Tag Archives: for you

Mystery, Merton and a Mountaintop – Luke 9:28-36

February 7, 2016 caitlin121608

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 7, 2016

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

Luke 9:28-36 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

[sermon begins]

What is it you seek? What is the thing you are sure would make you solidly more you in the world? The situation or the feeling or the skill that would make your life complete. For you it might look like finding a life partner. Or dead-lifting your next PR. Or that ACT score. Or that next job. Or that next exotic destination. Do you dress up the thing you seek in noble terms? Do you pursue peace? Wisdom? Happiness? Love? Or maybe, just maybe, do you even seek faith? Faith…noble seeking, indeed.

One such noble seeker was Thomas Merton. He lived as a Trappist Monk for almost thirty years in the middle decades of the 1900s.[1] His raucous younger years ended in his 20s when he entered the Abbey of Gethsemani – a strict, ascetic monastic order. Brother Merton traveled all of the world to speak. He wrote over 60 books as well as poems and articles. He’s known for seeking world peace and civil rights. His biography is compared to Augustine’s Confessions. He’s also known for seeking God. One writer defines Brother Merton as a “spiritual seeker” rather than a spiritual “settler.”[2]

A few years ago, my third father, Larry, gave me Brother Merton’s book, A Dialogue with Silence, published almost three decades after he died. The book is filled with Brother Merton’s personal prayers and drawings. Each time I pray these prayers, I’m struck by the longing in his seeking. The longing to find. The longing to find God. The longing to find faith. The longing to find himself by finding God. The first prayer in the book prays this way:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I’m following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does I hope in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.” [3]

Brother Merton’s prayers are a seeker’s prayers. He is looking, longing for something. Part of his looking and longing takes shape in following. Following the rules of the monastic order. Following Jesus through prayer.

Peter, John, and James also find themselves following Jesus through prayer. The mountain-high praying expedition comes eight days after Jesus talks to them about his death and resurrection.[4] Up the mountain they go, feeling more than a bit tired by the time Jesus’ starts praying. “Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep.” Through the haze of heavy eyes comes the dazzling, beacon of Jesus. His ancestor friends Moses and Elijah join him appearing “in glory.” A surreal, dazzling flashpoint that embodies the law, prophets, and grace in a single moment. A Judean who’s-who that highlights the what’s-what for the Jesus. His disciples are merely sleepy bystanders who witness it.

So much for witnesses. Bagging the peak, kneeling in prayer, and dazzling the disciples, ends in their silence about Jesus’ transfiguration. We’re told the disciples keep silent in those days. Their silence begs a question. For whom does the light show take place? It’s easy to make this about the disciples. Their experience. Their clarity about the Messiah. Perhaps that is a happy side effect. There may be more.

I know there are some of us in the congregation who can speak to having had or witnessed a mysterious experience. Some of you tell me about them. The conversation often begins hesitantly and very often happens at a bedside of someone who is dying. The person who is within a few days of dying begins talking to people who have died before them. Sometimes it’s a full conversation between the person dying and the one who has already died. Sometimes people point. Sometimes people will ask if you can see them too.

These conversations between the dead and dying have happened often enough in my hospice and pastoral work that I will give families a heads up so that they are prepared if it happens. These conversations between the dead and the dying are inexplicable. Those of us still living have no idea what it means although it’s tempting to try and explain the experience.

The 18th century Enlightenment of Western thought opened up the possibility of explanation for experience. 19th century Modernity promised that human ingenuity would result in inalienable truth and certainty. Neurological and psychological explanations get trotted out to try and explain phenomena like the one experienced by people who are dying. The 21st century shift towards Postmodernity is disillusioned with the modern promise, having experienced the limits and the threats of human understanding. The timeline is not as tidy as this brief history of Western thought would make it seem. Postmodern mystery is in tension with modern certainty as evidenced daily in the public square.

I, for one, am delighted to be a student of scripture in the postmodern context. You see, modernity trains all of us to be good scientists. To make a hypothesis and see if enough evidence stacks up in support of it so that it can be true. Postmodernism often leaves an open question with just a bit more room for the transcendent, for mystery.

One example of making room for mystery comes by way of Jesus’ transfiguration. A modern might try to come up with an explanation of what happened or ask whether it did happen. A postmodern revels in its transcendence – allowing for possibilities

A colleague of mine was in Augustana’s sanctuary and made the comment that its architecture communicates the transcendent even as is grounded by human experience. From the long aisle that moves through the worshipers on a level floor to the stairs that go up to the first landing of the chancel to more stairs that go up to the communion table to the cross moving the eyes up to the high ceiling. There is a sense of connection to the transcendent but also a sense of the limits of understanding it.

Peter, John, and James’ are connected to the transcendent with very little ability to understand it. They witness the razzle, dazzle Jesus and his two long ago dead ancestors in the faith. Jesus is a dead-man walking at this point in the story. He’s just about to enter his last human days. He starts talking to people who have died before him. What if this dazzling moment is about Jesus and for Jesus in his few remaining human days? What if it has nothing to do with his disciples or with us?

One of the charges of pastoral ordination from First Corinthians goes like this, “Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.” Another charge is to not give “false security or illusory hope.” These may as well be charges to the priesthood of all believers. All Christians. There are times when what happens in Jesus is just simply not about us, our experience, or what we make of it. It’s about Jesus for Jesus’ sake. The disciples on the mountain with him are disoriented in a cloud of silence. From the cloud comes God’s voice, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” The disciples listen and remain silent.

In the words of preacher Gerhard Forde, “For who has heard of such a thing—that one is made right with God just by stopping all activity, being still and listening? What the words say to us, really, is that for once in your life you must just shut up and listen to God, listen to the announcement: You are just before God for Jesus sake!”[5]

Pastor Forde’s point, that we are justified for Jesus’ sake, raises more questions than answers. One big question is, “Why?” Scripture asserts that Jesus’s death on the cross is for you and for all. Today, the mystery of the transfiguration seems to be about Jesus.

Christian mystics are a postmodern thread throughout history. Perhaps these mystics are helpful conversation partners for us now. The mystics, who have died before us, are in conversation with us through their writings today. Brother Merton is one of them. He listened to God in silence. He prayed in silence. Here is one more of his prayers:

“…I feel as if everything has been unreal. It is as if the past has never existed. The things I thought were so important – because of the effort I put into them – have turned out to be of small value. The things I never thought about, the things I was never able either to measure or to expect, they were the things that mattered. But in this darkness I would not be able to say, for certain, what is was that mattered. That, perhaps is part of Your unanswerable question!”[6]

For today, let’s turn Jesus’ shiny moment over to him. Let it be for his sake. And, for today, let Jesus be for you…for his sake. Alleluia and amen.

[1] Thomas Merton Biography. The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. http://merton.org/chrono.aspx

[2] Anthony E. Clark. “Can You Trust Thomas Merton?” Catholic Answers Magazine: http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/can-you-trust-thomas-merton

[3] Thomas Merton. Dialogues with Silence. (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), vii.

[4] Luke 9:21-22

[5] Clint Schnekloth. “How I Learned to Be a (post)Lutheran.” October 28, 2015. http://www.clintschnekloth.com/how-i-learned-to-be-a-postlutheran/

[6] Merton, 77.

Sermons

John 20:19-31 “The Path of Life” [Or, “Resurrection From…and In”] Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9

April 27, 2014 caitlin121608

John 20:19-31 “The Path of Life” [Or, “Resurrection From…and In”] Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9

Caitlin Trussell – April 27, 2014

Augstana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

[Additional scripture for today is posted at the end of the sermon]

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.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia! Ahhhh, the words of Easter, the proclamation of resurrection, the sweet relief from the dark days of Lent. Christian churches fill up on Easter Sunday and right then and there, the very first thing, we show our hand. “Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!” These are party words. Celebration words. And do we ever revel in this celebration. Trumpets, lilies, singing, smiles, Easter Eggs – these are symbols of the celebration. And we keep right on partying for 50 days as the season of Easter unfolds. And so we should. This is the biggest and best of the good news – God coming in flesh, in the person of Jesus, dying and rising to new life, and saying to Death, “Your services are no longer needed.” For Christians, it truly doesn’t get any better…or any more scandalous.

Make no mistake, it is a scandal. Through sealed stone and an armed guard, all meant to protect death inside a tomb, life emerged. Not just any life but the life of the One and from the One who brings all things to life. If death is no longer a given, no longer secured in a sealed tomb, then what kind of life are we talking about? What kind of life are we celebrating these 50 days? This is a fair and honest question.

Peter preaches to this question of life eschatologically, that life for the Christian is “revealed in the last time.”[1] He reassures exiled people that their suffering will end even though they suffer right now. Peter’s words are a blessed assurance in a painful time.

A few years ago I was leading a Bible study out at New Beginnings Church in the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility. The topic of life after death, eternal life, came up as a philosophical question – a question we wrestled with intellectually and thoughtfully. The conversation moved along as these conversations often do, with a lot of opinions thrown around and some curiosity sprinkled in for good measure. When from the back of the group of about 100 women, one of them chimes in with a lot of anger. Her words ring in my ears today. She said, “I don’t know what you all are talking about but I believe God has a place for me where crying and dying are no more…I’m counting on it!”[2] She preached as powerfully from her own moment as Peter preaches from his. We even get in on their preaching when we join our voices with theirs as we speak to the “life everlasting” in the Apostle’s Creed. This is the Easter promise as deliverance. This is resurrection from something – from this life that can include the unbearable.

As a relevant aside, some of you may know how much some Christians delight in prepositions. Those small words of grammar tucked in front of a noun to help us write about things in location to other things. For example, Lutheran Christians will say that Jesus is “in, with, and under” the communion bread and wine. The theological battles waged over these little words of location are stunning. Nonetheless, prepositions have their helpful place. As in the Easter promise of eternal deliverance from this life once having passed through death. But this week, Thomas makes me curious about resurrection in this life. “In” being the operating preposition, the key word.

Thomas and the disciples have locked themselves in a room in Jerusalem. The metallic taste of terror still on their tongues after Jesus’ crucifixion. Terror that includes their own inability to prevent Jesus’ death or be present for it. A week before this moment in the locked room, Thomas missed out on seeing the risen Jesus with the other disciples. But Jesus shows up, wounds and all, and Thomas’ mind and faith are put at ease as he puts his fingers in the hand and side wounds of Jesus. Which, by the way, gross! Most of us can’t stomach a small wound that needs stitches much less a stab-wound created by a spear or a nail-hole through a hand. And there’s Thomas, poking and prodding in the wounds of Jesus like he’s on an Easter egg hunt.

To what end is Thomas physically examining Jesus? More importantly, why is Jesus subjecting himself to this exam? The end-point is not deliverance from the locked room or from eventual death. Thomas goes on to die a martyr after all is said and done. This is the resurrection of Christ, wounds and all, playing out in the locked room with Thomas and the other disciples – resurrection in, not from.

A good friend of mine has been listed in our ongoing prayer requests for some weeks now. Her name is Chris. She gave me permission to tell you her story. Chris and I go back a ways. The kind of friendship that includes talking about our families and our lives within the context of our faith. In part because of this soul-searching and Christ-searching, Chris formally presented me during my ordination. She and I continue to talk faith, life, and Bible with seamless fluidity. A year older than me, six months ago Chris was living daily life with the usual mix of highs and lows and good health. On November 5^th, her hands started to hurt during the night. From that first symptom we fast forward to today. She now has muscle weakness that makes it difficult to walk up stairs, empty a dishwasher, and swallow. Looking more and more to her doctors like some kind of autoimmune inflammation in her muscles, she and I spoke at length this past Monday night.

In our usual way, the conversation wove together her Prednisone questions with how her family is doing with what we heard during the Easter sermons at our churches. She told me that the Easter gift for her this year is a bone-deep certainty that Christ’s resurrection is in her current situation. She talks about Christ’s resurrection in her current situation whether or not the medications bring physical healing to her disease, whether or not she is delivered from her disease. She doesn’t know what that will look like but she is sure of it. I can’t help but hear her voice in today’s Psalm, speaking to the Lord, “…my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure…You show me the path of life.”

There are many of us or people we love dealing with situations in life along the lines of Chris or Thomas. During Easter we celebrate Christ’s resurrection as life everlasting even as we celebrate Christ’s resurrection in our lives now.

Christ now breathes the Holy Spirit on you, sharing his peace.

Christ’s resurrection, wounds and all, is in this life for you.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

[1] 1 Peter 1:5

[2] Revelation 21:4

Acts 2:14a, 22-32 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, ²²You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know — ²³this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. ²⁴But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. ²⁵For David says concerning him,
‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;
²⁶therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
moreover my flesh will live in hope.
²⁷For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One experience corruption.
²⁸You have made known to me the ways of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
²⁹Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. ³⁰Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. ³¹Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying,
‘He was not abandoned to Hades,
nor did his flesh experience corruption.’
³²This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.

Psalm 16

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
²I say to the LORD, “You are my LORD;
I have no good apart from you.”
³As for the holy ones in the land, they are the noble,
in whom is all my delight.
⁴Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names upon my lips.
⁵The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
⁶The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage.
⁷I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
⁸I keep the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
⁹Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
my body also rests secure.
¹⁰For you do not give me up to Sheol,
or let your faithful one see the Pit.
¹¹You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of joy;
in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

1 Peter 1:3-9 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.⁶In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, ⁷so that the genuineness of your faith — being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, ⁹for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Sermons

John 13:1-17, 31-35b and Exodus 12:1-14 “Confusion and Mystery” [Or A Sermon for Maundy Thursday]

April 17, 2014 caitlin121608

John 13:1-17, 31-35b and Exodus 12:1-14 “Confusion and Mystery” [Or A Sermon for Maundy Thursday]

Caitlin Trussell on April 17, 2014 for Augustana Lutheran Church

John 13:1-17, 31-35b Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. ²The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper ³Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, ⁴got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. ⁵Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. ⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” ⁷Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” ⁸Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” ⁹Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” ¹⁰Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” ¹¹For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
¹²After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? ¹³You call me Teacher and Lord — and you are right, for that is what I am. ¹⁴So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. ³¹When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. ³²If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. ³³Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ³⁴I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

[Read Exodus text at end of sermon]

Here we are beginning what’s been come to be called the Three Days. Lent is drawing to close and inasmuch as Lent is a deepening, the Three Days begins with this evening of Maundy Thursday and takes us deeper yet. There are many people who don’t take the Lenten elevator down to these levels. They become darker and more confusing.

We start with the Exodus story of Passover. The Hebrews are gearing up to leave Egypt, their home and their enslavement going back hundreds of years. They have to pack fast and be ready to move fast. Pharaoh will not be happy. It’s probably safe to say that he and many other Egyptians will grieve deeply well beyond the Hebrews departure. After all, the slaves will be gone and their first born boys will be dead. The Hebrew people take the unleavened bread, the fast-food of their time, and get out of Egypt with nothing but turmoil behind them; turmoil that will close in fast on their heels as they head out into exile.

This time of disorientation, this time of freedom, is then to be remembered for all time. The last verse of the reading today says, “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” In the ensuing centuries, Jewish people all over the world remember God’s act of freeing their ancestors from slavery in the celebration of Passover. The time of confusion organized into a ritual of remembrance. Remembering what God has done, leaving the door open for what God will do next.

From the Exodus we fast-forward to the first century. Jesus is in a room with some friends…and an enemy. And Jesus does something startling. He takes off his robe and puts a towel around his waist. These actions of disrobing and girding are the not-so-subtle movements of a warrior preparing for battle.[1] But then Jesus takes a knee in a position of surrender. He begins to wash feet in a way that no ordinary host, and certainly no warrior, ever would. This is, after all, a dirty task ordinarily taken on by the slaves of the household. Interesting, isn’t it? That we just talked about freedom from slavery and here Jesus is willingly taking on the work of a slave. Note that everyone gets their feet washed. Everyone gets clean feet including Judas. Judas who will end up betraying Jesus not too much later in the story and Peter who will deny that he ever knew Jesus.

The same Peter who does not want Jesus doing the work of a slave by washing his feet suddenly becomes the Peter who wants Jesus to wash his whole body. Peter is insistent in two different directions. Peter seems to be trying to figure out this latest twist in the action and how to respond. His effort to keep up with Jesus’ meaning leaves his head spinning and, once again, has him saying things that make no sense. Although we can’t blame him really – Jesus takes first prize for saying confusing things.

Just before the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, he makes a speech to his disciples that includes him saying, “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.”[2] Jesus washing the feet of his disciples gives us a hint of what this light in the darkness looks like, what God in the world looks like. Like a warrior, girded for battle, who takes a knee in surrender and empties himself for those around him.

From there, Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[3] And with this, the disciples’ confusion hits a new level. Jesus’ command, his mandatum from which we get the term Maundy Thursday, precedes his death on the cross but includes his death on the cross.[4] The mystery of what Jesus is doing during the foot-washing and what Jesus will do on the cross is utterly confusing to everyone involved. This may partly explain why many people don’t take the Lenten elevator down to these levels. After all, how are we to engage in the mystery of these Three Days that begin with a foot-washing and end in a tomb?

The short answer is that we don’t. We don’t engage the mystery. The mystery engages us.

At Christ’s command, he organizes our confusion into a ritual of remembrance. “Do this in remembrance of me,” he says. But it is not only ritual and it is not only memory.

Christ is untamed by the tidiness of the table and the reverence with which we approach him. This is Jesus after all – in bread and wine given and shed for you. In this meal, the self-sacrificing love of God is poured out and through us with the fierceness of a warrior poured out in surrender – drawing us deeper into the mystery of the cross and claiming us in God’s name.

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

[1] Craig R. Koester, Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, lecture content from the course: Gospel and Epistles of John in Fall Semester 2010.

[2] John 12:44-46

[3] John 13:34

[4] Living Lutheran (online), “The Three Days: Traditions of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter.” http://www.elca.org/en/Living-Lutheran/Ask-a-Pastor/2013/10/~/link.aspx?_id=8A91118FE3E341839E13E7444A33CBF6&_z=z

Sermons

Luke 14:1, 7-14 “Jesus Stole the Table”

September 1, 2013 caitlin121608 24,900 Comments

Luke 14:1, 7-14 “Jesus Stole the Table”

September 1, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

Luke 14:1, 7-14 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.
7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Picture this with me…you’re in a school cafeteria… … …do you have that picture? Picture the other kids. Who are they? Where are they sitting? More importantly, where are you going to sit? You have your tray or your brown bag or your lunchbox and you’re standing there, trying to act chill but you’re not feeling chill at all. Picture it…where are you going to sit? You see a few open seats at one table but you’re not friends with them. You see another seat but the person sitting next to it kind of scares you or intimidates you. You see another open seat next to a kid you talk to sometimes in History class. You’ve been standing awhile now and so you bee-line over to that seat, plunk down and start eating.

Now you know and I know that finding a seat in a busy cafeteria full of other kids is tricky. It’s about who you know, who you don’t know, who you don’t want others to know that you know…it’s tricky. It’s also about strategy. If you’re headed toward more popularity, you sit in those seats. Less popular, sit in those. See? Still tricky.

Let’s make it trickier. I was talking with some kids recently who were talking about teenage jobs and which ones were cool and which ones weren’t. When I asked how this all gets figured out and why even talk about it, one of them said to me, “Well, grown-ups are the same way about jobs.” This led me to thinking about jobs, meetings and this TED video I watched recently about who gets a place at the table, literally, when important decisions are being made.[1] Are you starting to get an idea about how my brain works?

Anyway, one would think that the metaphor of the table and the actual table itself would be completely cleared of all helpful meaning but evidently we’re not tired of talking about it or sitting around it. This table thing is here, there, and everywhere. 21^st century? 1^st century? Doesn’t matter. People love to talk about the table and, more specifically, who gets to sit where.

Dinner at a leader of the Pharisee’s home sounds much like the tables in the school cafeteria. The seating ranges from not-so-good (read: humble), good, better, and the best. Jesus sees the situation for what it is and begins to talk about it almost as if to say that to find the best seat, look for the least appealing seat and sit there. Which of course, when you’re involved in seat-shifting shenanigans only serves to flip them in the opposite direction, creating a whole other kind of seating hierarchy but a hierarchy nonetheless. So the labor for a good seat continues, only now the question becomes one of identifying as the most humble among us all which, ironically, is just the other side of the pride coin. There is nowhere to sit and nowhere to hide. So what in heaven’s name did Jesus just do?

Well, on this Labor Day weekend, I’d like to suggest that Jesus just ran away with the table, the seats, and our labor to make sense of ourselves in the way we stack up over and against, or under and against other people. This is Jesus as his prankster finest. Ashton Kutcher’s efforts pale in comparison to what Jesus has up his sleeve.[2]

My own life as a prankster was cut short in kindergarten. I thought it would be really funny to pull the chair out from under someone as they were sitting down and it was straight to the principal’s office for me. A failed attempt at replicating the old pepper-in-the-face gag to make my little sister sneeze ended even more miserably – for her and for me when my mother caught wind of it. Still today, my discomfort with pranks is so high that I’m often moving fast away from the one organizing the prank. What I’m trying to say, albeit not very well, is that it sometimes takes a prankster to spot one.

And in this story, I spot Jesus pulling a prank as he gives us nowhere to sit at the table without consciously thinking, “Is this humble enough? How about this? Or this, is this humble enough?” And as we stand there wondering where to sit, we catch sight of ourselves in the mirror hanging on the wall… … Caught again…

Caught again in our own labor to create meaning by stacking ourselves over and against our fellow humans in whatever way our seat assignment at the table defines our rank and defines our selves. Without the table there, we see ourselves and each other in this mirror. If we’re not really careful, this exposure to our own shenanigans and each other’s shenanigans can lead us to an easy cynicism about other people’s motives. Seeing them clearly, so trusting no one.

All we had to do to see this cynicism in action this week was open a newspaper, news website or your favorite blog to check out the latest on Miley Cyrus. Everyone’s taking sides, mostly in critique of her although there are a few writers who come to the table dance with a bit of compassion.

However the conversations go, the table, the chairs and the seating chart are in place and we think we see the shenanigans fully revealed. If there’s anything to be learned after the week’s news about Syria was overshadowed by the week’s news about Cyrus, it’s that the move to easy cynicism has become a chair in which many find themselves seated.

But the prank that Jesus pulls by removing the table isn’t his final move. It’s not simply about mischief making that exposes our humanity. It is about God entering humanity in Jesus and replacing the tables of our own making with one of his own. Replacing the table through that same humanity. [3]

It is this table, brought to us by Jesus’ decent into death from the cross, which levels the seating. We tend to picture the mighty falling and being replaced with the humble at the seat of honor, which would be the way we might see if it were our table. But this table exalts the humble even as the lofty are humbled so that no one can claim to be above the line or push anyone else below it. This is the table from which we can see the cafeteria game for what it is. It is also the table the beloved Reverend King marched from with a multi-ethnic, multi-religious band of people to declare our common humanity. Some table!

Jesus shakes up the way we labor over our seating and gives us each a place so that we all may come to his table at communion and hear that Jesus is “for you.” Jesus replaces the tables of our own making – seating shenanigans and all – with one of his own and says, “All are welcome…including you.”

[1] Sheryl Sandberg, TED Talk: “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders.” December 2010. http://www.ted.com/talks/sheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders.html

[2] Ashton Kutcher, Punk’d on MTV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk’d

[3] For those of your reading this, I move from the preaching spot to stand at the communion table.

Sermons

Luke 9:28-43a “Collapsing Time into Promise”

February 10, 2013 caitlin121608 30,710 Comments

Luke 9:28-43a “Collapsing Time into Promise”

February 10, 2013 – Caitlin Trussell

Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, CO

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. 31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. 32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. 33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”– not knowing what he said. 34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. 35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. 37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. 39 Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. 40 I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

We tell time in all kinds of ways. Some of us take that slightly sideways-downward glance at our wrists to check the watch that has been in the family for years – perhaps to see how much longer the preacher might go (while you think the preacher doesn’t notice). Others of us whip out the latest cell-phone and touch a screen for the time to light up along with text messages clamoring for a response. For others of us, time registers more physically – our eyes open, it’s time to get up; our stomachs growl, it’s time to eat. Regardless of how we do it, we are creatures that tell time and respond to it.

We are also creatures who know how our time is to be spent. Time is prioritized and reorganized, lost and found. It is so a part of who we are and how we move through the world that there is very little challenging our assumptions about it. And this is why I love church-time, otherwise known as liturgical time. Churchy, liturgical time comes up against and pushes through the way we spend our days – pointing us in a different direction than the one that ordinarily grabs our focus.

The church year begins in advent with the paradox of apocalyptic prophecy and soft candlelight as we wait for the Christmas birth and revel in the 12 days post-partum. Epiphany comes in on a star as the Christ-child is revealed to the magi and then Sunday after Sunday we bathe in Epiphany’s light, light and more light until we arrive here, this day, this Transfiguration-of-our-Lord day. This day when the light becomes so bright that time bends around it, collapsing in on itself and bringing Moses, Elijah, and Jesus together on the mountaintop in a wild, Judeo-Christian Hall of Fame line-up.

This time-bending light show bends Peter’s brain. He tries to think of the appropriate response, comes up with one, puts it out there and gets shut down. His faithful exuberance doesn’t get him very far. In fact he is silenced for the rest of the story. Silenced like the chastised, mid-wave, Mile High super-fans of Peyton Manning. Because what else can be meant by God’s emphatic command to, “Listen to Him,” other than a resounding, “Be Quiet!” Although most likely the message here is stronger, something more a bit more emphatic than a blue and orange arm-flapping gesture!

This time-bending light show bends Peter’s brain – and perhaps in a similar way bends our minds as we are confronted by this text. What was he, and what are we, to make of this shiny Jesus and his shiny friends? The light show and the big three of Moses, Elijah and Jesus seem to say something about the Law and the Prophets and Jesus being the fulfillment of both of them. They connect Jesus, and therefore us, through God’s work in the world before this moment and into the moment of now. But if we simply stay in the time-bending moment on the mountaintop, we risk being disconnected from the point.

My Uncle Larry came out from Massachusetts for my ordination. We talked a lot about a lot things, including my new call here at Augustana. We had time for one more chat over a cup of coffee before he left Tuesday morning. My uncle is wonderful at delivering meaningful messages. And as he was encouraging me about my work here he remembered hearing President Lyndon Johnson once say, “You aren’t learning anything when you’re talking.” Oh, sure, we could have fun challenging the statement, but in general there is some truth here. If I want to increase the odds of learning about who you are and what you are about then some silence on my part would be a good place to start.

Peter could have used this lesson from my Uncle Larry before filling the air with this reaction and being silenced by God. But he gets a lesson nonetheless. This one is from Jesus. God’s command to silence allows Peter to look and listen in a new way without being burdened by the content of his response to the time-bending on the mountaintop that bends his mind along with it. After all, he is not left behind on the mountaintop in all of its dazzle and terror.

“On the next day,” Jesus and his disciples came down from the mountain. They are met by a crowd and confronted by a desperate father who asks Jesus to heal his demon-possessed son. And Jesus does. Jesus looks evil in the eye and overwhelms it. And I imagine his disciples standing in a circle around this scene saying, “Huh.” Or maybe even a few of them, including Peter, James, and John, saying, “Ohhhhh…”

What the disciples don’t get to see at this point in the story is how Jesus does for us, for all of us, what he did for the boy with the demon. This coming week, we’ll get together again on Ash Wednesday which drops us into six weeks of Lent reorienting us much the same way that the disciples were reoriented coming off of that mountain. More churchy, time-keeping that comes up against and pushes through the way we spend our days – pointing us in a different direction than the one that ordinarily grabs our focus.

This past Wednesday, Pastor John and Malise de Bree, our Senior Ministry Evangelist, guided us through the funeral and interment of Bob Safe, a long-time friend and member of Augustana – a poignant moment of remembering his life and commending him to God, a time-bending moment where time stands still as we witness his ashes being placed into the ground right in front of us, just outside of this sanctuary, on the breath of our prayers and under the weight of God’s promise.

We stood together, forming a circle alongside his wife and children who miss him the most. We stood there with the stunning bronze cross completing the circle on its north end and the burnished statue of Jesus in the middle of our circle looking at the cross. And as we stood in vigil, time collapsed in on itself.

Time collapses because this is where the shiny Jesus and the cross meet in the fullness of the story – the dazzle of Jesus on the mountaintop shines it light toward the darkness of another hilltop where the truth of death is simultaneously revealed and overcome.

To stay in the dazzle of the mountaintop until the resurrection glory of Easter is tempting but doing so robs us of the fullness of Christ’s work in us and for us; Christ’s work in Bob Safe and for Bob Safe; and Christ’s work in you and for you.

So, today we dance in the dazzle as it illuminates the cross.

Today Christ’s shining light illuminates his promise in you and for you.

Thanks be to God!

Pastor, Preacher, Speaker