Sermon: The doorway through the wall (May 7, 2017)

Easter 4A

May 7, 2017

John 10:1-10, Psalm 23

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

            Many of us have been watching the news regarding the impact of all this rain we’ve been having, especially on those who live on the lake. Flooding is a real problem this year – and not just in Rochester! In fact, people all around the country are experiencing flooding. This week I heard a woman from Illinois interviewed. She was scared for herself and her mom. “I don’t care about my shoes and my clothes,” she said, then, as she held back tears, “But if the water gets up to our second floor, I don’t know where my mom and I will go. There’s just no one we can count on, you know?”

            It was a stark reminder of how, when it really comes down to it, our things don’t matter nearly so much as our relationships.

            Perhaps this is why it is such a comfort each year, when we come to this Good Shepherd Sunday to hear about how Jesus is our good shepherd. He knows us, and loves us, and leads us, and keeps us safe. He desires a relationship with us, and this relationship provides us with all that we could ever desire, much more than any of our stuff ever could. Pair that promise up with the 23^rd Psalm, and there is plenty by which to be comforted. Truly Jesus, more than any thing on earth, provides us with abundant life. Our cup runneth over!

            But Jesus as shepherd isn’t the only image we hear today. In fact, in the part of John 10 we just heard, Jesus never says, “I am the good shepherd.” Instead, he says, “I am the gate.” So let’s think together for a minute about what that image, “the gate,” might mean for us and our call as Christians.

            So first of all, a gate for… what? … Yeah, it’s for getting through a fence or a wall. You don’t usually just see a gate standing out in the open unless it is a garden ornament or something. So it gets you through a barrier. Ok, so why would we have a fence or a wall? … Sometimes, again, it is for decoration. But usually it is either for keeping someone or something in, or keeping someone or something else out. In doing so, a wall necessarily divides: us from them. Wanted from unwanted. Safety from danger.

            Up to now we’ve probably all been imagining physical walls, but these aren’t the only sorts of walls we build. We build plenty of figurative walls, as well – and in fact, often for the same reasons we build physical ones. We put up walls when we have been hurt, and want to keep ourselves safe. We put up walls when we perceive danger, and seek security from that danger. We put up walls when we want protection from that which is unknown. And just as much as physical walls, these emotional walls we put up, though they may serve the purpose we intend for them, also serve to keep us divided, to keep us from relationship.

            A gate, though – a gate makes it possible to overcome that division. It holds the potential to bring “us” and “them” together, even, to bring “us” and “them” into a relationship.

            “I am the gate,” Jesus says. Suddenly, that which would have divided us no longer has that power. What would have been used to keep someone out of someplace has become porous. And with that, walking into abundant life – life centered around relationship – becomes a possibility.

            Previously, the Pharisees had seen themselves as the gate-keepers. They got to decide who is in and who is out. They made sure people were following God’s law. Indeed, it was a noble profession they took very seriously! They were upholding God’s law, after all, and someone needed to keep order around here! But then Jesus comes along and upsets everything – not by saying that he is the gatekeeper, but that he is the gate itself! He – and not their rigid law-keeping – is the one who makes it possible to get through the gate and into new and abundant life.

            But with Jesus, the gate is not one-way. As with most doors, Jesus the gate is for coming in and for going out. It is for coming in to experience abundant life, and then for going back out to bring that knowledge of what is truly abundant life back into the world. It is for coming in to be assured of the love and comfort of Jesus, and for going back out to build relationships, and to bring the assurance of God’s love into those relationships.

            In other words, Jesus-the-gate is not one who brings the sheep into the safety of a walled off area, safe from the harms of the world, safe from anything that will hurt or challenge, and shuts behind them, holding them there forever. Rather, he’s the sort of door that brings them in, and equips them to go back out.

            You know, I wonder if maybe Jesus isn’t just a vertical door. Let me explain: My aunt and uncle just moved into a new house last year, and one of the first things my uncle worked on was his office, where he would be able to work on his photo editing and printing. He needed a lot of desk space – so he purchased three large doors, turned them sideways, and used them as tabletops. Instead of serving

Door turned table (Pinterest)

as something to shut things out, those doors became a place where work is done, where flaws get addressed and fixed, where beauty is created.

            That, I think, is the sort of gate or door Jesus is. He is the door that is turned around and becomes a table. Indeed, he is that table the 23^rd Psalm refers to, a table that is set before us in the presence of our enemies – people we struggle with, people who have hurt us, people whom we need to forgive or seek forgiveness. He is a table where our cup overflows with the opportunity for relationship to be created and nurtured and healed.

Of course we have a very special sort of table in our Christian faith where that very thing happens: the altar table. And yes, Christ is also that table, as one communion prayer states, “Christ, our Table and our Food,” inviting us, in all our brokenness and all our flaws, into relationship with him and with one another, to be nourished and forgiven and strengthened to go back out into the world to serve, to seek healing, to reach out to those in need of community, with the good word of God’s love. Jesus, the gate-turned-table, turns back into the gate, sending us out – to go to that family displaced by a flood with no one they can count on, to the woman who is worried her family will be deported, to the man who lost his job and doesn’t know if he can feed his family, to the friend with whom you had a falling out but still feel the pain of the separation – to go to all of those with the promise of God’s renewing and enlivening spirit and love, and to seek with them the relationship that is so characteristic of the abundant life Christ promises.

            Christ our good shepherd. Christ our gate into abundant life. Christ our table and our food. And Christ once again our gate into the world. Each image offers us comfort even as it challenges us. As sheep of God’s pasture, let us listen to the voice of our shepherd, calling us to the hard work of relationship-building, service, and love of the world in need.

            Let us pray… Jesus, you are the gate. Help us to listen to your voice, calling us in and sending us out, and make us feel secure enough in you that we would embark on the tough work of loving your children as you have loved us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Story-telling heals (April 30, 2017)

Easter 3A

April 30, 2017

Luke 24:13-35

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

            This week on NPR I heard about a new program here in Rochester called “ROCovery Fitness.” They describe themselves this way: “ROCovery Fitness is a supportive community of physically active individuals brought together by sober living, committed to creating an environment of healing recovery. Members, friends, and families are empowered to discover their inner strength and confidence through adventure, fun, and camaraderie.” Pretty cool approach to recovery from substance abuse. Tomorrow is their ribbon-cutting ceremony. The part of the show I caught, as I drove from one appointment to another, was the part where the two people describing and pitching the program were sharing their own recovery stories. They talked about how, while the physical activity is certainly a part of the healing process, perhaps the larger part of the healing is that these activities take place among a community that allows the space to share their stories with one another. Telling and claiming your story, they said, is in fact an essential component on the road to recovery.

            This shouldn’t be news to us – after all, that is the premise of such familiar groups as AA, as well. The healing and recovery process of that program, too, is based on sharing and claiming stories. Once you have claimed a story – especially the most difficult stories of our lives, those stories you may rather just stuff, deep into a hole and never face again – once you’ve claimed it, it no longer has a grip on you.

            Addiction/recovery stories are certainly like this. But lots of other experiences are that way, as well: in particular, our grief stories. Grief can come into our lives in any number of ways, even beyond the death of a loved one. The loss of a job – even a positive loss like retirement – could mean a part of your identity is gone, or at least that it is expressed differently. The loss of a faculty such as sight or hearing or other physical capabilities means you function in the world differently, and maybe miss out on things you used to love. The loss of your driver’s license means the loss of your independence. The loss of a meaningful relationship – to divorce, or relocation, or just a different direction in life – means the loss of companionship. Really, any sort of change can result in grief, because any time something changes, you have lost something, even something that was important to you.

            One of the most frequently occurring sorts of grief comes in the form of unmet expectations. You have every hope and expectation that something will go a certain way and then WOOP – the rug is pulled out from under you, and everything you thought you knew is no longer the case. This sort of grief is well captured in those words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “we had hoped.” I have heard people say that these are the three saddest words in the Bible. “We had hoped…” but our hopes were shattered. We had hoped Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped our prayers would be answered. We had hoped our waiting was over. It might as well also be, “We had hoped our son would come home.” “We had hoped the doctors could save her.” “We had hoped the new job would work out.” “We had hoped we could save our marriage.” We had hoped. True sorrow. True grief – so great, in fact, that, just like Mary Magdalene in the garden earlier that morning, they don’t even recognize their dear friend and teacher when he comes to walk beside them.

            This is where the healing power of story-telling comes in. How straightforward it would have been for Jesus to say, “Ta-da! Guys, I’m Jesus! You thought I was dead, and I’m not! Fooled you!” But while this would have effectively communicated the truth, it would not have addressed their pain and grief, and would not have brought healing. So instead, Jesus invites them to share their story: “What things?” he asks. What is it that has made you so sad? What is troubling you? And Cleopas and his friend tell their story – about their heartache over Jesus’ death, and their dashed hopes about who Jesus would be for Israel, and for them, and their confusion about the women’s story from that morning.

And in naming and claiming their grief, the healing can begin.

Christ and his disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jan Wildens
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55031

           Theirs isn’t the only story told in this text, of course. In response to their story, Jesus also shares his – that is, the story of salvation history – as he talks to them on the road and he opens to them the scriptures. And finally, he reenacts the story that would reveal to them exactly who he is, as he takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and gives it to them to eat. As they recall the last time this happened – on the night in which he was betrayed, when he took bread, broke it, and told them, “This is my body, given for you,” – they realize that what they had dubbed an “idle tale” from the women at the tomb was actually the truth: Jesus was alive. He was alive, and he was still their companion, still healing them, still opening to them the scriptures, still warming their hearts with his divine wisdom, still giving himself for them.

            They had not seen him when they still walked in their grief. All that way, he walked with them to Emmaus, and they had not recognized him. They were too absorbed in their own sense of loss. That’s how it is, isn’t it, when we are grieving – we cannot see the forest for the trees, we cannot notice things right before us, we can only see our pain. Even when God is right there beside us, as a companion offering us a safe space for telling our story and finding healing, we are kept from recognizing him because of our grief.

            And yet, God is there. As difficult as it can be in the moment of heartbreaking loss, even as impossible as it may be to find God within those devastating words, “We had hoped…” – God is there, drawing us out, healing us, asking us, “What things… are on your heart? What things… are troubling you? What things… are holding you back from enjoying the new life I have promised, indeed that I have given?”

            God is there, a companion on whatever journey we face. God is made known to us along our way in the reading and study of Scripture. God is made known to us in the breaking of bread, when we come forward to receive this sacrament and hear once again the story of salvation, and those words, “Given for you.”

And God is continually made known to us whenever we share our story, and whenever we look back over that story to see where and how God acted within it. As we share our stories, may we also learn to see how God used that experience to guide us out of our grief and toward transformation and new life.

Let us pray… Companion God, when we are lost in our grief, we don’t always recognize you walking beside us. As you draw us out to share our stories and open our aching hearts, open also our eyes to recognize you in the Word, in the breaking of bread, and all along our way. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ways Grace is cute

April 27, 2017

Dear Grace,

Big smile, bright eyes, snotty face:
this is Grace

When Uncle Luke and I were kids, grandma and grandpa kept a "cute book," in which they wrote down the cute things we said and did - you know, all those things you are sure you will remember, and then you totally don't. I don't have a cute book for our impossibly cute kiddos, but I wanted to write down a few of the things about you at 20 months that I find especially cute. 

You wave:

·      to books when we finish them (“The end!” *wave*).

·      to airplanes.

·      to every car that drives down the street.

·      When you say goodnight or go upstairs for nap.

You call blankets “lady.” (Think “blankie” then take out the starting B and turn the “nk” into a D… see, it isn’t so farfetched.) So then, when we read Goodnight Moon, when we point to the lady who is whispering ‘hush’” you point to your blankie.

Grace and one of her "Ladies"

look for the “old

Speaking of Goodnight Moon, you think the picture of the cow jumping over the moon is hilarious. You laugh every time.

You call me “Maba,” because due your constant stuffiness (dust mite allergy, yuck!), you can’t manage to get two Ms out so close together.

When you take things out of the kitchen drawers, and I ask to you to put it back in the kitchen, you bring it to your play kitchen, then grin back at me for successfully following directions.

You help:

·      You love picking up laundry that missed the basket, and little pieces of trash, and putting them where they belong.

·      You can find a tissue, wipe your nose (even blow it!), and put the tissue in the trash (which is one step further than Dada!).

·      You can put away groceries if I tell you where they go.

·      You can match socks.

·      You wipe your own highchair tray, and try to clean up other things you spill. In fact, you

Tongue out, sheer determination!

insist upon it.

You “help”:

·      When Isaac cries, you rock him (sometimes too vigorously), you feed him (with old bottles he shouldn’t be eating from), you shove a pacifier in his mouth (even if he is sleeping), or you cover him with a blanket (even his face).

·      You mimic me cleaning – dusting, cleaning the floor, even cleaning the carpet after Klaus has an accident.

·      You mimic everything.

You think you help:

·      You have been helping with your diapers… by putting them in the toilet. You see us clean out your cloth diapers in there, and think that is where they belong. Thankfully you haven’t yet figured out how to flush the toilet. Lord, help us (and our plumbing) when you do…

·      You try to put diapers together – using a cover and either a cloth prefold, or a disposable, or a liner, or a wipe… you want desperately to help with the diapers.

Coolest Rehbaum, totally

·      You try to dress yourself, and practice whenever you get the chance. And you’re getting pretty darn good at pants, if I may say – when you don’t have a diaper on, you can get them up everywhere except over your butt, so then you run around proudly with your adorable baby bum hanging out.

You walk like a boss, especially to daycare.

"Buh?" (Notice: clinging to Doll.)

You try to put your hair in piggies or ponies by pressing the rubber band against your head.

You have discovered that while it is fun to play in the dirt, it is not fun to have dirty hands.

You love personal hygiene. You are always asking to take a bath (“Ba--?”), to brush your teeth (“Deeth?”), and to wash hands (“Ha--?”).

You love to read. You bring us book after book (“Buh?”), first listening to us read it, then taking it from us and reading it back. You cannot get enough books.

You love your brother! “Izy?” Whenever he cries, you ask about him. First thing in the morning, you ask for your dad (or whichever parents isn’t getting you up), and then you ask for your brother.

Siblings playing together

You care for Isaac – patting his head or his belly, making sure he has what he needs, trying to play with him. For you, there is very little sense of sibling rivalry. Except about laps. You don’t much like sharing laps.

You look through the church directory, and find all the pictures of “Mama.” Then you find “Dada,” and “Klau.” (You haven’t yet figured out that the picture of the baby is you! You think it is Isaac.)

You love your doll (“Dah? Baby?”), holding her close, rocking her and singing to her tenderly, and then holding her by the hair and dragging her wherever you go.

These and so many other things, my dear Grace, make us smile with joy over your budding personality. We think you are phenomenally smart, observant, kind, sweet, thoughtful, helpful, caring, funny, and fun.

                                                                                              ~ Your adoring “Maba”