Pandentecost

Pentecost Sunday (8th Sunday in Easter), Year B
Texts: Acts 2:1-21; 24-34, 35b; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27,4b-15

14 months ago, when we first all retreated into our homes, I remember thinking how this pandemic was like a time of Lent. There were things we had to give up or from which we must fast for a while—shopping in grocery stores, eating in restaurants, shaking hands with strangers—but which we would eventually take up again. I remember thinking that the time without would make us that much more grateful for the things we would someday have back.

As the lockdown was extended from two weeks to four, then to six, and then again, as Lent gave way to Holy Week and Easter, I remember thinking how this pandemic was like a death. Our old lives have passed away; there is nothing left of them. Our old way of being is gone, lost forever. The way we’ve always done it, the only way we’ve ever known, is dead. What will rise in its place? Now that what is old has died, what new thing is springing forth in God, waiting for us to notice?

Reflecting on how things have changed over this last year, it’s begun to occur to me that this pandemic is also like Pentecost. On the first Pentecost, the believers were gathered together in one place. When the Holy Spirit arrived, the doors and windows were flung wide and they poured out into the streets. This pandemic Pentecost—Pandentecost? Pentademic?—is kind of the opposite: it drove us from the streets into our own little places. But as I’ve watched how the Church has responded in this year, I see the movement of the Spirit.

Eminent Domain

Second Sunday in Advent, Year B
Texts: Isa 40.1-11; 2 Pet 3.8-15; Mk 1.1-8

In 1910, New York City slated 300 buildings over an 11-block stretch for demolition to make way for the construction of 7^th Avenue and the subway line that runs beneath it. The Times reported that the construction would “ruthlessly cut through [the neighborhood], destroying many curious residences and businesses.” Tenants and owners of those “curious residences and businesses” strongly protested the city’s decision, but, in the end, the city claimed the properties through eminent domain, and the buildings were lost.

One landowner in particular fought tooth-and-nail against the demolition. David Hess of Philadelphia owned the Voorhis Apartment building, directly in the path of the proposed construction. He flat-out refused to have his property claimed and razed by the city, trying and exhausting every legal means at his disposal to stop the demolition; but eminent domain cannot be stopped. By 1914, the Voorhis was gone.

Not Peace, but a Sword

Third Sunday after Pentecost, (Lectionary 12) Year A
Text: Jer 20.7-13; Rom 6.1b-11; Matt 10.24-39

The book of Revelation is full of striking images. To me, one of the most interesting is in chapter 18. John has just spent all this time painting this picture of the Great Harlot, Babylon, drunk on the blood of the prophets and martyrs and sitting astride a terrible, 7-headed beast. In chapter 18, John narrates the death of the Harlot. She is destroyed by the very beast upon which she rode, the source of all her power and security.

With all that has come before, one would expect that the people of the earth would join in the songs of the angels, rejoicing at her downfall and the end of her bloodthirsty reign. Instead, what follows is a dirge, a funerary lament of her death sung by all the kings and peoples of the earth who mourn her absence. We are left wondering what is wrong with these people, how they could love something so hideous and abominable.

To An Unknown God

Sixth Sunday in Easter, Year A
Text: Acts 17.22-31; Jn 14.15-21

Last week, I shared the story of my friend and college roommate Jon, and how, when he pressed me, I admitted that I believed he was not going to be saved because he wasn’t a Christian. I know I am not alone in having held that belief. For centuries, that is what the Church has taught us: that we are Christians are the sole beneficiaries of salvation, and that it is our job to convert others to our set of beliefs so that they, too, might be saved.

Perhaps that was what Paul believed when he arrived in Athens. We know some of the pantheon of gods worshiped by the Greeks: Zeus and Hera; Artemis and Apollo; Ares, Demeter, Athena and Hephestus; and so many others. Statues and altars to each of these gods could be found in abundance throughout the Greek territories—which is why Jews like Paul thought these people to be heathen idolators. The Bible has lots to say about idolatry, and none of it good. Idolatry seems to be the one thing that gets God genuinely angry.

So imagine Paul’s surprise when, walking through Athens, Paul finds an altar dedicated to “an unknown god.” We might think that this is the byproduct of a culture that worships so many gods that they can’t even remember all their names; but Paul saw something else. He saw in this altar the mark of a culture and a people who recognized the work of the divine in the world and, though they worked very hard to name and venerate it, they also recognized that the divine is greater than their attempts to describe it. Perhaps Paul had come to Athens believing that he was bringing the God of Abraham and Isaac to the Greeks; imagine his surprise, then, when he found that God was already there ahead of him.

A New Normal

Easter Sunday, Year A
Text: Jeremiah 31:1-6; John 20:1-18

One of the details that always puzzles us when we read this story is why Mary, such a close friend and disciple of Jesus, wouldn’t recognize him. Didn’t she know what he looked like? Was he wearing some sort of mask? St. John doesn’t elaborate, but he’s not the only one to mention such a detail. St. Luke, in his telling of the Easter story, relates how Cleopas and his companion, on the way to Emmaus, were accompanied by Jesus for 7 miles without recognizing him. 

I don’t know why Mary doesn’t recognize Jesus, but I have a guess. I wonder if she looked up and saw her old teacher standing there, but thought that her eyes were playing tricks on her in the half-light of dawn. After all, how could it be Jesus standing there? Hadn’t she just seen him suffocate on the cross? Didn’t she see with her own eyes the blood and water that poured from his side when the soldier pierced him with his spear?

The Mystery of God’s Love

Maundy Thursday
Texts: Ex 12.1-14; Jn 13.1-17, 31-35

It’s hard not to draw a few parallels between the reading from Exodus and our own time: here we are, just like the Hebrews, huddled in our homes, hunched over our meals, hoping that the Angel of Death passes us over. All that is missing is the blood on our doorposts. Tonight as we huddle in homes, unable to gather as we are accustomed, our Jewish siblings are doing the same. They, also, must share their Seder meals with fewer than they hoped, thinking of all those who gather around their own tables. On this night, both Jews and Christians alike are gathering separately together.

Although none of us would choose it, I think that this strange and novel observance of this meal is a blessing for us. Unlike our Jewish kin, we have been fortunate. Although we have all experienced trials and hardships, no one has ever turned on our whole people and tried to wipe us out. We have never been on the receiving end of true slavery or genocide, with no one to help us but the LORD. The Jewish people have known what it means to depend utterly on God for the survival of their people and their way of life. Some of those scars are fresher than others. 

But now, we, too, will have some idea what it means to wait for the Angel of Death to pass over us. Some of us are more afraid than others, and some are staying home while others still venture out, taking risks that may or may not be necessary, but one thing is true for all of us: this pandemic has reminded each and every one of us how frail life truly is. There are many who are not and will not become sick, but who are still suffering the effects of this virus: loss of jobs and income, separation from loved ones, isolation, paranoia. And we all are left to wait in our homes until someone says it’s safe to come out again; we all wait for that exodus from our homes back into our offices and churches and schools and parks. 

We tell this story of the Israelites in Egypt tonight not just because Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples was a Passover meal. We tell it not just because we share this common history with our Jewish siblings. It is significant that the events we remember and observe and celebrate tonight took place in the context of this Jewish observance of Passover. We tell this story because it is a part of the greater story that is still being written; a story in which God is still at work.

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.