Good News for All Nations

3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B
Text: 1 Jn 3.1-7; Lk 24.36b-48

Imagine Jesus showed up one day, out of the blue, in your living room. What do you think you’d say to him? What would you want to know? I find it interesting that when Jesus shows up in this story, the things that happen are a meal and a bible study. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d have other, more pressing questions to attend to.

Loose Ends

Easter Sunday, Year B
Text: Mk 16.1-8

“So 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.” What a terrible ending for a story. Imagine you were watching a movie that just cut right at the most dramatic scene and rolled to credits. Wouldn’t you feel a little disappointed or angry? We don’t want women running away in fear, but running joyfully to the disciples with the good news. We don’t want to leave Peter weeping in the courtyard, we want to see him reunited with his friends and forgiven for his denials.

We want to know that all the details are worked out and the loose ends tied up. We don’t want an empty tomb, we want want to see the risen Jesus. But Mark gives us none of that. Instead, the story simply dead-ends in fear with nothing saying anything to anyone about what they have seen.

Listening for God

2nd Sunday after Epiphany, Year B
Texts: 1 Sam 3.1-10; Jn 1.43-51

I love this story of Samuel. I love it so much that I chose it to be read at my ordination. I think the reason I like it so much is that, like Samuel, God had to call my name a few times before I finally picked up on the fact that God was calling me to ordained ministry. Here I was, bumbling along, oblivious to what God was doing, until all of a sudden it became clear. I like to describe it as God whacking me upside the head with a Divine 2×4 to get my attention.

But that’s not the reason I asked for this story to be read at my ordination. As much as I identify with this story personally as an ordained pastor, I also see in this story how God calls and uses anyone and everyone—not just pastors.

Read more: Listening for God

In this story, Eli is the priest. The author tells us earlier that he’s not a very good priest. He has two adult sons—his junior priests—who are corrupt and greedy, and Eli does nothing about it. The author says that Eli is blind, which means that he can’t see. Obviously, his eyes don’t work, but there is a further implication that Eli can’t see what is right, or what God is calling him to do about his son’s behavior. It’s almost ironic, then, that this blind priest is the one who sees clearly what is happening in the course of today’s story.

And what is happening is that God is calling someone unexpected. Eli is the priest. It’s his job to discern and proclaim the word of the Lord, but in the story, Samuel—a little boy—is the one to whom God speaks and the one who is called to proclaim. Samuel has no credentials, no training, no special gifts or skills or knowledge. He’s just a kid, doing what Eli tells him to do. But God seeks Samuel out and calls him by name. God knows Samuel and what he’s capable of, and God chooses Samuel to proclaim the word of the Lord.

In the gospel stories, Jesus presents a bit of a difficulty because he’s from Nazareth, and the prophecies say that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem. All the evangelists explain this in different ways. Mark ignores the problem entirely, hoping it will go away. Matthew points out that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but that his family resettled in Nazareth after escaping to Egypt to flee Herod. Luke’s story has the family traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census when Jesus was born.

John’s gospel takes another tack entirely. John doesn’t ignore or explain the problem away, he points it out. He tells us that people are in a tizzy over Jesus because he can’t be where he’s from and also be who he says he is. Even Nathaniel today displays his disregard for Nazareth: “Can anything good come from there?” he asks. And because of this, John—perhaps more than all the other evangelists—shows that the things we so often think are important—things like education or power or wealth or prestige—don’t really matter to God. This God calls little children to be prophets and appears in the flesh in backwaters like Nazareth.

I think that’s an important thing to point out because we tend to only look for God in the “official” people—like Eli—and places—like the Church—even when those people and places let us down, and we don’t take seriously enough the calls that God gives to ordinary people like you. We are always looking for some expert or prooftext to tell us what God is doing rather than looking to the wisdom of the Samuels around us.

I remember one particular little girl at my last congregation. Once, when she was about 3, she was sitting with her mother while I was saying the words of institution for communion. When I lifted up the wine, she said to her mother—loudly enough for everyone to hear in the otherwise silent room—“That’s a cup!” I heard her mother quietly affirm, that yes, that is, in fact, a cup, but the little girl wasn’t done. She next proclaimed, “That’s a special cup!”

Now, a lot of folks will tell you that children as young as three shouldn’t be taking communion because they don’t really understand what it means. I am not one of those people for exactly this reason. Even at three, this little girl could tell that there was something different about this cup from every other cup, and that this meal was special—and for a three-year-old, I think that is a perfect expression of sacramental theology.

On another occasion, I gave a children’s sermon about a children’s book in which a nice, perfect square gets destroyed in different ways, and each time it does, it reorganizes itself into some different, beautiful picture. As we were talking about the book, this same little girl—all on her own—says, “Sometimes bad things have good things hidden inside them.” I know adults who still struggle to understand that.

Now, I know this little girl pretty well, and while she is uncommonly sharp for her age, I also know that she didn’t get that way by herself. She has two amazing parents raising her, teaching her about life and faith, and she has an incredible congregation loving and supporting her, filled with people who share their wisdom with her. She was able to articulate such incredible insights because she has people who are being Elis to her, helping her to listen for God.

I think this is one of the most important things we do for one another as a congregation: we help each other listen for God and we equip each other to proclaim the good news we receive. One of the things I love about KPLC is that you are taking this job seriously here. You already know that it’s not just pastors who have something to say about what God is doing, we all do! And you practice proclaiming that good news to one another in lots of ways, but especially when you take turns sharing your stories from the pulpit.

We are all able to do this because of Jesus. When he preaches, he’s just sharing what he is seeing and hearing from his Father; and we do the same. We share his baptism; we too are God’s beloved children. God also calls us to share good news in Jesus’ name, and gives us the words and the stories and the actions to share—even little children.

I can see God at work in this community as we each respond to that invitation extended to us through our baptism to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed. I see God at work in us as we equip and encourage one another to share those stories, and as those shared stories equip and encourage this community in our shared faith. I really think that what God is doing through KPLC might be a gift that this congregation can give to the wider Church. As pastors become scarcer, I think other congregations can learn from what you have been doing here to continue to listen for and share good news, even if there’s no pastor in the pulpit.

This listening for God and sharing those stories is a big responsibility. There’s always the danger that what we proclaim might just be our own opinions and beliefs rather than God’s word. I know I’ve been guilty of doing that, even with the benefit of all my theological training. But I’m comforted by the fact that even Eli—old, blind Eli, with all his faults and failings—helped Samuel to know God better. Even when we fail, God can still work through us to bring others to faith because we are God’s beloved children, and God’s love makes us pleasing to God, even in our failures.

When we share these stories in community—like this—we also help one another to listen and to discern where God is at work. We not only support and encourage each other, we also challenge each other to consider different perspectives or ask different questions, or even to correct one another. It’s often in those challenges that we grow. When we listen and learn communally like this, it helps us grow together.

And this community—like each of us—is defined by our baptism into Christ. We aren’t here to impress one another or judge each other, but to share together in the belovedness that God has declared to us through our baptism into this community. Our relationship to one another and our sense of belonging to this family of God is one of the ways that God finds us and speaks to us here. This congregation—the Body of Christ—becomes Jesus for us: the place where heaven and earth meet, where the angels ascend and descend.

We are all here because God has sought us out and brought us here, to claim us in baptism and name us beloved. You hear people talk about “finding Jesus,” but how often do we talk about Jesus finding us? Yet, in the stories we read today, it is God doing all the looking—God calls again and again to Samuel, Jesus and Philip seek out Nathaniel and invite him to “come and see.”

Have you ever considered that God has been looking for you, inviting you, also, to “come and see?” I wonder what it means for you to have been found by God. I wonder also for whom else God may be looking. Perhaps it’s someone you know. How might you play the part of Eli, or of Philip, and help them know that God is looking for them, inviting them also to come and see their own belovedness?

Recognizing God

13th Sunday after Pentecost; Lectionary 21, Year A
Texts: Matt 16.13-20

I wonder why Jesus asks his disciples who they say he is. Do you think he is testing them, seeing if they get the right answer? Or is he genuinely curious, wondering what they think after all they have experienced with him? Or is it something more?

He starts by asking who other people say he is. All these people he’s been teaching, healing, eating with, feeding with miraculous loaves and fishes—what are they saying about him? Who do they think he is? Some think he’s John the Baptist, back from the dead. I wonder if maybe some of John’s fans hear enough of John’s message in what Jesus is preaching, and think that God somehow sent him back. Others think he’s one of the prophets, maybe even the return of Elijah or Jeremiah. There’s lots of returning from the dead here, did you notice that? I wonder why that is. Seems almost like a failure of imagination, like people being unable to imagine anything new, but maybe it’s just that we’re always comparing the new things we encounter to what we already know.

But when Jesus poses the same question to his friends, Simon sees something else. To him, Jesus is not just another prophet, just another wise man, no matter how wise or how holy. Simon sees something deeper. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” he says. How is it, do you suppose, that where everyone else sees a prophet, a wise man, a miracle worker, Simon sees something else?

I remember going home for my grandmother’s funeral in Nashua, MT several years ago. I flew into Billings and rode up with my Uncle Tom was coming from South Carolina. My folks were coming up later, but they weren’t there yet.

When we got to Nashua—which is a small town of about 200 people—we we met up with another uncle and aunt and cousins at the diner in town, where my cousin’s wife worked in the kitchen. When the waitress came to take our order, she stopped and looked at me for a moment, and then she asked, “Are you Wes’s son?” Now, I’d never met her, and she’d never seen me, but she knew my dad, and that was enough for her to recognize me.

As I read this story, I wonder if there was something similar going on with Simon. Personally, I believe that since we are created by God, all of us have something of God in us. The Bible calls it the “image of God,” but you might also call it God’s fingerprint, or God’s echo. Whatever you want to call it, I think that that essence or piece of God recognizes itself, like that waitress recognized my dad in me. Maybe, with all the time Simon spent with Jesus, hearing him preach and teach, seeing the signs that he did, that image of God in him recognized God alive in Jesus.

The reality is, though, that I don’t know. That’s my guess, my imagination; maybe it was that, or maybe it was something else. But however you look at it, Simon knew who Jesus was because he recognized something else he already knew; he recognized God. Other people recognized Jeremiah or Ezekiel or John the Baptist, but Simon recognized God.

And that is really good news! It means that Simon knew God somehow; whether from something deep inside or just who he had learned God was through the scriptures and stories he heard at his synagogue. Jesus calls him “blessed;” “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven!” Simon didn’t reason his way to this conclusion, nor was he persuaded by anyone else, even Jesus himself. I don’t think Jesus is congratulating Simon on getting the right answer or saying the right thing. I think he’s celebrating that Simon, on some level, knows who God is well enough to recognize God when he sees Them.

We might read this story and think that Simon has such great faith because he got the right answer, or that he’s special in some way, but as we’ll see when we continue the story next week, Simon is not quite the hero of this story. Notice what Jesus says: flesh and blood haven’t revealed this truth, but God. Only God can help us recognize God, whether through that image of God that echoes within us, or through the ways that God has revealed Themself to us in the past, like through the prophets. I don’t know how Simon recognized God, but however it happened, it was something God did, not something that Simon did.

And that is where the good news continues. Maybe we’re sitting here, listening to this story, wondering if we know God well enough to recognize God when They show up. Maybe you’re one of those “blessed” people who’s had a “born-again experience,” or maybe you’re not. Maybe you’re wondering if you really know God at all. But if there’s anything we can learn from this story, it’s that we all know God, at least a little bit, because we know Jesus. Whether we know it or not, whether we feel it or not, we all know Jesus through these stories, through this community. He comes to us at this table, feeding us with himself, and he lives within us in our baptism, sharing his life with us. Simon recognized Jesus because he knew God; but we are able to recognize God because we know Jesus.

I don’t really know how it works, but it does. It’s like how I can look at Ada some days and see myself in the old photos from my childhood, and other days, I can see nothing but Stephanie. It’s like how sometimes when I am singing in church, all of a sudden it’s not my voice I hear, but my dad’s. Jesus is with us, really and truly, in these things just like I know my dad is with me, and how Ada will always carry her parents with her. It’s not something that I can describe, and it’s nothing anybody has convinced me of; it’s just something I can see.

That makes me wonder, reading this story, if our job as Christians, then, is not to convince or persuade or cajole anyone into believing in Jesus. Conversion is not our job; it’s not something we’re able to do. Only God can do that. What if, instead, our job is to ask good questions, just like the Son of the Living God does in this story? What if asking good questions of ourselves and others might be a way of showing love?

In fact, I wonder if maybe answering that question might have been the moment when Simon put two and two together, the first time he really thought about it. Maybe that was the moment that he realized that’s who he saw in Jesus. Maybe our own curiosity could be a way of helping others reflect on where they see God, too.

Because, as we’ll see next week, sometimes God’s presence isn’t obvious. Sometimes it feels like absence. Sometimes, God is present in ways that we don’t like or expect, things like pain or loss, things heartache or sacrifice, things like crosses. We may not always be able to see God in those things; but if we look to know God in God’s Son, then maybe we’ll be able to recognize God in other places, too. Maybe we’ll be able to help others recognize God in places we’ve never even imagined.

A Good Start

10th Sunday after Pentecost; Lectionary 18, Year A
Texts: Isa 55.1-5; Rom 9.1-5; Matt 14.1-21

Sermon starts at 32:42

John was dead. When Jesus heard the news his heart fell. He knew Herod had wanted to kill him, but there’s a big difference between wanting to kill a person and actually killing them. John had been a teacher, a mentor, a friend. The two men had been close; where John left off, Jesus had picked up. He’d gone off by himself for several days after John had been arrested; he’d needed the time to be alone. Now that John was dead… he needed to collect himself. He told the twelve that he was leaving, and without so much as a question, they picked up and followed him.

They got in a boat and went across to the Gentile side of the lake. He’d hoped that outside of Jewish territory he could escape the pressing crowds that always appeared where he was. Normally, this was a good thing; an opportunity for him to talk about the reign of heaven and to see to people’s needs, give them hope, but right now, he just couldn’t. He could do nothing but think of John. He wondered, second-guessed; could he have done more to pressure Herod into releasing him? Should he have done more? Had he done enough?

Read more: A Good Start

Before they had even landed on the other side they saw the first group—a handful of men and women, coming from the south. As the boat came into shore, they rushed to meet him. A little while later more came. Then more appeared, almost as if from nowhere out here in the desert, and before he knew it, a vast multitude—5000 at least—had congregated around him. All he wanted was some time to be alone and weep for his friend, away from the prying eyes of the crowd. His heart was breaking, his head was swimming… but he couldn’t send them away. They had traveled all this way to see him—some had walked clear around the lake to catch up to him.

As he listened to their stories, he learned that they had come to find him for the same reason he’d left; they had heard about John and didn’t know what to do next. As much as he wanted to be alone, he couldn’t just leave them, so he went around and started talking to them. Among them there were people with sores and wounds, people who couldn’t walk or couldn’t see or couldn’t hear, people whose minds were gone. Today of all days, he knew what it was like to feel like a piece of himself was missing, and so, in an attempt to do something—anything—he began healing them. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something. It was a good start.

Before he knew it, the sun was getting low. He had been among the people all afternoon, and would have kept working until nightfall if one of his friends hadn’t interrupted him. “Teacher, it’s getting late. The guys and I have been thinking, and, well… we’re way out here, hours from any town. If these folks are going to have any chance of getting back before nightfall to get some food, they’ll need to leave now. We know you don’t want to stop, but you’ve got to let them go so they can get some food.” Jesus stopped and looked at them, then he looked at the crowd. How could he send them away now? He turned again and looked at his friends. “You give them something to eat,” he said.

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain they had heard him correctly. “Give them something to eat? Like what? All we have is five loaves and two fish. It’s enough to feed the 13 of us, but it won’t be nearly enough to feed this many people.”

“You’re right,” Jesus said, “It won’t be enough; but it’s a good start. God will see to the rest.” He took the loaves and fish from them, looked up to heaven and asked God’s blessing on the food. He broke the loaves into pieces so they could all take some, and he sent them out to start distributing it. At first, they broke it into such small pieces that people almost laughed at the suggestion that this might actually be a meal, but then something remarkable happened.

As the disciples’ loaves got smaller, other loaves appeared. Here a man pulled a barley loaf out of a travel-worn cloak, and over there, two women produced a couple of millet loaves that they had brought to feed their children and started passing them around. Throughout the crowd, people watched the disciples sharing what little they had and slowly began to be moved to do the same.

What’s more, there were people from both sides of the lake here—Jews and Gentiles—and they were sharing with each other. Jesus even thought he saw some Samaritans in one area. People in rich, fine robes were sitting down next to beggars wearing tatters and they were eating together. Jesus wasn’t the only one who noticed. Others began looking around and seeing people from all different walks of life breaking bread together. They had all wandered into the desert to see the same man, and now it was almost as if in that common purpose they had ceased to be bankers and lawyers and fishermen and merchants and farmers and beggars and had all become one, big community; citizens their own, new country.

Something about this meal in the desert had changed them—if only for a while—and they were actually living the reign of heaven. Heaven wasn’t just a place far away, it was here, in this wilderness, right now. As Jesus listened to the murmur of the crowd, he heard one word repeated over and over: miracle.

When everybody had eaten, the disciples went around again and collected the leftovers. They began the work alone, but soon people from the crowd began to help. When they had finished, there were 12 picnic baskets full of crumbs and chunks—far more than they had started with. Jesus chuckled to himself as remembered the rabbis’ teaching: in the scriptures, 12 always represented the Children of Israel—12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes, 12 patriarchs. As he thought of this, he smiled, because he felt certain that if all Israel had been in this desolate place, they would have all been fed.

Some time later, Jesus and the disciples were gathered alone in an upper room. Just as he had in the wilderness, Jesus took a loaf of bread, looked to heaven and asked God’s blessing, and broke it to give to his friends. “This is my body,” he said, “broken and given for you. Do this and remember me.” After the meal, he took the cup, blessed it as he had the bread, and gave it to them. “This is my blood, poured out for you—for everyone—to remove anything that separates you from God. Do this and remember me.” Then he winked at them and added, “It won’t be enough, but it’s a good start.” It wasn’t until the next day when he himself was lifted up, broken and bleeding on the cross, that the full truth of his words hit them —“this is my body… this is my blood… given for you.” When he died, a part of them died with him. It was like John’s death all over again.

But then, something remarkable happened.

A few days later they saw their broken teacher in the flesh, alive and kicking, and that part of them that had died suddenly revived; they, too, had risen from the dead. In the days and weeks and years that followed, that life grew and multiplied as they shared it, not unlike the loaves in the wilderness on that day so long ago. Their teacher, long since gone who-knows-where, was somehow always with them, just like he promised he would be. Wherever they were, he was there. Even after they parted ways and began journeying to different, far-off places, wherever they went, he went with them, until there seemed to be so much more of him than when they started.

As they shared him with the crowds who came to listen, they encountered unnumbered broken people—hungry, homeless, bruised and bleeding, unable to walk or talk or stand or look them in the eye—and his words from the wilderness would again ring in their ears: “You give them something to eat.” And once again, they would offer what little they could: a few words of comfort and hope, a little bit of bread and wine, a promise that the reign of heaven did exist—that they had seen it with their own eyes. It was never enough, but it was a good start, and more often than not, just as in the wilderness, God took care of the rest.

Locked Doors

2nd Sunday of Easter, Year C
Text: Acts 5.27-33; Rev 1.4-8; Jn 20.19-31

I’m a little entertained by how many of our stories today involve people passing through locked doors. You heard about Jesus doing this twice in St. John’s story, but you didn’t hear it in St. Luke’s story in Acts. Prior to this trial, the chief priest had the apostles arrested and thrown in jail. During the night, an angel came and let them out, telling them to go and preach in the temple. The next day, when the temple guards came to collect the prisoners and bring them before the council, they found the jail locked up tight and the guards on duty, but no one inside.

Looking for Jesus (in All the Wrong Places)

5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
Text: Isa 6.1-13; 1 Cor 15.1-11; Lk 5.1-11

This is one of my favorite readings from Isaiah. I love the imagery and the emotion in the story. When God appears to Isaiah, the prophet is distraught: he knows—perhaps better than anyone—that he is unworthy to behold God. He probably thinks that he is about to die, because nothing unclean (such as himself) can come into contact with God. But then, rather than commanding him to go and wash or perform some other ritual purification, God solves the problem of Isaiah’s uncleanness by sending one of the seraphs to cleanse him with the coal.

Then, God proceeds to ask a very obviously rhetorical question. “Who will go for us?” The story gives no indication that there’s anyone there but God and the seraphim and the prophet; I can almost see God asking the question and then looking pointedly at Isaiah. To his credit, Isaiah doesn’t seem to need the cue; he answers enthusiastically, “Here am I! Send me!” I can almost picture him like an excited second-grader, waving his hand so the teacher will call on him, though he is the only one in the room.

Splash Mountain

13th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 21), Year B
Texts: Josh 24.1-2a, 14-18; Jn 6.56-69

When I was 9, my family took a trip to Disneyland. It was the first time my little sister or I had ever flown on a plane. In fact, aside from a family trip to Fargo for my aunt’s wedding, it was only the second time either of us had been outside of Montana. We went in the off-season, which was great, because the lines were practically non-existent. While the locals were all bundled up against the cold, there we were in our shorts and t-shirts, loving the beautiful warm weather.

I remember being so excited about all the rides. I had never been to a theme park before, but I had always wanted to ride rollercoasters. At Disneyland, I rode every one I could; but my favorite was Splash Mountain. I went on it three times, once with my dad and twice with my mom. I couldn’t go with both of them at the same time because my sister, who was 6 at the time, was afraid of the dark, and she refused to get on the ride because there were a few moments where it went through a darkened tunnel.

Right Under Our Noses

11th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 19), Year B
Texts: 1 Kg 19.4-8; Jn 6.35-51

As we’ve been exploring this story, we’ve been talking about hunger. This is a story about hungry people looking for something to fill them up. Last week, I said that perhaps one of the most important things we can do is to learn to sit with that hunger and trust it, because if we try to simply fill it to quickly, we’ll end up trying to fill it with things that ultimately leave us empty.

If you look closely at this story, you can see this happening. The crowds first ask Jesus what they need to do to perform the works of God, then ask him what works he is going to perform so they can believe him. Instead of answering either of these questions, Jesus instead talks about the work God has done, the work of sending him, the true bread from heaven. When they ask Jesus to give them this bread, he instead talks about what the Parent has given him.

Do you see the theme here? The crowds are looking for the answer they are expecting, the box to check off or the pill to take so that they can be saved or be filled or whatever it is they think they are hungry for; but Jesus instead keeps pointing to God. The crowds come looking to Jesus because they are hungry. They are so hungry that they fail to see that the bread from heaven, given for the life of the world, has already been provided.

More Than Loaves

10th Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 18), Year B
Texts: Ex 16.2-4, 9-15; Jn 6.22-35

As we journey through these 5 Bread of Life Sundays this year, I am particularly interested in where we as the Church are seeking to be fed, and in how God is feeding us. Our congregation has just come out of a period of fasting from corporate worship, as well as from many of the other normal habits of non-pandemic life. We are hungry to get back to “normal.” Now that we are once again able to begin gathering in person, I know there are those among us who are feeling truly fed for the first time in a long time.

I’m one of those people. I’ve missed this assembly, and I’ve missed doing ministry in the physical presence of the people for whom I’m doing it. I’ve missed being able to connect with you all in the little ways that we haven’t been able to for the last 16 months. I’ve only recently begun to realize that it was harder on me than I ever realized.