"Sighting Grace: God’s Call" - Sermon for Ash Wednesday

Sighting Grace: God’s Call
Ash Wednesday
February 26, 2020
Grace, Waseca, MN
Matthew 6,1-6, 16-21

After a brief jump ahead to chapter 17 for the Transfiguration, we’re back in Matthew for Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Here, in one of five discourses, Jesus as shown as the consummate teacher and authoritative interpreter of the Mosaic law. He is instructing his followers in the life of discipleship, what it means to faithfully live as God has intended. Today’s text about prayer, fasting and giving alms is a good reminder that it is not only important what we do for the life of faith but also how we do it.

I like how Eugen Peterson paraphrases Jesus’ words in The Message:

6 “Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.
2-4 “When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get. When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.

It’s a good reminder for the beginning of Lent when are invited to think deeply about our faith. It’s also helpful to take a step back when we are tempted to post on social media what we are giving up for our Lenten discipline. Yet, our text also presents something of a conundrum when we look at this year’s theme: Sighting Grace. We have a lineup of speakers who will be openly talking about where they’ve seen God working in their lives. But our hope is that you will see that we aren’t parading our piety, because God is the hero of these stories, not us. We also hope that by sharing our experiences you’ll see God working in your lives, too.

Tonight, I’m going to tell you about God’s call for me to become a pastor, how God brought that about. In 1984 I attended the Virginia synod assembly of the old Lutheran Church in America (LCA), a predecessor body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Back then, it was common to include an ordination service for pastoral candidates as part of the assembly. After 35 years, I can still picture one of the ordinands serving Holy Communion post-ordination, seeing absolute joy on his face, and hearing a voice: “You should be doing that.” It was the first and only time I have clearly heard God’s voice.

Now, we had moved to Northern Virginia only two years prior and bought our first house one year earlier. Oh, and we were expecting our first child. Cindy, my wife and former Roman Catholic, was not enthusiastic about the prospect of me becoming a pastor much less trotting off to seminary. So, I pushed God’s call aside.

As you may have figured out, God didn’t quit on me and I saw God’s hand in various events over the next eight years. For example, when I had a question about the Trinity, my pastor gave me a book to read, which was cool. Jim Bittner, one of our church members, saw me with the book and said, “If you’re not careful you are going to end up in seminary with your collar turned backwards.” Jim, his wife and five kids were headed there themselves.

Then, when my father died in 1989, I did the eulogy at his funeral. I’m told that the pastor was hastily editing his sermon behind me as I talked. Afterwards, a number of people told me I needed to be a pastor. It was nice, but I really didn’t want to hear it. By this time, we were operating our own business and the economy wasn’t doing well. I saw an ad for a position back in Chicago and for which I was well suited. I interviewed several times, was wined and dined. It was perfect, except that I didn’t get the job because the owner of the company wanted younger and less experienced person in his company to have the job. I was crushed. God was closing doors.

By this time, we had two daughters and God kept bringing up being a pastor in various ways. In my Christmas letter of 1991, I mentioned to some relatives I was struggling with this call to ordained ministry. One night soon after, I received a call one night from another relative saying, “If you decide to go to seminary I’ll help financially.” I was stunned because I hadn’t even sent this relative a letter. Yet, I continued to struggle with the call. One day I whined to my sister, Cheryl: “I’m 38 years old and I’ll be 42 when I graduate.” In her kind but no-nonsense way she replied, “Scott, you’ll be 42 years old whether you go to seminary or not, so you might as well do what God is calling you to do.” That unlocked something inside of me and Cindy agreed I should apply, figuring she was safe because I’d procrastinate. I didn’t and I did.

So, at the age of 38, with a wife and daughters 4 and 8, we sold our house and move to Pennsylvania so I could attend seminary at Gettysburg. It took eight years from that initial call to begin seminary, but was working in more ways than one. During that time God gave me the opportunity to own and operate a business while gaining valuable experience as a lay leader and teacher in a congregation. God continued to provide as we left seminary without debt yet continued to be tithers. I could say more. But, as I said at the beginning, I am not the hero in this story; this story is about what God has done.

So, this Lent I am inviting you to come and listen to the stories people will be sharing about how they have seen God working in their lives: Marlys, Tom, Andrea, Terry and Bishop Hassanally. In doing so, we hope that you can see where God is working in your lives, not if God is working, but where God is working. For as Peterson reminds us, this is how “… God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.” Blessed Lent as you are “Sighting Grace” my sisters and brothers. Amen.

For an audio version of this sermon click here.

"You Can't Stay Here" - Sermon for Transfiguration of Our Lord Sunday Year A

You Can’t Stay Here
Transfiguration of Our Lord A
February 23, 2020
Grace, Waseca, MN
Matthew 17.1-9

I want you to imagine something for a moment. You are visiting a friend several months after his or her wedding. When you get settled in you ask, “So, how’s married life?” In response, your friend says, “It’s great; let me show you!” Your friend proceeds to pull out the wedding album and talks gushingly about the wedding several months earlier. You would think it a bit strange, wouldn’t you? You know that the reality is that after the wedding comes the necessary and good but hard work of marriage. Marriage is not lived in the wedding. The same is true about life-events. After the miracle of birth comes the sleep-deprived nights, feedings and diaper changes. After graduation from high school, college or tech school comes the work-a-day world and “adulting.”

In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus takes his “executive team,” Peter, James and John, up on a mountain. We don’t know why the four of them go up there. (Maybe it’s for a retreat?) In the blink of an eye, they experience an incredible event: Jesus’ transfiguration where he and his clothing are turned dazzling white; his confab with two legendary pillars of faith, Moses and Elijah; and God’s terrible voice from heaven. The last is too much for them and they fall to the ground, overcome with awe and fear. Then Jesus, compassionate and understanding, says “Get up and do not be afraid.” In other words, “We can’t stay here.”

 We can’t stay here. The four descend the mountain into the valley on a road we already know. Six days prior, Jesus has made the first of his four passion predictions regarding his suffering and death. So, on the way down the mountain into the valley, he reminds them again that the road they travel leads to the cross. At this point, they have no idea what that really means, but they know enough to be sure they’d rather stay on the mountain. Yet, Jesus leads them down the mountain because they can’t stay there. They need to walk the good and necessary but hard road of discipleship.

Wherever we are in our lives and whatever watershed moments we’ve experienced, we know that we can’t stay there. As a congregation, as much as we’d like, we cannot recapture our glorious past nor can we wistfully enshrine it as some golden age. When I was selling window treatments and upholstery in my previous career, I would occasionally visit a home that had a “parlor” with fancy window treatments and clear plastic slipcovers on the furniture. One look told me that the room was never used. It was almost like a museum; the only thing missing was the velvet rope across the entrance. But congregations are not museum pieces. We are constantly on the road of discipleship because our God is a living, active God always on the move.

The good news is that we don’t walk the road alone. God is always with us on the road. In fact, God is always way ahead of us. One day I got a call from Brian Junker, a Winona funeral director, asking me to do a funeral for a non-member. The deceased had a vague Lutheran connection, but no affiliation. He told me that the family wanted a Lutheran pastor to do the service but they had one request. He said, “the family didn’t want someone to preach at them.” Brian concluded by saying, “So, I thought of you.” I think it was a compliment. I set up an appointment to meet the family, but I struggled with how I was going to bring God into the conversation. After all, I am a Lutheran pastor. Yet, when I arrived, they were already talking about God. I didn’t have to bring God with me because God was there already.

Whatever road we travel, God is both always with us and somewhere ahead of us arriving before we get there. There will be moments of exhilaration, but as a congregation, you are on a good and necessary and hard road because you cannot stay in the past nor can you preserve it like some museum piece. On this road there will be intense conversations and difficult decisions. It’s a road into an unknown future, but what is known is that God is with you. The better news is that because you are also Beloved of God, just like Jesus, you can do the things necessary. You can’t stay here, but you travel the road because resurrection and new life are ahead. Amen.

For an audio version of this sermon click here.

"A Matter of Life and Death" - Sermon for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

A Matter of Life and Death
Epiphany 6A
February 16, 2020
Grace, Waseca, MN
Matthew 5.21-37; Deuteronomy 30.15-20

Shortly after our marriage and because of a promotion I received, Cindy and I moved from suburban Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky. We moved into one of those apartment buildings that had a breezeway with an open stairway and landings. One day, a neighbor girl, Morgan, was pushing little figures off the landings and watching them fall to the ground below. Her mother saw her doing this and chastised her for it. “Morgan, how many times have I told you not to throw things off the landing!” With a straight face, Morgan responded, “I’m not throwing them, I’m pushing them.” It was our first glimpse into what life with children as little lawyers would be like.

It’s this legalistic parsing of the law that is Jesus’ mind. Today our Gospel reading is the third in a series from the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew. The Sermon on the Mount is the largest of five blocks of teaching from Jesus in Matthew, covering chapters 5-7. This and the other four discourses establish Jesus as one who teaches with authority, who rightly interprets God’s law. Two weeks ago, we heard in the Beatitudes that there are unlikely people who are blessed or favored. Last week, we heard how we are salt of the earth and light of the world. In Pr. Paige’s most excellent sermon, she reminded us that we are enough, we have enough, and that, like a parent, God loves to watch us “play” as we live life.

Anticipating what would become the great Lutheran question, “So what does this mean?” Jesus launches into several “for instances” to help his followers understand how this might work in their lives. But, before we continue, there are a few cautions. First, in saying, “You have heard it said … but I say to you” we may get the impression that Jesus is replacing Mosaic law with his own law. He is not. Rather, Jesus is intensifying the law. I’ll say more about that. Second, given Jesus’ extreme speech, we are tempted to err in two extremes. We are tempted to double down on his assertions by taking them literally, which would leave us blind and limbless. At the other extreme, we are tempted to dismiss his command to pluck and cut off as “mere” hyperbole, not to be taken seriously. We must take Jesus seriously while not literally.

Jesus’ teachings in Matthew show us that we are not meant to live as the Morgans of this world, parsing God’s commands for our own benefit or for the condemnation of others. The companion reading from Deuteronomy reminds us that God’s law is a gift. The law came to Israel after God made them God’s people. God’s commands were never intended as a burden but a blessing to help the people live well.

Several years ago, some well-meaning people thought that a fence around a playground stifled children’s play. They believed that the fence was making the children fearful, so they removed it, thinking the children would enjoy playing more without its presence. However, they found just the opposite effect. Without the safety of the fence, the children huddled closer to the center. With the fence, the children used the whole playground.

When the writer of Deuteronomy invites us to choose life, and when Jesus intensifies God’s commands, they are reminding us that the heart of God’s law is relationships, both with God and with others. Susan Pitchford, a sociologist and Franciscan nun says that

“… the point of religious rules is that we are in a love relationship with God. Anyone who thinks relationships are better without rules has never been cheated on, been left to do all the housework, or been deserted by their partner at a dinner party where they didn’t know anyone. … Jesus … defined the essence of the law as wholehearted love of God and neighbor.”

By inviting us to choose life, Jesus is reminding us that when our relationships with each other are strained or broken this presents an obstacle in our relationship with God as well. In the command about lust and adultery, Jesus is warning us that objectifying other persons, regardless of gender, treats people as objects rather than children of God made in the divine image. When Jesus encourages us to make our yes, yes and our no, no, he reminds us that community depends upon trusting one another to keep the commitments we’ve made to each other.

In preaching this, I’m not pretending that this is easy. In fact, it can be quite difficult at times. The reality is that on a regular basis we choose “death” instead of life, or perhaps, death chooses us. Hardly a day goes by when were not reminded of broken relationships, unhealthy thoughts, and mistrust. We are not alone in this situation. Even the Apostle Paul had trouble, “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.” Then he asks, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Paul’s answer to this anguished question is the same as ours: “Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!

So, you see, it all begins and ends with God, who loves us enough to make us his beloved children. Because we are beloved and God wants us to live, God gives us guidelines for living together. Then through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the cross, we see that love poured out for us. We are reminded God will do whatever it takes to show us how much God loves us so we are freed up to love each other.

We were only in Louisville for one year, so I don’t know if Morgan ever grew out of her legalistic thinking and grasped the love God wished for her and her mom, love in their relationship. I hope so. For it’s a matter of life and death: a life lived in response to God’s love and the death of those things that stand in the way of life. So, my brothers and sisters, I invite you to look to the cross and join the living, loving God. Amen.

For an audio version of this sermon click here.

"Lifeline" - Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Lifeline
Epiphany 4A
February 2, 2020
Grace, Waseca, MN
Micah 6.1-8

 “You hang by a slender thread!” Dr. Gerhard Alexis intoned to my Gustavus Adolphus College freshman English class. “You hang by a slender thread!” (I’ve learned since then that all academic persons named “Gerhard” are not to be trifled with.) “You hang by a slender thread!” Dr. Alexis was not only quoting the essay of 18th century revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he was also channeling him. Our performance in that class was not up to his expectations and this was a teaching moment for him and for us. We learned all too quickly that past performance in high school was no guarantee of future success in college. It was time to step up our game.

Expectations are at the heart of this well-known text from Micah, a late 8th century BCE prophet. We don’t know a lot about Micah, only what we can glean from the book itself. We can tell that he was a laborer rather from the “prophetic class.” We also know that he was probably a contemporary of three other prophets: Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. We also know that he was prophesying in the southern kingdom of Judah, though he had a message for the northern kingdom of Israel, here referred to as Samaria. We do know that the Assyrians to the north threatened to overwhelm Judah and they tried to make sense of that incursion. The book itself alternates between oracles of doom and oracles of hope – Micah takes the people of Judah to task for unethical practices: the corruption of leaders, both religious and secular, and the exploitation of the people.

Like Jonathan Edwards, Gerhard Alexis, and other prophets, Micah brings an urgent message from God to God’s people. The relationship between God and God’s people is in danger of breaking; God wants a heart-to-heart conversation to correct that. So, in today’s passage, God enlists all of creation as witnesses to a crucial conversation about their relationship. God then reminds the people of a number of saving acts on God’s behalf that are designed to keep that relationship intact. Even so, the people are still confused about their part in that relationship and list several possible responses, from the simple to the extreme. God figuratively shakes his head and declares that they have known all along what God wants: God wants them to act justly in the world, love steadfastly in their relationship to God and each other, and walk as Jesus walks.

Like Micah, we don’t have to go very far to witness acts of injustice, hatred and arrogance in our world, nor do we have to think very hard where we’ve hung by slender threads as Edwards says. The good news is that we remember from our gospel last week that Jesus makes it possible for us to turn around and go a different way and today Jesus gives us a different vision of the world. Because of God’s saving acts in Jesus Christ we value things and people in a different way. In the Beatitudes, Jesus helps us to reorient our lives to those things that make for a blessed world. In other words, we have a lifeline, not a slender thread.

So often we get overwhelmed when we hear the Beatitudes or God’s invitation to justice, kindness, and humility, and we don’t know where to start. So, here’s an invitation to start with one thing this week. You can give someone a kind word when you see them struggling, cheering them for doing the best they can. You can correct an act of injustice, no matter how small, or you can meditate on what walking purposefully means. You can be a peacemaker instead of a peace-breaker, even for one small moment. You can offer a Kleenex to someone who is weeping. Whatever you do, know that you don’t hang by a slender thread. You have a lifeline, upheld by the loving arms of God who strengthens you to love and bless the world. Thank you for being a lifeline to others who are barely hanging on. Amen.

For an \audio version of this sermon please click here.