Good Shepherd, Good Luck, Goodbye

Sermon preached Sunday, April 25, 2021, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. This was also my last Sunday serving this congregation as their pastor.

As is always the case the fourth Sunday of Easter, it’s Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s a day that comes around every year in which we think about what it means that Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd—and what it means to be sheep of God’s flock.

But there’s a lot of other stuff happening today. It’s my last Sunday with you all, and that fact makes it a bittersweet moment. We’re also confirming Natalie Turner at our 10:15 in-person service and celebrating her as she affirms the faith instilled in her at her baptism.

At first, I thought this might be a weird mash-up…but now I think it kind of works.

After all, the main theme of Good Shepherd Sunday is that we are cared for and we are never left behind. That we can get lost, we can stubbornly refuse to move, we may be threatened by wolves, but God will always seek us out, provide for us, protect us, and carry us to where we need to go.

As St. John’s enters the uncertainly of a pastoral transition, anxieties will run high. It is not uncommon for there to be conflict, confusion, disappointments, and frustrations that get taken out on one another. The temptation is to let these feelings take over, and congregations can get stuck, sitting in their anxiety and unable to move ahead.

But this day reminds us that God will never leave this congregation. When we get stuck, God is there, Jesus, our Good Shepherd, is coaxing, pulling, guiding, helping us move forward—will we fight and struggle and dig in our heels? Or will we listen and follow and embrace the release God offers?

And, today, we are reminded that God will never leave Natalie, nor any other member of the body of Christ. In our baptism, we are first claimed by God and promises are made: by us and by God. When we are baptized as children, our parents make promises on our behalf, and make a commitment to bring us up in the faith. Our sponsors promise to be examples and guides of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Our congregation promises to pray for us and support us. And God promises to never let us go.

This morning, Natalie will affirm her faith and, along with her, we will affirm the promises made so many years ago. And as we do that, we remember those waters that we were washed in, those waters that joined us irrevocably to Christ, those waters that our Good Shepherd leads us to.

Yes, today is a day to celebrate.

We celebrate rites of passage.

We celebrate new beginnings.

We celebrate relationships build out of love.

We celebrate the experiences we have shared together.

We celebrate our trust in a God who calls us to new ventures.

And we celebrate a Shepherd who never lets us go.

Amen.

Thomas: A Realistic Model

Sermon preached Sunday, April 11, 2021, the Second Sunday of Easter, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. 

It’s no secret that most, if not all of the images we see advertisements are the result of Photoshop. It seems like every week or so there is some expose article floating around about this company’s Photoshop fail or that celebrity’s “untouched” picture being released. Someone is always doing something to make someone look better.

Sometimes it can be egregious, like making a woman’s waist impossibly tiny or putting arms at unnatural angles. Other times it’s pretty harmless. I can remember taking my senior pictures for high school and having them airbrushed to remove some pretty embarrassing acne. For good or for ill, these sorts of alterations happen.

And there is debate about just how good or ill they are. Some people say that all sorts of digital adjustments are fine in the media. After all, these companies are trying to sell something; they are presenting an ideal for everyday people to aspire to. The models aren’t supposed to look ordinary—it’s their job to be extraordinary!

The other camp argues that these representations can be dangerous. They keep people from having a reasonable perspective on their abilities or bodies. Companies should use models representative of the population, not a tiny minority. We should have realistic models.

When we are looking for models and examples for our spiritual lives, we often turn to scripture. Regardless of what camp you may belong to when it comes to our secular culture, when we look at the Bible, it seems we are given nothing but “realistic models.” In the Old Testament, there are stories like the time Abraham lied and passed his wife Sarah off as his sister, or when King David pursued Bathsheba despite her being another man’s wife. The New Testament isn’t all the much better. The disciples as a whole tend to misunderstand what Jesus tries to teach them. Judas hands Jesus over to the authorities and Peter denies that he ever even knew him.

And then we have today’s story about Thomas, who was called the Twin, but who we so often refer to as “The Doubter.” Thomas is one of the most realistic models we have. He doubts what he hasn’t seen for himself. The other disciples had all been able to witness Jesus’ resurrection for themselves when he appeared in the room. Thomas just wanted that same tangible sign.

We’re often the same. We have trouble believing in things we haven’t experienced for ourselves. When we are young, we learn about the five senses. We learn to explore things with our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. We use those senses to decipher the world around us, to determine what is real and what isn’t. The trouble is, faith in God can’t rely only on those senses.

Our experiences with God come in lots of other ways. We may feel God’s love and presence in the relationships we have with other people. Or we may feel it in times of peace and tranquility. Or while experiencing and exploring nature. Or we may be overwhelmed by it during an exceptionally spiritual experience brought on through music, meditation, prayer, or worship.

But sometimes we, like Thomas, seek harder evidence. We look for those more concrete signs. We are hungry for things that we can point to and say, “There! There is God!”—because it’s hard to maintain faith without them. We can find ourselves, like Thomas, having doubts and struggling to believe.

And then, in today’s Gospel story Jesus proclaims, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Those are kind of discouraging words, aren’t they? We can take them to mean that Thomas is somehow “less-than” for not trusting fully in the other disciples’ account. We may begin to see Thomas as a bad example, a bad model for us because he doubted. We may begin to equate doubting with not being a good Christian.

Jesus does say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe…” The unspoken phrase that we tend to assume follows is, “Woe to those have to see to believe.” But that’s what Jesus intends. Jesus doesn’t speak words of woe to Thomas. He lifts up and blesses those who have faith in the resurrection without proof, but he does not condemn the doubters.

Thomas is not a bad example for us. Despite his doubts and concerns, he still boldly proclaims Jesus’ identity: “My Lord and my God!” He recognizes the fully divine nature of Christ. He remains with the other disciples as Jesus continues to perform miracles and teach. And then, like the others, after the ascension he is sent out into the world to proclaim the Gospel.

I’ll say it again: Thomas is not a bad example. Rather, he is a realistic model. Even though he has his time of uncertainty, he was still a faithful disciple. He still spread the word of God. God still worked through him. Though he doubted, Jesus still came to him. God can and does still work through all of us. Our loving Creator doesn’t abandon us, even when we aren’t so sure of it all.

And God has provided us with at least two visible and physical signs: our sacraments, baptism and Holy Communion. There are two parts that make up a sacrament: it is commanded by Christ and uses a material or earthly element. Through connection with the Word, is the bearer of God’s promise. The elements of water, wine and bread give us something physical through which we can experience God’s grace.

Through the water that washes us in baptism, we to die to sin and rise to new life in Christ, and we are also reminded that we are beloved children of God. Bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ in Communion, nourish and sustain us and are signs that point to the love of God shown in Christ’s death and resurrection.

Yes, doubts are real. They happen. We have periods of feeling disconnected from God. But the good news today and every day is that God is never disconnected from us. Sometimes we feel that divine presence strongly, other times it may be less noticeable, but God is there. In water, in bread and wine, in the Word, God has given us things we can see, taste, smell, hear and feel.

Our “realistic model,” Thomas, shows us that doubts do not keep us from God’s presence. They do not preclude us from seeing the signs and miraculous works God can do. They do not cause us to be shut out of the community of believers. Jesus came to Thomas and Jesus comes to us, embracing us in times of both faith and trust and in times of uncertainty and wavering belief.

Amen.

We Know What Happened

Sermon preached Sunday, April 4, 2021, Resurrection of Our Lord, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

A pastor I worked with in California was a professor of religion before she was ordained. In a recent conversation, she brought up a relatively obscure religious tradition: Zoroastrianism. It’s been around for thousands of years and survives into today, although there isn’t a terribly large number of adherents. Most modern-day believers in Zoroastrianism are in the Middle East or India.

You might be asking yourself, “Why is Pastor Becca talking about this random religion on Easter?” I promise, there’s a point. The thing is, Zoroastrians believe that there are two competing forces in the world: a force of life and a force of death. This duality gets expressed in other ways, too, like good versus evil or light versus dark. It’s not so different than what other religions believe and teach, but there’s one aspect of this duality that I found especially interesting.

Zoroastrians don’t claim to know what will win. In other words, the battle between life and death continues on and it’s full of suspense. This is not the action story or classic tale where the good guy always wins, the plans of the wicked are foiled and a happy ending is a given. No, for these believers the struggle is real and could go either way. Life or death could win. It’s a 50/50 bet. Every day could be lived with the anxiety of not knowing.

All too often, we live this way, like we’re not sure what will happen, like we’re not sure if life or death, good or evil will become triumphant. I fall into this trap from time to time, don’t you? We watch the news worriedly, like the death, violence, cruelty and greed reported on is all there is. We wring our hands about the state of public Christianity as if our witness isn’t most powerful when it is lived out in our everyday lives. We stress about whether or not we are good enough at our jobs, or for our family, or for God and have trouble remembering that we are already good—so much more than “good enough.” We see this battle in so many aspects of our lives: life versus death. Good versus evil. We live in anxious anticipation of what might win.

But today we hear the end of the story: God wins. Life wins.

Death tried incredibly hard. Death and the forces of sin were out in full force. God came to live among a broken humanity and we couldn’t handle how loving and full of grace and welcome this God was. Sin worked overtime in us to put this God we rejected to death…and sin thought it had won. Death thought it had won.

But we know what happened. At early dawn, a group of women came to the tomb expecting to find the body of the teacher, Lord, and friend. We know what happened: the tomb was empty and the women remembered all that Jesus had said about dying and rising again. We know what happened: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James, and the other women became the first evangelists, the first ones to proclaim the good news that Jesus the Christ had risen from the dead. We know what happened: most of the disciples did not believe them, but Peter did and ran to the tomb to see it all for himself.

We know what happened: the story of Christ’s resurrection from the dead spread and the message of God’s love for all of humanity made its way to every corner of the world. We know what happened: Paul wrote to the early Christian’s in Corinth about it.

²⁰But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²²for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:20-26)

This what has happened. We know the end of the story.

None of this is to say that there will never be any suffering or pain or even death. Ultimately, though, we know that these forces have been destroyed. Ultimately, we know they have been defeated.

This knowledge is best expressed through a story I heard from another pastor colleague. He was at a nursing home on Friday, leading a Good Friday service in the chapel there for its residents. Just before the service began, a woman called him over to her chair. She told him that she lived in an assisted living facility nearby, but was having some health problems that put her temporarily in the nursing home. Then she told him she was scared. “I’m scared to death,” she said, “Just scared to death.” He asked her what she was scared of and she didn’t mince words, so I’ll edit a bit for more tender ears: “This sickness. It’s a bear. It’s a freakin’ bear. But even if it gets me, God wins.” Even if it gets me…God wins. She knew the end of the story.

And even this year, when the world feels upside down and so many of the things we’ve taken for granted gone from our lives, this fact is still true.

We know the end of the story. We proclaim it here every Sunday. In thanksgiving for our baptism, we proclaim that God has provided life-giving water. The readings remind us of all the ways God has already acted in human history. In the Nicene Creed, we end by stating, “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. In communion, we are welcomed to a table with bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, that sustains us in this life and keeps us in God’s grace. We leave, ready to share the good news of God’s victory to all who will listen.

We know the end of the story. Allelluia! Christ is Risen. Amen.

God Acts

Sermon preached Saturday, April 3, 2021, Vigil of Easter, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

We’ve all heard a lot today. From the Easter Proclamation that began our worship in which we cried out “This is the night!” to the Resurrection account from the Gospel of John…we’ve heard all about God’s work throughout human history.

Frankly…I don’t think I have much to add. I think the texts, largely, can speak for themselves.

There’s a recurring theme in the readings. Over and over again, we heard about the ways in which God has acted.

We began at Creation—is there a better place to start? In the midst of chaos and a formless void, God calls forth light and life. Piece by piece, our world is created: land, sea, stars, animals, humanity, vegetation. God acts and life is created.

Next, we heard of the flood, when God, after coming close to giving up on creation completely, resolved to never again abandon humanity.

Then we heard one of the touchstone moments of our faith’s history. After years of slavery and hard labor in Egypt, God decides to work through Moses to free God’s people Israel. Moses has led the Israelite people out of Egypt, but before they can be fully free from Pharaoh’s grasp, they are faced with an sea they cannot cross. The Egyptian army is advancing and death and destruction seem imminent. But we have a God who acts. And this God who acts parts the sea and the Israelite’s walk through on dry land to safety.

Our reading from Isaiah has a different feeling. It is the prophet, Isaiah, proclaiming the words of God. These words, written for Israelites in exile from the promised land, have imperatives: Come! Buy! Drink! Eat! Even in exile, even in despair, God prepares a table for all with water, milk, and wine. Even in tragedy, God is acting to sustain and fill God’s people. And those last few verses? They sum it all up:

“¹⁰For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

          and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

          making it bring forth and sprout,

          giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

  ¹¹so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

          it shall not return to me empty,

          but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

          and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

God’s word does not return empty—it always accomplishes. God’s promises are not in vain—God acts and things happen.

The pinnacle of these texts, of course, is the story of the empty tomb. The whole life, death, and resurrection of Christ is a sign of who powerfully God acts. God acted and came to us in human flesh. God acted and performed miracles, welcomed the outcast, fed the hungry, forgave sins, and proclaimed the expansive love of God. God acted and was crucified by a humanity that would not welcome that expansive love. And—the best part—God acted and came back. The resurrection promises us that God can and will continue to act even after it seems like death has ended it all.

One of our first theologians, Paul, knew this and in his letter to the Romans reminded everyone that God’s action didn’t stop with the resurrection with Christ. God’s action goes on!

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  (Romans 6:3-5a)

God’s continuing action means that God continues to give us new life. We are forever joined to Christ in our baptism and there is nothing we can do about it. Our ever-loving God will never abandon us and will always be acting to bring about reconciliation in all of creation.

In the end, it goes back to the beginning. The beginning of creation, the beginning of our service. As I inscribed our new paschal candle, I said these words: “Christ, yesterday and today, the beginning and the ending. To Christ belongs all time and all the ages to Christ belongs glory and dominion now and forever.” Or, to put it another way on at this Easter Vigil, “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.” Our words proclaim the power of God’s action, then and now.

Resurrection that happened then and resurrection that continues to happen over and over again. Alleluia! Christ is risen! God has acted!

Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recognizing Our Role

Sermon preached Friday, April 2, 2021, Good Friday, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

We’re here on a day that only happens once a year. Some of the rituals, prayers, and practices we participate in tonight are unique. Some might even seem strange…but they’re important. It can be easy, too, to get confused about what it is we’re doing here. The altar is stripped. The sanctuary is more bare than it normally is. I’m not wearing an alb or a stole. We will not be having communion. Tonight is more solemn. More somber. More serious.

It might even look like a funeral. It might look like we’re holding a funeral for Jesus two thousand years later, pretending that we don’t know Easter is around the corner. It might look like we’re playing pretend or forcing ourselves to try and “be sad enough” because, we’ll Jesus died tonight and we’re supposed to be in mourning…

That’s what it might look like—but that’s not what Good Friday is. That’s not why we are gathered here tonight.

Good Friday is an observance of the death of Christ, yes, of course it is. But we are not pretending to crucify him again. We are not pretending like we don’t know the end of the story. Instead, we are here to witness it, to stand at the foot of the cross and worship our God who loved us to the end. And, we are here to recognize our role in the passion of Christ.

You might ask yourself, “Recognize our role? We weren’t alive two thousand years ago! We didn’t deny Christ! We didn’t ask for Barabbas! We didn’t mock Jesus on the cross! We didn’t yell ‘Crucify him!’”

Of course not. But we are humans, part of the fallen humanity that refused to accept a God who offered reconciliation instead of a sword and solidarity with the outcast instead of institutional power. We are part of the humanity who couldn’t handle a God with love so abundant and far-reaching…and so we did the only thing we could think of—we killed him. Tonight, we recognize that we are not innocent in the crucifixion of Jesus. We are complicit.

One of the ways in which we name that complicity is through this service and the Solemn Reproaches, in particular. Towards the end of the service, I will read several stanzas, written as if God were speaking to all of us. Each stanza begins, “O my people, O my church…” These words, words that are hundreds of years old, are still for our ears. In each stanza, God tells us, tells humanity, what God has done and what we have done in return. Whereas God has given us life and light and healing, we continually turn away from God and go our own way.

On Good Friday, it is easy to look at the figures in the passion narrative and feel superior. We are not like Pilate, we tell ourselves. We are not like the Romans. We are not like the crowds shouting for Barabbas. We are not like Peter denying even knowing Jesus. We are not like those people, we assert.

…but we are. And the Solemn Reproaches don’t let us forget that fact. Every stanza, after God repeats all the good that God has done, ends the same way: “…but you have prepared a cross for your savior.” That’s it. We are those people. We have prepared a cross. And tonight, we gather at the foot of it.

The “Good” of Good Friday comes here. The stanzas of the Solemn Reproaches aren’t the final word. They’re not purely condemnation. They’re not meant to just make us feel guilty or depressed or to beat ourselves up. They’re an acknowledgement, an admission of our sin—and then a plea. The refrain of the Reproaches is a plea for mercy: “Holy, holy, holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.” We cry out to God in praise and in supplication for forgiveness.

Good Friday is “good” because God is good. Good Friday is “good” because God forgives us and loves us, even though we are “those” people. Good Friday is “good” because God came and died for us because we are “those people.”

“Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.” Amen.

A New Way

Sermon preached Thursday, April 1, 2021, Maundy Thursday, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

As I was preparing my sermon for tonight, I was really struck by the Gospel story in a new way.

I don’t say that lightly. The story of the Last Supper, Jesus’ last evening with his disciples, is incredibly well known. Not only do we hear it every Holy Week on Maundy Thursday, but we hear segments of this Farewell Discourse throughout the year, and we are reminded of it each time we partake in communion.

Even still, I heard it anew, especially the ending.

Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Even here, even at the end of it all, even though he’s about to be betrayed and denied and beaten and executed—he still has love on his mind.

That’s what this meal is about: love.

And this love is for everyone.

This love is for Judas, who we know is secretly plotting. He is going to tip off the chief priests and lead them to Jesus. And still, Jesus washes his feet. And still, Jesus offers him the same bread and wine.

And this love is for Peter, who we know will end up resorting to violence and denying him. Still, Jesus washes his feet. Still, Jesus offers him the same bread and wine.

And this love is for all those disciples in the upper room, the ones who will hid until Jesus appears to them and struggle to find their way forward.

Still, Jesus washes their feet. Still, Jesus offers them the same bread and wine.

And what’s more?

This love is even, miraculously, blessedly, thankfully, for us, too.

We, who will value power or money over God.

We, who will deny God when things get tough.

We, who will hide when we are afraid.

We, who will hurt our neighbor and be selfish and ignore the injustices around us.

Somehow, God’s abundant, unending love is for us—for us to receive and for us to share. To share freely—with no litmus test to judge another’s qualifications or divisions set up by our politics.

Love—God’s love—is above it all.

Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Let’s be sure that’s what others see.

Amen.