one for them, too, if you like.

            As humans, we yearn for tangible, clear signs of God’s presence. But so often we are so overwhelmed by life that we fail to see those signs even when they are right in front of us. My hope is that this will help to focus your awareness of God’s gifts in your life.

            Anyone want to share what gift they drew this year?

Epiphany is a time to celebrate God’s presence breaking into the darkness and chaos of life and shining as a light in the darkness. My prayer for us this year is that we would be reminded at every turn of our generous, giving God.

            Let us pray… Gracious God, we give you thanks for your many gifts. Help us to notice and not to ignore, to embrace and not to disregard, and in this effort, to become ever closer to you. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christmas Eve Sermon: Broken cookies (2014)

            Each year, as I rush around trying to get two churches ready for Christmas, I often don’t have time to do all the other fun Christmas stuff – decorating, sending cards, caroling, parties, baking cookies. I just barely get gifts done, though sometimes (and this year is one of those times) I just have to accept that my family will be receiving Epiphany gifts instead of Christmas gifts. Luckily, they understand. But this year, I finally did it: I carved out some time one Saturday morning to bake some Christmas cookies. Of course, I made my favorite: spicy Christmas cutouts, trees and stars. Because 

Spicy Christmas cut-outs, made by Johanna :)

they are my favorite, my mom always made them for every occasion, choosing the shape accordingly: hearts for Valentine’s Day, leaves for autumn, we even had them at our wedding, in the shape of hearts and, naturally, airplanes.

            As I carefully lifted them off the cookie sheet and onto the cooling rack, of course, I found there were some casualties. There often are, especially with the various shapes and pointy edges of cutouts. In my family, and I’m sure in yours as well, the casualties were the ones the family got to eat, while we saved the ones that turned out perfectly cute and intact for giving to other people, and for putting on the pretty plate after Christmas dinner. No one outside the kitchen saw the mistakes.

That’s sort of a metaphor for life, isn’t it? Especially at Christmastime, we only put forward our very best face – the prettiest cookies and the best smiles – for other people to see, and we save the brokenness – both the broken edges on our cookies and our emotional brokenness – for a more

private place. After all, there’s no reason, especially at such a merry time as Christmas, to dwell on the dark shadows and brokenness of our lives, right?

But you and I both know: there are very real dark shadows and brokenness in our lives. Speaking personally, I have been very occupied during Advent year with the darkness of that season. That’s due to some family and personal things, but also the national and international scene, in which the news is dominated by illness, torture, racism, riots, threats, revenge, and last week even the whole-scale displacement of the homeless community in Rochester city. It has been hard to see the light when there seems to be so much darkness everywhere we look. It has been hard not to hear the angels’ song of “peace on earth” as mere wishful thinking.

Perhaps that is why we portray the Christmas story the way we do. I mean, it is an amazing story, miraculous, moving, but did you ever notice how much we either gloss over or sentimentalize the rougher edges of it? Like, Luke doesn’t tell us about the labor pains Mary undoubtedly felt, or about how her laboring screams filled that silent night. He doesn’t mention how scared and appalled Joseph was to be there for the birth, which was not in any way a normal or appropriate place for a man to be, but who else was there to catch the baby when he came out – the donkey? I don’t think so! There is no reflection on how mortified Mary and Joseph were when the dirty shepherds, the lowest of the low in society, showed up with their equally dirty sheep. Or what about when baby Jesus made a mess in those swaddling cloths, as newborns are prone to do, and they had no more clean ones to change him into?

No, those aren’t the parts of the Christmas story that we like to tell and put on greeting cards. Our preferred version shows two faithful, saintly people caring gently for their newborn who no crying makes, oxen and asses before him bowing, shepherds looking like upstanding citizens, and not a hint of the messiness of a stable that is home to animals. We don’t want to dwell on the gross, painful or difficult parts of the Christmas story any more than we want to dwell on the gross, painful or difficult parts of our own stories. Maybe, we think, just maybe, if the Christmas story can be clean and sweet tonight, so can our lives. Like the plate full of cookies that are not at all broken, our lives, too, can be perfect, at least for one holy night. That is, after all, the expectation we have for Christmas.

But from the very beginning, you see, the incarnation, Christmas, did not meet expectations.

St. Martin Christmas pageant, "An Unexpected Christmas"

This year the kids of St. Martin showed us this in their delightful Christmas pageant, called, “An Unexpected Christmas.” It is sort of the prequel to the Christmas story. It takes place in heaven, with God and the angels, as God tries to figure out what to do about how far humanity has strayed from his original intention. God has the idea to send his son in the form of a newborn baby, to a peasant girl in a stable. The angels urge God to reconsider, to send an army, or at least to send his son someplace safe, like to a strong ruler in a palace. With each wacky, irrational, risky idea God has, the angels are aghast – all but one, who keeps commenting, “That’s brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!”

But that’s really the point of Christmas, isn’t it? That repeated line: they won’t be expecting that. The way that God chooses to come and dwell among us is completely unexpected, completely risky, and when it comes down to it, completely wacky.

But that irrational wackiness is what makes the Christmas story – the real Christmas story with all the rough, broken edges – such good news. It would have made sense for God to make His grand entrance into the earthly scene dramatic, noticeable, and more important than a baby born in a stable in a backwater town to an unwed teenage mother, announced only to the shepherds in the fields. But that more “important” version wouldn’t mean anything for the brokenness of my life. And so that isn’t what God chooses to do. God doesn’t come and take one of the perfectly intact cookies from a freshly polished silver plate. God doesn’t come into a family with a mom and a dad and 2.5 kids and a dog. God doesn’t come into a table laden with succulent and expertly cooked food, a sparkling Christmas tree with all the best ornaments on the front, and a meal in which no one says anything snarky or sarcastic, no one shares the pain going on in their lives, and everyone is just as merry as can be.

No, God comes to the earth among the lowly, the hungry, the displaced, the refugees, the weak, the despised. God comes to earth in the dark of night, when all the scariest and most mysterious creatures are out and about, where crime happens, where nothing seems quite as safe. God comes to earth among people who are terrified, like the shepherds; to those who are exhausted like those traveling many miles to their hometowns to be registered; to those in pain, like a young mother giving birth; to the overwhelmed, like the new father suddenly thrust into the role of midwife. God

Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light...

comes into a plate full of broken cookies, the ones you never intended for anyone to see, but which, nonetheless, are a part of your story.

This is where God decides to come to earth, shining light into the darkest streets, and promising us that, merry Christmas or not, God is and always will be Emmaneul, God-with-us, on this dark night, and always.

Let us pray… Everlasting light, as you shone into the dark streets of Bethlehem that night, shine into our hearts this night. Come shine your light through our cracks and our breaks and our imperfections, so that we will find peace in the fact that you love us enough to be with us in all times. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Why I love/hate Christmas

I was having lunch with some pastor friends last week, and though we were enjoying each other's company immensely, the week-before-Christmas stress among us was palpable. I commented to an audience I knew would understand, "I liked Christmas a lot more before I was a pastor." They all agreed.

Since I said it, I have been unpacking that in my mind. I recently read this essay by Krista Tippett of On Being, on why she doesn't "do Christmas," and it got me thinking. I agreed with a lot of what she said, but would say it differently. I realized that while there are some things I hate about Christmas, the heart of it (the incarnation piece) I still love, more and more each year. Let me explain.

The first thing I don't love about Christmas is how much of it feels obligatory. Of course, there is the gift giving, and making sure everyone you love has "enough" gifts, and the stress of, "What can I get for So-and-So," when frankly, So-and-So doesn't need a darn thing, and so by getting So-and-So another thing, all you're really doing is giving So-and-So more stuff to deal with. I have started giving people gifts for other people through ELCA Good Gifts or similar, a gift which some people love but with which other people are not all that impressed. I don't care either way - I feel better about that than about contributing to people's overcrowded houses.

Another thing I don't love is Christmas kitsch: all that cheapo stuff that either gets tossed at the end of the season or at best clutters people lawns and lives. In a season when we are supposed to be "preparing him room" and "preparing the way of the Lord," what do we do but drag a bunch more stuff into our lives. I never liked Christmas kitsch, but pictures of Santa's real workshop in China put me over the edge. I hate that I participate in this when I buy cheap wrapping paper and ribbons, but I also love beautifully wrapped packages, so... I'm not perfect, all right? While I don't love kitsch, I do love beautiful, timeless, hand crafted Advent/Christmas decor. My house is full of hand-carved angels, homemade stockings, fair trade items... These are things that help me to remember the saints around the world who also are welcoming the Christ child, and I know that someone didn't have to breathe red glitter to make them.

Fair trade nativity, German transparancy, and in background,
an angel my mom quilted.

I don't love how secular Christmas is, or rather, how conflated secular Christmas has become with religious Christmas. So, I like Christmas parties, I like snowmen and reindeer, I like Deck the Halls, but I don't like that when I go to the store to get a nice Christmas card for someone, all I can find on a wall of cards is maybe 10 religious themed ones, and many of those way too schmaltzy for my taste. Can we be honest and less sentimental about what Christmas means? Why can I not find more cards that say, "A light shines in the darkness," or, "God came into the world in a way we could understand - what joy!" or, "May the peace, hope, and joy proclaimed by the angels be yours this season," or even simply, "Joy to the world!"

I'm probably gonna get some flack for this one, but I don't love that "Christmas is about being with those you love." No, it isn't. It's about Jesus. Spending time with people you love is certainly one of the wonderful things that happens at Christmas; having spent one Christmas in a country far away from anyone I know, I can vouch for how important this is. I cried that whole Christmas without my family nearby. But that is not what it is about.

Which brings me to what I DO still love about Christmas. I recently sang with my wonderful women's choir John Rutter's setting of Dancing Day. Part of the text: "Then was I born of a virgin pure, of her I took fleshly substance. Thus was I knit to man's nature, to call my true love to my dance... This have I done for my true love." And, like I often do when I sing Christmas music, I started to cry. That's amazing, is it not? First of all, this whole song is a love song from God to us, with the recurring refrain, "This have I done for my true love." God loves us so much that he came down to be with us, to be knit to our nature for better or worse, and to call us into God's dance, to be a part of the love and joy that is God's nature, just as God has come into what is often the pain and brokenness of our nature. WOW.

What I do love about Christmas is that is falls on Dec. 25, four days after the winter solstice. I know that in reality, Jesus was likely born in the spring or summer, when it would have been realistic for shepherds to be living in the fields with their sheep. But is not right after the winter solstice the perfect time to celebrate a light shining in the darkness? All during Advent we have come closer and closer to the darkest day of the year, and this is often a time of year that is dark in our lives, despite the abundance of Christmas lights. And now, just as we experience the days getting longer again, we celebrate that a light has come to shine in the darkness tonight and always. God will always be present in our darkness.

This, the promise of light in our darkness and the possibility that God could love us enough to come down and bring us into God's love, joy, peace, and hope - in short, the incarnation - is what I still love about Christmas, and what I continue to love more and more each year I experience it. There are some other things I really like (my sparkling Christmas tree, the abundant opportunities to give not only to loved ones but to strangers in need, the excuse to make delicious goodies and have fun parties, the meaningful traditions that evolve around the holiday), but all pale in comparison to the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, lying in a manger that dark night, bringing light and hope into the world.