Tag Archives: Jesus

Sermons

Seems Like Yesterday [OR God Wastes Nothing: Life is the Compost of Faith] Luke 24:13-35 – The Road to Emmaus

**sermon art: Road to Emmaus by Paul Oman

A sermon for Bless the Years worship hosted by Augustana’s 60+ Ministry

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 8, 2025[1]

[sermon begins after this long-ish Bible story that’s totally worth the read]

Luke 24:13-35 – The Road to Emmaus

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

[sermon begin]

Seems like yesterday that summers lasted for me for what felt like forever. Hazy late afternoon light. Reading a book while lounging in the branches of my favorite backyard tree. Turning pages. Picking the fruit. Savoring its juice warmed by sun. Feeling safe as the tree’s roots held me steady high above the ground. Time stood still on that summer breeze among fluttering leaves. Seems like yesterday. Moments in time that stretch across decades and still feel fresh. Time is sneaky like that, isn’t it? But it’s those stories winding through time that make us feel like ourselves no matter what’s happening to us or around us or inside of us.

Our faith stories have a similar effect. Those of us who’ve lived long enough can look back and see how God wastes nothing from our lives. Each wild misadventure. Each painful doubt. Each transcendent hymn. Each miserable failure. Each shining celebration. Each shattering grief. Each quiet joy. Each sin forgiven. Each normal everyday moment. All those seems-like-yesterdays spun by God through baptismal water into the cross-and-resurrection Easter faith we live today.

For Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus, yesterday couldn’t come soon enough to start making sense of all they’d seen and heard and felt in Jerusalem. They had a seven-mile walk ahead of them. Just that morning the women disciples had come racing from the tomb to tell them that Jesus was alive. While they walked and talked, the freshly resurrected Jesus joined them. They didn’t know it was him and regaled him with their story. “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” He preached about way, way back about himself through Moses and the prophets before his earthly yesterdays, stories winding through time that make Jesus himself.

It’s not lost on THIS preacher (pointing at myself) that his lengthy sermon didn’t open the two friends’ eyes to Jesus. The big reveal happened through the meal. “When [Jesus] was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.” Ahhh, then the scriptures and preaching made sense. Hindsight. Looking back through a current experience to see something new. If only we knew then what we know now, right? I don’t want to go back and relive time but it would have been nice to know then some of what I know now

Making sense of things in the moment, seeing God in the moment in real time, can be tough. Communing and talking with another Jesus followers, sharing the experience through faith, can make all the difference in our faith. Only a few people are good at figuring things out all by themselves in real time. Most of us need others of us to clarify an experience allowing the roots of faith to deepen as our stories wind across time.

If you had told me back in the days when I was building my nursing career and then having babies that I’d become a pastor, I would have laughed like our ancestor in the faith, Sarah, when she was told in her elder years by an angel that she was going to have a baby in her. Looking back though, I see the threads of being baptized as an infant and having First Communion in the Catholic Church; being baptized again by immersion at the age of 12 in my stepfather’s fundamentalist reformed tradition; leaving church altogether as a religiously exhausted college student; and then marrying a Lutheran and baptizing our babies by the grace of God. Very little of those many years made sense at the time.

But God wastes nothing. Those stories now weave together by the power of the Holy Spirit. Telling those stories reveal imperfect and unlikely roots of faith in Jesus. Each one of you has your own story through which faith has played its part, perhaps along with some doubt shaking things up and keeping faith real. Faith and doubt are partners in the mystery of faith.

The congregation is rooted deeply in faith while each of our own individual faiths take turns wavering, deepening, doubting. Faith is not an individual sport. It’s a cooperative and Christ-centered pilgrimage for we who “walk as yet by faith.”[2] Walking alongside each other as church. Praying for each other when we won’t or simply can’t pray for ourselves. Holding faith steady when we dredge it up in ourselves one more time.

As church together, we remind each other that the Holy Spirit daily and vigorously seals us by our baptism to the faith OF Jesus. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[3]

Through no effort of our own, the Spirit grows our roots beneath the cross of Christ – the base of the cross hidden deep in the dirt and compost of our messy lives and fragile faith from which not one thing is wasted by God. As church together we remind each other that there is nothing you can do or not do to make God love you any more or any less. By Jesus, the one who is the Tree of Life, we are “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as [we] were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”[4] Blessed assurance, indeed! Alleluia!

 

Song after the sermon: Blessed Assurance, ELW Hymn #638

___________________________________________________________

[1] All of my sermons are posted at cailintrussell.org.

[2] “Burial of the Dead” in Occasional Services: A Companion to Lutheran Book of Worship – LBW Hymnal. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House and Philadelphia: Board of Publication, Lutheran Church in America, 1982), 121.

[3] Ephesians 2:8-9 is THE passage on which Lutherans hang our theological hat.

[4] Colossians 2:7 is the Bible Verse for today’s Bless the Years worship on May 8, 2025.

Sermons

Mortality – Is Any BODY There? Yes! John 12:1-8

 

**sermon art: Unction of Christ by Maria Stankova

Pastor Kent Mueller along with Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 6, 2025

Kent Mueller talks about his wife Elizabeth’s life and death five years ago. He asked me to preach it with him as someone who was present for both.

You may watch the sermon preached here at minute 30:27:

Sunday Service – 04/06/2025 – Augustana Lutheran Church Denver

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

John 12:1-8  Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

[sermon begins]

PASTOR KENT: 

In our Church Year we have one particular day set aside for honesty about mortality. And you might be thinking: “Why Good Friday of course, when Jesus died on the cross.” No. It’s Ash Wednesday. It is the day that we speak the truth of our frailty. Our vulnerability. Our mortality.  

Ashes are what is left when the life itself is gone. And on Ash Wednesday we smear an ashen cross on our forehead, making visible the cross that was anointed with oil at baptism—when the waters of baptism wash over us and we are named as a child of God. Ash Wednesday is our ritual of honesty, symbolizing that beginning and endings, that life and death. Are entwined together. 

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

I had been in contact with an Augustana family through the years as the mother’s health issues mounted. Her heart failure was more and more serious, such that she was approved for a heart transplant. It was August 26, 2019, when they got the call late at night that the gift of a heart was now available. There is no hiding from mortality when getting such a phone call. 

The heart transplant took place the next day, and it was a resounding success, with healing and recovery on the way. They had hope again! It was a miracle brought about through astonishing medical technology… but made possible only by the death of another. There are no words for such gratitude. 

PASTOR KENT: 

Endings and beginnings. Death and Life. Together. 

But as a people, a culture, we aren’t very comfortable with mortality. You would think that we’d be better at it, as people of faith. But American culture prizes youth, and health, and productivity. And we have medicalized mortality. The point of our medical institutions is to keep someone alive. Aging and death are seen as failures rather than natural transitions, making it difficult to openly discuss or accept mortality. And then when death comes, we are unprepared, anxious, even afraid.  

Contrast this with the death of Jesus, when he was taken down from the cross by Joseph of Arimathea. And Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes for preparing the body. Since Jesus had died shortly before the Sabbath, they had to prepare his body hastily, and the women who followed Jesus planned to return after the Sabbath to finish anointing him properly. 

Today’s Gospel text from John, then, is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ body being prepared for burial. Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with costly perfume and wiping them with her hair is an act of devotion, a gesture of love, and—whether Mary fully understood it or not—a preparation for Jesus’ death and burial. 

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

For several months, the heart transplant recovery continued slowly and deliberately with a program of cardiac rehabilitation, designed to strengthen the heart and the body. But then, something wasn’t right. Recovery progress plateaued, followed by problems with memory and balance. Five months after the heart transplant, she was hospitalized to try and figure out what was happening.  Hope was slipping away, and the pastors and parish nurse took turns to go to the hospital, to visit, to pray.  To be an embodied presence of the prayers lifted by the Augustana community. 

PASTOR KENT: 

Beginnings and endings. Life and death. Together. 

Mary’s anointing in today’s scripture echoes an ancient, sacred practice—preparing the body for burial. In the Jewish tradition, the body was washed, perfumed, and wrapped in linen before being laid to rest.  Anointing was an act of reverence, a final blessing, a way to prepare the body for its return to the earth and its journey with God. Most other faith practices include such rituals—Islamic families wash their dead, Jewish burial societies purify, Hindus use sacred oils and water. 

These practices allow for a tangible, intimate, embodied confrontation with death, offering healing. Love.  Closure. By turning away from such rituals in our time, we have lost the profound and sacred act of caring for loved ones, and the communal embrace of shared grief—a farewell where hands and hearts meet in healing. 

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

After several weeks in the hospital, she was transported to Denver Hospice. A family member asked that I be prepared to come there after the time of death to lead prayers and a ritual of washing and anointing. I gathered together a bag of items to be ready at a moment’s notice day or night: A bowl for warm water, a few cloths and towels for ritual washing, oil for anointing, some candles. And we waited for death to come. 

PASTOR KENT: 

Endings and beginnings. Death and Life. Together. 

I asked Pastor Caitilin to tell this story, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to tell it myself. Because her story is my story. 

For five years now, I’ve wondered if there might be a time, when I could share this story, which now concludes with a Rite for Preparing the Body for Burial. I would not have known to consider this ritual, had my brother not told me about it.  He’s a pastor in Chicago, and he knew of this liturgy, which is not found within our official Lutheran worship books. (What does that say about our comfort with mortality and death?) 

I’m sharing this story today because it’s not the American way of death.  So that you might become familiar with these words and actions–– rituals––that honor the mortal body that we are in life and in death. And that proclaim that God’s love is eternal, beyond our beginning and endings, in life and in death.

PASTOR CAITLIN: 

Kent called me midafternoon on March 11, 2020. Elizabeth had died.  I was here in the office and made my way the short distance to Denver Hospice over on the Lowry campus. In Elizabeth’s room, we filled the bowl with water, opened the oil, and lit the candles. We began with a prayer of preparation… 

  • We come to this moment in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We come surrounded by the saints who have done this work before us.
  • When Jesus was preparing for his own death, he knelt down and washed the feet of his disciples and then taught them to wash one another.
  • And on the way to Jerusalem, Mary the sister of Martha anointed Jesus with costly perfume.
  • Prepare us, cleansing spirit. 

Then, as they played music, they ritually washed and anointed Elizabeth’s body as named in these holy blessings: 

  • Over her eyes: All that Elizabeth’s eyes have seen in this life, O God, we commend to you.
  • Over her ears: All that Elizabeth’s ears have heard in this life, O God, we commend to you.
  • Over her mouth: All that Elizabeth’s tongue has tasted and all the words that her mouth has spoken in this life, O God, we commend to you.
  • Over her hands: All the work that Elizabeth’s hands have done in this life, O God, we commend to you. 
  • Over her feet: All the journeys of Elizabeth’s pilgrimage on this earth, O God, we commend to you.
  • Over her forehead: This life, baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, O God, we commend to you. You belong to Christ, in whom you have been baptized.  Amen 

Hymn during the anointing:

There Is a Longing

Hymn after the sermon:

Holy Woman, Graceful Giver ACS 1002

______________________________________________________________

Sources and resources 

  • Rites for Preparing the Body for Burial by Pastor Rebekkah Lohrmann 
  • https://sylviaschroeder.com/why-did-mary-anoint jesus-for-his-burial-before-he-died/ 
  • h”ps://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised common-lec8onary/fifth-sunday-in-lent-3/commentary on-john-121-8-2 
  • h”p://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2016/03/the annoin8ng.html 
  • Any Body There? by Craig Mueller

 

Sermons

Is Any BODY There? Yes! The Prodigal Son Returns—Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 [OR The Nuance of Smarty-Pants Phones and Resting in the Holy]

 

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 30, 2025

[sermon begins after the Bible story of the Prodigal Son told by Jesus – worth reading as a sermon unto itself]

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus.] 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 So he told them this parable: 11b “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

[sermon begins]

“Look it up.” My mother’s words, back in day, would send my siblings and I to the massive family dictionary open on the book stand or the set of encyclopedias on the living room shelf. We’re not sure whether sending us to look it up:

  1. bought her time to herself. A full-time job AND five children were A LOT to manage;
  2. meant that she didn’t have to say, “I don’t know;” or
  3. was a parent instilling curiosity in their kids.

Likely it was a mix of each. Looking up words and ideas, maps and historical people was just what our family did. It was our family’s thing. Like some families camp and other families play sports. We looked things up. You can imagine the delight and wonder when computers more powerful than we could imagine came on the scene disguised as smarty-pants phones. Hanging out with my sibs these days includes deep discussions, questions, and looking it up on our smartphones. Curiosity runs amok in this crew.  The perils of doom-scrolling to emotional health and misuse of the interwebs to community health are widely known so I’ll refrain from enumerating them here. These clever devices are designed to foster dependency on the tech, misinformation, and monetized content, yet they are also tools that expand real human connection, care, and support.[1] We share each other lives and events there. These nuances are important as we ask and answer our Lenten theme: “Is Any BODY there? Yes!” And today we hear the call to Sabbath.

Sabbath means rest. [2] Sabbath is observed on Saturdays by Jews and on Sundays by Christians. The sabbath imitates God resting on the seventh day after forming creation.[3] The Third Commandment says, “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.”[4] Rest was a radical notion way back in the day when God’s people were trying to survive as desert nomads. Sabbath rest is way deeper than spa days, sports and fitness, or scrolling through our socials. Sabbath rest orients us to the holy, to God. Even better, we’re oriented BY God who mandated sabbath rest. Not to look it up to learn something, but to look up and be known by God.

There’s almost no better Bible story than the prodigal son for a day about remembering the sabbath and keeping it holy. A story about a determined and then desperate son being loved, embraced, and celebrated by a desperate and determined father. The younger son squandered all the money he had demanded from his father on what Jesus called, “dissolute living.” Great word. But here’s the focus today. The younger son looked up and saw himself with a clear mind when he was starving as the pigs dined. He looked up from the mud and saw himself. He remembered the community available to him. He remembered his father and knew he had to make an apology. He came up with one. No telling how honest it was. Armed with his apology, he headed home to his father.

Dad looked up and saw someone walking up the road. It was one of those moments, maybe you know the kind, where his heart knew but his head couldn’t catch up fast enough, so he just stood there, frozen, wondering if it was true.  But he knew, he knew his son’s shape, his walk, he knew HIM!  Before he could think any more about it, he moved like lightning! Later, he could only remember running as fast as he could; maybe even yelling as he ran. He was a sight—eyes wild, robes and dust flying all around, chickens scattering and squawking, he just simply couldn’t move fast enough. The father practically knocked them both over when he caught his son in his arms, rocking side to side with the excess energy, eyes weeping away the worry.

The son said something, but the father’s pounding heart must have blocked hearing it. All the father knew was to celebrate. That very moment was a celebration, and that celebration became a party – fatted calf, robe, ring and all! The older son couldn’t bring himself to go inside, isolating himself in righteous rage. How dare his brother show his face around here again! His father went out to him, affirming his worth and their deep connection while still rejoicing that the younger son was lost and now is found. You only have to look as far as our PEAK Support Group, “Parents of Estranged Adult Kids,” to know the heavy heart and helpless hope of a parent longing for their child’s return.

The holiness of reconciliation is like nothing else. Neither is its offense. We hear God’s word in Jesus’ story without missing a beat. It preaches itself as we take our sabbath rest here in worship. How many of us can relate to the older brother’s anger? It’s easy to understand. He’d been faithful and diligent, doing all the hard work while his younger brother left. Just left! Now he’s back and dad is throwing a party?! Inconceivable!

But there are some of us here this morning who can relate to the younger brother. Mistakes made that wounded us and key relationships. Deep regret about inflicting pain on someone else, on our families and friends. Wondering if God’s reckless grace can truly include even us.

At best, our Sabbath rest orients us and reorients us to this prodigal God of extravagant compassion as we look up and out towards being human together, in our bodies together. Technology augments our reality, for which there are many reasons to be grateful.[5] Many of us owe our health and wellness to that very technology. Still more of us are connected across space and time in real relationship because of it. I’m in regular contact with friends from long ago and all over the world because of it!

But Lent is a perfect time to consider the effect of tech and its excesses on our bodies and relationships, too. Lent reminds that we hand ourselves over to all kinds of things that are not God, squandering our longings and our hopes and wondering why we’re watching pigs dine.

The holiness of the sabbath is not self-generated. Holiness is not born from our music or singing. We don’t instigate holiness by our good deeds or compassion. The holiness is God’s and we but look up and reflect our experience of it as the church, the embodiment of Christ as God’s people in the world. A God who loves us when we’re close and when we’re far away. In our faithfulness and in our humiliation. In our daily work and in our return from wandering. We are ambassadors of God’s household—looking up to find whoever is lost from this house and embracing them into God’s life. For all of this and for more than there are words, we can say thanks be to God for unquenchable, reckless, prodigal, amazing grace!

_____________________________________________

[1] Craig Mueller. “Augmented Reality” in Any Body There? Worship and Being Human in a Digital Age (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2017), 120-129.

[2] Frederick Buechner. “Sabbath” in Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC (New York: HarperCollins, 1973, 1993), 100.

[3] Genesis 2:3

[4] Exodus 20:8 and the Small Catechism of Martin Luther, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2006), 1160.

[5] Mueller, Ibid, 128.

___________________________________________________

This is the second reading for worship. I didn’t explicitly incorporate it but it’s throughout the sermon.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21  From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. 20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Preaching, Sermons

Strangers are Embodied Mystery. Cool. [OR Is Any Body There? Yes!!]

Strangers are Embodied Mystery. Cool. [OR Is Any Body There? Yes!!]

[Sermon begins after the Bible reading. The other two Bible readings are at the end of the sermon.]

Luke 13:31-35 At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to [Jesus,] “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

[sermon begins]

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 16, 2025

Pastor’s kids. They’re a thing. They’re so much a thing that in church-land they’re called a “PK” – Pastor Kid. My kids didn’t grow up with a pastor mom. They say that their mom is a pastor, but my call came later in their childhoods—their church experience unaffected by it. They watched me go through seminary and, as teenagers, the two of them helped Rob put on my stole during ordination. They grew up with a mom who was discovering Christianity as if for the first time. I was asking questions. Tons of them. The kids asked questions or announced their creative answers before asking. Taryn, sometime in early elementary school, said, “God must have a special skin machine in heaven.” I don’t remember the conversation we had but her comment stuck. She was trying to solve a mystery, a resurrection mystery or a heaven mystery or maybe an Apostle’s Creed mystery about the resurrection of the dead. Not really sure. But she was onto something both with her question and her mystery card. Every theological system plays at least one mystery card. Makes sense. Theology is the study of God and religious experience. Since we can’t prove God like a science experiment, we’re talking about mystery when we talk about God.

Mystery allows questions and creative answers. When we ask the question this Lent, “Is Any Body There?”[1] We can say a resounding, “Yes!” Because God entered time in the person of Jesus and God is not limited to the first century. Mystery reveals curiosity as inherent to faithful witness, rejecting certainty as a corruption of faith. As Pastor Karen preached last Sunday, God’s body is Jesus’ body. That is quite a claim. It’s one based on the Bible and it’s also a mystery. We talk about the mystery of the Bible in the Discover Augustana class. It’s neither a science book nor a history book nor a newspaper. As much as we want those things to be true, the Biblical writers were many, many people writing over many, many centuries about their experience of God. Additionally, we claim that the Holy Spirit inspired the Biblical writers and works on us through the Bible. We enter that mystery with appropriate awe and caution.

Let’s try it with the story of Abram and the Lord in the book of Genesis reading. The animals cut in half were an ancient ritual in which covenants were formed between people and groups.[2] The one who walked down the center of the animals was committing to keeping the covenant under penalty of death. Abram didn’t walk between the animals cut in half. The Lord did. The Lord was sealing the covenant with Abram under penalty of death. Who’s death? Not Abrams. The Lord’s death. A death that ends up happening to Jesus in Jerusalem.[3] Remember, God’s body is Jesus body. As Jesus taught his disciples about wanting to gather Jerusalem like a hen gathers her chicks against the hungry fox, Jesus is describing himself. God’s-self. As Jesus teaches through towns in Galilee, heading towards Jerusalem, the inevitable conclusion to his journey is the cross. The same cross by which we are sealed in baptism as children of God. The same cross written about by Paul in his letter to the Philippians that reveals the heavenly identity we bear.

There are several mystery cards in today’s theological deck of Bible verses. Maybe that’s a good thing. Because we tend to interpret the Bible in our image, sinning with certainty instead of faith humbled by mystery. We don’t have to look very far into the story about Abram and the Lord to find the themes of covenant, land, and driving away the birds of prey MISused as justification for Zionism and the current Israeli government’s destruction of Gaza and the slaughter of Palestinians who lawfully reside there. Or into the story of Jesus as he challenges the politics of Jerusalem as Herod Antipas tightened his murderous grip around the people who lived there.[4] Jesus words about the unwillingness of Jerusalem have been MISused as justification for Jewish erasure and anti-Jewish violence even though the Jewish leaders in this particular story were trying to help Jesus avoid execution. Or the story of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians which has been MISused as justification for ignoring issues in the world because heaven is the ultimate goal.

Repenting for the ways that the Bible has been misused to hurt real people opens a way into cautious, faithful curiosity about the mystery. God is both up close AND otherworldly. God’s body as Jesus’ body doesn’t limit God to only that activity in Jesus. Our limitations create God in our own image rather than allowing the mystery of God, the other worldliness of God, to humble our thinking, and open possibilities that we hadn’t considered.

Here’s an example of mystery and humility as it played out in this congregation and many others. If you had told me in 2019, before the pandemic, that someday I’d be inviting folks to holy communion on livestream, I would have laughed out loud. During the pandemic, Pastor Ann and I along with thousands of pastors and bishops asked ourselves this question, “Do we believe that the Holy Spirit can work across distance, time, and place in the Lord’s Supper?” The first part of the question was easy. Honestly, the freedom of the Holy Spirit is beyond question in the Bible. Of course, the Holy Spirit can blow where the Holy Spirit wills. That made the second part of the question about livestream much easier to answer. And now you hear me say during the communion instructions, “For those of you on livestream, you’re invited to have bread or cracker and wine or juice and receive them with these words, “The body of Christ given for you; and the blood of Christ shed for you.” I would sum it up this way, in person communion is ideal. More than ideal. We’re called to worship together as bodies. And yet, God absolutely works in less-than-ideal circumstances to proclaim and reveal the love of Christ to everyone. We use what we have to that end. Martin Luther used the printing press in the 1500s. We use livestream. And the mystery continues.

Mystery opens us to the possibility that God works beyond our knowing in places, times, and people we don’t know and can’t imagine. Thanks be to God! One simple example in this congregation is that we sing hymns written hundreds of years ago across the ocean and we also sing hymns written just a few years ago from around the world. We also worship with a liturgy that has its origins in ancient Judaism while updating words and prayers for our moment today. Holy communion used to be practiced by the earliest baptized Christians in their homes and here we are in a public church inviting everyone of all ages to the table. The church is BOTH ancient AND now. There’s a mystery for you.

Mystery also turns us towards each other. In the last Discover Augustana class, several people talked about the experience of walking into worship here for the first time and experiencing an openness from the people around them. That openness to new people is being open to mystery.[5]  In those earliest greetings we are no more than friendly strangers. And strangers are embodied mystery, are they not? Newcomers in worship are taking a leap of faith that this faith community might make sense for them and longtime Augustana folks are open to the mystery of new people. Embodied mystery. Sounds cool.

Being open to mystery and what we don’t know may lead to connections with different faith communities, too.[6] A few nights ago, our Muslim cousins in faith[7] from the Multicultural Mosaic Foundation hosted 35 of us from Augustana (and more from the wider community!) for their Iftar dinner as they broke their daily Ramadan fast after sunset. Kids and families were welcome, too. Our hosts taught us about Ramadan and what it means to their faith. We also just got to know each other as people over dinner conversation at each of our tables. When we engage in mystery, walls come down across communities as trust is built. Not perfectly, for sure. But that’s a world I’m interested in living in. More importantly, it’s a world that Jesus leads us to build by following his example across differences. (For those of you still curious about how Muslims are our cousins in faith, check out Genesis, chapter 21, when God promises Ishmael, Abram’s other son, that God “will make a great nation of him.”)

Being claimed by the mystery of faith—by the mystery of Christ’s death, resurrection, and return—means God’s limitless imagination is poured out by the Holy Spirit for this world, for our church, and for you. May our curiosity be faithful and full of grace. Amen.

_____________________________________________________

[1] Craig Mueller. Any Body There? Worship and Being Human in the Digital Age, (Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2017).

[2] Rolf Jacobson, Dean of the Faculty, Professor of Old Testament and the Alvin N. Rogness Chair of Scripture, Theology, and Ministry at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast on Bible readings for the Second Sunday in Lent, March 16, 2025. www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/1012-second-sunday-in-lent-c-mar-16-2025

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN.

[5] Ibid., Craig Mueller, 77-78

[6] Ibid., Craig Mueller, 81.

[7] Genesis 21:8-21 The story of Hagar and Ishmael, Abram’s son, being sent away and also being blessed by God.

________________________________________________________

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” 4 But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.” 5 He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6 And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 Then he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.”

Philippians 3:17-4:1 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. 4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

Good News, Preaching, Sermons

What’s Ash Got to Do with It?! [OR Is Any Body There? Yes!]

photo credit: thetablet.org/filipinos-can-get-ashes-on-foreheads-for-first-time-in-two-years/

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 5, 2025

[sermon begins right away – the Bible readings are at the end of the sermon]

Two years ago, I first felt the lump in my abdomen that began a six-month journey through chemo to complete remission – a complete remission that persists today. Those days two years ago included an Ash Wednesday appointment between the noon and 7 p.m. worship services at which my nurse practitioner confirmed that there was a lump in my abdomen and that it needed further investigation by CT scan. Days when the word lymphoma and its widespread presence in my body became known. Days before we knew that the biopsy identified the lymphoma as low grade and considered treatable with a good probability of full remission. During those days that had more questions than answers, there were other things that became crystal clear. While I wanted very much to live and share life with my family, friends, and congregation, I was not afraid to die. The dying part stinks but I figure God’s got whatever comes next well in hand. Loving life and not being afraid to die filled the days of not knowing how long I had to live with a deep wonder of life’s precious mystery. How is it that we exist at all?!! How on God’s green earth is even breath possible in a universe in which we still haven’t found anything remotely like the diversity of creatures and ecosystems we are part of here?!!

We learn a lot about life when we face death. We often learn a lot about a thing by what we think of as its opposite. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians hones in on opposites in the verses we heard today – imposters yet true, unknown yet well known, dying yet alive, sorrowful yet always rejoicing, having nothing yet possessing everything…[1] Paul gives us opposites and offers us an example of what living looks like through the lens of the gospel. It’s as if he’s laying down a bit of challenge to people who think they have this Christian living thing down but are doing a poor job of it.  His alternative is a set of opposites that leaves us scratching our heads but smacks of honest truth.  A perfect message for us as we begin Lent.  Because Lent never moves us to easy answers. Lent deepens us into reflection.  Reflection about ourselves with relentless honesty that reveals the motivations and actions of our daily living.[2]

It’s these very motivations and actions that are called into question by the Gospel of Matthew reading. If we think Jesus’ challenge to keep piety secret validates our natural tendency to be quiet Christians then we may be missing something. Jesus warned his disciples about pious prancing emptied of all concern for the neighbor. His teaching is part of the Sermon on the Mount that pushes his listeners out of their comfort zones and into the work of Christian love for neighbor.[3] Jesus often singled out the publicly righteous. The publicly righteous used their piety to judge everyone else’s worthiness. In light of Jesus’ challenge, how are we to understand the cross of ash marked on our foreheads? It’s a valid question. It can help to answer it by working backwards from the cross of Good Friday echoing through the cross of ash.

First, the cross means that God is not in the sin accounting business. The cross reveals the inevitable conclusion of our own attempts to be like God, to create God in our image. Jesus lived his life constantly expanding the circle that people use to limit who’s in and who’s out. He ate meals with unlovable people, he had public conversations with women no one spoke to, he had secret conversations with religious leaders who opposed him by day, the list of his ever-expanding circle of grace is endless. Finally, when the threat of his grace, the threat about who is included in the love of God, became too great, he was killed for it. Grace and unconditional love were just too threatening. Grace and unconditional love are just that powerful. Even when one of Jesus’ friends tried to fight off the guards arresting him, Jesus told him to put the sword away. Jesus raised his hand in healing at the time of his arrest, not violence, and opened his arms on the cross to all people.

The cross of ashes on our foreheads are placed with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The truth of these words in the shape of an ash cross means that the love of Jesus for us transcends even the worst of our human failings. God’s suffering makes love possible through difficult times and in the midst of suffering. Please hear that God does not inflict our suffering, but God’s love can still be revealed through it. God’s promises may be revealed when we suffer but so is our call as conduits of blessing when we encounter suffering around us.[4] Ash Wednesday answers the question, “Is any BODY there?” with a resounding, “Yes!” We are not alone. God is with us AND connects us with each other. We’ll be reflecting on that theme—Is any Body there? Yes!—over the next five Sundays in Lent. A needed reminder in the digital AI age that we are not alone and that our bodies are important.[5]

I swear there are times I can hear the grit of ash when it’s drawn on skin one way and then the other, priming us to begin at our end, priming us to live fully knowing that it is God who promises to hold us through death. So the ash we end up wearing on our foreheads is pure promise.

It’s a promise of grace because we are just not that powerful. I did everything I could to survive the lymphoma AND the chemo that gave me life even as it made me hairless, tired, and immunosuppressed. Even as I wept and melted down and got back up again to do more until the next meltdown. As a nurse who infused chemo into children over many years, it was suddenly my turn as the effects got up close and personal. Nothing is guaranteed through a diagnosis and treatment but I knew I wanted to try. And I knew that Love was with me whether I tried or not and whether I lived or died.

Acknowledging the Love also acknowledges that our piety will never fully reflect our mixed motivations and inconsistent actions. We can’t love our neighbor or ourselves enough under our own steam. God’s love working in us and through us makes loving our neighbors and ourselves possible because it’s God who loved us first. The movement of love is from God to us. That’s what we wear on our foreheads in the form of ash.

Ultimately, Ash Wednesday isn’t about our efforts or repentance. It’s about God’s love for us despite our fragility and flaws that make God feel so far away. It’s about God who comes to us. Entering our humanity. Embodied in Jesus. God’s love is first and foremost about loving us no matter who we are or what we do. The good news is that there is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or any less. Christians call such an unconditional love, grace. Ash Wednesday invites us into the wonder of life by being honest about our death—someday we will die but on all the other days we will not. As we live, the 40 days of Lent invite us to reflect and pray about the life we lead today.

For now, today, we begin at the end with the cross on our foreheads reminding us that we are fragile creatures who experience the freedom of living through the reality of our last day. Because, in the end, we are reminded once more that our purpose in Jesus is first to be loved by the God who is, who was, and who is to come. Loved unconditionally. Loved so much that we are free to wonder about our motivations and our actions without worrying about the love freely given to us. Loved so much that hearts are transformed by the grace of unconditional love. Loved so much that the eternal God loves us through death for God’s forever. Reminded that we are loved and to love. When someone asks you what’s ash got to do with it, tell them that essential thing that means everything – that it reminds you first you are loved by God and that this promise includes everyone. All bodies. No exceptions. This is good news indeed. Amen.

______________________________________________________________

[1] 2 Corinthians 6:9-10

[2] Frank L. Crouch, Dean and Vice President, Moravian Theological Seminary. Commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 for Ash Wednesday on March 6, 2019.  Working Preacher, Luther Seminary. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3983

[3] Matthew 5, 6, 7 [full chapters]

[4] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Discussion on Sermon Brainwave podcast for November 5, 2023.

[5] Criag Mueller. Any Body There?: Worship and Being Human in a Digital Age (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2017).

_______________________________________________________________

Ash Wednesday readings:

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21, 2 [Jesus said to the disciples:] 1 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
16 “And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Corinthians 5:20b-6:10 We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
6:1 As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. 2 For he says,
“At an acceptable time I have listened to you,
and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”
See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3 We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, 4 but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, 5 beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6 by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7 truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8 in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9 as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; 10 as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Preaching, Sermons

Jesus Levels the Playing Field [OR Self-Examination through the Super Bowl Halftime Show] Luke 6:17-26, Jeremiah 17:5-10

 

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 16, 2025

[sermon begins after two long-ish Bible readings]

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Thus says the Lord:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
and make mere flesh their strength,
whose hearts turn away from the Lord.
6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see when relief comes.
They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

7 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.

9 The heart is devious above all else;
it is perverse—
who can understand it?
10 I the Lord test the mind
and search the heart,
to give to all according to their ways,
according to the fruit of their doings.

Luke 6:17-26 [Jesus] came down with [the twelve] and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

[sermon begins]

There was a super-sized football game last Sunday. I was a Philadelphia fan for the day. After cheering for Kansas City a few times when Denver wasn’t in the hunt (don’t hold it against me), I thought I’d give Philly a turn. I meant what I said a few weeks ago when the Broncos played their last game. I don’t always pray for football, but when I do, I pray that everyone plays their best game and that the calls are fair. The Super Bowl showed who brought their best game and who didn’t, regardless of the play calling. One team was ready to play their best game. The other team wasn’t. As I watched the triumph and the meltdown, I kept wondering about the backstory. Rob was the recipient of my wayward imagination as I came up with possibility after possibility as to why the meltdown was soooo melty. I was a bird fan for the day to spread the wins around, NOT to relish a full reversal of the fallen mighty.

I wondered if there were warning signs leading up to the game. Warnings can inspire adjustments toward a different outcome. But warnings are often wasted because it’s tough to have your logic challenged. Discrediting the messenger with a scathing eyeroll or stinging gossip is way easier. Similarly, Jesus’ likely didn’t deserve the contempt he received in response to his warnings either.

Warning is one way to think about what we hear today in the “woes” recorded in Luke’s gospel.[1] They are not curses. They’re more like an inevitable consequence when you think you’re an exception to the pain of this life. The word used in the Greek is more like a warning sound than a word.[2] Like, “ay-oh, oh-ay.” There are connections between the woe warnings that Jesus uses, and the language of woe used by Old Testament prophets. Prophets didn’t pull any rhetorical punches either. They wanted people to hear the inevitable conclusion to their current behavior and call people to repentance, to new ways of being in the world as God’s people. The woes that Jesus lays down are for those of us who are rich, full, laughing, or admired. Sure, we have options. We could roll our eyes and trash talk Jesus, wasting his warning for the wayward. OR we could let the warning of the woes settle over us. Let the warning of the woes challenge our skewed focus much like the prophets used to do. The prophet Jeremiah challenges his listeners not to trust in mere mortals but to be aware of our devious hearts that befuddle us. By extension, this means we can treat our own inherently wayward opinions and circumstances with a bit of mistrust; with a healthy, well-deserved dose of skepticism for our own limited thinking.

Since I started with the Super Bowl, let’s keep going. I’ll give one small example of what I mean by a healthy dose of skepticism for our own opinions. That small example being THE most watched Super Bowl halftime show in the history of Super Bowls. Right up front, I’ll confess my deficit when it comes to current rappers. Kendrick Lamar’s awards – including a Pulitzer and, like, a million Grammys – were news to me. But back in my high school days, rap was the music of the day. School busing had just ended from our east Altadena home to northwest Pasadena but I still attended with my older sister. It was one of the most successful examples of busing to diversify race and ethnicity within a student body. John Muir High School celebrates graduates the likes of baseball great Jackie Robinson, rocker David Lee Roth, novelist Octavia Butler, comedian Dax Shepherd, and more.[3]

There’s a documentary about my high school called “Can We All Get Along,” named after John Muir alumni Rodney King’s infamous plea during the Los Angeles riots.[4] When I attended Muir it was 89% kids of color – African-American, Asian-American, Armenian-American, Hispanic-American; and 11% White-American. I attended Muir in the early years of hip hop and rap. Lunch bands in the quad had a beat – bom, bom-bom, bom-bom, bom. Everybody walked to it. Our drum corps amplified it. Many danced to it. When Compton-born Kendrick Lamar started rapping, I started moving. Come to find out that the half-time show wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Opinions and reactions about it are flying fast and loose. Even faster flew the judgments ABOUT the justifications and self-justifications. Perhaps the warning of the woes could give us the courage to examine our own thinking with a healthy dose of skepticism, to not end up the hero of our own story at the expense of everyone else, to seek to understand rather than be understood.[5] To wonder why halftime dancers represented the flag as they did. To be curious about the streetscape that also looks like a prison yard. When we react against art, it can be an entrance to self-examination.

Jesus’ woes to the rich, full, laughing, and admired are an invitation into self-examination. But self-justification is the common instinct. We say things like, well, I’m not rich. Or I used to be poor. Or even more problematic, we try to justify why other people are NOT rich or full or laughing or admired as if they deserve their situation. It’s like we read the four blessings and the four woes listed by Jesus to see if we’re in the winner circle. In the meantime, while we’re justifying things all over the place for ourselves and other people, the opening verse of the reading says that “[Jesus] came down with [the twelve] and stood on a level place.”

The leveling language in Luke’s Gospel can catch us off guard because we only get Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, on the level place, during Year C of the Lectionary Readings when Easter is almost as late in the Spring as it can be.[6] It’s only come up twice in Sunday’s worship readings in the last 20 years. While preparing and thinking about Jesus coming down to the level place, John the Baptist’s quotes from Isaiah came to mind about smoothing rough ways, filling valleys, and lowering mountains and hills.[7] Mary’s Magnificat also came to mind about bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly.[8] The leveling is NOT a reversal of bringing the low high and the high low only to change places and repeat the same bad news like the Super Bowl. Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, on the level place, in Luke’s Gospel enacted what was proclaimed and sung by John the Baptist and Jesus’ mother Mary.

Jesus came down and stood on a level place with the twelve, and also with “a great crowd of disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” Naming those locations meant that the crowds were full of Jews AND non-Jews known as the Gentiles. Crowds of people showed up from all over, some were Jesus followers, some were Jews, and some were Gentiles. It was chaos. People reaching out and touching Jesus. People unbound from the social norms of their day milling around together a level place. Leveling is the opposite of scapegoating.

Rene Girard was an atheist philosopher who converted to Christianity late in life after studying scapegoating and the Bible.[9] Girard expected to find consistencies in scapegoating between other ancient manuscripts and the Bible. Instead, he found the Bible unique in its rejection of it. Jesus was to be the ultimate and final scapegoat. To show us the error of our way at the cross and to show us the possibility of transformation by the resurrection. Jesus’ way.

The Gospel of Luke in general, and Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, on the level place, in particular, is a prime example of how the Bible levels the highs and lows of social norms that we tend to describe as “just the way things are.” This is especially true in societies like ours where “the blessed” are often considered to be the rich or full or laughing or admired while “the woed” are the poor or hungry or weeping or reviled. We misinterpret blessings and woes as deserved and bestowed by God—justifying each person’s social location. The problem is that we end up treating our neighbors based on what we think they deserve rather than on the second greatest commandment after loving God—to love your neighbor as yourself.[10]

Jesus, preaching on the level place, names the blessings of the poor, hungry, weeping, and reviled not because of a far off someday but because he calls and invites us all to be a part of the leveling here on earth—seeing each other as human siblings over and above our fear of scarcity and our urge to scapegoat. The primitive urges that pit us against each other, hoping for the full reversal of another’s downfall. The good news is that Jesus levels the playing field as he meets us on the level place. Rather than recycle the same bad news with different teams of winners and losers, Jesus invites us into the good news of our shared humanity as beloved as children of God. Divisions can be healed by the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection. After all, the Way of Jesus is our way, too.

____________________________________________________

[1] Rolf Jacobson. Sermon Brainwave podcast #648—Sixth Sunday after Epiphany for February 17, 2019. https://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=1106

[2] Matt Skinner. Sermon Brainwave podcast #1008—Sixth Sunday after Epiphany for February 16, 2025. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/1008-sixth-sunday-after-epiphany-c-feb-16-2025

[3] www.ranker.com/list/famous-john-muir-high-school-alumni-and-students/reference

[4] Pablo Miralles, filmmaker and John Muir HS alumni. Can We All Get Along: The Segregation of John Muir High School. (2022) www.pbs.org/show/can-we-all-get-along-segregation-john-muir-high-school/

[5] A sound-bite from the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi (Prayer for Peace)

[6] Easter is scheduled annually on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/determining-easter-date.html

[7] Luke 3:1-6

[8] Luke 1:52

[9] Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry. “The unlikely Christianity of René Girard” on November 10, 2015 for The Week (online). http://theweek.com/articles/587772/unlikely-christianity-ren-girard

[10] Mark 12:28–34; Matthew 22:34–40; Matthew 22:46; Luke 10:25–28

Preaching, Sermons

Jesus is at the Party [OR Joy and Suffering Coexist in Fires, Ceasefires & MLK Day] John 2:1-11

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on January 19, 2025

[sermon begins after the Bible story]

John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

[sermon begins]

The Wedding at Cana is one of my favorite Bible stories that also happens to be in my favorite book in the Bible – the gospel according to John. Most people, even if they’re not Christians, have a vague sense that water was turned into wine. They might even know that Jesus miraculously turned that water into wine. It’s less likely that people know that water was turned to wine at a wedding party full of drunk guests. That doesn’t sound like the Bible as people imagine it to be. But it does sound like the Bible because here it is, right here. Jesus was at a wedding with his mom and his friends. Wedding parties that ran out of wine were shameful. When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother pulled the mom card. She didn’t take no for an answer and Jesus made the best wine ever.

Jesus’ obedience to his mother may be more difficult to believe than the supernatural sign. Or his obedience more confusing than the connection between the Hebrew scripture and God’s covenant with God’s people that’s compared to marriage vows. Or his obedience more unbelievable than a wine steward running out of bad wine to serve drunk wedding guests. (Do those drunk people really need more wine?) Or maybe even harder to believe than Jesus’ obedience is that he was at a party where joy, laughter, and hope were in abundance along with the fine wine he produced. That certainly wasn’t the Jesus of the Christian church in which I was raised and taught.

The church building that I grew up in burned down last week in the Eaton fire in Altadena, California. Up until a week and a half ago, I told people that I grew up in Pasadena because no one knew where Altadena was. Now Altadena has the headline. Not because it was a uniquely diverse place to grow up and not because of its historic architecture. But because a lot of it sits in ashes after the Eaton fire. My brother evacuated from the Palisades fire. My stepsiblings were evacuated from Altadena. Their homes still stand while neighbors next door on the same street lost theirs. Messages, photos, and news videos are still exchanged and forwarded to each other. One of the pictures is the burned-out hull of that church, cinderblock walls standing guard around the spaces where I learned to sing hymns acapella, where the older women of the congregation would reach out and hug me as I walked by, and where I taught Bible lessons on felt boards to the littlest children. It was also where only men were allowed to preach, baptize, and preside at communion, where dancing and alcohol were prohibited, and where God’s judgment was bigger than God’s grace. When I left home, I decided that Jesus was no fun at a party, so I didn’t take him with me. No way.

But then we come to find out, yes way! Jesus was at a wedding where joy and celebration abound. His mother and friends were there, too. It’s an epic party where the wine is flowing until it runs out. The celebration seems fitting.  Jesus’ ministry is revealed by the events at this wedding. During a party like this one, I can imagine someone saying, “I feel like I shouldn’t be having fun when there is so much suffering in the world.” I can imagine it because people say it to me fairly regularly at parties, no less. It’s harder to allow joy when pain and grief assail us as faraway fires or military bombs decimate bodies and entire neighborhoods of friends, family, and strangers alike. Even as the ceasefire begins today in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, the relief does not erase the trauma of bombs, death, and grief for Palestinians and Jews. Joy somehow feels wrong, like a betrayal of our own or other people’s pain.

It is in this tension between joy and suffering that the Wedding at Cana really shines. Jesus is at a wedding celebration. He embodies grace smack in the middle of it. His presence and activity at the wedding do NOT obscure the very real problem of Roman oppression or the pain that is experienced in everyday life. In the wedding story, Jesus is an example of celebrating life in spite of Rome and in spite of day-to-day suffering. He is also more than an example.

Turning water into wine and other things happening at the Wedding at Cana points us somewhere even as it echoes back from somewhere. When I preach this story at weddings and funerals, I often use the word “echoes” to describe what’s happening between the wedding celebration and Jesus’ death on the cross. Some of the words in the wedding story echo back from the cross. The story itself begins “On the third day” which echoes Jesus’ resurrection.[1]  Jesus refers to his “hour not yet come.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ hour refers to the time that he will hang on a cross.[2]  Even the tasty wedding wine itself echoes back from the sour wine given to quench Jesus’ thirst on the cross.[3]  Jesus’ mother is not named in the Gospel of John.  She is called “the mother of Jesus.”  She shows up in the gospel only twice – once at the Wedding at Cana and then again at the cross.[4]  Jesus’ mother is another echo. From his first sign of turning water into wine, the cross is already in play.  Suffering is on the horizon.  And curiously, Jesus is at a party.

The Wedding at Cana is how life works. There are moments of joy and there are moments of suffering. Neither joy nor suffering are completely absent while the other is present. Both are human. Both are faithful. I want to be clear here that I’m not talking about blind optimism in the face of suffering. As if everything is fine despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m talking about faithful joy in the gift of life while being honest about the truth of suffering and working to alleviate it as Jesus calls us to do.

Jesus is at a party where the wine steward knows how things usually work in the world. After Jesus turns the water into wine, the wine steward goes to the bridegroom and says, “Everyone serves the good wine after the guests have become drunk; but you have kept the good wine until now.” I read this as the place where sin shows up in the story. “Everyone” tries to hide what they’re doing and get away with substandard wine late in their wedding celebrations. The con is the norm. But not this time. Not this wedding. Not this Jesus. This Jesus is totally worth taking to the party. Like the wine steward, we expect that people will protect their own interests at the expense of people who are unaware of the decisions made at their expense. Jesus’ turning water into wine toward the end of the wedding party reverses how things often work in the world. Jesus’ sign reverses the selfishness that we expect as normal.

Tomorrow this country celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and ministry.  He stands among the saints as an example of reversing accepted cultural norms of racism and poverty through a multi-faith and multi-race movement. He believed people could do better in the face of black people suffering at the hands of white people. He believed that oppression makes everyone less than human – victims and perpetrators alike. Rev. Dr. King believed this from a place of faith that is unequivocal about God loving the world which, by definition, means black people. And God’s love for black people inspired a movement of human dignity that continues through today. A multi-race, multi-faith movement that continues to reverse the cultural norms of racism and poverty. Rev. Dr. King believed and acted from a place of faith. And he lived in joy while being honest about suffering and our own hand in it. He said, “It is cheerful to God when you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of your heart.”[5] This from a man who experienced raw suffering as racist cultural norms were viciously protected. Joy would not be stolen by ignorant harm or malicious injury. Joy is celebrated as victory and as a right of the human spirit.

We sing songs and pray prayers of praise, joy, and thanksgiving in worship today as our bodies face the cross. Our worship mirrors the tension between joy and suffering at the Wedding at Cana. Our worship mirrors life. Life that Jesus gives as he shows up with us in both celebration and suffering. Jesus gives life by way of his own life. Life that showed up in the skin of a baby. Life that laughs and dances with joy at a wedding party. Life that knows suffering. Life that self-sacrifices for the sake of the world. Life that is given for you despite your own efforts to live on your own terms. That’s the promise God makes to you. Jesus is at the party. Let’s celebrate. Alleluia and amen.

__________________________________________________

[1] John 21:11-20

[2] John 16:32

[3] John 19:28-29

[4] John 19:25-27

[5] Martin Luther King Jr.  http://martinlutherkingjrquotes.org/martin-luther-king-jr-quotes-bootstraps.html

Preaching, Sermons

Holding Space and Being Held on Christmas Eve – Luke 2:1-20

**sermon art: Guatemalan Nativity by John Giuliani (1990s)

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on December 24, 2024 at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m., and 7 p.m.

[sermon begins after the Bible story of Christmas – it’s 20 verses, hang in there]

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

  8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

 

[sermon begins]

Has it ever happened to you that someone suddenly handed you a baby and said, “Here, hold them for a second?” You and the baby stare at each other in shock and wonder what just happened. There’s a little bit of panic on both sides to see how this is going to go. As a pediatric nurse and now a pastor, these baby-holding times can be as daunting as they are precious. A startled baby can be tricky. In related news, I DO often ask if littles are willing to BE held. Just last week, a one-year-old let me hold her for a bit while her parents and I talked about her baptism. She was squishy and solid and clamped onto my shoulder and hip in the way of one-year-olds. She was also herself – wide-eyed, thoughtful, super chill, taking everything in. The four of us walked into this Sanctuary with her still in my arms, and I showed her the baptismal font. IT. WAS. AWESOME! And it made me think about holding space and being held.

There was nothing but space out in the fields where the shepherds were keeping their sheep. Wide open space for the sheep to eat and the shepherds to sleep. Until…until…awakened in terror by light shattering the certainty of the dark night, their wide-open space descended upon by the angel who woke them up, told them not to be afraid, and announced good news of great JOY for ALL the people. News SO good that they raced to Bethlehem to see this good news baby for themselves and to tell his mom and dad all about it.

Mary began her adventure as Jesus’ mom by consenting to hold space for a pregnancy of epic proportions. Orthodox Christians call Mary, Theotokos, which means God-bearer. Her body literally expanded and stretched to hold the divine. How daring and determined and fierce Mary must have been to hold space for Love to be risked and shaped and birthed. While Joseph’s mind and heart expanded and stretched to hold space for his new bride and his adopted son.

Then there was the space to be born. Room with the animals. Space in their feeding trough, the manger, to hold the newborn Jesus who embodied God’s Love. A manger made by human hands would be imperfect, a sliver here and a splintered peg there. But the manger would perfectly reveal the Love that was born on Christmas – “A baby, wrapped in bands of cloth, and lying in manger.” The manger is much like the Bible in which the story of Jesus’ birth is told. A sacred story written by human hands, imperfect but revealing the Christ perfectly. The manger and scripture holding space in and around them for human imperfection to meet the unconditional grace of divine Love. Holding space to reveal Jesus, the One who made God’s Love real in his ministry on earth. The One who leads us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Perhaps a more immediate and literally concrete example of holding space would help us get the gist of it. Just down the street, on donated land from this congregation, Augustana Homes are being built by Habitat for Humanity and hundreds of volunteers from around the city. Affordable homes that hold space in the form of three-to-four-bedroom townhomes for working families to call home. Going from a baby born in a manger because there was no room in the inn, to families who will have a way into homeownership, may be a leap of faith, but it also makes perfect sense when told alongside the Christmas story.

On Christmas, holding space and being held happen simultaneously. We are held in this moment in time. We could be anywhere else, and yet we are here. There are many reasons to end up at church on Christmas Eve. As many reasons as there are people here. Maybe it’s your habit or annual tradition. Maybe it’s easier to be here with family than to be somewhere else without family. Maybe your family is fractured, and you wandered in wondering if community can be found. Maybe your faith calls you here in gratitude. Maybe your life has become such a hot mess that church on Christmas Eve feels like a last-ditch attempt to find a way through. Maybe the peace of candlelight is good for your heart. Or maybe you just simply love the collective effervescence of singing together in this Sanctuary.

Whatever draws you here in this moment in time, you are held in the cradle of this Sanctuary. Sacred space where thousands of people have gathered across time for baptisms, weddings, funerals, Christmases, Easters, and Sunday mornings. Sinner-saints held by a sacred space as we gather to remind each other of what’s so easy to forget in the anxiety of life, the disarray of politics, and the competition of culture. We remind each other that God’s welcome through this congregation includes everyone. At a time when the surgeon general declared an epidemic of loneliness, we are a community of hope, who support each other through suffering as we celebrate our joys and serve locally and globally. Being human is complicated. Being yourself shouldn’t be. You are welcome here.

If even that is too much to get our heads around, let’s try our hands. When you come forward for communion, your hands held together and facing up make a manger of sorts as you hold space for the bread given to you, imperfectly cradling Jesus’ presence with hands that may have a sliver here or a bent finger there, and with fragile bodies as we eat. Despite our imperfections or, just maybe, because of them, the perfect presence of Jesus dwells within us, and we are held by the One who taught us that there is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or any less. This is definitely good news of great joy for all people, which also means that it is good news for you. Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

Preaching, Sermons

Good That Will Last – Luke 3:7-18 and Philippians 4:4-7

Good That Will Last

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on December 15, 2024

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Philippians 4:4-7 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Luke 3:7-18 he wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

[sermon begins]

John’s speech has a sideline quality. An American football sideline. Picture the guy striding up and down among the other players. Arms flapping, mouth flapping, hair flapping, there is name calling, yelling. The speech takes people to the next level. Ups their game on the field. So much is still possible because there’s time on the clock. An expectation that with a positive mindset, perfect timing, and the right mix of skills at the right time keeps the win is in sight.

Sitting on the sideline means different things to different people. Defense may be on the field protecting the end-zone while offense is reviewing plays and resting up. Back-up players are also suited up who are lucky enough to take the field once a season. Regardless of why players are on the sideline, they are powerless there. The players on the field do the actual work. The sideline is a bit of wilderness. There is wandering around. Sitting down. Very little appears organized. BUT those are just appearances. Check out a game. Maybe around 2 o’clock today when lots of people will be watching a particular game. Take a gander at those sidelines. Chances are good you will see a John the Baptist type – arms flapping, mouth flapping, hair flapping, name calling, and yelling.

John is worked up. He’s a wilderness guy. This is his terrain. And the crowds come.  Not just any crowds. Crowds of brood-of-viper riff-raff – extortionists masked as mercenaries, tax collectors, and people with too many coats. These crowds of riff-raff are people. People come to see a man about a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John yells at them, calls them names, and challenges them to find a new perspective, a new way. He yells, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance!”  The crowd asks, “What shall we do?” John hollers at them about playing fair and giving away their extra coats. John’s answers are not earth shattering.  The crowd’s question, though, is compelling, “What shall we do?”

John tells those riff-raff what to do. The crowd is apparently hanging onto more than they need, the tax collectors are collecting for Rome but lining their own pockets by overcharging, and the soldiers of the time are mercenary bullies, extorting money from the people. In short, John tells them to share, play fair, and be kind. This is not rocket science. It’s a new perspective. It’s repentance. This is standing with your neighbor rather than against them.[1]

We so easily stand apart from the crowd, the tax collectors, and the soldiers, feeling grateful that those aren’t our particular sins. However, I see us smack in the middle of this crowd, wondering why we came in today only to hear John’s words push against us, too. After all, it’s difficult to fully celebrate the arrival of a savior if you don’t see much need for one from the start.

John’s sideline coaching to the tax collectors and soldiers can be applied to the rest of us. The Bible tells story after story about deeply flawed people who regularly hurt other people or hurt themselves. But it doesn’t take a 2,000-year-old look back in time to see this play out. Our lives reveal a truth that we don’t often share with ourselves and try to avoid sharing with anyone else. Despite our best intentions to “do better next time,” despite the reassurances that we give ourselves about being “good people.” Despite the best efforts of wild-haired guy on the sidelines, here’s the reality on the football field. There will be an interception. There will be a fumble. There will be a missed field goal. There will be failure to protect the blind side.

What are fruits worthy of repentance? The most helpful answer locates our behavior in the realm of worship, an act of praise. Behavior that points us and other people to the good news of Jesus, not to ourselves. John the Baptist does this beautifully – yelling notwithstanding. He is often depicted in art with his finger literally pointing towards Jesus. Listen to the end of the Bible reading one more time:

16 John answered [the expectations of the crowd] by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 18 So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.”

The power of Pentecost is on fire just under the surface of this Advent text.[2] The Holy Spirit, at work in Mary’s pregnancy, has more in mind than the gentrified quiet of a nativity scene. The Holy Spirit has us in mind, my friends. John’s proclamation that “the one who is coming…will baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit,” is indeed good news. John interprets this wild promise beginning with the distinction between the wheat and the chaff. Each of us IS one of those grains – a grain sitting warm and cozy within the unusable chaff that surrounds it.

We get used to our chaff. Some might even argue that we’ve made peace too easily with our chaff, our sin. But part of the promise is that our repentance, our surrender to the one who has the power to forgive us, is that the sin gets called out by truth, gets forgiven and we are set free. Once that happens, look out! IT IS a salvation day in the here and now! Salvation that transforms us by the goodness of God into what God first created good. Salvation that frees us into a new future, one not defined by past sins or social class.

God’s freedom unleashed by the power of the Holy Spirit can also look more subtle. It looks like people who rage, gossip, gloat, hoard, cheat and bully, in both clever and unaware ways, and those same people walking up to bread and wine, surrendering to the Holy Spirit’s forgiveness and power. In short, it looks like people in need of a Savior, people who may or may not see or understand this need, and who celebrate his birth.

We are a people who need a Savior and who celebrate our Savior’s arrival. Because we do not have a God who uses power to do us harm out of anger. Rather, we have a God who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, came among us in skin and solidarity, and now comes among us in Word, water, bread and wine – forgiving us and refining us by the power of the same Spirit. And we are prepared by the same Spirit to receive our Savior in this Advent time.

And still we ask from the sidelines, “What shall we do?” We start with worship. We are drawn through worship into this faith community call to do all kinds of good for our neighbor in the name of Jesus. We confess the faith of Jesus Christ and, in our mission statement, we say, “Celebrating God’s grace, we welcome everyone to worship Jesus, grow in faith, and go serve in the world.”

The congregation of Augustana regularly points to Christ, first and foremost through our repentant confession at the beginning of worship that is immediately met with the good news of God’s unconditional grace, forgiveness, and love. We commune everyone, all ages, abilities, and attributes, in Jesus’ name. We baptize, bury, and welcome new members in Jesus’ name. We care for the sick and poor in spirit in Jesus’ name through Home Communion, Pastoral Care, Health Ministry, and our Faith Community Nurse. We care for children in Jesus’ name through the Augustana Early Learning Center, Children-Youth-and-Family Ministry, Faith Formation, and Choirs. We worship and sing praise in Jesus’ name through our hymn singing, Choir, Music Ministry, and more.

Like John the Baptist, frank about our shortcomings and, in spite of them, we take action to help other people. Our Compassion and Action with our Neighbors ministry, CAN Ministry for short, IS worship, fruit worthy of repentance that shifts our perspective. We help people eat in Jesus’ name through grocery gift cards, Metro Caring, ELCA World Hunger, and buying Advent farms for people to self-sustain. We care for the stranger in Jesus’ name through our advocacy efforts, Refugee Support Teams and organizing Personal Care Kits for refugees overseas. We care for people in prison in Jesus’ name through New Beginnings Worshiping Community in the women’s prison. And we care for creation, our earthly home that cares for us all. As church, CAN ministry is an embodied act of prayer and thanksgiving. Embodied action that points us and other people to the good news of Jesus, not to ourselves.

Our generosity in Jesus’ name starts in worship as Christ turns us towards God, each other, and the world for the good of our neighbor. Sometimes we hit the mark, sometimes not, while trusting and celebrating God’s grace. With the apostle Paul, we trust that the Lord is near, rejoicing in the Lord, always, not worrying but worshiping and praying – “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”[3] Amen.

__________________________________________

[1] Neighbor is a fully-loaded theological term from the Bible meaning the person in the next room, the next town, or around the world.  Anyone who is not you is your neighbor.

[2] Karoline Lewis, WorkingPreacher.com, “Sermon Brainwave #267 – Lectionary Texts for December 16, 2012.”

[3] From today’s reading in Philippians 4:4-7.

Preaching, Sermons

Songs and a Story – Personal and Real [Advent/Christmas Bless the Years Worship for Home-Centered Folks] Luke 2:1-20

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on December 12, 2024

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

Luke 2:1-20  In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

[sermon begins]

Put us all together and, between us, we know A LOT of Christmas music. We could hear a medley of carols and know most of them. At the very least, we know the music enough to be comfortable with it, to play with it, to hum along with it. Part of today’s Bless the Years is taking a moment to celebrate with Sue Ann on her retirement from a long nursing career and from five years with us as Augustana’s Faith Community Nurse. Many of us have her voice in our heads, singing our favorite hymn from the heart. Maybe she has sung a hymn with you or for you as she communed in your home or hospital. When I was diagnosed last year, I called Sue Ann and, at my request, she sang my favorite hymn to me over the phone as I sat in my car and cried. It was personal and real.

I encourage us to honor her work among us by continuing to sing hymns every day. Especially at this time of year when the songs are so glorious. In the kitchen or humming as we tuck in for the night, our caroling is as imperfect as it is joyous. Our spontaneous carols likely have flaws, but they’re sung from the heart. They’re real. And these carols tell a story. A story that gathers us together here today. A story that had its first tellers long ago. Storytellers for whom the story was personal and real.

The first storytellers were the shepherds in the field. The men who heard the angels sing were people considered suspicious and were on the fringe of their community. THESE are the people for whom the heavenly host sang. They are given first dibs on the story by the angel who tells them – “to you is born this day…a Savior…a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.”[1] The shepherds head out fast to go see this baby, this Savior. After all, THEY clearly need one. When they get to the manger, they tell their story from the heart, the story about what’s been told to them. Imagine for a moment the way they tell the story. At best, they tell it in a way that’s personal and real; at best, they tell the story because it’s first and foremost for them. The shepherds need a Savior; it’s obvious to them that they need one – a Savior on their side, a Savior for them.

So, because the Savior is for them, the shepherds tell Mary and Joseph the story, and apparently anyone else who will listen, because, “…all who heard it were amazed.”[2] What amazes them? The story itself? That the shepherds are the ones telling it? That a Savior is born? That angels came, spoke, AND sang? It’s pretty much all amazing! The truly amazing part is that Mary gave a full hearing to the shepherds. The Bible story says, “All who heard it were amazed but Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”[3] She’d just had a baby in a barn, laid that squishy, squeaky baby in a manger used for animal food, and she treasured the words of these wild, shady shepherds in her heart.

Who does that?! For Mary, this story told by the shepherds somehow made sense. At best, perhaps because she heard it in a way that’s personal and real; at best, because…just maybe…it’s a story for her too. Perhaps Mary needs a Savior, a Savior on her side, a Savior for her.

The Bible tells story after story about deeply flawed people whose lives are oh so real. People who regularly hurt other people or hurt themselves. But it doesn’t take a 2,000-year-old look back in time to see this play out. Our lives reveal a truth that we don’t often share with ourselves and try to avoid sharing with anyone else. Despite our best intentions to “do better next time,” despite the reassurances that we give ourselves about being “good people,” the truth remains: anywhere people show up, so do flaws…personal and real.

Into the mix of flawed people, God shows up. God shows up, of all places, in a manger. A manger that has a splinter here and a cracked peg there – a manger that is flawed and real; a manger that cradles and reveals God showing up in Jesus. The manger that reveals the Savior who came under a star in skin and solidarity, into a fragile humanity, to show up personally in our very real lives.

On the first Christmas, God showed up as a baby, a living and breathing hope.  “…hope [that] rests not in what we have done, nor can do, but in all that God is,” has done and is doing.[4] That’s the hope we cling to by faith, even if sometimes it’s by the barest thread with the tips of our fingernails. Regardless of how tightly you cling, the reality is that Jesus holds on to YOU.

In fragile, unexpected places like today in the manger of communion bread and wine, Jesus’ presence is promised to you as a gift of grace this Christmas. We imperfectly cradle his presence with our hands as we receive communion, and with our bodies as we eat. Despite our flaws or, just maybe, because of them, the perfect presence of Jesus dwells with us – personal and real.

For this and for all that God is doing right now and right here, we can say Merry Christmas and amen!

Song after the sermon: What Child is This?

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[1] Luke 2:11-12

[2] Luke 2:18

[3] Luke 2:19

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