Abiding in a Time of Pandemic

Audio Recording of “Abiding in a Time of Pandemic” recorded in worship (14:51)
3rd Sunday in Lent, Year A
Texts: Ex 17.1-7; Rom 5.1-11; Jn 4.5-42

“I have no husband.” For better or worse, we don’t know what feelings were behind those words as the woman spoke them. Was she ashamed? She’s been married 5 times and is now living with someone now who is not her husband. For centuries, that fact has gotten her labeled “promiscuous,” and “loose” and “sinner.” She’s there at the well in the blazing heat of noon, when all the other women of the village would have gathered water together at dawn or dusk. She is alone, both physically and socially.

But maybe it’s not shame she feels, maybe it’s hope. Maybe she’s at the well at noon because she’s been hanging out there all day, just waiting for Mr. Right to drop by. Wells are where men and women meet, after all; at this very well, Jacob met Rachel, the woman he loved so madly as to toil for 14 years to gain her hand in marriage. When Jesus asks her, “Go, call your husband,” maybe her heart skips a beat and she bats her eyes a little as she says, “I have no husband.”

However, it could just as easily be disappointment or bitterness she feels. She’s been married 5 times. She’s been left 5 times—maybe divorced, maybe widowed. The man she lives with now is probably her brother-in-law, performing his duty looking after his dead brother’s wife. Maybe she feels like she’s bad luck, like no one could ever want her. Maybe Jesus’ question stirs up in her all those feelings of abandonment all over again.

Huddling in the Darkness

Audio Recording of “Huddling in the Darkness” recorded in worship (14:21)
2nd Sunday in Lent, Year A
Texts: Gen 12.1-4; Rom 4.1-5, 13-17; Jn 3.1-21

After the Byberg Preaching Conference I went to in January, I was very excited to preach on these Lenten texts; but after this week I realized I need to preach a different sermon today. There is a lot of great stuff in this dialog with Nicodemus, and I’ll still try to post the sermon I was going to deliver today—which I assure you was VERY good—on our website, but after this week, I realized we all need to address the elephant in the room—the teeny, tiny, microscopic elephant in the room.

I’ve had a number of different people ask me this week about the coronavirus: what we’re doing about it, whether we should be doing this or no longer doing that. I’ve also had a number of conversations with other Lutheran pastors and colleagues from other denominations about what is the most responsible, most loving response to the situation in which we find ourselves with this burgeoning pandemic.

Garden and Desert

Audio Recording of “Garden and Desert” recorded in worship (11:54)
1st Sunday in Lent, Year A
Texts: Gen 2.15-17, 3.1-7; Rom 5.12-19; Matt 4.1-11

Scene one. The man and the woman are in a lush garden. Their bellies are full on the fruits, vegetables and grains of the land, and they live in harmony with one another and the land and even with God’s very self. They have everything they could ever want; we might even say that they are in paradise. One day, everything changed; although, in fact, nothing had changed. Yesterday, they had everything they could possibly need, but today, they want—they need—the fruit of this one particular tree. “When she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eye, and that it was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and gave some to her husband.”

The story raises as many questions as it answers. Why was the tree there to begin with if it was forbidden? Why did they listen to the serpent rather than God? Did they even understand what death meant? Why didn’t God give them some more information? Since when do snakes talk?

Righteousness, Vocation and Bike Tubes

Audio Recording of “Righteousness, Vocation and Bike Tubes” recorded in worship (13:45)
5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
Texts: Isa 58.1-9; 1 Cor 2.1-12; Matt 5.13-20

I had to change a flat tire on my bike this week. It’s a little frustrating, because I’ve had this bike less than a year and I’ve already put more tubes in this one bike than all the other tubes I’ve had to put into every other bike I’ve ever owned, combined.

I got to thinking how I might address this. Clearly the problem is with the bike, yes? Obviously, it is falling down on the job. Being a preacher, I decided to use the skills I’ve got to my advantage; I preached a sermon at my bike, to put the fear of God into it so that the tires quit going flat.

After the hellfire sermon I gave it, I realized how silly this was. It wasn’t the bike’s fault the tire kept going flat. IT WAS THE TUBE! The bike is doing exactly what it is supposed to; the tubes are what keep letting me down. So, I preached another sermon at the tube. In fact, I lined up all the extra tubes I have and preached the sermon to all of them, so that when their turn came, they would know the eternal punishment that would await them if they didn’t do what I commanded.

Unpacking the Beatitudes

Audio Recording of “Unpacking the Beatitudes” recorded in worship (14:21)
4th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
Texts: Mic 6.1-8; 1 Cor 1.18-31; Matt 5.1-12

Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount with this series of statements we call the Beatitudes, or literally, the “blesseds.” What quickly becomes apparent is that Jesus idea of what is a “blessing” is very different from ours. Few if any of the beatitudes listed here are what any of us would consider “blessed.”

None of these virtues are not the typical kinds of things that we aspire to, that will help us get ahead in life. It is the bold, the strong, the clever, the quick-witted who succeed. All too often, it is also the deceitful, the arrogant, the callous, and the brazen. The meek, the mournful, the pure-hearted, the peacemakers… these are the ones who are used, abused, walked over and discarded by the ambitious on their way to the top.

If these beatitudes are not about being successful, then perhaps they are about being saved; perhaps Jesus is telling us what we must be and do in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. It would certainly fit with Matthew’s theme; the first part of his gospel tells the story of his own call and the call of his disciples before he gathers them on this mountain to teach them about what it means to be disciples. Matthew sees Jesus as the New Moses—a child rescued from the murderous intentions of a frightened king, a Jew who came out of Egypt. In this scene Jesus, too, delivers the law from the top of a mountain.

That’s how many of us have been taught to read this text: not as beatitudes, declarations of blessing, but as “be-attitudes:” attitudes that we must be. With a text this familiar, it is hard to hear it any way but the way we’ve always heard it. We listen to Jesus naming off blessings, and we try to compare ourselves to his list: “Am I meek? Am I pure in heart? Am I a peacemaker?”

Polished Arrows

Audio Recording of “Polished Arrows” recorded in worship (14:08)
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A
Texts: Isa 49.1-7; 1 Cor 1.1-9; Jn 1.29-42

Growing up, my sister could sometimes be kind of a pain in the neck. She was one of the most stubborn kids I ever knew. She could hardly be convinced to do anything that wasn’t her idea, and she would rather give up on something entirely than compromise. Now with the benefit of hindsight, I can say that one of the great joys of growing up with her is being able to see that childish stubbornness mature into raw determination.

For as long as I can remember—probably from about the time she learned to talk—Cassie wanted to be a veterinarian. I (like most kids) went through phases: I wanted to be a doctor, then an astronaut, then a professional basketball player, then an engineer… but not Cassie. I only ever heard her give one answer to that question.

Now, it’s hard to get into veterinary school. It’s like getting into medical school, where you have to apply and be accepted to a bachelors program and then apply and be accepted again to a veterinary program, except that because the demand is far lower for veterinarians, its harder to get accepted. You also need to have good math scores, which is one of the subjects my sister always struggled with.

Not one to be daunted, Cassie found her way around or through all of those problems. She found a veterinary program in Australia that was a single 6-year program instead of two consecutive 4-year programs, which solved the problem of ending up with a bachelor’s degree and no hope at finishing the vet program. She worked her tail off all through school to bring up her math scores so she could keep up with the science classes.

Made Perfect

Audio Recording of “Made Perfect” recorded in worship (13:07)
1st Sunday after Christmas, Year A
Texts: Isa 63.7-9; Heb 2.10-18; Matt 2.13-23

NB: This sermon was actually delivered on the 2nd Sunday after Christmas, but because at Agnus Dei we always skip these readings on Christmas 1 to do a service of Lessons and Carols, and because the gospel text appointed for Christmas 2 is always John 1 (which we have had both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day), I made the decision to move these readings to today so that we could hear this important and often ignored story.

Matthew writes that when the magi tell King Herod of the star they have seen and what it means, he was greatly afraid, and “all Jerusalem with him.” The historian Josephus records several of Herod’s notoriously cruel punishments against his own subjects. Perhaps one of the most telling stories is about the orders he gave that, upon his death, his soldiers were to execute one person from every family in Judea so that the whole province really would be in mourning. Thankfully, the order was never carried out, probably because nobody was loyal enough to him to do it.

Herod’s fear and the fear of the powerful people around him are what precipitated the tragedy we read about today. Matthew even lets it be known that Herod knew what the star and the birth meant; he is the first one to drop the word “Messiah” when asking his experts where to look. He knows that this child is God’s promised one, but that only makes him all the more determined to have the child eliminated. When the ploy with the magi fails, he resorts to scorched-earth tactics to ensure that his goal is achieved, and his power is safe.

In that way, it is not hard to see the parallels between Matthew’s story and our own. The fear of tyrants still brings violence and bloodshed; the powerful still consolidate their fortunes and build their security on the backs of the vulnerable, people still leave home to seek safety from war, famine, oppression and poverty in foreign lands. It is disheartening to think about how little has changed over the last two millennia since this story played out.

Beyond the Sentimentality of Christmas

Audio Recording of “Beyond the Sentimentality of Christmas” recorded in worship (09:39)
Christmas Day
Texts: Isa 52.7-10; Heb 1.1-4; Jn 1.1-18; (Lk 2.1-20)

These words from John have no shepherds, no angels, no magi from the east, and yet they evoke in us the same warm feelings that we get from Luke’s and Matthew’s stories because these old familiar words recount for us what we know to be true: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. These words are sentimental and spiritual, reminding us of all the times we have heard them, and all that they have meant to us, not unlike Christmas itself. Whatever else Christmas is, it is a time of year that is strongly tied to our memories—both painful and pleasant—our families, and our traditions. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why we await it with such eagerness.

However, as we gather this Christmas morning, we know that when we wish each other “Merry Christmas,” we are wishing for so much more than just the nostalgia and the sentimentality and the sense of brotherhood among women and men everywhere. The Christmas about which we read in the Bible is not just a celebration of one baby’s birth or a season of warm thoughts and warm hearts; the Christmas about which the evangelists write is a brimming societal and political revolution.

The Truth About Shepherds

Audio Recording of “The Truth About Shepherds” recorded in worship (11:46)
Christmas Eve
Texts: Isa 9.2-7; Titus 2.11-14; Lk 2.1-20

“The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” We’ve all got a mental image of these shepherds. For most of us, it’s probably the kind of picture that we so often see portrayed in Christmas cards and Nativity scenes: gentle men with beards and crooks, dressed in humble robes, maybe one of them is carrying a lamb over his shoulders. For a baby born in a cattle stall, they seem the perfect visitors. Their presence completes the scene of Jesus’ humble birth among the noble livestock in the stable. The reality of shepherds, however, is a bit different.

In the time of the Bible, shepherding was not a respected profession. Shepherds were stereotyped as liars, degenerates, and thieves. Shepherding was the work you took when you couldn’t hold down a respectable job. Because they spent all their time out in the fields with sheep, not only did they stink, but they also lacked the manners and etiquette of polite society.

The testimony of a shepherd was inadmissible in court because they couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth, and many towns had ordinances barring them from entering the city limits. Luke tells us these shepherds were watching their flocks by night, which is to say that they were guarding their sheep from theft by other shepherds, probably while armed.

The religious establishment took particular exception to shepherds. Because of their profession, they were unable to keep the Sabbath, and were ritually unclean and therefore unable to enter the temple. The Pharisees considered shepherds the scum of society, as bad as prostitutes and tax collectors.

These were not the meek and gentle folk we have represented in our children’s story bibles. They were frightening, dangerous, and unpredictable. If Luke were setting this story in 2019, the heavenly chorus might appear to a gang of Hell’s Angels.

Who Will Save Us?

Audio Recording of “Who Will Save Us?” recorded in worship (13:51)
4th Sunday in Advent, Year C
Texts: Isa 7.10-16; Rom 1.1-7; Matt 1.18-25

A big thing happened this week. For only the third time in our nation’s history, our president has been impeached. Some people think this is a very good thing. Others think it is a very bad thing. I happen to know for a fact that there are some of each here in this room.

When big things like this happen, they can’t be ignored because they affect us all deeply; nor should they be ignored. To paraphrase Karl Barth, the best preaching is done with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. I can’t tell you how many times have I read or heard from my colleagues via Facebook or in conversation that if a pastor isn’t preaching this Sunday about the shooting or the protest or the whatever-it-was that happened this week, they’re not really preaching.