The Mountain Top

Sermon preached Sunday, February 23, 2020, Transfiguration of Our Lord, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

I can’t think about Transfiguration Sunday without thinking about mountains. There are lots of mountains I’ve driven up or lived on in my days of working as a summer camp counselor, but there is always one in particular that sticks out to me.

Several years ago, I was in Phoenix for the ordination of a really good friend and seminary classmate.  There were several of us in town and we were looking for something active to do since all we had been doing so far was getting in as much Mexican food as we possibly could. The was a nearby trail that this friend hiked pretty frequently, so we got up early and piled into a car.

We drove to the mountain and parked, got out and began to hike. We continued to talk on the way up, sharing stories from our time apart and reminiscing about times we’d had together. We discussed our future hopes and dreams for our ministry. It was a comfortable hike, not too strenuous. It was sunny, but not hot and there was a pleasant breeze from time to time.

Finally, we approached the top and our conversation came to an end, as if we had somehow telepathically agreed to stop talking. We stood in a line and looked out over the wild desert. It was one of those moments when everything seems perfect, when time seems to stand still.

It was quiet, with wind rustling the brush. After a few moments, someone said something along the lines of “What an awesome Creator we have.” And we all agreed. What an awesome Creator we have!

There’s something about that moment. Something about being on that mountain. There’s something about being on any mountain. It’s what they call that “mountain top experience.”

What is it about the mountain top? It’s important. It’s transcendent. The mountain top pulls us away from the everyday distractions of work or school, or troubled relationships. It pulls us away from the constant barrage of Facebook updates and twenty-four-hour news cycles. We are met with a grand expanse of creation—and the great power and imagination of our Creator.

The mountain-top has the unique ability to make us feel both greater and smaller at the same time. We feel as if we can see everything, almost as if we can touch everything…and we also realize that things that look large up close appear tiny and insignificant from far away. The mountain-top experience is something we can’t explain, but it’s a terribly precious and profound way to encounter God.

On Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we begin Lent, which is almost a symbolic climb. Throughout Lent, we journey with Jesus through his ministry and his passion and, eventually, to his crucifixion. During Lent, we climb the hill of Golgotha with Jesus; we climb, expecting to find Christ at the top that mountain.

The Bible is filled with stories of finding God at mountain-tops: Moses’ experience with burning bush and the Ten Commandments are probably the most well-known examples. There’s the story of Abraham binding Isaac, among others. But this morning, we hear another familiar story about a mountain.

Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain and—all of a sudden—his clothes turn to a brilliant, blinding white and his face begins to shine like the sun and—even more amazing!—the voice of God comes and claims Jesus as the beloved, Son of God. It’s incredible, so much so that Peter wants to build dwellings and stay. And who can blame him? I’d want to stay!

But they don’t stay. And that’s perhaps the best part of this story. Jesus and these three disciples don’t stay on the mountain, they come back down.

Something amazing had happened there. Something life-changing occurred at the top of that mountain. The disciples encountered God and had a mountain-top experience…but then they left. They came back down the mountain; they came back with Jesus.

It would have been easy to stay up there. They were separated from the rest of the world and could have avoided lots of trouble. It would have been easy to let the rest of the world go on while they enjoyed the transcendence of that space. But Jesus doesn’t choose the easy peace of that transcendence. Jesus comes down, even knowing that coming down will eventually lead to his death.

Because Jesus doesn’t want to stay up, to stay separate, to stay in that “holy place.”

Instead, Jesus comes down and the whole world becomes holy. Jesus comes down and makes the entire world a place where we can encounter Christ, where we can encounter God.

Where do you encounter God? I imagine that the answer is different for everyone. It depends on your personality and what you treasure, but there are certainly some common responses to this question.

Some people encounter God in nature, like I did with my friends on that hike, or like campers and counselors alike do when they go to camp. Being surrounded by the wonderful trees, rocks, water and creatures that God created reminds us of how much God loves us, of how much care God put into our world when it was made. Everything works together in remarkable unity and incredible complexity.

Still others, myself included, encounter God in the arts. Sometimes a painting can capture a message or an emotion that words can’t express. Sometimes music is able to move beyond notes on a page and transport the listener to another place, perhaps allow the listener to feel a direct and vital connection to God. There’s poetry and literature, too, which uses our limited vocabulary to speak expansive and overarching truths.

We can also encounter God in our relationships: our families, our friends, co-workers, classmates—these are all ways in which we can be delighted by God reaching out to us. We may even be surprised by the unsuspecting ways we can be the hands of God reaching out to others.

And we can of course encounter God in scripture. Some people read their Bible daily, use it as a sort of “spiritual food” to nourish their day-to-day lives. Others enjoy delving deeper into texts in communal study, finding new ways to apply these important stories to their lives. And, most importantly, we gather together every week and hear the scriptures proclaimed.

Every Sunday morning, we come to this place and hear prayers, songs and sermons, but we also hear these divinely inspired words spoken aloud. We hear them, we don’t just read them. They become alive for us in this place. They are proclaimed as good news for us, not just for the people who wrote them, or heard them in the time they were written, but for us, here and now, in this time and place. In these words, we encounter God—or, maybe it’s better to say that God encounters us.

And that encounter reaches a new level at the table, when we receive the bread and wine, Christ’s own body and blood. Christ meets us here and sustains us for the road ahead.

That mountain-top experience I described at the beginning shouldn’t be discounted. It’s real and important and can have a deep and lasting impact on people. It’s that special blend of seeing vast expanses of God’s good creation and that unique ability to make us feel both greater and smaller than we are—this same feeling can happen when we hear the Word of God.

Today, Jesus comes down the mountain:  the entire world is made holy and God can meet with us anywhere God chooses. Every place can be a mountain top.

Amen.

Who Do We Say Jesus Is?

Sermon preached Sunday, September 16, 2018, the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

Jesus asks Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”

If Jesus asked this question of you, what would you say? There are a lot of titles to choose from. Jesus is teacher. Jesus is healer. Jesus is advocate. Jesus is partner. Jesus is savior. Jesus is leader. Jesus is a justice-seeker.

Jesus asks Peter, and Peter says, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus is the Messiah, but Peter didn’t understand what that truly meant. When Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, the word is loaded with expectations Jesus has no intention to fulfill. Prior to Jesus, ideas of the Messiah had to do with judgement or military might or something different altogether. There was no consensus. Many of the first century Jews longing for their savior were looking for a commander of armies to drive the Romans out of Israel.

Jesus, on the other hand, does not speak of fighting wars and winning battles. Instead, he teaches his disciples that he must undergo suffering and die. Jesus is the Messiah, but is unlike any Messiah the disciples had anticipated. Peter can’t handle it. Peter knows that Jesus is the Messiah, but doesn’t want to hear a thing about the cross.

There are all sorts of ways we can refer to Jesus: Messiah, teacher, friend, activist, healer…but all of them are meaningless if we do not keep the cross at the center. The cross is what grounds every piece of our faith. It’s been said that, “Just as Jesus is our lens for seeing who God is, the cross is our lens for truly seeing Jesus.” (Erica Gibson-Even)

We cannot separate Jesus from the cross. It’s all around us. Martin Luther suggested one way of reminding ourselves of that fact. He recommended that every morning and every evening, we make the sign of the cross. Luther believed that our days should begin and end with the cross.

The cross all around us—in jewelry, architecture, knickknacks from the Hallmark Store— but it hasn’t always been that way. The earliest Christians and Jesus-followers avoided using the cross. After all, it was an instrument of torture, terror and execution. It was offensive. It was scandalous. And it was a symbol of the oppressive government that had sentenced their Messiah to death. It took time for it to be representative of our faith, instead of just a weapon of choice for the Roman Empire.

And now, we are removed from the history of the cross and the legacy of scandal. We are left, two thousand years later, trying to figure out what it means to take up our own cross…and in our attempts to deal with this reality of the cross, we can fall into two traps: we can cry “persecution!” at every tiny slight, or at the opposite end, minimize all kinds injustice and suffering as par for the course.

One the one hand, it can be tempting to call every hardship we might face a cross. We could say that a long commute is a cross. We could point to the weeds that sprout up in our yard despite our best efforts a cross. We could call the never ending piles of laundry that reappear week after week a cross…but they are not. We are not oppressed by these things. These are minor inconveniences that we want to call “cross” so that we can play the martyr. It’s tempting, but none of these things have anything to do with us living as Christ has called us.

On the other hand, there are a lot of Christian clichés that seek to either glorify or minimize suffering. When someone loses a job or gets a bad diagnosis or faces any kind of difficult period in their life, we say things like, “This is your cross to bear,” or “God has given you this test.” I’m sure you’ve heard some of the platitudes people offer, often with good intentions, that do not take seriously the difficulties or systemic injustice people face.

So that leaves us trying to find a middle way…trying to discern where the cross is in our own lives. We all have a cross, or two, or three. The trick is parsing them out—and then taking them up.

As one preacher put it, “Taking up our cross and following [Jesus] means, most basically, acknowledging that we are powerless to save our own lives—powerless in the face of our own sin, in the face of the brokenness of the world, in the face of death. We don’t have to seek out a cross to bear—for most of us, this reality is always chipping at the foundations of our illusions and best efforts.” (Erica Gibson-Even)

What are you powerless against? What crosses are you carrying? Really think—because they’re there. I’m not saying that there are not resources in our world that might help us…but these crosses require more than a quick fix. They affect our entire beings.

We are powerless against…what, exactly? We are powerless against a life-altering diagnosis. A relationship we have no clue how to repair. A lost job. A dead loved one. A mental illness. A natural disaster, like Hurricane Florence, bearing down on the coast.

No, if there’s one thing the world has plenty of, it’s crosses. But the good news is that we need not fear death from any of them. Through his own death and resurrection, Christ conquered death. Through baptism, we have been joined to Christ in death and been raised to new life. The crosses we carry should be instruments of our own execution, but instead, they become a reminder of our unity with Jesus and his resurrection. Our crosses are transformed and taken up by God so that we are equipped to carry them forward.

The traditional Good Friday liturgy involves a procession with a cross. We do it here each year. The cross is carried in and pauses three times on its way up to the altar. At each stopping point, the crucifer proclaims, “Behold, the life-giving cross, on which was hung the salvation of the whole world.” The assembly responds, “O come, let us worship him.” Even on Good Friday when the cross should be seen through the most sinister and terrifying lens, we announce that it is in fact life-giving.

We are joined to Christ and that life-giving cross—joined through the waters of baptism. In that baptism, God claims us and names us as beloved children and starts us on a journey to where God is calling us and where God already is. As Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, commented, “If being baptized is being led to where Jesus is, then being baptized is being led towards the chaos and the neediness of a humanity that has forgotten its own destiny.” (Being Christian, 5) I’ll read that again. [Repeat]

We are being called to the crosses of humanity. We are being called to carry our crosses into the world so that we might help other people shoulder theirs as well. Our crosses are not eliminated, but we are given the strength to do what God is calling us to, despite the weight. Week after week, we come and gather in this space, our shoulders a little slumped, our backs aching from the heavy load…but here we are washed in the font. Here we are fed at the table. Here we are supported by our siblings. Here we are reminded who shares our burden: our teacher, leader, prophet, priest, advocate, healer…and messiah, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Be Opened

Sermon preached Sunday, September 9, 2018, the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio can be found here.

One of the greatest things about our Bible is that it is not afraid to present us with different viewpoints. This is especially the case with the gospels: we have four distinct perspectives in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that all have something particular they want to emphasize about Jesus.

For example, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is in control the entire time. He knows the moves everyone will make and he is knowingly and willingly walking to the cross. In the Gospel of Mark, however, Jesus doesn’t exercise quite as much agency and, in today’s story, he even has some things to learn.

The idea of Jesus growing or learning anything is problematic for some people, the idea being: if Jesus is God, then how could Jesus possibly not know everything? The thing is, though, that Jesus is also fully human. He grew and matured and learned as much as any of us might hope to. It’s not unreasonable that he began his ministry believing one thing and—through experiences and growth—came to a different understanding.

One of the things Jesus learns is from this Syrophoenician woman—an outsider. In this account, she approaches him, desperate to have her daughter healed. There are reasons she should not have done this: she is a woman approaching an unknown man. She is also a gentile, someone who most good Jews would try to avoid. Jesus treats her horribly, comparing her to a dog, but she doesn’t back down.

This is the point when some readers will argue that Jesus was just testing her, that he didn’t really mean that she was like a dog…well, to be honest, even if he was just testing her, which I don’t think he was, that’s still a pretty cruel and dehumanizing thing to do.

But I don’t believe it’s a test. I believe is a moment of growth, a moment of realization.

Jesus encounters this woman and learns that his mission is bigger than maybe he first thought. This proves to be true because of what happens when he moves on to the Decapolis. When approached by a group of gentiles bringing the deaf man with the speech impediment, he doesn’t hesitate in his healing, he just does it.

What is the word Jesus says? Ephphatha. “Be Opened.” That could really be the theme of Jesus’ ministry: be opened.

Just think of the things Jesus’ ministry is opened to! It goes from a very insular, insider-focused mission to the Jewish people and slowly, but surely, expands to include the outsiders, the unclean, the unwelcome, etc.

In the very first chapter of Mark, Jesus heals a man with leprosy and restores him, whole and clean, to his community.

A woman, who had been unclean for years because of hemorrhages, gets close enough to touch Jesus’ cloak and is healed.

He moved beyond the territory of Galilee and spent time with all manner of Gentiles.

He welcomed children into his midst, when most would have ignored them.

Time and time again, he shocked and surprised the religious leaders (and even his disciples!) with who he chose to invite in and associate with. Over and over, God’s mission is opened, further and further.

As followers of Christ, we must also ask ourselves, what are our ears stopped up to? What do we ignore, brush aside, or refuse to hear? What must we, as the church, be opened to? What is God already opening us up to?

The marginalized. The unseen. The unheard. The belittled. Immigrants, poor, hungry, homeless, children, people who don’t look like us or think like us. We prefer to keep our boundaries tight. We prefer to think that we have a privileged place at the table. …and yet, God is calling us to be opened.

I must admit, this notion convicts me. It’s not something I want to admit to, but I, like so many of us, want to be given that privileged place—many of us even feel like we’ve earned it. One example of this in my own life is our own seminary process.

I went the “traditional” route. I entered seminary right out of undergrad, with no debt from my bachelor’s degree weighing me down. I grew up in the church, so I knew how much of the process worked before I even began it. I was single and didn’t have kids, which meant I had the flexibility to go wherever was necessary for internship and my chaplaincy work one summer.

In other words, the system, as it had been set up, worked for me. The system, however, just doesn’t work for a lot of people.

There are older folks, who worked decades in a different career but decided they could no longer ignore God’s call. When they enter seminary, they often have kids or spouses or deeply entrenched support systems that have difficulty adapting to the “move-every-nine-months” lifestyle of traditional seminary.

There are folks who are already serving as de-facto pastors for their community. They certainly can benefit from further education, but already essentially have a call. These folks, called TEEM candidates, do their education through intensives or distance learning so they can remain with the people they already serve.

There are folks who feel a call to ministry, but never achieved a Bachelor’s Degree. What does it mean that in most cases we require a Master’s Degree for ordination?

Nowadays, barely a week goes by without pastors, deacons, and other church leaders ending up in a discussion about seminary: the debt is too high; our requirements don’t achieve what they are supposed to; some classes are useless; some classes that should be mandatory aren’t taught; going back to seminary for one more year after internship is a waste…in other words, we need to re-think how we prepare church leaders.

As I said before, I am a person for whom the system worked. I made it through in the prescribed amount of time. I took out student loans, but was able to keep them lower than some of my peers. I found my classes to be meaningful. I was grateful to go back to seminary after my internship so that I had a chance to heal from a bad experience.

It would be easy for me, who enjoyed some level of privilege through the process, to simply say that seminary worked for me and so it’s fine and it’ll work for everyone. It would be easy for me to say that nothing needs to be changed and people should just suck it up and do what is required. It would be easy for me to say that everyone should have to do exactly how much work I had to do because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair, regardless of a person’s background or circumstances. It would be easy for me to simply say that I don’t care what happens to the people who come after me because I’m already through.

But instead…instead God is calling my ears and my heart to be opened to all the people for whom this process is either prohibitively difficult or just doesn’t work. It doesn’t mean that the church throws away our tradition of education. It doesn’t mean that our standards are lowered. It simply means that we recognize that a process that works for some people might not work for others, and not because it’s anyone’s fault. I needed to be opened to that reality to face my own fears and jealousies and doubts.

In this story, our church leadership is hearing the persistent cries of called and talented leaders and opening the process to faithful people longing to serve. In the Gospel, the Syrophoenician woman was persistent and demanded that Jesus respond to her. Now, we must see the ways God is persistently calling the church to respond and act and be opened. Who are we not seeing? Who are we not hearing? Who are we not loving?

Amen.

Legalism and a Poop Joke

Sermon preached Sunday, September 2, 2018, the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentectost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

Today we’re back in the Gospel of Mark, after our Bread of Life series that took us all through the sixth chapter of John. It’s kind of nice to be back. Where John tends to be philosophical and pretty heady in his theology and story-telling, Mark tends to get right to the point. Today isn’t any different. His account of this confrontation with some Pharisees and scribes shows Jesus not mincing words and even kind of making a poop joke. 😊

For background, the pharisees and scribes were charged with interpreting Jewish law and developing and enforcing practices to enable Jews to keep that law. One of these practices is washing hands before a meal: hand-washing is not commanded in the Torah, but is prescribed as a way to make sure other purity and cleanliness laws were followed. The fear is that someone could have touched something at some point in the day that might be unclean and that unclean bit could then be ingested accidentally and defile a person.

Jesus, of course, makes a comment that whatever you eat will just come out of you again later and go into the sewer, and that the only thing that can truly defile a person is what comes from their heart, from within a person’s soul. He gives a vice list to illustrate his point: he lists things that violate the ten commandments and argues that they come from within…and extra precautions set up by humans can’t perfectly safeguard against them.

The temptation here is to read this story, and set up a division, a dichotomy between “the law” and the good news of grace that Jesus brings. It’s easy to read into Jesus’ words a disdain for the law in general, but that’s not the case. His critique is for a particular form of legalism that turns a person’s faith into a burden instead of a gift. The law, in and of itself, isn’t bad, but it can be corrupted and turned into something unrecognizable.

After all, we know that anything good and purposeful can be abused and defiled because we are human beings and our own innate goodness that God declared at creation has been defiled by sin.

I think perhaps the clearest example of this can be seen in the way parenting is handled today. Everyone seems to have an opinion on how children should be raised and how doing anything differently will permanently scar a child. For those of you who have children or have played a role in helping children grow up, you know that the most important thing to a child is a safe home filled with people who care about them. Ask a question or try to get advice, however, and it can become real scary, real quick.

You will find people who will tell you that breast-feeding is best and a bottle should never be used, but that pumped milk or formula is more reliable; that co-sleeping is dangerous, but having your child sleep in their own crib is cruel; that rocking a child to sleep is coddling them, but letting them sleep it out is torture; that parents deserve to get out and have some time to themselves, but there’s never a reason to leave your child behind when you can just as easily take them with you; that working outside the home is abandoning them and selfish, but staying home with them is buying into a sexist narrative.

Did you catch all that? With all that advice, with all those so-called “rules” of parenting, how can anyone ever hope to raise their child “right?” This is what legalism looks like: taking what should be something happy and life-giving and stripping it of all joy. In the case of parenting, it turns suggestions and strategies and adaptable advice and makes it a place filled with landmines that terrify parents and paralyze them instead of empower them.

We do this in church, too. We set up legalistic rules borne more out of custom and tradition than faith. Do any of these familiar?

The services must be at the same times they’ve always been at.

Certain worship leadership roles can only be served by people of a certain age, like only kids should acolyte.

We must have candles lit.

The altar must be set up a certain way.

…none of these things are bad or wrong. BUT, all of these are things designed to help people encounter God and if any of these things ever prevent one from experiencing God’s presence and grace and love, we have lost our purpose.

We believe that law and gospel go hand in hand—you can’t have one with out the other. Without the law, how would we know how good the good news is? The law holds up a mirror to our sins and points them out to us. The gospel wipes that mirror clean and shows us the wholeness that God alone can give us. The law also helps us figure out what God’s will is for us: it helps us choose to live in right relationship with God and with our neighbor.

This is important for us to remember, especially as people who proclaim that we are “saved by grace” and not by works. It is easy for us to brush the law aside because we know that we cannot work towards our salvation. And it’s true. We can’t. There is nothing we can do that will make God love us less and there is nothing we can do that will make God love us more. God’s love is a constant…but that doesn’t mean the law has nothing to teach us.

As I said before, the law is a gift that can helps us understand how God desires us to live with one another. While our obedience to the law is not a condition of our salvation, there is a clear connection between the law and how we live as loved, saved, and precious children of God.

In the letter from James, he writes, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ²³For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; ²⁴for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. ²⁵But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.” (James 1:22-25)

It’s not that the doers are better than the hearers, or “more saved” than the hearers…but they are blessed—blessed in a unique way. James calls these people “a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” (1:18) It is by living life in accordance with the law that we become these first fruits, fruits that display God’s goodness to the rest of the world.

Legalism is a burden, but striving to live in obedience to the will of God out of a faithful heart is fulfilling and a gift.

Our faith, our hope, our salvation is not in the law, but in God’s grace alone. Let us live as first-fruits of that grace. Amen.

God Chooses You

Sermon preached Sunday, August 26, 2018, the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio can be found here.

We made it to the last Bread Sunday! It’s been five weeks of talking about bread—particularly the Bread of Life: How Jesus is the bread provided for us, the bread the sustains us, the bread that gives us eternal life. As always, there are many themes presented in the lectionary about where our focus might be. One of the themes for this final bread Sunday seems to be choice.

In our first reading from the book of Joshua, the Israelites are reminded of what God has done, delivering them from slavery in Egypt. Now, they are encouraged to continue to leave other gods behind and remain faithful to YHWH alone.

Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus to help them make their best choice: when faced with adversity don’t give in in, but instead clothe themselves with the whole armor of God.

And finally, in the Gospel reading, Peter doesn’t seem to thing there even is a choice. When Jesus talks more about people eating his flesh and drinking his blood, it’s enough to send at least some people running. “This teaching is difficult,” they say, “Who can accept it?” And yet, Peter says, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:59) To put it another way, what choice do they have? Jesus is the only one they can turn to.

Here’s a fun fact: the lectionary reading was supposed to end there. It was supposed to end on a high note, with Peter’s declaration of faith. Oddly enough though, there were only two verses left in the chapter. I added those verses back in. After all, why take the easy way out when we’ve already heard the rest of Chapter Six?

The thing is, I can understand why the lectionary committee decided to end with Peter’s words. These are words of commitment and discipleship. I mean, it’s a much better ending than what actually follows: “Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.” (John 6:70-71)

Welp. That’s not terribly cheerful or hopeful or uplifting, is it? It might not be, but it’s real. That is what happens. Reading those last two verses and finishing Chapter 6 opens up something new. In his statement, Peter makes the choice to follow Jesus seem like a no-brainer… But Judas obviously doesn’t feel the same. When faced with the same choice as all the disciples, Judas chooses to walk away.

That’s the truth.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, a lot of us tend to go back and forth between Peter and Judas, choosing Christ and rejecting Christ and, more often than not, we’re just dangling somewhere in between.

There are the times we are like Peter in these verses, fully committed. Our faith feels rock solid and unshakable. We feel God’s presence in every tiny miracle of creation. Our hearts are full and warm. The Spirit is moving in everything we do.

There are also times when we might be more like Judas, and we are disillusioned, and our faith is shaky. Maybe we have had a terrible diagnosis and someone we loved died a tragic, accidental death. Maybe it comes one day after watching the umpteenth news story about poverty or natural disasters or mistreated, impoverished, or oppressed people. We wonder how these things could happen if God is real and working.

But, truly, I think we are often in the middle—just a little unsure. We feel glimpses and glimmers of faith, but it still seems a bit elusive. We come to worship and our heart is stirred, but maybe that stirring stills all to soon once we leave.

The disciples weren’t wrong. Jesus does give a hard teaching. Faith is hard sometimes. It’s hard because we’re asked think about things differently, to change our priorities, to put others first, to take, on faith alone, that Jesus is present in bread and wine and that God’s promises are real and everlasting. Put that way, is it any wonder that we struggle sometimes to make the faithful choice?

It’s not our choice that ultimately matters, though. It’s God’s.

Let’s go back to verse 70: “Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” I mean, did you catch that? Jesus chose the disciples, continues to choose them, even though he knows what Judas is going to do. Even in the face of betrayal, Jesus still chooses him.

What else does that tell us but the simple fact that there is nothing we can do to make God stop choosing us?

God doesn’t stop choosing us when we make a mistake, when we hurt others, when we damage creation. God doesn’t stop choosing us when our bad judgement piles up and we create false idols of wealth, prestige, or safety to worship instead. God doesn’t stop choosing us. Full stop. Even when we stop choosing God.

To be honest, I usually try to make sure my sermons are a little bit longer but I’ve got to tell you, I have nothing else to say that could put it better than this:

Wherever you are, whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, God always chooses you.

Amen.

Wisdom is a Promise

Sermon preached Sunday, August 19, 2018, the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio can be found here. 

Welcome to Bread—Week Four! We continue in the Gospel of John with Jesus’ teaching on how he is the bread of life. Today, he offers a word of promise that defies the understanding of the Jewish religious leaders. Our lectionary is designed to have readings from the Old Testament and the Epistles that complement the Gospel reading—some Sundays it works out better than others. Today is one of the times it works really well: the Gospel falls in line nicely with the other readings from Proverbs and Ephesians about wisdom.

Oftentimes, when we talk about wisdom and foolishness, we think about the cross. In one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, explains how God’s work defies our logic and what we think we need in order to believe. In that letter, Paul writes:

“For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-25)

This letter reminds us that God frequently works in ways we don’t understand and that the cross is the ultimate symbol of God’s subversive salvation. Who would have thought that our salvation would come about through a man who was arrested, tortured and executed instead of a powerful military or political leader?

We know, though, that the cross is not the only place where God works in a way we don’t expect or have trouble comprehending. There are many places in scripture where things don’t end up the way we think they should.

Abraham being told to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Joseph going from being sold into slavery by his brothers to right-hand man to Pharaoh. Moses not actually living long enough to see the promised land. David, an insignificant shepherd boy being anointed as king. Esther, a Jew, becoming Queen of Persia and saving her people. Ruth leaving her homeland to remain with her mother-in-law Naomi. Mary, a teenage girl from an oppressed people, being named the bearer of God.

It’s all over the place in our Bible, but today we see another piece. We hear other writings interpreting God’s wisdom for our lives.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise…” (Ephesians 5:15).

So what makes us wise? What is this wisdom that we are called to?

Wisdom is personified in Proverbs as a woman.

^“1Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
²She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
³She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
⁴’You that are simple, turn in here!’
To those without sense she says,
⁵’Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
⁶Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.’” (Proverbs 9:1-6)

In other words, Wisdom has prepared her home to invite the most vulnerable and most in need to come and dine. What she offers, she offers freely and without condition.

This is Wisdom? It doesn’t sound like what we might consider to be wise—after all, what guarantees do we have that our generosity will pay off or that the people we care for deserve it? Isn’t that wisdom? …or is it skepticism?

I think we often conflate the two. We are wary of being taken advantage of, or of being naïve and so we are critical or display strength in ways that build ourselves up at the expense of serving others. We hold on to skepticism and cynicism because it keeps us distant from others and keeps us safe in our own silos. …but this is not wisdom, at least not the Wisdom we find in the Bible.

This wisdom of welcome and invitation is what Jesus offers the disciples, the crowds who followed him…really, to everyone. Hear again his words:

“[Jesus said,] ⁵¹’I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ ⁵²The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ ⁵³So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.’” (John 6:51-58)

The wisdom here isn’t clear to the people listening. They argue among themselves trying to figure out just what it is he’s saying.

The thing to remember here is that it’s not only strange that Jesus is talking about eating his flesh and drinking his blood…but this language goes explicitly against Jewish law.

Most of us have at least heard of the Jewish dietary laws and we might know that keeping kosher means not eating pigs or shellfish…but it’s much more than that. To prepare meat properly, to make sure that it is ritually okay, all blood must be drained before it can be cooked. This is because blood is considered unclean. Coming into contact with blood means a ritual cleansing, even something as common as menstrual blood or a little scrape that breaks the skin.

It’s because of these laws that Jesus’ words are not just odd, they are almost blasphemous. Jesus is inviting and even encouraging people to eat his flesh and drink his blood and violate the laws prescribed by their faith.

And so how could this be wisdom? How could this be right? How could this be what God wants them to do?

It’s because of the promise Jesus makes—that’s where Wisdom is found: in the promise, in the invitation, in the abundance at God’s table.

Did you notice that it is, in fact, a promise that’s made? Not an explanation offered or instructions on how it all happens.

Jesus doesn’t go into the metaphysical details of how bread can become skin and muscle and sinew or how wine can become blood cells and platelets and plasma. Jesus doesn’t even get philosophical about it. Jesus doesn’t set a test of understanding for people to pass or an age limit or any other hurdles. No, instead there is only the promise: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life…” (John 6:54a)

God’s wisdom is in the promise and the invitation.

We embrace that wisdom when we take the offer, when we come to the table, when we eat the flesh and drink the blood and receive eternal life. No conditions. No examinations. No limits.

Just a promise.

Amen.

Called to Thrive

Sermon preached Sunday, August 12, 2018, the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. Audio for this sermon can be found here. 

Welcome to Week 3 of the Bread of Life! We began with a sign, a miracle: Jesus feeding the five thousand with a few fish and a handful of loaves of bread. Last week, we heard the story of the Israelites complaining and receiving the manna in the wilderness and we explored how, even when we complain and gripe, God still provides for our needs.

We continue this morning with Jesus explaining and expounding on what his being manna from heaven, the bread of life, the living bread, means…and, in many ways, the theme of God’s provision continues.

This is particularly clear in our first reading about the prophet Elijah. There are specific accounts of Elijah’s life that we talk about occasionally in the lectionary, but, if you’re like me, you don’t tend to remember his biography in its totality or in chronological order, so let’s review for a minute to figure out how we got here.

Elijah had been serving as a prophet for a while. He was well known. The King of Israel at this time was Ahab, and his wife was Jezebel, daughter of the King of Tyre. Jezebel, like the rest of her people, worshipped many gods, including Baal. She continued this worship of Baal after she became queen. This was always distasteful to faithful followers of God, but it came to a head when she brought prophets of Baal and Asherah, another god, to her table.

Elijah’s response was to go to this gathering of other prophets and challenged them to perform signs and miracles calling on the names of their gods. The followers of Baal and Asherah failed, while Elijah succeeded, and he rounded up them all and killed them.

As you might imagine, this did not go over well with Queen Jezebel and she wanted revenge—she wanted Elijah killed and sent men after him. Elijah was now on the run, which is where we meet him in this morning’s reading.

He is exhausted and scared, not to mention hungry. He’s ready to die. He’s done his job but is tired of fleeing. Here is what the account from First Kings says:

“Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Get up and eat.’ ⁶He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. ⁷The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’ ⁸He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.” (1 Kings 19:5b-8)

God sends food and drink to Elijah to restore him and give him strength. From that point, God actually meets Elijah at Mount Horeb where he gives him a new mission and a renewed sense of purpose.

God provides for Elijah…and God not only provides enough for Elijah to live—to survive the night—, but for Elijah to thrive.

…and maybe that’s part of what we’re called to do for one another, not just to help each other survive, but to live abundantly, live joyfully–to thrive.

I mean, that’s part of what Paul is calling the church in Ephesus to in his letter. Let’s take a look at it again.

Paul writes, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:25-32)

There’s even a song that gets sung at camp to remind people of this call! [Sing the song]

The idea is that we aren’t called to do things begrudgingly or out of obligation or to cross the bare minimum off our to-do list–we’re called to make the lives of all humanity better.

I spent every morning this past week leading the adult bible study at Family Camp at Camp Nawakwa. We expounded on the Youth Gathering Theme “This Changes Everything.” Instead of discussing what the “this” is, like how God’s Hope Changes Everything or God’s Love Changes Everything, we called the “this” grace and explored just what, exactly, it changes.

Over the course of the five mornings, we discussed how God’s Grace Changes our Hearts, our Identities, our Purpose, our Communities, and our Perspective. In our conversations we listened and shared experiences and questions and wonderings about faith. One of the things that kept coming up was how we engage with our neighbor and, since our neighbor is really everyone, how we engage with other people in general.

One of the things we pointed to was the ways Martin Luther explains several of the commandments. There is the commandment to not bear false witness. Luther says that it isn’t enough to not lie about another person, but that we are meant to interpret everything they do in the best possible light.

There is the commandment to not kill. Luther says that it isn’t enough that we not take the life of another, but that we do everything in our power to preserve that person’s life and make it better.

There are the commandments to not steal or covet. Luther says that it isn’t enough that we don’t take what isn’t ours, but that we help our neighbor keep and increase what they have. Luther approaches the commandments in a unique way: it’s not just about not doing the bad thing, but about actively improving the lives of others.

Instead of only giving food to people that are hungry, we are called to offer help and resources to eliminate food scarcity.

Instead of only providing emergency shelter for people who are without a home, we are called to advocate for affordable and safe housing options.

Instead of only praying that things will get better for marginalized people, we are called to speak out against unjust systems and work to dismantle programs that unfairly target the ones who can least protect themselves.

You might be thinking to yourself, “How did we get here? I thought we were talking about bread?” Well, we are. Or rather, we will.

Simply put, it bears repeating that the only way we’re able to do any of this work is because God provides for us in the first place. God provides our creation, our skills, forgiveness, gifts, love, joy, all the things that make it possible for us to live and, more importantly, possible for us to thrive.

And, we can’t forget, that we also have Christ, the bread of life, the manna from heaven, the living bread.

We can live out the lives and purpose God has called us to because of this living bread we are fed with. We have been fed and we continue to be fed each and every time we gather around this table.

Eat the bread. Drink the wine. Taste and see that the Lord is good and thrive in the world God has made. Amen.

God Still Provides

Sermon preached Sunday, August 5, 2018, the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA.

I hope you’re hungry.

Last week, we heard the story of the feeding of the five thousand. For the next four weeks, we hear what happens next, as the crowds continued to follow Jesus and he expounded on what that sign meant. It’s what we call the “Bread Series” in the lectionary: five Sundays with part of Jesus’ bread discourse in John as our Gospel reading.

What this means is that we’re going to be talking a lot about bread, a lot about eating, a lot about what satisfies us.  I’m not going to lie, it can get a little tedious—it can be challenging to find a new way to talk about what seems like the same thing, week after week. But…I’ll try. 😊

It helps that we have other readings to shape the overall theme of a Sunday. This morning, we hear the story about the Israelites experiencing a food crisis in the wilderness. This story comes only two chapters after the cross the Red Sea and only a handful of verses after God provided water from a rock. None of this matters, though. They are hungry and they complain.

They say to Moses and Aaron that they would have been better off if they’d remained in Egypt? Can you believe that? They are so upset that they say they would rather return to slavery than be in the situation they’re in now. Forced labor and oppression is better than this.

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Doesn’t that sound like the kind of over exaggeration we use all the time? “Ugh, I’d rather die than go to that!” I mean, I can’t imagine that the Israelites are serious—they have to know that it would not be better if they were still slaves in Egypt—but the fact remains that they still find something to complain about. They are not content. They are not trusting that God is at work, despite all the incredible things they’ve already witnessed.

And God is at work. That’s the whole point. They complain. They are ungrateful. They don’t understand. They don’t trust…and still God provides. God’s provision doesn’t come from us—but from the abundance of God’s grace and love.

This is completely counter to what we call the “prosperity gospel.” This mode of thought says that if you pray often enough, if you believe strong enough, if you do enough, then God will reward you. Your faith will bring about God’s grace. The story of manna in the wilderness shows us that this simply is not the case. The Israelites aren’t praying, they’re grumbling. They aren’t believing, they are doubting. They aren’t doing much of anything…but still God provides.

It’s an incredible moment. It should be a kind of turning point for the Israelites, a moment that generations could look back on and say, “How can we ever doubt when God has done such a thing for us?” It should be, but it isn’t—just like the ark during the flood wasn’t and just like crossing the Red Sea in the first place wasn’t. Life-giving water flowing from a cold, hard rock didn’t quite do the trick, either.

The Israelites—and indeed, all of humanity—have a remarkably short memory and a tendency to believe that even if God worked in the past that work is now over and done with. No one seems to expect that God has more goodness waiting in the wings.

The Gospel reading makes that pretty clear. The crowds surrounding Jesus, including, presumably, the disciples, ask him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? ³¹Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” (John 6:30-31)

They apparently remember about the manna…but aren’t sure that God is still working, or that Jesus is part of that work. They want another sign. They want proof. Once again, they don’t understand, they don’t trust, they don’t believe. They need evidence…and they just don’t think God has done enough yet.

“What sign are you going to give us, then, Jesus?”

What they fail to understand is that Jesus is the sign. Jesus is the manna, the bread from heaven.

My preaching professor, Craig Satterlee, explains the mistakes in both accounts:

“Jesus is pushing the multitude to seek more than the satisfaction of their physical hunger. In the Exodus reading, Israel fails to expect that the God who delivered them from slavery would also sustain them in the desert. Rather than name their fear, they complain about food. Rather than trusting the relationship with God that Jesus brings, the crowd seeks and settles for signs.” (S&S Preaching, pg. 217)

Of course, they do. Of course, we do. It’s what humanity is best at: wanting the sign we ask for and ignoring anything else that might be present.

We ask God to show us the way, to give us a sign, to somehow prove to us that God is listening, or that what we’re doing is right thing, or that some other decision we’ve made is validated.

…and while we’re asking God to do our bidding, we forget about the rest of it, just like our ancestors before us. We forget about what God is already doing and what God has already done.

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” In other words, God in Christ provides for our needs, whether they are physical or otherwise.

God raises up leaders in our schools, neighborhoods, communities and churches, even though we don’t always recognize them.

God provides food grown up from the earth, plucked from trees, prepared by skilled hands, even though we don’t always share it and even though we don’t always appreciate it.

God provides healing from the things that tear apart our bodies and souls, even though we don’t always understand it.

The truth is, we tend to want things on our terms. We want the signs. We want the proof. We want the lightning bolt or the perfectly timed miracle…and what do we get instead?

Jesus.

Jesus, who came unobtrusively into the world as a vulnerable infant. Jesus, who refused to fall into the traps laid out for him or the temptations offered by the devil. Jesus, who was arrested, tortured, and executed as a criminal. Jesus, who came back to us in the resurrection and continues to cross boundaries and mend relationships and reconcile all of humanity to God.

Jesus is not the savior we could have chosen, if we’d had the chance…but Jesus is exactly the savior God knew we would need.

Jesus, the Bread of Life, the manna from heaven, the ultimate sign that that God provides.

Amen.

Reminded of the Mission

Sermon preached Sunday, July 22, 2018, the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. 

It doesn’t happen often, but I realized that I’ve never actually preached on today’s lectionary texts. Three years ago, I was out of town at a conference, and six years ago, I had just finished my internship year and was spending the summer working at my camp in California. One might think that would make this morning’s sermon easier to write: after all, I don’t have to search for a new angle, it’s all fresh and new…but to be honest, I struggled a bit. Because I’ve never preached on these three passages before, I was doing a lot more leg work to even figure out where to start.

Should I preach on Jeremiah and his words about how God will provide a righteous shepherd for the sheep? Or perhaps on Psalm 23, possibly the most well-known of all the psalms. Maybe Ephesians was the way to go, with Paul’s message about unity in Christ? And, of course, there’s always the Gospel, a pieced together chunk from Mark.

I can’t say why, but I kept coming back to the Gospel. I kept being struck by what’s contained in those nine verses…and what happens in the missing nineteen verses that our lectionary designers chose to leave out. What’s missing is Mark’s telling of the feeding of the five thousand and the story of Jesus walking on the water in the midst of a storm. Instead, we hear what happens before the feeding, and what happens as soon as they safely cross the sea. It might seem strange that these stories have been cut, but next week the Gospel reading is John’s account of both these events. And, while it might not be immediately obvious, I think there’s something informative about the way these scripture segments are paired together.

This morning’s reading begins after the disciples return from their own ministry journeys. You might remember that two weeks ago Jesus sent them out in pairs to preach and teach and heal in his name. They were told not to take any provisions and to only rely on the support they got from the communities they entered. Today, they’ve come back and told Jesus everything they saw and did.

Mark doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what they reported…we don’t know if things went well or not. We don’t know if people were receptive to the disciples or if they were brushed off or treated with hostility. We don’t know if they actually cast out demons or healed people. The evangelist doesn’t tell us, and Jesus’ response doesn’t really give us any hints. He doesn’t say, “Good job!” and celebrate their success. He doesn’t say, “Well, at least you tried,” and console them. Nope, all he says is, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”

At first glance, this might sound like a pretty straightforward commentary on the need for sabbatical. We’re human beings, living organisms. We’re not robots—we’re not machines. We can’t work continuously without rest, even if the work we are doing is meaningful and important. All of us need a break from time to time, a chance to recharge and restore ourselves so that we are renewed in body and spirit and commitment.

…but I think that’s too simple. It’s not just about sleep or rest. It’s also about taking a step back to remind ourselves of what’s really important. After who knows how many days or weeks away and doing what Jesus called them to do, the disciples were probably stressed. They may have even begun to wonder what they got themselves into, or if being a disciple of Jesus was worth it after all.

So perhaps this desire to get them away to a deserted place is an attempt to help them remember what Jesus has come to do, what the reign of God is, and why it is so vital that we get to participate in that effort.

They don’t actually get that time away, though. If you were paying attention, you may have noticed that the crowd hurried on foot to get to the deserted place before them…effectively making it a not-so-deserted place.

After feeding thousands of people, after braving a storm and seeing Jesus walk across the sea, they finally get to a new place across the sea and are once again mobbed by the crowds desperate to see Jesus, desperate for healing, desperate to experience some grace.

So, the time away, the deserted place never actually happens…but maybe, in the end, it didn’t need to. If the rest was only part of the equation—if sabbath was only a piece of what Jesus had in mind—then maybe the disciples still benefited and still got what they needed after their time in the mission field.

They come back and these are the things Jesus does: feed hungry people. Comfort them when they are afraid. Love, heal, and give hope to masses who would be happy just to touch the fringe of his cloak.

Jesus selflessly gives of himself for the benefit of others out of deep and abundant love—there is no better way to describe how Jesus relates to us. This giving of God’s self is a glimpse into the reign of God, when all people will work together for the betterment of all.

The disciples needed this reminder. So do we.

There is a reason why we are called to serve others. It’s not because we have to—God’s grace is not conditional on our good works. It’s not because it makes us a better person—only God’s righteousness working in us does that. It’s not because we can only be good Christians if we martyr ourselves in service of others—God does not require that we deplete ourselves in order to give to others.

No, we are called to serve our siblings on this earth because it is what God does, what God has been shown to do, again and again in scripture.

So what are the ways in which we are reminded of this work? How does God show us what we are called to do? Where do we find rest or renewal to get back into it? What reminds you?

[Ask for responses. Prayer. Scripture. Worship. Relationships with others. Volunteering, etc.]

We do none of these things in a vacuum. We do them in community with one another. As siblings in Christ, we inspire and teach and encourage each other in God’s mission.

So yes, take rest when it is needed. Take care of yourself. But don’t linger. God is already heading to the other side of the sea to take on the needs of the world and we get to join in.

Amen.

The Cost of Proclaiming God’s Word

Sermon preached Sunday, July 15, 2018, the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Littlestown, PA. A recording of the sermon can be found here.

It’s not terribly difficult to find the common theme in this morning’s readings. In each, we explore what happens when God’s word is proclaimed.

In our first reading, we hear from the Amos. The prophet Amos was set apart from other prophets at the time because he was not attached to the temple or to the king. His loyalty was to God alone and his prophesies were in conflict with those of the royal court’s prophet, Amaziah. Amos spoke a word of judgement against the nation for their neglect of God’s law. Apocryphal stories record that he was forced to leave the kingdom and was possibly even killed by the prophet Amaziah.

In our second reading, Paul writes to the curch in Ephesus that since they heard and received God’s word, they are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit. God’s proclaimed word may put the church at odds with authorities or society, but, more than that, it saves and blesses the community to which it came.

And, of course, we hear from the Gospels the story of John the Baptist’s death, which came about as a result of his preaching against King Herod.

This account of John’s execution is especially interesting because of the amount of detail we get. You might recall that the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels and Mark is known to have a “just-the-facts-ma’am” approach. He routinely condenses stories into one or two sentence summaries because he doesn’t think it’s necessary to describe too much. The forty days Jesus spends in the wilderness being tempted? It gets one sentence in Mark. So what does it mean that we spend fifteen precious verses on a story that could have simply read, “because Herod had John killed.”

The most obvious answer is because it is foreshadowing. The fate of John the Baptist is a precursor to Jesus’. John preached without deference to the religious and political authorities and ended up arrested and dead. Jesus will be arrested himself a mere eight chapters later and executed by the state. Our gospel reading even ends in these words: “When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.” It directly connects John’s burial with Jesus’, when Joseph of Arimathea came and took Jesus’ body away to be buried.

But I think this story is important for another reason. It’s not just the foreshadowing, it’s also about the glimpse we get of human struggle and human sin.

John was arrested because he spoke out against King Herod for marrying his sister-in-law. Herod needed to save face—he didn’t want someone going around and mocking him or calling for him to repent. So, he arrested John, but didn’t intend to do anything more than that. We see the vindictive nature of Herodias, who sees her chance to get back at John by getting his head on a platter. We see the daughter simply following the directions of her mother without much regard for a person’s life. And we see Herod, who is apparently agonizing over this decision…but nonetheless, decides to behead John anyway. I see here a clear depiction of some of the ways and reasons people do things they know are wrong: they are out for revenge, they are doing as they are told, they think it’s the easy way out. These are the traps and temptations humanity falls victim to all the time.

But all of this is antithetical to the reign of God. The scheming, the violence, the selfish self-preservation at any cost—it is precisely what Jesus came to do away with.

Jesus’ life and ministry meant that he didn’t bow to pressure from others. He spoke out for people who were defenseless. He encouraged the downtrodden. He restored the outcast to society, even against the desires of those in authority. He knew it would bring trouble. He knew that he very well could be killed. He knew life would not be easy for his followers after he was gone. And yet…he persisted.

Jesus’ persistence and dedication in the face of death is inspiring and, to be frank, a little terrifying. After all, if we are called to be as bold as Christ was, doesn’t that up our chance of meeting the same fate? It’s an issue that many preachers honestly struggle with. Karoline Lewis, preaching professor at Luther Seminary, wrote this to preachers this week: “Fifteen verses on the demise of John the Baptist. Do not let this [lesson] pass you by without asking yourself, really interrogating your ministry, your preaching — does my preaching, does my witness, does my ministry ever warrant my head on a platter? Or, do I avoid any kind of proclamation that might lead to my own beheading, metaphorical or otherwise?” (Dear Working Preacher, 7/15/2018)

Am I willing to preach words that will get me beheaded? Words that could get me in hot water? Words that could get me fired? Am I willing to sacrifice my own financial or spiritual or physical well-being by preaching words others might not want to hear?

I admit, the answer is not always yes…and yet I continue to try and push myself. As the prophet Amos reminds us, as John the Baptist reminds us, the Word of God is not always well-received by the people who might need to hear it the most.

It is a challenge for all of us who call ourselves disciples of Christ—to be honest and compassionate and bold in sharing the Gospel of love and grace for all.

This doesn’t mean that we spent our lives in a continued state of aggression or opposition. Not everything is a matter of life and death and not everything requires a full-bore attack. We seem to be all too happy these days to leap into action and renounce our neighbor without taking time to explore nuance.

That being said, there are some things that we can be sure God would encourage us to fight: Bigotry. Injustice. Poverty. These issues take on different shapes. They can look like predatory payday loans. They can look like arbitrary and disproportionate sentencing rules that have lead to unprecedented levels of mass incarceration. They can look like something as wonderful as having a baby almost bankrupting a family because of the hospital bills. We don’t need to agree on the solutions to these issues, but, as siblings in Christ, we can stand together to claim that these things are not just.

This year’s VBS was “Hero Central,” and was designed to help kids “discover [their] strength in God.” We were all called upon as God’s heroes to “Do good, seek peace, and go after it!” This energetic call to action was a lot of fun…but it also has a lot of truth. These are the things we are sent out to do through our baptism, and we explored the gifts God gives us to accomplish them. If we have any VBS folks here, you can do it with me, but we learned that “God’s heroes have heart; God’s heroes have courage; God’s heroes have wisdom; God’s heroes have hope; and God’s heroes have power.”

These are the things that help get us past the apprehension, the things that help us move beyond fear of reprisal and focus on the good news we get to proclaim.

So, I wish I could say that you won’t end up with your head on a platter, but all I can say is that Jesus is alongside us, speaking truth to power and staying true to the Word of God. For now, “Do good, seek peace, and go after it!”

Amen.