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John 11:1-45 “Tomb-Vision”

John 11:1-45  “Tomb-Vision”

Caitlin Trussell on April 6, 2014 at Augustana Lutheran Church

 

John 11:1-45   Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” 4But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” 11After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” 12The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” 13Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. 15For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” 23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
28When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus began to weep. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
38Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
45Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

[See Ezekiel reading at end of sermon]

Some of us know what it’s like to watch someone’s life leave their body through an illness.   Mary and Martha certainly do.  There is enough time after Lazarus became ill to send word to Jesus.  There is more time after the sisters sent word and even more before Jesus arrived after Lazarus died.  Some of us know how long those days, hours, and minutes can seem while we wait to see what will happen.   Will the outcome be life?  Will it be death?  We know the fear and the despair as we wait and as we watch…as we lose.  We develop tomb-vision as we try to look everywhere but toward the downward spiral of life on which our loved one is attached.  We try, but we cannot keep from seeing the tomb edge closer and closer.

The prophet Ezekiel knows this despair too.  In the early 500s B.C.E., Ezekiel became part of the first deportation of the Southern Tribes of Israel at the hands of the Babylonians.  They were taken into exile to ancient Babylon, located in what is now modern day Iraq.  The Northern tribes of Israel were long gone, taken by the conquering Assyrian armies in the late 700s B.C.E..  Everyone knew that the temple in Jerusalem was God’s dwelling place.  Everybody knew.  And yet Ezekiel and the Southern Tribes ended up far, far away in a land where their God was not known.  From this reality, comes the lament of the people in verse 11, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.”   After all, their cousins in the Northern Tribes had disappeared just a hundred or so years before.  It was in the realm of possibility.  These people can’t even pretend to look anywhere but the tomb that edges closer and closer.  Their tomb-vision is sharply honed; with death seemingly inevitable they make the leap that God certainly doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight…in this valley of the dry bones.

Mary, Martha, and Ezekiel are not the only ones with tomb-vision.  Variations on tomb-vision connect natural disasters, or illness, or accidents to the absence of God…or, even worse, attributing these events to the intentional hand of God.  The temptation is to deny God’s presence in times of despair and presume God’s presence when things go well.  Many, many of us actively worry about where God is and where God isn’t.  We add this to some additional worry about what’s going to happen to the people we presume that God has abandoned because of certain actions.  Presuming God’s absence in this way is antithetical to the crescendo of the cross and the silence of the tomb that we are edging toward as Palm Sunday and Holy Week loom on the calendar a week from today.

We are treated to whispers of Holy Week in the first few verses of the John reading today.  Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet is remembered to us even though we don’t actually get to that part of the story until the beginning of the next chapter.   Anointing is done for divine kings and for the dead.  Jesus’ anointing conflates the two.  In verse 25, using yet one more divine “I am” saying, Jesus claims to be the resurrection.  In verses 4 and 40 Jesus talks about God’s glory in conjunction with the Son of God being glorified.  When the word “glory” is used in the Gospel of John, it is code for Jesus hanging on the cross. We tend to think all kinds of things when we hear the word “glory” but hanging on a cross is not typically one of them.

Years ago, I had a strong aversion to Holy Week.  I just wanted to go from the Transfiguration straight to Easter.  After all, Lent is quiet and grey culminating in Holy Week that is dark and gloomy and ends in a tomb.  It runs smack up against the addiction to optimism, smack up against our desperation not to look at the ever-so-obvious tomb.  But these days, as I look forward to sinking into the depths of Holy Week, focusing on cross and tomb simply feels like freedom.  It feels like freedom because it feels true.  There is pain in the world and human beings are the cause of much of it.  Since I include myself in the ‘human beings’ category, the relief of Holy Week is enormous.  Facing this truth head-on, using the clarity of tomb-vision that neither looks away nor blocks out God in the midst of it, reveals what Jesus does when confronted with a tomb.

In the tomb of Lazarus, lays a man who’s about to walk again.  Jesus tells him to come out.  Lazarus comes out.  His disorientation must be staggering.  Jesus looks at the people and says, “Unbind him.”  They are participants in Lazarus’ moment.  Among the people who unbind Lazarus are surely many who participate in Jesus’ crucifixion.   A lot of us might be able to relate – after all, how many of us participate in a moment of new life only to turn around and call for a crucifixion of one sort or another?[1]

Raising Lazarus is Jesus’ final sign – at the same time declaring his divinity and inciting his execution.  On Palm and Passion Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday we are confronted by Jesus’ passion, all the events that lead to Jesus hanging on the cross and dead in a tomb.  It is a week during which we can relate to those people at Lazarus’ tomb who unbind a man into life one moment, and march off to court to call for the execution of another man in the next moment.  The people are ready to crucify because the fear that the one who brings life might get noticed by the powers that be in Rome and bring death to them all.  So as Holy Week whispers to us from the faraway place of next week, we pause with the crowd of people who unbind Lazarus.  We, like them, wonder about the power that can resurrect.  The power that can draw unwanted attention.  Lazarus isn’t the only one standing there dazed and disoriented, afraid.

There’s this one thing that occasionally pops up during Holy Week on Good Friday.  It’s called the Solemn Reproaches.  The accusations come fast and furious from the Crucified one and, in turn, the refrain from the people gathered is a cry for mercy.   Here’s one example:

O my people, o my church, what more could I have done for you?  Answer me.

I lifted you up to the heights, but you lifted me high on a cross.

I raised you from death and prepared for you the tree of life,

but you have prepared a cross for your Savior.

[and the people gathered together on Good Friday respond]

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

And as we the people acknowledge the mercy of God our tomb-vision gets clearer still.  We see the fullness of life that God pours through us in the face of our fear.  We see what is already there; our asking merely unveils what is already there.  We see the Christ, Word made flesh.   We see Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross simultaneously revealing the breadth of divine power poured out to reveal the depth of divine love. [2] We see each other receiving the Spirit who breathes life into our bodies – here, now, today, with these people whom Jesus calls to help unbind us as we are called into resurrected life.

 

Ezekiel 37:1-14 The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD.”
7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act, says the LORD.”



[1] Personal conversation, April 2, 2014, Nadia Bolz-Weber reminded of her friend “Sara’s” question about this Lazarus story.

[2] Koester, course notes, 12/1/2010.  For further study see: Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008).

John 4:5-42; Romans 5:1-11 “Hiding in Plain Sight”

John 4:5-42; Romans 5:1-11   “Hiding in Plain Sight”

March 23, 2014 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

[note: sermon follows this long Bible reading]

5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. 7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, “I have no husband'; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” 27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him. 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. 35 Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. 36 The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” 39 Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

 

In last week’s gospel episode, Nicodemus lurked around in the night and ended up where Jesus was staying.  Not wanting to be seen by anyone, especially by any of his religious friends, Nic at night brings his serious questions to Jesus and ends up leaving confused.  One of the last things Jesus says to Nicodemus in those Bible verses is that, “Indeed, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”[1]

This week brings us into the light of day.  High noon.  In the big heat, Jesus sits down to rest at a well while the disciples take off to town to rustle up some lunch.  Jesus isn’t sitting by just any old well.  This is Jacob’s well.  And wells are THE ‘Match.com’ of 2,000 B.C.E.[2]  Jacob met his wife Rachel by a well back in the book of Genesis.

Before anyone gets too nervous about where we’re headed with Jesus running into this unnamed Samaritan woman at the well, you can relax.  This is not a preaching moment brought to you from the pages of The Da Vinci Code.[3]  But it is absolutely significant that Jesus shows up by a well in the way bridegroom might.   It’s significant because it’s consistent with the language the Gospel of John uses.  “Jesus assumed the role of bridegroom earlier in the Gospel by providing wine for the wedding at Cana, and John the Baptist identified Jesus as the bridegroom who had come to claim the bride.”[4]

John the Baptist uses the bridegroom language right before Jesus starts walking through Samaria and sits by the well.  And who shows up?  At noon?  In the heat of the day?  The Samaritan woman.  I imagine that her first surprise was finding anyone at the well – followed quickly by the shock at finding herself there with a Jewish man who would speak with her.  While it’s not clear what all those marriages were about, it is clear by the woman’s midday water-run that she had something she was hiding.  The other women in the city would have already been to the well and back much earlier in the morning.   Showing up at a well at noon is simply a way of hiding in plain sight.

And Jesus meets up with her where she’s trying to hide.  The heady words to Nicodemus last week, about the world being saved through Jesus, go live in the story of the Samaritan woman this week.  The words go live in a body, in her body – the body representing the bride.  She is a solitary person by a well and unnamed but for her nationality.  She represents the world that Jesus is concerned about – a world that’s hiding in plain sight.[5]

This is all very well and good.  Jesus is the bridegroom, the woman as the bride represents the world, and Jesus is about saving the world.  A tidy theological equation, to be sure, but what do we do with it?  How does what Jesus is doing at a well figure into life for world here and now?

Let’s start with Augustana.  It’s an obvious place to begin.  After all, the church is often referred to in the Bible as the bride of Christ.[6]  And we, as a worshipping community here this morning, are part of Christ’s church catholic, Christ’s whole church.  What might Jesus the bridegroom, sitting with us at this very moment, have to say about us that is true and perhaps not so loveable?  How might we, the worshipping community of Augustana, be hiding in plain sight?  What truth might be told that would both acknowledge our history and send us out into the city to talk with people like the Samaritan woman does.  Leaving her water jar behind, she tells the people of the city, the ones she’s hiding from,    “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

We’re often so afraid of violating acceptable public conversation that we end up saying nothing at all. It’s partly why coming to church on Sunday can feel like a place of relief.  A place to tell the truth and to hear the truth told about us.  A place to simply be with the words of our confession.  The confession of what we have done and left undone.  But also the other meaning of confession which is remembering God’s promises to us and our trust in those promises. This is a place to find sanctuary.   A place of living water and truth telling.  A place for hiding in plain sight.

And, like the Samaritan woman, we head back into the city holding a sliver of doubt after the conversation happens here with Jesus.  She says to the people in the city, the ones she was hiding from, “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”   She takes her encounter with Jesus out for a spin, carrying her doubt right alongside of it, and invites people to wonder about Jesus with her.  Embedded in the Samaritan woman’s invitation and question is an antidote to the 21st century culture that is poisoned by absolutism and judgment.

We are in a world, right now, that is suffering under absolutes – be they liberal or conservative ones.  Conversation, common ground, connecting points are few and far between.  The way in which we take our faith out for a spin from this sanctuary matters.  THAT we take it out for a spin matters too.  Our invitation may connect with others who need the sanctuary of hiding in plain sight, a place to wonder about the hope found in Jesus – a hope that does not disappoint.[7]  People are scared, people are ashamed, and people are suffering.  These are the people and this is the world that Jesus came to save.

Jesus did not come into the world to condemn it.  Jesus came to save the world – to restore our relationship with God and with each other.  Jesus did not come into the world to condemn you.  Jesus came to save you – to restore your relationship with God and with the person next to you.  Let him tell the truth about you here, while you’re hiding in plain sight.  Then wait and see what happens next.

 

 

Romans 5:1-11  Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. 9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. 11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.



[1] John 3:17

[2] Match.com is a dating website where people are able to meet-and-greet each other online.

[3] Dan Brown. The Da Vinci Code (New York: Anchor Books, 2003).  www.danbrown.com/the-davinci-code

[4] John 2:1-11 and John 3:29 respectively.

Craig R. Koester. Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 48.

[5] Koester, 48.

[6] Revelation 19:7-9; Ephesians 5:25-27.  See more at: http://www.openbible.info/topics/the_bride_of_christ

[7] Romans 5:1-11

 

Psalm 32; Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11 “Sinner” as Endearment

Psalm 32; Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11  “Sinner” as Endearment[1]

March 9, 2014 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Psalm 32 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 3 While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. (Selah) 5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. (Selah) 6 Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them. 7 You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. (Selah) 8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 9 Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you. 10 Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord. 11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3 but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

 

Let’s talk about sin.  Yup, okay, right on schedule, I can feel your collective joy surging at the idea of this conversation.   Regardless, let’s push on, shall we?  The general complaint I most often hear when it comes to using the word “sin” is that it’s off-putting.  It’s out of touch with the times.  People don’t generally like being made aware of their shortcomings or flaws.  And, I agree, it stinks.  That’s one of the problems with the way conversations about sin typically go.  Someone offers me a laundry list of my sins, or maybe just one big one, to which I may or may not agree and off we go into the maze of moral reckoning.

There’s an alternative to entering that maze…and that is by entering the garden.  In this garden, God was at the center of all things.  The man and the woman reflected the image of God.[2]  Seduced by the serpent, they replaced God with themselves in the center of things.  They set themselves up to be “like God” and ended up breaking up with God. [3]  This break is sin – singular, not plural.  It’s been labeled “Original.” But calling it Original Sin has become distracting due to theologians who sexualized this main break with God.  I’m well aware that, by mentioning it, I just lost some of you down that rabbit hole now.

Rather than label it, let’s just call it sin – singular, not plural.  Sin puts the man and the woman right in the center of things where God should be; with no way of fixing the broken relationship with God on their own. [4]  Broken away from God’s image, the self becomes a fix-it project.  It is from this break with God that comes all of our relational sins against God, each other, and our selves.

Sin leaves the creatures that God so loves in need of atonement.  Atonement simply means “reconciling [the] parties that have been separated.” [5]   We are in need of what only God can do – something we cannot do for ourselves.[6]

So God takes action.  In skin and solidarity, God moved into the world in Jesus and ended up hung on a cross.  Paul, in our reading from Romans this morning, uses all kinds of words to describe God’s movement in Jesus Christ – free gift, grace, justification, made righteous.  One of my favorite things to do is sit around and talk about what all these words mean.  Suffice it to say for the moment that they mean the burden is on God to mend the break, to atone on our behalf.

However we name humanity’s inherent flaw, and its cause, it is on God to atone, to bring together, to reconcile, that which is broken between us and God.  The short-form of this Christian code is what we often call “God’s promises.”  In a few moments, Althea will receive those promises in her baptism.  Baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, she will be baptized into the body of Christ in the form of this congregation.   Over time, we will remind her and she will remind us of God’s action on our behalf.

Rather than off-putting, I invite us to consider the language of sin as a kindness to ourselves and each other.[7]   A kindness that gives us relief from the self-perfection project.  A kindness that creates space for forgiving other people of their non-perfection and forgiving ourselves for our own.[8]

Sinners need something that God can give – and God gives it…

“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” [Psalm 32:1]

 

Sinners, through the cross, are given a way to tell the truth about falling short…

“Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” [Psalm 32:2]

 

Sinners know that not telling this truth about themselves is exhausting…

“While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”  [Psalm 32:3-4]

 

Sinners talk to God…trusting in God’s forgiveness…

“Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” [Psalm 32:5]

 

Sinners encourage each other to talk to God…

“Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you.” [Psalm 32:6]

 

And through it all, sinners get together to remind each other of God’s promises…

“Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.” [Psalm 32:11].

 

Here’s a homework assignment.  Picture someone you’re close with, perhaps a good friend, family member, or spouse.  The very next time they disappoint you, I invite you to silently think, “Sinner.”  Now, don’t yell this or say it out loud because it could go very badly for all involved.  Just think it as a silent endearment, almost a prayer, “Sinner.”  The endearment begs its response…forgiveness.  It may take awhile for you to get there.  But in all that time that it takes you, God has already forgiven that person, and God has already forgiven you.

 

 

 

Matthew 4:1-11 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted  forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’ ” 11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

 

Romans 5:12-19 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— 13 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16 And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

 



[1] Nadia Bolz-Weber on Sarcastic Lutheran at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/02/why-i-love-ash-wednesday-and-lent-part-1-sin/

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), 113.

[3] Theological reflection on the cause of “The Fall” that breached God’s intention for the creature as imago dei is beyond the scope of this paper.  For in depth treatment of this topic, see preceding Bonhoeffer citation.

[4] Luke 23:39-43

[5] Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 114.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Giles Fraser, “Secular Lent is a Pale Imitation of the Real Thing…I Want Nothing to Do With It.”  The Guardian on March 7, 2014.  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/mar/07/secular-lent-pale-imitation-real-thing?CMP=twt_gu

[8] Ibid.  Giles Fraser quoting: Marilynne Robison in The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought (New York: Mariner Books, 1998), 156.

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Ash Wednesday Greeting Card [Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17]

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 Ash Wednesday Greeting Card [Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17]

March 5, 2014 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10  We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

 

Matthew writes, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”[1]

In Joel, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 rend your hearts and not your clothing.”

The psalmist writes, “The sacrifice that is acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

For all this talk of hearts, Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent couldn’t be less sentimental. Imagine a greeting card:   “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, treasures consumed by moth and rust…”  It just doesn’t work.  Lent doesn’t translate into simple sentimentality.  Oh how glad I am that it doesn’t.   Because who among us hasn’t felt like the psalmist who offers God a broken spirit.  It’s something that we may not confess as readily as the psalmist but many of us have been there or are there right now.

Broken spirits come from being acted upon.  This is a tough one for a lot of us.  That we are in bondage to something, anything, can be insufferable – and in fact often is insufferable.  A spirit broken open is the opposite of self-control or self-determination; and it’s not the same thing as lack of self-esteem.

Some of us have brushed by a thin place that breaks our spirits open.  It can happen in a flash, and suddenly it seems as though everything around us has shifted just ever so slightly while the light in the room has changed.  Breaking open can happen in a living room when a dear friend blurts out they have cancer and it’s not treatable.  It can happen when a child becomes so beloved that the parent realizes they are watching a piece of their heart walk around on the outside of themselves.  It can happen looking up at the night sky, in the millisecond of awareness in which we feel our actual size.  There are a lot of us in the room right now and, for as many of us as are here, there are hundreds and thousands of ways that this looks in our lives.

These events and people and moments that break us open have a way of reminding us of our fragility.  Ash Wednesday is also such a moment.  As ashes are placed on our foreheads, we are acted upon once again and brush by the thin place.  It is not to dangle us over an abyss of perverse self-deprecation.  But rather to uncover that which is already made known in our lives – our inability to save ourselves from ourselves…and God’s ability to do so.

And it is God who is being made known.  Not in the abstract but in the particular person of Jesus.  This is what Paul is getting at in Second Corinthians when he writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Our spirits are broken open and are a mercy seat for Christ.

Paul helps us get at this as he writes, “…be reconciled to God.”   Another, less churchy, way to say this is, “Be forgiven.”  Paul is talking about Christ’s action that makes God’s presence real before any action on our part.  God is not irresistible.  We can certainly run away.  Being reconciled simply means that God is at your heels.  God is there because Christ has already done the work of reconciliation, of bringing us back into God.

Paul’s laundry list of activities, after his comment about reconciliation, isn’t what brings the reconciliation.  His and others actions simply come from life on the planet.  Life as it’s lived in paradox – amid seemingly opposite things that are true at the same time.  Paraphrasing Paul, we ARE living while we’re dying; we ARE rejoicing while sad.  This list of paradoxes reveals the gifts of the reconciliation that are made known to us in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

The people of this congregation that interviewed me before I came here asked me a great question.  They asked me many but this is one stands out in my memory.  “What would you fight for?”  My answer?  “I would fight for the gospel.”   The message that God takes our broken spirits, all we actually have to offer God, and brings us back into God through Christ.

Ash Wednesday lays this good news bare.  Lent creates space and time for the magnitude of the gospel, the good news, to reflect off the darkness of the cross, off of the crucified One.  This is a paradox of faith.  Come with your broken spirit and be filled with hope.



[1] All Bible passages are from the New Revised Standard Version.

 

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21  “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

16 “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.

12 Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God? 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16 gather the people. Sanctify the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. 17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, “Where is their God?’ ”

Psalm 51:1-17 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

 

 

Matthew 5:21-37; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 “A Matter of Life and Death in the Here and Now [Or This Preacher Tackles Those Adultery and Divorce Verses]”

Matthew 5:21-37; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9 “A Matter of Life and Death in the Here and Now [Or This Preacher Tackles Those Adultery and Divorce Verses]”

February 16, 2014 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Matthew 5:21-37 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder'; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

27 “You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 “It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be “Yes, Yes’ or “No, No'; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

 

Let’s get a few things straight about these verses right from the get-go.  If we think this is some kind of Jesus-versus-sinner smack down that includes only some people, let’s think again.  It looks to me like the final score would be Jesus: 7 billion; people: 0. Borrowing Paul’s words from the Corinthians reading, there is no milk for children here, it’s all solid food.

Over and over in these verses Jesus says, “You’ve heard it said…but I say to you…”

It isn’t enough not to murder; Jesus orders us to choose our words oh so carefully.

It isn’t enough not to commit adultery; Jesus orders us see other people as people, not objects.

It isn’t enough not to divorce; Jesus orders us not to throw people away on a whim.

It isn’t enough not to lie; Jesus orders us to live so truthfully that we’ve no need to make an oath.

If you spend any time around a Lutheran church, it won’t take too long before someone would say that Jesus is talking about “law” in these verses.  To which some of us could nod and agree and move on as if we understood what that means.  Hanging around the same Lutheran church you might hear over time that the law “leads to death while the gospel gives life.”[1]  Another catchy phrase but I wonder if it has lost some punch over time; wildly misinterpreted to mean the law doesn’t matter so domesticated into spiritual milk, not solid food.  Let’s try to stay squarely in the solid food category here this morning shall we?

I’ve been on a tear about these verses this week.  They come on the heels of my family attending a funeral for the young adult son of some friends of ours.  He took his own life after physically surviving a tour in Afghanistan.  Hearing Jesus’ words through Eric’s despair, gives those words urgency.  We are a people who are given new life and freedom in Jesus.  Out of this new life and freedom we are called to “offer hope and healing in Jesus Christ”.[2]  If this is a given, then Jesus’ words are directed to us and into our relationships with other people.

No longer self-centered, we are made Christ centered – made free to look deeply into the cracks and fractures of those relationships for our own culpability.  And Jesus gives us four places to start looking: Anger – Adultery – Divorce – Oaths.

None of these places are comfortable and there are easy ways to end up in the proverbial ditch along the way.  But I believe that Jesus words have life and death implications for us in the here and now which makes the risk of the ditch worth it.  I’ll make you a deal.  I’ll try to avoid any ditches and you can tell me me if you think I ended up in one (pastor.caitlin.trussell@gmail.com).

Have you ever been angry with someone?  That deep, simmering kind of anger that may even have had a righteous origin?  But somewhere along the way the righteousness part of the anger was lost and now it hangs around like a bitter, old friend. The anger simmers on a slow, inside burn that keeps us away from the one who made us angry but also cuts us off from everyone else.  Making us prisoners of our own anger, our own private hell on earth.   Perhaps it is because there is no life in this anger that Jesus is so adamant about reconciliation.  Not to be confused with a bland acceptance of the status quo, reconciliation is a commitment to stay in relationship across intellectual disagreement and injured feelings.  Because, left unchecked, anger has a way of infecting families, communities, institutions, and countries.  Any of this sounding familiar?

In the adultery verses, Jesus focuses on those of us doing the looking.  He challenges our treatment of people as objects that exist for our pleasure.  What’s the harm, we might ask?  Just as anger destroys relationship and creates hell on earth, treating people as objects denies relationship and creates hell on earth.  On a smaller scale, once we make an object of someone, someone who exists for our pleasure, then what’s to stop us from hurting them when they make us unhappy?  The violence of partner and child abuse has at its roots the objectification of people.  So too does the modern day human trafficking and slavery crisis.  Jesus’ hyperbole about gouging out our eyes and cutting off our hands if they lead us to make people into objects is attention getting.   People are not to be treated as objects and it seems that Jesus is challenging us to consider the ways in which we are doing so and to stop doing it.

A few things need to be said right off the bat about this divorce text.  First, Jesus is likely talking here about the practice of divorce that left women and children vulnerable both physically and financially.  And second, the church across time and place has done a miserable job on the topic of divorce and has inflicted the pain of isolation on many families already devastated by divorce – in fact the church could stand to do some confession in this regard.  Please hear this clearly, there are times when divorce is the least broken choice.  If we are all broken people, then any of our decisions are also broken.  A few obvious examples are marriages that end due to addictions, mental health issues, and abuse.

All of that being said, what challenge might those of us who are married hear from Jesus’ words?   Maybe it helps to hear that courage is possible, remembering that we are made free by Jesus to look deeply into the cracks and fractures of our marriages for our own culpability.  Some of us may need to confess our part in the mess.  Some of us might need a coach or counselor to help us engage with indifference or mediate the anger.  For some of us, our marriages still may not make it but reconciliation around certain issues may give co-parenting or healing after divorce some traction.

At first glance, the fourth challenge laid out by Jesus may seem almost anticlimactic.  However, many of us are involved in daily work that puts pressure on us.  Our jobs put food on the table and a roof over our heads.  Dealing honestly in our work environments can sometimes feel precarious.  What Jesus is asking here is often not easy and may be difficult to tease apart during a work day filled with contract negotiations or sales figures.  In fact, we could go so far to say that the temptation here may be similar to adultery – that to deal falsely with someone might start with making an object out of them, making them a means to an end.

Jesus is talking life and death issues in this text today; life and death in the here and now for us and for other people.  He is laying down the law that brings life through the gospel.   May we, who are made free by Christ, be unleashed into the costly discipleship that brings life to each other.  Amen.



[1] One interpretation of 2 Corinthians 3:1-11 focusing on verse 6.

[2] Augustana Luther Church mission statement: Guided by the Holy Spirit we gather in Christian community, reach out and invite, offer hope and healing in Jesus Christ, and walk humbly with God.  http://augustanadenver.org/pages/aboutus/aboutus.html

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

1 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Luke 2:22-40 “Simeon, Spirit, Stay Tuned…”

Luke 2:22-40 “Simeon, Spirit, Stay Tuned…”

February 2, 2014 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 2:22-40  When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” 33 And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

 

Mary and Joseph are on the move again.  The first time – travel-worn and likely in the early stages labor, they made their way to Bethlehem to be counted in the census.[1]  In our story today, they are parents of only 40 days.  And they are also faithful Jews.  So they take a very, very long walk to Jerusalem, more specifically to the Temple, with their first-born son.  It’s time for Mary’s purification and for Jesus’ presentation to the Lord.

Joseph and Mary have been busy with details – from the earthy to the civic to the religious.[2]  They move into the temple cradling this child as carefully and as proudly as Julius Thomas carrying the ball into the end zone.[3] (Bet you though I couldn’t sneak in a Super Bowl reference…)

As they move into the Temple, what happens?  Simeon, having waited his whole life for this moment and guided by Holy Spirit, swoops into the Temple and scoops up the baby.   The parents likely didn’t know Simeon.  The story tells us that he was a man in Jerusalem, righteous and devout – a member of the congregation but not its designated clergy.  This was the man who swooped in, “took [Jesus] in his arms and praised God.”[4]

Simeon is fascinating.  A long-time member of the parish, he is guided by the Holy Spirit into the temple that day and starts talking about God’s salvation in Jesus.[5]  Simeon’s song sounded a certain way because of the congregation in which he was formed.  Throughout the centuries since Simeon, the personal and congregational witness of God’s whole church looks thousands of different ways – from home churches to prison congregations to cathedrals and everything in between.

In the face of such diversity between churches we are tempted to set up ideal notions of church.  Whether it’s high-church or low-church or big church or small church or rock-band church or liturgically traditional church, we all seem to have opinions one way or another about which is better.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his short, wonderful book Life Together, reminds us that ideal Christian communities do not exist but that Christ-centered ones do.[6]  Most of God’s churches are simply groups of people, very often relative strangers to each other, who are guided by the Holy Spirit and suddenly find Jesus in their arms.

Finding Jesus in their arms, in light of Simeon’s song, can sound like a lovely, soft metaphor.  Simeon’s joy, and the new life of the Christ-child, can be the unbearable lightness of being that resonates for some of us.  But in the midst of his joy, Simeon speaks challenging words too – “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.”[7]

Simeon then tells Mary, “and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”  The metaphor of finding Jesus in our arms is not such a soft one in light of those words.  Finding Jesus in their arms in light of those words is more like Michelanglo’s Pieta sculpture of Mary holding the crucified Jesus – grief-stricken and shocked.

This is a complex metaphor to be sure, but what does it mean in this place, here in the congregation of Augustana with these people – some whom you may know and likely many that you do not.  Having been called among you as a pastor one year ago today, I’d like to share a little about what I see.

Augustana’s 135 year history is a bit of a rarity this far west of the Mississippi.  Some of you sitting in the pews have a generational history here that includes parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, being baptized, confirmed, married, and buried here.  And some of you relocated to Denver years ago, discovered Augustana, and have been members for years.  There is a rich regard for the history of this congregation as a place where community has been forged by the work of many of you over time, through the power of the Spirit.  This is the hard-won kind of community that builds over time.  The kind of community that naturally includes both friendships and truces, joys and disappointment, plenty and want…because, of course, there are people involved.

And many of you have been guided into this congregational community more recently.  Some of you come to heal – to sit quietly and be consoled by the sacraments of communion and baptism as well as scripture and song while Christ and his body, the church, create space for you to heal over time.  Some of you come ready to connect, roll up your sleeves and revel in doing the work of congregational and community ministry.  And some of you come dubiously, wondering what everyone seems so excited about when there is so much to believe and disbelieve in the church and outside of it.

Whatever shape we show up in and for however much time we’ve been here, we are much like Simeon.  All of us are guided by the Spirit to be together in this particular way on this particular day of church; made new again today as Jesus is handed into our arms and waiting to see what happens next.

Simeon’s song of praise as well as his words to Mary emphasize that is it the Spirit who’s in charge of what happens next.  It is the Spirit who gifts each one of us for particular work in God’s world that also includes the church.  This is good news.    So stay tuned…

Today, February 2nd, is formally called Presentation of Our Lord.  This is a day every year when the church celebrates Jesus’ moment with Simeon and Anna in the Temple and bursts into praise.  The Prophet Anna’s words are not given to us in our story today.  In a few moments we’ll sing a song of praise.  Lending our voices to Anna, we sing praise to God for the redemption of all, through the power of the Spirit in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[Congregation sings the hymn, “How Great Thou Art”]

 



[1] Luke 2:1-7

[2] Joy J. Moore. A Working Preacher commentary on Luke 2:22-40, January 1, 2012. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1180

[3] I couldn’t resist.  It IS Super Bowl Sunday in Broncos country after all.  This is a nod toward my now not-so-secret dream to guest commentate with Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth.

[4] Luke 2:28

[5] Luke 2:27, 30

[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community (New York: Harper Collins, 1954), 26-27.

[7] Luke 2:34-35

John 1:1-18; Matthew 2:1-12 “What’s In Your Darkness?”

John 1:1-18; Matthew 2:1-12  “What’ s In Your Darkness?

January 5, 2014 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

John 1:1-18   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ “) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

 

For the 12 days of Christmas we celebrate the birth of a savior.  On Epiphany, January 6th, we celebrate the light of the savior.  On this, the 12th day of Christmas, this Epiphany Eve, we’ll do a little bit of both.

We celebrate not just any birth over Christmas…but a birth that shines light into the darkness, a birth that changes the world.  Now certainly God has been active in history before the birth of Jesus. Connecting the moment of this birth to all of God’s history, the gospel writer uses those powerful words, “In the beginning…”  These words that John uses to introduce the Word can also be heard in the very first verse of Genesis. [1] This connection draws a huge arc through time, space, and place, between the birth of creation to the birth of Jesus.

So while Luke spends time on the human details of shepherds and a manger and Matthew gives us the magi, John spends time on the cosmic ones.  Where Luke and Matthew’s words weave a compelling story, John’s words elevate us into poetic mystery.  We could leave it there, in those mysterious heights.  We could keep at a distance this mysterious poetry that many discard as too heady or inaccessible.  Many theologians do.  Except…except…John doesn’t leave it dangling out in the mystery of the cosmos, untouchable or inaccessible.

John brings the Word straight to the ground.  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  This God who created…who made promises through Abraham, who brought freedom through Moses, who instigated challenge through the prophets, who gave guidance through kings…this God became flesh.  A mysterious, inaccessible, cosmic God becomes a God that is part of our common humanity, through common flesh.  God taking on flesh to join us in our humanity is the birth we celebrate over Christmas.  It is the birth recognized by the Magi’s visit.  It is why some people call Christmas the Festival of the Incarnation rather than Christmas.[2]  God incarnate simply means God in a body – or as John likes to put it, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”   But if it were only that, if it were only God joining us and dabbling in fleshiness, we leave out a critical piece of the story.

God living among us in Jesus is a cause for celebration during Christmas as well as a reason to pause and reflect on Epiphany.  Not simply because God showed up but because God immerses in the struggle of humanity as the first and last Word.  As John writes, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”  Light moving in the dark; day against night.  This language may be poetic but we get it when someone talks about their darkness:

The darkness of someone we love living with a mental illness that is difficult to treat.

The darkness of grief and the confusion it brings to daily life.

The darkness of disease, acute or chronic, that takes up more space in the day than anything else.

If we could sit and talk about the darkness here this morning, each one of us could name a way that it affects our lives or the life of someone we love.  Before today, you’ve likely had some of these conversations with family, friends, sometimes even with strangers.  The kind of conversation where all the walls between people are down and the darkness is named for what it is.

Besides the obvious location of a pastor’s office, they can pop up almost anywhere – at work, on the sideline of a sports event, or over lunch.

A few years ago, preparing to catch a flight out of DIA, I was moving into the waiting area at the gate.  The gate was in the end of the terminal which housed about eight gates bundled together. There were tons of people waiting for their flights and all I wanted was to be alone with my thoughts.  And, then, I spotted it, a chair facing the windows, looking out at the tarmac, away from the crowds with a few seats buffer on either side. I had one of those moments where you’re happier than you really should be.  As I was setting down my carry-on, I glanced over at a gentleman a couple of chairs down and, literally during my movement to sit, the man looked at me, looked at the cross on my neck and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

As it turned out, what he really wanted to do was tell his story.  He was heading to his mother’s home to say goodbye to her before she died.  He told me about his family, the mess of it, the pain of it and his part in all of that mess and pain.  He told me about how Jesus had found him, how Jesus had changed his life and how he trusted Jesus to help him now.  He was hurting, he made himself vulnerable and he was confessing in the middle of a busy airport, to an utter stranger.  And in the midst of all of that, he trusted God’s presence in the midst of some pretty big darkness.  And not just that God showed up but that God was fighting in the struggle with him.

His testimony about where he sees God, where he sees the light shining in the darkness, helps us think about where we might see God in our own.

Thinking about the struggle with darkness makes me think about that man in the airport.  Thinking about the struggle with darkness makes me think about my own.  Thinking about the struggle with darkness makes me want to invite you to consider yours.  Because it is into this real struggle, this darkness, that Jesus is not only born but lived, died, and lives again.  Jesus who continues to bring light that reveals God in the midst of the worst that life brings – a light that brings hope as we are born children of God.

Our birth as children of God is ‘not of blood.’  This birth gives us hope that “we will not be subject to the frailties of human flesh forever.”[3]  Our birth as children of God is “not of the will of the flesh”.  This birth gives us hope that “we are more than our desires.”[4]  Our birth as children of God is not “of the will of humans.”  This birth gives us hope that “we will not always be subject to the whim and will of others” [5]  or the many other dimensions of darkness that affects our lives. [6]

As children of God, our lives have meaning over and against any darkness that overwhelms us.  That is to say, that our lives have meaning over and against anything we can come up with to say they don’t.  Maybe, closer to home yet, your life has meaning over and against any darkness that someone else or even you can come up with to say it doesn’t.  You mean something to God – the light who shines into your darkness and joins the struggle with you, who births you a child of God.

 



[1] Genesis is the first book of the Bible’s 66 books. Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…”

[2] Thank you Sigurd Nelson, Retired Pastor and Army Chaplain, for this reflection.

[3] David Lose on Working Preacher, December 25, 2010.  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=857

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Lawrence Ulrich, Ph.D., personal conversation on January 4, 2013.

 

John 1:1-14 “The Birth, Our Birth”

John 1:1-14  “The Birth, Our Birth”

December 25, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

John 1:1-14  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

 

This morning we come to celebrate a birth.  Not just any birth…but a birth that shines light into the darkness, a birth that changes the world.  God has been active in history before the birth of Jesus. Connecting the moment of this birth to all of God’s history, the gospel writer uses those powerful words, “In the beginning…”  These words that John uses to introduce the Word can also be heard in the very first verse of Genesis. [1] This connection draws a huge arc through time, space, and place, between the birth of creation to the birth of Jesus.

So while Luke spends time on the human details of shepherds and a manger, John spends time on the cosmic ones.  Where Luke’s words are a simple story, John’s words elevate us into poetic mystery.  We could leave it there, in those mysterious heights.  We could keep at a distance this mysterious poetry that many discard as too heady or inaccessible.  Many theologians do.  Except…except…John doesn’t leave it dangling out in the mystery of the cosmos, untouchable or inaccessible.

John brings the Word straight to the ground.  “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  This God who created…who made promises through Abraham, who brought freedom through Moses, who instigated challenge through the prophets, who gave guidance through kings…this God became flesh.  A mysterious, inaccessible, cosmic God becomes a God that is part of our common humanity, through common flesh.  God taking on flesh to join us in our humanity is the birth we celebrate this morning.  It is why some people call today the Festival of the Incarnation rather than Christmas.  God incarnate simply means God in a body – or as John likes to put it, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”

God living among us in Jesus is a cause for celebration this Christmas.  Not simply because God showed up but because God immerses in the struggle of humanity.  As John writes, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”  Light moving in the dark; day against night.  This language may be poetic but we get it when someone talks about their darkness:

The darkness of someone we love living with a mental illness that is difficult to treat.

                The darkness of grief and the confusion it brings to daily life.

                The darkness of disease, acute or chronic, that seems to take up more space than anything else.

If we could sit and talk about the darkness, each one of us could name a way that it affects our lives or the life of someone we love.  It is into this real struggle, this darkness, that Jesus is born.  Jesus who continues to bring light that reveals God in the midst of the worst that life brings – a light that brings hope as we are born children of God.

Our birth as children of God is ‘not of blood.’  This birth gives us hope that “we will not be subject to the frailties of human flesh forever.”[2]  Our birth as children of God is “not of the will of the flesh”.  This birth gives us hope that “we are more than our desires.”[3]  Our birth as children of God is not “of the will of humans.”[4]   This birth gives us hope that “we will not always be subject to the whim and will of others.”  As children of God, our lives have meaning over against anything we can come up with to say they don’t

Our birth as children of God allows us to see the transcendent, cosmic God up close and personal in the person of Jesus.  So that when we celebrate Emmanuel (God with us) we celebrate the hope that is given to us as we are born children of God.  To this and to all God is doing we can say, “Merry Christmas!”

“The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



[1] Genesis is the first book of the Bible’s 66 books. Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…”

[2] David Lose on Working Preacher, December 25, 2010.  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=857

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Luke 2:1-20 “Christmas Hope: Personal, Authentic, and Messy”

Luke 2:1-20  “Christmas Hope: Personal, Authentic, and Messy”

December 24, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Luke 2:1-20 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see — I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

The music of Christmas is widely known.  A lot of people can hear a medley of carols and know several of them.  At the very least, they may know the Christmas carols enough to hum along in a store.  Or maybe know them well enough to belt out the familiar words in the car on a road trip.  Maybe they even fill in for words they don’t know, play catch up on rhythms, generally letting it all hang out.  People know this music enough to be comfortable with it, to play with it, to give voice to it.  This caroling is imperfect and joyous.  These imperfect carols somehow offer a balance to the technique of Auto-Tuning that perfects the singing we hear on the radio.  In contrast to Auto-Tune, these spontaneous carols that we sing are personal, authentic, and messy.

And these carols tell a story.  A story that gathers us together late on Christmas Eve night.  A story that had its first tellers long ago.  Tellers for whom the story is personal, authentic, and messy.

The shepherds in the field who heard the angels sing are shady characters.  They are nothing close to the tidy shepherds in the manger scenes that sit in our homes.  These shepherds in Luke aren’t dressed in wrinkle-free, tan burlap with white corded belts.  They are the dirty ones.  The closest we might come to these men in the 21st century would be to call to mind the people who camp under bridges and call it home.  Some of us want to claim a respect for these voices from the margin but most of us struggle to figure out how to actually do it.

These are the shepherds for whom the angels sing.  They are given first dibs on the story by the angel who tells them – “to you is born this day…a Savior…a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”[1]  They head out fast to go see this baby, this Savior.  After all, they clearly need one.  When they get to the manger, they talk about what’s been told to them.  Imagine for a moment the way they tell the story.  At best, they tell it in a way that’s personal, authentic, and messy; at best, they tell the story because it’s first and foremost for them.  The shepherds need a Savior; it’s obvious that they need one – a Savior definitely for them.

So, because the Savior is for them, the shepherds tell Mary and Joseph, and apparently anyone else who will listen, because, “…all who heard it were amazed.”[2]  What amazes them?  The story the shepherds tell?  That the shepherds are the ones telling it?  That a Savior is born?  That angels came, spoke, AND sang?  It’s pretty much all amazing.  The amazing part to me is that Mary heard the shepherds out.  The scripture makes a distinction here in verse 19: “All who heard it were amazed but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”[3]  She’s just had a baby in a barn, laid the baby in a manger that by day functions as a feeding trough, and she’s treasuring the words of these wild, shady shepherds in her heart.  Who does that?!  For Mary, this story delivered by the shepherds somehow delivered a message that made sense.  At best, perhaps because she heard it in a way that’s personal, authentic, and messy; at best, because…just maybe…it’s first and foremost for her too.  Perhaps Mary needs a Savior, a Savior definitely for her.

Time and again in the Bible, we are given story after story about deeply flawed people, authentic and messy people – people who are regularly either hurting other people or hurting themselves.  But it doesn’t take a 2,000 year old look back in time to see this play out.  Just look, peek around at each other in the pews, or in the shops at the mall, or in your kids’ sports teams, or in the dysfunction in your own families.  In all of these situations it is easy to see deeply flawed people, authentic and messy people – people who are regularly either hurting each other or hurting themselves.   Similarly to the travelers in the car who sing carols off-key and off-rhythm, so is…well…pretty much everyone who sings without the doctoring of Auto-Tune…which pretty much means you too.

Our lives reveal a truth that we don’t often share with ourselves and try to avoid sharing with anyone else.  Here’s the truth…we aren’t living lives that are 100% patient, loving and grace-giving 100% of the time.  We don’t even have to open a newspaper to see this mess play out.  We see it at work, at home, at church, on the road…you get the picture.  Despite our best intentions to “do better next time,” despite the reassurances that we give ourselves about being “good people,” the truth remains: anywhere people show up, so too does the mess.

It is into this very mess, where we spend time hurting each other and hurting ourselves, that God shows up.  God shows up, of all places, in a manger.  A manger that has a splinter here and a cracked peg there – a manger that is personal, authentic, and messy, a manger that cradles and reveals God showing up in Christ the Savior.  The manger reveals the Savior who came under a star in skin and solidarity, into a fragile humanity, to show up in the flawed, personal mess that is our lives.  No longer is it self-help, it is God-help; because if history is any indication, we are unable to save ourselves from each other or for that matter, save ourselves even from ourselves.

On the First Christmas, God showed up as a baby bringing hope.  “…hope [that] rests not in what we have done, nor can do, but in all that God is,” has done and is doing.[4]  And we cling to the promise of Christ’s hope – the hope of all that God is yesterday in a living baby, today in a living Christ and tomorrow in an eternal God – the eternal God who turns a cross into resurrection and a baby in a manger into salvation for the world.

God shows up and says, “Not so fast…I’ve been there too …I who came in the form of a baby, who lived and walked the earth, who was put to death and who conquered death in rising again…I am God and I have the last word.” This last word of God is grace.  Grace brought by the Savior who draws us back into God.  And out of this grace, this new found tie back into God, emerges a sustainable hope – a hope that is personal, authentic, and messy as we live into it and talk about it in real time in our real lives.

This is the hope first shared with the shepherds, and now shared among us, as the angel says, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:  to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior…”  So, good news…for All…  This means that this Savior is for the people around you and this Savior is for you.   Merry Christmas!


[1] Luke 2:11-12

[2] Luke 2:18

[3] Luke 2:19

[4] W. Dennis Tucher Jr., “Lectionary for November 27, 2011: Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19.”  http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx

Matthew 11:2-11 Careful, You’re Wishing Your Life Away

Matthew 11:2-11  Careful, You’re Wishing Your Life Away

December 15, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

 

Matthew 11:2-6  When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 4 Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” 7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

 

 

My stepfather was always good for a pithy word of wisdom.  Responding to my teenage panic when I forgot to tip the waitress my first time into a restaurant on my own, Pops said, “You don’t get rich by tipping cheap.”  Or time and again when I was just about jumping out of my skin about something exciting on the calendar and would say things like, “I wish it were Saturday already,” Pops would say, “Careful, you’re wishing your life away.”  It’s that one especially that still catches me.  The whole thing about staying in the day, knowing full well there is something amazing ahead on the calendar.  “Careful, you’re wishing your life away.”

Christmas can be like that kind of waiting.  When you’re four, waiting to open that enormous box under the tree can feel like a lifetime.  When you’re fourteen, waiting to open what looks like it could be the new PlayStation4.  When you’re twenty-four, waiting to hear back about that job interview or whether you’ve been accepted to that graduate program.  When you’re sixty-four, waiting for your daughter’s flight to land or for the grandkids to show up for Christmas dinner.  When you’re ninety-four, waiting to be picked up for that dinner that includes four or five generations under one roof.  The things we wait for change but there is always waiting.

Some of us are better at waiting than others.  But, for most people, waiting often inspires curiosity.  What will whatever we’re waiting for actually be like?  John the Baptist’s question comes out of this kind of curiosity.  John sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  And, typical of Jesus, he doesn’t actually answer the question.  He tells them to report back to John what they hear and see.  Although it’s funny that he tells them to report their observations and then he tells them what to say.  Regardless, Jesus responds to John’s question without really answering it.  Leaving John to wonder about the information he receives in light of the question he asked, “Is Jesus the Messiah?”

It’s a great question.  Many people at that time were awaiting the Messiah.  At the turn of the first century there were many people claiming to be the Messiah.  It was a confusing time, differently so than today.  Today, I don’t hear a lot of people wondering about Messiahs.  But I do hear people waiting.  People are looking and waiting for leaders to emerge as is evident in the Presidential elections.  People are looking and waiting for wins as the Broncos sew-up their regular season play and head toward the play-offs.  People are looking and waiting for a lot of things, good things, fine things, even fun things.  But are they looking and waiting for a Messiah?  A Savior?  The evidence would suggest not.

So the move we make in Advent as a church is a big one.  The move into preparation and waiting is not only to celebrate a birthday from long ago.  The people who are the church look toward a future with hope because there is a Messiah.  This promise is massively and widely counter-cultural.  This promise involves some Advent waiting.

Waiting in which some of us in the pews wonder if any of this even makes a difference?  Or wondering if Jesus is who he says he is?  Or who any faithful saint says Jesus is?  However, waiting is not a vacuum.  Waiting is time we don’t wish away.  Revealed in the waiting is need.  This may be some of what Jesus is getting at in his answer to John’s disciples.  There is real need that needs real solutions.  Jesus names hunger, illness, death, and poverty.  We can add to this list quickly by naming violence against family, friend, and neighbor that comes in many forms – gossip, slander, physical abuse, murder.

I would also add to the list the way we are prone to elevate and highlight certain kinds of dramatic violence as grief-worthy while relegating the daily violence that is happening in some people’s lives and communities to normalcy.  Our rapt attention to the spikes of violence deemed newsworthy and our failure to engage in the problem of daily violence that we’ve deemed normal violates our common humanity.  Deeming certain kinds of violence as normal adds, not insult to injury, but injury to injury.  In this way, we are not innocent bystanders.

The problems that Jesus names and the problems we add to the list are relational.  In the relational language of scripture we call each other neighbors; in the language of humanity we simply call each other people.  As people we are capable of fatally wounding each other in mind, body, and spirit…as people, the stark reality of our willingness to hurt each other, and our ignorance in even seeing that we hurt each other, makes obvious that we deeply need a Savior – a Savior who illuminates these stark realities and frees us into them to help our neighbor as well as being helped by them.  Some of us are made ready to do the hard work necessary to meet real needs and some of us are in the sometimes more difficult reality of asking for and receiving help when we have need.  Whichever end of the giving and receiving you find yourself, there is more to consider in this text.  This isn’t simply about helping each other and our neighbor out in the name of Jesus.

This is about being saved by the Messiah who reveals our need by calling us out on the way we damage each other and ourselves.  We, who are saint and sinner at the same time, are drawn to faith by the One who forgives us for the hurt we dole out and stands with us while we take on the consequences.  It is this one, this Messiah, who the kids in Simply Christmas point us toward this morning even as we still wonder if we’re really in need.  Only to hear that, yes, we are in need and cannot save ourselves.  But the one who is, who was, and who is to come, is the Savior.  A Savior worth the wait – a Savior for all of us, a Savior for you.