All Posts

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17

Ash Wednesday

 What kind of crazy are you? This is the question we should be asking on our first date, so states Alain de Botton in his article, Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.  Apparently, this is either people’s most deep seated fear, or their dreadful reality; this was the most read article of 2016 in the New York Times.[1]

Please note that Botton uses the term “crazy” without prejudice or disrespect, and not intending offense to those with mental illness.  He writes, “…we have a bewildering array of problems that emerge when we try to get close to others.  We seem normal only to those who don’t know us very well.”[2]  How are you crazy?  If you don’t know, just ask your family.  Botton wants us to be aware that “every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us—and we will…do the same to them.”[3]  Again, just ask your family.

I’ve had my share of frustration, anger, annoyance, maddening encounters and disappointments.  And that was just in the last hour!  Actually, that was Monday.  Monday was a very full day!  My crazy usually impacts someone else.  When I become uprooted and thrown into a pit of emotional chaos, I in turn become someone who frustrates, angers, annoys, maddens and disappoints people.  My focus becomes me, myself and I.  In fact, my focus can become me, myself, and I all by myself, not prompted by anyone else.  This is attested to by the number of shoes in my closet and the amount of dark chocolate that I can eat in one sitting.

While in themselves these things don’t sound so bad, they are manifestations of my shortcomings, and serve to distract me from loving myself, others and God in healthy ways.  They are only a couple of the many ways that my relationships become distorted.  I know I am not alone.  There are moments when we don’t love our neighbor, or talk about our neighbor–not in the best Christian light.  Not to mention the times we want the very thing our neighbor has, ignore those neighbors who need our help or our voice.

There is a churchy word for all of this.  A theological dictionary expresses it this way, and I quote, “…people suck at being human the way God intends humans to be because of a condition known as sin,”[4]

We help others and practice generosity, but eventually we find it hard to forgive someone, or are haunted by self-doubt, or any those things that come with being a crazy human.  We may be sorry and have regret.  But if we view these things as anything other than sin, and respond in a way that does not include repentance, turning again to God, then we are in danger of thinking we have the power to save ourselves, that we can, on our own, make things right without God’s grace, without God’s mercy and forgiveness.  We can talk ourselves into believing that we can always act without self-interest and self-benefit.

We need Ash Wednesday, this day that we confess to God, to one another, and before the whole company of heaven that we cannot extricate ourselves from that which separates us from God and from one another.  We need this ashen reminder that we cannot save ourselves. The cross made of ashes is a confession that we cannot accomplish what only God can.  Our ashes are also a confession of hope, hope that things can be different.

Tonight, the cross of ashes will be placed on our foreheads, on top of the cross placed that marked us as God’s in our baptism.  It is a reminder of whose we are.  God claims us, and the promise of new life underlies even death.  Love and life brought out of death and ashes are tangible signs of God’s reversals. Tonight, because we admit our mortality and our sinfulness, we return to our God of promise and hope.

This is why Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the year.[5]   Tonight is the night we confess, “God, I want to love you with my whole heart.  I want to love you with all my heart, but part of my heart gets tangled up with other things. Sometimes part of my heart feels like a closed fist aimed at those who think differently than I do. Part of my heart is frozen with fear of I don’t know what–being unlovable, looking foolish, not having what I need, of being alone, of dying.  Part of my heart wonders if I will ever be good enough.”  Tonight is the night that we confess, “God, I am crazy like this.” Tonight is the night God responds, “I know!  But I am crazy in love with you. Let’s start again, together.”

Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.  Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.[6]

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] This article, from May 28, 2016, can be accessed on-line at https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html?_r=0.  Krista Tippett’s interview with the author, Alain de Botton, The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships, February 9, 2017, is available as a podcast, http://onbeing.org/programs/alain-de-botton-the-true-hard-work-of-love-and-relationships/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Jacobson, Rolf, ed.  {Crazy Talk}: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms.  Minneapolis:  Augsburg Fortress, 2008.  p. 161.

[5] While it may seem strange that Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days, being honest about my sin is a relief.  To say out loud that I need God, that I cannot save myself, is a statement of hope because if salvation is up to me, I am doomed.  Ash Wednesday is a tangible reminder of God’s promises given to us in baptism and lived out in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I love Ash Wednesday!

[6] Joel 2:12-13

 

Matthew 5:21-37    

6^th Sunday After Epiphany

 

W.C. Fields, the great comedian known for his womanizing and drinking, was a self-admitted agnostic, and so it surprised his friend, Gene Fowler, to find Fields reading the Bible. ”’What are you doing, Bill?’ asked the incredulous Fowler.  ‘I’m looking for loopholes,’ Fields whispered.”[1]

W.C. Fields isn’t the only one to look for an easier way out.   Years ago, I attended one of my husband’s high school reunions in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  Griff’s friends gathered around to greet us.  He introduced me and told them that I, his wife, was a preacher.  “And y’all thought I was going to hell, didn’t you?” he said with that beautiful big grin on his face.  Looking into the eyes of his friends, I replied, “He still is.”[2]

Jesus’ exposition in our reading this morning might have you looking for loopholes.  “But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.”  When is the last time that you were angry with someone?  When is the last time that you insulted someone, even if it was not to their face?  And when is the last time you called someone a fool?

Jesus’ discourse escalates.  “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away…And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”[3]  Jesus never mentions anesthesia.

Our readings seem to reinforce the image of God as a law giver, and a harsh dispenser of judgment.  It may be easy to lose sight of the fact that the law is given to us as a gift.  God gave the law to Moses to give to God’s people, not so that they could earn their way to God by adhering to the law and climbing the ladder of perfection to reach God.[4]  God gave the law so that we can live with one another.

The first way God uses the law, in the words of Tim Wengert, is:

to promote the life of creation and to restrain evil. Luther noted that God, “who overflows with pure goodness,” uses creatures who “are only the hands, channels, and means through which God bestows all blessings.” But God also forces humanity to come face to face with its sin (the second way God uses the law).  In all of this, however, Luther’s point was that God uses the law on humanity, not the other way around, and uses it to benefit life on earth and life with God. [5]

Jesus strengthens the law, and it becomes clear that we cannot justify ourselves. Jesus intensifies the law so that we don’t excuse ourselves for our neglect and mistreatment of others. He catches us looking for loopholes, we who say we never murdered anyone while at the same time speaking of people in the worst possible way.  Luther, in his Large Catechism, which we will be studying, explains the fifth commandment, “Many people, although they do not actually commit murder, nevertheless curse others and wish such frightful things on them that, if they were to come true, they would soon put an end to them.”[6][7]

The law is about relationship.  God gives us the law, and Jesus strengthens the law, because God created us to be in a right relationship, with God, with those we love, and with those we do not love.  It’s that important.  We test Jesus on this all the time. Remember those little plastic Jesus’ on our dashboards?  You haven’t seen them recently, have you?   People are too ashamed to let him hear all the things we yell at other drivers.  “Who is my neighbor?” we ask, hoping that it does not include the guy who took our parking space, or someone with a different gender identity, or the one who needs a job, or the one fleeing from another country.

We have a long family history of trying to escape compliance with God’s desires for us ever since Adam wimped out, saying, “SHE made me do it!” Then there was King David, and that whole scandal with Bathsheba and the Uriah cover-up.  Judas violated his relationship with Jesus for money, and a short time later, Peter tweeted, “#notmymessiah.”

Have you been hurt by things people have done or have not done?  Are there people you have hurt by things you have said, or have not said? Can you picture someone’s face in your mind’s eye?   Jesus tells us to pluck out our eyes, and hack off our hands.  Our connection to others is that important.  We all have all disappointed people, and we have all been let down.  When it comes to relationships, we seem to have the knack for messing them up. Yet God has told us that there is nothing more important:

… a lawyer asked [Jesus] a question to test him.  “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”  He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.[8]

The very thing that God asks us to do is the very thing we can’t.  We have not loved God with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have all sinned in thought, word, and deed.  Together, after we confess our brokenness, we are reminded that in the mercy of almighty God, Jesus Christ was given to die for us.  We will eat his broken body in the bread, and drink his blood in the wine, consuming Jesus that his love will consume us, and that receiving his forgiveness, we can begin again, giving thanks that for Jesus, in

Jesus, there are no loopholes.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/05/08/loopholes/  Web.  Accessed February 8, 2017.

[2] Please know that I was just kidding! Griff is baptized!  See Luther’s Small Catechism, The Sacrament of Holy Baptism, the second statement.  [Baptism] effects forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and grants eternal salvation to all who believe, as the Word and promise of God declare. [Taken from The Book of Concord.  Tappert, Theodore, ed.  Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1959.  348-349.]   

[3] My hope is that Biblical literalists do not take this literally!

[4] For further reading on this aspect of Lutheran theology, see Gerhard O. Forde’s book, Where God Meets Man.  Minneapolis:  Augsburg Books, 1972.

[5] Wengert, Timothy J.  Martin Luther’s Catechisms.  Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2009.  32.

[6] If you don’t know what the fifth commandment is, come to the study!

[7] Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy J., eds.  The Book of Concord.  Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2000. 411.

[8] Matthew 22:35-40

Isaiah 58:1-12, 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, Matthew 5:13-20

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany (Lectionary 5)

In my reading this week, I was struck by this passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.”[1]  It’s amazing how Paul’s warning is so applicable to us today.

Tuesday mornings, our local pastors gather to talk about the readings for the coming Sunday.  In recent weeks, politics and their effect on people in our churches, in our country and around the world have been dominating our conversations. Within our congregations, there are differing opinions on every issue we face.  People embrace God’s mandate to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God, but there are disagreements on how best to do that.[2]

In listening to the news, reading comments on FaceBook, and hearing conversations, I’ve become more aware of how we label people, thereby dividing them into categories. Those labels then become people’s identity, as if that is all there is to a person.  Now days when we hear “the conservatives, the liberals, Republicans, Democrats, Muslims, Christians, Jews, whites, blacks,” it is usually said with judgment attached.  There is not one day when anger and divisiveness are not made public. How we see each other, and ourselves, is channeled through this lens.  “There’s something strangely sweet about negative or accusatory feelings,” writes Richard Rohr.  “It’s a strange way to achieve moral superiority…”[3] The impact of all this on our well-being cannot be understated.

That people divide into factions is nothing new.  The Corinth community had their own difficulties with this.  Before Paul came to them preaching the good news of Jesus Christ, they were known for their unruliness and promiscuity.  For a year and a half, Paul taught them the gospel, and showed them how to live as a holy people of God.  Then he left for Ephesus.  Sometime later, Paul received a report that “factions had developed, morals were in disrepair, and worship had degenerated into a selfish grabbing for the super-natural.”[4]

Paul’s letter in response to the Corinthians, part of which we read this morning, does not preach the wrath of God.  Paul does not label people; they have labeled and divided themselves. He does not pit one faction against another.  Paul’s letter to the Corinthians focuses on love.  In fact, the first thing he says to them is, “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus…”[5]

How can he say this to a quarreling community? What gives Paul perspective is Christ and the cross.  “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified,” Paul states.[6]  The cross signifies God’s intervention into the dark places of our humanity.  It stands for love that culminated in Christ’s giving his life for all people, both the righteous and the unrighteous.  Paul views everything through this lens.[7] Paul begins with the cross of Christ.  When we begin from a place of judgement or fear, we cannot see accurately.  When we begin from a place of judgment or fear, we struggle to get to a place of love.

Paul’s vision of the world through the cross challenges how we see.  It looks beyond our view of power, and beyond the letter of the law.  Looking at our world through Christ crucified clears our vision so that we recognize our common humanity.  It provides a way for us to speak our truth in love.[8]

In order for us to speak our truth in love, we first must know that we are loved.  Scripture frequently assures us of that.  “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ^]—by grace you have been saved,” St. Paul writes. [9]  This morning we hear Jesus tell us, “You are the salt of the earth.”  “You are the light of the world.”  Not, “I was hoping you would be,” or “if you do this,” but “you are.”

As salt and light, how do we respond to our current climate?  First, look at the cross of Christ, and then look through the cross to our neighbors.  Know that you are loved. Know that your neighbors are loved, too.  From that perspective, speak the truth in love, without judgment, and without condemnation.  David Lose, president of the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia, suggests that, “Perhaps part of our congregational calling is to be places that gather people who may differ on approach to being salt and light but commit to pray for deeper understanding, for wisdom, and for courage to speak and act in line with our faith, and for each other.”[10]

Listen again to the words of Isaiah:

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
 if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail. [Isaiah 58:9-11]

Let your light rise in the darkness, in the name of Christ.  Amen!

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] Galatians 5:14-15

[2] Micah 6:8

[3] Rohr, Richard.  Everything Belongs.  New York:  The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2003.  p. 109.

[4] Peterson, Eugene.  The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language.  Colorado Springs:  NavPress, 2002.  p. 2064.

[5] 1 Corinthians 1:4

[6] 1 Corinthians 2:2.

[7] Marcus Borg [read Convictions:  How I Learned What Matter Most.  New York:  HarperOne, 2014. p.144.] points out:

[Paul] doesn’t simply say that Jesus died, but that he was crucified.  In the world of Paul and Jesus and early Christianity, a cross was always a Roman cross.  The gospel of ‘Christ crucified’ intrinsically signaled that the gospel challenged the way the authorities, the powers, put the world together.  The gospel was an anti-imperial, [anti-Roman Empire], vision of what the world should be like.

[8] Galatians 5:6 states, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

[9] Ephesians 2:4-5.  See also John 3:16 and Romans 8:38-39.

 

[10] Lose, David.  …In the Meantime.  Epiphany 5A – Promises, not Commands.  Web, accessed 1/31/2017.

 

Matthew 3:13-17    

Baptism of Jesus     January 8, 2017

 

Do you remember your baptism?  I don’t remember mine, but I do remember the dress I wore.  My parents wanted me to be baptized in a Lutheran church, and so they waited for one to be built in our town.  My sister Karin and I were wearing matching dresses when we were baptized.  She was 12 years old, and I was 8.  Do you remember your baptism?

Martin Luther remembered his baptism every morning.  When he washed his face, he would splash the water on his face and remember his baptism.  He would remind himself, “I am baptized.”  Present tense.  Not “I was baptized,” but “I AM baptized.”

John the Baptizer had declared to those who had come out into the wilderness, 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.

Jesus came to John to be baptized. John did not understand why, since John’s baptism was one of repentance.  Baptism washes away sin, and Jesus was the Messiah.  How could the son of God put himself in such a humbling position?  John tried to talk Jesus out of it.[1]  (Yeah, like that could work!)  This lowering of status would come to define Jesus’ life and ministry.  He told John that his baptism would fulfill all righteousness.  In Matthew’s gospel, righteousness is doing God’s will.  God’s righteousness relates to God’s establishing and maintaining right relationships.  Jesus fulfilling all righteousness entails love, justice and redemption.

By being baptized, Jesus joins us in our humanity.  Jesus joined the multitude of sinners in the waters of the Jordan. When the Word made flesh was dunked under the water until he bubbled, the Word and the water joined together to bring salvation to us in and through our baptism.  Jesus stands with us at the font, plunging into our despair, our lies, our shame, our loneliness, our weakness, our sinfulness.

It is in Jesus’ baptism that it becomes clear who he is:  And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well please.’  In our baptism, it becomes clear who we are.  We are God’s children; we are God’s beloved.

One of my favorite movies is O Brother Where Art Thou.  It’s not just because George Clooney stars in it.  This comedy, loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey, takes place in the Deep South during the 1930s.  Three escaped convicts, Everett, Pete and Delmar, search for hidden treasure while a relentless lawman pursues them.

My favorite scene is when the three men see what appears to be a congregation, a group of women and men in white robes, walk through the woods and right into the river.  There, the preacher takes them one by one and dunks them in the water, holding them under until they bubble.  While Everett mumbles something about “everyone’s looking for answers,” Delmar runs into the river and wades to the front of the long line.

Pete expresses his surprise:  “Well, I’ll be a sonofagun. Delmar’s been saved!”

Delmar stands up, dripping wet, turns towards his friends, and says, “Well that’s it, boys. I’ve been redeemed. The preacher’s done warshed away all my sins and transgressions. It’s the straight and narrow from here on out, and heaven everlasting’s my reward.”

Practical Everett, who has no need of religion, responds:  “Delmar, what are you talking about? We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

Delmar: “The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”

Everett: “I thought you said you was innocent of those charges?”

Delmar: “Well I was lyin’. And the preacher says that that sin’s been warshed away too. Neither God nor man’s got nothin’ on me now. C’mon in boys, the water is fine.”

It must have been a Lutheran congregation.

Knocking over the Piggly Wiggly, and lying about it, washed away by the water and word through God’s gift of baptism, as if Delmar had never committed those sins.  It seems over the top, and too good to be true.  We can substitute our own sins in place of knocking over a grocery store.  An illicit love affair, cheating on your income taxes, over consumption of alcohol and/or drugs, a lack of concern for those who lack the basic needs to live, unkind gossip or hateful words…  Fill in your own blank.

Delmar, and his cohorts, saw him as a robber and a liar.  But in his baptism, he shed that identity and became God’s child.  He was no longer defined by his sins, but rather by God’s love for him.  When someone asks you to tell them about yourself, do you answer with what you do, such as such as an accountant, or a stay-at-home parent?  What defines you?  Is it things you have done? Or maybe who you think you are is defined by things that have happened to you.  I am a cancer patient, I am a rape victim, I am divorced.

These are ordinary things that may be true, and they may describe us.  But they should not be what defines us. They simply don’t tell the whole story.  In fact, they don’t tell the most important part of our story. In our baptism, we become children of God.  There is nothing in this world that can change that.  In his baptism, Jesus fulfilled all righteousness for us.  In our baptism, we are joined to Christ, and we became God’s beloved.  Professor David Lose explains that this is why Jesus came, to convince us that God loves us more than anything.  The implications of this are profound.  He writes:

We become “children… who are not dominated by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, not defined by our limitations or hurts, and whose destiny is not controlled by others.  Rather, we are those persons who know ourselves to be God’s own beloved children. [2]

Baptism isn’t simply about getting into heaven.  It is about relationship.  In the water and the Word, it is God who comes to us, giving us God’s unconditional love.  We are invited and empowered to live in that relationship – or not!  God gives us the option, the awful freedom, to choose to live with or without him.

In this relationship, I suspect that at times we frustrate, disappoint, and anger God.  But even with all of our shenanigans, there is nothing we can do that will make God stop loving us. There is nothing we can do for which God will abandon us.  Herein lies our hope.  God is always there, like the father of the Prodigal son, waiting for us to come back.  When we stray, or simply forget whose we are, our relationship with God can be restored, and our hope is that we can once again find ourselves living in God’s love for us.  Believe it, live it, share it and you can change the world.

Every morning when you wash your face, or step under the rain of the shower, say to yourself, I am baptized.  Present tense.  Come on in!  The water’s fine!

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] This conversation between John and Jesus is mission from the account in Mark and Luke.

[2] www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=2980

 Matthew 1:18-23    

Fourth Sunday in Advent

 

Joseph dreamed of a house with a white picket fence and two camels parked in his garage. Mary was his dream come true, and Joseph asked her to marry him.  He was, as they said in those days, betrothed to her.  To be betrothed was somewhere between an engagement and marriage. People didn’t live together before marriage back then. More binding than an engagement, it could only be broken with an act of divorce.  A betrothed woman who became pregnant was seen as an adulteress.  And that is what happened to Joseph’s love of his life.  She got pregnant.  What was he to do?  He did not want to shame Mary.  If he made her condition public, her family might disown her, and she could be stoned to death.  Being a righteous man, Joseph decided to do the righteous thing.  He would quietly divorce her.  Yes, that would be the right thing to do, he thought.

Having made the decision he thought God would want, Joseph climbed into bed, pulled his covers up, and fell asleep. That night, in his dreams, an angel showed up and said to him, Joseph!  Don’t be afraid.  Go ahead and get married.  Mary’s baby is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and when she does, you, Joseph, are to name him Jesus, meaning God saves.  Because that is what this baby will do. 

I’ve tried to put myself in Joseph’s shoes. The Gospel of Luke tells us that Mary pondered these things in her heart, and the same must have been true for Joseph.  Did he ever have doubts?  When Mary’s baby bump became obvious, did Joseph hear people’s whispers? What a position to be in!  But Joseph believed that God was present in all of it. What appeared to be a position of shame was, through God, a place of honor.  What looked like the edge of scandal was centrally a place of holiness. Joseph was not sure exactly where God would take him and Mary, but he knew something wonderful had been promised.

“Jesus” means God saves, “Emmanuel” translates God is with us. That the Word became flesh and lived among us is beyond anything we humans could imagine in our wildest dreams.  How is this even possible? Not only does God take on our dreams, God give us God’s dreams in the flesh.  Our God does impossible things! That’s how the Cubs won the World Series this year—for the first time since 1908.  The Washington Nationals will have to wait for Christ’s second coming.

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way, Matthew tells us.  Translations of the word “birth” obscure Matthew’s description of what is happening in Jesus as a “genesis,” a new beginning.  We are brought back to the story of creation, when God spoke the world into being.  God does new things and creates new beginnings, things that we would never think possible.

That impossibility is why wrinkled old Abraham and Sarah laughed when God told them they would have a son.  Pharaoh let his primary source of cheap labor, the Israelites, leave for a new land and new beginnings only because of God’s impossible intervention. Through Jesus, Bartimaeus regained his sight and a paralyzed man walked.  Jesus kissed the leper clean, and evicted unclean spirits out of the Gerasene demoniac. He healed a woman who had been bleeding to death for half of her life.  Water was changed into wine, and over 5,000 were fed with just five loaves of bread and two fish.  Like Father like Son; Jesus made the impossible possible.

God is still doing impossible things with impossible people. I know that because I am one of them. My husband will tell you the evidence is in my agreeing to marry him.  That I am in good health, after one serious cancer and ten years later a difficult to discover, aggressive cancer, is nothing short of a miracle.  That I became a pastor is in itself a miracle. That I am serving here, at this church in which I was ordained, can only be because God creates new beginnings.

What has God done in your life that you never thought possible?  People have told me that after failed relationships they thought they would be alone for the rest of their lives, and then they found love so deep they didn’t know it could exist.  One of my friends spent over 100 days in the hospital because her placenta had ruptured.  The baby that never should have survived is named Olivia.  She is now six years old, loves the color pink, and is learning to be a cheerleader. Then there’s the person who would have bet she could not do it, but she did.  She was able to take care of her mother while she was dying. If you have forgiven someone, or been forgiven yourself, then God has been working miracles in your life.  If you have had a broken family relationship that has been restored, God has turned hearts. What inconceivable thing has God done in your life?

Advent is a time of God’s impossible possibilities.  It is the time in which we wait for the coming of Jesus as a baby, and for Christ’s coming again. Advent highlights our living in both the now and the not-yet.  The not-yet that includes mothers and sons and sisters and grandmothers in Syria fleeing their homes, and others who died in the fighting.  Suicide bombers killed people in Turkey yesterday.  Our local shelters are overcrowded and people struggle to find relief from the bitter cold.  Cancer still ravages bodies and families.  The world is exhausted.  So we wait with longing for Christ’s return.  We light a candle and we pray, your kingdom come.  We look for the time when God will wipe every tear from our eyes, and when death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.[1]  We wait for Christ’s coming again.

Even as we wait, we are witness to the in-breaking of God’s kingdom.  Advent is the time of sure and certain hope that God makes the impossible possible.  Our hope comes, and can only come, from a God who has over and over again created new beginnings.  We wait with hope that comes from a God who is born as a baby who cries and needs his diaper changed.  Emmanuel, God with us, lived with a family and friends and love.  Our hope comes from a God who was betrayed, and suffered, and died.  This is the God who brings us hope of impossible possibilities through his resurrection. There is no darkness so dark that God’s light cannot shine in it. There is nothing so terrible from which God cannot bring good, and there is no one so sinful that God cannot redeem them.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] See Revelation 21:4.

Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12

Advent 2

Our theme on this second Sunday of Advent is peace. What has disturbed your peace?   For many, if not all, our culture of fear and recent acts of hatred impact peace. Peace is broken by our experience of violence, not only against ourselves, but also against neighbor. The peace of shalom means more than just the absence of war or hostility or fear.  The peace of shalom means wholeness, harmony and well-being.  What disrupts your peace?

Gerald Holtom’s peace was disturbed by nuclear armament. In 1958, he designed his peace sign from a personal perspective. “I was in despair. Deep despair,” he wrote. “I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle round it. It was ridiculous at first and such a puny thing.”  Gerald later realized that if you turned the symbol upside down, [quote] “it could be seen as representing the tree of life, the tree on which Christ had been crucified…which [is] a symbol of hope and resurrection.”[1]

Our reading this morning begins with this hope. Isaiah tells us, A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  Isaiah is speaking to a weary people, a people beleaguered and threatened by war and destruction.  Jesse is the name of David’s father, and this family tree will see a hoped-for new stem. From the Davidic line, a king of peace will emerge whose reign will be one of both peace and righteousness.  God’s whole creation will participate.   The future holds the promise of a kingdom in which the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.  These are the images depicted in Quaker Edward Hicks painting from 1833, The Peaceable Kingdom.  Today’s images of the peaceable kingdom come in the form of video clips posted on FaceBook– Bubbles the African elephant plays with Bella the Labrador, Kate the Great Dane grooms Pippin the deer, and Anja the chimpanzee helps feed tiger cubs. In human form, the pictures are Muslims standing with Jews and Christians and Hindus and athiests.

We value peace so much that since 1901, a prize has been awarded to those who work for it.  In 2016, the president of Columbia, Juan Manuel Santos, won it because of his efforts to end more than 50 years of conflict in his country.  The youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner is Malala, a Pakistani young woman who not only survived but triumphed after an assassination attempt by the Taliban.  Malala continues to campaign for universal access to education.  Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi are notable people who have devoted themselves to peace.  Despite their efforts, universal world peace eludes us.  As a people, we are not very good at maintaining peace. Humans have been at peace only 268 out of the past 3,400 years.[2]

Reflecting on peace, Frederick Buechner writes:

One of the titles by which Jesus is known is Prince of Peace, and he used the world himself in what seems at first glance to be two                     radically contradictory utterances.  On one occasion, he said to the disciples, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).  And later on, the last time they ate together, he said to them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27).

The contradiction is resolved when you realize that for Jesus, peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle, but the presence of love.[3]

As some of the 20^th century greatest poets sang, “All you need is love.  Love is all you need.”[4]  Love is what drove Martin Luther King, Malala, the Dalai Lama, and others.  In light of their accomplishments, we may not see ourselves as influential, but peace begins with us, right here, right now.  Peace is passed from one person to another, and then to another, and another.  We embody and enact that in our worship service.  After the prayers, we will share God’s peace with each other.  Our sharing is itself both a prayer and an announcement of grace. In our sharing, we are the risen Christ to each other.[5]  We are signs of peace.

Jesus’ peace, as Buechner implies, is about love shown through relationship, which is always ultimately about justice.  It is about overturning tables in the temple, and finding value in those society would call the least. It is about changing social systems that oppress others. It is about people on the other side of the world having access to education and clean drinking water. Peace is about having medical care and shelter.  Peace is about gender equality. Peace in our world depends upon the well-being of everyone.

Peace is not about what we accept as normal, which explains and gives credence to John the Baptizer!  In announcing Jesus’ coming, he calls people to repent, which means to turn around.  Turn around, look at your neighbor, and look at your relationship with your neighbor.  In order for the world to be different, things need to change.  Forgive someone, maybe even yourself.  Help cook a meal for someone without a permanent home. Speak up when people are cruel.  Visit someone who lives alone.  Hug a person who is grieving.  One act of forgiveness, one act of kindness, one act of advocacy begins the healing of humanity.  Be a sign of peace.

Even as we pray your kingdom come, we are called to participate in its coming. This is our summons in and through the waters of baptism, as we are joined together with Christ in his life of confrontation, of healing, and forgiveness; as we are joined together in his agony on the cross; as we are joined together in his glorious resurrection. It is through Christ that we receive life and salvation, and through whom the fullness of the peace of shalom will come.

Hope for peace gets its start from a dead, sawed-off tree,–a stump from which an unlikely tender green shoot sprouts.  It is announced by a wild looking man in the middle of nowhere.  Hope for peace is born in a barn from a young girl of low socio-economic status. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you ay abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15:13). This Advent season, we wait in hope for Christ to come again.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] https://www.fastcodesign.com/3036540/the-untold-story-of-the-peace-sign

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html

[3] Frederick Buechner.  Beyond Words.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2004.  307.

[4] All You Need is Love. Written by John Lennon and attributed to Lennon-McCartney, 1967.

[5] Brugh, Lorraine and Lathrop, Gordon.  The Sunday Assembly. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2008. 172-174.

Luke 23:33-43

Christ the King Sunday

 

Police in Portland declared a riot after demonstrators were seen attacking drivers and committing acts of vandalism.  A swastika was carved into the metal of a towel dispenser in a bathroom at the College of William and Mary.   Police in Ann Arbor were investigating reports that a man approached a Muslim student and threatened to set her on fire with a lighter.

Are you weary?  I am.  My reserves are exhausted from the multitude of reports of hateful behavior.  I cannot imagine how those who are marginalized feel.   I was born into privilege, and so I am not the target of the anger and the hate.

God has told me to love my neighbor.  That’s been a struggle recently, but I am trying to understand the underlying causes of destructive behaviors and the perpetrators’ various perspectives. My heart is breaking.  Murray Bowen, who developed a theory of relationships and behavior, posited that societal stress will negatively impact people’s functioning.[1]  How are you functioning lately?

I think Krista Tippett is a modern-day prophet.  Her book, Becoming Wise, was published early in 2016, before harsh words became every day public speech covered by the media.  In it, she writes:

…we are struggling, collectively, with division of race and income and class that are not new but are freshly anguishing.  Here’s what is new:  a surfacing of grief.  It’s not a universal reckoning, but it’s a widespread awareness that the healing stories we’ve told ourselves collectively are far less than complete.  There’s a bewilderment in the American air—both frustrating and refreshing for its lack of answers.  We don’t know where to begin to change our relationship with the strangers who are our neighbors—to address the ways in which our well-being may be oblivious to theirs or harming theirs.  We don’t know how to reach out or what to say if we did.  But we don’t want to live this way.[2]

This past Wednesday, my long-time friend posted the following on FaceBook:

You may have noticed (or not) that I have refrained from making political posts on this site. I like seeing pictures of my friends’ kids growing up. I have desperately been trying to just scroll through and filter the bitterness between.

That changed today. For the first time in 15 years in this country, someone said to my husband (an American citizen, doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, primary caretaker of our 4 year- old mixed race son, supporter of my own ambitious career as a woman surgeon, who incidentally happens to have been born in Ecuador), “Go back to where you came from.”

No. This has to stop. NOW….

I am shaking with rage. I am overwhelmed by grief....[3]

Today is Christ the King Sunday.  Today is the day I want Christ to be king! I want Jesus to act like a king! I want Jesus to smite those people who are filled with hate and evil. Not really; if I actually wanted to God to smite people then I would be the one full of hate, and so I would be asking God to smite me. J And then I remember Jesus’ words as Luke reported them, “’But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also…’” [Luke 6:27-29a].

But I do want him to exert his power and maybe throw in some retributive justice.  Instead of retribution, today, on Christ the King Sunday, what we get is Jesus, at a place called the Skull, nailed to a cross, his broken body hanging between two thieves.

Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing!”  Forgive who?  The chief priests? Pilate, Herod, Judas? The ones who yell “Go back where you came from” and the ones who carve out swastikas?  Jesus insisted that the worst people have done would not define him. He saw both the horror and the holiness in people and forgave them anyway.

On the cross, this man who gave his life to healing those who were suffering now suffered himself, too. The people stood and watched as the life drained out of Jesus’ body. “He saved others!  Let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, the chosen one,” they scoffed.  Yes, Jesus, why do you not save yourself?  The soldiers mocked him, “If you are king of the Jews, save yourself.”  Yes, Jesus there is still time! And one of the criminals hanging beside him, scorned him, saying, “Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  Yes, Jesus, save us!

But Jesus just hung there, vulnerable and silent.  He hung there with two criminals.  He hung there with those who others have forgotten, with the vulnerable, and the unlovable. With deep humility, he surrendered.  Jesus died because he refused to participate in a system of winners and losers, or a culture of “we” and “them.” He did not buy into measuring worth based on accomplishments or skin color.  Jesus refused to participate in the marginalization of people. His justice was restorative, not retributive.

Jesus knew that it was love that would change us.  As Martin Luther King said, “Hate cannot drive out hate.  Only love can do that.”  We gather in Christ’s name, and something of Jesus’ love and truth breaks through.  Christ the King show us that the kingdom of God comes in the form of relationship through forgiveness and healing.  We help bring in God’s kingdom every time we show kindness and compassion, and when we advocate for those who society would throw away.

In the moment of Jesus’ surrender to death, in that absolutely hopeless moment, God’s salvation came to us.  “Are you not the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  Through his death and resurrection, that’s just what Jesus did.

~ Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] Murray Bowen developed “Bowen Family Systems Theory.”  In addition to Bowen’s writings, you can learn more about this theory from the works of both Edwin Friedman and Roberta Gilbert.

[2] Tippett, Krista.  Becoming Wise:  An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.  New York: Penguin Press, 2016. 108.

[3] Used with the author’s permission.

 Luke 18:9-14

Lectionary 30  in Ordinary Time ~ 23^rd Sunday after Pentecost

Who are you in our story, the Pharisee or the tax collector?  Pharisees were a sect of Jews who held strictly to both written and oral law.  We tend to think of Pharisees as being hypocrites.  The reality is that most of them were righteous and respected Jews who followed the law.[1]  First century listeners would have been surprised by the behavior of this Pharisee.

The second person in our story is a tax collector.  Tax collectors were agents of the oppressive Roman government.  He was probably dishonest, and, showing no mercy, collected more money than was owed to the Roman empire.  He was most likely rich.  That this tax collector was in the Temple would have been shocking.[2]

That’s where we find this tax collector, in the same temple, “standing far off”.  The Pharisee was there, too, “standing by himself”.  Both were Jews.  Both were praying.   The Pharisee prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.  “’Thank you, Lord, that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’”  His prayer, even though addressed to God, was really about himself.

Although all that the Pharisee said was true, we laugh at giving God thanks for not being like other people.  But I know that in various ways I have done the same thing.  In fact, just this weekend I said, “Thank you, God that I am a VA Tech Hokies fan and not a Miami Hurricanes fan.” Maybe you’ve heard people look at someone begging for food and whispered, “Thank you, God, that I am not poor.” “Thank you, God, that I am not disabled.” “Thank you God that I am not” –fill in the blank.  “Thank you, God, that I am not like that person.”

 

Maybe you have had a conversation with someone who has dementia, or witnessed a co-worker getting fired, or listened to a parent talk about the trouble their child has gotten into.  Suddenly, out of your mouth pops this cliché, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  I’ve said it before. While this is meant as an expression and recognition of God’s grace in our lives, it is done by comparing ourselves with someone else.  In other words, “Thank you God, that I am not like this person.”  In other words, “God you have blessed me, but not blessed this other person.”  In other words, I deserve God’s blessing, and this person must not. By comparing ourselves with others, we create a hierarchy of good and bad.  We, of course, land on the side of deserving God-given superiority.

“There but for the grace of God go I” places the other person the side devoid God’s grace.  Which is to say that they must have done something to offend God.  The person with no permanent home, the addict, the unemployed, and the tax collector deserve what they got.  God does not love them enough to offer grace, forgiveness and mercy.  As the Pharisee said, “Thank you God, that I am not like other people.”

We know this is not God’s truth!  God’s grace is unconditional.  We cannot earn it.  The Pharisee did not think he needed it.  The tax collector, on the other hand, prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  While God would have us be generous with our money, stay faithful to our partners, and teach faith formation, the truth of it is that our justification is not achieved.  We are set right with God through God’s actions.  We are utterly dependent on God for our salvation.

The Pharisee trusted in himself; the tax collector trusted in God.  So which are you, the Pharisee or the tax collector? Are you grateful that you are not like the Pharisee?  Are you grateful you don’t live a life like the tax collector?  This is the trap Jesus has set for us in this story!  Just when we think we are glad we are not like the Pharisee, we are like the Pharisee.  For me, I am both.  There are times when I am proud of myself and think that I am responsible for all my blessings.  Then there are times when I am convicted by my sins.  In both cases, my only salvation is God.  God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

Jesus presents us with one more set-up.  This story is not so much about us as it is about God.  It’s about our God who values relationship with us, we who are arrogant and we who are humble.  It’s about God turning our human systems of success and failure upside down. Our relationship with God is not determined by our knowledge or attending committee meetings.  Our relationship with God does not rest in our reciting the Ten Commandments, the size of our house, or the number of friends we have on FaceBook.  God’s love is pure grace, given to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  There is no place God won’t go to be in relationship with us, even death on a cross.

Through Jesus we learn that our God is like the father who gives his son his inheritance, and after the son spends it wastefully on himself, welcomes him back.  Not only welcomes him back, but throws a party, too!  Our God is like the shepherd who looks for the one out of a hundred sheep that strays.   Through Jesus we learn that God loves disciples who can’t seem to get it right, lepers whom no one else will touch, and women who make their living in shameful ways.  Even Judas had his feet washed tenderly.

Thank you God, that we are like those people, the ones whom the world deems not worthy, the ones who take what you give them and run away, and the ones don’t always tell the truth.  Thank you, God, for your mercy on us, sinners all.

[1] For more information about Pharisees, tax collectors and the Temple, see Amy Jill Levine’s chapter on this parable.  Short Stories by Jesus.  New York:  HarperCollins, 2014.  169-196.

[2] Ibid.

 

Luke 17:11-19    

Lectionary 28 in Ordinary Time;  21^st Sunday After Pentecost

 

What difference does it make?  What difference does St. Stephen Lutheran Church make in the world, and in this community?  What difference does it make for you to be part of our church community?  What difference do you make in the lives of others because you are part of this church community?  What difference does Jesus Christ make?

In various ways, I’ve asked you these questions, and you have told me stories.  Unlike rooster sightings, I welcome your stories, and invite you to come and share them with me.  What difference does St. Stephen make in your life?  What difference do our ministries make?  What difference do you make?

One of the blessings of our Lutheran Student Association is the relationships that are fostered.  We get to know them when students serve as faith formation teachers and lectors.  We engage with them when they help with our Health Ministry and our Youth Ministry.  For our part, we cook dinner on Sunday evenings and then join them to eat.  Our adopt-a-student program forms deep and lasting relationships.

One of our students told me about the adoptive parents he had a few years ago.  He didn’t use the word “adoptive.”  They were just his “parents.”  Now he sees them as his “church grandparents.”  This student’s first year at William and Mary was one of challenges.  He along with all the freshman were meeting new people, and making new friends.  One of the people he met disappeared part way through the semester.  After some time, information came trickling down that this student was in a rehab center.

Our student had never been in this situation before, but knew that he didn’t want his classmate to feel alone.  (We have the best students!)  He wanted to go see him, to show that people care and to support his classmate, but he didn’t have a car.  He talked with his adoptive parents, and they drove both him and his friend.  It turned out that the person had changed rehab facilities and visiting hours were different.  The adoptive parents made another trip, and this time the LSA Student and his friend were able to visit.

The student in rehab had not had any visitors, and his parents were out of the country.  The visit from his classmates touched him, and encouraged him.  This is Jesus’ love shown through our people.

One member of our congregation recounted being new to Virginia. She discovered that some part of her life was missing, and she found that missing piece here, at St. Stephen.  Your hospitality drew her back. Our worship service helped her feel at home.  The fact that she did not feel judged was important.  Soon her husband noticed the difference St. Stephen made in her life, and he began coming, too.  They formed relationships. Because of their love for the church, they both found this a place to use their gifts and are serving in multiple ways.  This is Jesus’ love shown through our people.

On the way to the cross, Jesus was going through an area that bordered peoples at odds with each other.  Entering a town, ten lepers came to him begging for mercy.  Jesus healed their leprosy and sent them on their way.  One, the minority in the group, turned around, laid himself at Jesus’ feet and said, “Thank you.”  “Thank you, Jesus, for looking past my skin.  Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for curing my disease.”  Jesus said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  To practice gratitude is to practice faith.

I wonder what this healed person did when he got back home.  Did he make meals for those with no permanent home?  Did visit those who are sick and unable to go out?  Maybe he took up quilting, and his quilts given to Lutheran World Relief.  Lutheran World Relief will send them to places like North Korea, where orphans will wrap themselves in their warmth, and to Haiti, where people who lost everything in Hurricane Matthew will use them as blankets and carrying bags.  These quilts don’t just bless the people who receive them.  They bless the people who make them.

This is how faith works.  Jesus loves us, and brings us healing and forgiveness.  When we turn to give thanks, like the tenth leper, we are made whole and sent on our way.  To intentionally practice gratitude for what God has given us changes our lives, which in turn change others’ lives.

Our mission is not to simply our ethical duty; it is the work of our grateful hearts. We are gathered together to worship, not just to get something out of it, but to give thanks and to give back. The giving of your time and talents are the difference that we make in people’s lives.

So is your money. The building in which we worship, the music that we sing, the staff who oversee, lead, and keep us on track, faith formation materials, and even bread and wine cost money.  We are blessed by a generous God so that we may respond generously.

In our preparation to gather around the table together, to eat of the bread and the wine, we say, “It is right to give our thanks and praise.”  How will you do that?  What difference will you make in response to Jesus’ love for you?

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin