December 12 Sermon

Here's my sermon from this morning. I wasn't totally happy with it, but... oh well.


Good morning. God's grace and peace be with all of you.

Our gospel text this morning begins with a question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John the Baptist, who is in prison, sends this question through his followers to Jesus. “Are you the one who is to come?” The question might seem to be a strange one, coming from John the Baptist. After all, it was John who baptized Jesus, John who would have seen the heavens opened up and God's Spirit descending in the form of a dove and heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Wouldn't John, of all people, know that Jesus is “the one who is to come?”
Yet John doubts. John questions Jesus' identity, even when it would seem that he had more than enough evidence to prove who Jesus is. John is so concerned, he must send messengers from prison to ask, “Are you the one who is to come?” John is overwhelmed by a pressing question about Jesus; he simply must know: “Who are you?”

Jesus' answer may seem as unusual as John's question. Despite John's experiences with Jesus, he feels compelled to ask about Jesus' identity. And Jesus does not seem to answer the question he is asked. Jesus does not say, “I am the one who is to come,” or “I am the Messiah,” or even give a simple yes or no. Instead, Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” Jesus doesn't say who he is, instead he says what he does: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
In response to a question about his identity, Jesus answers with his actions. In other words, Jesus is telling John, “If you want to know who I am, look at what I'm doing.” Jesus' identity is found in his actions. John is supposed to find the answer to his question in what Jesus is doing. And the same is true for us. If we want to know if Jesus is really “the one,” Jesus is telling us to look at how he lived in the world.

The answer is not what John was expecting or wanted to hear. If you remember the Gospel reading from last week, we got to hear about John’s expectations for the “coming one.” In Matthew 3, we read John’s words: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” John is anticipating divine judgment. He vividly describes how the “one who is to come” will act: he will cut down every tree that does not bear good fruit; he will separate the wheat from the chaff. The righteous will be rewarded and the wicked will be punished.
This was the hope of many in Jesus’ time, who had suffered terrible oppression at the hands of the powerful. The judgment of God was their only hope for justice in an unjust world. Even today, we may hope for the same: that God will finally come and give everyone what he or she deserves. Like John the Baptist, we may look forward to a divine judgment.

Again, however, Jesus’ answer goes against expectations. Jesus tells John’s followers, “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” These are not actions of judgment! There is no ax at the foot of the tree here, no unquenchable fire. No, instead Jesus is describing acts of mercy and compassion. Jesus does not bring judgment; he brings good news to those who need to hear it most.
Are these the actions of a Messiah? John certainly didn’t think so — after all, “Messiah” is a political term. “Messiah” means “anointed one,” and the ones who were anointed were kings, going all the way back to King Saul. A king ought to be ruling, not performing acts of mercy and preaching to the poor! Jesus is neither the divine judge nor the chosen king that John and the people of his time were expecting. And so John asks, “Are you the one? Can you possibly be the one?”

Jesus has one other word for the followers of John. After he tells them all he has done, all the acts of mercy and grace, he says, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” — anyone who takes no offense at a wandering preacher instead of a king, anyone who takes no offense at a merciful savior instead of a divine judge. John is facing the real possibility that he will take offense — that he will reject Jesus because Jesus does not meet John’s expectations. That possibility of offense is real for all potential followers of Jesus. The disciples, the crowds — all of them are confronted by a Messiah who goes against their expectations and hopes. They may take offense at who Jesus is, what Jesus does. But Jesus tells them, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

We, too, must face the possibility of offense. When God does not act in the way we want or expect, we may become offended. When Jesus reveals mercy when we expect judgment, we may become offended. When Jesus sides with the poor and weak instead of the rich and powerful, we may become offended. We may turn away, refusing to accept this Jesus.
In the season of Advent, we are waiting for the coming of God into the world in Jesus. As we wait, it’s worthwhile to ask ourselves, “Who are we waiting for?” Are we waiting for a divine judge, like John? Are we waiting for a powerful ruler? And if we are waiting for God to come into the world, how will we respond to Jesus as a helpless baby in a filthy stable?

I’m not asking these questions just to make a point. I think they are questions we should seriously consider in our own faith lives. Because there is the possibility of offense for all of us. After all, if the reality of Jesus — the Son of God, come to earth — were immediately obvious to everyone, then faith would not matter. If Jesus’ identity were clear to everyone, then everyone would follow him. But that’s not the case. The truth is, many people have been offended by who Jesus is. That’s not an occasion for us to be self-congratulatory, as if we “get it” when others do not. We face the possibility of offense as well: at times, even we turn away and refuse to follow. So we have to ask ourselves, “Who are we waiting for, this Advent?” We have to ask, “What will our response be? Are we going to be offended by Jesus?”

Jesus says, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” How will we respond to Jesus, to God in human form? If, by the grace of God, we are among those “blessed,” then our response should be to follow Jesus. In a few short weeks, we will remember a baby born in a stable to a teenaged and unmarried mother. From those humble beginnings, Jesus did not rise to a life of power and privilege. Instead, he lived constantly among the sick, the poor, the outcasts of society, and he died shamefully on a cross. “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” This is the Lord we follow.
Jesus lived out God’s love, mercy, and care for the world. Jesus gave people what they most desperately needed — physical care, to be sure, but above all, compassion and hope. Jesus brought good news to the poor. So too, as followers of Jesus, should we. Christ calls us to be companions to those who are suffering, those we might find distasteful or frightening. Christ calls us not only to write a check, though that is certainly important, but to see them face-to-face. Christ, who was born in a dirty stable and lived among the poor, is calling us when he says, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” Amen.

The Good News about New Year's

[This is the January newsletter article I wrote for King of Kings. I liked it, so I figured I'd share.]


The Good News about New Year's

Just as surely as Thanksgiving has its turkey and Christmas has its decorations, January has its own tradition: New Year's resolutions. It's a staple of both pop culture and our own lives. After the holidays, after the family celebrations and the overindulgent feasts, we settle down into a dark, cold January, determined to remake ourselves. Join a gym; lose that holiday weight; become a more patient or thankful or kind person; find Mr. or Ms. Right.

What is it we are searching for, after all? When we try to conform our appearance to the photoshopped magazine ideal of slender bodies (or, for gentlemen, toned bodies) and perfect skin, we are doomed to failure. When we search for our lives' meaning in romance, we are more often than not disappointed. And when we try to mold ourselves into patient, kinder people, we often end up frustrated. New Year's resolutions send us chasing after impossible ideals and leave us feeling worse about ourselves than we did before we began.

In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit." This is the good news for us about New Year's! Paul reminds us that we are being transformed, not by our own effort but by the Holy Spirit. We are being transformed, not in January but constantly. We are being transformed; therefore we don't have to be slaves to our resolutions, but we can enjoy the freedom of the Spirit.

This year, consider this New Year's resolution: to let go of resolutions. Instead, remember that God's Spirit is constantly transforming us. We are not becoming closer and closer to the false ideals of advertising, but we are becoming closer and closer to the glory of God. And it is through God's grace that we receive this transformation. Therefore, we are free! Thanks be to God!

December 12 Sermon - Part Two

So I'm looking at Matthew 11:2-11. John the Baptist is in prison and sends some of his disciples to Jesus, wondering if Jesus really is the Messiah. At first, it seems like a silly question to come from John - after all, John is the one who baptized Jesus and heard a voice saying "This is my son." Shouldn't John, of all people, believe? But as David Garland pointed out in his commentary Reading Matthew, John had expected something different. In the Gospel text for December 5, we hear about John's expectations:

"The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

John was anticipating a radical, apocalyptic judgment. Instead, he hears reports that Jesus is healing the sick, raising the dead, and proclaiming good news to the poor - signs of power and significance, certainly. But are they signs of the Messiah?

It seems that this is the fundamental issue in this text. What is the Messiah supposed to look like? Does Jesus fit the bill? And Jesus himself highlights the importance of this question: "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." Even John, who was "more than a prophet," had to face the possibility that Jesus was not the Messiah he wanted. Even John could take offense at Jesus. How much more so for all the crowds - and how much more so for us today?

Since we are in the season of Advent, perhaps we can frame the question this way: For whom are we waiting, after all? What are we expecting of this baby we call "Emmanuel" and "King of Kings" and "Wonderful Counselor" and all the rest? Are we expecting judgment, to find mercy? Are we expecting political power, to find none of it? Are we expecting moral righteousness, to find someone who eats with riffraff (v. 19)? Can we face the real tension between offense and faith?

(I think there is also an interesting nuance here if we take the theological position that faith is not up to us. In other words, rather than reading this as a choice between offense and faith, what happens if we accept the faith itself as a gift from God?)

Kierkegaard, in his fashion, wrote an entire book on the phrase "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." I'm going to go home and look at his account as well.

December 12 Sermon - Part One

I'll be preaching on December 12, the third Sunday in Advent. As usual, check out the readings here.

The gospel text is Matthew 11:2-11, so I think that's the text I'll use. Time to check out some commentaries.

Christ the King Sermon

Here's my sermon from this morning!



“This is the King of the Jews.” “This is the King of the Jews,” says our Gospel reading today. “This is the King of the Jews” - those are the words written above Jesus' head as he died on the cross. This is the King of the Jews.

For us, living in 21st century America, we take some pride, I think, in not having a king, not being ruled by a monarch. After all, we fought for our independence from the British crown some 200 years ago. So we don't have a king, or a queen, and we like it that way. At the same time, perhaps our political system distances us somewhat from the meaning of our festival today: Christ the King Sunday. We know, of course, what a king is, but we don't have to think about kings very often in our daily lives. We may not always have a good sense of what a king looks like.
If you've been following the news, you have probably heard that Prince William of England has announced his engagement to his girlfriend Kate Middleton. You've probably seen all the pictures of them together, and all the members of the royal family who are weighing in on the match. So we've had a reminder, we king-less Americans, of what monarchy means. We've had a chance to look at the probable future King of England, to be reminded of what a king is like: the power, the wealth, the life in the public eye.

And then we have our Gospel reading this morning. On the festival celebrating Christ as King, we read about Jesus being crucified, brutally tortured and mocked. “This is the King of the Jews!” the Romans sarcastically declare. To call this convicted and dying man a king is the greatest possible contradiction. The Roman soldiers are not making a statement of faith – they are making a cruel joke. Likewise with the religious leaders who call Jesus “Messiah,” meaning the chosen one of God. They have condemned this man, convicted him, and executed him. Now they mock him with titles of power, reveling in the obvious contradiction between the crucified Jesus and the meaning of “Messiah” and “King.”

I hope you are shocked by the starkness of the contradiction here, between “Christ the King” and Jesus dying on the cross. It is shocking. It is a misuse of the title “King,” someone who rules and has power over others, to apply it to a convicted and dying criminal. Yet we celebrate this festival of Christ the King. We lift up the cross as the central image of our faith. Perhaps we forget sometimes that the cross was an instrument of torture and death, the means by which the Romans kept their many territories in line. We worship here in the shadow of this cross. Imagine if Jesus had been born in a different time – we could be looking at an artist's representation of a guillotine, or an electric chair. How dare we celebrate and glorify death and violence in this way? How can we possibly call Jesus “King”?

Certainly, you will remind me that this is not the end of the story. After all, we know what happens next: Jesus is taken down from the cross, his body is laid in the tomb, and within three days he has risen again. But we do not get to hear the Easter story on this festival. You will not come back a week from now to celebrate the empty tomb. No, Christ the King Sunday leaves us here, at the cross. It is the end of our church year and the end of the story – next week, we start the story over again with Advent, waiting for Christ to be born. So we end with the cross, with the mocking and the cruelty, with death.
It is not enough to skip to Easter, to the resurrection. We cannot look to the risen and glorified Christ to find justification for calling him “King.” You see, if we focus only on Easter, the cross becomes meaningless. If we focus on Easter, then we cannot answer the question, “Why did Jesus have to die, and why die in this way?” We cannot explain the cross by glossing over it, by gilding it with the glory of the resurrection.

No, you see, we have to wrestle with the cross, we have to let the cross reveal its own meaning. We can't skip over this just to get to the “happy ending.” If we want to understand Christ, and if we want to know what it means for this man to be our King, then we have to let the cross speak.

So what does the cross mean? What is the significance of hanging this image in our worship spaces and wearing it around our necks? There are three important pieces of this death of Jesus, three rejections: a rejection by religious authority, a condemnation by civil authority, and an abandonment by God. Bear with me for a moment as I say a few words about each of these three.
First, Jesus was rejected by the religious authority: as we know, it is the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Priests, who want to have Jesus killed. They are threatened by his popularity and by his message. As far as they are concerned, he is a heretic — after all, he claims to be the Son of God! And remember, before we pass judgment on these religious leaders, that we are like them. If you meet a man on the street who tells you he’s the Son of God and that God is coming, do you immediately drop everything and follow him? No. You probably assume he is mentally ill and you cross to the other side of the street. For these religious leaders, Jesus was not just a madman, he was a blasphemer. For this reason, they sought Jesus’ death.
Second, Jesus was condemned by the civil authority — the Roman Empire, specifically through the authority of Pontius Pilate. That is why Jesus was killed on the cross at all: for the Jewish community, the usual sentence of death was carried out by stoning. However, the Jewish leaders and the crowds demand crucifixion, a death that the Romans handed down on political rebels. And Jesus’ claims about the coming reign of God certainly were threatening to the Roman Empire. There were others who claimed to be the Messiah and who led violent rebellions against Rome — Jesus might have been seen as one of these. So he had to die.
Lastly, and this is the most difficult to understand, Jesus was abandoned by God. When we read in some of the Gospels that Jesus cries out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” we should take these words seriously. Even though Jesus was the Son of God, in the moment of his death, he felt abandoned even by God. When we talk about the birth of Jesus, we often say that Jesus gave up the power and mightiness of God to be born as a helpless child. How much more so is Jesus removed from God in this moment of his death? After all, as ridiculous as it is for a king to die this way, it is far more ridiculous — even impossible — for a god to die. It is one of the great paradoxes of our faith: Christ is fully human and fully divine, yet Christ dies abandoned by God.
So in the cross, we see that Jesus dies rejected by religion, by the state, and even by God. You may be wondering why this matters. Yes, it’s an interesting fact of Scriptural analysis; yes, it reminds us of how horrible Jesus’ death was; but what does it have to do with us? What does it have to do with our faith in Jesus or with our lives today?

Those questions are absolutely vital. We Christians, who follow Jesus, who wear the cross as jewelry and use it to decorate our homes — we must ask what the cross has to do with us. As I said before, we can’t just skip to the happy ending of Easter, as important as the resurrection is for our faith. We have to understand the cross, the significance of the cross in our lives.

We are followers of Jesus, and Jesus told his followers again and again to “take up your cross and follow me.” The cross is not only the means of Jesus’ death, it’s also the model of discipleship for those who follow him. So for us today, also, we have to look to the cross to understand how to be disciples of Jesus. What does it mean to take up our own cross?
Certainly, it does not mean that all followers of Jesus will die by crucifixion like he did. “Taking up our cross” is not a literal instruction — and crucifixion has fallen out of style in the last two millennia. But how does the cross have meaning for us, even today?

We must look back at that triple rejection I mentioned earlier. Jesus died rejected by religion, the state, and God. His rejection was not accidental; he was not a victim of circumstance. Rather, Jesus chose to go to Jerusalem, chose to anger the authorities, chose to die on the cross. And he chose this death to be united with all those who are rejected by religion, the state, and God. Jesus took on those rejections to stand in solidarity with the rejected. Jesus died abandoned, so that the abandoned might feel hope.
So it is for those who follow Jesus. We are called to “take up our cross,” to accept rejection because it puts us in solidarity with those who are already rejected by the “authorities” of the world. That is not an easy prospect; discipleship should make us pause. Don’t let anyone tell you that following Jesus will make you rich, powerful, and successful. To follow Jesus means accepting the harsh reality of the cross. To declare Jesus our King means giving up the ideals of earthly kings — the power, the money, the glory. To celebrate “Christ the King” this morning means we have to turn all our expectations on their heads, because this King is a King on the cross. This is the King of the Jews. This is our King.

Reflecting on the cross of Christ is difficult. Not only does it require some sophisticated theological thinking, but it is a painful subject to contemplate. It’s more pleasant to remember the resurrection, the joy and glory that come with Easter. Yet it is the cross — not the empty tomb — that is the center of our faith. On Christ the King Sunday, we remember the death of Jesus. On this day, we reflect on what it means for Christ to die on the cross, rejected by the powers of his world and by God. As we make our faith claim — saying, “This is our King!” — we must acknowledge the implications it has for our own lives. To name Christ our King, to live in the Kingdom of God, means that we will take up our own crosses. To follow Jesus means following him into rejection and lowliness. But it also means that we follow a king who knows what it means to be rejected and abandoned. It means we are part of a kingdom which cares for the lowly. And so, when we name Christ our King, we proclaim good news for the world. Amen.

100 Books

There's a list floating around the internet, supposedly from the BBC, of 100 books. The claim is that most people have only read 6. I didn't like that list, so I made my own. Here it is:

Here's Jennie's list of the 100 books I think everyone should read. Obviously it's going to be pretty biased by what I have read myself, but I'm still interested to see how many books people have read. (I kind of ran out of steam trying to think of 100, but I'm still pretty happy with the final list.)

100 Books (in no particular order)
1. Republic, Plato
2. The Bible (not really one book, I know)
3. The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis
4. Elements, Euclid
5. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
6. Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner
7. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
8. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
9. Meno, Plato
10. Principia, Newton (you can count it even if you haven't read the whole thing)
11. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
12. 1984, George Orwell
13. Averroes' Search, Jorge Luis Borges (or substitute Borges story of your choice)
14. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
15. The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
16. Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
17. Oedipus Cycle (Oedipus Rex, Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus), Sophocles
18. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
19. Physics, Aristotle
20. Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
21. Two New Sciences, Galileo
22. Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
23. Histories, Herodotus
24. Abhorsen series (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen), Garth Nix
25. His Dark Materials series (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass), Philip Pullman
26. History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides
27. The Prince, Machiavelli
28. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith
29. Le Morte D'Arthur, Thomas Mallory
30. Proslogion, Anselm of Canterbury
31. Confessions, Augustine
32. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
33. The Meditations Concerning First Philosophy, Descartes
34. Beowulf
35. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
36. The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
37. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
38. Experiments on Plant Hybridization, Gregor Mendel
39. Relativity, Albert Einstein (the "popular" account, if you don't want to do the math yourself)
40. Hamlet, William Shakespeare
41. King Lear, William Shakespeare
42. Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus
43. The Bacchae, Euripides
44. The Iliad, Homer
45. The Odyssey, Homer
46. Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. DuBois
47. Beyond Good and Evil, Frederick Nietzsche
48. The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen
49. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
50. The October Country, Ray Bradbury (or substitute Ray Bradbury of your choice)
51. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Frederick Nietzsche
52. The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
53. Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare
54. Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
55. Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
56. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
57. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
58. Henry IV, William Shakespeare (or substitute history of your choice)
59. The Stranger, Albert Camus
60. The Aeneid, Virgil
61. Don Quixote, Cervantes
62. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
63. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
64. The Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals, William Harvey
65. Plutarch's Lives (you can count it even if you haven't read the whole thing)
66. On Education, Michel de Montaigne (or substitute essay of your choice)
67. Pensees, Pascal
68. Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville
69. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (or substitute novel of your choice)
70. Fear and Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard
71. Practice in Christianity, Soren Kierkegaard
72. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
73. The Early History of Rome, Livy
74. Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
75. The Misanthrope, Moliere
76. Politics, Aristotle
77. Crito, Plato
78. Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), Antoine de Saint-Exupery
79. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
80. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
81. Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy (sorry, I liked it much better than Tess of the d'Urbervilles or Jude the Obscure)
82. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
83. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
84. Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw (or substitute play of your choice)
85. The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis
86. Hard Times, Charles Dickens
87. Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolpho Anaya
88. The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
89. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
90. The Milagro Beanfield Wars, John Nichols
91. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
92. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
93. Paradise Lost, John Milton
94. Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
95. The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
96. The Federalist Papers (several authors)
97. The Guide of the Perplexed, Moses Maimonides
98. Discourse on Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
99. The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis
100. The Gastlycrumb Tinies, Edward Gorey (Steve's suggestion... :P )

Whew, there you go. 100 books. I haven't read all of them myself. My total is 87, counting some books I've only read in part. What's yours?

November 21 Sermon - Part One

Hello again, friends! I hope you all had a very happy Halloween/Reformation Day/All Saint's Day Eve.

I'm preaching next on November 21, the last Sunday of the church year (November 28 is the first Sunday in Advent!) - which is traditionally the festival of Christ the King or the Reign of Christ. Here are the appointed readings:
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 46
Colossians 1:11-20
Luke 23:33-43

The gospel reading is taken from Luke's account of the death of Jesus:

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots to divide his clothing. And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!"
The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" There was also an inscription over him, "This is the King of the Jews."
One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

My immediate reaction is that this text is a perfect opportunity to lift up a theology of the cross. That seems to be the only way we can reconcile a festival celebrating the dominion of Christ with a reading that mocks a dying man with the title "King of the Jews." I can't read this text without thinking of Moltmann's theology in The Crucified God. Hopefully, I can bring across some of that dense German theology in my sermon.

October 24 Sermon

Good morning. God's grace and peace be with you all.
Our gospel text this morning is deceptively simple. On the one hand, we have a self-righteous Pharisee and on the other, a humble tax collector. The Pharisee's pride is almost a caricature, as he says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” Meanwhile, the tax collector cannot even look up to heaven, but beats his chest and cries out for mercy, knowing his own sinfulness.
Our gospel text this morning is deceptively simple. We may look at these two characters and think we know exactly what message the text is trying to communicate. Be like the tax collector, not like the Pharisee! Be humble, not proud! We may think that we get it. We may even say to ourselves, “God, I thank you that I am not like that awful Pharisee...”
Do you see the problem? In our eagerness not to be like the Pharisee, we become exactly like the Pharisee. The Pharisee's prayer is addressed to God, but it is all about himself: his behavior, his righteousness, his worth. The Pharisee's attitude is entirely self-centered and self-righteous – and there are tragic consequences of this way of thinking. The Pharisee is so eager to puff himself up, he has to put others down. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people,” he says, “Thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” The Pharisee is putting up barriers, walls that separate him from others. The Pharisee is making himself an “insider,” a righteous person, and the tax collector an “outsider” and unrighteous. The Pharisee assumes he knows that God favors him and that God rejects the tax collector. The Pharisee is building barriers that shut the tax collector out.
The Pharisee is making divisions between those he sees as righteous (including himself, of course) and those he sees as unrighteous, like the tax collector. Yet if we read this text in terms of “proud people” and “humble people,” we are doing exactly the same thing. We are building barriers, defining insiders and outsiders – and most of the time, we draw the lines so that we can be the insiders. We pride ourselves on not being like the prideful Pharisee – blissfully unaware of our hypocrisy and misinterpretation of this text.

So let's reexamine this deceptively simple parable and see if we can get out of our hypocritical mess. We have, as we already know, two characters, a Pharisee and a tax collector. Although the Pharisee is cast as the villain of this story – as the Pharisees often are in the gospel of Luke – we should give him credit where credit is due. The Pharisee is righteous, according to all the requirements of his faith. He fasts, not one day a week but two; he tithes, not only part of his possessions but gives a tenth of everything. We have no reason to doubt the truth of his words. And we would be wrong to dismiss these righteous activities. Especially a week before our Pledge Sunday here at King of Kings, I think the stewardship team would be very disappointed if I ignored the stewardship, the tithing, of the Pharisee. The Pharisee is doing everything right, and he would not be a bad model for us in our faith lives. We too should exercise spiritual practices such as prayer and fasting; we too should give back a portion of what we possess, knowing these things are gifts from God.
Yet as we have already noted, the problem with the Pharisee seems to be in his attitude. It's all about him. His prayer is not about God, not to mention the poor tax collector. The Pharisee can't seem to think of anyone or anything but himself. And in this attitude, the Pharisee is creating divisions, building barriers, making “insiders” and “outsiders.” He considers himself righteous – an insider – not like the tax collector and other sinners – the outsiders.

The setting of the parable is also significant. This parable takes place at the Temple, the center of Jewish religious life. The Temple was in many ways a palpable symbol of barriers, distinctions. The Temple complex itself was divided into different areas, and only certain people were allowed to enter. In the very center was the Holy of Holies, where only the high priests could go. In the outer parts of the Temple, only those who were ritually clean could enter. And there were some “outsiders” who were not allowed into the Temple at all. There were good theological reasons for these divisions. The Temple was a holy place, where God's presence was found; it would be wrong to infect a holy place with uncleanliness. So there were distinctions made, there were barriers put up against the wrong kind of people. The “insiders” were literally the ones allowed inside the Temple complex, while “outsiders” had to remain outside. Our tax collector identifies himself as an outsider because he stands far off – he won't even get too close to the Temple, just in case.

But careful readers of the gospel of Luke will notice another significance of the Temple and its distinctions. For it is in the gospel of Luke that we hear this account of Jesus' crucifixion: “It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.”
In the gospel of Luke, at the moment of Jesus' death the Temple curtain is torn in two. This curtain was a barrier in the literal sense; it protected the holy interior of the Temple from outsiders. Just as clearly as the Temple was a physical symbol of distinctions and barriers, the tearing of the Temple curtain is a physical symbol of those barriers being broken down. What is revealed at this moment in the gospel of Luke is that God in Jesus Christ breaks down every barrier that we try to build up.
When we try to make distinctions between “righteous” and “unrighteous,” like the Pharisee in today's parable, God breaks down those barriers. When we try to make distinctions between the “humble” and the “proud,” God breaks down those barriers, too. Whenever we try to label “insiders” and “outsiders” on any principle – be it behavior, or race, or wealth, or belief – we find God not on our side, but on the other side, breaking down the barriers. Though the Pharisee looked down on the tax collector, it was with tax collectors and sinners that Jesus spent his time.

In our parable today, the Pharisee was confident of his own righteousness, and the tax collector was certain of his unrighteousness. The parable is even addressed to an audience “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.” So righteousness – being right in the eyes of God – is clearly important to this text. Some of us may feel like the Pharisee, confident that we are righteous. Others may feel like the tax collector, desperately begging God for mercy. Whether we feel like the Pharisee or like the tax collector, we would do well to be reminded of the source of our righteousness. To be counted righteous in God's eyes is not something anyone can earn. Righteousness can only come as a gift from God. Perhaps the tax collector knew that better than the Pharisee. Yet we can know something that was unknown even to the tax collector – not only that righteousness comes from God, but that it has come from God. We don't have to beg God for mercy like the tax collector does, because God has already counted us righteous. God has already justified us through the free gift of God's grace.

Because God has justified us as a gift of grace, we are freed from being either the tax collector or the Pharisee. While the tax collector desperately begs for God's mercy, we have the assurance of God's love. While the Pharisee is obsessed with his own righteous behavior, we are free to think of others. The Pharisee is so eager to promote himself that he builds barriers against the other, saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” We do not have to become trapped in the Pharisee's “insider” and “outsider” mentality. Instead, we realize that we have been justified by a God who tears the Temple curtain, a God who breaks down barriers. Because we are justified by God through God's grace, not through our goodness, we don't have to compare ourselves to others; we don't have to build barriers that make us “insiders” and protect us from “outsiders.”

In one of my seminary classes, I had the opportunity to watch a documentary titled “A Time for Burning.” It was a factual account of a Lutheran congregation in Omaha, Nebraska in 1966, when their pastor tried to reach out to their African American neighbors. In a congregation and a community that were still segregated, Reverend L. William Youngdahl tried to convince his white parishioners to share conversation and community with those they considered “outsiders.” The response from the congregation is mixed, with some supportive and others opposed; but in the end, the pastor is forced to resign.
What struck me most in the documentary was the pastor’s conviction that this conversation, this sharing of community, was not only worthwhile but vital. Today, we would be shocked by what some of the people in the documentary say — yet, for all the progress that has been made in the last 45 years, how often do we still hold outsiders at a distance and build barriers against them? Whether on the basis of race, or religion, or personal behavior, we all like to consider ourselves “insiders” and others “outsiders.” Yet we should strive to be more like this Pastor Youngdahl, whose belief in the all-encompassing love of God led him to seek community and fellowship with the “outsiders” in his world.
We have been justified by God, whose love and grace are freely given. Now we are free to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, breaking down barriers and identifying with outsiders. Now, we can reach out to both Pharisees and tax collectors. Now, we can share the love that we have first received. Amen.

October 24 Sermon - Part 3

Time to look at some commentaries! As I mentioned before, I'll be preaching on the gospel text, Luke 18:9-14.

I love how Working Preacher begins: the commentator lifts up the basic meaning of the text, which is to be humble, and then adds an important warning. He writes, "The difficulty with such an interpretive tact, however, is that we might as well end up preaching, 'Lord, we thank you that we are not like other people: hypocrites, overly pious, self righteous, or even like that Pharisee. We come to church each week, listen attentively to Scripture, and we have learned that we should always be humble.'" If we're praising ourselves for our humility, we've clearly missed the point. (I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis' description of pride as a hydra - when you cut off one head, three more sprout up in its place.)

As Working Preacher points out and I noticed myself in the text, the Pharisee is being both honest and virtuous. The Pharisee is doing everything he describes (fasting twice a week, tithing) and those actions are exactly what he is supposed to be doing. The Pharisee is following the law, which are God's expectations of God's people. Would that all of us were fasting twice a week and tithing! Working Preacher puts it this way: " It isn't that the Pharisee is speaking falsely, but rather that the Pharisee misses the true nature of his blessing. As Luke states in his introductory sentence, he has trusted in himself. His prayer of gratitude may be spoken to the Lord, but it is really about himself."

The tax collector, in contrast, knows his own unrighteousness. We have to keep in mind that tax collectors were seen practically as traitors to the people of Israel, in cahoots with the oppressive Roman regime. He cannot rely on his own righteousness, so he must rely on the mercy of God. Again, Working Preacher puts it better than I could: "Here is the essential contrast. One makes a claim to righteousness based on his own accomplishments, while the other relies entirely upon the Lord's benevolence." What I see here is a tension between action and attitude. Both are important. We should strive to act rightly; but right actions with wrong (self-focused) attitude leaves us like the Pharisee. By contrast, the tax collector is acting wrongly but thinking/believing rightly. It may be appropriate not to see action and attitude of equal importance, especially from a Lutheran perspective - the attitude here seems to be more important than the actions.

However, there's a problem here, too. Working Preacher warns me, "As soon as we fall prey to the temptation to divide humanity into any kind of groups, we have aligned ourselves squarely with the Pharisee. Whether our division is between righteous and sinners, as with the Pharisee, or even between the self-righteous and the humble, as with Luke, we are doomed." Well then. Luke has put us in a difficult position, hasn't he? A parable with contrasting characters teaches us the danger of placing people into categories.

I also checked out two other commentaries: Joel Green's Lukan commentary in the NICNT series, and Joseph Fitzmyer's in the Anchor Bible series. One interesting point that Green raised is the Pharisee's actions go above and beyond: the Pharisee doesn't just fast one day a week, but twice; the Pharisee doesn't make distinctions about what income to tithe, but gives a tenth of everything. So his righteous actions are being highlighted almost to the point of caricature. Fitzmyer echoed some of the points above, and also had a note on that para I was wondering about (it is a comparative, hence the translation "rather").

There's one other important issue at stake here. For most of its history, the church has emphasized the danger of pride, considering it the worst of the seven deadly sins, or that hydra of C.S. Lewis. As a person who struggles with pride at times, I understand whence this emphasis comes. Pride can be insidious and can overwhelm everything we do. However, and this is a big caveat, not everyone finds pride to be their greatest sin. This point is often raised by feminist theologians because it often affects women more than men - but I think the point is an important one, even apart from the issue of gender. There are some people for whom excessive humility, rather than pride, is their consuming and destructive tendency. Women tend to be more affected than men by this issue because women, more than men, are socialized to be humble and serve others. For those who are not puffed up with pride but beaten down with too much humility, the problem of sin looks very different. If we drive home a message that says, "You must serve others, you must not think of yourself," the prideful people may be corrected - but others will be paralyzed and destroyed. Jesus tells us to "love our neighbor as ourself," and that formula requires both love of self and love of neighbor. So I, and I think anyone who preaches on this text, has to be careful that we speak to sin in all its forms, both self-centered and self-destroying.

October 24 Sermon - Part Two

In preparing for my sermon on the 24th, I translated the Gospel text (Luke 18:9-14). For the most part, my translation looks pretty similar to the NRSV version. However, in verse 14, which is the key to the whole parable, I ran into some questions.

The first issue is that loaded term, justified - or in Greek, dikaioo. The verb could be read as middle (justify one's self) or passive (be justified). The context obviously suggests that justifying one's self is precisely not the point, so the passive voice is probably the correct reading.

I also wondered about the Greek preposition para. In the NRSV, they translate that phrase "this man went down to his home justified rather than the other." However, the basic meaning I found was "beside," which would give "this man went down to his home justified beside the other." That changes the meaning pretty dramatically, doesn't it? Instead of an either-or, it becomes a both-and situation. Of course, that might just be a simple mistranslation on my part... I need to check out some commentaries and see what they say.

October 24 Sermon - Part One

My next preaching date is October 24. Here are the readings assigned for that Sunday:

Jeremiah 14:7-10,19-22
Psalm 84:1-7
2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18
Luke 18:9-14

Here's the NRSV translation of the Gospel text:

18:9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:
18:10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
18:11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
18:12 I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.'
18:13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'
18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."


October 24 is the final Sunday before the "pledge" Sunday at King of Kings, so a stewardship theme will certainly be appropriate. I think this will be a fun text to preach.

October 3 Sermon

In advance of my preaching tomorrow, here's the sermon I've written. I didn't get a chance to do much sermon prep here on the blog because, well, it's been a busy couple of weeks. (It's telling that I haven't posted since early September... where did that month GO?)

Anyway, I did decide to preach on Habakkuk, which revealed to me my ignorance about the book of Habakkuk. After some catching up in terms of my own knowledge, I feel like the sermon came together pretty well. It's nice to preach on something that's not quite as miserably difficult as the last two sermons I've preached.




Grace and peace be with all of you, in the name of our God. Amen.
For my sermon this week, I've chosen to focus not on our Gospel text, but on the First Lesson, the Old Testament text – the reading from the book of Habakkuk. I encourage you to look at the text again in your pew Bibles if you want to refresh your memory. As I was preparing this sermon, one of the resources I consulted had this word of advice: “When have the sainted people to whom you preach ever heard a sermon based on God's timeless word to Habakkuk? This week is their chance. Do not let them down.”
Well, I will do my best. I expect many of you sainted people have not heard a sermon on God's timeless word to Habakkuk. You may be unfamiliar with this book and its themes. Even I had to do some serious reading to figure out what this book, included among the prophets, is about.

The theme in this reading that jumped out at me is justice. Habakkuk writes, “So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous — therefore judgment comes forth perverted.” Habakkuk is lamenting a situation filled with injustice.
And this lament of Habakkuk's seems timeless, doesn't it? There are so many times when we are struck by the injustice of a situation. I want us to reflect for a minute on those injustices we encounter; I'll give you an example of my own.
Last Christmas, my husband and I were traveling home from the seminary up in Gettysburg. We were flying out of the Dulles Airport, so we left our car in the long-term parking there. When we returned to our car eight days later, our front bumper was absolutely mangled. Someone had hit us in the parking lot while we were gone. There was no note, no sign at all that the person who had hit our car had wanted to make the situation right. Probably, the person who hit us figured he or she would be long gone before we got back to find our ruined bumper – and that person was right. We couldn’t know who hit our car and then drove off. So we went to a car shop and paid for a new bumper, and my husband muttered something about karma... hoping that the person who did us an injustice would get some kind of cosmic comeuppance.
What about all of you? I want you to take a moment to reflect on an injustice you have experienced, a time when maybe you wished for cosmic justice. [pause]

Some of you may have experienced injustice far worse than my husband's and my ruined bumper. I am well aware that my example is very minor compared to the injustice that some individuals and groups have to face. My little “injustice” is also very minor compared to the experience of Habakkuk. You see, Habakkuk lived in a time when the people of Israel were being deeply shaken. World powers – the Assyrians and the Babylonians – were conquering the people of Israel, sending some of them into exile and destroying their homes. Even the Temple of Jerusalem was eventually destroyed – a catastrophic event for God's people. Amidst all of this, the prophets cried out over the injustice they saw within the people of Israel – ignoring the poor, the widows and orphans; perverting the system of justice for personal gain..
That is the world in which Habakkuk speaks. Habakkuk cries out to God, “Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.” Habakkuk and the people of Israel are threatened by foreign powers and by internal injustice. The world around Habakkuk is all wrong, far from God's intentions and promises.
And Habakkuk cries out not only in lament to God, but in accusation. Habakkuk writes, “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble?” As Habakkuk knows, the God of Israel is supposed to be a just God, a God who protects the righteous and punishes the wicked. Habakkuk sees justice perverted and the wicked prospering; and he is forced to wonder what God is doing. If the world is unjust, does that mean God is unjust? Or has God forgotten the people of Israel and God's promises to them?

Habakkuk is not the only voice that cries out in this way when faced with injustice. There are others in the Bible who question the justice of God: the book of Job is perhaps the most famous. And at times we may find ourselves asking the same questions. In the midst of violence around the world; poverty, disease, and hunger; the personal losses and hardships we experience; stories in the news about cyber-bullying driving teenagers to suicide – we may wonder if God is unjust or simply absent from our world. We may find ourselves wandering in a dark place, feeling far from God, full of pain and doubt.
It is comforting for me to know that Habakkuk is in that dark place with us. We are not alone when we ask these hard questions. Habakkuk and other faithful people throughout history have asked the same questions. And Habakkuk can provide us with a model and perhaps some hope in that dark place – for Habakkuk does not only lament, does not only ask questions. Habakkuk waits, however impatiently, for a response from God. I love Habakkuk's words: “I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what God will say to me, and what God will answer concerning my complaint.” I imagine Habakkuk putting his foot down, saying to God, “I am not going to move until you answer me!” How many of us have felt that same impatience and insistence? Even when we are doubting God, we still wait for an answer from God, hoping and trusting that it will come.

For Habakkuk, the answer comes in two parts. God does respond to the voice of the prophet, but warns that the answer Habakkuk seeks requires more patience. God says, “There is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” Habakkuk does not get the vision immediately. But God comes to remind Habakkuk of God's presence and faithfulness. Though it may seem that the answer to Habakkuk's questions is slow to come, God promises that it will come at just the right time.

God can speak to us through this word to Habakkuk, as well. When we find ourselves overwhelmed by the injustice all around us, or doubting the presence of God in the midst of injustice, we can read this word to Habakkuk. We can trust that God is still among us. Sometimes, we feel that presence of God in one another, in community. Sometimes, we can only hope that God's presence is there, unfelt. We trust in the word God gave to Habakkuk — that God does have a vision, a plan, and it will come at the appointed time.

When we gather here for worship, we often gather with joy. We celebrate weddings and baptisms; we celebrate God’s love and grace. Yet at other times, we gather here with different emotions. We gather to mourn at funerals, filled with sadness and overwhelmed by questions. Even for a regular Sunday service, some of you undoubtedly come weighed down by your doubts, fears, and pains. Some of you may come here overwhelmed by the injustice you see around you. Some of you may come, doubting whether God can be found here.
In many Christian churches, including this one, there is a special candle — the eternal candle. It’s right over there, on the wall. It remains lit, even when the service ends and all the other candles are extinguished. This eternal candle is meant to signify God’s ongoing, constant presence among us. Whether we gather in joy or in sadness, God remains faithfully present. Although we may not find the answers we are seeking — although we must wait for the vision to arrive — we trust that God’s spirit is here, as God has promised. Amen.

Speak Up, Speak Out

Several weeks ago, I had a conversation on facebook about Christianity. It was occasioned by Anne Rice's public rejection of Christianity; a friend posted an article commenting on Rice's decision. I expressed some disappointment with the way the article portrayed Christianity, and my friend asked me to clarify. I said, "It just implies that Anne Rice decided to turn away from the Christian religion as a whole because her beliefs didn't agree with either the Catholic or evangelical churches. It comes across as 'Catholic + evangelical = Christianity'." To which my friend responded, "To those of us outside Christian culture, that's exactly what it looks like."

With apologies to Catholics and evangelicals - because I know many of you do not conform to the stereotypes - my friend's words highlighted for me a dramatic and serious problem in our culture today. I can't say I blame her (or Anne Rice, for that matter). If I didn't spend so much time in churches and seminary classrooms, I'd think the same thing. If my view of Christianity came only from what I see in the news, I'd want nothing to do with it.

In the name of Christianity, people are burning copies of the Quran this weekend. In the name of Christianity, people are spouting messages of hate and violence against gays. They are claiming that the earthquake in Haiti - or the tornado in Minneapolis last summer - are God's punishment. They murder doctors in the middle of a church. And those are just the things that make the news on a regular basis. These people also, day in and day out, threaten non-Christians (or fellow Christians!) with eternal torture and damnation.

This is appalling. It makes me both angry and depressed to see the faith which has had such an impact on my life be slandered and abused. It's broadcasting a warped and despicable image of Christianity to the world. I am tired of it. I'm tired of these people monopolizing the name "Christian" in the public eye. It's both wrong and unfair.

And so I feel compelled to speak up and speak out.

I am a Christian. I am a Christian, and I support gay rights. I am a Christian, and I am pro-choice. I am a Christian, and I am a feminist. I am a Christian, and I belong to a church body that allows gay marriage and the ordination of women and gays. I am a Christian, and I like drinking beer and playing violent video games. I am a Christian, and I believe Muslims in this country deserve the same religions freedoms that I enjoy on a daily basis. I am a Christian, and I do not want to convert you. I am a Christian, and I do not have all the answers. I am a Christian, and there are many more like me.

I am a Christian, and in my imperfect nature, I strive to follow the living God. The God who became flesh and blood, who lived and died in solidarity with the poor and marginalized, who calls Christians to be Christ-like. Amen.

October 3 Sermon - Part One

I'm looking ahead to my next sermon, which will be October 3. Unlike my first two sermons here at King of Kings, the gospel text doesn't seem quite as difficult.... so I think I'm going to preach on Habakkuk. Let it not be said that I don't enjoy a challenge.

Here are the readings:
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm 37:1-9
2 Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

The gospel text is a bit confusing; it begins with the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith, and Jesus responding with the metaphor of the mustard seed. The bulk of the reading, however, is about thanking slaves for doing what is commanded. The connection between the two parts is not clear to me.

Habakkuk, meanwhile, is a clear cry for justice. The Lord responds with a "vision for the appointed time." I'd love to preach on a Hebrew text, so I'm definitely attracted to this one. I'll do a translation and text study, and see where that leads me.

September 5 Sermon Draft

Here is my sermon draft for this Sunday. I'm still not completely happy with it. I'm afraid that I'm trying to do too much and that my message may get lost. I'll continue to polish it over the next few days. As always, comments are welcome.

[Edit: By the time I got around to practicing this sermon today, it had grown to a 17-minute monstrosity. So I trimmed it down quite a bit and tried to streamline the message. I've updated this post to contain the most recent version.]


Grace and peace be with you in the name of the living God. Amen.
The words we hear this morning are harsh ones. In our gospel text, we hear Jesus say: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” He tells the crowds that “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” These are harsh words, words that are difficult to hear.
Jesus’ words are especially harsh when we hear them directed at us: “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” By this reckoning, I suspect that there could not be counted a single disciple here today. I can certainly speak for myself — I have not given up all my possessions. Though I'm not living in the lap of luxury by American standards, I do have many possessions sitting back home in my apartment right now. So these words from the gospel of Luke strike my heart, telling me I am not a legitimate follower of Jesus.

This text, and others like it in the gospels that command Jesus’ followers to “sell all they have” strike my heart for another reason. Not only do they confront and condemn me personally; but I have seen the effect they have on other faithful Christians. I want to give you a specific example, a story that the person in question has given me permission to tell.
I have a friend whom I have known since childhood, a fellow member at my home church back in New Mexico. We'll call her Noel for the sake of telling her story. Growing up, Noel was thoughtful and serious beyond her years. From a very young age, just 8 or 9 years old, Noel was profoundly disturbed by these words in the gospels. Noel heard Jesus saying, “Give up all your possessions!” and she took those words personally. However, as a mere child, Noel could not imagine giving up all her possessions and literally did not have the ability to do so. So every time this text, and others like it, were read in church, Noel would become hysterical, crying and sobbing, unable to even sit through the service. I, a few years older than she, talked to her about it on more than one occasion. Noel confided in me that she felt guilt-ridden because she couldn't give up all her possessions. She was convinced that she was not worthy, not good enough. She didn't think God could love her.

I'm here to tell you this morning that God does love my friend Noel. And God loves each one of us here today. As we say in our Lutheran theology, we are saved by the free gift of God's grace. During the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther was very concerned about people like my friend Noel, people who lived in fear that they had not earned God's love. Luther made very clear that no one could buy their way into heaven. Luther wanted people to be confident that God loved them, to have assurance of God's grace.
God's love and favor do not depend on our actions. We don't have to prove ourselves worthy. We can't — and better yet, we don't have to — buy our way into God's loving arms. Rather, we have already received God's grace, and we continue to experience the blessing of God's love. That is the good news that we come here to proclaim and celebrate.

Having preached this good news, I could say “Amen” and sit down right now, and depending on how eager you are to get on with the service, you might like me to do that. But I think we can still learn something from Jesus' words today. So, assured of God’s love and grace, I want to look again at Jesus' message to us.

In our gospel reading, Jesus is concerned with discipleship. He is speaking to the crowds of people who are following him in his travels. Out of these crowds, some may become disciples — dedicated followers of Jesus. But discipleship, Jesus warns, is not an easy road to walk. It requires giving up loyalty to family and even to one's self. In Jesus' time, family relationships were paramount, but Jesus is showing that discipleship demands complete loyalty, at the expense of all other relationships. Discipleship requires the willingness to give up everything else. We might be reminded of the calling of the first disciples, Simon, James, and John, back in chapter 5 of Luke. These fishermen who became the first disciples left everything they had — their families, their business, their livelihood, their fishing boats — and followed Jesus. Jesus wants other would-be followers to know that their loyalty will be expected, as well.
In our reading today, Jesus is being brutally honest: discipleship is not easy. Discipleship requires sacrifice. In fact, becoming a disciple necessitates a transformation. It is simply not possible to become dedicated to following Jesus Christ without outward transformation in action. To say it another way: once we have encountered the true God in Jesus Christ, we are changed by the experience. When we begin to follow, walking that road of discipleship, we are transformed. Old loyalties fall away, things we once thought essential seem unimportant, as we begin to follow Jesus.

This transformation isn’t a one-time event. God is constantly working in and through us, changing us. We are all at different places on this road of discipleship. Some of you have been faithful followers for fifty, sixty, or seventy years. Some of you are only beginning that faith journey. Some of you may be “seekers,” not sure whether you want to follow or not. Wherever we are on the road of discipleship, we can be transformed. We can devote our loyalty to Jesus above all else. We can make the commitments that characterize authentic discipleship.
Not only are we at different places on the road of discipleship, but there are a variety of ways to walk that road. We are given different gifts and different callings as we all strive to follow Jesus. There are different ways of being a disciple. Next week is our Rally Day here at the church – there will be many opportunities this fall to be involved in the ministry of the congregation, whether through leading or learning, sharing fellowship or serving others. Of course, we can – and should! – follow Jesus outside of the walls of the church, too. But the many ministries that are going on here are certainly a good place to start.

Although we are at different places on the road of discipleship, and although there are different ways of walking that road, there are some practices that should characterize all disciples. Jesus gave the expectations to everyone in the crowd: loyalty and sacrifice. When Jesus says those harsh words, “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions,” he is telling us how all disciples should act.
There is a word in the church for what Jesus is describing when he says “give up all your possessions.” The word is “stewardship.” Now, usually when we use the word “stewardship” in the church, we're talking about fundraising for the church. Fundraising is not just about the money; it's about the ministry being done here and in the wider church around the world. I know the stewardship team here at King of Kings is already working hard on that goal.
We also sometimes use the word “stewardship” in a different way, getting back to the root meaning of the word. A steward is someone who cares for the possessions of another. In our theological language, we will talk about being stewards of God's creation: the creation belongs to God, but we are responsible for its care. Likewise, we are stewards of the blessings God has given us, whether in the form of physical comforts or in the form of our gifts, abilities and talents. Ultimately, our very lives are God's, and we are stewards of them. In all of this, we are entrusted with the responsible care of what is fundamentally God's.
In addition to thinking about stewardship as fundraising and as the responsibility of a steward, there's one other sense of “stewardship” that has been on my mind lately. It is a sense which seems very appropriate in the context of our gospel reading. Jesus says that authentic disciples must “give up all their possessions.” As I said before, this is a question of loyalty, of being devoted not to our possessions but to God. It also highlights this other aspect of stewardship: we can do stewardship for our own spiritual growth, for our own journey on that road of discipleship. Even if we cannot give up all that we have, the very act of giving up can remind us where our loyalty should lie – with the God who has blessed us so abundantly in the first place. Giving up reminds us that we are not Christians for our own sake, but for the sake of the gospel and for the sake of others. Giving up reminds us that we are called to take up our own cross, just as Jesus says in our gospel reading. As we walk the road of discipleship, striving to deepen our faith and commitment to God, we may find that our giving — our stewardship — aids our discipleship.

I am a fan of the poetry of Robert Frost, and all this talk of walking on the road of discipleship reminded me of one of Frost’s most famous poems, “The Road Not Taken.” Some of you may have read it. I would like to share part of it with you now. Frost begins his poem by describing a crossroads: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” He must choose which of the two roads to take, so he stands and looks down each one, considering his choice. Finally, he chooses the second road, which looks less worn.
The poem concludes,
“Oh I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Without doing injustice to Frost, I would like to read his poem in the context of our gospel this morning. The narrator of the poem faced a choice, two roads; and as Frost eloquently writes, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” The crowds who were following Jesus in our gospel reading faced a choice, two roads as it were: whether to become disciples, devoted to following Jesus, or not. We today face many choices: how to be disciples, to follow Jesus; how to deepen our faith; how to be involved in God’s ministry in the world. We consider the concepts of service and stewardship. We are walking on a road, this road of discipleship that strives to follow where Jesus walked. Our gospel reading warns us that discipleship will not be easy. And yet — confident in God’s love for us, Jesus’ words show us that the road we choose to walk may make all the difference. Amen.

Stewardship

I've been thinking lately about the reasons why we do stewardship. King of Kings, where I'm serving on internship, is (like many churches) gearing up for a fall stewardship campaign. They are excited and energized about bringing in new and creative approaches to stewardship. Watching and listening to the dialogue here has gotten me thinking more about stewardship in general.

First, a word about the word itself: stewardship. It seems to have two basic meanings, at least in church conversations. On the one hand, "stewardship" is the process of being a steward, of caring for something that belongs to another. In a theological context, the "owner" is usually God; we are stewards of God's creation, God's resources, God's gifts of life and abilities. On the other hand, "stewardship" means the fundraising of the church. Hence there are stewardship committees and stewardship drives, aimed at getting members to pledge (and then, hopefully, give) money.

So I've been thinking about why we do stewardship, mostly in the latter sense of the term. Why do we ask people to pledge money to the church? The question seems pertinent. If we cannot articulate a reason for giving, then how can we expect anyone to give? For those suffering economically, giving to a church may be too great a burden. For those who have money to give, why would they give to a church instead of a charity? I think charities do a much better job than most churches at answering the why question. I'll give an example: I frequently give money to Heifer International. In response, Heifer sends me mailings that describe specific projects they are doing around the world, even naming specific families that have been helped. That makes me feel like my money is doing something worthwhile, and I'll go back to Heifer next time I have money to give.

What about churches? Why do churches do stewardship? I've thought of four reasons; perhaps you can think of others. First, a church does stewardship to fund its budget. That seems to be the most frequently cited reason for stewardship. Here at King of Kings, as I experienced at my home congregation, a member of the stewardship team has stood up and said, "Here's our budget, and here is the shortfall we're experiencing, so please give what you pledged so we can keep paying the bills." I want to be clear: there is nothing wrong with this reason in and of itself. Churches need to pay the bills. My mother served as the church treasurer at my home congregation for many years, and faced the unenviable and unpopular task of telling the council when the bills were in danger of not being payed. If the church doesn't have a budget, the church building is not going to be lit or heated or cooled, the staff is not going to be paid, and the church as an institution will not be able to function. All of that being said, I think it is quite valid to be concerned if this reason is the only reason for doing stewardship, or the primary reason for doing stewardship. It's certainly not going to inspire or motivate people to be involved. They have their own bills to pay; paying the church's bills is not a very meaningful goal.

Second, a church does stewardship to support its ministries. Now the focus is not on the church building or the church institution, but on the meaningful work the church is doing. Perhaps the church has a food pantry, or supports one in the community. Perhaps the church has a ministry to the homeless. Perhaps the church has a preschool. This reason focuses on the ministry of the church, the church as the hands and feet of Jesus in the world.

The third reason is similar to the second: a church does stewardship to support the ministries of the wider church. In the ELCA, a portion of the money each congregation receives goes to the synod. A portion of the synod's money, in turn, goes to the churchwide organization. The money coming from congregations helps to support organizations like Lutheran World Relief, or the ELCA World Hunger Appeal. These ministries have a far wider reach than that of an individual congregation. After the earthquake in Haiti, I read about how Lutheran World Relief was able to be on the ground providing aid very quickly - because they already had the organization and resources in place before the disaster happened. They didn't have to start from scratch in order to help the people affected by the disaster.

The fourth reason is one that I have been considering in the context of the Luke 14 text I'm studying for my next sermon (see my other posts for more on that). I think we do stewardship also for a personal reason. Stewardship in this sense is a spiritual practice, a way of deepening faith and becoming better disciples of Christ. It's not something we do to earn God's love or acceptance. But it is a way of reflecting on the blessings we have received from God, some of them concrete and economic. It is a way of considering the needs of others in relation to ourselves. It is a way of placing trust in God - as my stewardship professor pointed out, the whole point of giving "first fruits" is that you have no guarantee you will get "second fruits." It forces us to step beyond the instinctive drive for self-preservation, of holding on to what we can get because the future is uncertain.

So far at King of Kings, I have heard a lot of the first three reasons, but not very much of the fourth. As I mentioned, they are concerned (like most churches) with the budget; at the same time, they have a strong mission focus and understand their relationship to the ministry of the wider church. However, that personal component of stewardship, what I'm viewing as a spiritual practice, does not seem to be part of the dialogue (judging only from what I've heard and seen so far). I hope to lift it up in this sermon I'm preaching on September 5. Perhaps it will help to deepen the understanding of what "stewardship" means.

September 5 Sermon - Part Three

In this post, I'll be checking out the commentaries on my text, Luke 14:25-33.

I'll start with the post over on Working Preacher. I really appreciated Dr. Brown's approach to the text. She begins, "We live in a market driven society, so it is not surprising that we feel the urge to 'sell' Christianity in the marketplace of competing ideas and ways of life. Yet, when Christian mission is shaped toward the 'sell' mentality, it more often than not becomes a 'low-cost' and 'low-risk' commodity. How else will we persuade others to receive the faith, if not by coming in with a lower or better offer? But is the Christian faith really a low-cost, low-risk endeavor? The lectionary text for this week, Luke 14:25-33, offers a challenge to a market driven approach to Christian mission." Wow - talk about economic and spiritual implications!

She goes on to address the troubling demand of "hating" one's family and one's own life, lifting up the hyperbolic and perhaps idiomatic language. Then she analyzes the parables of the tower and the king, concluding that "Jesus extols a commitment to finishing the discipleship journey once begun or not beginning it at all. Following Jesus is an all or nothing proposition." Rather than quote the entire commentary to you, I'll let you check it out yourself (click on the link above, then click the tab labeled "Gospel").

I also read Joseph Fitzmyer's Anchor Bible commentary. Fitzmyer compares Luke's version to Matthew's, as well as to similar sayings in the Gospel of Thomas. He makes an analysis of sources and form. He notes that "Verse 33 . . . is a conclusion to this passage, which has been composed by Luke, in order to add a further condition of discipleship, his favorite idea of disposing of material possessions." He also identifies two other specific conditions of discipleship: the willingness to leave family ties and the willingness to face radical self-denial. "In addition, [Luke] casts these conditions of discipleship in a demand for serious consideration . . . The engagement is not to be undertaken lightly." With regard to the giving up of possessions, Fitzmyer writes, "In these parables Jesus counsels the disciple to consider seriously what forces and resources the would-be disciple has. But the added condition in v. 33 counsels renunciation of all the material possessions that one has. Note the contrast: what one has in the former sense is infinitely more important than what one has in the latter."

Meanwhile, over in Joel Green's commentary (part of the New International Commentary on the New Testament), Green links this pericope to what has come before. He writes, "Particularly in Jesus' story of the great banquet (vv 15-24), he had introduced the possibility that one's ties to possessions and family might disqualify one from enjoying the feast. As Jesus turns to address the crowds traveling with him, he lists allegiance to one's family network and the shackles that constitute one's possessions as impediments to authentic discipleship." I appreciate his emphasis on transformation: "The conversion that characterizes genuine discipleship is itself generative, giving rise to new forms of behavior."

On the subject of "hating" one's family and one's life/soul, Green has this to say: "[Followers of Jesus] are characterized, first, by their distancing themselves from the high cultural value placed on their family network, otherwise paramount in the world of Luke. That is, in this context, 'hate' is not primarily an affective quality but a disavowal of primary allegiance to one's kin. . . Again, 'hating' one's self should not be taken as a reference to affective self-abhorrence, but as a call to set aside the relationships, the extended family of origin and inner circle of friends, by which one has previously made up one's identity."

Green also has a slightly different take on the second part of the pericope, the parables. He sees the point of the parables not to be the need for preparation but the unavoidable inadequacy of resources: "The interpretive crux does not lie in 'counting the cost.' The point is that, no matter what calculus one uses, no matter what resources one believes one can bring to bear, those assets will be insufficient to secure one's status before God." The landowner does not have the resources to build a tower, and so is mocked; the king does not have the resources to win the war, and so is forced to surrender. "By extrapolation, then, Jesus insists that such assets as one's network of kin, so important in Greco-Roman antiquity, are an insufficient foundation for assuring one's status before God." Green sees verse 33 not as a third condition added to the conditions in vv 25-27 (as per Fitzmyer), but as the summary of all the conditions.

Labels!

Hey, I decided to start adding labels to my posts. I'll go back a tag a few of my old posts, and try to add labels for new posts from here on out. That way, there will be at least a bit of order to the chaos around here.

September 5 Sermon - Part Two

Here's my translation of the gospel text, Luke 14:25-33:

25 But many crowds were going with him, and he, turning, said to them, 26 "If someone comes to me and he does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own soul, he is not able to be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me is not able to be my disciple. 28 Indeed, who of you all, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit to count the cost, [to see] if he has [enough] to finish? 29 So that, lest he puts down a foundation and is not able to finish, all those seeing [it] might begin to mock him, 30 saying that this is the person who began to build and was not able to finish. 31 Or what king, going to another king to meet for war, does not first sit to take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet the one coming to him with twenty thousand. 32 But if not, surely [when] he is still far away, he will send an ambassador to ask him for peace. 33 So therefore, all of you who do not say goodbye to all his own possessions is not able to be my disciple.

When I was translating, I wondered what connection there might be between verse 26 and verse 33. Are we to understand "possessions" as being the same as the family relationships of verse 26? On the other hand, these might be separate sayings of Jesus that Luke has strung together on the general theme of loyalty to Jesus.

My plan is to take a stewardship focus for this sermon. I've been thinking lately about the reasons we might do stewardship - to balance the church budget, to support the ministry of the congregation, or to support the ministry of the wider church. Those are the reasons I've been hearing at my internship site, and there's nothing wrong with any of them. However, I haven't heard any talk about the personal reasons for stewardship. To put it another way, stewardship might be a spiritual discipline, a way of practicing and developing one's own faith. It's not something we have to do to earn God's favor - but it's something we can and should do, in the same way that we can and should pray, or read the Bible. That's the message I want to communicate in my sermon. Giving up prepares us to be disciples, or to be better disciples.

A Word to Parents

The religious landscape in this country is changing. It's been changing for decades (and probably before that, too). The so- called "golden age" of American protestantism, when "everybody" went to church, is clearly dead and gone. It is worthwhile to doubt whether it ever truly existed, or if it is just a figment of wishful hindsight. Still, it's true that organized religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is losing its cultural force. More and more people are not participating in a worship community, nor identifying with a religious group.

To be honest, I am not upset about this trend. Although my faith, and my participation in Christian community, has been a powerful and positive experience in my life, it's no offense to me if others feel differently. I certainly recognize and empathize with the disillusion many people feel towards Christianity. As an organization, the Christian church has done some atrocious things (and some merely stupid things). Although I find community with others to be important to my spirituality, I understand that others prefer to practice their spirituality in private.

However, there is one aspect of this trend that does trouble me, and which I feel moved to address. My comments are directed towards parents. What I often hear from parents is this statement, or one like it: "I don't take my kids to church because I want them to make their own decisions." Many of my friends have told me that their parents did not raise them in any kind of religious community; as a result, these friends find the very concept of faith to be a foreign and confusing (even upsetting) subject.

I'm not a parent, but I think I understand whence this attitude comes. Especially for those who grew up with a negative experience of religion, church can seem like the last place to take a growing child. If you had to memorize the catechism and recite it in front of the congregation, if you were indoctrinated, if your questions and exploration were squashed, if your voice was silenced - certainly, you wouldn't want to put your kids through that.

However, when I hear from a twenty-something that he or she really wants to believe in something, anything, but just can't seem to do it, it tugs at my heart. Faith is something I grew up with. That's not to suggest that my faith journey has always been easy or straightforward (it certainly hasn't), but I am convinced that I was greatly aided and equipped by growing up in a religious community.

Parents, you want your kids to be able to make their own decisions. You don't want to force a belief system on them. That is great. More power to you. But let me make an analogy. I assume that most parents also want their kids to decide on a career or profession. You wouldn't force your child to be a doctor or a teacher. But you still make your kids get up in the morning and go to school. Even if they don't want to. You know that, before your children can decide to be doctors or teachers or lawyers or the president of the United States, they have to get an education. They have to learn to read and write, add and subtract, engage in conversation and think critically. As their parents, you require your children to go to school; you give them, whether they want it or not, a groundwork that they will need to be able to make decisions later in life. You wouldn't let your kid sit at home for 18 years and then suddenly expect that they can get into a premed program.

I really believe that the same principles should operate in the area of faith. Your kids should be able to decide what they believe and how they practice that faith. But they won't be equipped to make those decisions unless you, as parents, provide them with a groundwork. That groundwork doesn't even necessarily have to come from a church - maybe you can read to your kids from the Bible, the Quran, and the Tripitaka. But give them something, some resource that they can draw on - or reject - in adulthood. Give them a groundwork on which they can build.

(A note here: I don't want to suggest that people who were not raised in a religious community are incapable of having faith. I don't believe that to be true. However, my conversations with friends have suggested to me that the faith journey may be much harder if you are trying to start from scratch in your twenties. That being said, there are resources out there for spiritual seekers, and I expect those could be very helpful.)

There is a lesson here for churches, too, lest we think that the problem lies outside of ourselves. Churches must be places where parents would want to take their children. That means very practical and important concerns with regard to safety (as the cases of clergy abuse have made all too clear). It also means that churches shouldn't be concerned with indoctrinating children. We should be open to questioning, to doubting, and to disagreement. We should allow children and especially youth to "tinker" with their faith, drawing in resources not only from our own religious tradition, but from other traditions as well. We should embrace and encourage spiritual creativity. We should break down the hierarchies that serve to silence some voices, particularly the voices of question and critique.

In short, my word to parents is this: give your children the education they need to be able to grow into their own, unique faith. And to churches: provide to both parents and children (and all spiritual seekers) resources for exploration and growth. May we all walk together on journeys of faith, wherever they lead.

Adult Christian Ed

King of Kings (where I'm serving my internship) is trying to develop a stronger program for adult Christian education. There is a lot of interest in the congregation, but not a lot has been offered. So when I sat down with the pastor and the Christian ed (slash family ministry slash youth) director to plan the fall schedule, I offered to teach a class.

My class won't be until December, but the Christian ed director, Judi, is putting together a brochure about adult education. The brochure will be handed out at Rally Day (September 12) so people know what opportunities will be available throughout the fall. Here's my blurb, tentatively, for the brochure.

A Brief History of the Bible
Have you ever wondered where the Bible came from? Do you want to know who wrote it and when? Have you ever wished you knew what "apocrypha" meant, or wanted to learn more about the Dead Sea Scrolls? Join Vicar Jennie for a three week introduction to the Bible, its history, and the books that weren't included.
Week One: What's in the Bible?
Week Two: Bible History
Week Three: Building the Bible: The Formation of the Canon

Now, doesn't that sound like a class you'd want to take?

September 5 Sermon - Part One

I preached my sermon on Sunday (slightly modified from the draft I posted here), and it went well. It's always a little hard to gauge how a sermon affects the congregation, but I received positive comments, and no one stormed out in the middle, so I'll count it as a success.

Now I'm looking ahead to the next time I'll be preaching: September 5. The readings for that day are Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 1, Philemon 1-21, and Luke 14:25-33. You can check out the readings here.

The Gospel text is about giving up possessions in order to follow Jesus. Jesus makes analogies to preparing for a building project or a battle, concluding, "So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

I am pulled a bit towards Philemon, because I think that would be a fun text on which to preach. The message there is about Christian community and the radical re-ordering of hierarchy (honor/shame) in Christ.

On the other hand, the congregation is thinking about stewardship right now, and the Luke text could preach to that subject very well.

So I'll have to make up my mind about which text I want to use. Any suggestions?

August 15 Sermon Draft

My sermon is pretty much finished. I think I'd still like to add a closing image at the very end, but on the whole I'm happy with it. Comments are welcome (as always).

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

I'm a big fan of disaster movies. They're always terrible, but they're too much fun not to watch. The cheesy dialogue, the over-the-top special effects, the hilarious pseudo-science, the heroic character who recognizes the signs just in time to save the human race – yes, whether there's a volcano under Los Angeles or an ice age bearing down on New York, you can count me in.

But I haven't had a chance to see the most recent big-budget disaster movie, 2012. Maybe some of you saw it when it came out in the theaters (because, you know, the special effects always look best on the big screen). Even though I haven't seen 2012, I've heard plenty about it. It's hard to avoid – there seems to be a lot of talk these days about the Mayan calendar ending. And, so the argument goes, when the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, 2012, so ends the world.

The end of the world. There's something fascinating to us about the idea of the end of the world. That's why disaster movies make so much money, after all. There's something in us that loves to hear about the world coming to an end. We listen with a sort of horrified fascination to these stories.

Of course, for many people, they're not just stories. I recently stumbled across a website that eagerly proclaimed to me that the world is really and truly going to end – but not December 21, 2012. The real end of the world, according to this website, will be May 21, 2011. That gives us about 9 months to set our affairs in order. Now, they claim that they have Biblical evidence for this date, but they seemed to be a little fuzzy on the details, and I couldn't figure out how they had decided on May 21, 2011 for the end of the world.

Certainly May 21, 2011 isn't the first time the end of the world has been predicted. Back in the early 20th century, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (forerunners to the Jehovah's Witnesses) predicted the end of the world for 1914; when 1914 came and went, they revised their prediction several times. Charles Wesley, the Methodist, believed the world would end in 1794. Martin Luther, back in the 16th century, was convinced that the world would end before his death. And so on. It seems that in every generation, there are those who believe that the world is coming to an end.

So what do disaster movies and end-of-the-world predictions have to do with our readings this morning? It's right there in the gospel reading from Luke. “I came to bring fire to the earth,” cries Jesus through the writer of the gospel, “and how I wish it were already kindled!” He predicts division and conflict. He refers to the sign of the times: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

This kind of language is referred to as “apocalyptic.” Now you all will have to bear with me for a little teaching moment. “Apocalyptic” comes from “apocalypse,” the Greek word that means “revelation.” So the book of Revelation in the Bible is called “Apocalupsis” in Greek. So remember: “apocalypse” equals “revelation”. We usually think of “apocalypse” as the end of the world, but its basic meaning is revelation – specifically, God's revelation. In the centuries before Jesus, some Jews came to understand God's revelation – the apocalypse – as the catastrophic end of the world. God would appear to bring judgment, punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous. A new age would be inaugurated in which all hopes of the righteous would be fulfilled. A new world would replace this broken, irredeemable world. And all this would happen very, very soon. Apocalyptic thinking and writing is always filled with a terrible urgency, with the conviction that there is no time left.

These ideas of the apocalypse certainly persisted in Jesus' time, as well as the time of the writing of the New Testament. There are strains of apocalyptic thinking in the gospels. We find the most obvious example in the book of Revelation, whose very title is “Apocalypse” in Greek. And apocalyptic ideas have lasted beyond the Biblical period. In fact, the ongoing predictions of the end of the world show us that apocalyptic thinking has its adherents in every generation.

What are we to make of such thinking? When we look at the predictions that the world would end in 1914, they may seem comical. When we hear predictions of the end in our own time, we may dismiss them as nonsense – or we may feel a shiver of fear.

And what about the predictions of the end of the world in the gospel of Luke, in our very reading today? In our reading, Jesus says he has come to bring fire to the earth – but there's no historical record of such fire. Jesus says he brings division within households – but what generation doesn't see division in households? The text is full of the urgent sense that the end is near. So what are we to make of this text? I have to be honest with you. When I read Luke's apocalyptic language, I wonder to myself, “Was Luke wrong? Was this just another crackpot end-of-the-world prediction?”

We believe that Scripture is inspired by God, that God speaks to us – here and now – through these ancient writings. Yet reading Scripture can be a difficult task, at times frustrating and disheartening. When I read predictions of the end of the world in the Bible, I can't help but wonder if they're just plain wrong. How can God speak to us through these apocalyptic texts? What is the Holy Spirit trying to do here?

But I do believe that God has something to say in this text. I do believe that God can speak to us, even if Luke felt an impending sense of doom that didn't come to pass. The apocalypse is the revelation of God. The revelation of God. God revealed. Perhaps that revelation doesn't come to us with end-of-the-world special effects. Perhaps God chooses to reveal God's self in other ways.

Indeed, God does reveal God's self. Though it does not come with the special effects of the blockbuster disaster movies, God's revelation is both surprising and dramatic. The revelation of God is Jesus Christ. God is revealed to us, to all of humanity, through Jesus Christ. That's why we call Jesus Emmanuel – God With Us. We proclaim this revelation, this apocalypse, every time we recite the Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.” We believe that we encounter Jesus here at the table, at communion. Jesus is the apocalypse, the revelation, of God. In Jesus, we find God; in Jesus, God is revealed.

The writer of our gospel text today expected the apocalypse, the dramatic end of the world and the coming of God's judgment. What actually happened was a different kind of apocalypse, the revelation of God through Jesus Christ. God has a way of surprising us, of turning our expectations upside-down. We find story after story in the Bible of God's unexpected, surprising revelation – whether at the burning bush, in the manger in Bethlehem, or in the tongues of fire that descended at Pentecost. God, it seems, loves to surprise us. God reveals God's self in the ways we least expect.

And what about you? I will venture to guess that most of you have not seen a burning bush. But I would be willing to bet that God has surprised you. Maybe God has appeared to you when you were hurting, in the face of a caring friend. Maybe God has appeared to you in the guise of a homeless person asking for help. Maybe God has appeared to you in your own heart, in a powerful emotion or sudden idea.

God does not always come to us in thunder and lightning and fire. God does not always appear in some kind of end-of-the-world disaster. On the other hand, God does not always come to us with a gentle word of comfort. Sometimes, God has a message of division, not peace. Above all, what we discover as we try to follow the living God, is the wonderful unpredictability with which God meets us.