Category Archives: Preaching

Preaching, Sermons

Surrender, Breath, and Being Made New [OR Be Gentle with Yourself] Mark 4:26-34 and 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 13, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Mark 4:26-34 [Jesus] said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.”
30He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
33With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17 So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord—7for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
14For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
16From 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. 17So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

[sermon begins]

Here’s a pro-tip conversation starter: Ask someone about their experience on the roads around the Denver area. It’s come up in conversation more in the last couple of weeks than I can remember it before. And that’s saying A LOT. Traffic here has long blended rural and city drivers that mix as well as oil and water and makes for good stories. More recently though, driving has inarguably reached wackadoodle proportions.[1] It’s like we’ve entered a video game that we didn’t download. Local police twitter (yes, I follow them too) tweets with the latest top speeds, flipped cars, and fatal accidents. I have found myself reacting to the chaos before realizing that I’m also contributing to it. Want to do something counter-cultural? Drive as if you have all the time in the world – except not too slowly or you become a problem on the other end of the spectrum which is a significant part of the chaos too. Anybody else feel themselves ramping up just talking about it?

Let’s take a different tack then, shall we? Our bodies are wired in such a way that they can be reminded to respond differently. Intentional breathing can reset our nervous systems and reduce anxiety.[2] Let’s try it together. In just a minute, I’m going to invite you to breathe in for a count of two, hold that breath for a count of three, and breathe out for a count of four. References abound on this kind of breathing with different breath and hold counts but, in the interest of time and everyone’s different experiences with this kind of breathing, we’re going to stick to the count of breathing in for two, hold for three, out for four. You can close your eyes if you’re comfortable doing so. We’re going to go through the cycle three times. Ready, close your eyes. Here we go:

Breathe in one-two…

Hold one-two-three…

Breathe out one-two-three-four. [repeat for three times total]

Okay, you can open your eyes – if I haven’t lulled you into sleep, that is. Risky thing for a preacher to do, I suppose. 😉

This relaxed breathing is brought to us, in part, by the Gospel of Mark. Mark generally moves at an intense pace with lots of “immediately” this and “immediately” that.[3] But today, the pace slows down. Dare I say that it’s even gentle. The Markan community was confronted by the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and what action they should take to get along in the world.[4] They had two obvious options. Should they take up arms and join a revolution? Or should they go along with Roman authority to get along and live another day? The Gospel of Mark offers a third response to the crisis of the day – to follow Jesus in the self-giving way of the cross, to trust God’s faithfulness, and to recognize God’s promises taking “a dramatic and subversive turn in Jesus.”[5]

Mark’s urgency and crisis response takes a pause in our two parables today, telling us stories about how the Kingdom of God expands by God’s power and not our own. We have the parable of the growing seed that sprouts and grows without us needing to know how – “first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.” And then the parable of the mustard seed that is the tiniest of seeds, producing the greatest of all shrubs and providing shade for the birds. In these stories, we’re reminded that the Kingdom of God is first an act of God. We strategize ideas and take action on them hoping that we’re on the right track, but God’s kingdom will grow. We don’t know how. This is Mark’s version of taking a deep breath, easing the urgency caused by the crisis to remember the main thing. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

There’s almost no day that goes by without someone wondering with me about what they “should be doing” or how they think they should be “handling it.” Heck, I wonder about these things for myself, too. It doesn’t even matter what “it” is. It could be intense personal grief. Or a changing job situation. Or financial difficulty. Or emerging from pandemic ready for normal and not finding it. Quite often, I find myself saying things like, “give yourself some grace” or “be gentle with yourself.” I know from personal experience that this is easier said than done. But when I hear people say it to me, I find it easier to remember that I’m only human. And when I say it to other people, I’m reminded that they are too. Each breath connecting us to every other fragile, wondrous, vulnerable, and impatient creature.

Which brings us to the new creation promised in the second Corinthains reading. My lord, what promise! “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”[6] Immediate deliverance. No waiting. New! This baptismal reality in Christ is like the growing seed in the parable – first the stalk, then the head, then the new grain in the head. We do not know how.

You are simply new. Not a romanticized, perfect new version of yourself, though. You are a new through a cross. Through THE cross. You are no longer living for yourself but for the one who died and was raised for you. The one who loves so deeply with divine love that this love changes everything, even you. Unconditional love that accepts you for who you are is freedom to surrender to that love and become what you have received from Christ.

Being the body of Christ means that we are death and resurrection people, coaching and encouraging each other, celebrating and grieving with each other. New. New means that there is something old, something former, and something to let go. Letting go creates space. Letting go gives us space to breathe. To abandon our illusion of control. To slow down our thinking in an anxious time in the world. To acknowledge our gifts and run with them. To acknowledge our sins against self and others and reconcile across them.

Letting go surrenders us to the one who loves so deeply with divine love that we are changed, made new – “first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.” We do not know how. For this and for all that God is doing, we can say thanks be to God. And Amen.

___________________________________________________________

[1] “Wackadoodle” is a more recent addition to the Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/03/wackadoodle-makes-oxford-english-dictionary#

[2] Seth J. Gillihan, Ph.D. “How to Reduce Anxiety with Every Breath.” October 22, 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/201910/how-reduce-anxiety-every-breath

[3] This is a fun article comparing the use of “immediately” across the New Testament, the gospels, and Mark in particular. https://livingroomtheology.com/immediately-used-much-gospel-mark/

[4] Matthew L. Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, MN. Sermon Brainwave Podcast for June 13, 2021. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/788-third-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-11b-june-13-2021

[5] Ibid.

[6] 2 Corinthians 5:17

Preaching, Sermons

Winging It With What We Know [OR The Church Year and Our Weird Jesus Stories] Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11 – Ascension of our Lord

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 16, 2021

[Sermon begins after two Bible readings. The books of Luke and Acts are by the same author. The first reading ends Luke and the second reading opens Acts.}

Luke 24:44-53  [Jesus said to the eleven and those with them,] “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
50Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Acts 1:1-11 [Luke writes:] 1In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
6So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

[sermon begins]

Jesus followers spend our days like most other people. We get up when we’re done sleeping. Our waking hours are filled with lives, food, and activities as varied as there are people around the world. At some point, we sleep again. Jesus followers also frame our days and human doings through the extra Jesus lens and splice the church year into a highlight reel of the life and times of Jesus. While the Bible regularly shatters our assumptions, reforms our faith, and comforts our afflictions, the church year structures our societal and self-examination by spotlighting the life of God in the person of Jesus. On Sundays, and even daily, we hold up God’s priorities against our own as we wing it. Okay, the “we” may be too strong. I’ll confess that I wing it. Oh sure, I have a to-do list and a schedule for the day. But there are other humans involved in my day which often means reshuffling the order of things, going with the flow, and winging it. More to today’s point, God is also involved in my day which means that every day is basically a new day to wing it as God’s priorities often disrupt my own.

Today’s new day finds us celebrating the Ascension of Our Lord in the church year. As Jesus followers, we recall the weirdest stories about Jesus in festive high holy days – Christmas (a.k.a. Nativity of Our Lord), we celebrate God with us in the baby Jesus, Easter (a.k.a Resurrection of our Lord) we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead…you get the picture. Today locates us in the very last verses of Luke’s Gospel and the very last Sunday of the Easter season, which presses pause even as we lean towards Pentecost next week when we celebrate the birth of the church. Today we find ourselves with the earliest disciples, looking up into the sky at an ascending, departing Jesus. Talk about winging it.

Before he lifts off, Jesus tells them to wait in the city for the Holy Spirit. The reading from the first verses of the book of Acts retells Jesus’ ascension story but includes two men in white robes who ask the disciples why they’re still looking up. The Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts are thought to be written by the same author. Luke covers the life and times of Jesus while Acts (a.k.a. Acts of the Apostles) covers the life and times of the early church – a sequel of sorts. Ascension of Our Lord is the overlapping story that connects the two books. The disciples were mesmerized, watching Jesus lift up and away. Understandably so. Imagining the disciples’ shocked eyes refocusing down to ground level and being told to get a move on by those random dudes makes me chuckle at the physical comedy. They’re reminded to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit to wing in while they wing it in the meantime.

And where do they wing it? In the temple. Praising God. Luke’s gospel starts and ends in the temple. In Chapter One, the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah as he went about his priestly duties, offering incense in the sanctuary of the Lord. Right then and there in the temple, Gabriel announced his wife Elizabeth’s pregnancy with their son John. John would be known later in life as John the Baptist who preached repentance and prepared the way for Jesus. Here we are at the end of Luke. The earliest Jesus followers had been through the lows and highs of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Before he lifted off, he told them that they were his witnessess and would proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations. Their eyes followed him to the sky before they “returned to Jerusalem with great joy” to continually praise God in the temple, basically winging it until they “have been clothed with power from on high.” They had no real idea what it would look like to be clothed from on high or when that would happen or how they’d get to witness and proclaim. They were winging it with what they knew.

Unlike those earliest disciples, we have more of the Jesus story even though we still only see it dimly at the best of times.[1] But like the disciples, there’s only so much that we can know at any given time to take action. Such is the way of us re-gathering in-person for worship. Augustana’s Reopening Taskforce sifts through the headlines most of us see, into the fine print of CDC, state, and local guidelines that most of us never investigate. Thank God for the taskforce folks and may the Spirit continue to guide their leadership.[2] As much as the taskforce is helping us figure out how to worship in these ever-evolving times, this is the first time any of us have emerged from a pandemic so there is an element of winging it with what we know until more is revealed.

May 2nd was our first outdoor, in-person worship this Spring. There were a few favorite moments, like chatting with folks after worship and getting caught up each other’s latest news. The moment that most surprised me was was saying the Lord’s Prayer in unison with everyone. I guess I should add that it didn’t sneak up me, I know it’s part of the communion liturgy. What surprised me was my reaction. Last Fall, we didn’t speak the liturgy together and now we know enough science to know that we can. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”

Tears pricked my eyes and my throat tightened up. I don’t have words to describe the emotions or experience, but you know me enough to know that I’m going to try anyway. Standing over communion and with you all who attended that morning and praying with confidence as Jesus taught us to pray, our voices joined together in a very ordinary and indescribably transcendent moment. Joy filled my heart. The church geek in me wishes that I could describe it better. The Christian mystic in me is delighted that I cannot. There are experiences that defy description, that no one can take away, and this is one will buoy my faith for a while. At the very least, it was on my mind when I read the verse in Luke that the disciples returned to Jerusalem and the temple with great joy.

Joy as we worship and praise God is one of our oldest Christian traditions. It looks and sounds different around the world but it’s the essence of our worship even in the midst of tragedy. Joy fills us as we know that God is with us, God’s promises are trustworthy, God loves us consistently no matter what we do or don’t do, and that God’s grace will follow us all of our days until, at our last breath, God wings us up into God. We know more of the Jesus story than our First Century siblings in Christ but, as we wing through our days by faith gifted on the wings of the Spirit, we worship and praise God in joy, through our beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

______________________________________________

Song after the sermon:

Beautiful Savior (ELW #838)

1    Beautiful Savior, King of creation,

Son of God and Son of Man!

Truly I’d love thee,  truly I’d serve thee,

light of my soul, my joy, my crown.

 

2    Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands,

robed in flow’rs of blooming spring;

Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,

he makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

 

3    Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight,

bright the sparkling stars on high;

Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer

than all the angels in the sky.

 

4    Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations,

Son of God and Son of Man!

Glory and honor, praise, adoration,

now and forevermore be thine!

Text: Gesangbuch, Münster, 1677; tr. Joseph A. Seiss, 1823-1904

_____________________________________________________________________

[1] Infers 1 Corinthians 13:12

[2] Augustana’s Reopening Taskforce includes Augustana’s Faith Community nurse as well as our Building Use Coordinator. Additionally, there are two doctors, one lawyer, one retired biology professor, one retired English professor, and one professional singer who also serves as the Covid safety officer on a different organization.

Preaching, Sermons

Friends in Joy, Love, and Sorrow (OR Wondering about Mother and Daughter Friendships) John 15:12-17 and Acts 10:44-48

**An Artist’s Canvas by Stacey Zimmerman, A Painting Inspired by Friendship: Birds of a Feather

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 9, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

John 15:12-17 [Jesus said:] 9“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Acts 10:44-48 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

[sermon begins

At some point in high school, my daughter noticed that a lot of people described their moms as their best friend. (A relevant aside, I always ask my kids before they show up in a sermon.) Somewhere in that chat about moms being best friends, she and I talked about our own relationship and whether we would describe it that way. I don’t remember the details, but we both remember me saying something like, “You have a lot of friends, but you only have one Mom, it’s important to me that I’m your Mom more than your friend.” The topic came up again recently as she wraps up college. She asked if I thought my answer about our friendship was different now. My conversation with my daughter is timely as Mother’s Day converges with Jesus’ speech to his disciples about being friends with him. Friendship back in Jesus’ day meant something specific. Friendship in the First Century meant direct speak and bold action absent of flattery or distracting social tics. Ultimate friendship also included a noble death on behalf of the friend in both classical and popular philosophy back in Jesus’ day. John’s readers would have understood this definition of ultimate friendship. When Jesus talked about the greatest love exemplified in the one who would lay down one’s life for one’s friend, he was naming a widely accepted moral claim. Curiously, Jesus is not referred to as “friend” in the Gospel of John. He alternately refers to himself as the Son of Man, the bread of life, the light of the world, the gate, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth, AND the vine. He doesn’t say, “I AM the friend.” And his disciples don’t call him friend. He names the disciples as his friends when they love each other as he loves them. He defines the greatest love as being willing to lay down one’s life down for a friend. And then he walks the bold talk all the way to the cross. He launched the disciples into friendship modeled on his own friendship with them. Which brings us to Jesus’ friend Peter in the Acts reading today. Taking place well after the crucifixion and resurrection, this short reading is a fragment of the longer Cornelius’ story, the Italian centurion. Read his full story in Acts 10 and 11 this week. He was a Gentile, a non-Jew, who was a God-fearer associated with a Jewish synagogue. Cornelius invited Jesus’ friend Peter to come and teach at his home in Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judea. This means that Cornelius and his household weren’t just Gentiles, they were really, really Gentiles. And he had invited his friends and relatives to listen to Peter’s teaching so there were A LOT of Gentiles there. According to Jewish custom, eating with Gentiles was prohibited. There are visions and prayers and angels in the longer story that clarify the contradictions. Suffice it to say that Peter was divinely directed to this party. It was a party thrown in Peter’s honor and, like any good preacher, he didn’t waste his opportunity to say a few words. He preached about Jesus’ ministry, his death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit, and the forgiveness of sins. “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone listening…” The story says that the circumcised believers who had come to Caesarea with Peter “were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.” It was a wild moment. They couldn’t believe their eyes, nor could they have foreseen that this was where friendship with Jesus was taking them. Except that wasn’t true for everyone. Peter, yes, the same Peter who bumbled his way through many a Gospel story before Jesus’ death, seems to have finally caught up with Jesus’ agenda. Peter’s question about withholding baptismal water from the Gentiles was rhetorical. Of course, the baptisms would happen. But that’s not where the trouble brewed anyway. It’s what happened after the baptisms that got everyone’s knickers in a knot. It’s that last quiet verse in our reading as chapter ten ends. “Then they invited [Peter] to stay for several days.” If we keep reading just a few verses into Chapter 11, we get to the crux of the matter. Peter went up to Jerusalem and was criticized by the Jesus’ followers there – not for baptizing the Gentiles, but for going to the Gentiles and eating with them. Hospitality moved in both directions at different parts of the story. Early on, Peter invited Cornelius’ messengers in and gave them lodging. In our verses today, Cornelius and friends invited Peter to stay for several days. Peter was the kind of friend to Cornelius that Jesus encouraged the disciples to be – walking the talk and boldly widening the circle despite what other people assumed were the natural limits of the circle. I did answer my daughter’s question, by the way. When she asked if my answer about our friendship was different now than it was in high school. I said, “yes,” that as she’s moved into adulthood, it’s become more mutual. Though the truth remains that I’m still her mother. There’s simultaneous mutuality and hierarchy. Before anyone gets antsy, I’m in no way saying that my relationship with my daughter is like Jesus’ friendship with the disciples. I am definitely NOT like Jesus and she would be the first to tell you that she is NOT my disciple. But there is a parallel, albeit limited, in my mother/daughter example that helps us get at the simultaneous hierarchy of Jesus as the Messiah AND the mutuality of Jesus as our friend. Man, I would love to have been in those original conversations with Jesus and his disciples – to see him boldly walk the talk, to hear his instructions firsthand, to wonder about his teachings with the other disciples who were just as lost in his ministry as I was, to hear him call me friend. Not to sentimentalize it, just to capture what those moments might have been like. Imagine that with me. There are moments in various conversations with you all that are hints of what that experience must have been like. The church is, after all, the body of Christ. We are Easter people who support, encourage, and pray for each other when it’s neither easy nor convenient. We hold each other in faith when one of us struggles to get comfortable with doubt. We work together with neighbors on problems in the community hoping that we’re on the right track. In our various ways, we lay down our lives because Jesus first loved us as friends and continues to love us still. The mutuality of friendship is a wonder, located in the middle of Jesus’ farewell to his friends. Made all the more poignant because he’s shared his final meal with them, he’s suffered the betrayal of Judas, and he’s anticipating Peter’s denial. In the midst of sorrow, his command to love, woven with his friendship, is the foundation of joy. Jesus infuses the mutuality with joy in the sorrow of saying goodbye. He said to his friends, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” Love and joy are complete in us through the friend we have in Jesus, and through the friendship by which he widens the circle of his love and binds us together in his name.

Preaching, Sermons

If We Solved Racism… [OR Easter Faith in Holy Week Realities]

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 18, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Luke 24:36b-48 Jesus himself stood among [the disciples] and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence.
44Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things.”

1 John 3:1-7 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
4Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 7Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

[sermon begins]

Easter has a once-and-done feel to it – a vibrant crescendo after the introspection of Lent and passion of Holy Week. Trumpet fanfare and lilies and a zillion alleluias increase the sense of hitting the loudest, brightest, and highest point of the church year. Interestingly enough, Easter is such a big deal in the Christian calendar that Easter Sunday kicks off 50 days of feasting and celebration–not a single event but a season. As a season, it gives us time.

Time to wonder about Easter as a process of discovery rather than a single event.

Time to hear the stories about the earliest Jesus followers teased by Easter faith.

Time to immerse in the mystery of the empty tomb.

Time to turn from death into new ways of living.[1]

Turning from the dead end of the tomb sounds a lot like the repentance that Jesus talked about in our reading. He stood his resurrected-self among the frightened disciples announcing “Peace,” soothing them with the unique strategy of showing them his resurrected wounds. The Bible story says that “in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering,” so Jesus ate some fish to really highlight his liveliness. But he didn’t beat around the bush for long. He “opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and announced, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”

Jesus commissioned and sent them to proclaim repentance, to turn from death to new ways of living. A different way to think about Jesus’ call to repentance is to ask, “How will you live, now that you know there is nothing you can do or not do to make God love you any more or any less?” The Easter stories about the disciples and the resurrected Jesus are a process of discovery for each one of them. The disciples are frightened, joyful, disbelieving, and wondering all in just a few minutes. It seems that Easter faith doesn’t mean having it all together. In fact, Easter faith seems determined to live in joy while grappling with Holy Week realities like fear, disbelief, and sin. Otherwise, Jesus wouldn’t need to name repentance and forgiveness of sin.

While the church calendar suggests that Easter is one long party, Holy Week realities seem determined to intrude.[2] Repentance means naming those realities and our part in them while the Easter season reminds us that joy is possible. Individually, the Easter process looks as many different ways as there are each of us. Joy looks different for me than it does for you, so does fear, so does disbelief, and so do our sins. Individual struggles that result in sins hurting either ourselves or someone else often need individualized solutions and support to make life changes.

Churches are uniquely positioned to think about collective sin. Often at the beginning of worship together, we pray and confess our sin against God “by what we have done and by what we have left undone.” And that “we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” There is an individual meaning and there is also a collective meaning by our use of the word “we” as we repent and confess. Jesus’ ministry regularly yoked his listeners to each other and to their neighbors that they didn’t know. Think the parable of the Good Samaritan and the second greatest commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.”[3] And early in the Gospel of Luke, Mary sang about God’s lowering of the powerful, scattering of the proud, and filling of the hungry.[4]

One example of this is our national conversation about systemic racism. Systemic racism means that “what we have done and what we have left undone” embedded early, sinful behaviors and thinking about race into our founding documents and institutions, hence the need for those constitutional amendments abolishing slavery and instituting voting for freed Black men and ultimately women. We remain challenged by racial inequities in our government and private institutions, so systemic racism is obviously not solved.

If it were solved, we wouldn’t be talking about it ad nauseum.

If it were solved, we wouldn’t continue talking about what we have failed to do when law enforcement policies and training continue to lack safeguards against racial bias that research reveals in each one of us.

If it were solved, we wouldn’t once again be weeping over yet another dead black man killed by a community member or law enforcement.

If it were solved, we wouldn’t still be explaining his death away as if he were the one on trial.

If it were solved, we would be living well with each other, each Black and Brown life mattering as much as each White life.

Our resolve as Christians against these Holy Week realities is fueled in part by Jesus’ promise to humble our pride, to reveal our sin, and to lead us from death into life through repentance and the forgiveness of sins. In that freedom we are released from self-serving denial to work for the good of our neighbors whom we are called to love. Not a love that is distant and neutral, but a love that advocates and does the hard work of changing ourselves and institutions in service to our neighbors in the pew, in the house next door, in the next town, and around the world.

From the changed lives born out of repentance, we experience the joy and freedom of the forgiveness of sins. Being joyful comes more easily to some of our personalities for sure. And God’s reassuring love in the face of failure and sin is a bright spot of joy as we walk by Easter faith even when that Easter faith can feel like a constant process of lather-rinse-repeat as we continue to repent and try again.

At the start of worship today, we affirmed our baptisms by thanking Jesus for leading us from death into life. I invite you to look at that affirmation of baptism again. Print it out, cut it out, and put in on your bathroom mirror this week as a baptism reminder for when the water flows out of the faucet or shower. Because in our baptism we are called the children of God. Children of the same God who revealed the depth of divine love through the Holy Week realities of vulnerability, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness. Children of the same God who asks us to love ourselves and our neighbors with an Easter faith in the same manner of love.

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Song after the sermon

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us.

Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us.

That we should be called the children of God.

That we should be called the children of God.

By Patrician Van Tine ©1979 Maranatha! Music

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[1] Rev. Benjamin Perry, Ministry of Outreach and Media Strategy. Tweet on April 11, 2021 at 7:59 a.m. https://twitter.com/FaithfullyBP/status/1381245413341200384

[2] Bishop Jim Gonia referred to “Holy Week realities” in RMS Metro East Conference Text Study on April 13, 2021.

[3] Luke 10:25-37

[4] Luke 1:51b-53

Preaching, Sermons

Dawning Awareness [OR Knocked on Wood Recently?] Mark 16:1-8

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 4, 2021 – Easter!

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

Mark 16:1-8  When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus’ body]. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

[sermon begins]

You know that moment when things start to come together? A piece of evidence here, an observant comment there, now aligning with a random story you heard but can’t remember where, all connect to gradually take shape – dawning awareness moving into the full light of day. The pandemic started out that way. A news story there, a parishioner’s comment here, wondering about the latest rumor, and then BAM! – the governor locked down the state. There are millions of stories around the world and then each of us have our own million stories to tell. Mine include a small one about a Christmas cactus – a glorious, 20-year-old cascading beast that showed up at my door as a small sprout in the fundraising hands of a marching band kid.

The cactus moved into my church office a few years ago and had never done better. Native to the rain forest floor, he gets the long, dark nights in the office that are needed for the big winter bloom (yes, he’s a “he,” just roll with me on this). I lugged him home at the start of the pandemic. Lately it’s dawned on me that he needs to move back to the office. His blooms were lovely this winter but sparse. Funny thing. I’m hesitant to bring him back. It feels like I might jinx the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel – which of course is absolutely ridiculous. At the same time, it feels pretty human. I’d guess that at least a few us recently “knocked on wood” after saying something good in order to prevent back luck. Many of us don’t really outgrow the magical thinking of our childhoods. We just learn how to hide it better. The truth is that we don’t control nearly as much as we’d like to think, or as much as we wish we could. That’s the essence of the Easter story.

Easter morning reveals a stone rolled back and an empty tomb. But before that happened, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome had followed Jesus on his ministry. They looked on from a distance and saw Jesus die on the cross.[1] They’d also watched as his body was placed in the tomb hewn out of rock.[2] Reality after reality had hit them head on. The women were under no illusions about the recent trauma. They were, however, having a difficult time getting their heads around what was happening tomb-side. We can imagine them packing up spices, feeling numb and exhausted, and walking to the tomb. Probably not speaking much except to wonder how they were going to get into the tomb to anoint Jesus. That’s a heavy stone sealing it. The first one to get there stops, the second one stops, and then the third. Blinking to clear their eyes. Then staring so their minds catch up to what they’re seeing. And then looking at each other to confirm the visual gradually taking shape in front of them in the light of dawn. The tomb is empty.

Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome make their way into the tomb. Armed with spices and a plan to care for Jesus’ body they instead were met by a young man, very much upright and talking, and very much not Jesus. He fast tracked the women into a new reality. They go from gentle dawning awareness of seeing the stone rolled back to terror and amazement as the young man dressed in white announces, “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, has been raised.” New life has been unleashed and they have no idea what it means or what to do. Instead of telling Peter, as they’d been instructed by the young man, “…they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” It’s hard to blame them for being afraid. That’s a lot to take in after the cruelty and trauma of Jesus’ trial, torture, and execution. The women didn’t yet know whether Jesus being raised was good news or not. Eventually, they must have figured it out because here we are, picking up the story where it leaves off, invited to do what the young man in white told the women to do – “Go and Tell.”

“Go and tell.” Here on Easter morning our story parallels the women’s story. We started out talking about dawning awareness, Christmas cacti, and the women’s story at the tomb. Uneventful, Eastery business so far. But the telling part? WE just fast tracked into a new reality that calls for saying something out loud. Yikes! Anyone feel angst about saying something out loud? Want to get away from the empty tomb with the women as far as your credit card will carry you? Let’s take it down a notch then. The women regrouped at some point and so can we. We can say what we know. That’s it.

Ernest Hemingway used to tell writers who were blocked to “write one true sentence; write the truest sentence that you know.”[3] Similarly, as we interact with scripture and our own experience, we find the words or the situation that is the truest one that we know. For me, it was a few words in an obscure verse in a tiny book towards the end of the Bible. “God is love.”[4] I hung onto those words like I was drowning. Because at that time, I kinda was. You may have chosen peace over pain and finally forgiven yourself as God’s forgiveness took hold of you.[5] It may be that your self-pity has worn you out, and Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself unleashed you into the world to do some good.[6] Or it could be that the last year has exhausted you so thoroughly that you’re at Easter worship hoping for something but you’re not sure what that could even be.

Tell what you know. That’s the starting point. In the weeks, months, and years after Jesus’ birth, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection, Jesus’ followers told the story bit by bit, sharing it with each other and other people, and finally writing it down. Theirs was a process of faith in the same way ours is a process of faith. Shaky with doubt or trusting and celebratory, we seek to understand the promises of the cross and resurrection in our daily lives with a dawning awareness – a piece of evidence here, an observant comment there, now aligning with a random story you heard but can’t remember where, finally an experience in your life that ties the pieces together to gradually take shape.

Like the women at the tomb, suffering and fear make it difficult to see the new life that God promises. New life often reveals itself way after the fact as we look back on our experiences. Trusting by faith in God’s power to bring new life after trauma, over our own power to try and control, can be terrifying. BUT it can also be amazing. Easter invites us into dawning awareness along with the women at the empty tomb. New life isn’t something we can jinx by talking about it or moving our plants around. We also can’t wish new life were here when it’s not here yet. We’re just not that powerful. But watch what God can do.

 

 

p.s. It’s definitely time for the Christmas Cactus to return to the office.

_________________________________________________________

[1] Mark 15:40-41

[2] Mark 15:47

[3] Ernest Hemingway. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/30849-all-you-have-to-do-is-write-one-true-sentence

[4] 1 John 4:16b

[5] Ephesians 4:32

[6] Mark 12:33

Preaching, Sermons

My Dog Sunny and the Apostle Peter Have Something in Common [OR Jesus’ Commands Us to Love One Another – How’s That Going?] John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church for Maundy Thursday on April, 1, 2021

John 13:1-17, 31b-35  Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper 3Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. 5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. 6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” 7Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” 8Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” 9Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” 11For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
12After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. 14So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 16Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. 17If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

31b“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

[sermon begins]

 

My dog Sunny doesn’t like baths. I’ve seen videos of dogs who loves baths loaded with bubbles, laying on their backs with shower caps on just to be silly. Sunny? Not so much. I have to coax her with treats into the tub and remind her that I love her while she presses her head into my shoulder. This makes washing her face a real challenge. You’d think we’d have this down after almost seven years, but it seems it’s as good as it gets. This story about Sunny is a tricky because, yes, I’m comparing Sunny to Peter in the Bible story. He doesn’t want a bath either. His issues may be different than her issues, in fact they really are different, but the bottom line is the same. He won’t get in the water. Well, he won’t put his feet in the water. You’d think he’d have this down after several years of ministry with Jesus. Jesus tells them what to do and they do it, right? Peter seems to mess up the process over and over again. It’s handy that Peter does this a lot because it makes it easier to see ourselves in the story. If the Bible were full of perfect people being with a perfect Jesus it would be much harder to connect.

Many of us are like Sunny and Peter. We find it hard to trust and would rather come up with our own ideas. That’s pretty much what the Holy Week and Easter stories are – we find it hard to trust and would rather come up with our own ideas. Thank God for Jesus. Jesus reminds Peter and us that our own ideas may not be best for us or each other. The Bible story says that Jesus knew that he came from God and was going to God. Right after that, Jesus gets up from the table, takes off his outer robe, ties a towel around his waist and starts washing dirty, stinky disciple feet. He gets to Peter. Peter argues with him. He looks up to Jesus. Jesus is his leader. He doesn’t want Jesus washing his feet. Jesus basically tells Peter that this is the way it works. This is the way Jesus works. Jesus is a servant. A servant from God who washes feet and tells us to love each other like he loves us, a love in service to each other.

Before anybody runs out and starts washing other people’s feet, think bigger. We are named ‘child of God’ as we’re bathed in the water of baptism in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Children of God, washed by God. Like Jesus in our Bible story today, we can say that we now come from God and one day we will go to God.[1] That’s handled. And by the power of the Holy Spirit through our baptism we are given gifts that help us serve in the way that Jesus asks us to serve.

During Communion Instruction class, I asked each parent to say something that they liked about their child. The answers included “love of music, zest for life, loves dogs, kind, snuggly, determined, and loves to read.” Being limited to one answer is tough. I’m sure the lists of what you parents like about these kids would be a mile long. But the point is this, the list of qualities, things about you that make you you, these can also be called gifts from God. Gifts that you can use to serve and love the world. It’s pretty simple even though we complicate it with ambition, goals, and what everyone else seems to be doing. Those are distractions. Gifts you’re given to serve are the very ones you’re given to lead. Jesus led his disciples and leads us with wisdom, determination, kindness, intensity, vulnerability, love, grace, and more – a real mishmash of gifts. We’re not Jesus but we’re similarly mishmashed.

It’s been a mishmash kind of year though, so we fit right in. It’s been a year of figuring a lot of things out including how to serve each other. Our old standbys of service like hugs, spending time with people who need a boost of emotional support, serving meals, and holding a hand have been changed. Everyone who works or goes to school outside their home has experienced dramatic changes in how we serve through our different roles. We had to get creative in our ways to work, learn, serve, and stay in touch. Reimagining so much of our lives has been an adjustment in using our mishmash of gifts.

Jesus doesn’t leave us there though, with our confusing jumble of gifts. Jesus gives us each other as the church to figure out those gifts and he gives us the food we need for the journey. That’s what Holy Communion is about at its most basic level. It’s food for the journey of faith. First, it’s food for the journey purely as a gift from God – a blessing and promise of forgiveness and faith from God to us. It’s also food for the journey to do what God asks us to do. To be strengthened and freed to love and serve each other as Jesus loves and serves us.

Jesus’ meal of bread and wine that we share in communion draws us deeply into an even wider community too. The other Bible story that we heard together was long ago. It’s called the Passover story. It’s a story about how God freed God’s people from slavery in Egypt. Our Jewish cousins in the faith celebrate Passover to this day. Jesus was a Jew and connected the lifeline of Passover to the lifeline that we celebrate as Holy Communion when he was with his friends at a Passover celebration. Jesus expanded the promise that God made to the Jews to be a promise for all people. His new covenant connects us with God’s ancient promises as we move into the future. Jesus’ set a table for one and for all people, as Jesus table set for you.

Things happen quickly during communion. There are words, and prayers, and often singing. It can be easy to miss what’s happening in the special celebration that Jesus gave us. The words from our other Bible reading are the main words to hear. Listen to that Bible reading again:

…Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. [1 Corinthians 11:23b-25]

These words are the promise. Jesus promises that what he did – every word he spoke against harm, greed, and hatred while speaking for love of God, enemy, and neighbor, for grace and forgiveness, for faith and generosity, for hope and healing; every word that made him that much more vulnerable to death on a cross – is a promise strong enough to claim us by faith.

Today we celebrate Jesus’s table, where there is a place for everyone and there is a place for you.

______________________________________________________________

[1] John 13:3

_______________________________________________________________

1 Corinthians 11:23-26   For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Exodus 12:1-4,  11-14   The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. [5Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. ] 11This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. 12For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

 

 

Preaching, Sermons

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? [OR Hope Flickering in the Darkness] John 3:14-21 and Numbers 21:4-9

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 14, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Numbers 21:4-9  From Mount Hor [the Israelites] set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. 5The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” 6Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. 7The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:14-21  [Jesus said:] 14“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
16“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
17“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. 20For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

[sermon begins]

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?” “I see a red bird looking at me.”

“Red Bird, Red Bird, what do you see?” “I see a yellow duck looking at me.”[1]

So goes the children’s book that I read infinity times to my children when they were little. It popped into my head as I was thinking about what the Israelites saw in the Bible story from the book of Numbers this morning.

Israelite, Israelite, what do you see? I see a poisonous serpent looking at me.

Poisonous Serpent, Poisonous Serpent, what do you see? I see a Moses man looking at me.

Moses Man, Moses Man, what do you see? I see a bronze serpent looking at me.

Bronze Serpent, Bronze Serpent, what do you see? I see scared Israelites looking at me.

One of the odder and more disturbing stories in the Bible, the Israelites whine and complain against Moses and God after being freed from slavery in Egypt. Their misery about the conditions in the wilderness brings out their smallest selves – impatient and afraid, they question their liberation, and they question God and Moses. Things go quickly from bad to worse with the arrival of the poisonous serpents. The Israelites confess their sin and are freed from death by looking at the bronze serpent on a stick. They look at the very thing that causes pain, making it visible to be able to see life itself.[2] Fighting their fear, the Israelites are saved by focusing on source of their injury. That’s the solution lifted up by God and Moses.

Scared Israelite, Scared Israelite, what do you see? I see a bronze serpent looking at me.

How many times have we heard the opposite? Someone giving advice to not look at the very thing that is scary, painful, or dangerous because it’s too upsetting. Look on the sunny side of life, they say. There’s truth enough in that encouragement. We can’t continuously indulge in the dark, wrapping our smallest selves around fear and pain, if we have any chance at a balanced life. Joy and hope are lost to us if that’s the plan. Although, taking time to directly assess the cause of our pain may be necessary time in the dark, finding a glimmer of hope flickering in the darkness.

Hope flickering in the darkness brings us to the Gospel of John reading. We are not given all the verses in the story. The verses we hear today are part of a longer speech by Jesus to Nicodemus, a Jewish Pharisee, a religious leader. Nicodemus visits Jesus “by night,” under the cover of darkness. We’re not told exactly why he visits Jesus in the dark of night, but the Gospel of John makes a big deal out of light and dark. The opening verses of the book tell us, “The lights shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”[3]  Later in John, Jesus will say, “I am the light of the world.”[4] Nicodemus, in the dark of night, said to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God.”

Nicodemus, Nicodemus, what do you see? I see Rabbi Jesus looking at me.

Rabbi Jesus, Rabbi Jesus, what do you see? I see Nic-at-night looking at me.

Nicodemus knew enough to know that Jesus had something important to say, which is why he called him Rabbi and teacher. Jesus does not disappoint. He teaches his heart out. The verses we hear today are the second half of his teaching to Nicodemus and contain one of the most well-known parts of the Bible beginning with, “For God so loved the world…” It’s obvious why the people putting together the three-year cycle of worship readings paired this passage with the Old Testament reading about Moses and the Israelites. Jesus compared himself being lifted up on the cross with the bronze serpent lifted up on a stick by Moses. And then Jesus talked about God so loving the world, sending the Son not for condemnation but “in order that the world might be saved through him.” The Greek word for “saved” here, sozo [σώζω / sode-zo], can mean to protect someone from danger or to heal and restore.[5]

Beloved World, Beloved World, what do you see? I see Jesus the Light looking at me.

Jesus the Light, lifted up on a cross, shines light in the darkness of man’s inhumanity to man, or Son of Man as the case may be. To look at the cross is to look at the damage we can do in our worst moments when we believe that grace doesn’t belong to anyone else. We look at the darkness within us, and know that by looking at it, by examining the darkness, healing becomes a possibility. We depend on the daily promise of our baptisms for the freedom to live each day by grace through faith. We trust that God loving the world means that God also loves each one of us which means that there is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or any less; that we are children of God.

Child of God, Child of God, what do you see? I see the God of grace looking at me.

Grace is what frees us to look at the causes of our pain and the pain we cause acting out of it. We don’t hurt ourselves or other people from our healed, larger selves. It’s from our smaller selves, wrapped around our pain, cozied up with our fear, that we inflict ourselves on each other. Healing can be a life-long process. As opposed to a self-help project, healing takes community, sometimes including professionals trained to help us work through specific trauma. Jesus shares the space with us when we end up confused in the dark. We call this the Theology of the Cross. Jesus suffers with us when we suffer, shining light on the broken places in need of healing. God’s grace, showing up in the person of Jesus, was so excessive and offensive that the people in power reacted by doing their worst and killing him. Untamed grace is simply that threatening. Untamed grace shines light in the darkness and pulls life out death. Who knows what then becomes possible?!

God of Grace, God of Grace, what do you see? I see the world I so love looking at me.

________________________________________________________

[1] Bill Martin Jr. (author) and Eric Carle (illustrator). Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1967). Listen to the whole book here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTr0eDESN7U

[2] Kari Reiquam, Interim Pastor, Holy Love Lutheran Church, Aurora, CO. Preacher’s Text Study for Metro East Conference of Rocky Mountain Synod, ELCA. March 9, 2021.

[3] John 1:5

[4] John 8:12

[5] Bible Study Tools: Lexicon. “Sozo.” https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/sozo.html

Preaching, Sermons

Baseball’s Sacrifice Fly [OR Self-Sacrifice and Sinning Boldly by the Grace of God]   Mark 8:31-38

Photo credit:  Josh Rutledge #14 of the Colorado Rockies hits an RBI single during the sixth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Coors Field on August 27, 2012 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Justin Edmonds/Getty Images)

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 28, 2021

[sermon begins]

Mark 8:31-38  [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.32He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
34He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

[sermon begins]

Spending time with my stepfather Pops often meant taking in a baseball game. The rare treat, a live game at the stadium, came with the bonus of Dodger dogs and peanuts. More typically, it meant hanging out on the couch, game on the television with the sound off, and Vin Scully calling the game on the radio. While my baseball speak is a little rusty, obvious excitement came from bases loaded and a homerun blasted out of the park. Personally, the drama of the sacrifice fly had me on the edge of my seat. The batter intentionally hits a ball, popping it up in the air, arcing it toward a fielder who catches it for the easy out, while the runners on base run like crazy to home to score in the meantime. The batter is out, sacrificed for the team to get ahead. The drama of it was the self-sacrifice. We could come up with real-life examples of self-sacrifice when someone dies to save someone else but the point is made. The self-sacrificing action is voluntarily taken by choice for the good of the whole.

Self-sacrifice is the name of the game in our Gospel of Mark reading today. It’s the first time in Mark that Jesus has taught about his death. Up to now, there have been healing after healing, calming storms, and feeding thousands. Jesus and the disciples were on a winning streak. The good news was easy marketing. Just before our reading today, Peter had declared Jesus to be the Messiah. He was batting 1.000. His discipleship star was rising quickly. No risk of being traded. How quickly the momentum shifts.

As far as Peter was concerned, Jesus had just preached a three-strikes-you’re-out sermon that highlighted his suffering, rejection, and execution. He pulled Jesus aside and rebuked him. Not a bad coaching strategy. If you have something tough to say, you create privacy to work it out. Jesus was having none of it. Jesus turned himself and Peter back to the disciples for an intense, public rebuke. Then he called the crowd in with the disciples, following up with another intense teaching moment in which he commands them to deny themselves and take up their cross if they want to follow him.

The key in Jesus’ teaching is the self-sacrifice. It’s obvious that going after the religious leaders and the power of Rome is not the path to hitting the salary cap in a multi-year contract. Jesus made choices along the way. Jesus chose. That shouldn’t come as a surprise because he himself came from a surprising choice. Just before Christmas, we heard the story of the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit and have a son named Jesus.[1] Although confused by how the plan was going to come together, Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” At enormous risk to herself, she assented to the plan. In those days, turning up pregnant and unmarried could have meant death for her. But Mary said, “Let it be with me.” She said, “Let it.” Mary chose. Jesus chose.

Leading by example, Jesus commands his disciples in what smacks of another three-strikes-you’re-out teaching – deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow me.  A good agent would have told him that this is not an effective message for building a following and that Jesus should stick to healing and feeding. But the power of what Jesus teaches comes from his example. He wasn’t asking his disciples to choose anything that he wasn’t also willing to choose. The choice prohibits these verses from being used to justify abuse and suffering, used to keep someone in an abusive relationship. The self-defined choice makes all the difference.

Self-denial sounds Lenty and familiar. Giving up chocolate or another tasty treat is emblematic of the season of Lent. It makes sense that choosing to give up something that’s frequently enjoyed would serve as a reminder to pause, pray, and recenter our thinking around God’s presence and priorities. All good things. It’s more likely that Jesus’ command to the disciples to deny themselves meant giving up things like power, influence, ego, and control for discipleship priorities like compassion, mercy, faith, and hope. Things he preached and taught about regularly in his ministry. But it’s not self-denial for its own sake. There’s a purpose to self-sacrifice beyond accumulating discipleship stats. Also, a word of caution here. Jesus’ command is not a call to become mini saviors. Jesus’ consistent teachings across the gospel accounts calls his disciples into becoming neighbors. So, note to self: neighbors not saviors. An important distinction especially considering Jesus’ command to the disciples to take up their cross.

Taking up our crosses is informed by Jesus’ self-sacrificing example. It’s helpful to consider what we deny ourselves so that there’s space for a cross – letting some things go to make room for what’s being asked of us. Again, not self-sacrifice for its own sake, but for the sake of the gospel which Jesus says saves lives. Our lives. There are no easy answers in a sermon that lasts minutes. It’s discipleship in the big leagues. Questions about self-denial can be brought to God both individually and congregationally. Individually we can pray, “God, what are you asking me to give up, making room for your will?” We can talk to people we trust, inviting counsel from faithful people in our lives. Sourcing ourselves with multiple perspectives helps prevent mini-savior errors. The same is true congregationally. We went through a strategic planning process over the last few years that helped us discern our collective discipleship internally as a faith community and externally as neighbors in the wider community. Today’s congregational meeting and vote about our vacant land being developed into affordable housing is one more step in the process.

At the end of the day, the cross we count on is not the one we take up as our own. The cross we count on is the one that Jesus taught about here in Mark. The cross on which he hung after great suffering and rejection. The cross was his own. His individual event. His choice. His self-sacrifice. Like Peter, we struggle to understand it but equally depend on it for the life given to us by the one who poured out his life. If you hear nothing else today, please hear this, we are set free in discipleship by the cross of Christ, which means that the road to God is not paved by any deeds or do-goodery on our part. God’s presence in our lives is given by the grace of Jesus through the cross of Jesus, undeserved and unearned by us. Martin Luther described this as the freedom to “sin boldly” for the sake of the gospel. Meaning that it is difficult, more like impossible, to tease apart our flawed motives from our faithful interpretation of God’s will. So we make choices as best we can, asking for forgiveness and celebrating God’s grace as we follow Jesus on the journey.

__________________________________________

[1] Luke 1:26-38 is formally called The Annunciation.

Preaching, Sermons

Heaven is the Place of God (which probably isn’t what any of us think it means) – A sermon for Ash Wednesday – Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 17, 2021

Livestream online worship at 7 p.m. this evening can be found on Augustana’s YouTube  page here.

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21  [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. 3But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so 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. 6But 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. 17But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18so 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; 20but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

[sermon begins]

A couple of months ago, I preached about the choices we make about who we listen to in books, movies, politics, etcetera, and whether or not the voices we listen to point us to the light, to the voice of Jesus – a voice that promises grace, challenge, struggle, hope, and love of God, self, and neighbor.[1] A couple of days later, a parishioner emailed a recommendation for a favorite book series by Louise Penny.[2] Mysteries about the “light and dark in each person, love of family and community, laced with humor” went the email. Long story short, I’m on book seven. In the novels, Chief Inspector Gamache leads a crack team of homicide detectives. More importantly, he mentors them, teaching them the importance of using four key phrases, “I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”[3] These four phrases bubble up in the series to consider the characters’ motivations and behaviors. The phrases are a good summary of Ash Wednesday too – I don’t know, I need help, I’m sorry, I was wrong. At least, it’s a good summary of the human side of the equation on Ash Wednesday.

It’s the human side of the equation that Jesus challenged his disciples about in the Gospel of Matthew reading. He challenged their motivations and behaviors as he told them not to engage in hypocritical rituals, practicing their piety on street corners in order to be seen by other people.[4] One sure way to make sure that’s absolutely not the case is to practice the rituals privately as Jesus then encouraged them to do. However, Jesus does assume that his disciples will give alms, pray, and fast. He said to the disciples, “When you give alms…; When you pray…; When you fast…” He reassured them that in their private moments of self-discipline and ritual piety of giving alms (also known as sacrificial giving), praying, and fasting, that God was with them – for which we can thank the grown-up bearded Jesus in these physically distanced times. We’ve relied heavily on God’s promise of presence in so many new and different ways over the last year.

A year ago, I’m not sure I would have believed you if you had told me that I’d be standing in front of the church building with Pastor Ann placing ashes on people’s foreheads outside of a worship service. I know I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me I’d be presiding over communion via online worship. But if there’s one thing I know about theology, it’s that it’s at its best when it ends up being quite practical. Speaking of practical, anyone wondering what the skipped verses in our reading from the Gospel of Matthew contains? The reading jumps from verse 6 to verse 16 without missing a beat. It’s okay if you’re not wondering about those missing verses. I’m going to let you in on the secret. Jesus teaches his disciples the Lord’s Prayer in those verses. Jesus says to his disciples:

Pray in this way:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.[5]

In the middle of his speech to the disciples about avoiding hypocrisy, Jesus gives them a practical prayer to help them do so – the Lord’s Prayer. We’re immersing in the Lord’s Prayer as a congregation during Lent guided by Rev. Dr. Stephen Cherry’s book, Thy Will Be Done.[6]

The Lord’s Prayer starts in heaven. Heaven, according to the prayer, is the place of God, some would even say the heart of God. Heaven is impossible to imagine although many of us have certainly tried. Time-limited, finite beings cannot comprehend the infinite. It’s a  physical impossibility. On Ash Wednesday, we lean into the place of God, into heaven, as we ponder our fragile mortality. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” we hear as ashes mark the sign of the cross. The underlying promise is that God breathes life into dust. The cross shaped with ash echoes the cross placed on our foreheads in our baptism. While we’re leaning into the truth of our mortality, we’re also leaning through that mortality into the place of God, into the embrace of God. The cross symbolizes the reality that there is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or any less. This means that when we take our last breath, God’s embrace holds us in heaven, in the place of God. This is God’s resurrection promise through the cross of Christ for our death someday, whenever our someday comes. But this isn’t only about someday.

Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”[7] Your heart will be in heaven, in God’s place, in God’s heart. Not only someday. TODAY. What are the treasures of heaven? Compassion, mercy, grace, forgiveness, generosity, and more. Treasures of heaven are the things that Jesus spends so much time challenging his listeners about in scripture. Practical things that we participate in right now. Or maybe they’re impractical. Not sure. We can argue about that another time. Regardless, treasures of heaven are unearned, undeserved, and permanent. They do not fade away and cannot be taken away. They are eternal. They are of heaven.

God’s promise, God’s side of the equation on Ash Wednesday, frees us into the challenges that Jesus gives his disciples, the challenges we take up today, continue through the six weeks of Lent, and in our lives of faith year-round.  A challenge of humility when we say, “I don’t know.” A challenge of imperfection when we say, “I need help.” A challenge of repentance when we confess to God and each other, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.”  We’re free to tell the truth because God promises us a place in the place of God, in heaven, today and someday. Thanks be to God, and amen.

__________________________________________________

[1] Caitlin Trussell. Sermon: “World Building with Light” with Augustana Lutheran Church on December 13, 2020. http://caitlintrussell.org/2020/12/13/world-building-with-light-john-6-8-19-28/

[2] Louise Penny official site – https://www.louisepenny.com

[3] Louise Penny. Still Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.), 84.

[4] Matthew 6:1

[5] Matthew 6:9-13

[6] Stephen Cherry, Dean of King’s College Cambridge. The 2021 Lent Book: Thy Will Be Done (London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2021).

[7] Matthew 6:19-21

Preaching, Sermons

Repentance – Not Sexy but Needed for National Healing — Jonah 3:1-10 and Mark 1:14-20

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on January 24, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Jonah 3:1-10 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you. 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Mark 1:14-20  Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 16As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 17And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

[sermon begins]

Do-overs. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t wished for a do-over. That head-slapping, Homer Simpson moment of, “Doh!” followed quickly by, “I wish I hadn’t of done that.” [1a] Do-overs tap a longing for a chance to re-do a moment, a choice, or a behavior with a better frame of mind and more principled behavior. Every so often you’ll hear a celebrity or other public person say, “I have no regrets!” This is usually followed by the advice to not look back and that the only way to live life is to look ahead.

As with many such statements, there’s a shred of truth in it. But for a lot of us, it’s just simply not true about our own lives. Especially for Jesus followers, I think. Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark come after he’s baptized by John, after God announces Jesus as the Beloved Son, after the Spirit leads him into the wilderness where he’s tempted by satan and waited on by angels. Jesus’ first sentence in the Gospel includes a command to repent. It’s not a great hook. Imagine trying to start a new group and telling everyone that their first task is to list all their wrongs and change their behavior. Yeah, not too sexy.

Jonah knew that the method of introducing yourself with the command to repent was dead in the water. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and announce repentance to the King and all the people there. Imagine going to the people that you’re most afraid will hurt you and demanding their repentance. The Ninevites of Assyria were those people. They were militarily dominant in every way and vicious with their opponents, ultimately destroying the Northern Kingdom of Israel and oppressing the Southern Kingdoms.[1b] Jonah had every right to be afraid. He was also understandably angry that God would forgive his greatest enemies. He knew that God was “a gracious God and merciful, abounding in steadfast love.”[2] He did not want God to be THAT God to the Ninevites.

Jonah ran away the first time God told him to go to Nineveh and demand their repentance. He was tossed over the side of a ship in a storm and ended up in the belly of a fish only to be thrown up on the shore after he did what? After he himself repented. Jonah was given a second chance by God to go preach to the Ninevites who did indeed themselves repent – covering every king, man, woman, child, and animal in sackcloth and ashes, crying out “mightily to God,” and turning from their evil ways and the violence in their hands.[3]

Our Jewish cousins in the faith read the book of Jonah “on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews confess their sins against God and neighbor.”[4] It’s short book. Four brief chapters. Go ahead and read Jonah this week. It’s the only time it bubbles up on the three-year lectionary cycle of Bible readings for worship. It’s an incredible example of the very human reactions that accompany both societal and individual repentance – including Jonah’s anger that his enemies would receive God’s grace. That’s the part of Jonah’s tale that is the most offensive. There’s a particular kind of happiness we feel when we see our enemies fall and the farther they fall the better. Jonah’s understandable anger for God’s forgiveness of the Ninevites mirrors our own. It’s too difficult to believe that God’s grace extends to those we hate. But God’s grace is indeed the last word.

Recently, an unchurched friend of mine texted to ask if I could hear their confession and we did so. Individual confession follows the general order of confession, discussion, and forgiveness. During the discussion, we talked about consequences for what was being confessed including making amends to the people affected by the confessed behavior. Grace is the last word in the confession and forgiveness.  God’s forgiveness frees us to navigate the consequences for our hurtful behavior.

Along that line, the question was asked recently in staff meeting about the role of the church during this time of national crises. It’s a question that I’ve asked myself off-and-on over the last couple of decades. There are books full of attempts to answer this question over the centuries. The general consensus is that if God so loves the world, then the church is not only about my personal, spiritual benefits from it. Several of our worship readings during the past few weeks gave a challenge of repentance including John’s baptism of repentance, Jesus’ call to the disciples to repent and follow him, and Jonah’s proclamation to the Ninevites to repent. We have heard plenty of it today as the Bible stories immerse us in repentance.

The role of the church in society is similar – although not as the bedroom vice-squad that polices who people are sleeping with, which is too often the case. The role of the church emphasizes Jesus’ example, the one whom we follow. Our own repentance for personal and collective sin holds us accountable and redirects our behavior. From our own accountability, we may challenge others to do the same. In times of national crises like the pandemic and the chaotic transition of presidential power, we may challenge elected officials and public leaders who have hurt people by what they have done and what they have left undone.

The church may hold powerful people accountable across the spectrum of partisanship and the roles of those involved for greed, indifference to the poor, harm inflicted, violence incited, and more – powerful people like former President Trump and other leaders who fanned the flames of violence to the ones who stormed the Capital seeking to harm those in Congress. The attack happened under the American flag, the Confederate flag, and symbols of the Christian church.

The symbols of the church were especially offensive because we follow Jesus. The Jesus who told Peter to put his sword away as Jesus was being arrested is the Jesus we follow. The Jesus who called public leaders to account for the violence of failing to care for the widow and the poor is the Jesus we follow. The Jesus who would rather die than raise a hand in violence against the world that God so loves, is the Jesus we follow.

Ironically, our country’s violent roots began with people fleeing religious violence only to perpetuate that violence on the native people who already lived here and the enslaved people who were brought here – all in the name of white superiority and divine blessing. As a country, we continue to perpetuate violence in the name of God without pausing to repent for that violence, to collectively experience the consequences, and to make amends to the black and brown people who have borne the brunt of nationally sanctioned and inflicted violence. Talk about taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Obviously, accountability is not the only role of the church. During national crises we also comfort people who are scared, grieving, alone, and hungry. We comfort each other in our congregation and reach out to comfort family, friends, and neighbors. There’s a saying that the church, the body of Christ, “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable,” following Jesus’ example and teaching.[5] That remains true in times of calm and in times of crises.

In Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark, he proclaims good news and repentance, and announces, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”[6] Repentance turns us away from our self-absorption towards the good news of Jesus. Good news that includes loving our neighbors (not always an easy task), loving ourselves (an often much harder task), and loving a God who loves us first, last, and in-between. A God who loves us so much that we are not left bound to the sin that clings so closely but free to live differently in the world because God loves us and our neighbor. A God who slipped on skin to show us how it’s done and forgives us when we fail. A God whose offensive, radical grace is the last word. Amen.

_______________________________________________________________

[1a] Oliver Libaw. “Doh! Oxford Dictionary Takes Homer Simpson.” ABC News, January 7, 2006.  https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93098&page=1

[1b] Beth L. Tanner, Professor of Old Testament, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Jersey. Commentary on Jonah 3:1-5, 10 for January 25, 2009. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-after-epiphany-2/commentary-on-jonah-31-5-10-2

[2] Jonah 4:2

[3] Jonah 3:8

[4]  Tanner, Ibid.

[5] Tim Stewart. “God comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” August 5, 2013. Dictionary of Christianese: The casual slang of the Christian church…authoritatively defined.           https://www.dictionaryofchristianese.com/god-comforts-the-afflicted-and-afflicts-the-comfortable/

[6] Mark 1:15