Tag Archives: faith

Dance Lessons [OR Your Faith Has Not Failed You When You Can’t Get Better] Mark 5:21-43, Psalm 30, and Lamentations 3:22-33

June 30, 2024 caitlin121608

Sermon photo: Bollywood Jane Ensemble in rehearsals
Photography By Matthew Cawrey

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 30, 2024

[sermon begins after a long-ish reading from Mark; see the Psalm and Lamentations reading at the end of the sermon]

Mark 5:21-43 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. ²² Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet ²³ and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” ²⁴ So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵ Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. ²⁶ She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷ She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸ for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” ²⁹ Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰ Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” ³¹ And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” ³² He looked all around to see who had done it. ³³ But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴ He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
³⁵ While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” ³⁶ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” ³⁷ He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. ³⁸ When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹ When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” ⁴⁰ And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” ⁴² And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. ⁴³ He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

[sermon begins]

People say, “Laughter is the best medicine.” It’s up there, for sure. Laughing until your sides hurt and you’re out of breath is about as good as it gets. But spontaneous laughter comes out of nowhere. You can’t order it up at a drive through. It feels amazing partly because it’s so rare. Oh sure, other things might work – watching comedy, hanging out with a funny friend, flipping a laugh-a-day calendar. Laughing is a vital and strange human activity that makes us feel better in the moment and has lasting effects for the day. But is it medicine? Curative? Mmmm…that’s a stretch. So maybe not laughter, but what about faith? Is faith medicine? We’re in a church. It’s not a stretch to ask a question about faith especially when the Bible story serves it. The bleeding woman was healed by touching Jesus’ clothes. Jairus’ daughter is resurrected after he brings Jesus to her. Jesus talks about faith. Is faith a medicine? Does it heal? An even more terrifying question, is faith required for healing?

The bleeding woman and Jairus’ undead daughter could easily be used to say such things. But we know differently, don’t we. If faith in Jesus were the magic cure all, then the world would be Christian, and no one would suffer. Our faith would be enough to cure every disease and problem. We can see with our own eyes and feel with our own heartbreak that that is not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. We would never sit at someone’s deathbed and say, “Well, I guess they didn’t have enough faith.” Or say to a dear friend whose child has just died, “Shoot, if only you’d had more faith and asked Jesus for more help.”

Then what could Jesus mean when he ties together faith and suffering, or more to the point, faith and healing? In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has already done a bunch of healing with touch and words. He cast out unclean spirits and calmed a storm on the sea. His holiness, his life-restoring power, his superpower, are on full display.[1] Jesus said to the bleeding woman, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

The Greek word sozo, translated in verse 34 as “made you well,” also means to be made whole; the word “healed” in this verse is a different Greek word. One interpretation is that being made whole by Jesus’ holiness, by the love of God, is different than being cured by medicine or other modern marvel.

When I was sick last year, I made a conscious decision to receive in love everything anyone said to me intending to be encouraging and supportive. Anyone, myself included, can say anxious, awkward things when someone we care about is sick and we try to say something rather than nothing. There were only two statements that I would reframe from my own faith: Everything happens for a reason and God doesn’t give you more than you could handle. I would say, “I know that some people find that idea comforting but for me, it’s more helpful to think that every situation is a chance for God’s love to be revealed.” Because sometimes the reason people suffer is environmental or genetic or behavioral or accidental and not of God at all. And there are incredibly stressful and horrific situations that are more than anyone can handle and certainly not of God. “Everything happens for a reason” and “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” sound like they’re from the Bible but they are a common misinterpretation.

Without being aware that we’re doing it, we also jumble Bible verses like the reading from Lamentations today with stories like the bleeding woman and the undead daughter and think that God must be responsible for whatever terrible thing is happening. Lamentations is an important book that says something historical and specific about what was happening to God’s people in a time exile.[2]

Caution and care are necessary before we blame God for utterly human or earthly events, or carelessly mark God as a perpetrator of sin and suffering. The Bible’s book of First John says that, “God is love.”[3] If God is love, then God cannot be an agent of evil.

The Eucharistic Prayer during holy communion this summer says, “God of our struggles and celebrations, you have brought us this far along the way; you stayed with us in times of suffering and guided us on the path of love and light.” This prayer acknowledges God’s presence with us when we suffer. This is called the Theology of the Cross – God meets us in the darkest places and times of our lives. It’s one of many things that the cross means. The Eucharistic Prayer goes on to say that God “guided us on the path of love and light.” This part acknowledges that God’s holiness doesn’t make our lives perfect, stable or cured. God’s holiness makes our lives whole no matter what is happening in our lives. Our suffering will at times make us sad, angry, despairing, frustrated or whatever word you would give to your experiences. Faithful people are humans. We are human.

The peace offered by Jesus in our worst times can be felt deeply or not at all. It’s a peace offered by Jesus’ holiness, not our own. Wanting to live through a disease or injury, and doing everything in your power to be cured, means that we give ourselves a chance in the limited healing hands of modern medicine. Neither our determination nor our faith means we’re going to be cured. Our bodies are just too fragile. But our faith can help us to see our bodies and our diseases differently, to see God’s holiness differently.

Psalm 30 gives words to this holiness when the psalmist writes, “Weeping spends the night, but joy comes in the morning…you have turned my wailing into dancing.” The psalmist sings about pain and joy and God’s presence in the midst of it. Much like we do in worship when we sing and pray and sometimes even dance.

In worship, we learn God’s steps as we say prayers, sing hymns, and hear words in worship with language that comes directly from scripture. It’s like learning to dance.[4] When we take dance lessons, it takes a long time to make it look effortless. Not perfect. And, by the way, not actually effortless. That’s just what we get to see when a lifelong dancer dances. Living in faith and trust is like dance practice, formed week after week, day after day, by worship and scripture and Jesus’ holiness.

God is with us no matter how inelegantly we stumble through life and faith. God with us is God’s promise to us in Jesus. And we also have a good word to share with others about Jesus when our wailing and dancing move fluidly through the faith and cross of Jesus. Faith doesn’t make us superhuman. Faith helps us to acknowledge that we are oh-so-human. Not dredging up wholeness from within ourselves, but being made whole as Jesus heals our souls.

Thanks be to God and amen.

_______________________________________

[1] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon brainwave conversation about Bible readings for Sunday, June 30, 2024. Working Preacher’s Sermon Brainwave: Sermon Brainwave 971: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 13B) – June 30, 2024 (libsyn.com)

[2] Skinner, Ibid.

[3] 1 John 4:16a

[4] C.S. Lewis says this ever more elegantly. See his quote from “Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer” here: A REFLECTION ABOUT WORSHIP – C.S…. – St. Aidan’s Anglican Church | Facebook

________________________________________

Psalm 30

Lamentations 3:22-33

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him.
²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
²⁷ It is good for one to bear
the yoke in youth,
²⁸ to sit alone in silence
when the Lord has imposed it,
²⁹ to put one’s mouth to the dust
(there may yet be hope),
³⁰ to give one’s cheek to the smiter,
and be filled with insults.

³¹ For the Lord will not
reject forever.
³² Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
³³ for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve anyone.

Sermons

Pride: All the Law and the Prophets Hang on Loving God and Each Other [OR The Greatest of All Shrubs is NOT a Good Story]

June 16, 2024 caitlin121608

**sermon art: Rainbow Jesus by Tony Rubino at fineartamerica.com

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 16, 2024

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

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

2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 13-17 So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord—⁷for we walk by faith, not by sight. ⁸Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. ⁹So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. ¹⁰For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.
¹⁴For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. ¹⁵And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.
¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. ¹⁷So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

[sermon begins]

I’d been joking that my Installation to Senior Pastor last week was a little like praying over a potluck after we’d started eating. After the fact, I think that was a little glib on my part. That morning, I had butterflies in my stomach. Sure, there were logistics to worry about – nothing like having my installation at the same time as the Greek Orthodox festival two doors down that would make parking a premium. (A big shout out to Jordan, Max, John, and Craig who served as parking greeters at our lots that day.) But the butterflies weren’t about logistics. They were about the new call between us as congregation and pastor. While there’s been trust between us, developed over the past 11 years, it will take time to develop trust anew. A few weeks ago, I said something similar to the staff – that they know me in my former role but we’re all getting to know each other in my new role. I’d been thoughtful since Pastor Ann’s retirement about both the authority that I had and the authority that I didn’t have during that transition. I was also clear that I was neither auditioning nor campaigning while the Call Committee and I interviewed each other behind the scenes. I was reassured by the shift that the Call Committee themselves made during those interviews about how pastor and congregation could reimagine our partnership anew. No small feat after 11 years together. The butterflies in my stomach embodied that reality.

Actual butterfly insects are a symbol of resurrection, a symbol of God doing something new when the way forward is unclear. And we ARE a resurrection people in unclear times in the wider church and in the world. How handy that the Second Corinthians reading reminds us that we walk by faith and not by sight…urged on by the love of Christ…living not for ourselves but for him who died and was raised for us. It has been said about pastors that loving God is the only way to serve the church over time because people can be hard to love. I would tweak that slightly to say about the church (not just its pastors) that loving Jesus is the only way to serve the world over time because people, all of us, can be hard to love.

In preparation for my Installation, Bishop Jim Gonia asked me to pick scripture for the service and to tell him why I picked it. As Bishop preached last weekend, he highlighted my scripture choices and remembered my words, “I love Jesus and I love the church enough to spend time using my gifts and leading in this way.” I’m repeating it in my sermon today because I want you to hear it from me. “I love Jesus and I love the church enough to spend time using my gifts and leading in this way.” Different people in the congregation have asked me over the past month why I’m doing this, why did I take this call? Embedded in their questions echoes Pastor Karen’s opening sermon line from the Mark reading last Sunday, “Are you out of your mind?!” Her preaching spotlighted our identity as the resurrected body of Christ and that we are to be of Jesus’ mind. Truly though, we can only hope that we are of Jesus’ mind as we begin this new partnership between pastor and congregation. I know that I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.

Which brings me to the two parable stories that Jesus tells in the gospel according to Mark. Jesus tells these two stories so quickly that we almost miss them. And they are gems that shine hope throughout the whole of Mark’s gospel. At first blush, the first story is really NOT a very good story.[1] Someone plants a seed. The seed grows. No one knows how. In Mark’s gospel, no one ever knows what’s going on or what to do. The disciples bumble around. There are three endings to the gospel and an academic debate about which one is correct. (See Mark 16.) But this little parable in Mark 4 shines a light on the mystery. Oh, it’s still a mystery. But the good news is that we get to call it a mystery. The problem may be that we want an answer. But that problem is ours. It’s not the parables’ problem, not Jesus’ problem, and certainly not God’s problem. The mystery is our problem. We’re just not that powerful and all we have to do is watch a plant grow to remember that we control very little. The mystery of God’s kingdom is that it will have its way. The relief IS the mystery. God’s kingdom does not depend on our righteousness or insight.[2]

The second parable is like the first but in the greatest of all shrubs we get to sing along with the birds nesting in its shade – nesting ancient images of the tree of life within the cross itself. Perhaps we could joke about planting a new church called “Greatest of all Shrubs Lutheran Church.” The greatest of all shrubs paints a humble picture of the absurd, audacious, and awe-inspiring kingdom that adheres to God’s imagination and not our own. Who are we to question the gifts and promise of God’s imagination? Yet we do it all the time.

Here’s one example. There are those of us who celebrate our queer siblings in Christ as God’s creations in God’s own image, trusting that God knows God’s purposes even when God’s people struggle with how many ways there are to be human and different from each other. The church has damaged queer folks for centuries, at best ostracizing and at worst killing. I’m pretty sure Jesus’ teaching to love your neighbor as yourself, the second greatest commandment after loving God, the two commandments on which “hang all the Law and the Prophets,” I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t state an exemption clause for such murderous and mal-intent against our queer neighbors.[3] Making amends includes our congregations’ invitations to various church-sponsored Pride events. I hope some of you can go. More than making amends is celebrating our queer friends, family, and church members as wonders of creation along with the rest of humankind.[4]

As we wrestle with scripture, our namesake Martin Luther laid down some guidance about the Bible, prioritizing scripture that points us to Christ. He compared scripture to the manger that holds the Christ child – a splinter here, a bent nail there, but cradles the baby Jesus perfectly. This perspective rescues the faithful from making the Bible an idol, or viewing it as a science or history textbook, or as a newspaper…you get the idea. This means that not every word in the Bible is equal to every other word. The Bible’s content is weighted in favor of Christ and him crucified which also means that Jesus teaching about the first and second greatest commandment to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves bear the weight of all the Law and the Prophets. That’s the priority for all faithful people including queer faithful people.

I’ve always thought of myself as a courageous person. Oh sure, I’ve had foibles, fears and phobias but, when it came down to it, I thought that I was of good courage to say the hard things and to do the hard things. I was wrong. Recently I said to my family systems coach that I’m “differently courageous after cancer, chemo, and complete remission.” Like any good counselor, he asked me to say more. Oddly, I really can’t explain it all that well. I may melt down about getting things done in the time available, but the fearlessness in doing the things feels like the transforming love of God. There’s a clarity to knowing that we’re just not that powerful, that human fragility is true, that the limits of knowledge are true, and that we need each other as humankind on this small blue dot in an otherwise uninhabitable universe.

More importantly, God so loved this small blue dot that God showed up in Jesus to show us how to live and how to love. No human is above any other human in God’s love. The grace of God transforms and directs us by God’s will. Our congregation, dare we say a mere shrub branch, is a place to sing in the shade, a place where God’s creatures rest from labor and danger while we celebrate the goodness of our creator revealed in ourselves and our fellow creatures. It’s as Pauline as it gets in Second Corinthians when our human point of view is subsumed by Christ’s point of view. “For the love of Christ urges us on because we are convinced that One has died for all…And he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who died and was raised for them.”

May our courage be humbled and enlivened by the faith of Christ. Amen.

______________________________________________

[1] Matt Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast for June 16, 2024. #969: Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Ord. 11B) – June 16, 2024 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[2] Ibid.

[3] Matthew 22:37-40

[4] Genesis 1:26 – Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…”

Preaching, Sermons

Hope Shines in the Darkness [OR Christ’s Compassion Knows No Bounds]

October 15, 2023 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on October 15, 2023

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.
²The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me beside still waters.
³You restore my soul, O Lord,
and guide me along right pathways for your name’s sake.
⁴Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.
⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Matthew 22:1-14 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: ²“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. ³He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. ⁴Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ ⁵But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, ⁶while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. ⁸Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. ⁹Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ ¹⁰Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
¹¹“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, ¹²and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. ¹³Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ ¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen.”

[sermon begins]

Even in the age of AI, desperate students still have CliffsNotes that boil down long, sometimes tedious, novels into a few main points that can be used to write essays…or, as many a desperate student tells their parents, to better understand the story while reading said tedious novel. I was afraid to use them for fear of getting caught by teachers way smarter than my high school self. But, there is a valid argument for boiling down difficult ideas to make them more accessible. Here’s my attempt at the CliffsNotes version of Jesus’ parable of the Wedding Banquet in today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel:

The kingdom of heaven is like the guy who saw the king’s petty and rageful true self and wouldn’t put on the king’s robe, which led to the king throwing that guy into the outer darkness. [Read that twice for good measure.]

This CliffsNotes version of Jesus’ parable makes perfect sense. Why on earth would you want to party with a king who lacks self-control and rages against his people when his ego is bruised? He invited party guests who didn’t want to come, so much so that they killed the king’s messengers. The king’s rage turned on them and he torched their cities. This is not a king of grace, mercy, or kindness. This king lets you know how much you’ve disappointed him by killing you and burning your house down. I wouldn’t want to wear that king’s robe either. At least, I hope I would have the courage not to put on the robe but I don’t think I’m that brave.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Christian church, I often heard Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet interpreted as if the rageful king was God and the last people invited who wore the king’s robes were the baptized and the poor robe-less guy was thrown into the outer darkness to suffer for all of eternity for not putting on the dang robe. As Pastor Gail has emphasized over the last two weeks, we need to be really careful with Jesus’ parables, especially these last three from the last three Sundays. Jesus’ told these three parables after he entered Jerusalem towards his execution on a cross. Time was of the essence, and he was being challenged by religious leaders who wanted him dead. Parables don’t lend themselves to easy interpretations and, as listeners, we often want to align ourselves with the characters that we think are the winners. Who doesn’t want to win when it comes to God choosing you or not choosing you – especially if eternal outer darkness has anything to do it.

Let’s break down the story unfolding around this parable. Jesus entered Jerusalem where he made angry religious leaders even more angry. The religious leaders arrested Jesus, took him outside the city limits to be crucified, stretched out on a cross until he was dead. It’s more than possible that the guy who gets thrown into the outer darkness was a story that Jesus was telling about himself because his message of absurd hope, extravagant grace, and expansive love was just too much for the powers that be. The wedding banquet echoes the crucifixion, both ending with the outer darkness. The king, the one in power, threw a fit when his party went awry. The king doesn’t align with the God who Jesus reveals. God is revealed at the end of the gospel of Matthew with a crucified king. “Over his head they put the charge against him, which read, ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.”[1] There was no Holy War outside the city walls to save Jesus from death. Instead, “darkness came over the whole land.”[2]

As Christians, there are ways we say that God is revealed to us. First and foremost, “through Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”[3] We’ll also argue that God is visible through creation – the world and the wider universe a signature of the creator. But that first one, through Christ crucified, is important because we argue that God absorbs human violence, putting an end to violence as a solution to what ails humanity. Violence is not a solution. The cross is a shining example of the lost cause of violence and the darkness it perpetuates. Violence begets violence.

Violence replicates itself best, especially among humans. We struggle with the lesson of violence over and over again as we say things that hurt people or sometimes we actually hit people. Violence on the world stage is something we’re more than familiar with given Russia’s attack on Ukraine and Ukraine’s military defense against Russia. And again this week watching Hamas’ attack Israeli civilians and Israel’s military strike back. These cycles of violence are not just weeks or decades old. They’re centuries, even millennia old. People much smarter than me have made plenty of public comments regarding these violent conflicts. Those of us on the sidelines of them are often overwhelmed by compassion. Compassion means “to suffer together.”[4] We see people killed, bombs exploding, and buildings falling, and are moved by compassion, wanting to do something to alleviate the suffering and failing not because of lack of desire but because the problems are enormous, and the darkness is deep.

The news of the world is too much for most of us and especially for those of us who struggle with mental illness. News can serve as a tipping point into deep darkness especially when a compassionate urge to help is thwarted by a large-scale event. We’re not wired to manage the sensory overload from next door and around the world constantly pumped through our phones, computers, and TVs. Reminding each other to unplug from time-to-time, to recharge with quieter experiences and messages of hope is critically important. Today is one such message of hope. During the song after the sermon, we’ll light candles as we shine light into the darkness of mental illness. We’ll pray for those of us who struggle with mental illness and those people we love who struggle with mental illness. While faith can be a comfort, faith doesn’t prevent suffering. Our E4 Ministry for mental health is helping us learn to be a church that meets the suffering of mental illness with compassion and hope. When you come up and light a candle, you’re invited to take one of the smooth stones that says hope or compassion. You can hold the stone as a prayer when you’ve run out of words to pray.

Jesus knows the suffering in the outer darkness which means that Jesus has compassion for our own deep darkness and gives us a future with hope. Lutheran Christianity describes this as the Theology of the Cross. The Theology of the Cross means that there is nowhere that God is more available, more present, more loving than in our suffering, in our experience of darkness. Our ancient Jewish cousins in the faith knew this too in Psalm 23. We sang together, “Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for you are with me.” The valley of the shadow of death is more directly translated as deep darkness. God has always been in the darkness with God’s people. Jesus Christ expanded God’s promise of presence, of hope and compassion, to include the world that God loves. When we bear persistent pain, Christ’s compassion knows no bounds. Thanks be to God, and amen.

__________________________________________________

[1] Matthew 27:37

[2] Matthew 27:45

[3] 1 Corinthians 2:2

[4] Greater Good Magazine: Science Based Insights for a Meaningful Life. Compassion Definition | What Is Compassion (berkeley.edu)

Preaching, Sermons

Giving God the Stink-Eye [OR Taking a Leap of Faith] Matthew 20:1-16, Jonah 3:10-4:11, and Philippians 1:21-30

September 24, 2023 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on September 24, 2023

[sermon begins after three Bible readings]

Matthew 20:1-16 [Jesus said to the disciples:] ¹“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. ³When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; ⁴and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. ⁵When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. ⁶And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ ⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. ¹⁰Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. ¹¹And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? ¹⁴Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. ¹⁵Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Jonah 3:10-4:11 When God saw what [the people of Ninevah] did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Philippians 1:21-30 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. ²²If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. ²³I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; ²⁴but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. ²⁵Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, ²⁶so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again.
²⁷Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, ²⁸and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation. And this is God’s doing. ²⁹For he has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well—³⁰since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

[sermon begins]

Sometimes all we have is a leap of faith. A leap of faith means that we don’t know what’s going to happen. For some people, leaping in faith means getting out of bed in the morning. For others, leaping in faith means changing careers. Heck, life is a leap of faith. Life choices and events beyond our control all take leaps of faith. In Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, a.k.a. the Bible book of Philippians, he took a leap of faith in sending that letter. He encoded it with words that the Roman authorities would see as meaningless – gospel of Christ, faith, salvation, grace, joy and suffering.1 The church folks would know the hidden code, that God turns things upside down. Paul was writing from prison to people who had everything taken away from them by Rome. They knew that suffering didn’t have the last word. Challenging times make it difficult to feel joy much less acknowledge joy. But there’s Paul talking about joy in faith and their faith in the gospel. Trust is essential for experiencing joy in the middle of trauma, political or otherwise. Many people tell me that they don’t know how they would live life without their faith. I know that my faith and the faith of so many others kept me going over the last few months.

The faith that claims us is of a God who “is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” While the psalmist is praising God for those qualities, Jonah gives God the stink eye, accusing God of grace, mercy, patience, and steadfast love.2 How dare God be God with those horrific enemies?! How dare God extend beauty to people Jonah can’t stand, even if they did repent of their murderous ways? Jonah’s stink-eyed grievance is legit. As non-Jews, the Philippians may not have known the story of Jonah, but Paul as a Jewish Christian did know the story of Jonah. He planted churches with faith in Jesus who revealed God’s grace, mercy, patience, and steadfast love. Paul formed these churches as a leap of faith in circumstances that were less than favorable because he believed in the God of his ancestors from whom Jesus was embodied, took flesh, and launched a ministry of grace and God’s kingdom. Jesus wasn’t a professor in front of a classroom. He taught his followers as life presented itself.

Parables were part of Jesus’ teachings. Parables are stories that are open to interpretation and slippery when it comes to direct answers. Just before our parable today in the Matthew reading, Peter had asked Jesus what the benefits of following him were. Jesus gave a convoluted answer but then launched into a parable to try to explain his answer. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner…” Then Jesus goes on to say that the landowner hires several groups of people in town. The first group he hires early in the morning committing to paying them a daily wage. The next three groups he hired with the promise that he’d “pay what is right.” At the end of the day, he hires the last bunch without one word about payment. We know the drill. The landowner starts with that last bunch who worked an hour by paying them a full daily wage. The story is absurd. No landowner would have stayed in business if word got out that you could make a daily wage working for an hour.

Let’s go with it for a minute though. Imagine the last hour workers’ joy being able to feed their families for a few days. Imagine their joy. But each group was paid a daily wage, and the early morning group was furious. They were angry. If we read closely, we hear their reason, they said to the landowner, “…you have made them equal to us.” “You have made them equal to us.” A scathing rebuke from the workers to the landowner. It gets better. The landowner questions the workers, “Are you envious because I am generous?” In the Greek, this question more precisely asks, “Is your eye evil because I am good?” In other words, the landowner asks, “Are you giving me the stink eye because I’m good?”

Does anyone relate to the stink eye wielding workers? Maybe a teacher gave everyone an “A” after you studied, actually got an “A,” and they didn’t. Maybe your gifts and skills aren’t recognized or reimbursed in a way that leaves you feeling overlooked and undervalued. Are we inclined to give the stink eye to people who haven’t worked as hard as we have or, even better, to give the stink eye to God for God’s generosity or to people who keep harping on God’s generosity?

We could read this parable and argue for workers’ rights, tying the United Auto Workers’ and The Writers Guild’s strikes against corporate greed to the lesson today. We could also argue that this parable isn’t practical guidance but theological argument for God’s grace available in Jesus Christ to all people at all times. I’m more interested in arguing that we are like the workers – skeptical, cynical, and worried about being declared equal to other people who aren’t. This may be part of the reason we get concerned about helping people. We can think that if we help them too much it won’t be good for them. That rabbit hole contains sticking points that make it hard to leap in faith.

I’ve gone back and forth about talking about Augustana Homes and Bless the Build as a leap of faith, but I think it’s worth the risk. Construction begins in October and this afternoon at 1 p.m. in the Sanctuary we’ll have a brief program that ends in Augustana’s Community Park, right next to the site of future affordable homes built by Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver on land leased to them by you, the Augustana congregation. The land lease keeps the cost of the homes affordable. The project began five years ago.

In March of 2018, four Augustana folks went to a breakfast hosted by Interfaith Alliance and heard about the Congregation Land Campaign. Interns at Interfaith Alliance had been assigned the task of calculating how many unused acres of land in Metro Denver were available on faith community properties. 5,000. 5,000 acres across Metro Denver that could be used to build affordable housing as one piece of Denver’s housing puzzle. After the breakfast, these four folks met with the pastors to share what they learned. Each tiny, incremental step, the congregation’s team made headway, led by retired Pastor Ann Hultquist. A team was formed in the congregation to imagine the use of this land for housing. In 2019, over a year after the Interfaith Alliance breakfast, the congregation voted for the project. With other options to sell the land, I call that a leap of faith. By December 2019, we selected Habitat for Humanity as our construction partner out of three possibilities. And we all know what happened in March of 2020 when the world shut down.

While the pandemic slowed the progress, the team persisted, engaging the congregation and neighbors in ongoing discussions for updates and feedback. There were behind-the-scenes tasks that Habitat and the congregation picked away at with the city and the neighborhood association – rezoning, water issues, build size, you know, the fun stuff. Why all these details? Because ultimately families will have affordable homes because of the inspiration to dream and the determination to see the dream through the details. Families will have homes. That’s the dream. Today is as much about celebrating breaking ground on Augustana Homes as it is about inspiring other people to dream about other empty land with potential for homes. If we can make this audacious leap of faith as a large-ish, reserved, and responsible congregation then maybe other faith communities can dream it too. Building affordable homes is one piece of the housing puzzle in Denver. For the eight families who will own Augustana Homes, it’s THE piece that will make their dream a reality.

It would have been easy, and perhaps even advisable, for the congregation to make a different decision. In light of today’s readings, we could argue that the leap of faith we’re taking is the kind of thing that we’re called to do. We can argue it till kingdom come. In the meantime, we’ll catch glimpses of the kingdom that is like a landowner whose generosity earns the occasional stink eye when generosity is on the line. Thanks be to God. And amen.

Preaching, Sermons

Mental Health Sunday [OR Preaching for the First Time About My Postpartum Depression] Luke 18:1-8 and Psalm 121

October 16, 2022 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on October 16, 2022

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

Luke 18:1-8 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. ²He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. ³In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ ⁴For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” ⁶And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? ⁸I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?

²My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

³He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

⁴He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

⁶The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

⁷The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

⁸The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

[sermon begins]

These past few days, morning walks with Rob and our dog Sunny have been glorious (poop bags not so much). Bluebird skies, wisps of white clouds, sunlight blooming off leaves turned red, orange, pink, and yellow, hills in the distance with hints of the brighter colors close by. During one of these walks, I mentioned how much better I feel when I’ve made the effort to get myself out of the door. The cool breeze lightens burdens and heavier thoughts, and at the same time makes space for lifting people to God in prayer. Times like these walks, when thoughts are clearer and life is calmer, foster so much of the gratitude that Pastor Ann talked about last week. Gratitude that changes perspective and improves mental health. Gratitude for things that aren’t always seeable.

It’s hard to describe the darkness of mental illness. My experience with postpartum depression gave me a glimpse of how dark and out of control it feels. Things were tough after our first was born but the depression went into overdrive after our second child. A mind hijacked by shame, I felt unworthy of love and the life I had. Everyone else seemed so happy as new parents and I was drowning in anger, losing my cool over the smallest things. Most of you wouldn’t recognize the me that I was then. I was able to camouflage my distress except from those closest to me who felt hurt and helpless. Therapy and time and getting more sleep and my husband’s determination and my eventual honesty about what I was going through and my apologies to the people who care about me and having a weekly reminder at worship of God’s grace and unconditional love, all worked together towards healing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned coming from generations of family who struggle with mental health, it’s that healing from mental illness is never just one thing. Healing is layered. It took a few years to fully recover my light and my confidence and to trust that I was loved. I am most fortunate to have had the support and the resources to make it through that dark time. I do wonder what the outcome would have been if I’d hadn’t had the support and resources.

Support and resources are part of what Mental Health Sunday is about. As we sang in our Gathering Song, we “build a house where love can dwell, and all can safely live.”[1] Part of the building this house is our honesty.

– Honesty that there are no quick fixes to mental illness.

– Honesty that our faith is a layer of healing – mental illness is NOT caused by lack of faith nor fixed by more faith as many of us were taught.

– And honesty that we need other people, some of whom are a congregation and some mental health professionals.

– Honesty that mental illness is a set of real diseases that are sometimes beyond our control to heal ourselves and sometimes beyond anyone’s control to heal completely.

– And honesty that our mental illnesses create pain for ourselves and the people we love.

We start worship with a word of confession about ourselves and hear God’s good word of forgiveness because both are true – we are broken and do hurtful things out of our own pain AND God’s mercy endures forever. Today’s parable of the widow and the unjust judge is a great illustration of both.

“God is everything the unjust judge is not.”[2] This is not a parable that slides God into the power role. But God is present. The widow’s urgent persistence is fueled by God’s promises of justice, by God’s alignment with orphans and widows who are lifted up throughout scripture as worthy of the community’s energy, money, and protection. She has nothing to fear from the unjust judge because her life is on the line. Death is her outcome should her plea for justice fail. The widow is a good example of why the church has a role in advocating for justice of all kinds so that support and resources are broadly available. Today, that means spotlighting mental health and the factors that help and harm.

Our society is dealing with a tsunami of mental illness. Some of it, like my postpartum depression, is situational and familial. But the level of mental illness that we’re experiencing as a country is uncharted territory. This is no longer a discussion about a few individuals who struggle because of genetics and family systems. It is no longer a private health issue. Our culture destabilizes mental health to such an extent that it’s become a public health issue. We’re not going to fix this overnight but, like the persistent widow, we can persistently work on injustices in housing, healthcare, hunger, education, and employment because we know that these are factors that cause stress which can destabilize mental health. It’s not about individuals working harder on self-care to cure themselves in an unjust society working against mental health. It’s about our collective will, working together so that the more fragile among us have a shot at mental health through support, resources, and treatment. Even better would be a society less in need of those things to begin with because it’s less dog-eat-dog and more glorious days of dog walking.

Today’s Psalm 121 is a real fan favorite here in Colorado. It’s often read at funerals as a psalm of faith and trust in God. We sang it as a hymn earlier in worship. “I lift my eyes to the hills,” the psalmist wrote, “from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.” The imagery in this psalm isn’t hard for us to imagine at the foot of the Rockies. What is hard is remembering that God’s help comes in the form of people through relationship. From the beginning, the Bible’s stories often focus on people’s responsibility to each other as God continues to show up for them. When the Old Testament covenants between God and God’s people are broken, they are broken by God’s people not taking care of most vulnerable among them – the widow, orphan, and stranger.

Jesus, the one who saves us from ourselves and expands our love of self towards God and our neighbor, was raised in the Biblical, Jewish tradition of caring for the vulnerable, and expands God’s earliest covenant to the Jews around us through the very same Jesus. If I had a whiteboard here with me, I would draw ever expanding circles, first with Abraham, then with Moses, and then with Jesus. Each covenant getting larger, including more people across a wider world. When we are tempted to exclude, God keeps drawing a bigger circle. Because God’s circle is ever-expanding, Mental Health Sunday expands the circle for us as a congregation too.

“I lift my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.” These words are also about being able to take our joy, our pain, our anger, and our longings straight to God. God whose disconnect and despair was embodied in Jesus as he hung on a cross. Imagining Jesus on the cross was part of my own prayers for healing when I couldn’t see through the dark. Many times, I didn’t have the words to pray but I could see Jesus’ feet and felt comforted by God who was in the shadow with me. Digging out of the darkness was painstaking and took a lot of other people working with me, along with God’s promise that there IS light in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, never will overcome it.[3]

Thanks be to God. And amen.

_____________________________________________________

[1] Evangelical Book of Worship (ELW), 641: All Are Welcome. Marty Haugen b. 1950, (Chicago: GIA Publications, 1994).

[2] Francisco J. Garcia, Ph.D. Candidate in Theological Studies, Ethics and Action, Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Nashville, TN. Commentary on Luke 18:1-8 for Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-29-3/commentary-on-luke-181-8-5

[3] John 1:5, although, read all of John 1:1-14, its powerful promise of God’s presence is noteworthy.

Preaching, Sermons

Risking the Least Broken Choice [OR What’s Self-Interest Got to Do With It?]

September 18, 2022 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on September 18, 2022

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

Luke 16:1-13 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. ²So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ ³Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. ⁴I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ ⁵So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ ⁶He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ ⁷Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ ⁸And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. ⁹And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
¹⁰“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. ¹¹If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? ¹²And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? ¹³No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

[sermon begins]

Once a week, Pastor Ann and I get to hang out at Preacher’s Text Study with other Lutheran pastors. Mostly on Zoom, once a month in person, we talk with our colleagues about the Bible verses for the coming Sunday. We play with crazy ideas that would never preach, daring each other with the occasional, “I’ll give you a buck if you use that in a sermon.” So far, we’re all smart enough not to use those things in sermons. And sometimes we encourage each other with a solid, “That’ll preach!” Text study is a good way to avoid being a one-sermon wonder – although I’ve no doubt that you guys would totally be able to name my top favorite sermon themes. It’s also a good way to let the Holy Spirit live large, shattering assumptions and mischief-making with the texts. Last week’s text study was no exception. You can see why in the parable.

On first blush, Jesus’ parable seems to make a mockery of the life that he’s been demanding of his followers. The dishonest steward seems to end up okay, even commended by his master for acting shrewdly. Text study conversation went all over the place. Topics jumped quickly from the Mafia, staying Christian, John Wayne, Alcoholics Anonymous, righteous indignation, Puritanism, St. Francis of Assisi, and Robin Hood. One of my colleagues saved the field day with the biblical Greek meanings of “shrewd,” most often translated as “wise,” and of the word “dishonest” which is the less common translation of that word. More commonly, the Greek word for dishonest is translated “unrighteous.” Either way, we’re in a bind. Is Jesus’ telling us that it doesn’t matter how money is managed? That can’t be right. If that can’t be right, what gets us closer to Jesus’ teachings about money throughout the Gospel of Luke?

First century Galilee was occupied by Roman landlords and rulers who were loan sharks, tacking on high interest rates that could never be paid back so that they could acquire family land belonging to peasants when they couldn’t repay their loans.[1] At the time, it was common for landlords and their managers to pad the cost of things, adding 25-50% profit margins to the price.[2] Meanwhile, Jews had biblical commands about fair loans and debt forgiveness. Debt forgiveness was so much a thing for Jews that every 50 years a Jubilee year was commanded in which people were released from debt, prisoners and slaves were freed, and borrowed property was returned.[3] In this light, it’s possible that Jesus’ parable implicates the master AND the manager. We’re not told, but it’s possible that the manager was forgiving his percentage of the inflated price which maintained the master’s cut while reducing the peasants’ costs, leaving nothing for himself. This jives with verse 12, about being faithful with what belongs to another which can also be read as being faithful to what belongs to the peasants.[4] This reading of the parable lines up with Luke’s gospel in other places where Jesus’ talks about poverty and wealth but it’s unclear enough to keep us guessing.

So, we could argue that the shrewd manager was faithful with his dishonest wealth, sacrificing his own profit margins (not the landlords) so that he can be welcomed by the people he had ripped off when he loses his job. The bottom line is that the manager is commended for acting out of self-interest which also lightened the load of the peasants in debt. Everyone loves a good Robin Hood story – stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, making a bad thing good. But this doesn’t quite fit. This story has a different twist to it. The manager quite possibly didn’t rob from the rich. The manager robbed from himself for self-preservation. He said it himself in verses 3 and 4, “What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.”

Self-interest is a powerful thing. Self-interest doesn’t pull the heartstrings like stories of self-forgetting or self-sacrificing, like saving someone from a raging river and dying in their place. But self-interest does have its place when it lines up with Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”[5] Let’s take the real-time example here in Denver of housing unhoused folks. There could be many reasons why housing unhoused people would be important to you:

You yourself are unhoused and need a place to live.
You don’t want to see people camping on the street because there are no accessible restrooms which causes a public health problem.
You have a business and want customers to have clear access to your storefront and parking.
You’re tired of taking phone calls at your place of work about unhoused people.
You feel bad for people who don’t have a place to live.
You don’t want to give money to unhoused people at street corners.
You get the idea.

Uniting the self-interests of all the people who care about this issue can transform isolated self-interest into collective will to actually solve the problem of people who need a place to live.[6]

As Lutheran Christians, we believe that we are simultaneously saint and sinner by our baptisms. Being a sinner means that we’re capable of just about anything when left to our own devices in the right set of circumstances for self-preservation. Being a saint also means that we’re capable of just about anything given the right set of circumstances and given the power of the Holy Spirit. Turns out that Christians are just as unpredictable as everyone else. Lutheran Christians long ago adopted the phrase, “Sin Boldly.” This probably doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means. Please don’t run out of here today saying that your pastor told you that you can do whatever you want. Sinning boldly means that risks can be taken. If we know that sin is part of how we move through the world, then sinning boldly means taking the least broken choice and taking risks on behalf of God and neighbor.

Jesus’ parable isn’t metaphorical. Jesus tells this parable about money because it’s about money. The manager is trying to save his own skin. His shrewd self-interest is lauded in part because he risked a win-win solution that paid off for the people who couldn’t afford it any other way. He sinned boldly! He used his own dishonestly gained wealth to find that win-win, to reduce the debt of the very peasants who he hoped would welcome him. It’s important to read this parable NOT as if all bets are off and dishonesty is rewarded. But rather, read this parable as if Jesus is saying, “Game on!” Game on faithful people.

Any economic system is susceptible to greed, extreme wealth, and the exploitation of people. We just so happen to live in a capitalist economic structure. Faithful questions about money include:

Who is profiting, who is massively profiting, and who is being exploited?
Whose debt is or isn’t forgiven? Individual debt? Business debt?
Whose activities are subsidized with money not their own, and whose aren’t, be they individuals or institutions?
Who is being worshipped? Is it God? Or is it the idol of wealth?

The clearest thing that Jesus says in today’s reading is, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” It may be said clearly but it’s understood as clear as mud.

As God’s baptized people, Jesus’ teachings about money may honestly and courageously be wrestled with like everything else in life. Whoever said that it’s not polite to talk about money or politics did us a disservice because now we’re a whole bunch of people who don’t know how to talk about money or politics. Talking about money, wealth, and poverty takes honesty and courage. Honesty about our self-interest and the courage to listen to other people’s self-interest is a good place to start. And it can even be fun once we get the hang of it. We are freed by Jesus to talk about hard things and risk sinning boldly because we are a forgiven and free people set to work in this world that God so loves which, by definition, means God loves you too.

Thanks be to God. And amen.

_______________________________________________________

[1] Barbara Rossing, Professor of New Testament, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Chicago, IL. Commentary on Luke 16:1-9 for Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25-3/commentary-on-luke-161-13-2

[2] Rossing, ibid.

[3] Year of Jubilee: https://www.gotquestions.org/Jubilee.html

[4] Rossing, ibid.

[5] Luke 10:25-28

[6] More on self-interest here: https://www.faithactionhawaii.org/post/25th-anniversary-reflection-self-interest-means-self-among-others

Preaching, Sermons

Stories that Claim Us [OR God Sees Your Fear and Raises You by Grace] John 20:19-31

April 24, 2022 caitlin121608

**sermon art: Doubting Thomas by Nick Piliero on F Barbieri (acrylic on canvas)

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 24, 2022

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

John 20:19-31 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 Jews, 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.”

²⁴But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”
²⁶A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. ³¹But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

[sermon begins]

My husband Rob has a group of friends from his hometown that stay in touch with each other. Life events and annual lake trips dot the calendar. There’s one friend that keeps everyone going in the right direction. We laugh that it’s because he’s a retired army officer, so he’s used to interdependence and complex logistics. I am somewhat envious of their life-long friendships. My story is littered with different homes, and towns, and schools. Even in the same town I switched schools between middle and high school so new friends were made. This is where the upside of social media makes a difference. Over the years, I’ve found people on social media from elementary, middle, and high school, and they’ve found me.

A couple of years ago, Ron Dawson, a friend from elementary school reached out because he was writing a memoir including stories from 5^th and 6^th grades. He wanted to check the story and use my name or an alias. We caught up with each other – cuz, you know, a lot’s happened since 5^th grade. We didn’t really discuss my becoming a pastor. Just noted it and moved on. As social media goes, we’ve commented on each other’s posts. This will come as a shock, I know, but some of my posts are religious. My Easter Sunday post was an icon of Jesus flashing a fancy icon hand sign that cast an Easter bunny shadow puppet. Last week, Ron messaged me and asked if he could interview me for his podcast.[1] He’s doing a series about changes in his faith. The trendy word is deconstruction. His upbringing and adult faith experiences no longer fit his life experience. We talked via Zoom on Good Friday afternoon – a perfect time to talk about faith and lack of faith.

In that conversation, I mentioned something that Pastor John Pederson talked about in my first year as a pastor here. When people asked him about his faith, he would say that the Christian story is simply the one that claimed him. This is both a very Pastor Pederson and a very Lutheran thing to say – “…the story that claimed him.” When you think about it, we all have a story or multiple stories that claim us. Our family story, faith story, school story, work story, American story, human story, and more, usually lay their claims without a lot of self-awareness on our parts. Examining those stories takes time and energy, for sure, but it also takes courage. Because when you examine a story, ask questions about it, see if the story still fits with who you are now, you may find that the story has changed its claim on you.

Thomas is a solid example of a changing story. After the crucifixion, the disciples’ fear had them on lock down. Rightly so after the trauma of Jesus’ death and what could be next for them. Then Thomas’ friends had an experience with the risen Jesus that he missed out on. Maybe he didn’t trust their Jesus sighting because as a twin he had the look-alike prank down.[2] Who knows where he was when the resurrected Jesus showed up – food run, maybe? Anyway, Thomas wasn’t there. Everything was still so fresh. Maybe he hadn’t found his way back to the others after the chaos. It was still the same day that Mary Magdelene had just been at the empty tomb and saw Jesus, thinking he was the gardener until he said her name.[3]

Mary’s morning (mourning?) encounter and the disciples’ evening meeting with the risen Christ was the first Easter Sunday. Thomas had to wait a whole week, until the next Sunday, before HIS moment with the resurrected, wounded Jesus. That must have been a rough week, his friends crowing with confidence, claimed by a story that didn’t yet include him. Makes me wonder what story claimed him that week. Was it doubt? Was it hope? Fear? All the above? It makes me wonder what stories claim us. Doubt? Hope? Fear? Capitalism? Celebrity-ism? All the above? Maybe a better question is, do we dare examine the stories that claim us? Week after week, Sunday to Sunday, we take baby steps on a life journey that often includes questions about faith. 12^th century thinker, Anselm of Canterbury, called this “faith seeking understanding.” Lutheran Christians are claimed by an origin story that includes thinking faith down to the last thought – changing our minds and wrestling with tough concepts. Repeatedly deconstructing ourselves within communities of faith as the risen Jesus repeatedly shows up in bread, wine, and each other to strengthen our faith and challenge our assumptions. Deconstruction and reconstruction are not once and done – but a daily process of dying and rising in our baptisms, trusting that God’s promises are bigger than any of our questions or struggles.

People of great faith are inspiring. Like the early adopters in the faith – Mary Magdalene, Peter, the other disciples, and yes even Thomas – we have people among us who are convinced of the resurrection beyond a shadow of a doubt. Most of us don’t fall neatly into either full faith or no faith. That’s a false choice. Most of us are on a continuum, sometimes even depending on the time of day. For something as big and mysterious as the resurrection, it’s a good thing that the Easter season is 50 days. We need lots of time to swim in the mystery, struggle with what it means to trust God even if the resurrection story feels like a step too far from the reality of cross and tomb.

One of my seminary professors said that every faith argument plays a mystery card or two. To that I reply, “I see your mystery card and raise you a heresy.” Mystery cards, like the resurrection, are one thing. Any faith in any story relies on mystery cards. Whether that story is religious, or economic, or political, or scientific, there are assumptions, hypotheses, and mystery cards aplenty. Our Lenten Adult Forums on Faith, Science, and the Theology of the Cross, are just one recent example of how mystery functions in the world of science. Don Troike did a beautiful job leading us through the gifts, answers and limitations of science and faith. Very cool stuff.

Church offers us conversation partners who offer context, history, and compassion – kind of like the disciples did for Thomas. Anyway, on to heresies. Heresies are arguments that we make within a faith story that may not line up with accepted ideas or doctrine. This is super common. Mostly argued about by theology nerds. But sometimes the fear of heresy locks us into not thinking, or not engaging the mystery whatsoever. That’s no fun. Half the fun of the church is getting to wonder, wander, and ponder our way through what it means to be Jesus followers and the risen body of Christ. How do we get there if we don’t place a demand or two like Thomas did into the mix?

Thomas was open to the idea that he too could see Jesus’ resurrected wounds – as weird and icky as that sounds. He’d already experienced some pretty incredible things to date – healings, exorcisms, Lazarus walking out of a tomb. Why not one more? The story that claimed these early siblings of faith is weird. It’s the story of a lifetime. It’s a story that takes courage to examine, question, and live into. Ultimately, though, it’s Christ’s story that claims, consoles, and connects us to each other and to God. God’s longing sees your locked rooms and fears and raises you by grace. Alleluia and amen.

____________________________________________

Hymn after the Sermon:

Ask the Complicated Questions

1. Ask the complicated questions,
do not fear to be found out;
for our God makes strong our weakness,
forging faith in fires of doubt.

2. Seek the disconcerting answers,
follow where the Spirit blows;
test competing truths for wisdom,
for in tension new life grows.

3. Knock on doors of new ideas,
test assumptions long grown stale;
for Christ calls from shores of wonder,
daring us to try and fail.

4. For in struggle we discover
truth both simple and profound;
in the knocking, asking, seeking,
we are opened, answered, found.

____________________________________________

[1] Ron Dawson, Dungeons ‘n’ Durags: One Black Nerd’s Epic Quest of Self-Discovery and Racial Identity. https://dungeons-n-durags.com/podcast/

[2] David Peters, Vicar, St. Joan of Arc Episcopal Church, TX. Paraphrasing Jeremiah Griffin’s sermon about Thomas @dvdpeters on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dvdpeters/status/1517219990809858050

[3] John 20:1-18

Sermons

Ask the Complicated Questions [OR A Sermon for Reformation Day] John 8:31-36

October 31, 2021 caitlin121608

**sermon photo: Nerina Fielding, Starling Mumeration [still captured from recording], Natomas, Sacramentao, California. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8Prw9AZ9jw

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on October 31, 2021

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

John 8:31-36 Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” ³³They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”
³⁴Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

[sermon begins]

Mr. Mack sported a silver crew cut with his serious demeanor. He was retired military – United States Marine Corps. He commanded respect without demanding it. You could have heard a pin drop when he walked into the room, through the straight rows of desks. We were already hard at work copying his notes from the chalk board onto notebook paper, double-spacing them to leave room for notes from his lecture. He took his seat at his desk waiting until precisely 15 minutes after the bell. Then he stood and began his 10^th grade history lecture on life, politics, and war while we scribbled wildly. We studied the notes and took the tests and moved on to 11^th grade history. In Mr. Mack’s class, it was easy to believe that history was an ordered account of the facts – the lecture followed the notes that followed the textbook. In part, this was true. There are undeniable events that have dates and key historical figures to go with them. But what we know about history is that it’s less like a straight line and more like a murmuration of starlings.[1] Maybe you’ve seen these birds flying together in the hundreds of thousands –twisting and turning, pulsing together toward an unknown endpoint. The videos are mesmerizing. The only thing linear about history is the time that passes. Otherwise, there are hundreds of thousands of voices that give us a different perspective of the same story.

Our celebration today is one such many-voiced story. Reformation 500 years ago is often told in a way that makes Martin Luther, that ornery academic priest, out to be a lone wolf of faith and theology. (Although, in fairness to us, we’re repeatedly exposed to lone wolf storytelling in film and T.V.) But Luther was the one who lived to tell the tale. Reformers before him were put to death. Luther survived because he was hidden away by a sympathetic prince who protected him. His story survived because of printing press inventors and his bestie Melancthon who negotiated the theology of grace with other pastors in wider church circles. Otherwise, Luther could have been just another pastor who posted good ideas on a church bulletin board that no one ever read – his ideas swallowed up by the 300,000 revolutionaries fighting the German Peasants’ War in 1525. But his ideas lived on in pamphlets, catechisms, and Bibles in the common language. Local pastors, sly politicians, and faithful parents joined the sweeping history in real-time that pulsed with new life and grace. There are Protestants in Christianity because there were meddling Lutherans who held the church of Rome accountable to its theology and the people hurt by it. (In fairness to our Catholic siblings in faith, many of Luther’s reforms have long since been put into place by the Roman Catholic Church. Remember, a little grace can go a long way.)

Digging into the back-story of the Reformation is similar detective work to digging into the Bible. The Bible includes many people and their stories pulsing together into the larger one. The highs and lows of our ancient Jewish cousins in the faith swooping into the 1^st Century story of Jesus, a Jewish rabbi from a backwater town, and the ragtag men and women who followed him as disciples. It would take many lifetimes to exhaust the riches of God’s love story for the world, through Jesus who called himself the “truth” in the Bible reading from John. Which brings us to today. This moment. Us. And especially you guys who are affirming the promises of baptism in the milestone that we call Confirmation.

Confirmation is a rite of passage, a ritual that marks a moment into what came before and what comes after. A ritual that shifts the promises made at baptism from your parents to you. I’m just going to slip in the reminder that God’s promises are complete while our promises are fallible and imperfect even when they’re faithful. Confirmation is a big moment but it’s not a lone wolf moment. It’s a church-alive moment. You’re surrounded by people who are asking similar complicated questions that you ask:

Was the earth, the world, the universe really just created for humans?
How was the creation story written down if God was the only being at the beginning of the world?
How did our faith/this church start and evolve and do you think it will continue to change? If so, in what way?
How do we know that God is really there? Is it okay to doubt God?

These are complicated questions that many faithful Christians have asked at different times in their lives but especially at times of faithful ritual and often in times of struggle.

Last week I led a Bible Study at the women’s prison with 12 women on the Inside Council of New Beginnings Worshipping Community. We worked through the Bible readings and questions that their Pastor Terry had given us. It’s been a couple years or so since I’ve been with them and a few of the women I’ve known since I started volunteering there. Laughter and tears mix with some serious deep thinking. I asked the women if they had any thoughts about doubt and faith that I could share with our youth at church who were going through the rite of Confirmation and affirming their baptisms. They want you to know that faith can feel hard but that it is also freedom – freedom to be who God made you to be, freedom to ask God to show you God’s presence, and freedom to ask to have an open heart. It’s really something to hear women in prison talking about freedom. Most of them will return to community alongside us at some point but for others it will be many years living within those walls.

The women are not talking about any old freedom and for them it’s more than poetry. They have found that freedom through the love and grace of Jesus. When Jesus says that sin enslaves us and he sets us free, these women deeply understand what that means. Those of us who live outside of prisons have a harder time admitting that we sin much less confessing it and our need for the very freedom Jesus offers through grace. But we know this much, we are free to ask questions. Free to ask questions about the Bible, about history, about the church, about Jesus, about our faith and our doubt, about the mystery of God. You name it and we are free to ask it.

Lutheran Christians have a 500-year history of asking, “What does this mean?” Literally, that question, “What does this mean?” (Although it was originally asked in German and now in most every known language – there are A LOT of Lutherans around the world.) The disciples in the Bible asked similar questions. The Jews living before the 1^st century, through our Jewish neighbors today still ask questions about God, their history, and each other. We are part of this robust history of asking questions into our present-day moment of grace through faith.

Grace is God’s unconditional love for you.

Grace is God’s promises flowing over you in baptismal water – the promise to always be present, to always take you back, to make your life Christ-shaped, and to keep these promises forever.

Grace is this moment in time. Each one of us with a story of our own, drawn together by the Holy Spirit into God’s story. For this and for all that God is doing, we can say, thanks be to God, and amen.

__________________________

Song after the Sermon

All Creation Sings (hymnal): #1005 “Ask the Complicated Questions”

1 Ask the complicated questions.

Do not fear to be found out;

for our God makes strong our weakness,

forging faith in fires of doubt.

2 Seek the disconcerting answers,

follow where the Spirit blows;

test competing truths for wisdom,

for in tension new life grows.

3 Knock on doors of new ideas,

test assumptions long grown stale,

for Christ calls from shores of wonder,

daring us to try and fail.

4 For in struggle we discover

truth both simple and profound;

in the knocking, asking, seeking,

we are opened, answered, found.

Text: David Bjorlin, b. 1984

_________________________________________________

[1] https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/what-is-a-murmuration

Preaching, Sermons

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

April 18, 2021 caitlin121608

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on April 18, 2021

[sermon begins after two Bible readings]

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

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

[sermon begins]

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

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

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

Time to immerse in the mystery of the empty tomb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

______________________________________________________________

Song after the sermon

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

That we should be called the children of God.

______________________________________________________________

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

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

[3] Luke 10:25-37

[4] Luke 1:51b-53

Preaching, Sermons

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

April 4, 2021 caitlin121608

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

[sermon begins after the Bible reading]

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

[sermon begins]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________________________________

[1] Mark 15:40-41

[2] Mark 15:47

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

[4] 1 John 4:16b

[5] Ephesians 4:32

[6] Mark 12:33

Pastor, Preacher, Speaker