Tag Archives: hope

Love Poured Into Our Hearts [OR A Human Glimmer in the Social Medias]

June 14, 2026 caitlin121608

**sermon art: Truelove (Heart Series) by Elizabeth Chapman, acrylic on canvas

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 14, 2026

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Romans 5:1-8 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 afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, 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.

Matthew 9:35-10:14 Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
^10:1 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ² These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, ⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. [⁹ Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, ¹⁰ no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff, for laborers deserve their food. ¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. ¹² As you enter the house, greet it. ¹³ If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴ If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.

[sermon begins]

The positives about social media are rarely touted. That there’s anything to feel positive about is tough to imagine if you haven’t experienced it or you’ve experienced the opposite of it or you’re in recovery from addiction to it. Acknowledge that that’s a lot of “ifs,” humor me for a moment, if you would. Besides the fact that the socials connect me with childhood friends, extended family, and neighbors who don’t live on my street, the social medias give me ready access to my favorite cooks, artists, writers, comedians, professors, historians, and leadership experts. My Grandma Ruth, who was a librarian, would be stunned by the information at our fingertips. But what I find most amazing about the social medias is the human connections there, especially around health issues or grief and loss. I’m not talking about large scale events around the world. Our very human bodies aren’t designed to hold all the things all the time all at once.

I’m talking about when someone I know posts about the death of someone close to them, the compassion pouring towards them from the rest of us is immediate. Similarly, encouragement flies fast towards someone who is in the hospital or on the slow road of healing. Obviously, the encouragement isn’t sufficient to alleviate the suffering. But it is a human glimmer of hope as it can help people feel less alone. The social media example breaks down pretty quickly when it comes to biblical interpretation, just to say it out loud, but there is something to be said when we see support and encouragement play out in the world analogous to how we’re encouraged to be the church in the world.

As I preached last week, Jesus invited unlikely people to follow him. It’s no secret that God collects the unlikeliest people into God’s plan and sends them out to show love the world. It just surprises us when it happens. Today’s Bible story shows Jesus moved to compassion when he sees harassed and helpless crowds of people. He commissions his followers to heal the suffering that they see around them. The kingdom of heaven coming near brings practical help to hurting people. Jesus instructs his apostles to start with those closest to home, their fellow Jews. They already have a shared language and a shared God. They are a good place to start. As the apostles heal people, Jesus tells them to travel light and hold their message lightly when there’s resistance. Dust off your feet and keep moving, he tells them. Jesus prompts urgency because people are suffering.

Suffering cannot be compared. It’s a lot like beauty that way. What’s more beautiful—the fiery orange of a Colorado sunset or the riotous tumble of pink peonies? It’s a ridiculous question. Suffering is similar. Being with someone who is suffering for any reason is NOT a time to get into qualifying their experience, giving a different take on it, or redirecting them to someone else’s experience of suffering worse than they are. That stuff is the opposite of helpful. Being with someone who is suffering IS a time to listen and to wonder. It’s a time to share their burden by holding space for it without rushing to comfort. Sharing the burden lightens the suffering without imagining that it can be taken away.

Suffering is something the Apostle Paul seemed to deeply understand in his letter to the fledgling Roman church. How often do you suppose he cried out to God withOUT a pen in hand? It must have been a lot given his transformation from the one punishing the earliest Christians to the one being beaten, stoned, and imprisoned for his faith.[1] He knew suffering intimately to be able to write about suffering as he only he could. He knew suffering like a friend, just like he knew God as a friend.

If you would, open your worship bulletin to the Romans reading again. In verse 8, Paul connects God’s love to the cross. Love is the heart of the matter for Paul as he pivots into the next four chapters of his letter.[2] Now look at the end of verse 3 and follow along with me:

…affliction produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and 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.”

The Apostle Paul is talking to all of us. One reason his words about affliction and suffering resonate so strongly is because he describes what he knows and what we know. He knows enough to be comforting. Comfort is no small thing. It’s not appeasement – meaning I’m not making you feel better so that I feel better. Comfort is deep knowing shared across our human experience. Most of us have experienced suffering and still we live on. Some of us live in the struggle but still we live. Paul’s account of moving from affliction to endurance to character to hope is a description not a strategy. He describes what we know by faith and experience about how suffering works. There are days in the midst of it that we wonder how it’s possible to make it through. Days in which we’re not sure who we are anymore. And then, in the body of Christ, the church, we’re reminded once again of the main things – God’s promises to us no matter what is happening.

Paul talks about affliction, endurance, character, and hope NOT as a way to redemption. We’re not better people because we suffer. We’re not made more pure because we suffer. Rather, sometimes we see more easily what’s most important when we are suffering. Paul alludes to it in Romans and later writes in Corinthians that the most important thing, the greatest thing, is love.[3] As much as Paul likes theology, he’s not solving a theological problem here, he’s encouraging the first century churches that God’s story is a love story. God’s love story about how God demonstrates God’s love for people through action, through Jesus’ self-sacrificing death on the cross. The cross defies explanation but insists that it reveals love.[4] Divine love. God’s love.

We’re at a time on the planet when the church is especially positioned to talk about being human and to simply be human together. Pope Leo just wrote a formal encyclical about the grandeur of being human and being human together in the age of Artificial Intelligence. Organizational thinkers are reflecting on our shared humanity and what it means to think and work together with A.I. and without it. Artists and musicians are creating purely human expressions of our experience—both the beauty and the pain of being human. Church is an inherently human experience encountering the divine.

Jesus connected his followers with each other, coached them, and sent them out to heal. As he prepared them to deal with conflict, he also gave them hope. Hope that healing was possible through their hands because they were sent by God who loves the world.

God’s love is known through action. For the church, we’re promised God’s action in Jesus. Jesus’ ministry of love and justice while he walked the earth. Jesus’ death on a cross revealing the depth of divine love. Jesus present in water, bread, and wine so that we become the mercy and love that we receive. God’s love certainly isn’t limited to God’s church, but we are commissioned into God’s work of love, of healing, of hope for the sake of the world. “Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Thanks be to God. And amen.

_______________________________________________________

[1] Acts 7 (when Paul was still Saul); Acts chapters 9, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21, 22, and 23.

[2] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave Podcast #908: Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 18, 2023.

[3] 1 Corinthians 13:13

[4] Ibid., Skinner.

Sermons

The Hope That God Has in Store for Us [OR Jesus Wasn’t Baptized a Christian]

January 11, 2026 caitlin121608

**sermon art: The Baptism of Christ by Daniel Bonnell

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on January 11, 2026 – Baptism of Our Lord Sunday

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

Matthew 3:13-17 Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. ¹⁴ John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵ But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. ¹⁶ And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

[sermon begins]

Over the past few weeks of the Christmas season, we’ve been rightly focused on the sweet baby Jesus—celebrating both his birth to Jewish parents, and the Epiphany of his arrival as a gift to all the nations, to the non-Jews. To us. Today we turn from the sweet baby to the grown-up bearded Jesus. Things happen fast in Matthew’s gospel. Last week we heard about the wise men who followed a star to bring gifts to the baby Jesus. Today we gather on the festival of the Baptism of Our Lord – the day when Jesus plunges into the waters of baptism. In this plunge, all righteousness is fulfilled, all that is pure, sacred and holy is fulfilled. Jesus’ plunge into the waters of John’s baptism is a saturating and surprising immersion into the flow of God’s righteousness. And, as Jesus came up from the waters, the Spirit landed on him like a dove as God proclaims, “This is my Son, the Beloved…” Jesus’ baptism is an astounding act followed by an awesome announcement. It may surprise you to learn that his baptism was not a Christian one.

Ritual washing was and continues to be common among our Jewish cousins in the faith. John was not baptizing people in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. His was a baptism of repentance.[1] The Bible doesn’t give us a lot about Jesus and John the Baptist’s relationship aside from their mothers knowing each other.[2] John was a mysterious figure out in the wilderness calling people to repent. People flocked to him from Jerusalem and all Judea to be baptized with water for repentance.

Repentance is commonly understood as a moral move. Like, I was doing something bad and now I’m going to start do something good instead. But the word repentance here in Matthew means something more like a changed mind or a new understanding.[3] For Jesus, this baptism didn’t wash away sin as much as it revealed what God had in store for him next.[4] A thrilling scene of the spirit descending on Jesus, imparting the power to speak for God, and the authority to drive out unclean spirits.[5] A thrilling scene into which God speaks for others to hear, “This is my Son, the Beloved…”

While Jesus didn’t receive a Christian baptism, many of us were baptized with water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection to follow where he leads, to see what God has in store for us next. What’s in store for us next is sometimes clear. Like with Welcome 150’s mission that is to connect us more closely with God, each other, and the wider community. More than a building renovation, Welcome 150 points us to God’s future for us in concrete and transcendent ways. The Epiphany matching gift opportunity is energizing and hopeful. As Pastor Michael preached last Sunday, “Christmas delivers light…Epiphany hands it over to us and gives us what we need to move forward.” His sermon was a powerful reminder that we are entrusted with the light, to carry it, to share it, and to move forward with it.

Our almost 150-year-old congregation has worshiped in three different buildings. Caring for an historic building like this Mid-Century Modern queen is a new learning curve. Together we decided to learn what God has in store for us by shining the light through this place and expanding our accessibility, welcome, energy efficiency, and more. Welcome 150 is a means to a mission centered on the good news of Jesus.

Figuring out what God has in store for us next is also where things can get spicey. Our unity in baptism is not the uniformity of a hive mind. Attending a church meeting of any kind reveals diversity that allows for rich conversation. As a case in point, Pastor Michael is leading a six-week series on Faith and Civic Life. Upwards of 45 people came here last Tuesday at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. to tease apart what it means to follow Jesus and to live in this country. The classes explore the deep connections between Christian faith, discipleship, and civic life. Rooted in the ELCA’s Study of Civic Life & Faith, this series creates space for learning, reflection, and thoughtful conversation, even when we do not all agree.

Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. argued that a positive peace is the presence of justice, and a negative peace is the absence of tension. We don’t tend to enjoy this formative tension. Tension pulls us out of our comfort zones and asks hard questions. Questions that need to be asked in our country across decades and even centuries. We began as a divided country from our very inception. The hope of religious freedom for European immigrants was eclipsed by the obliteration and relocation of the native peoples who long lived on this land and continue to do so. The dream of prosperity was manifested in the south AND the north first on the shoulders of enslaved black Africans and then on the shoulders of various immigrant communities who’ve arrived seeking their own dreams. The historical record right on up through today is loaded with conflict about who belongs in this country and who doesn’t. We’ve moved beyond spicey into matters of life and death.

About as timely as it gets, this Tuesday’s class led by Pastor Michael asks the question, “How Do Christians Address Controversial Civic Issues?” All are welcome. Bring your curiosity, your convictions, your questions, and your hope. This is an invitation to grow in faith, deepen understanding, and practice thoughtful, faithful engagement in the public square. Practice gives us a chance of remaining connected across the divide by the power of God’s love.

We complicate Jesus’ command to love in as many ways as humanly possible. But the Beloved Son leads us by example into what God has in store for us next. He blessed strangers and non-Jews, he ate meals with unlovable people, he had public conversations with women no one spoke to, and he had secret conversations with religious leaders who opposed him by day. When Jesus was arrested just before his crucifixion, one of his friends tried to fight off the guards arresting him and Jesus told him to put the sword away. Jesus raised his hand in healing at the time of his arrest, not violence. Through the waters of baptism God promises to draw us into deeper relationship with God and into lives that are ever more Christ-shaped. In our community and across the country, it’s obvious that we need some saving. We need saving from ourselves and from the harm we inflict on one another even when we’re trying to do good.

Our ELCA Lutheran Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry says it this way:

“We are a church dedicated to the work of justice and peace, hope and renewal, love and grace. We hope for greater justice in this world and peace for all humanity. We hope for renewal in God’s salvation.”[6]

Bishop Curry reminds us that renewal is possible because what God has in store for us is already fulfilled in the righteousness of God’s Son, the Beloved. A son given to us as a child born for us…authority rests on him and he is named the Prince of Peace.[7] A Savior who is “good news of great joy for all people.”[8] Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift,[9] in whom we are baptized and set free. Amen.

____________________________________________________________

[1] Matthew 3:11

[2] Luke 1:39-56

[3] Matthew L. Skinner. A Companion to the New Testament: The Gospels and Acts. (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2017) 118-119.

[4] Matthew L. Skinner, Professor of New Testament, St. Paul, MN. Podcast commentary on lectionary readings for January 11, 2026. #1063: Baptism of Our Lord – January 11, 2026 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[5] Ibid.

[6] Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry. Waiting With Hope. Living Lutheran, Winter 2025, page 50.

[7] Isaiah 9:6-7

[8] Luke 2:10-11 The angels announce Jesus’ birth to the shepherds in the field.

[9] 2 Corinthians 9:15

Preaching, Sermons

Hope Holds Laughter Through Tears and Hope Lives Here

November 9, 2025 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on November 9, 2025

[sermon begins after one Bible reading; the three other Bible readings are at the end of the sermon]

Luke 20:27-38 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to [Jesus] ²⁸ and asked him a question: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”
³⁴ Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. ³⁶ Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷ And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”

[sermon begins]

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has given over 300 million books to over 3 million children across 5 countries.[1] Her dad couldn’t read or write, which led her to inspire a love of reading by gifting books free of charge to children from birth to five years old. Because reading in a path to dreams coming true. Hope through literacy. I first met Dolly through the clock radio on my bedside table. She crooned about life, love, and loss in true country and pop tunes. In an interview, she was once asked about her wigs, nails, and clothes. She said that they made it handy to disappear into real life when she wasn’t wearing them. She put on a plaid flannel shirt, hop into the camper with her husband for a road trip, and no one knew who she was. The interview was around the time of her early movies. One of those films was Steel Magnolias. “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion,” her character Truvy chimed in a cemetery. We can feel the truth of those moments, “Laughter through tears…”

Last Sunday, we celebrated All Saints Sunday. One of my favorite Sundays of the church year, we remember sinner-saints who have completed their earthly journeys in the past year. It simultaneously fills my heart and breaks it wide open as Augustana folks we know and love are named and remembered along with family and friends who have also died. When I get to do a funeral for someone, my words of welcome acknowledge the celebration of life alongside the grief we experience, that we may laugh and cry and sometimes do both at the same time. “Laughter through tears.” People often ask me whether I like to do funerals. Honestly? Yes. One of the reasons I like funerals is because God’s promises resonate powerfully in the face of loss. There’s nothing like hearing that the separation of death is not the last word. I’ve learned that people describe the afterlife in all kinds of ways that bring sweet, sweet comfort to grief.

For goodness sake, after losing three fathers, I’M comforted by images that offer hope through death. We imagine loved ones laughing with the ones they’re with and what they’re doing together. We wonder if they carry the healed wounds of their suffering in this life or if they’re perfected among the communion of all the saints in light. And we look forward to the happy reunion with them. Of course, we imagine and wonder. It’s only human to wonder about what God is up to in resurrection. And, of course, we don’t really know anything about what it will be like.

Grief and comfort, hope through death, are one of the ways into today’s Bible story. Some of the religious leaders in Jerusalem called Sadducees are testing Jesus with a riddle about an actual marriage law that protected women and their children after men died by marrying women to the next brother. The Sadducees created a hypothetical woman who married the next brother after each of them died. The riddle reduced the resurrection to an absurdity.[2] But it’s also how OUR minds work around death and afterlife. My own mother was married to Dad for 11 years, and then my stepfather, Pops, who died after 25 years of marriage, and then her third husband, dear Larry, who died after 19 years of marriage. In total, Mom has been married for 55 years. The Sadducees’ question asks who she will belong to someday after she completes her pilgrimage on earth. The answer is God. Just as do Dad, Pops, and dear Larry. For God is the God of the living and the dead.

Jesus responds to the Sadducees riddle using their resources, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Sadducees only sacred text was the Torah. No other books of the Bible. But Jesus responds to their riddle with a joke of his own. That’s the thing about jokes. They don’t translate well cross-culturally or across time. When Jesus invoked Moses and the burning bush, “where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Jesus’ listeners may have reacted with laughter and “oooo, good one!”[3] His response was more likely playful than proof.[4] This conversation was not going to change people’s minds no matter how many stories in the Torah pointed to an afterlife.

Similarly, any argument we make Biblically as proof of the afterlife is not going to change people’s minds. So what good is this story if it doesn’t lead the Sadducees or their followers to a greater understanding of resurrection and it doesn’t help our understanding of resurrection? Jesus reveals the limits of our lived experience when it comes to the resurrection. The rules we use to organize our world in this life simply don’t apply to the next.[5] Jesus responds to the Sadducees by challenging them to imagine a future for which they have no human reference. A future in which “children of the resurrection cannot die anymore.” [6] A future of hope not constrained by fear of death. A future of hope unleashed by love.

Jesus compares those of “this age” with those of “that age” inviting us into “that” one without being limited by “this” one.[7] In the resurrection, the long-awaited new age had already begun.[8] From the new age, Jesus coaches us to live in hope, not fear. The temptation is to take his coaching and curve it inward as a solely individual act. It is an individual reassurance, but hope is a fragile thing without others holding a vision of hope, too. Together as church, God’s mission for us unifies and elevates us above our individual buried hopes, and we are made more than the sum of our fears. Drawn into a collective hope from which we serve in love and embody Jesus’ example of feeding, healing, and connecting people in community.

In the past few months, we’ve been talking about how hope lives here through our Augustana congregation. We recorded people talking about their experience of hope in the community they find here and produced a video called “Hope Lives Here.”[9] They talk about being connected with each other, accepted for who they are, and treated like a real person who matters and belongs. They talk about putting their faith in action for the wider community and world. They talk about the hope they find in the unconditional love and grace of Jesus. We are a place and a people who receive a message of hope each Sunday, give it to each other, and take it back into the world that is oh so weary and in need of we have discovered here and what we’re able to give to each other in community.

Here and now, in this new age inaugurated by Jesus, the resurrection is less about the promise of more life and more about a promise of the presence of God in all and through all.[10] Like Job, we can say that in our flesh we shall see God.[11] Like the Psalmist we are guarded as the apple of God’s eye and sheltered under God’s wings.[12] Like the Thessalonian church, we are given eternal comfort and good hope by God’s love and grace abundantly bestowed upon us, comforting our hearts and strengthening them in every good work and word.[13] And ultimately, we are assured by Jesus, that to God we are all alive in life and in death. Thanks be to God for the good hope instilled in us and inspired through us by the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the world. Hope holds laughter through tears. Hope Lives Here. Amen

_________________________________________________________________

[1] Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library | USA, UK, IE, CA, AU

[2] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul., MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast about Bible texts for November 9, 2025. #1051: Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost – November 9, 2025 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[3] Rolf Jacobson, Professor of Old Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul., MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast about Bible texts for November 9, 2025. #1051: Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost – November 9, 2025 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[4] Skinner, Ibid.

[5] Kendra Mohn, Lead Pastor, Trinity Lutheran Church, Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Commentary on Luke 22:27-38 for November 9, 2025. Commentary on Luke 20:27-38 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] N.T. Wright. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), 244.

[9] Hope Lives Here. August 24, 2025. https://youtu.be/74d7bqQ_hgg?si=-hAvpSihfkv5AjfC Produced by kenrinehartmedia.com.

[10] Skinner, Ibid.

[11] Job 19:26

[12] Psalm 17:8

[13] 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

____________________________________

Job 19:23-27a: “O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
²⁴ O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock forever!
²⁵ For I know that my redeemer lives
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;
²⁶ and after my skin has been destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
^27a whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

Psalm 17:1-9 Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;
give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.
² From you let my vindication come;
let your eyes see the right.
³ If you try my heart, if you visit me by night,
if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me;
my mouth does not transgress.
⁴ As for what others do, by the word of your lips
I have avoided the ways of the violent.
⁵ My steps have held fast to your paths;
my feet have not slipped.
⁶ I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
incline your ear to me; hear my words.
⁷ Wondrously show your steadfast love,
O savior of those who seek refuge
from their adversaries at your right hand.
⁸ Guard me as the apple of the eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings,
⁹ from the wicked who despoil me,
my deadly enemies who surround me.

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17 As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, ² not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. ⁴ He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. ⁵ Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you?

¹³ But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. ¹⁴ For this purpose he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter.
¹⁶ Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, ¹⁷ comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

Preaching, Sermons

Daring to Look Back to Move Forward as Peacemakers [OR Pigs and Demons…What Could Go Right?!] Luke 8 and Galatians 3

June 22, 2025 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 22, 2025

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Luke 8:26-39 Then [Jesus and his disciples] arrived at the region of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ As he stepped out on shore, a man from the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had not worn any clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, shouting, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me,” ²⁹ for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. ³¹ They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.
³² Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding, and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd stampeded down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
³⁴ When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. ³⁶ Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. ³⁷ Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. ³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone out begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Galatians 3:23-29 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. ²⁵ But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, ²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷ As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

[sermon begins]

A couple of weeks ago I had a whirlwind, 72-hour, trip to see family related to my first Dad who was lost to schizophrenia. No ordinary get together, the goal was to tell Palm family stories, look at Palm family pictures of my Grandma Ruth and Granddad Palm, their parents, and their children who were my first dad and my uncle Robb who died a year apart, both near 50 years old. Three of my siblings were there, my mom, one niece, my Aunt Jean, one cousin, two teens, and two kids. One rental house. Mmm-hmmm. What could go right?! A lot, actually.

My Aunt Jean, a retired social worker, and I planned the structured time to show pictures and tell stories. We had a big flipchart that I used one afternoon to draw the family tree as a genogram along with more stories, health histories, and personality traits. The flipchart came in handy again the next day to draw the gifts and strengths that we each feel we gained from being part of the Palm family. It’s good to talk about the gifts when there are such obviously hard things in my family’s story. My Grandma Ruth was taken to live at an orphanage when she was 13 years old. We didn’t know a lot about her family. She wasn’t interested in talking about them. My niece has dug up a ton about Grandma Ruth’s mother who was committed to Kankakee State Hospital for the Insane and died there 20 years later.[1] It’s likely that Grandma Ruth never knew any of this about her mother. The asylum’s cemetery is surrounded by an 8-foot fence and not open to the public. The resting place of my great grandmother, Clara, is walled off.

Talking through this new information with my family and getting perspective on our family’s history, it makes sense to me that the impact of such a story is as invisible to us as the air we breathe. Whatever the gifts and challenges of my family’s story happen to be, they are normal to us. Daring to look over the walls of the cemetery, daring to look back to move forward, is worth a try.

The Gerasene demoniac in our Bible story had become a normal part of his community, too. Oh, sure, Legion was naked, unpredictable, dripping with demons, and living in the cemetery alongside the dead when he wasn’t shackled and chained in town, but his community knew what to expect from him. He was their normal. They knew what to expect from the man until Jesus showed up from across the sea. It was the first thing he did in Gentile country. Gentile means non-Jewish, territory. It was the only thing he did on that trip before returning home to Galilee. Must have been an important trip!

Jesus showed up, gave permission for the demons to enter a herd of pigs who then raced to the lake and drowned. It’s curious that the city folks were afraid when they saw the man sitting calmly at the feet of Jesus. Their fear was so great that they asked Jesus to leave town. If this Jesus could heal their demon-possessed neighbor, what other power might he have that could turn against them. Their normal had been disrupted with healing. It makes me wonder about our own comfort with the demons that we know versus the healing that we don’t know.

A lot is known about individual healing and transformation especially related to addiction and recovery. We know that those of us who face addiction and find healing in rooms of recovery like Alcoholics Anonymous process those experiences with an honest accounting of the past. Less is known about how we might transform systems, whether that system is our family, our town, our country, or our world. The more people you add, the more complicated it gets. I’m interested in those systems and what it takes to fight through fear of the unknown future to peer into the cemetery so that we can leave behind the chains and shackles that bind us. I’m interested in how a God who loves the whole world gives us hope and courage by the power of the Spirit to do so.

Notice that Jesus sent the healed man back into his community, back with his people. Restoring the man into relationships long thought irredeemable. I see that demoniac reconciled with his community, and I see our families, and cities, and country and I wonder, do I believe in a God of transformation or don’t I? Do I believe that God has a role for Jesus followers in that transformation or don’t I?

Last Thursday was Juneteenth.[2] Juneteenth celebrates June 19, 1865, the day when many enslaved people in Texas learned of their freedom through the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth is also known as America’s second Independence Day and considered the longest-running African American holiday. Juneteenth is as good a time as any for us as Coloradans and as Lutherans to wonder about how we work for truth and reconciliation across differences of race that are unexamined and embedded—things that seem normal in our policies and practices because it hadn’t occurred to us to look at them in that way. On my mother’s side, I’m the great-great-great granddaughter of a lowcountry enslaver of Black African people in South Carolina. Slavery and its modern iterations including mass incarceration continue to ensnare Black Americans in cycles of poverty, violence, addiction, and isolation from their friends and families. We can do better as we advocate for a transformed justice system that dares to break these cycles and imagine a different future. We can look back to the cemetery to move forward to a different future.

Juneteenth is also a new holiday in Augustana’s Personnel Manual. This means that the office was closed on Thursday along with the Augustana Early Learning Center. Commemorating Juneteenth aligns with Augustana’s mission statement, especially that, “we welcome everyone to worship Jesus…and go serve in the world.” For many of our Black members, staff, friends, family, and neighbors, this is a major holiday celebrating liberation from enslavement and forced work at the hands of White enslavers. Commemorating this holiday in the life of our congregation, doing this one small thing, dares us to look back to move forward.

As a confessional church, we confess our faith in Jesus as Lord of heaven and earth, giver of radical grace and unconditional love. We also confess each Sunday that there is much we do and leave undone that hurts ourselves and our neighbors. Frankly, there’s not much difference between family systems like yours and mine, and larger cultural systems that bring both gifts and challenges. There are differences of scale and impact for sure. But there is no difference in the ways that most of us leave patterns of behavior unexamined and, if they are examined, we can end up justifying those patterns as just the way the world works. It’s just our normal.

The apostle Paul wrote to a congregation of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians unified by baptism but struggling with the details like who should or shouldn’t be circumcised.[3] Paul reminds us in his letter to the Galatian church that we are free because of our baptism into Christ. Freed in Christ by faith so that all are one in Christ – no longer Jew or Greek, no longer slave or free, no longer male and female. Bible stories name differences all over the place and names us neighbors across difference – think the Syrophoenician woman[4], the Good Samaritan[5], and the Ethiopian eunuch[6] – although in fairness, race as we understand it is a much later 16^th century social construct.[7] Paul isn’t erasing our differences with Christ unifying theology. Unity is not uniformity. Unity in Christ dares to level the hierarchies of race, gender, class, and creed, to level the hierarchies that divide us and help us see Christ in each other. To dare to look into the cemetery of past actions that hurt ourselves and other people in order to move forward in hope.

While it’s reassuring that Christ is the great leveler, hierarchies that divide us seem true in our unexamined assumptions, our biases, our normal. It takes practice to celebrate and not fear difference in other people – practice in prayer, practice in worship, practice in thought and conversation, practice in advocacy, and practice in relationship with all kinds of people. As people freed by Jesus, without any reason to have to justify ourselves, we are free to practice as the body of Christ so that all may freely live without fear.

We live in a time when the world is moving fast, and action is needed. Slowing down to look over the walls of the cemetery can seem indulgent, however, slowing our thinking down is vital when fear shackles our humanity so that our actions align with Christ’s call to us to be peacemakers. Thankfully, Jesus breaches cemetery walls and sets us free. Jesus leads us through fear into community. In Christ, we are children of God who live in hope. Amen, and thanks be to God.

__________________________________________________

[1] Kankakee State Hospital, Illinois, Historic Asylums. Kankakee State Hospital (Historic Asylums)

[2] What is Juneteenth? https://www.history.com/news/what-is-juneteenth

[3] Brigitte Kahl, Professor of New Testament, Union Theological Seminary, New York. Commentary of Galatians 3:23-29 for June 22, 2025. Commentary on Galatians 3:23-29 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[4] Mark 7:24-30 Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman

[5] Luke 10:25-37 The parable of the Good Samaritan

[6] Acts 8:26-39 Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

[7] The History of the Idea of Race https://www.britannica.com/topic/race-human/The-history-of-the-idea-of-race

Preaching, Sermons

Easter Mystery: Where’s the BODY?!! – Luke 24:1-12

April 20, 2025 caitlin121608

**sermon art: Women at the Tomb by Graham Braddock

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church (Denver) on April 20, 2025

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

Luke 24:1-12 On the first day of the week, at early dawn, [the women] came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they went in, they did not find the body. ⁴ While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵ The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. ⁶ Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷ that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” ⁸ Then they remembered his words, ⁹ and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰ Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹ But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹² But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

[sermon begins]

Where’s the BODY?! Jesus’ BODY? Did someone take Jesus? Where did they put him? Is any BODY there?! The perplexed women—Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James and the others—saw so much as part of Jesus’ ministry, especially in those last few days. They watched Jesus be put to death on a cross by politically and religiously powerful people. They watched Joseph of Arimathea take Jesus off the cross and put him in the tomb. They packed spices and ointments with which they’d return after resting on the Sabbath “according to the commandment.”[1]

The women were faithful, courageous, and diligent through the previous days of tragedy, confusion, and grief. When so many disciples fled, or otherwise fell apart, these women stayed and saw it all. But the BODY is gone! There was no BODY to see. No BODY to tend. They had seen Jesus’ body laid in the tomb, so they were ready to anoint his body with oil and spices, to say thank you for his life, and to say a loving goodbye after his death. Instead, they encounter a couple of razzle dazzle dudes of the divine kind. The women react to their dazzling divinity by bowing their faces to the ground.

Although, what the two dazzling men do next is fairly ordinary. They remind the women what Jesus taught them when he was alive. And what he taught them fits with what they saw him go through on the cross. The women saw ungodly violence and sifted their experiences through what Jesus said before he died, and through what the two dazzling dudes in the tomb are saying now. Their reminder makes sense of things. That’s way this works. We hear something that gives our experience a new or different meaning—not explaining the grief away or making heinous suffering magically better—but gleaning from suffering and grief in a way that feels like a gift.

This gift of gleaning is no small thing. The Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism and Desmond Tutu of Anglican Christianity reflected together on joy and suffering from their respective traditions.[2] These two wizened elders talked about living in deep joy even though we experience suffering. Neither they, nor any of us here, must go very far personally or culturally to find tragedy, confusion, and grief. From personal illness to the death of a loved one, to international genocide, to innocent immigrants deported to horrific prisons, to queer youth vilified or worse, to whatever you’d like to add to the list, we totally get tragedy and grief. We get it deep in our gut, in our heartache, in our BODY.

Our bodies just aren’t designed to hold it all. Our bodies are designed to hold a village-worth of news, not a world’s worth of news. It’s tempting to numb our suffering in the sizzle-and-fizzle dopamine cycle of food, alcohol, or doom-scrolling as we try to make our bodies feel better. The problem with the sizzle-and-fizzle strategy is that we humans tend to put those behaviors on repeat. We entomb ourselves in the things that bring temporary relief. Tombs of our own making that wound our bodies, isolate us from each other, and steal our joy.

Living in deep joy while we experience suffering SOUNDS nice. Actually, a little better than nice. And lots better than how we often handle suffering. Take Jesus’ apostles who weren’t at the tomb with the women. They were hiding out. Not unusual in dark times to lay low and go silent. They too had been through terror and grief in the last three days. From their vantage point, of course Jesus’ BODY was still in the tomb. They knew he’d died. They’re terrified that they’re next in line for the death penalty. When Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the others shared what they had heard at the tomb, the apostles called it an “idle tale”—which is a G-rated translation of that Greek word, by the way. BODIES don’t just disappear, and they certainly don’t just rise. Except…there’s the apostle Peter.

The very same Peter who denied that he knew Jesus three times during Jesus’ crucifixion trial. Peter ran to the tomb despite the women’s “idle tale.” Perhaps he was more concerned that the women were telling the truth, worrying what his friend Jesus would say about Peter’s denials during the trial. It could be hope or fear or both that sent Peter running to the tomb to see if any BODY is there.

Regardless, Peter’s dash to the tomb depended on the women’s story. That can be a frustrating thing about resurrection faith. We have no access to it outside of the witness of other people, the witness of the wider church that is also called the BODY of Christ.[3] Like Peter, we’re dependent on each other for resurrection faith. Like Peter looking into the tomb himself, ultimately the witness of the church is not enough, and people need their own encounters with Jesus and the empty tomb.

Where our individual experiences connect with the resurrection faith of the church is part of what the empty tomb is about. Like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Peter, we do not solve the mystery, we enter the mystery of resurrection faith – God bringing us through cross and tomb into new life because we are God’s children, broken and beloved, resurrected into the BODY of Christ through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Resurrection faith trusts that there is enough for every BODY—enough resources, enough love, enough life—as we extend Christ’s arms of love and grace, so that Jesus’ joyous welcome through us nourishes the world into community.

New life literally abounds as Easter and Spring happen simultaneously this year. The new snow soaks into tree roots. Perennials pop up green and budding while birds fly back to our latitude for nesting and nectar. Perhaps your suffering, confusion, and grief make it difficult to see life at all, to feel any joy. Life doesn’t conveniently align with the season of the earth or the season of the church. One gift of the BODY of Christ is that the prayers, practices, and people of the church’s resurrection faith cocoon us while we grieve or heal, holding space for joy until we can feel it once more. When we’re too broken to pray, our church community prays for us as the risen BODY of Christ for each other and for the world. Our BODIES are not designed to hold it all, BUT the BODY of Christ, the church, is designed to hold it together.

On a wider scale, being the church, the BODY of Christ, calls us to be the love that we receive however imperfectly we reveal that love. We donate land for affordable homes just down the hill. We welcome the stranger with our refugee support teams. We pray for our enemies while holding them accountable for the dignity of each child of God. And we love our neighbors as ourselves by accompanying them in advocacy and amplifying their voices with our own.

The good news of Easter reminds us that God loves the world and does not leave us alone – the dazzling men in the tomb reminded the women that Jesus had already told them this good news; the apostles heard the good news of the resurrection from Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the others; and today, Easter Sunday, and for the next 50 days of the Easter season, we remind each other that there is good news of defiant joy and hope in the face of suffering.

Our suffering is joined by the risen Christ who knows suffering personally, who rolls open the tombs we make for ourselves, and draws us into new life, into the BODY of Christ. Where’s the BODY? Is any BODY there?! Yes. Right here. We are the BODY made new yet again today in community from the newest visitors to the longest time members. God brings us through cross and tomb into the joy of new life solely because we are beloved children of God. Each one of us, EVERY BODY, is unconditionally beloved. By that very love, you are welcome here. The church gets to be the love we receive for the sake of the world and remind everyone that they are loved, too. This means that there is nothing you can do or not do to make God love you anymore or any less. That’s the way unconditional love works. Happy Easter!

_________________________________________________________

[1] Luke 23:50-56

[2] Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. (New York: Avery, 2016).

[3] Matthew Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary. Podcast on Bible readings for Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1129

Preaching, Sermons

What is Truth? [OR Christian Nationalism is Neither Faithful nor Patriotic]

November 24, 2024 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on November 24, 2024 – Christ the King Sunday

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

John 18:33-38 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” ³⁵Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” ³⁷Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” ³⁸Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

[sermon begins]

Jesus, Jesus, he’s our man, if he can’t do it, no one can! These high holy Jesus days like Christ the King have an odd quality to them because Jesus can become a super-Jesus only vaguely resembling Jesus’ biblical ministry. This means it’s a good day to take a good, close look at Jesus in the Gospel of John. We can still cheer on Jesus, but it may sound differently when we do.

Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate in court. They debated truth as time stood oddly still. It mattered how Jesus answered Pilate because there were religious leaders who’d had it with him and simply wanted him to go away. Here’s a sampling of the accusations against him in the Gospel of John…

…Jesus attended a wedding, irritated by his mom but does what she says anyway – turning water into the finest wine as the first of his signs. [1]

…Jesus wielded a whip, clearing the temple of vendors who swindled those who lived in poverty. [2]

…Jesus talked about new life with a fearful Pharisee in the middle of the night. [3]

…Jesus met a shady woman in the light of the noonday sun, breaking gender rules in his tradition. [4]

…Jesus healed many and fed over 5,000; walked on water and was alternately called the Word made flesh, the lamb of God, the Son of God, the King of the Jews, the bread of life, the good shepherd, the light of the world, and the truth.

…Jesus quietly forgave then saved the woman caught in adultery from being executed by stoning and sent her on her way while indicting her accusers. [5]

…Jesus cried with his friends Mary and Martha then raised Lazarus from the dead. [6]

… Jesus’ feet dripped with oil poured by Mary, anointing him both as king and as one soon to die. [7]

…Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem, then stripped down to his skivvies to wash his friends’ feet, before praying for his disciples.[8]

Jesus was criminalized for vulnerable acts so powerful that he threatened the status quo of the most powerful. Jesus found himself standing in front Pontius Pilate arguing about truth before he was sentenced to death by crucifixion as the King of the Jews.

There were a number of problems with Jesus being and doing any ONE of those things, much less ALL of them. The time had come to face the music. He stood in front of Pontius Pilate. Pilate was on the emperor’s payroll. He was not much interested in the petty, internal squabbles of the Jewish religious leaders. He was, however, very interested in keeping the peace. Uprisings were costly and Pilate would pay the piper for upsetting emperor. Sacrificing Jesus was a lesser of the evils in his book and his self-interest was staying alive. What did it matter that the Truth was standing right in front of Pilate as he asked, “What is truth?”

We tend to think of truth as telling a story accurately. We don’t tend to think of truth as the story itself. We rarely think of truth in terms of a person. If each of us IS a “truth” claim, then what is that truth? In other words, each moment of my life reveals what I think is important in terms of other people, myself, time, money, and God. What would that look like? What could you learn about the truth that is me or the truth that is you? We’re all invested in different things. We could even say we’re ruled by different things, justifying our choices until we make some kind of sense to ourselves. Reflection of this kind reveals what runs and rules our lives, revealing our actual king.

I’d like to pause and point out what just happened here because I think it happens a lot. We start out talking about Jesus and we end up talking about ourselves. The sermon began with parts of Jesus’ story from the Gospel of John and how he ended up in front of Pilate. Talking about Pilate turns us toward the topic of self. Naturally. Pilate is a classic human example of what not to do in the name of self-interest. It’s hard to resist distancing ourselves from him even as we ask in our own day, “What is truth?”

Adoration is part of Christ the King Sunday but it’s not the whole story. The Feast of Christ the King is young in the church calendar. Begun in 1925 by Pope Pius XI, its purpose is to compel our hearts, minds, and lives into the reign of God on earth, over and above the pull of power in the world. [9] Not a bad idea in the 1920s given the devastation of World War I as fascism was on the rise in Germany and Italy. Not a bad idea given the timeless appeal of trading grace and love of neighbor for power. Lutherans waited until the 1970s to celebrate it. Christ the King Sunday is to the church calendar a bit like New Year’s Eve is to the Common Era Gregorian calendar that we use every day.

And just like New Year’s Eve, we can be tempted to put on a happy face and look away from the things that make us uncomfortable. Or, in times of division we can be tempted to confront others in ways that demean and degrade our shared humanity. We either mute ourselves or we scream back. Things have gotten even more complicated these days as some other Christian denominations are the face of public Christianity, believing that Jesus is only on our country’s side and NOT on the side of the whole world so loved by God. [10] The desire to distance from those Christians and to go quiet is understandable. But Christianity has always been practiced by a wide variety of people.

In the United States, our Founders separated the church and state with the belief that King George wasn’t any more divine than anyone else. Because of the Founders’ efforts, we are free to speak our minds and free to practice any religion in this country we call home. The first Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. As Jesus’ followers and as United States’ citizens, we are two things at once. It’s helpful that Christian theology makes space for being two things at once – saint and sinner, bound and free, fearful and courageous, weak and strong, wise and foolish. Being a faithful citizen fits nicely into the Founder’s framework, too. Things go awry when faithful people decide that the country must be a theocracy, that it must be Christian under divine authority. This is called Christian Nationalism and its neither faithful nor patriotic.

Our Christian church year ends with a day to remind us that we have a king, one who ended up on trial as a threat to power. Like Pilate, we are challenged by the question of Jesus’ kingship while he awaits judgment. Let’s assume for the moment that we’re all cool with the idea of Jesus as king, as Christ the King. By his own admission to Pilate, Jesus’ kingdom is not from this world. It’s not about power or prestige. It’s a kingship that’s obedient as he listens to his mother at a wedding; it’s a kingship that’s grace-full as he hangs out with the shady woman at high noon; it’s a kingship that forgives unforgiveable human failing; it’s a kingship that cries with compassion at the pain of loss; it’s a kingship that’s non-violent through trial and execution, raising not one hand in violence against the people who inflict it; and, ultimately, it’s a kingship emptied out in self-sacrifice on a cross revealing the breadth of divine power in the depth of divine love. [11]

Christ’s kingship is the exact opposite of earthly power, calling us to obedience through the command to love our neighbors as ourselves when it does NOT serve our own self-interest, and to testify before governors and kings on behalf of people without power (see last week’s sermon). A different reason to cheer on Jesus, indeed! Jesus, Jesus he’s our king, has a different kind of ring.

John’s gospel proclaims that Christ’s kingship was born in skin and solidarity, as the Word made flesh, which means that Jesus is God and God is Jesus. [12] On this Christian New Year’s Eve, we are on the cusp of a new church year that begins next Sunday with Advent. During Advent, we await the sweet baby Jesus’ birth. A child who would grow up to stand trial in front of Pontius Pilate as embodied truth and hope for a weary world. Thanks be to God and amen.

____________________________________________

[1] John 2:1-11

[2] John 2:13-25

[3] John 3:1-21

[4] John 4:1-42

[5] John 8:1-11

[6] John 11:1-57

[7] John 12:1-8

[8] John 12:12-13:11

[9] Lucy Lind Hogan, Hugh Latimer Elderdice Professor of Preaching and Worship, Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington D.C. Commentary on John 18:33-37 for November 25, 2018. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3885 AND Frank C. Senn, 2007. The Not-So-Ancient Origins of Christ the King Sunday — Lutheran Forum

[10] John 3:16-17

[11] 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).

[12] John 1:1-5, 14-18

Preaching, Sermons

Glorious Grace [OR Christians in a Country that Separates Church from State] Mark 6, Ephesians 1, and Amos 7

July 14, 2024 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on July 14, 2024

[sermon begins after two Bible readings; reading from Amos is at the end of the sermon]

Mark 6:14-29 King Herod heard of [the disciples’ preaching,] for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” ¹⁵ But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” ¹⁶ But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
¹⁷ For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. ¹⁸ For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” ¹⁹ And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, ²⁰ for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. ²¹ But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. ²² When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” ²³ And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” ²⁴ She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” ²⁵ Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” ²⁶ The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. ²⁷ Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, ²⁸ brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. ²⁹ When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Ephesians 1:3-14 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵ He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸ that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight ⁹ he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, ¹⁰ as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. ¹¹ In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, ¹² so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. ¹³ In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; ¹⁴ this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

[sermon begins]

Wonder with me for a minute about how different the world might be if each person in the world lived in grace and hope. If each person in the world understood themselves as formed by love for love. Let’s wonder with the letter to the Ephesian church that opens with the powerful blessing we heard today. The letter was likely sent in copies to the wider church, not just the Ephesians. The letter is to new converts following the Way of Jesus, both Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews), who are struggling to get along with each other. Christians who are learning the Jesus Way and challenged by their different opinions about what the church should be and do. The letter opens with this gorgeous blessing, flowing with hope. Phrases like, “glorious grace freely bestowed by the Beloved.” (The Beloved being Jesus.) And in the Beloved, “…we have redemption…through the riches of his grace that he lavished on us…” Those 1^st century siblings in the faith “set [their] hope on Christ” as do we in the 21^st century.

I invite you to take your worship bulletin home and re-read this opening blessing again. Underline the words that jump out at you. Cut it out. Tape it to your bathroom mirror or use one of your many fridge magnets to keep it front and center. If you’re anything like me, setting our hope on Christ gets slippery between Sunday mornings. The challenges of life, work, relationships, and politics can weary even the most faithful among us. It’s why we need each other as a reminder of the hope to which we cling when the world serves up horror on a platter.

I mean, good grief, don’t we have enough happening in the world without stories like these on Sundays?! King Herod Antipas, a.k.a. King Herod in our Bible story today, murdered many, many people who were threats to his power and executed John the Baptist on shameless impulse.[1]

This king was the son of THE King Herod who tried to manipulate the magi from the East and who murdered babies to eliminate the newborn king of the Jews.[2] Murderous mayhem ran in the family and attracted others like Herodias who King Herod Antipas stole from his brother Philip. Herodias had an opportunity and took it to rid herself of the pesky prophet for whom she carried a grudge because John wouldn’t stay quiet about her illicit marriage. Up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, demons and disease were causing the problems. King Herod Antipas added “depraved dictator” to the list of things working against God’s kingdom. The king liked listening to John’s teaching but not enough to let him live. John’s disciples braved a similar fate when they asked for his body to bury. It’s difficult to imagine their courage. They must have loved John very much to risk such a thing.

We don’t know what Jesus thought about John’s death. In the first chapter of Mark, Jesus’ ministry launched after John’s arrest.[3] It’s possible that Jesus’ launch was partly inspired by the arrest. And John’s execution foreshadows Jesus’ execution. Not only is someone NOT a prophet in their own hometown, as Jesus said at the beginning of this sixth chapter of Mark, but they apparently don’t live long after prophesying against preeminent power.

This summer’s book recommendation was brought to us by Augustana’s Human Dignity Delegates – The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Leave it to this ministry to offer the seeming opposite of a “beach read,” although ironically it may be the perfect book to read on a beach given the United States entrance into World War II was on the beaches of Hawaii and France. Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran theologian and pastor who lived as the Nazis rose to power in the 1930s. He is widely admired for his opposition to Hitler and the Nazis, resisting their influence on the Protestant Church as he founded the Confessing Church. His resistance led to his arrest, imprisonment, and execution in concentration camp. If Lutherans had saints, he’d likely be one of them.

In The Cost of Discipleship written in 1937, Bonhoeffer believed that discipleship includes personal sacrifice while we live out our faith in the world. He makes a distinction between “cheap grace” that requires nothing of us versus “costly grace” that inspires action to make a difference in the world. It’s costly not because God requires something from us before we’re given God’s grace. It’s costly because God lavishes grace so freely how could we do anything else but respond to it with our whole lives for the sake of the world. Bonhoeffer coached the local church to be a place where individuals can learn to act through their faith. Read The Cost of Discipleship. All are welcome for the book discussion after 10:30 worship on August 18^th.

In times of societal stress, there can be either a temptation to look away from the things that make us uncomfortable or a temptation to confront others in ways that demean and degrade our shared humanity. We mute ourselves or we scream back. Things have gotten even more complicated these days as some other Christian denominations are the face of public Christianity, believing that Jesus is only on our country’s side and NOT on the side of the whole world so loved by God. The desire to distance from those Christians and to go quiet is understandable. But Christianity has always been practiced by a wide variety of people. See the 1^st century Ephesian church as one example.

In the United States, our Founders separated the church and state with the belief that King George wasn’t any more divine than anyone else. Because of the Founders’ efforts, we are free to speak our minds and free to practice any religion in this country we call home. The first Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. As Jesus’ followers and as United States’ citizens, we are two things at once. It’s helpful that Christian theology makes space for being two things at once – saint and sinner, bound and free, fearful and courageous, weak and strong, wise and foolish. Being a faithful citizen fits nicely into the Founder’s framework. Things go awry when faithful people decide that the country must be a theocracy, that it must be Christian under divine authority. This is called Christian Nationalism and its neither Christian nor patriotic.

We freely worship this morning as Christians in a country that is NOT a Christian country. As our cousins in faith who are Jews and Muslims, as well as any number of spiritual or nonreligious folks, go about their Sunday mornings doing whatever they feel free to do.

As Jesus’ followers, listening to Mark’s gospel reading about John the Baptist’s death, how are we to understand the risks that we’re called into as Jesus’ followers on behalf of the world God loves? We tend to admire the courage of folks like John the Baptist and Dietrich Bonhoeffer after the fact, well, after their political executions anyway. But how do we hear prophets in our own day, calling us to account for the state of the world in which we all play a part. It’s easy to not be political when the current politics of the day are working in our favor. But how are we to act when the politics of the day don’t work in our neighbors’ favor? These are the tough questions we wrestle with when we speak against the Israeli government’s policies killing Palestinian people while we simultaneously stand with Jews in our families and around the world against antisemitism. Similarly, we speak to our own elected leaders about issues that may not personally affect us but affect our unhoused neighbors or our abused neighbors or our otherwise struggling neighbors.

More importantly, we speak to those elected leaders WITH our neighbors who are directly affected by policies that harm or exclude them. This is what the words accompaniment and advocacy mean – working with our neighbors for our neighbors. This is why our Augustana Human Dignity Delegates advocate and accompany alongside groups like Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Colorado and Together Colorado, groups of faith-based people who talk with and “petition” our public figures and elected leaders about issues of human dignity. (See Amendment I of the United States Constitution.)

We default so quickly into quiet self-preservation over and against lives being lost every day because of greed and political posturing. Yet, as the church we are told in scripture and in our worship that we are the body of Christ in the world. Christ the Beloved who freely bestows glorious grace through the cross. The risen Christ in whom we set our hope and from whom the riches of God’s grace are lavished upon us. When we are faced with the horrors of this world, we neither curl up in despair nor behave like the very enemy we say is the problem. Rather, we are Christ’s body in the world, revealing Christ courageously to the world with the lavish, glorious grace we first received from God. Something to celebrate as we sing…

#1050 in All Creation Sings Sometimes Our Only Song is Weeping

_________________________________________

[1] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Commentary on Mark 6:14-29 for Sunday, July 14, 2024. Commentary on Mark 6:14-29 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[2] Read Matthew 2, the whole chapter.

[3] Mark 1:14

___________________________________________

Amos 7:7-15 This is what [the Lord God] showed me: the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. ⁸ And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said,
“See, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel;
I will never again pass them by;
⁹ the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate,
and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste,
and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
¹⁰ Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. ¹¹ For thus Amos has said,
‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword,
and Israel must go into exile
away from his land.’ ”
¹² And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; ¹³ but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”
¹⁴ Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, ¹⁵ and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ ”

Preaching, Sermons

The Wonder of It All [OR Hope Dazzles on a Mountaintop] Mark 9:2-9

February 11, 2024 caitlin121608

**sermon art: The Transfiguration by Armando Alemdar Ara, 2004

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 11, 2024 – Transfiguration of our Lord

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

Mark 9:2-9 Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. ⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. ⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” ⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
⁹As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

[sermon begins]

After being ordained and called here 11 years ago on February 2^nd, my very first sermon was on February 10th and was about Jesus’ transfiguration. I synthesized scripture from Jesus’ baptism to the transfiguration, did theological flips from the transfiguration mountaintop to the rugged cross on a hill faraway, and was generally pretty pleased with my first effort. That was before we used to process the cross at the beginning and end of worship, so after worship I was walking down the pulpit side aisle to go shake hands. Walking in front of me were two women, dear friends to each other and over the years they became dear to me. They were disappointed in my sermon. Yup. Right down to shaking their heads about it. They wanted to enjoy Jesus’ Transfiguration for itself, not for what came before and what came after. I learned a few important lessons that day. One, don’t lurk behind folks after worship unless you want to know what they really think. Two, not every sermon is for everybody. And three, maybe it’s worth it to stay in the wonder of it all when given the chance.

Wonder helps us stay in the moment. Rather than ask “why” about the past and “what now” or “what’s next” about the future, we so often leave wonder in the side aisle. Maybe you can relate. We know that the church world is rife with analyzing the past and dreaming into the future. We ask often, “what went well and what could we do better next time?” Ministry volunteers and staff just wrote 2023 annual reports that we’ll talk about in next Sunday’s Lunch & Learn (a shameless plug, in case you’re curious). Just last week we had a liturgy planning meeting that took us through Pentecost Sunday at the END OF MAY. My siblings and I are planning a trip for NEXT JANUARY 2025. You each have your own pasts and your own future plans so, just for today, for this moment, I’m going to ask that we enjoy the transfiguration and hang out with Jesus on the mountaintop and be dazzled by the wonder of it all.

But before we’re dazzled, it’s good to acknowledge that Bible stories like Jesus’ transfiguration are weird. The weirdness, the other worldliness, the mystical elements can leave us wanting to know what actually happened up on that mountain. Inquiring minds want to know. It’s just how we’re built. At my gym, we start class with warmups during which we share our name and answer a Question of the Day. Last week, the question was asked, “If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be?” I answered, “My name is Caitlin and I would have dinner with Jesus, I know that’s a little cliché coming from me, but I just want to hear Jesus talk about himself, his experiences and what he thought he was doing.” As I finished my answer, one gym friend earnestly said, “That’s exactly what I was going to say, I want to know those things.” He settled on having dinner with Jesus’ mother Mary to fill in the knowledge gaps. After the workout, we chatted a bit more and I learned that my workout friend is an atheist. It was a very cool conversation and we agreed that faith and atheism are both unprovable, two sides of the same faith coin. Although here, today in church, the things we take on faith can open our eyes to the wonder of it all.

Since we have our dinner with Jesus during holy communion, we take the story of Jesus’ transfiguration on faith. Time collapsed in a dazzling light show. Even Jesus’ clothes took on heavenly shine. Moses and Elijah, long dead, talked with Jesus. That undead discussion is eerie and otherworldly. So much so that Peter spoke without knowing what to say. His terror at the vision before him was so overwhelming that he reacted with a plan for what came next rather than pause in awe of the transcendent mystery. It’s common to critique Peter – to laugh at him and say don’t be like him. But we are Peter. Our brains are busy, and we want to make sense of things, to feel bigger than the mystery or somehow in control of it. Transfiguration is a good reminder that mystery will have its way whether we’re ready for it or understand it. It’s a good reminder of the wonder of it all.

Today’s spotlight on the many volunteers who make the work of the church work, reveals an astounding mystery unto itself. People so committed to God, each other, and the world God loves, that you give an hour or two or more a week to the ministries you hold dear. Ministries of welcome and worship. Ministries of leadership and love of neighbor. Ministries that deepen faith and offer hope and healing regardless of cure. Hours upon hours of volunteering that reject a self-centered view of the world in the face of a struggling world. Unbelievable things inspiring unbelievable things. How do we even get our heads around the wonder of it all?!

Last Sunday, Pastor Gail preached that church is a ready-made house of hospitality and socialization and purpose. We could add that church worship is ready made space for transcendent mystery. Maybe not every week for everyone but there are moments when mystery has its way. For me it’s when songs soar from the choir or when we all sing together raising the roof, but it’s also that moment when the song stills into silence. That heartbeat or two before the next sounds begin, when your heart fills until tears brim onto your eyelashes. Or sometimes, the connection with Jesus and all that is holy during communion has no words to describe it. The meal where no one is asked to stay away. Everyone can eat! A meal leaving you not knowing what to say in the mystery of unconditional divine love. Or even in those moments when you drift out of a sermon, tuning out the words, only to receive an overwhelming sense of love and hope that are beyond words. Oh, the wonder of it all!

Worship is otherworldly. It isn’t logical. It’s kinda weird. Worship connects us with an ancient world and a future hope, collapsing time and connecting our stories with Jesus followers long ago and those yet to come. Sometimes hope feels fragile, clouded by our unanswerable questions and reactive plans. And sometimes hope shines like a dazzling Jesus. We pause our day-to-day lives to gather, to sing, pray, and eat together in faith and doubt, fear and hope, suffering and love, while we’re transformed by Jesus, the wonder of it all…

Preaching, Sermons

Cosmic Surrender (For “A Quieter Christmas Service”) John 1:1-5, 14 and Luke 2:1-20

December 20, 2023 caitlin121608

Sermon Art: Creator of the Cosmos in a Manger by Hyatt Moore, oil on canvas, 2015. This is a cropped photo. See full painting here: Christ of the Cosmos – The Blank Canvas blog by Hyatt Moore — Oil painter

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on December 20, 2023, 6:15-7 p.m.

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

John 1:1-5, 14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
¹⁴And 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.

Luke 2:1-20 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ²This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴Joseph 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. ⁵He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷And 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.
⁸In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹²This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³And 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!”
¹⁵When 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.” ¹⁶So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

[sermon begins]

At the manger-side, we’re drawn in a quieter way into the company of other people and the promises of God. Whether by temperament or circumstance we find ourselves in a reflective moment at a worship service. Christmas is a funny thing. It’s religious. It’s cultural. It’s festive. And it comes at just about the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. There’s some history in those developments. The church long ago tried to figure out how to exist alongside earth-based, indigenous celebrations that were rowdy and a lot of fun. Time of year and some of the trimmings were combined from those celebrations and remain today. I’m cool with that. Christian faith has always lived in people’s lives while being translated by people’s lives.[1] This means that all kinds of things make their way into the mix.

There is also the story told in scripture. At Christmas, we celebrate a birth. Not just any birth…but a birth that shines light in the darkness, a birth that changes the world by way of love. God was active in history long before the birth of Jesus. Connecting the moment of his birth to God’s entire history, the gospel writer of John uses those powerful words, “In the beginning…”[2] These words that John uses to introduce the Word can also be heard in the very first verse of Genesis at the very beginning of the Bible.[3] This connection draws a huge arc through time, space, and place, between the birth of creation to the birth of Jesus – a spiritual genealogy of sorts.

While Luke spends time on the human story of shepherds and a manger, John spends time in the cosmos. Where Luke’s words are a quiet love story of a holy family, 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 heady and inaccessible. 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 when he writes, “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 – vulnerable, beloved, tiny newborn flesh. A mysterious, inaccessible, cosmic God becomes a God that is part of our common humanity, through common flesh that pours out love to the whole world. God taking on flesh to join us in our humanity is the birth. Or, as John likes to put it, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”[4]

God living among us through the love of Jesus is cause for reflection. Not simply because God showed up but because God entered human fragility, surrendering cosmic power to reveal the depth of divine love. 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 understand it by way of our experience.

The darkness of living with a mental illness that defies cure.

The darkness of grieving someone we love and the confusion it brings to daily life.

The darkness of disease, whether our own or someone we love, seems to take up more space than anything else.

The darkness of war in the world, killing fragile people to gain political power.

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. Into these real struggles, this darkness, Jesus is born. Jesus who continues to bring light that reveals God’s love in the midst of the worst that life brings – a light that shines a defiant hope.

We don’t have to go very far to find what’s broken. But think about how fast the speed of light travels to us, whether from the next room or from a star a million miles away. We don’t move a muscle and light comes. Just so, God comes down to us in a flash of light, fleshy and fragile, right to the heart of things. We don’t move a muscle and God shows up. In the company of other people this evening, we remind each other that this is God’s promise to us and to world. Some days that promise feels as fragile as candle flame. Tonight, the glimmer of light from the manger also feels like a defiant hope, a cosmic surrender revealing God’s love for broken world. No matter our feelings on any given day, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not, [cannot, never will] overcome it.”

Amen and Merry Christmas!

__________________________________________

[1] “Syncretism” is the fancy word for weaving together traditions, including Christianity.

[2] John 1:1

[3] 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…”

[4] John 1:14

Preaching, Sermons

Trick or Treating – Loving the Littles [OR No tricks, no treats, just hope]

October 22, 2023 caitlin121608

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on October 22, 2023

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace.

²We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly ³remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, ⁵because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. ⁶And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, ⁷so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. ⁸For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. ⁹For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, ¹⁰and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Matthew 22:15-22 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap [Jesus] in what he said. ¹⁶So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. ¹⁷Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” ¹⁸But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” ²¹They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²²When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

[sermon begins]

I’m going to go out on a limb and confess that Halloween is not my favorite holiday. The ghoulish stuff creeps me out. The gory stuff makes me queasy. And the demonic stuff disturbs me. I close my eyes during trailers for horror movies because those images do NOT belong in my head. I’m a Halloween scaredy cat but I love kids. Kids too small to walk house to house are pulled in wagons by their caring adults, still working on their “Rs,” saying, “Twick or Tweet.” Kids still in elementary school whose parents are hollering manner suggestions from the sidewalk while their kid screams “Trick or Trick,” too strung out on sugar to remember to say, “Thank you.” And kids in their teens who may or may not wear costumes and cart around their candy stockpile in a pillowcase with a barely audible, “Trick or Treat.” I’m the goofy adult at the door just happy to see them, telling them they look great or to have fun or to be safe. We may spend the rest of the year telling kids not to take candy from strangers but the weirdness of the trick-or-treat tradition is irrelevant in the face of that cuteness, excitement, and treats. Tricks are another thing altogether. The 1920s were the worst for tricks when pranks set cities on edge.[1] No one likes to be tricked. Tricksters have a grand time but being tricked ones is no fun.

Tricks were on the minds of the Pharisees, their disciples, and the Herodians, as they treated themselves to a fool-proof test that would cut Jesus down to size. But tricksters were no match for the table-turning Jesus. He turned the tables on them as easily as he overturned the tables of the temple’s moneychangers in the last chapter.[2] Ordinarily, the Pharisees would have had nothing to do with the Herodians who seem to be pro-Roman by virtue of their name.[3] But it was time for this troublemaking Jesus to go, so the rivals joined forces against him.[4]

First, they treated him to flattery, praising his sincerity and his impartiality. Then came the trick – “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” If Jesus answered, yes, he would have angered the people; if Jesus said no, he would have angered Rome. Jesus found third answer, give to God what is God’s and give to the emperor what is the emperors. That test seems straightforward even if tricks were involved.

Here’s the more interesting question to me. Why did the Pharisees’ disciples have that coin inside the temple? It had the head of Emperor Tiberius, son of Caesar Augustus. As Caesar, Augustus was considered divine, so Tiberius was at least the son of a God. Tiberius’ head on that on a coin would have been blasphemous in the temple because it was the image of an idol, a false god.[5] In verse 20, “head” is literally translated “icon” in the Greek. As an icon of a god, that coin was an idol forbidden in the temple and should have been exchanged for a shekel outside the temple door to put in the offering. Jesus had a trick up his own sleeve when he asked them to show him “the coin used for the tax.”

Watching Jesus escape a trick is a real treat especially when it leaves us with tricky questions to play with. Jesus asks about Tiberius’ image in a conversation about loyalty. I confess that I’m not immune to my own fangirl moments with certain public figures. I’m self-aware about them but it makes me wonder about how we’re bombarded with people and brands that demand something of us, our time and attention for sure. But they also demand our dollars and our loyalty. Lyn Goodrum, our Publications Administrator, was working on the worship bulletin and she asked if I wanted to use these assigned verses in Matthew on Commitment Sunday today. They’re not your typical inspiring verses about money. I said, yes, I want to use them because they help us think about what Jesus was up against and what we are too. It’s okay to take a hard path through scripture and let it challenge our assumptions and ask us tough questions. We can also bring other scripture into the conversation, too.

Earlier in Matthew, in the sermon on the mount, Jesus preached to his disciples, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”[6] In that story and in our story today, Jesus pushes his listeners to deeper connection with God, working out for ourselves how we are to live and follow in the way of Jesus.[7] Isn’t that one of the appealing features of faith? That we get to wonder, decide, fail, and try again in the way of Jesus? We engage our conscience and our hearts without tricks to confuse us or treats to persuade us. While Jesus’ way isn’t always clear, it is the way of God who is good. God who loves us first without demanding a performance of our own goodness or tricking us into loving God back.

I think about this kind of stuff a lot when it comes to stewardship and giving money to the church – well before I became a pastor and now that I am one. Over the last few weeks, we’ve heard from a few Augustana people, including from Nick again today, about our faith and financial gifts working together in ministry. Last week, Jordan made a point to mention that we each give what we’re able to give. Some of us can give a little and some of us can give a lot. If you’ve never given regularly, our Stewardship Committee asks you to consider starting to give $5 a week; and if you’ve been giving regularly to increase your giving by up to 5% of that amount. Rob and I have been giving by automatic withdrawal for years to make it one less thing to remember on the to-do list.

All of us giving something works together to make ministry thrive for our congregation. Thriving includes caring for each other, our ministry partners in the community and our staff. Thriving includes our building and grounds through which we welcome people and offer hospitality. We’re not perfect. Ministry is messy simply because there are people involved and people are messy. But Jesus was always on the side of the people and calls us to the same. Our answer to Jesus’ call is a mixed bag but we keep giving financially and doing ministry together because our hearts follow our treasure. Jesus knows us and the human condition all too well.

I’ll close today with these opening words that we heard today from Paul’s beautiful, pastoral letter to the church at Thessalonica. Scholars think that this was his earliest letter to the churches and may be the oldest writing in the New Testament as few as 10 years after Jesus’ died.[8] Paul remembered the Thessalonians before God and then he celebrated their work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.[9] Our world needs hope right now. Each of us needs hope.

Out of our own need for hope we become messengers of hope for a weary world. Not an illusory hope or perverse optimism in the face of hard things. But a true hope that challenges us to turn away from the sin that hurts ourselves and each other here and around the world. A true hope that deepens our love during suffering. And a true hope that shines light into the darkness of despair. We hold that hope for each other and for the sake of the world. Thanks be to God and amen.

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[1] Emily Martin, “The history of trick-or-treating, and how it became a Halloween tradition.” National Geographic, October 23, 2022. The history of trick-or-treating, and how it became a Halloween tradition (nationalgeographic.com)

[2] Matthew 21:12

[3] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcase for Bible readings on October 22, 2023. www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts

[4] Ibid.

[5] Skinner, ibid.

[6] Matthew 6:21

[7] Yung Suk Kim, Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Virginia Union University. Commentary on Matthew 22:15-22 for October 22, 2023. Commentary on Matthew 22:15-22 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[8] Lutheran Study Bible, 1 Thessalonians – Background File, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009), 1942.

[9] 1 Thessalonians 1:2

Pastor, Preacher, Speaker