Sermon: Explaining things that can't be explained (Mar. 26, 2017)

Lent 4A

March 26, 2017

John 9

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

            Some things in faith cannot be explained; they can only be experienced.

            The man who was formerly blind could tell you that. Here is a man who was really just minding his own business. He wasn’t seeking out Jesus, or any sort of healing, for that matter. He was, if not content, at least accepting of his lot in life: he had been born blind. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was his parents’ fault, or maybe it just was. Whatever the case, there he was: a man born blind, who sat by the road hoping for handouts from strangers. One thing he knew: there was no use complaining about it.

            Then along comes Jesus. He happens upon this man-born-blind, and his disciples immediately try to find an explanation for this man’s experience. Surely his state had been caused by something. Surely there was a nice, neat, understandable, theological explanation for his situation: either this man sinned or his parents did, and that is why he was born blind.

            I think we can appreciate where the disciples are coming from. Don’t we want to understand “why”? Who among us has not shaken his or her proverbial fist at God and asked, “Why this, God? Why now??” Even if the question is not anguished, we still would really like to understand why this world works the way it does.

This past week, we finished our confirmation lesson a bit early, so we spent the last half hour doing what I like to do at least once a year: a little game of “stump the pastor.” I allow them to ask whatever questions they want about God and faith, and I do my best to answer them. I am always fascinated to hear what their questions are. Sometimes I have very clear answers for them. But often I resort to some version of my dad’s favorite answer for unanswerable God-questions: “It’s a mystery.” Whenever I gave them that answer, all those teen and pre-teen faces looked back at me with a mix of frustration, resignation, and a touch of wonder, as they tried to wrap their heads around the reality that when it comes down to it, God and God’s ways cannot be explained.

            Whether you are a 1^st century Jew or a 21^st century middle-schooler, it feels much more satisfying to have a real, concrete answer to help you make sense of the world and its brokenness. We desperately want to see, to know, to understand. We don’t want to be kept in the dark, in our spiritual blindness.

            In the story of the man born blind, those seeking answers don’t receive the sort of answers they want – the sort that match up with their understanding of the world – but they do receive some answers. Let’s look at three ways this story makes sense of things that don’t make any sense.

            The first way is actually Jesus’ first answer to the disciples’ question about who sinned that this man was born blind. Jesus answers simply, “No one sinned. He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed through him.” What a gorgeous light this possibility shines on our brokenness! Like a vase that is cracked, but because of that brokenness, we can see the light of a candle flickering inside, and filling the cracks and the room with its light.

I remember sitting in my living room after being diagnosed with cancer just one year into my call here. I was incredibly frustrated, and lamenting to my dad, “Why, when I have such a promising ministry before me, doing what God called me to do, would God slap me with cancer right now?” In his wisdom, my dad responded, “So that you can have such a promising ministry before you.” In other words, God would use even that to make me stronger, wiser, and more equipped to serve. That’s what we see in the story of the blind man: the brokenness of this guy who is judged and looked down on by passers-by meets up with the love of Christ, and suddenly, his brokenness is transformed into an opportunity to witness and to share his story.

            The second way Jesus helps the disciples and us to make sense of what cannot be explained is in his enigmatic closing line, offered in response to the Pharisees asking, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus answers, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” At first glance, this is a real head scratcher. But I think it is well explained by this little bit of scripture that starts off our confession each week: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” In other words, Jesus is using blindness as a metaphor for an inability or an unwillingness to see our own sin. If we say we can see just fine, that we know exactly what is going on (and, too often, that whatever problem you are facing is definitely someone else’s fault), then “we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Because there is always more to see than what is on the surface. There is always more to understand. Like when we see a man born blind and assume either he or his parents sinned. Or, we look at someone living in poverty and assume it is a consequence of their own bad choices. Or, someone says or does something we don’t like, and we assume they are in the wrong, without considering why they might have said or done what they did.

            On the other hand, Jesus says, if we acknowledge that we don’t always see everything clearly, that indeed sometimes we are blind, and confess that blindness to God, then, we might regain our sight. That’s what Lent is all about, right? It is a time of examining those places in our hearts that are not quite clean, times we have fallen short of the Christian call to love and serve God and our neighbor – and then confessing them, praying that God would create in us clean hearts. Lent is a time of recognizing our own spiritual blindness, and asking that God would give us sight.

            The third way to make sense of things we cannot understand is to recognize that sometimes experience is far more valuable than explanations. I just love the simplicity of the formerly blind man’s testimony. Everyone wants from him an explanation of who did this and how it happened, and he responds, “I don’t know who he is. One thing I do know is that though I was blind, now I see.” Plain and simple. He has experienced the life-giving love and grace of God. He doesn’t know why or how, just that he experienced it, and it is absolutely true.

            Nadia Bolz-Weber talks about such an experience she had in seminary. She writes, “Suddenly, in that moment, all I could think was: What I am doing? Seminary? Seriously? With a universe this vast and unknowable, what are the odds that this story of Jesus is true? Come on, Nadia. It’s a fairy tale. And then the very next moment I thought this: Except that throughout my life, I’ve experienced it to be true.” She goes on, “I cannot pretend, as much as I sometimes would like to, that I have not throughout my life experienced the redeeming, destabilizing love of a surprising God. Even when my mind protests, I still can’t deny my experiences. This thing is real to me. Sometimes I experience God when someone speaks the truth to me, sometimes in the moment when I admit I am wrong, sometimes in the loving of someone unlovable, sometimes in the reconciliation that feels like it comes from somewhere outside of myself, but almost always when I experience God it comes in the form of some kind of death and resurrection.” She concludes, “I have only my confession – confession of my own real brokenness and confession of my own real faith.”[1]

            Sometimes it is those experiences that are the only way to understand the mysterious ways of God. Words and reason only go so far. But at its core, faith is a series of stories, of experiences we have in which we were blind, but now we see, when we were lost but now are found, when we were in the darkness of death, but now we are alive. That is the story of Jesus. And it is a story of which we all are a part.

            I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

            Let us pray… Mysterious God, we crave certainty and answers. Help us to find certainty in the story of your love, and answers in the profound ways we experience your life-giving love in our lives. Grant us the courage to share those stories with the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Photo credit: Jesus heals a man born blind by JESUS MAFA

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48383, accessed 3/28/17

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[1] Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, Nadia Bolz-Weber.

Sermon: Talking with "Others" (March 19, 2017)

Lent 3A

March 19, 2017

John 4:3-42

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

            I belong to a group on Facebook of ELCA clergy. It is sometimes very helpful and enlightening, and other times very frustrating. This week I experienced the latter: a pastor who I know from previous posts to be very opinionated (and a bit abrasive), said that some Gideons had come to her office, wanting to speak to the congregation. You know the Gideons – they are the ones who work to get Bibles in hotel rooms and elsewhere. Well, after some reading I also learned that the Gideons are an evangelical Christian group of “business and professional men and their wives.” In other words, blue collar workers and women (except wives of members) are excluded from this group. So, in this woman’s post, she wrote, “I told a couple of sexist, classist men that as long as I am pastor here, Gideons will never be welcome to speak.”

            Though I can appreciate her gumption, this also rubbed me the wrong way. I suggested in the comments that perhaps instead of telling them wholesale that they were unwelcome, perhaps she could have invited them into a conversation about it, asked what in the gospel supported the group’s rules about membership, and then express her concerns about it. Let’s just say… she didn’t think that was a good idea. “Who has time or energy for that?” she asked. “When has politeness ever changed the system or gotten us any closer to justice? They wouldn’t have been receptive to the idea, anyway.” And then she assured me that she did not regret what she said. Well. Okay then.

            It was right after this encounter that I started studying today’s Gospel text. This is such a rich and stunning encounter, for so many reasons. First of all, it follows after the story of Nicodemus, from whom the woman at the well could not be more different. Nicodemus is a powerful and influential Jewish man. She is a woman, a Samaritan (which means she was racially, religiously, and politically despised by Jews), she is poor, and, we come to find out, she has had five husbands – likely because of some combination of being widowed and divorced.

She is as “other” to Jesus as she can possibly be. Which makes it all the more remarkable that Jesus is talking to her at all, let alone in the bright noonday light. Everyone knows he has no business doing that. Yet, we also know that he is speaking to her very intentionally. The text tells us, “But he had to go through Samaria.” A look at a map will show you Samaria was really not on the way to Galilee. When John tells us Jesus “had to” go there, he means, because it was essential to Jesus’ mission to cross this border, into a place full of racial, political, and religious others. It was essential to have this conversation with this woman, right now.

There is so much for us to learn from this conversation, especially at our particular time in history. We all lament the divisive state of our country right now, and especially the ways this divisiveness has made its way even into our personal relationships. That’s why it is so important to witness this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, because, very practically, it shows us how to have conversations with people different from us, but in which God is present, and because it shows us that when we do that, we get a glimpse of the very nature of God, and are transformed for mission.

JESUS MAFA. Jesus and the Samaritan Woman,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.
 http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48282
(Accessed 3/24/17)

The first thing to notice about this conversation between Jesus and the unnamed Samaritan woman is that it begins in a place of mutual vulnerability. We know that she is vulnerable – she is a widowed or divorced Samaritan woman talking to a Jewish male. But Jesus begins the conversation by expressing his own need: he is thirsty. Furthermore, it is a need that he needs her help to fill. It’s not very often that our conversations with others start this way. Generally, I think we go into a conversation with someone who differs from us with the intention of proving we are right, not by confessing that we have a need that can only be satisfied by being in relationship with the other. Yet this is the way God chooses to start a conversation with this woman, and with us. Mutual vulnerability.

The next thing to notice about the conversation is the centrality of questions – not rhetorical questions, or questions that will ultimately prove that you are right, or to catch someone in a logical fallacy. Instead, questions that are genuinely curious about the other, that reflect an interest in the other and a longing for information. The woman is full of questions for Jesus, and Jesus makes space for them. Rather than requiring her to keep quiet, as would be customary for a woman in the first century, she becomes a conversation partner with Jesus, asking him pressing theological questions – about proper worship, and the nature of God. By engaging in these questions, the relationship between God and the woman is strengthened.

The third thing to notice is that conversations like this, that are genuinely interested in the other, take time. I was interested, thinking back to my exchange with my colleague on Facebook, that her response was, “Do you have the time and energy to develop relationships with every sexist, classist person who comes across your path?” And, well, I suppose the answer is no, because developing relationships, especially with people who are different from you, or with whom you adamantly disagree, takes a lot of time and energy. But does that mean we shouldn’t try? Does it mean we shut it down before it has even started, or after the very first bump in the road? Jesus surely doesn’t. The woman knows she has no business talking to this man; nevertheless, she persists, and Jesus give her all the time in the world to do so, and because of that, when she finally does leave she goes straight to the city to tell everyone about her encounter with God. She has been changed by the encounter.

Which brings us to the fourth point: when you have a conversation with or about Jesus, expect to be surprised, and expect to be changed. Expect that through conversation with one of God’s children, God will reveal something important to you, something about God that you had never noticed before. The last thing Jesus says to this woman before she goes into the city, is to reveal to her exactly who he is: “I am he,” he says. It is the first of Jesus’ many “I am” statements in the Gospel of John – the statements that elaborate on God’s revelation to Moses at the burning bush, when God describes Godself as, “I am who I am.” And in this way Jesus revealed himself to the Samaritan woman – and so also is God revealed to us, when we genuinely, humbly, and thoughtfully engage with the other.

            The work of conversation, especially with those who differ from us racially, religiously, ethnically, or ideologically, is terribly difficult work. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable with one another and to let ourselves be truly seen by one another. It requires asking a lot of questions and then really listening to the answers with the intention to learn, not to debunk or refute. It takes a lot of time and energy and practice – we often fail at it (I know I do!). And even when we do succeed, it often results in our being changed – and we all know that change is rarely easy or smooth. But when we listen to one another this way, we also open ourselves to the possibility of listening to and hearing God, and then, to being transformed by God.

            Just look at what happened to the woman. She comes to him as a shamed and ashamed person in her society. After her genuine, vulnerable, thoughtful conversation with Jesus, she goes back into the city and witnesses to her experience with God. She tells others how she has been touched and changed by the encounter. And because of her witness, many others come to believe in Christ. Could that happen also with us? Might we find that when we engage with one another in this way, and they with us, we also experience more deeply the love of a God who came into the world to save the world?

            My hope and prayer is that when we follow the example of this remarkable conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, we will not only know more deeply the love of God and be changed, but that by our being changed, God might also change those whom we encounter. God’s love has the power to transform this broken world; let us go out to share that love with the world.

            Let us pray… God on the margins, you love and engage with even those we have no interest in. Embolden us, and open our hearts to be touched and moved by our encounters with those who are different from us in race, gender, or creed, so that we would be empowered to share your love with the world you came to save. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon: The wind blows where and how it chooses (Mar. 12, 2017)

Lent 2A

March 12, 2017

John 3:1-17

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

            This past Wednesday at noon, a small group of us met to talk about the 10 commandments, while the wind was just starting to pick up outside. I commented that I like storms like this, just as long as I can stay inside where it is safe. Famous last words! The storm was just beginning. Shortly thereafter, the power went out at St. Martin. I drove to Bethlehem, where I came across a recently downed power line, strewn across Plank Rd. The power went out at Bethlehem shortly after I arrived. I drove home, clinging to my steering wheel, and encountered powerless stoplights, and debris everywhere. A huge tree in my neighborhood had toppled. We later learned, of course, that winds had reached 81 MPH, causing hundreds of trees and poles to fall, 12-foot waves on Lake Ontario, widespread power outages, and even a freight train to derail. Schools closed and a state of emergency was declared.

Local home

            “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it but do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This week’s windstorm certainly made me hear these enigmatic words from Jesus differently! How naïve I was to say I like storms like this as long as I am where it is safe, then only hours later drive through what looked like a war zone. Looking later at pictures of trees with roots in the air, a train off its tracks, and crushed houses, I couldn’t help but think that while the breath of God can bring comfort, safety and delight to those who live in the darkness of night, it can also wreak plenty of havoc.

            “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Is this how the Spirit moves also in us, then? Not only in our physical world, moving with the power to topple trees and rip apart roofs – but also in our hearts, moving with the power to topple old ways of being and rip apart wrongly-held ideas?

            I like thinking of the Holy Spirit as Comforter and Protector, and she certainly is that when that is what is needed. But we mustn’t overlook what Jesus tells Nicodemus at their nighttime meeting: that the Spirit blows where and how it chooses, without our knowing what exactly is going on.

            Jesus offers this strange observation right after explaining to Nicodemus the need to be born again, or born from above, or born of water and the Spirit. So, it follows that these two concepts must be related. Very strictly speaking, when we hear “born of water and the Spirit,” we think of what? Baptism! Well, unless you’re Nicodemus, in which case you think it means crawling back into your mother’s womb. But most if not all of us, 2000 years later, assume he means baptism. And in fact there is a “born again” segment of Christianity that takes that interpretation very seriously, believing that until you have had an experience in which you deeply and profoundly experience Christ and are then baptized, you are not a true Christian.

Lutherans, on the other hand, more frequently (though not exclusively) baptize babies and children. We do this because we believe that faith is a gift graciously given at baptism that we then spend the rest of our lives living and growing into. We do not see baptism as something that needs to be done again – once you are baptized, you are baptized for life.

So how, then, do we understand Jesus’ statement that we are to be born again?

I have, on occasion, been asked if I am “born again.” The best Lutheran answer to this question is, “Yes, I’m born again and again and again, new each day!” That’s what Luther explains in the Small Catechism: he says that each day, the sinful person inside us is drowned in the waters of baptism, “and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” Every day, he says, we should remember our baptism and the gifts it brings. Every day, we are reborn. Every day we are born into new life.

Or we might say, every day, we are born of the Spirit, which also means that we are daily invited to discern where and how the Spirit might be calling us into the new life Jesus promises – and take a good hard look at how that Holy Wind is shaking up our world, the way we see it, and the way we are to be in it.

It’s such a nice, faithful thing to say: “Where is the Spirit calling you?” Until you look around Rochester after an epic wind storm and see what sort of damage a strong wind can really do in your life. Because I think sometimes the Holy Spirit does do a bit of damage in her effort to show us the way, tearing down the ways we view our world that may be narrow-minded, or self-serving, or that look down on some people, or that simply neglect the people who most need help. Sometimes the Holy Wind whips through our hearts and our lives, and when we wake up in the morning we look around and suddenly see the world differently. Sometimes that little bit of damage, which may be devastating in the moment, was actually just what we needed to refocus our attention.

Whatever mysterious ways the Spirit works, our job is to listen, to watch, and to respond. That is the work of an effort currently underway in the larger church to engage in transformational ministry. Transformational ministry helps us learn to listen – to God, to each other, and to the needs of the world – and, having heard what each is telling us, to discern how God might be motivating us to respond. Back in December, there was a workshop with some exercises to help individuals and congregations engage in this special kind of listening and responding – there will be another one in May that I hope you will consider attending! We had a group of folks from each church attend, and they came back energized and interested. We met last week to discuss how we might start that important listening process, and we had this idea: to use the image of a tree growing and sprouting leaves to help people express where the Spirit’s wind is blowing in their lives. Lent is the perfect time to do this, because the word “Lent” actually means “spring” – the time of new growth and new life. And transformational ministry is also focused on bringing new growth and new life to a congregation.

So here’s how the tree will work: we have a tree set up, branches bare just like the trees we see out our window. Then you can pick up two different colors of leaves – light and dark green. On the light ones, we want you to write ways that you are already serving your community outside of this congregation. This will show how you are already participating in bringing life to this world, where your heart already lies, where you are already devoted. For the darker green leaves, you are invited to think about what issues you are really passionate about, whether or not you are already involved in them. Maybe you have discerned the Spirit moving through your heart and making you more aware of the challenges facing refugees, or perhaps your concern is the low graduation rate in city schools. Maybe it is people with disabilities, or veterans, or mental illness. In the wake of a rise in anti-Semitism, including recent desecration of a Jewish cemetery and a bomb threat to the Jewish Community Center here in Rochester, maybe your concern is suddenly in interfaith relations. That’s the thing about the Spirit’s blowing, you see – we don’t know where it comes from or where it goes, and we don’t know what new concerns or passions it might bring up, depending on what is going on in the world around us.

Take some time if you need it, to discern what concerns the Spirit is revealing to you in this time and place, as she blows through your heart, knocking things over and showing things anew. The tree will be up throughout Lent, this time we look forward to and anticipate celebrating how God gave his only Son so that all who believed in him would not perish but have eternal life. In the season of Easter, as we dwell in thanksgiving in the new life we have in Christ, we will look at some of the ways the Spirit has moved in you, and consider together how that same Spirit is moving us to be the Church for the community and the world right now.

The Spirit blows as it choses, and we don’t know where or how, but still, let us listen, so that we would know what God is telling us today. Let us listen, so that even damage done might be opportunity for a new perspective. Let us listen, so that we might be transformed.

Let us pray… Holy and unpredictable God, you blow through our lives in ways we wouldn’t have chosen, but which are, indeed, holy. Give us courage to listen to your urgings, to take what you have given us and turn it into an opportunity to share your love with the world your Son came to save. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.