Can You Imagine … Speaking the Truth to Power? - Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter

Can You Imagine … Speaking the Truth to Power?

Easter 4B

April 25, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

Acts 4.1-12

You may have noticed during this Easter season that the First Readings are from the book of Acts, not from the Old Testament. Since Acts is a historical book and not one of the New Testament letters, this makes a certain amount of sense. But Acts provides us more than a recitation of events following Jesus’ death and resurrection. Acts helps us imagine what a resurrection-powered community guided by the Holy Spirit looks like. Some corners of Christianity think we need to exactly replicate the First Century Acts community today. They forget how those early Christians got where they were, like the folk in this video.

In a profound sense, those first Christians were making it up as they go, building it on the fly as it were, doing it under the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, or Spirit, is mentioned 43 times in Acts. As one of my seminary professors observed, the book of Acts shouldn’t be titled “The Acts of the Apostles; it should be “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” Rather than giving us a cookie cutter template to follow rotely, Acts helps us imagine a resurrection-powered community guided by the Holy Spirit. In today’s episode, Peter and John have been arrested and jailed by some religious leaders. They had healed a lame man in the temple, but their real crime was preaching Jesus’ resurrection. Peter’s words here in chapter 4 are a summary of a longer sermon he preaches in chapter 3.

Now, let’s stop and think about how remarkable this story is: Peter and John are uneducated fishermen who traveled with the notorious Jesus and until lately were hiding from these same religious leaders in fear. For good reason. Outside of the Roman occupying forces, these religious leaders wielded enormous power over their lives. Yet, here they were, standing toe to toe with them and not even the awful experience of spending a night in jail and implicit threats of bodily harm could blunt their proclamation about Jesus. Peter, in the power of the Holy Spirit, challenges them as he brings good news to the Jewish people. He speaks truth to power.

For those who wield institutional, cultural, and coercive power, this is not good news. In particular, the Sadducees who don’t believe in resurrection, are threatened to their very core. Even so, they cannot contain the gospel of Jesus Christ no more than the tomb could contain Jesus. The kingdom that Jesus brings will come no matter who or what stands in the way of it. Where institutions and leaders have become corrupt and wielded power for themselves instead of those whom God has put in their charge, who have not been the “Good Shepherds” that God has appointed them, will not deter God’s determination to bring new life.

Today I’m inviting you to imagine what it would be like for Grace to be a resurrection-powered community under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In particular, I’d like you to imagine how Grace could speak truth to power in the Waseca community and beyond. Don’t get me wrong, Waseca is a wonderful community, and it has many terrific things going for it. But I know there are marginalized voices being stifled in the community and no one is speaking on their behalf. I know there are issues no one wants to acknowledge or treat seriously – and we don’t need to go far to find them. God has given the people of Grace tremendous gifts; can you imagine how God can use you to speak truth to power? There is no template, no cookie cutter answer, but there is the Holy Spirit that will guide you. Amen.

To view the sermon in a video click here.

Walk to the Tomb - Sermon for the Resurrection of Our Lord B

Walk to the Tomb

Resurrection of Our Lord B

April 4, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

Mark 16.1-8

When is an ending not an end?

When a dead man rises from the tomb—and when a Gospel ends in the middle of a sentence. Lamar Williamson, Jr. in Mark

My wife and I have been binge watching episodes from the DC comic book superhero universe: “Arrow,” “Flash,” and “DC Legends of Tomorrow.” And by “binge watching” I mean one or two episodes per night. One thing we’ve quickly learned is that you never want to time travel, for whatever reason, because you will always mess up the timeline. Another thing we’ve learned is that no one ever stays dead, no matter how decisively they’ve died. Anybody can reappear at any time. Finally, we’ve learned that it is obvious a story arc is never over; characters reappear and cliffhangers abound. There is never a neat, tidy ending. From what i remember of my college American Lit course years ago, that’s a unique feature of the American novel: stories never end.

Apparently, the Gospel writer Mark was ahead of his time with a story that ends so absurdly abruptly that leaders in the early church decided that it needed not only one ending but two, a “shorter ending” and a “longer ending.” It’s understandable because, though you can’t see it in English, the story does indeed end in the middle of a sentence. However, had the church fathers reread the opening sentence of Mark’s Gospel, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,” they might have realized what most modern commentators do: Mark did this intentionally.

Why does Mark end the Gospel this way? I don’t think that Mark is into writing cliffhangers to build interest or in resuscitating various plot lines. Rather, think Mark wants us to know that this is not the end, only the end of the beginning. That there would be more story to be written hardly seemed possible to the three women, those first witnesses, who come to the tomb that morning, wanting to finish what they started by anointing Jesus’ body. Even as they go, while they are on their way, they worry about who will roll away the stone for them.

What strikes me is they come to the tomb anyway, certain of their mission without knowing how they are going to carry it out. Yet, seeing that the stone has been rolled away, and hearing the claims of the young man, they begin to glimpse that this is God’s story continually being written, even in terror and amazement. Like many of us faced with the unfathomable, it probably took them time to process it all. So, clearly somebody did tell someone, Jesus met them and the disciples in Galilee, and the story continues.

A year ago, we faced a huge stone: how we were going to live in the midst of a pandemic? There was the false optimism of two weeks’ shut down and back to normal gave way to the reality that we were in this for the long haul. Over half a million people have died and even more continue to suffer. People are tired and businesses may never recover from the economic impact. Zoom fatigue is a real thing, weddings, funerals, and trips have been postponed or cancelled. And we fight over such a simple thing as wearing masks.

Yet, the story is still being written, for God is working in, with and through us in amazing ways. School teachers, administrators along with parents have been doing some incredibly heavy lifting. Businesses have been creative. The medical community has stepped up big time. At Grace, we had our first ever virtual Christmas pageant (and there will be an Easter one!). Because of our tech team, our outreach has multiplied through livestreaming with more people hearing the Gospel across the country. Our faith formation has shifted numerous times, helping young people to grow in their relationship with Jesus. The transition work by the Discovery Team was creative and fruitful and the Call Committee will be operating with the assumption that God will move stones and continue to write the story of Grace Waseca.

What are the stones in your life that seem to be insurmountable and immovable? What is the story you find yourself in that both terrorizes you and amazes you? As we proclaim that ancient message, “Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed, alleluia,” know that the God who raised Jesus from the dead 2,000 years ago continues to work in this world. Walk to the tomb every day, my sisters and brothers in Christ, expecting to see the risen Christ. Thanks be to God! Amen.

For the video version of this sermon click here.

Lent in Plain Sight: Thorns - Sermon for Good Friday

Lent in Plain Sight: Thorns

Good Friday B

April 2, 2021

Grace, Waseca, MN

Mark 14.32-15.32

I want you to imagine for a few moments that you were there at the crucifixion of Jesus. It’s not hard for us to remember vividly the crucifixion, whether we want to or not: Jesus being nailed to the cross, hanging in agony. Yet, sometimes we forget the abuse he experiences before and after that horrific event. Jesus is brought before the high council in the sham of a trial, the religious leaders looking for any excuse to get rid of him. Jesus gives them one, stating simply that he indeed is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One. The religious leaders tear their cloaks, hearing what sounds like blasphemy, and deciding that Jesus needs to die. But before they ship him off, Jesus absorbs the first of several physical assaults as they spit on him, blindfold him, and hit him.

Yet, in an attempt to keep their hands clean, they send him to the governor, Pontius Pilate. Pilate conducts his own interrogation, asking a different question than the religious leaders: “Are you the King of the Jews?” It will be the first of five times Jesus will be named as King of the Jews in just a very few verses. Even so, Pilate, to his credit, looks for an opportunity to release Jesus, knowing he is being played and that Jesus doesn’t deserve to die. But the crowds, stirred up by the religious leaders, shout over and over again, “Crucify him!” prevent him from doing so. Then Jesus receives his second beating as Pilate has him flogged before handing him over to be crucified.

The soldiers, sensing an opportunity for unbridled “fun,” wrap him in a purple cloak, twist some thorns into a crown and for a third time label Jesus as King of the Jews, while spitting and hitting him. Even as they crucify him they are not done mocking and abusing him. They place a placard around his neck identifying the charges against him: King of the Jews. Even then the mocking doesn’t end. The religious leaders just can’t resist one final mocking: “Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe.” If that wasn’t bad enough, those crucified alongside him taunted Jesus as well.

There is more to the story, but I want to pause and reflect on something. In the midst of this undeserved brutality sits the crown of thorns, not placed gently on him. As we listen to the story, not wanting to hear and turning our mind’s eyes away from the patent cruelty that is almost incomprehensible, we might wonder: what were they so afraid of that they did this horrific thing? Were they more afraid that Jesus was the promised King or that he wasn’t? We know that Jesus threatened the standing of the religious leaders, and that Pilate feared the unrest of the crowds. But what about the soldiers and the two criminals, what could they possibly have to fear?

I’ll leave that sit here because there’s a set of characters in the story, present throughout the abuse not yet named: you and me. In answer to the hymn, “Were you there?,” we acknowledge that yes indeed, “We were there,” and frankly we don’t do much better than those others. For the real human condition is that we, too, are afraid of Jesus and mock him, even if doing so unknowingly. The brutal facts of Good Friday are that we mock Jesus in what we do and don’t do. We mock him in what we say and don’t say. And we even mock him in what we continue to think. We mock Jesus whenever acts of injustice are perpetrated and we keep quiet or rationalize them away. Just the other day yet an Asian woman was attacked and beaten while two men did nothing, not even calling 911 from the safety of the building.

I think it’s a good thing that there is a day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, a time of reflection about this Friday we call Good. It is easy to move too quickly to the assurance of, “It’s okay, Jesus forgives” without considering the magnitude of what that forgiveness and reconciliation costs. We must sit in the stillness of Good Friday, waiting, hoping, wondering how God is doing God’s crucifying work within us. You were there at the cross, and you are here now, and that will become Good News, just not yet. Peace.

For the video of the sermon, please click here.