Rest for the Weary Soul [OR I am a Churchy Woman with Eyelash Woes] Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30; Genesis 23, and Romans 7:15-25a

July 9, 2023 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on July 9, 2023

[sermon begins after three Bible readings – if you’re picking and choosing, read the Matthew reading]

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 [Jesus spoke to the crowd saying:] ¹⁶“To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
¹⁷‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
²⁸“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Romans 7:15-25a I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ^25aThanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Genesis 23:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 [Laban, Rebekah’s brother, received a visitor who said,] ³⁴“I am Abraham’s servant. ³⁵The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy; he has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys. ³⁶And Sarah my master’s wife bore a son to my master when she was old; and he has given him all that he has. ³⁷My master made me swear, saying, ‘You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live; ³⁸but you shall go to my father’s house, to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.’
⁴²“I came today to the spring, and said, ‘O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now you will only make successful the way I am going! ⁴³I am standing here by the spring of water; let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, “Please give me a little water from your jar to drink,” ⁴⁴and who will say to me, “Drink, and I will draw for your camels also”—let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master’s son.’
⁴⁵“Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water jar on her shoulder; and she went down to the spring, and drew. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ ⁴⁶She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder, and said, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels. ⁴⁷Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her arms. ⁴⁸Then I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to obtain the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. ⁴⁹Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left.”
⁵⁸And they called Rebekah, and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will.” ⁵⁹So they sent away their sister Rebekah and her nurse along with Abraham’s servant and his men. ⁶⁰And they blessed Rebekah and said to her,
“May you, our sister, become
thousands of myriads;
may your offspring gain possession
of the gates of their foes.”
⁶¹Then Rebekah and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man; thus the servant took Rebekah, and went his way.
⁶²Now Isaac had come from Beer-lahai-roi, and was settled in the Negeb. ⁶³Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field; and looking up, he saw camels coming. ⁶⁴And Rebekah looked up, and when she saw Isaac, she slipped quickly from the camel, ⁶⁵and said to the servant, “Who is the man over there, walking in the field to meet us?” The servant said, “It is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. ⁶⁶And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. ⁶⁷Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent. He took Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.

[sermon begins]

I didn’t do much preaching after I was diagnosed with lymphoma a few months ago. One of my friends asked me about how I was handling the preaching part of things and I told her that I had colleagues who were preaching. My friend decided that was a good thing because all of my sermons would end up being about cancer. That hasn’t been the case since I started preaching again. One of the principles of preaching is to preach from your scars not your wounds. This is meant to caution the preacher when an event is too fresh or too raw. I’m sharing the rule with you because I’m going to break it today. Today’s Bible stories are just close enough home.

I’ve talked about how much Sunday worship has meant to me during these months. Hymn singing, communion, baptisms, and my colleagues’ preaching have pushed the reset button for me during weeks that felt like too much. I’m solidly and theologically Lutheran even though I wasn’t raised a Lutheran culturally. I believe that God’s word is revealed through preaching, however imperfectly we preachers may get it done week-to-week, that God’s promise of presence is real in the sacraments of baptism and communion, and that God’s transcendence is experienced in the collective effervescence of hymn singing and choir singing and in the mystery of making that organ sing during preludes and postludes. I’m a churchy woman and find great comfort in the traditions of faith. So in today’s Bible reading, I nod along in agreement when Jesus says, “Come to me, all of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest…for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Yes, sweet Jesus, you are indeed a place of rest. As a churchy woman, I also believe that this congregation as part of the church around the world is the risen body of Christ. Part of the theology of the resurrection is that we are Jesus’ resurrected body in the world. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, the heart of Jesus, called and sent into the world to be gentle and humble of heart. To unburden the burdened and give rest to the weary. As Pastor Gail said last week, we are the face of Christ to other people when we care for them and, conversely, other people are the face of Christ to us when we receive care from them.[1] I’ve received so much love and care from you. Sometimes, the weary one is ourselves and we are as much in need of receiving Jesus’ good care as we’ve ever been. This is where scripture comes in to remind us just how big God is and how far beyond acceptable boundaries God works.

In the first Bible reading this morning, we hear the story about Isaac and Rebekah’s arranged marriage. This is a story I’ve heard many times. God’s provision and maintenance of God’s covenant with God’s people had many twists and turns throughout the generations. Some of the best stories are in the book of Genesis. Isaac and Rebekah’s story goes into specific detail when a simple genealogy may have sufficed.[2] But, in the story, we’re privy to the thoughts of Abraham’s servant who has been sent to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant prays to the Lord for a specific sign and through that sign he identifies Rebekah. God’s provision of a wife for Isaac is God’s commitment to the covenant with God’s people and the story’s sign is about watering the camels. God works through a servant, his thirsty camels, and woman’s kindness. New Testament stories keep the surprises coming in people like the Jesus and Syrophoenician woman or Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.[3] Unlikely people who remind us just how much God’s commitment to us is revealed in the gentle and humble in heart. Not necessarily people we would expect to be revealing God to us.

I said from the beginning of my lymphoma diagnosis that I don’t believe that God gave me this disease. I do believe that God works through all of life’s situations to remind us how much God loves each one of us. A few Sundays ago, I went to apply mascara and realized that I have very few eyelashes left. Chemo makes those fall out too. While I knew eyelashes fall out in theory, it was very different being confronted by it in the mirror. I talked about it with my daughter and ordered some fake lashes. Boy, did that go sideways fast – glue everywhere, cattywampus eyelids. A clear no-go.

When I went to the infusion clinic, I talked to my nurse about it and about how you never know what the tipping point’s going to be. In the infusion chair next to me, there was a woman getting a blood transfusion. She apologized for over-hearing and then told me where I could go to get fake eyelash instruction for free. We had quite a back-and-forth with her expertise as a former employee there. I’m shaking my head again at the wonder of her sitting next to me at the clinic and chiming in with the very information I was seeking. In hindsight, I saw Jesus in that moment, caring for me when the weight of cancer was exposed by something as feather light as eyelashes.

The next day, I followed the transfusion lady’s recommendation. At that makeup counter, I met Bella. Young, vibrant, and sporting incredible lashes, I gave her the nutshell of my story and how much losing my eyelashes has affected me. I told her that I’m a pastor and, while her eyes look amazing, that I need something understated as I preach and do communion and baptisms. After she asked me some relevant eye makeup questions, she told me the story of her grandmother who recently completed chemo and whose long Native American hair, that ordinarily grew well past her hips, was decimated. Bella told me she understood and proceeded to guide me through the store to find the closest thing to natural length lashes and to tutor me in the proper technique. There’s even a tool especially made for this application. She also gave me the alternative of simple eyeliner when lashes feel like too much. She was skilled and compassionate. Dare I say that she was gentle and humble of heart. Dare I say that, in hindsight, I felt a place of rest.

If God can work through thirsty camels and Rebekah’s kindness to bring a message of hope and clarity, then God can certainly work through a woman receiving a blood transfusion and a woman trained in the art of eyelashes. In addition to the churchy ways that give us a place of rest in Jesus, there is a wide world through which God’s care is present in surprising people and events. Jesus spent much of his time teaching his followers to see God’s care in unexpected people and events. This was a continuation from his Jewish roots and the stories that he grew up on like Isaac and Rebekah’s arranged marriage. Stories about his ancestors and how he came to be the son of Mary, a gentle and humble leader with concern for his weary and burdened followers.

It doesn’t take much for us to flip the script on Jesus and to glorify leaders for their toughness and earthly power. Or to see those attributes in other people and praise them for it. Or to desire those characteristics in ourselves. The funny thing about Jesus describing himself as gentle and humble of heart is that he’s angry in this story from Matthew. He’s challenging the religious leaders for the stumbling blocks they put in front of ordinary people that make God unreachable or unknowable.[4] The religious leaders accused John the Baptist for being too uptight, basically calling him an ascetic who had a demon, and they indicted Jesus for being too loosey-goosey, saying he was “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”[5]

Yes, thank the sweet Jesus for being a friend of sinners. We aren’t going to get it right, this thing called living. Like Paul’s confession in his letter to the Romans, we’re going to do what we don’t want to do and not do what we should do.[6] Jesus’ command to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves is something in which we seem determined to find loopholes.[7] We say to ourselves, “Oh, not that neighbor, I could never love them,” or “Oh, not myself, I’m not loveable for these reasons.” Jesus’ commandment to love can feel like its own burden when love doesn’t make sense to us in any given situation. But Jesus says, “Come to me, ALL of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest…for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Amen.

______________________________________________________

[1] Pastor Gail Mundt, sermon on Matthew 10:40-42 for Sunday, July 2, 2023. Watch at minute 27:00 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSNyQ0o1PJc

[2] Karoline Lewis, Professor of Biblical Preaching, Sermon Brainwave Podcast for July 9, 2023. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/910-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-13a-july-2-2023-2

[3] Mark 7:24-30 and Acts 8:26-40

[4] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast for July 9, 2023. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/910-fifth-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-13a-july-2-2023-2

[5] Matthew 11:18-19

[6] Romans 7:15

[7] Matthew 22:34-40

Preaching, Sermons

Jesus, Juneteenth, Just Love [OR The Nuggets and the Limits of Analogy] Matthew 9:35-10:16 and Romans 5:1-8

June 18, 2023 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 18, 2023

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Romans 5:1-8 Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Matthew 9:35-10:16 Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
^10:¹Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.
⁵These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. [⁹Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, ¹⁰no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. ¹¹Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. ¹²As you enter the house, greet it. ¹³If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. ¹⁵Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
¹⁶“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

[sermon begins]

Go Nuggets! It’s been a big week for Denver, celebrating its first basketball Championship win in franchise history. They’re not kidding when they say, “Teamwork makes the dreamwork.” The Nuggets have a unique story in recent NBA history. Not a basketball fan, I now know about the inspiring self-sacrifice of Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray’s triple-doubles after watching the semi-finals. Coach Malone was given time, several years of season losses, to form the team to his vision which is practically unheard of in the NBA. Murray had a potentially career ending knee injury two years ago, but Coach Malone told him that he was part of the team and not going anywhere. Analysts say that Jokić, a 41^st overall draft pick, “is slow, can’t jump, and will never wow anyone with his athleticism…and none of that matters…he’s smart, selfless, and unstoppable.”[1] In every game, different players stepped up and lifted the team with them.

After the last game, I watched Jokić greet and hug almost every Miami Heat player before he began celebrating. With their championship win, as the saying goes, “the [2023 Nuggets] team will walk together forever.” It’s fun to be inspired along with the celebration, to see selflessness and kindness on a team in a sport more often criticized for swaggering superstars. Sports analogies break down pretty quickly when it comes to biblical interpretation, just to say it out loud, God doesn’t love the Nuggets more than anyone else. Sorry, Nuggs fans. But there is something to be said when we see teamwork play out in the world analogous to how we’re encouraged to be the church in the world.

God collects the unlikeliest people into God’s plan and sends them out to show love the world. As Pastor Gail preached last week, Jesus invited unlikely people to be on his team. Today in the Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus is moved with compassion when he sees harassed and helpless crowds. He commissions his followers to heal the suffering that they see around them. The kingdom of heaven coming near brings practical help to hurting people. Jesus instructs his apostles to start with those closest to home, their fellow Jews. They already have a shared language and a shared God. They are a good place to start. As the apostles heal people, Jesus tells them to travel light and hold their message lightly when there’s resistance. Dust off your feet and keep moving, he tells them. Jesus coaches urgency because people are suffering and there are things to do.

Tomorrow, Monday, is Juneteenth, the newest federal holiday celebrating the 19^th century news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaching Texas.[2] Three million enslaved people were freed in 1863 but not everybody knew it. It took two years for the news to get to Galveston, Texas, which it finally did on June 19, 1865. The original Juneteenth parties were religious prayer meetings and song fests of spirituals. How better to celebrate freedom from slavery than as the church who celebrates God’s people being “led through the sea from slavery in to freedom.”[3] The June 19 celebration spread to neighboring states. In Texas, Juneteenth became a state holiday in 1980. In the United States, Juneteenth was federalized in 2021. The freedom movement is worth celebrating. Slavery is an original sin of this country. One that takes intention to heal from as we eradicate its legacy on how we live together in this country.

Last week, youth and adult travelers from Augustana made a trip to Montgomery, Alabama. The travelers went to The Legacy Museum, The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, The Rosa Parks Museum, The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, The Tuskegee Museum, and more. Why? Why would we send a group to those places? Because they traveled together to forge their faith and to deepen relationships with each other through those shared experiences. As Jesus taught his earliest followers, healing begins in being sent out together to work together to help the harassed, and to help each other proclaim that the kingdom of heaven comes near. While in Selma at the bridge, our travelers bumped into other travelers from Calvary Baptist Church in Denver. Augustana’s Choir Director, Kevin Padworski, was their choral director before he was ours. This is cool synchronicity for our two churches, and it’s cool to wonder about what the Holy Spirit may be up to in our local churches as we connect and bring healing across white and black, Lutheran and Baptist, and who knows what else?!!

Regardless, it makes sense for a predominantly white church to get educated about how the legacy of slavery trickles into today through our country’s laws and judicial system, our banking and housing system, our criminal justice system, our education system, and our health care system. Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves and this includes changing unjust systems, practices, and laws that are created and enforced against our black friends, family, and communities. As we celebrate Juneteenth, and how far we’ve come since slavery ended legally, our celebration inspires us to continue the work alongside our black siblings in faith and in country, to ring the bells of freedom until they ring clear and true for everyone. We’ve come a long way and we have a ways to go.

Jesus connected his followers with each other, coached them, and sent them out to heal. As he prepared them to deal with conflict, he also gave them hope. Hope that healing was possible through their hands because they were sent by God who loves the world. A few weeks ago, during a children’s sermon, I told the kids that they may be asked some day what they do at church or why they go to church. One suggestion I gave them was to answer, “I learn about love there.” It was a children’s sermon that aligns with the Apostle Paul’s letter of Romans.

If you would, open your worship bulletin to the Romans reading again. In verse 8, Paul connects God’s love to the cross. Love is the heart of the matter for Paul as he pivots into the next four chapters of his letter to the Roman church.[4] Now look at the end of verse 3 and follow along with me:

…suffering produces endurance, ⁴and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Paul talks about suffering, endurance, character, and hope but NOT as a way to redemption. We’re not better people because we suffer. We’re not made more pure because we suffer. Rather, sometimes we see more easily what’s most important when we are suffering. Paul alludes to it here and later writes in Corinthians that the most important thing, the greatest thing, is love.[5] As much as Paul likes theology, he’s not solving a theological problem, he’s coaching his team of 1^st Century churches that God’s story is a love story. God’s love story about how God demonstrates God’s love through action, through Jesus’ self-sacrificing death on the cross. The cross defies explanation but insists that it’s love.[6] Divine love. God’s love.

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

______________________________________________________

[1] Tim Reynolds, Associated Press. “Analysis: Nuggets built a championship team the right way, and built it to last,” June 12, 2025. https://www.kaaltv.com/sports/national-sports/analysis-nuggets-built-a-championship-team-the-right-way-and-built-it-to-last/

[2] Britannica online: Juneteenth. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Juneteenth

[3] Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Hymnal). Holy Baptism: Thanksgiving at the Font (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009), 230.

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

[5] 1 Corinthians 13:13

[6] Ibid., Skinner.

Preaching, Sermons

Pentecost Perspective [OR God’s Dream is a Beloved World) Numbers 11:24-25a, Acts 2:1-12, and John 20:19-23

May 28, 2023 caitlin121608

**sermon art: Beyond by Colleen Briggs

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 28, 2023

[sermon begins after three Bible readings – it’s okay, they’re short]

Numbers 11:24-25a Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. ²⁵Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

Acts 2:1-12 When the day of Pentecost had come, [the apostles] were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

John 20:19-23 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the [religious authorities], Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²²When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

[sermon begins]

There are these moments when you just know that your vantage point isn’t big enough. Perspective is a faraway dream. You can’t envision the next minute much less the next year. It happens fast too. One minute you’re mesmerized by the mountains’ soaring arc, jagged peaks that break the morning light and steal your breath. The next, you’re wondering what the heck is happening. Your world goes from large and expansive to small and immediate. In calmer moments like these here in worship, we can look at the small times with a bit of objectivity, gaining a toe hold in perspective. For me, perspective feels like a breath of air, like the spirit opening up clarity where there once was fog. Reminding me yet again that the world and God’s story are a place where I find comfort, meaning, and hope, along with so many of you. A place brightened by jagged pieces of glass, by crosses on roofs/walls and ceilings, by colorful wine and grape juice, but more importantly brightened by a people who faithfully and imperfectly live out God’s dream of a world that lives the love it receives.

God’s love letter is written in the pages of this book, well really 66 books made to look like one book. Many authors finally wrote down stories that they had been told by heart and learned by heart. Scribes, copying the various books onto new paper, added their own twists to beloved Bible verses thinking clarity was needed – for example, the woman caught in adultery is one of them – until finally we have this imperfect book, filled with imperfect people, through which the Holy Spirit works to shatter our assumptions and widen our perspective once more.

The Holy Spirit works through a multi-generational story. In the beginning, the Bible goes, when the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, God’s Spirit swept over the face of the waters. In our reading from the book of Numbers, we’re told that God took some of the spirit that rested on Moses and gave it to seventy elders who prophesied. We heard in our reading from John’s gospel that Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on his followers after sharing a word of peace. And in Acts, Jesus’ apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit as the sound of the wind roared, and flames like fire licked at their ears. The spirit moved over waters, through elders, over apostles, and today in the church around the world. The story is multi-generational – from the earliest moments, to Moses, to the elders, to Jesus’ apostles, to Jews from all over the world in Jerusalem, to now. A sweeping arc of history that plants us firmly in God’s dream for the world. Us, Augustana, a small corner of God’s whole church. A church that has gathered for almost 150 years. Through thick and thin. Through many and few. Still we gather.

I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only one that needs a dose of God’s vision from time to time. With anger raging through airwaves, cable boxes, and social medias, we all need a reminder that God’s dream is not anger or greed or survival or fear. God’s dream is more like what Moses and the elders experienced in that wilderness camp after they left Mount Sinai in Wilderness, Part II. The spirit wasn’t hoarded. It was shared and spread through people who expanded God’s work as the people wandered in that wilderness. They may have been lost but they were not abandoned by God. They were not alone. It’s because the spirit was shared and spread, that there was an incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. God in the flesh on the very first Christmas. God showing up to remind the world once again that God’s dream is a bigger vision than we can conceive. We are part of that dream.

By the time the spirit shows up in Jesus’ apostles in the Acts story, God’s spirit had poured into Jesus’ ministry, through his wounds on the cross, and out of an empty tomb. His death on the cross was a self-sacrifice of such magnitude that it’s hard to imagine the depth of God’s love that inspired it. There was no hand raised in violence against the ones who executed Jesus. Instead, at the time of his arrest, Jesus said to put away the sword as he raised his hand in healing. From the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Jesus teaches us that peace in the Holy Spirit is quite different than our imaginings of satisfaction and retribution. And thank God for that. Because, if not for God’s people, where would the human urge for vengeance finally stop once and for all. There must be a different way. Jesus’ way. The way of the church. A way forward through forgiveness – forgiving each other, for sure, but also forgiving ourselves for whatever we classify as unforgiveable acts. Forgiveness is dying and rising through our baptisms every day. Allowing regret to teach us. Because if we don’t regret the hurt we inflict on our selves and each other, how will we learn from Jesus the different way of being human together.

Speaking of being human together, let’s look at the Acts story. Jews from all over the world were in Jerusalem for Shavuot, 50 days after Passover, celebrating the gifts of the 10 Commandments given to Moses and the first five books of the Bible – what Jews call the Torah and what Christians call the Pentateuch. We share much across the generations with our Jewish cousins in the faith.

My brother who is Jewish recently made a visit to see me. He attended 8 a.m. worship to watch his sister in pastorly action and, not for the first time, he was struck by the similarities in Jewish and Christian worship services. Not a surprise given that our roots are the same. The Jews in Jerusalem for Shavuot heard the earliest Jewish Christians, preach in the power of the spirit. The overwhelming commotion blew minds. But it was this moment that inspired, literally inspired by the spirit, the earliest Jesus followers to find the courage to leave their locked rooms and form the church. A church that exists to remind a struggling world that God’s last word is love.

For some people, believing in God’s love seems more difficult than believing in God. It’s somehow easier to believe that the anger, fear, and judgement we feel on a day-to-day basis is really God’s true self too. But our God is one who loves the world. Who showed up in Jesus to instruct us and forgive us when we fall short of love’s purpose. A God who formed the church to remind the world just how beloved we all are – and I mean the collective “we” of the world, not just the church.

A beloved world behaves differently than a shamed world. So does a beloved church. And, my dear church of the generations, you are beloved in God’s dream for the world. You are filled with the Spirit to receive God’s love new each day as reassurance when your vision grows dim and your perspective shrinks. Being church together by the power of the Spirit reminds us that God promises to always be with us even when we feel we don’t deserve it or aren’t up to the task laid before us. Thank God that God’s generational story includes our generations here on the planet now, here in this room now. We are how God’s love is revealed to each other and beyond. Thanks be to God and amen.

Preaching, Sermons

Trouble-Hearted Ones on the Way in a Beloved World – John 14:1-14

May 7, 2023 caitlin121608

**I was diagnosed with lowgrade follicular lymphoma at the beginning of March. You can read about my treatment and reflections here: CaringBridge – Caitlin Trussell

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 7, 2023

It’s been a minute since I’ve been in the pulpit. Quite a few minutes, actually, since Ash Wednesday. Hearing a good word from our preachers in the pews who are retired clergy including, by his own description, one “recycled Bishop,” has been personally comforting during this time of my treatment and the other kinds of pastoring that needs attention since Pastor Ann retired. Gratitude doesn’t begin to describe my feelings, but it will have to do for now. The preacher-of-the-week model will continue to engage our hearts and minds for a few yet but I’m so happy to be standing here today, in this way, at this time, with you.

Jesus said to his trouble-hearted disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” A couple sentences later, he reassures them that they “know the way” because he is “the way.” They know him. “The Way” is also code for what the earliest Christians used to call the church. The Gospel of John in its entirety helps us understand that Jesus as “the way” is not exclusive. We’re the ones that get that turned around with notions of in and out crowds. We forget that Jesus doesn’t belong to us. It’s the opposite. We belong to Jesus as does the world God so loves. The disciples are just as separated from God as the religious leaders that Jesus regularly challenges and so are we. In John’s Gospel we hear that Jesus was co-existent with God in the beginning and that Jesus is the light and life of all the people, of the entire world that God loves. Jesus slips on skin in solidarity with us to shine a light that cannot be overcome by any kind of darkness. The darkness did not, can not, never will, overcome it.

All that stuff that I just said is a 30,000 foot view of the Gospel of John. The high view is important because it holds us to an expansive interpretation of this reading. Our reading drops us into the meal and teaching that Jesus was sharing with his followers before he was killed on a cross. We often hear Jesus’ teaching about the many dwelling places in the Father’s house as a funeral reading. There are hymns and artwork aplenty that imagine this as a literal home. In John’s gospel, God is eternal. Abiding in the Father, in God, is abiding in the eternal one today, tomorrow, next week, and forever because that is who God is. God is the eternal one who is timeless – that’s a tricky concept for humans on a timeline.

Jesus said to his trouble-hearted followers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled…you know the way because I am the way and you know me.” His followers have seen him sit with strangers in the land who were ostracized, teach a religious leader – who opposed him by day – in the middle of the night, talk with a woman in the light of day who no one else would talk to. They experienced Jesus’ patient way in the middle of this reading today, coaching Thomas and Philip as they struggle to understand his teaching. The trouble-hearted followers will get into trouble by denying, betraying, and abandoning Jesus as he is executed for his ministry of radical inclusion, touching the untouchable and loving the unlovable. They will receive his radical love themselves after he is raised from the dead on the third day. They will know the way because they saw the way in Jesus – in his ministry, death, and resurrection.

Jesus said to his trouble-hearted followers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled…you know the way because I am the way and you know me.” You may have heard that we’re in a pastoral transition at Augustana. Senior Pastor Ann Hultquist retired in March. In the long, long, almost 150-year life of this congregation, a pastoral retirement is nothing new. But in each transition there’s a wide range of reactions. Some people are totally chill, others are anxious. Some people are grieving, others excited about the future. Some people are knee deep in transition details, others are not reading their weekly Epistles…you know who you are. 😉

Last week I had a chance to meet with our Bridge Pastor Gail Mundt who will join me in the pastoral ministry of the congregation. We got to know each other better. She was briefly at my family’s church which I was away at seminary in St. Paul. I brought her up to speed on Augustana’s last few of months – if that’s even possible. And we planned immediate logistics for her start with us on June 1^st. Her expertise in congregational transitions and with congregations around the U.S. and abroad will be a gift that keeps on giving. It was good to pray with her and celebrate this new beginning even though Bridge Pastors by definition are temporary.

I also met with our Transition Consultant Pastor Dominic Palacious who will specifically lead the Transition Team in the work needed to be done before a pastoral call process may begin. He and I also planned a few logistics. He’ll join us on Sunday, May 21, for worship and in between services for Adult Forum. And he’ll be at our staff meeting this week and schedule 1:1 conversations with the staff. Having been through Augustana’s last search for a Senior Pastor, I’m curious to see how this new kind of transition process works for us.

Jesus said to his trouble-hearted followers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled…you know the way because I am the way and you know me.” In preparation for this sermon, I re-read several favorite papers and articles about the Gospel of John. One of them was my Christology paper from seminary. It’s not a favorite because I wrote it, although I do have a fondness for this one. It’s a favorite because my mother’s husband of almost 19 years, Larry, read it and wrote a bunch of comments in it – all capitalized in red in the body of the paper. He was a deeply faithful Christian and college professor and a good friend of mine. I can hear his voice in my head when I read his responses to my fledgling theological construction about what God is up to in Jesus. He had fatherly pride about my pastoring.

Larry died peacefully in memory care last week after a distressing struggle over the last few years. Larry’s questioning faith and curious mind meant that his confession about who Jesus was resisted easy answers or anything that smacked of certainty. He read more original works of early and current Christian thinkers than most of us combined. Larry’s immersion and prayer of the Psalms is an example for all of us. By the time he died, he could not rely on knowing Jesus in any coherent way. He could only rely on Jesus knowing him and bringing him to dwell in the eternal God who was already holding onto him throughout his life and in his declining health.

Jesus said to his trouble-hearted followers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled…you know the way because I am the way and you know me.” There’s much that mystifies us on our planet, in our communities, in our homes, and in our bodies. The mystery of suffering’s existence is unanswerable. Oh sure, we can hold people accountable for crimes against humanity and each other. We can hold ourselves accountable to the ways we hurt each other and ourselves. We can even say that the diseases in our bodies are similar to our behaviors that don’t always serve us or other people, our bodies behave in ways that don’t always serve us. And still, Jesus promises that we’re known by God no matter what is happening in our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Dear trouble-hearted ones, Jesus promises that our death dealing exclusive instincts are no match for the expansive love of God. This is an Easter promise that we can take with us on our way as Jesus’ way. Thanks be to God. And amen.

Good News, Preaching, Sermons

Rise and Sing Again [OR Mortality, Music, and Meaning] – Ash Wednesday Joel 2, 2 Corinthians 5, and Psalm 51

February 22, 2023 caitlin121608

sermon art: Ken Phillips, textiles, 2020

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on Ash Wednesday – February 22, 2023, 11:00 a.m. worship

[sermon begins after two Bible readings from the books of Joel and 2 Corinthians; Psalm 51 is at the end of the sermon]

Joel 2:12-17 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near—
²a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful army comes;
their like has never been from of old,
nor will be again after them
in ages to come.
¹²Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
¹³rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
¹⁴Who knows whether he will not turn and relent,
and leave a blessing behind him,
a grain offering and a drink offering
for the Lord, your God?
¹⁵Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sanctify a fast;
call a solemn assembly;
¹⁶gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation;
assemble the aged;
gather the children,
even infants at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room,
and the bride her canopy.
¹⁷Between the vestibule and the altar
let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep.
Let them say, “Spare your people, O Lord,
and do not make your heritage a mockery,
a byword among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’ ”

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

[sermon begins]

How would you describe the way a favorite old hymn catches you off guard during a worship service? Or the way a new hymn immediately feels like an old favorite? For me, it runs the range of human emotion. Sometimes singing a hymn feels like joy so strong that it moves me to dance…or at least moves me to the less conspicuous swaying option. Sometimes hymn singing feels like inspiration that strengthens my resolve to love my neighbor and work for justice and peace. And sometimes hymn singing feels like deep grief, when the words get caught in my throat and like I won’t be able to breathe if I keep on singing or, at the very least, tears will dampen the sound. I could go on and on but the bottom line is that singing in this place with you all is food for the soul whether we’re exuberantly singing together on a tried-and-true hymn or bumbling along on a new one. There are very few places in which public singing happens. Concerts have their superfans who know all the songs by heart and include the rest of us slouches who may know the words to one or two of their popular songs. Baseball games have the 7^th Inning Stretch with the happy group singing of, “Take me out to the ball game!” But regular singing together happens less and less for people. Places of worship are the main places where songs are sung as a group.

In the reading from Joel, the people are assembled and gathered into a congregation – men and women, old and young, even the bride and groom. Everyone is called to return to God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Joel writes, “…rend your hearts, not your clothing…” We hear that the people assembled with hearts broken open before God. When the people gathered even in those days, there were songs to be sung. In the case of Joel’s story, the song was likely a psalm of lament and confession, a psalm that describes their open, penitent hearts and their trust in God’s grace, mercy, and steadfast love – perhaps Psalm 51, an Ash Wednesday classic. The Psalms are the Bible’s hymnal. There are songs to be found in other places in the Bible, to be sure, but the Psalms are a record of liturgical poetry accompanied by music.

The English term [psalm] title derives from the Greek psalmos, meaning “song accompanied by a stringed instrument.” In Hebrew, the book is known as Tehillim or “songs of praise.”[1]

As the people sang in Joel’s story, perhaps their throats closed as their tears fell…and as their hearts opened. Singing yet struggling in the midst of their suffering to trust that God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love. Suffering and yet still they sang.

In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul lists the suffering that he and the other disciples had endured. It’s helpful that he begins the passage calling the readers to be reconciled to God because it could be argued that Paul reveled in his suffering just a bit much.[2] But the good part of listing his sufferings is that he’s drawing a complete picture of where God shows up in the darkest places of our humanity and how hardship can shape us for the good.[3] Not that suffering is lucky or somehow part of the bitter medicine we’re supposed to take. But because the apostle Paul might say, “It’s because of the ways that suffering conforms to the example of Christ crucified and new life coming out of that.”[4]

On Ash Wednesday, we’re acknowledging our fragility as humans, our mortality in these fragile bodies and we place our trust in God who meets us in our most fragile places – when our bodies betray us and when we betray ourselves and each other. Today is a day to be honest about the suffering we experience because it’s part of the human condition and also the suffering we inflict on ourselves and each other. Care needs to be taken that we don’t corrupt this theology into valorizing suffering and hardship. Rather, if you are going through “hardship, chronic pain, deep disappointment,” if the Beatitudes fit your story in this moment, God meets you there not because it’s a magic ticket to God but because it’s a place where God shows up.[5] God shows up and promises transformation and new life – the story of Lent through the glory of Easter.

Last Fall, I attended our Theological Conference for ministry leaders, pastors, and deacons. The topic was Trauma and Resilience. These beautiful banners in our Sanctuary today were lined up in the hotel ballroom where we met and worshipped together. The art was a visual prayer during that time as we talked about suffering and trauma and healing and research and mental health practitioners and where our faith was or wasn’t in those experiences. I wondered with someone afterwards if the artist might make them available to us during Lent.[6] From the psalmic poetry and the textile beauty, we chose our Lenten theme, “Rise and Sing Again.” It’s part of the words on the banner over by the baptismal font – a location of happy accident as the banners were laid out in the order the artist intended. The banners tell a story of feeling forsaken in suffering and rising to sing again. They start at this one by the pulpit and move backwards in order on this side of the Sanctuary and then forward on the organ side.

Rising and singing again is part of what our faith community does for each other over and over. We sing when the person next to us can’t. They sing when we can’t. We all sing when we can. Rising and singing again acknowledges this imperfect and messy world where suffering often has no explanation and is regularly the actual result of people hurting us through the sin of carelessness or maliciousness or, vice versa, us hurting other people through carelessness or maliciousness. In difficult times, people sometimes use the non-biblical, cultural expression, “Well, everything happens for a reason.” To which, in the right situations, I’ll respond, “Yes, and sometimes the reason is sin.”

Today is a day of penitence. A day to be honest about who we are as fragile, mortal creatures which includes the sin and suffering we endure and inflict on ourselves and others. A day to be honest about whether or not we’re ready to sing in the midst of it – as Paul says, “…sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”

Today on Ash Wednesday, the ashes on our forehead remind us that mortality, suffering, and death do not have the last word. God does. And God meets our fragile, careless, and malicious humanity with grace, mercy, and steadfast love, transforming our lives with God’s promise of new life. For this and for all that God is doing, we can say thanks be to God and amen.

___________________________________________________

[1] Rabbi Or Rose. “The Book of Psalms.” https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-book-of-psalms/

[2] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave Podcast for Ash Wednesday on February 22, 2023. www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/889-ash-wednesday-february-22-2023

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.; Also, find Jesus’ teaching on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5…blessed are the poor in spirit, the grieving, etc.

[6] Ken Phillips, local Denver textile and liturgical artist. Read more about him here: www.regis.edu/news/2022/magazine/06/ken-phillips-weaves-a-tempest-in-tapestry

__________________________________________________

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
³For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
⁴Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
⁵Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.
⁶You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
⁹Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
¹¹Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.
¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴Deliver me from bloodshed, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
¹⁵O LORD, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
¹⁷The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Sermons

Reassurance Amid the Rumblings [OR Let’s Get Ready to Ruuuuumbllllllle!] Matthew 17:1-9 and Exodus 24:12-18

February 19, 2023 caitlin121608

sermon artwork: Transfiguration by Armando Alemdar Ara, oil on canvas

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 19, 2023 – The Transfiguration of Jesus

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Matthew 17:1-9 Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves. ²And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white. ³Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. ⁴Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” ⁵While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” ⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear. ⁷But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.” ⁸And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.
⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Exodus 24:12-18 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” ¹³So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. ¹⁴To the elders he had said, “Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them.”
¹⁵Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. ¹⁶The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud. ¹⁷Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. ¹⁸Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

[sermon begins]

The Christian church is a BIG tent. I’m talking about God’s church universal. The Apostle’s Creed calls it the church catholic with a little “c.” I misspoke. It’s not BIG. It’s ginormous. So many denominations – denomination kind of means flavor, like there are a million flavors of ice cream but they’re all ice cream. When we include every Christian denomination that you ever heard about, and then add the many Christians who argue that they follow Jesus without a church, Christianity numbers over 2 Billion people around the world.[1] A little over 30% of the world is Christian. That’s a staggering number. That number means that there are probably some Christians that you may struggle to understand. I’m not just talking about language and culture. I’m talking about the diversity of ways Christians preach about Jesus. Everyone so often, you’ll hear this pop up in the news or some other source when a famous Christian will announce that another famous Christian isn’t really a Christian because ____________ [fill in the blank]. Personally, I’m not interested in that game. The particulars dwell in Jesus’ hands alone. What I am interested in is that it is a very, very, very old game.

The Gospel of Matthew gives us some insider information into the first century Matthean church.[2] There were rumblings about rules within the new synagogue itself between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. There were rumblings with the other synagogues in town who didn’t believe that Jesus had a role in God’s world building efforts. And there were rumblings about the Roman Empire’s violence, taxes, and power. Those rumblings centered Jesus as both the problem and the solution depending on your vantage point. You can almost hear that famous boxing phrase, “Let’s get ready to rumble!!!”[3] In fact, Jesus had already announced the rumble a few verses before our reading today which was the first time he talked about his death and resurrection.[4] Although the rumble about his upcoming suffering didn’t go over very well with his disciples. And Jesus had no intention of rumbling back, well, at least not in the way that it usually means. The Bible story says that just six days after Jesus first broke the bad news of his suffering and the good news of his resurrection to his disciples, the transfiguration of Jesus into a sun shiny face and dazzling white clothes happened.

Peter’s response is one that makes sense from him as a Jewish Christian. He knew the Exodus story we heard today. The last time Moses was caught up in the glory of the Lord on a mountain he stayed there for 40 days and 40 nights. We tend to talk about Peter as if his need to build dwellings for everyone was out of left field, wanting the holy moment to last forever. It’s possible he was simply being practical. Peter knew the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible that are the same as the first five books of the Christian Bible. Peter saw in Moses’ presence and the glory of the Lord that the day hike seemed to be taking a turn into a 40-day endurance test so then maybe a tent would come in handy. More than that, a tent dwelling would be the hospitable thing to do. A body’s got to rest even if the glory of the Lord appears like devouring fire or dazzling light. In the end, the dwellings weren’t needed because the glory of the Lord was dwelling IN Jesus who was heading back down the mountain. Jesus was NOT sticking around for backcountry training. The Transfiguration is assurance that God dwells in Jesus no matter who’s getting ready to rumble against him.

The Transfiguration is also assurance given to both Jesus and for his disciples before the rumble begins. There’s a tendency to imagine Jesus as superhuman. But Matthew’s Gospel makes clear Jesus’ fragile human body and the emotions that go with it. The reassuring voice that was heard at his baptism is again heard on the mountaintop, “This is my son, the Beloved…”[5] One insight of the Transfiguration is that even Jesus could use an encouraging word. Another insight is that so could his disciples. The rumble in Jerusalem was going to take some courage. Shiney, dazzling Jesus and his friends, Moses and Elijah, were there to en-courage, to offer assurance, and strengthen this ragtag band of Jesus followers.

Here’s a cool part of the Transfiguration. It prefigures resurrection. This means that the story gives a glimmer of what resurrection means. And it’s not only a glimmer about what Jesus’ resurrection looks like. It’s a glimmer of what ours looks like too. There’s a timelessness to the gathering of Moses and Elijah and Jesus. Whatever we imagine happens after we die, we have a sense here that God collapses time to reveal something essential.

The closest that I can get to this in our human stories is when I’m at the bedside of some who is dying. Sometimes the person who is dying will talk with someone else in the room that the rest of us can’t see and it turns out that they’re talking with their parent or a sibling or a child who has died before them. The person who is dying is reassured by their presence, a comfort in the dying person’s last days, a guide for the journey. We are not often privy to these stories because people are reluctant to talk about what their dying loved one has seen. I’ll sometimes ask folks if their loved one has talked about seeing anyone who has died before them. They’ll get this stunned look on their face, surprised that I asked, and tell me about it. These experiences are cloudy reassurances that we don’t really know how to talk about because there’s no way to explain what’s happening.

The Transfiguration is a little like those bedside experiences. Moses and Elijah showing up to talk with Jesus in the dazzling light are both reassuring and terrifying because God dwelling in Jesus is simple to say but impossible to understand. It’s the holy reassurance that I find comforting in these days when rumblings abound within the Christian church internationally but also nationally in our country, both in government and behind the scenes; rumblings over issues that range from benign to deadly. How does God show God’s power? Not with “military might, political posture, or cynical campaigns.”[6] God humbles the power of the world with vulnerability and with love. God getting-ready-to-rumble is a revelation of God’s power in light and in being emptied of power on a cross and in death not having the last word. The Transfiguration is holy assurance as we hang on the precipice of Lent starting this Wednesday and as we deepen in faith of Christ and him crucified through the light of the cross.

The Transfiguration is also the holy reassurance that I find comforting in personal ways as my mother’s husband of 18 years is in a steady decline towards his last days. Maybe you’re facing a personal loss too and the world’s rumblings are like thunder in a faraway cloud. Take heart in Jesus who reveals God’s heart for the world and God’s heart for you. As Jesus was reassured and as he also reassured his disciples, may you too be reassured by the glory of the Lord who collapses time as we face the great mystery. For this and for all that God is doing, we can say, “Praise God, and amen.”

_______________________________________________________

[1] Pew Research Center: Global Christianity A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population, December 2011, p.9. www.pewforum.org/files/2011/12/Christianity-fullreport-web.pdf

[2] Ronald J. Allen, Professor Emeritus of Preaching, and Gospels and Letters, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, IN. Commentary on Matthew 17:1-9 for Sunday, February 19, 2023. www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/transfiguration-of-our-lord/commentary-on-matthew-171-9-6

[3] Michael Buffer’s trademarked catchphrase announced in boxing events. https://talksport.com/sport/boxing/950586/who-is-michael-buffer-lets-get-ready-to-rumble-how-much-paid-anthony-joshua-oleksandr-usyk/

[4] Matthew 16:21 – the first time in Matthew that Jesus talks about his death and resurrection.

[5] Matthew 3:17 – Jesus’ baptism

[6] Joy J. Moore, Professor of Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave Podcast #888: Transfiguration of our Lord, for February 19, 2023. https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/888-transfiguration-of-our-lord-year-a-february-19-2023

Preaching, Sermons

Cousins in the Faith: Jews and Christians [OR Be Salty & Shiny (Not That Kind of Salty[1])] Isaiah 58:1-9a, 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, and Matthew 5:13-20

February 5, 2023 caitlin121608

**Photo: Cantor Zachary Kutner, January 27, 2023. See this photo and more in the Facebook post here: Holocaust Remembrance Day, Kavod Senior Life.

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, February 5, 2023

[sermon begins after two Bible readings; the 1 Corinthians reading may be found at the end of the sermon]

Isaiah 58:1-9a Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
²Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
³“Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
⁴Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
⁵Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

⁶Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
^9aThen you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

Matthew 5:13-20 [Jesus said:] ¹³“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
¹⁴“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
¹⁷“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. ¹⁸For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. ¹⁹Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

[sermon begins]

Salt makes the world a better place. Those of us who have ever been put on a salt restriction know that salt becomes obvious when it’s missing. I was talking with an Augustana friend recently who relocated to a Senior Living near her son. When I asked how the food was, she said it was okay but that in meeting the various residents’ health needs there was a lack of salt and seasoning in the food. Saltshakers are not on the table and so she brings her own salt shaker to the meal. (I have filed this smart tip away for use at a later date.) Salt is one of those things for which a little goes a long way. I’ve ruined a perfectly good egg salad sandwich or two being heavy handed with the shaker. Salt, though, when applied properly, works with food to make it better.[2] Light is similar. Light brightens what already exists to help us perceive the world around us.[3]

When Jesus calls his followers “salt” and “light,” he is calling them “salt” and “light” as a group. We’ve talked before about how our Southern friends do better translating the plural “you,” as in “y’all,” or “all y’all” for emphasis. Here’s a quick example. Continuous with the Bible reading from last Sunday on the Beatitudes to today’s reading, we hear Jesus say to his disciples:

All y’all are the salt of the earth…all y’all are the light of the world…let all y’all’s light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” [Matthew 5:13-14, 16]

When we sing, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” we don’t ordinarily sing it by ourselves. Does anyone do that? I can think of one person who probably does. Most of us have maybe hummed it a time or two in our heads as it echoes there after worship. Feel free to let me know if I got this one wrong. I have to admit that I don’t sing it by myself. I sing it in children’s time in worship or with Augustana’s Early Learning Center kids during their chapel time. Every so often we’ll sing it after the sermon as a Hymn of the Day in response to the sermon.[4] Mostly we sing it together. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” I like that it’s a together thing because it gets at what Jesus announces to his disciples.

Notice that Jesus isn’t telling them what to do. He’s describing something, not prescribing it.[5] Jesus is telling them what they already are – salt and light. Be salty (a note to the gamers among us, not the kind of salty that means bitter). Don’t hide your light. Let your light shine and, in doing so, the good works that come from the light will point to God. It’s a subtle point but it’s an important one. We talk a lot in Lutheran Christian circles about God’s movement to us. God showing up in Jesus. We don’t build a ladder to God. God brings God’s self to us. When we hear this, more than a few of us might be thinking, “Ruh roh, I don’t think I’m salt and light, God must have missed me with the saltshaker because I can be a real jerk.” This may be your good news day because of course we can be jerks. But God calls us back by our baptisms, over and over again, to remind us that we are salt and light and that we are free to be salt and light. We, the church, all y’all, are salt and light together. Being salt and light is a group experience that leads to group projects. The church word for group project is ministry.

That’s why Jesus’ speech about the law and commandments follow the salt and light comments. Not as a way to lord righteousness over our neighbors or as a performance to get their attention. [6] Rather, commandments are given to us as a way to live well with our neighbors, to be who God says we are in relationship with our neighbors. The Gospel of Matthew can be tricky because it appears that there was stress within the 1^st century Matthean community between Jews and Jewish Christians. Some readings like ours today are an example of that 1^st century stress and can be misconstrued to be anti-Jew or anti-law, as if somehow Jesus found the Jewish tradition obsolete and in need of an overhaul.[7] The verses about following the law connect Jesus’ teaching with Moses – not as a split, as an extension of the covenant.[8] Our reading from the book of Isaiah says that feeding the hungry, covering the naked, and loosening the bonds of injustice by freeing the oppressed shall break forth your light like the dawn.

In the last few weeks, one of my Rabbi friends and I were in a conversation about a public comment that I had made about Christians and Jews being “cousins in the faith.” It’s something I’ve said before in different places, but I suddenly questioned my thinking out loud and added that I’d need to double check that statement. In our follow-up conversation, Rabbi Brian aligned with the expression, “cousins in the faith” because it acknowledges that both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism grew like branches from the trunk of the Hebrew Bible that Christians call the Old Testament. Rabbinic Judaism grew like one branch while Christianity grew like another branch at about the same time during the 1^st century.[9]

A few weeks after this conversation with Rabbi Brian, I brought your congregational greetings from Augustana to the residents of Kavod Senior Life, a Jewish hosted residence for older adults just a few blocks west from our building. It was Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz, a concentration camp during World War II, and honoring the lives of over 6 million Jews who were murdered along with millions of non-Jews – Poles, Russians, Roma, disabled people, political opponents, and LGBTQ folks – and the many who survived to live and remember, including honoring a few survivors who were there that day. The event at Kavod was reverent and hopeful. Rabbi Steve, Kavod’s chaplain, organized the event and invited me as both a Christian pastor of a neighboring congregation and as a resource for their Christian residents.[10] One of the leaders during the event was Cantor Zachary Kutner, a 97-year-old holocaust survivor who sang the signature prayer of remembrance (El Malei Rachamim). His voice was as boldly life-filled as it was mind-blowing, chanting from quiet meditation to loud exuberance and back again. As we continue this year’s journey through the Gospel of Matthew, it matters how we talk and think about our Jewish cousins in the faith. Let’s keep talking and thinking.

“All ya’ll are salt and light,” Jesus said. Together as the church, we dip back into this baptismal promise on a daily, sometimes minute-to-minute, basis – resting not on human wisdom but on the power of God made vulnerable in Christ Jesus and him crucified.[11] The light of Christ shining through the cross is not permission to do whatever the heck we want when we want to. Christ’s light gives us freedom to experience the transforming power of faith through our congregation, through all y’all.

Freedom that free us to admit when we’ve been jerks.

Freedom to experience forgiveness and try again to love God, love neighbor, and love ourselves.[12]

Freedom to be salt and light for the sake of this world God so loves.

Thanks be to God and amen.

________________________________________________________________

[1] “Salty” is a word used as urban slang to mean bitter or upset. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/salty#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Online%20Etymology%20Dictionary%2C%20the%20U.S.,as%20%22looking%20stupid%E2%80%A6%20because%20of%20something%20you%20did%22.

[2] Melanie A. Howard, Associate Professor and Program Director of Biblical and Theological Studies, Fresno Pacific University, CA. Commentary on Matthew 5:13-20 for Workingpreacher.org. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fifth-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-matthew-513-20-5

[3] Ibid.

[4] Hymn of the Day is the song sung after the sermon, usually connected to one of the Bible readings or the preacher’s sermon.

[5] Howard, Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Rabbi Brian Field, Denver, CO. Founding and Former Rabbi of Judaism Your Way.

[10] Rabbi Steve Booth-Nadav, Chaplain, Kavod Senior Life, and Director of Multifaith Leadership Forum in Denver.

[11] 1 Corinthians 2:1-2

[12] Leviticus 19:18 and Luke 10:27 – Once again Jesus teaches within the Jewish tradition, “love your neighbor as yourself.

___________________________________________________

1 Corinthians 2:1-12 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. ²For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. ³And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. ⁴My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
⁶Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. ⁷But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. ⁸None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
¹⁰these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. ¹²Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

Preaching, Sermons

Reverend Doctor King (Yes, Both Titles are Key) John 1:29-42 and Psalm 40:1-10

January 15, 2023 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on January 15, 2023

[sermon begins after the Bible story; Psalm 40 is at the end of the sermon]

John 1:29-42 [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!³⁰This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ³¹I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” ³²And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ³³I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
³⁵The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

[sermon begins]

Oh, to be a preacher like John the Baptist. Things happened fast around him. Hanging out with two of his disciples, he watched Jesus walk by and said, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” Those two instantaneously took off after Jesus. I wonder when he noticed that he was being followed. Jesus turned and saw them following and asked John’s disciples what they were looking for and they answered, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” At this point in the story, Jesus has been called three names – Lamb of God, Son of God, and Rabbi. In a few more verses, Andrew will call him Messiah. And we’re only in the first chapter of John’s Gospel! The gospel writer is clear in the opening verses of the Prologue that Jesus is preexistent and one with God[1] when he wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and lived among us…No one has ever seen God, it is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”[2]

Apparently, Jesus’ preexistence and oneness with God needed clarification. In our brief reading, the Spirit of God descended from heaven and remained on Jesus. In the meantime, he was given four titles – Lamb of God, Son of God, Rabbi, and Messiah. These four titles reflect what Jesus does. As Lamb of God, he bridges the distance between us and God that is described as the sin (singular) of the world – God intervenes in the world on behalf of God’s people.[3] As Son of God, Jesus is the incarnation, the word made flesh who makes God known. The implication is that as Jesus does, God would do. We glimpse God through the life and ministry of Jesus. As Rabbi, Jesus is a teacher. When the disciples call him Rabbi, it’s Jewish shorthand for their desire to learn from him.[4] When Jesus says, “Come and see,” he’s inviting them to learn from his words and participate in his ministry, embodying his teaching in the world around them. As Messiah, Jesus is identified as the one to fulfill Jewish messianic hope as an heir of King David.[5]

One striking part of this story is that none of Jesus’ titles make him unapproachable. They only make him more compelling for the disciples to follow, to participate in what Jesus is doing in the world. I’ve wondered if this is because the titles consolidate God’s power and promise into Jesus in the way of freedom. God shows up to draw people closer, to love them, and to acknowledge them as his children. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to Pastor Ann preach last week, go back and give it a listen.[6] She asked us to imagine how we might live in the world if our baptismal identity as Child of God was the center point in our lives, much as it was for Jesus when God called him “Beloved” at his baptism. “Being grounded in God’s love moved and sustained all of the ministry that followed, giving new life and love to the world,” Pastor Ann preached.

The four titles we hear in the story today, centers Jesus as the one doing the heavy lifting of the relationship with the disciples so that they are set free to participate in Jesus’ love for the world. This weekend, our country celebrates Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. We often hear him referred to as Dr. King. Less often do we hear him referred to by both of his titles – Reverend and Doctor. And far less often, maybe never, do we hear him referred to with his primary identity as Child of God. But it was his identity as Child of God, imperfect and beloved, that freed him to risk everything, even his own life, as he worked with Black Americans in securing their Civil Rights. But he didn’t stop there. He worked with American Jews and White Christians, expanding the circle of activists to address issues of poverty and violence too. As Children of God, we are drawn by Jesus into ever expanding relationships through which we hear all kinds of voices quite different from our own.

We’ll experience a small but mighty whisper of the power of our differences as we sing our Sending Song at the end of worship today. Sometimes called the Black National Anthem, we’ll join our voices with our Black friends, family, and siblings in faith as we sing, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Black communities of faith traditionally sing this song slowly, a practice that we’ll follow this morning. When we get to it, settle in and enjoy either singing or listening. In ways like hymn singing, we participate across our differences symbolically. As we sang in Psalm 40 this morning: The Lord put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many shall see, and stand in awe, and put their trust in the Lord.[7]

Released from fear, freed by Jesus who calls us to “Come and see,” we participate in God’s ministry of freedom for all people – including continuing to advocate with our Black friend, family, and neighbors – in ways that are more than symbolic too. We participate in ways that are systemic, advocating with our neighbor for their good as well as our own.

As people in the United States, we can get pretty antsy about the separation of church and state. The Founders of the United States were clear that the church should not control the government and that the government should not control the church. Both are healthier without oppression by the other and with freedom from a sense of entitlement over the other. As Jesus followers, we are called by our faith to the good of our neighbor. In the Bible, our neighbor can be anyone and includes everyone.[8] Jesus taught his followers to feed the hungry, heal the sick, care for the stranger, and to free the prisoners. This was not symbolic, and it wasn’t only about charity, although giving food and money and other items are needed to ease immediate suffering. Something you all as a congregation have a lot of heart for. Our prayer after communion in the worship liturgy for these Sundays after Epiphany prays to God to “renew our strength to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with you.” A reference to Bible verses in the book of Micah, chapter 6.[9]

Kindness can be understood as charity – that which we give away to people who need it. And justice is understood as making systemic changes so that people don’t need us to give them those things. Our Soup Shelf is charity. Our money gifts to buy Advent Farms for ELCA World Hunger is part charity and part justice because the farms create a systemic change for families around the world to produce food for themselves and to sell at market.[10] Augustana’s CAN[11] Ministry Human Dignity Delegates are undertaking justice work at both the state and local levels this spring. At the state level, the Colorado Legislative session begins next week. There will be opportunities aplenty for us to advocate with our neighbors for legislation for their good as well as our own. Stay tuned for them. Lend your voice, time, and energy to them.

Denver residents, please check your weekly Epistle emails for a link or find a hard copy of the Vision for Denver card at the Sanctuary entrances. For the first time in 12 years, the most influential elected offices in Denver – from the Mayor to key city council districts to the auditor – are up for election in open races with no incumbents. Over the next few months, we have a once-in-a-decade opportunity to shape the future of our city and center issues of human dignity. So that one day we have a community that “prioritizes care over punishment, healthy air and water, housing that we can all afford, and a Denver where everyone belongs no matter where we’re from.” Augustana is joining with other faith communities – Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, and more – across the city to advocate for Together Colorado’s Vision for Denver. The Human Dignity Delegates hope for over 100 responses from Augustana to join the thousands of others to come. Like I said a few weeks ago, everyone can’t do everything but some of us can do one thing.

Christianity is a faith that expanded from God’s promise to the Jews to include the rest of the world. God promises to be with us today and forever. The eternal part of the promise frees us from our fear while today’s part of the promise invites us into God’s love for the world through Jesus. The promises are more than symbolic. The promises come through Jesus in whom we live and move and have our being.

Jesus, the Lamb of God who brings us to God.

Jesus, the Son of God who reveals the face of God and created us in the image of God.

Jesus, the Rabbi who invites our participation in the ministry of God.

Jesus, the Messiah who inspires us to work towards the messianic hope of peace.

Thanks be to God. And amen.

________________________________________________

[1] Jillian Engelhardt, Adjunct Instructor, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX. Commentary on John 1:29-42 for January 15, 2023. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-after-epiphany/commentary-on-john-129-42-6

[2] John 1:1, 14, 18

[3] Ibid., Engelhardt.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Pastor Ann Hultquist preaches on Livestream on January 8, 2023, minute 41:25. While you’re at it, catch the ridiculous cuteness of her time with the kids on the steps at minute 35:22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E55OBybmIl0

[7] Psalm 40:3

[8] See Jesus’ teaching about the Good Samaritan as one example – Luke 10:25-37

[9] Micah 6:6-8

[10] Don Troike in the soon to be published February Tower newsletter of Augustana.

[11] CAN = Augustana’s Compassion and Action with our Neighbor Ministry

___________________________________________________________

Psalm 40:1-10

I love to do your will, O my God. (Ps. 40:8)

¹I waited patiently up- ^| on the Lord,
who stooped to me and ^| heard my cry.
²The Lord lifted me out of the desolate pit, out of the ^| miry clay,
and set my feet upon a high cliff, making my ^| footing sure.
³The Lord put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise ^| to our God;
many shall see, and stand in awe, and put their trust ^| in the Lord.
⁴Happy are they who trust ^| in the Lord!
They do not turn to enemies or to those who ^| follow lies. R
⁵Great are the wonders you have done, O Lord my God! In your plans for us, none can be com- ^| pared with you!
Oh, that I could make them known and tell them! But they are more than ^| I can count.
⁶Sacrifice and offering you do ^| not desire;
you have opened my ears: burnt-offering and sin-offering you have ^| not required. R
⁷And so I said, “Here I ^| am; I come.
In the scroll of the book it is writ- ^| ten of me:
⁸‘I love to do your will, ^| O my God;
your law is ^| deep within me.’ ”
⁹I proclaimed righteousness in the ^| great assembly;
I have not restrained my lips, O ^| Lord, you know.
¹⁰I have not hidden your righteousness in my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and ^| your deliverance;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and truth from the ^| great assembly.

Good News, Preaching, Sermons

Auld Lang Syne and A Breath of Fresh Air – Matthew 2:13-23 [OR Echoes the Sound of Silent Night: Herod, Holy Innocents, and the Holy Family]

January 1, 2023 caitlin121608

**sermon art: “The Flight Into Egypt” by Carl Dixon (b. 1960), mixed media on sculpted wood panel. African-American wood-carving rooted in traditional West African folk art. http://sacredartpilgrim.com/collection/view/50

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on January 1, 2023

[sermon begins after Bible reading – check this one out, it’s infrequently read in the church calendar and has an alternate set of readings for the day so it’s not often heard]

Matthew 2:13-23 Now after [the wise men] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
¹⁹When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ²⁰“Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” ²¹Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. ²³There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

[sermon begins]

Happy New Year, friends. Today is quite a mash up. Like Christmas Day last week, New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday AND takes in annual place within the 12 Days of Christmas. I’ve been looking forward to today. The Bible readings give us a chance to tease apart the freshly minted 2023 and the urge for a fresh start in the echoes of Auld Lang Syne.[1] Auld Lang Syne means “the good old days,”[2] filtering the past through rose-colored light, softening hard edges with hazy nostalgia. Out of that haze comes the instinct to dust off the past and polish ourselves into new-and-improved versions of self with new year resolutions. The power of this instinct to re-make, re-do, and re-new, makes the good news of the manger that much more needed – the good news that God slips on skin in solidarity with our fragile humanity and reminds us that there is nothing we can do or not do to make God love us any more or any less. God’s love is the good news that unfilters the past and frees us to untangle the good, the bad, and the ugly and to tell the truth about it. Good news that rejects shame and inspires curiosity as a breath of fresh air in a fresh calendar year.

I find myself doing a lot of breathing these days. So much so that “breathe” is the word that I chose in Advent to guide my prayer during the church year. Still recovering from shoulder capsule surgery last fall, my stretching exercises include repetitions of each stretch, twice through the series. I breathe in, stretch, hold that stretch while slowly breathing out, counting 1…2…3…4…5 – 2…2…3…4…5 – 3…2…3…4…5…and so on. That’s A LOT of breathing. My shoulder reminds me that last year’s reality isn’t automatically re-booted by the new calendar. Maybe you have a reminder of your own – a reminder of body, mind, or spirit – that last year isn’t magically re-booted too.

Today’s Bible readings are also a reminder that as much as the world changed with the birth of Jesus, his birth didn’t re-boot the world. There was still the abuse of power by leaders who would have their own way regardless of the human cost. King Herod’s fragile ego and furious response to the wise men’s diversion was beyond the pale. The wise men didn’t let Herod know that they’d found the child Jesus in Bethlehem. After depositing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh with the Holy Family, they’d been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so the wise men returned home on a different road.[3] Learning of their deception, Herod lashed out and “he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men.[4] The Holy Family’s escape to Egypt didn’t erase the fear and pain of the families trapped in Bethlehem – their agony and grief echoed in past generations by Rachel’s weeping for the slaughter of other innocents centuries before. Their grief echoes between the sound of silent night and an old rugged cross – God suffering with them in pain and despair.

Herod’s anger is easy to distance ourselves from. His power is incomprehensible as is his slaughter of the innocents, the babies of Bethlehem. But this Bible reading opens a path to examine our own anger, and the regret of actions taken in anger, that invites curiosity, confession, and making amends however inadequate those amends may be in the face of individual and collective grief. I read recently that anger is really just grief with some energy behind it. I suppose we could say that Herod was grieved by a threat to his power. Grief goes hand-in-hand with loss. Losses pile up in situations beyond our control.

Loss comes with changes of all kinds. Herod reacted in anger when his power was threatened by Jesus’ birth. His power was further threatened when the wise men ignored his command and went home by a different road. His anger led to violence. Our anger can lead to violence too. Even our anger with ourselves can lead to violence against ourselves in the form of shame, self-harm, addiction, and more. Most of us can’t imagine Herod’s power. But we can see how anger spirals out of control in our own lives, hurting partners, children, or co-workers with words and actions borne out of anger. We can get curious and ask for help with our anger, figuring out how to move from breathing and counting to quiet anger, into healing from what lies beneath the anger. It’s hard to see through the haze of Auld Lang Syne. It’s even harder to confess that the good old days weren’t that good. But one promise of the Christ-child in a manger is that our personal Herodian holier-than-thou violence is not our whole story because God loves us just that much.

The Bible story also invites our thinking about the Holy Family on the run to Egypt, the Holy Innocents who didn’t survive Herod’s death sentence, and how we work with people fleeing the violence of conflict, persecution, poverty, and climate crises[5] – including how we hold ourselves accountable as the church, and our local and national governments accountable, for impacting and solving these humanitarian crises. Both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible preach about caring for the stranger and neighbor.[6] Part of caring for strangers is acting in hope and faith whether or not we agree about the causes of mass migration and even if the outcome is unknown.

Last year, and not for the first time in Augustana’s history, our congregation formed a team of people to work with refugees connected with Lutheran Family Services. We have two teams of people led by Amy, Gerd, and Josie, who went through the training and a few folks are waiting on their background checks. One of our Refugee Support Teams just welcomed a Kurdish Syrian family to Denver and is working with them on getting settled. Ways to help this family, and also ways to help the South American migrants who arrived recently in Denver, are in the weekly Epistle emails and your worship announcement bulletin. The scale of human need can be overwhelming. As with all of our work with our neighbors, all of us can’t do everything but some of us can do one thing. The hope of the manger is partly revealed in the action of the church, the risen body of Christ whose humble beginnings in a manger echo through us all.

I recently spoke with someone who feels fortunate to have had a long life with her faith at the center of it. As we were talking about her last days and weeks, she told me that she had an experience years ago in which her anger just disappeared. She ordinarily would have been angry but she wasn’t. The absence of anger in that situation allowed her to tend to herself and other people in the situation differently than she ordinarily would have. While the story was riveting, what caught my attention most was the very last part when she said, “And you know pastor, it was fun!” Apparently, it’s fun not to get angry and see what happens. I wouldn’t know. For me, it goes back to breathing while anger wanes – breathe in, hold breath, slowly breathing out, hold, 1…2…3…4…5 – 2…2…3…4…5 – 3…2…3…4…5… Breathing through anger is a different set of stretching exercises. Getting it down to the point of fun? Now that would be a game changer, maybe even a world changer.

As we live and breathe, 2023 is upon us. It feels hard to believe. What I do believe is that by the power of God’s Spirit, each new day that we’re alive is an opportunity to cling to God’s promises of faith, hope, and love with our very fragile bodies, and is a fresh chance to shower the people around us with faith, hope, and love. While the promise of the manger, of Emmanuel – God with us, does not remove anger and the abuse of power from our world, its light gives us hope.

Hope that our own anger and frustration won’t perpetuate violent words and deeds against ourselves, family, neighbors, and strangers.

Hope that empowers us into action with our neighbors who may also be strangers.

Hope that shifts us from anger into the fun of peace. And ultimately the hope that God meets us where we are, as we are, and calls us beloved.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and amen.

______________________________________________________

[1] Literal translation from the Scottish “auld lang syne” is “times long ago” which in common usage means “good old times.” https://www.merriam webster.com/dictionary/auld%20lang%20syne

[2] Give a listen to this beautiful take on the old song by Ryan Ahlwardt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQTxn-R1gY

[3] Matthew 2:1-12

[4] Mathew 2:16

[5] This is a good article that includes Biblical references about the Judeo-Christian perspectives of “aliens” and “strangers.” Yonathan Moya. January 21, 2020. www.borderperspective.org/blog/what-does-the-bible-say-about-welcoming-immigrants

[6] Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Matthew 25:35, Luke 10:27, Romans 12:13, Ephesians 2:19. Also, Biblical characters who were migrant refugees: Abraham & Sarah, Hagar, David, Jesus, Aquila and Pricilla.

Good News, Preaching, Sermons

A Christmas Kiss [OR Baby or Bearded, Jesus is a Face of God’s Love] Luke 2:1-20 and Isaiah 9:2-7

December 24, 2022 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on December 24, 2022 – Christmas Eve

[sermon begins after two long-ish Bible readings]

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

Isaiah 9:2-7

²The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
³You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
⁴For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
⁵For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

[sermon begins]

“They look like themselves,” Mom said, when I asked her who a newly born cousin looked like. She would say, every time, that they looked like themselves. When my own kids were born, I asked Mom who she thought they looked like – Rob or me or both – and she said that they looked like themselves. I don’t know where she came up with this phrase, but I like to think it’s because my siblings and I are a mix of biological and adopted children. Rather than complicate the question with a complicated answer, she found a simple way to answer it and moved on. I was recently telling a friend about my mom’s way of describing babies and she had a story of her own. When her first baby was born, she said to the nurse, “He doesn’t look like anyone I’ve ever seen before.”[1] The nurse replied, “Because you haven’t.” What my mother and my friend were both saying is that each baby is their own story waiting to happen as part of the larger story of their family.

Jesus’ family extended beyond biology, as my family does with adoption, and perhaps your family does too in different ways.[2] Joseph, the adoptive father, ultimately welcomes the sweet baby Jesus as his own (keeping us guessing for a tense moment), after Mary consented to God’s wild plan. The new parents kissed the face of Jesus, kissing the face of God, looking like no one they’d ever seen before, looking like himself – beyond biology yet oh-so-human. A Christmas kiss for the ages, no mistletoe in sight.

In the meantime, the angel sent the shepherds to look for the sign of God’s promise. “This will be a sign for you,” the angel said, “you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” A sign unto himself.[3] That’s Jesus for you – looking like himself. The shepherds, frozen by fear in front of the angel, quickly launched into action as their fear thawed. Who knows what they were expecting during their hasty run from the field to the manger side. I picture them turning up at the manger sweaty and out of breath. Words tumbling out as they talk over each other to tell the story about the angel in the field, and Mary and Joseph looking at the shepherds, the baby, and each other with wide amazed eyes, wondering what in heaven’s name is going on. I wonder what the shepherds were expecting after their foot race. They could have looked at the baby Jesus and thought, “Huh, just a baby, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.”[4] Whatever they thought they saw, they returned to the fields around Bethlehem, praising God for the good news that they had seen and heard.

Our world focuses on bad news much of the time. Bad news makes money for the bad news sellers while making everyone else afraid. The Christmas story hints at bad news with the registration ordered by Caesar Augustus. The census registration was the reason that Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem. In the first century, censuses were taken for money reasons – so that the people could be taxed, and for military reasons – so that people could be conscripted into the Roman armies. The census was serious business taken seriously by Rome. The presence of Roman soldiers would not have been a surprise. The census was NOT a party. The census was the power and strength of Caesar casting a wide net. But the census is a placeholder in the story, almost as if it was the least interesting part.

We’re reminded that the real action happened outside the seat of power. The good news was announced in a field under angel-light, to shepherds focused on sheep birthing their lambs, the power of nature mid-wifed through their hands. The shepherds ran from the birthing fields to see a newborn in a manger who would one day be called THE Good Shepherd. The baby Jesus wrapped in bands of cloth when he was born echoing the crucified Jesus wrapped in linen cloth when he died. The bands of cloth around the baby tease our memory with the rest of the story yet to come, the story of Jesus who risked everything to expand the circle of God’s love around even the most unlovable people in the eyes of the world. Christmas is just that risky and counter cultural.

The angel says, “Do not be afraid, for see, I bring you good news of great joy for all people.” From baby to bearded Jesus, the mystery of the good news unfolded through his adulthood right on through the next 2,022 years. The good news is that Jesus is born of God and of Mary. He is a shepherd leader who looks like himself. Looking like himself is good news for us who show up looking like ourselves, with our own reasons for being here, with our own stories to tell including the burdens camouflaged by Christmas cheer.

For you…

Maybe Jesus looks like the Good Shepherd who redirects your path.

Or maybe Jesus looks like the Wonderful Counselor who calms your troubled mind.

Or maybe Jesus looks like the Prince of Peace who calms a troubled world.

Maybe Jesus looks like a prophet who challenges power and the status quo, liberates the oppressed and fills the hungry with good things.[5]

For you:

Maybe Jesus looks like the One suffering on a cross, reassuring you that God suffers with you in pain and despair.

Or maybe Jesus looks like the Savior who promises that you are never the worst thing you have done and calls you beloved.

Maybe Jesus looks like the Easter Jesus, shining and shimmering with life eternal, sharing your moment of joy as you shout “Hallelujah.”

Or perhaps he’s that other Easter Jesus who holds your fragile moment of faith and doubt, reassuring you that there is nothing you can do or not do to make God love you any more or any less.

With that long Christmas list, it’s a good thing that Jesus looks like himself, arriving in God’s time as the face of God’s love. The good news is that regardless of what you see in Jesus’ face, the fullness of Jesus is present with you because of God’s love for the world and, by extension, God’s love for you. Merry Christmas and amen.

_________________________________________________-

[1] Pastor Barbara Berry Bailey, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Denver. Discussion about Luke 2:1-20 at Metro East Preacher’s Text Study on December 21, 2022.

[2] I love the way Dr. Amanda Brobst-Renaud makes this point in her commentary on Luke 2:1-20 for WorkingPreacher.org https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christmas-eve-nativity-of-our-lord/commentary-on-luke-21-14-15-20-16

[3] Stephen Hultgren, Lecturer of New Testament and Director of ALITE, Australian Lutheran College, North Adelaide, Australia. Commentary on Luke 2:1-20 for WorkingPreacher.org https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christmas-eve-nativity-of-our-lord/commentary-on-luke-21-14-15-20-13

[4] Berry Bailey, ibid.

[5] Luke 1:46b-55 – Mary’s Magnificat Song when she found out she was pregnant with Jesus.

Pastor, Preacher, Speaker