Tag Archives: Feast Day

What’s Pride Got to Do with It? [OR To Love Jesus Means to Love People]

**sermon art: Rainbow Jesus by Tony Rubino, 2020, acrylic on canvas

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on June 29, 2025, on the feast day honoring the Apostles Peter and Paul

[sermon begins after two Bible readings – the third reading is at the end of the sermon]

John 21:15-19 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. 8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

[sermon begins]

It was a stunning, bluebird day in Colorado. Hope was in the air. My long hair was pony-tailed under a white hard hat with my name taped to the front of it. T-shirt and overalls were donned as I prepared to paint at a “clergy Habitat build” back in the day. Both of my internship pastors from Bethany were there, as were clergy from many faiths including Christian denominations across the Metro Denver area. (Although, unleashing clergy en masse on a project is questionable.) We muddled through our morning of good deeds and broke for lunch. Sitting down on a curb with my sandwich and bag of chips felt well-earned. A pastor about 20 years my senior sat down next to me, and he started a get-to-know-you conversation that included our denominational affiliation. This bit of information changed the tone. He asked what I thought about the ELCA’s vote to call gay clergy and bless same-sex partners.[1] (The ELCA is our flavor of Lutherans.) It would be another six years until the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the country on June 26, 2015.[2]

In August 2009, a few months before my lunch chat with that pastor, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly had just lifted its ban to call LGBTQ+ pastors and deacons, and I was thrilled for my LGBTQ seminary peers and friends even as the weirdness of voting about a group of people rankled me. I had exactly three years of seminary under my belt (after being a nurse for many years) and was a few months into my pastoral internship before graduating. Turns out that the pastor eating his sandwich next to me at that Habitat build was not interested in having a conversational exchange of ideas. He wanted to tell me that I was wrong and that the ELCA was wrong, and he used scripture to do it.

These days, I’m better equipped to talk about the 7 verses in the whole Bible that allegedly address LGBTQ concerns, the 50 Bible verses in which Jesus talks about love, the 250 Bible verses in which Jesus talks about money, and the ZERO Bible verses in which Jesus has anything to say on the topic of LGBTQ folks. ZERO. More about scriptural authority and LGBTQ folks are in my June 1st sermon at the beginning of Pride Month. At that clergy build in 2009, I was ill-prepared. After many long minutes of going back-and-forth, here’s what I finally said to that pastor. “I hang my hat on Jesus’ teaching when he said that greater love hath no one than to lay one’s life down for one’s friends—so I’m going to err on the side of love and go get another sandwich.”[3] I stood up and did just that while internally I was shaking like a leaf.

Looking back, it was but a small moment of courage. Nothing even close to the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul whose ministries we’re honoring today. The Bible readings include Peter’s prisonbreak aided by the angel, Paul’s summary in his letter to Timothy as he nods to the end of his ministry AND his life, and Jesus’ questioning Peter about his love.

Paul was reflecting on his proclamation of the message to all the Gentiles. Paul was a Jew who proclaimed an expansion of God’s love given through the Jewish people by way of Jesus to everyone else. It was a radical message of who belonged to God. When Paul talked about being poured out, he likely meant that he was being poured out like a drink offering. [4] The Greek verb spendo, which means to pour out, is used in only one other place and that’s in Paul’s letter to the Philippians.[5] Paul’s meaning is that his life and his death had been an offering to God. The authorities might indeed kill him, but Paul uses this language to say that he offers his life back to God who carries his life through this death.[6] By Paul’s example, we learn that living as a gospel people means that our lives are an offering to God.

By Peter’s example, we learn that the love of Jesus means that we love Jesus’ people as Jesus renews Peter’s call to follow him. Three times, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Three times, Peter says, “Yes.” Three times, Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep. Not Peter’s sheep. Jesus’ sheep. No one belongs to us. We all belong to God through Jesus’ death and resurrection, through Jesus pouring out of himself.

Years ago, during my first interview with Augustana, the Call Committee asked what I would fight for. I answered that I would fight for the gospel. The gospel means the good news of Jesus is for everyone. The good news that there’s nothing you can do or not do to make God love you any more or any less is expressed with words like grace, forgiveness, freedom, and hope. There are times when the gospel for everyone means that we turn to particular groups of people to say that the gospel is for them, too. Today’s celebration of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, is a nod towards exactly that. They risked everything, including their lives, to preach the good news of Jesus to Gentiles. Gentile means non-Jew. The earliest Jesus followers were Jews. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus began the Gentile movement that expanded their inclusion in his Way of hope and freedom. He was ultimately killed for it by the Roman Empire and Jewish religious leaders. Peter and Paul continued the Gentile movement, and they were also martyred as threats to the empire. God’s grace and freedom are just that powerful when you’re no longer dividing people as insiders and outsiders and pitting them against each other.

Pitting people against each other is the worst of identity politics. No one wins when we’re riled up by the differences that are used to divide us. The best of identity politics happens when people work together to solve a cultural challenge with groups of people who have been treated as “less than,” and whose lives are made more difficult because who they are doesn’t fit into accepted cultural norms.[7] Examples of productive identity politics are the Women’s Suffrage movement of the 19th century that lasted 80 years and led to women being able to vote in this country and the Civil Rights movement of the 20th century that lasted 15 years and gained equal rights under the law for Black Americans. In the early church, Peter and Paul made sure that the Gentiles knew they were included in God’s love through the cross of Christ—arguably one of the earliest identity politics movements. Augustana in Denver is a Christian church today because Jesus and his earliest Jewish followers like Peter and Paul fully proclaimed the gospel to all the Gentiles. Us. Let’s take good care not to throw the baby out with the baptismal water when we declare that all identity politics are bad for humanity. The argument for identity politics is more nuanced than that.

Last Sunday, we had a teacher here from The Center on Colfax who instructed us in LGBTQ+ basics.[8] She was utterly grace-filled while responding to our questions and teaching us to use the acronym LGBTQ+. We learned what those letters mean to people who use them to identify themselves. We learned again that we can’t know all the things as she encouraged us to keep learning so that we can better affirm LGBTQ+ members, friends, family, and communities. The wider church has work to do in this regard and our small corner of the church does too.

Which brings me to the difference between acceptance versus affirmation. Acceptance is an ambiguous live-and-let-live posture. Whereas affirmation celebrates LGBTQ+ folks as created by God to be themselves in the world. Just as same sex behavior exists throughout the animal kingdom across species, it exists in humans, too.[9] You can check out the footnote in my sermon or do a web search. Seek to understand. There’s so much to know and affirm. Pride weekend is a good time to be curious as we celebrate and affirm LGBTQ+ folks.

Jesus’ call to love involves risk. Peter and Paul embodied the risk of love taken to the extreme. Most of us are called by Jesus’ love to smaller acts of courage. When we err, we err boldly on the side of love, fueled by God’s grace that dares us to live into the promise of God’s unconditional love for the sake of the world God so loves. Amen.

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[1] John Dart. “Study process aided ELCA breakthrough: Third denomination to accept gay clergy. September 22, 2009.  Study process aided ELCA gay breakthrough: Third denomination to accept gay clergy | The Christian Century

[2] Same-sex marriage is made legal nationwide with Obergefell v. Hodges decision | June 26, 2015 | HISTORY

[3] John 15:13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

[4] Stephen Fowl, President and Dean, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, CA. Commentary on 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18. October 23, 2022. Commentary on 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[5] Ibid. (Philippians 2:17)

[6] Ibid.

[7] Karen Dienst. “Gutmann examines ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly” of identity politics. Princeton – Weekly Bulletin 3/24/03 – Gutmann examines ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ of identity politics

[8] The Center on Colfax – LGBTQ Colorado

[9] Karen A. Anderson et al, PLOS One, 19(6), June 20, 2024.  Same-sex sexual behaviour among mammals is widely observed, yet seldomly reported: Evidence from an online expert survey – PMC

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Acts 12:1-11 About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. 2 He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. 3 After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the Festival of Unleavened Bread.) 4 When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. 5 While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.

6 The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. 7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. 8 The angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” 9 Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10 After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. 11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”

John 20:1-2, 11-18 “Shootings and Name Calling”

John 20:1-2, 11-18 “Shootings and Name Calling”

July 22, 2012 – Caitlin Trussell

Feast Day of Mary Magdalene at Centennial Lutheran Church

 

John 20:1-2, 11-18  1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

 

While I am delighted to preach almost anywhere, and at any time, I am especially delighted to be here with you today, this 22nd day of July. Now, if you’re like me, you probably don’t have your calendar marked with anything special on this day except for maybe somebody’s birthday or your wedding anniversary.  But every year on July 22nd, Christians of various ilks around the world – including Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox and Lutherans – commonly celebrate the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene.  And today, this festival in her honor falls on a Sunday.  As a preacher and as a woman, it’s hard to top this lovely confluence of day and date.  And I had a sermon that was a high-energy celebration of Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, confidently announcing, “I have seen the Lord!”

And then the shooting at the movie theater in Aurora happened in the dark hours of Friday morning.  So many people died and many more were wounded physically, spiritually and emotionally.  My festive mood deflated as quickly as a party balloon pricked by a pin when I remembered that a dear friend in East Denver was going to that showing.   It took some time to figure out if he had gone to that midnight show at that theater.  He hadn’t.  But in my relief for his well-being, I was also aware that many in the city didn’t receive that good news and my heart broke for them.

By mid-morning on Friday I became compelled to look at Mary’s story again – through eyes once again weary of the ways we inflict ourselves on each other and create such pain.  Mary has just been through the horror and violence of Jesus’ death on the cross and most likely her own life was in danger in the swirl of the social and political chaos that hung Jesus there.  But chaos is not new for Mary.  Scripture in Mark and Luke make reference to “Mary Magdalene, from whom [Jesus] had cast out seven demons.”[1]  Mary has a deep knowing of evil and its presence in her very being.

Undeterred by the realities of her own experience of evil and the evil played out in the crucifixion, Mary comes to the tomb to be near Jesus – following him as she has always done…and we follow her.  It is dark, really dark, midnight movie dark.  Mary’s eyes are dried out from crying, her mind moving slowly through that cloudy haze of grief, and her body exhausted by lack of sleep.  She must be wondering about what just happened to all that she thought she knew.  Because that’s how it goes, right?  The unthinkable happens, something that most of us cannot imagine, and it’s as if the world shifts off of its axis ever so slightly and alters time and space.

So Mary makes her way into the garden…only to be shocked once more.  Jesus is gone.  Not simply dead on a cross or in a tomb, but, literally, gone.  He’s not where he is supposed to be – similarly to how he wasn’t supposed to be dead on that cross.

In the aftermath of the movie theater shooting some of us wonder where Jesus is and, even more urgently, why he doesn’t seem to be showing up.  We wonder if the tears and fear in our own life will ever be brought to an end.  And, like clockwork, conversations about safety and preventing these kinds of murders take shape.

My sister who lives in Wisconsin called me yesterday.  She mentioned safety.  I told her that I’m not sure I believe in safety as the main thing.  Safety is a big thing.  I certainly want my kids to be able to sit through a midnight movie or a high-noon cafeteria lunch without the threat of death.  But there is another reality at work.  The garden we sit in today with Mary Magdalene echoes back into another garden story – a story “In the beginning” of the Bible that had a different gardener who ended up getting kicked out of the garden.  The Adam and Eve story is many things but for our purposes today it is one that names our sin and magnifies the real presence of evil in the world.  And standing between the garden in the beginning and the one in which we sit with Mary today is the cross.

The cross is a real-life example of our capacity to hurt each other in all kinds of shocking ways.  It is also one that calls out evil, names it for what it is and, in part by telling this truth, defeats it.

The murders that took place at the movie theatre in the dark hours of Friday morning were evil.  But if we imagine for a second that we do not also sit within the same darkness we only fool ourselves.  This is something that Mary knows.  She is drawn to the garden in the darkness, drawn toward the one who healed her and who knows her, only to find him gone.

Just when Mary didn’t think it was possible to cry even more tears, she begins to sob.  And this day, Mary’s hope to catch some peace in the garden, to take a breather after all that has happened, is shattered.  The despair seems never-ending because everything keeps going from bad to worse.  The stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty and Jesus is gone.  And she gets asked the question, TWICE, about why she’s crying – first by the angels and then by the one whom she thinks is the gardener…  Until, finally, she hears her name… “Mary.”  And…she…knows…

Mary now knows that Jesus is raised from the dead; she now knows that there is life after death and so there is hope in despair.  Healed of demons by Jesus, called by name by the risen Christ and sent to tell the story, Mary Magdalene the Apostle, sees the world through eyes that know the worst of evil…yet trusts in an ultimate outcome – that God “will reach into sin and death and pull out healing and life.”[2]  The risen Christ shatters her expectations in the aftermath of evil as he calls her name and sends her on her way to speak this Good News.

How is the risen Christ speaking your name and drawing you through the darkness to himself?  Is his voice breaking through your despair and desperation, challenging you to a new reality through the scriptures?  Are our ancestors in the faith, and our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ today, calling you to be in relationship with each other and with him?   Are the waters of baptism murmuring your name even as your sin is washed clean in the water?  Does Christ’s presence at his meal beckon you to love and forgiveness unknown except through him?  Yes, yes, yes and yes – Christ calls your name in all of those ways and more.  And he calls you into God’s new creation – a new garden – using your name, knowing all that you are so that you might know Christ for his sake, for your sake and for the sake of the world.

And on this day we join Mary in being claimed by hope – a hope that invades deeply into the despair knowing that despair does not have the last word – the last word belongs to Jesus who reaches into sin and death and pulls out healing and new life.

 

 



[1] Mark 16:9 (also see Luke 8:1-2)

[2] Pastor Meghan Johnston Aelabouni on Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-meghan-johnston-aelabouni/an-open-letter-to-all-who_b_1691553.html