Advent 1. December 6 Luke 6

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+5 (Click on link to continue the story)

Today is St. Nicholas day.  Nicholas Bishop of Myra was a fifth century Christian legendary for his generosity to the poor, especially to children.  His legend grew into Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas.  In many places in the world, today is the day when Christians exchange gifts in celebration of Christmas. 

One of the core teachings or principles of Judaism is that God created the Sabbath day of rest for all of creation to be restored weekly, annually, and cyclically.  Sabbath-keeping was and is a significant mark of the Jewish life.  Friday night sundown until Saturday sundown there are rules of prohibition and permission around what one can and cannot do, eat, etc...it is also the day for Jews to gather in the synagogue to hear the Torah, the teachings of the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.)  These teachings include the Ten Commandments and all the other commandments, of which there are over 600 in the Hebrew Bible.  Some of these commands relate to treatment of the poor and of certain offerings from the fields to serve the hungry, poor, foreigner, widow and orphan. 
This chapter includes conflict around Sabbath keeping.  It also includes a core set of ethical teachings known as the sermon on the plain, because of where Jesus delivered them.  They are an abbreviated and edited version of the Gospel of Matthew's sermon on the mount (Matthew chapters 5-8). 
What are the most challenging of Jesus' teachings?  Which ones are the hardest to obey?  Do you think these are teachings for religious individuals or are they directed more broadly at a community, a group, or even a nation? 
We begin to hear parables, teachings of Jesus that are like analogies or metaphors.  Jesus points at a common reference, like a fruit tree, and suggests that people can be like that too. Good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit.  He suggests that one's behavior is a product of one's inner moral compass or inner thoughts.  As opposed to external dangers that corrupt us, the corruption is internal.  So too is the goodness.  Are Jesus' teachings black and white, clear cut, or do they seem a bit more grey and uncertain? 
The things he teaches about judgment and pointing the finger at others, criticizing or chastising another person is most interesting and relevant.  Jesus suggests that self-reflection and self-correction is the way to a transformed life and a better world.  Instead of attempting to correct others, to see their mistakes and flaws, we are commanded to look in the mirror.  This may be good advice in a time of deep mistrust and division among people.  We are suspicious and judgmental.  Hearing the teachings of Jesus might remind us that we all have inner work to do, in order to become bearers of good fruit. 

Advent 1. December 5. Luke 5.

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+5 (Click on the link to continue the story)

When in your life have you felt most connected to God? When has God been close to you? When have you felt disconnected, that God is absent or far away? 
Location matters in Luke's story.  The locus of God's activity matters to Luke.  This story is a theography---not sure if that is a word, but I'll coin it here to describe this sort of writing.  Luke presumes God and is not arguing whether or not God exists. I think we can say that Luke is locating God within a particular place in time and space. 
In the ancient world, God was always somewhere else.  In heaven, on that mountain, in that holy temple or shrine.  God was inaccessible.  Above and beyond our human reach.  Out there.  God or the gods might affect the world, but God was not in the world.  Some people argue that God is not accessible because God does not exist.  Others may argue that God is beyond the limits of space and time and cannot be defined locally.  God is everywhere or in everything.  It was believed among the Jews that God had spoken to the ancient prophets---Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc...And that God had not spoken in a long time, centuries in fact.  And that the people were waiting for God to speak again, to act again in a sort of final and significant way to set right what was wrong with the world.  A primary location and presumed destination for God to speak and act was Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon.  The Jews believed this place to be the axis mundi, the center of the cosmos.  Other people believed other places on earth to be central places of divine revelation or activity.  God was somewhere.  And any real God was not fashioned out of clay or built by humans, but was somehow beyond our grasp or imagination.  An invisible, immovable force.  Luke, however, is telling us something strange and new about God's location and accessibility.     

Yesterday, Jesus ran into trouble in the local synagogue.  It seemed that his own religious community rejected him and his teachings.  He found no audience of acceptance there.  Perhaps he was too well known as "the son of Joseph the carpenter."  He couldn't be taken seriously as a prophet or one who speaks for God.   
But today we see Jesus on the beach, in a boat, on the street, and in a house.  In all of these places, he is received with amazement.  He invites ordinary people, fishermen and tax collectors, to follow him and become his disciples, learning to practice his way of life.  These people were not scholars or privileged people, but working people struggling to sustain their households.  They follow him because they are invited.  You know how powerful an invitation can be.  People want to belong, to join, to connect.  Connection matters. 
 
He begins to heal people of diseases that separate them, exclude them, and prevent them from living whole and productive lives.  In one personal account, a man suffering with leprosy says to Jesus, "If you choose, you can  make me well."  And Jesus says, "I do choose.  Be made well."  Jesus chooses connection and healing instead of detachment and perpetual illness.  Isn't it true that these things are related?  Personal connection and healing?  People with healthier relationships are healthier overall, mentally and physically.  Again, connection matters. 
In another account he heals a paralyzed man by pronouncing that his "sins are forgiven."   This action is the role of the priest and the temple system.  It requires sacrifices prescribed by the biblical law.  You don't just give it away.  Sin is what necessitates religion.  Its what separates humans from God.  He hears opposition from religious scholars about this.  "No one can forgive sins but God alone."  This is their way of saying that God is not in that place or in the words of Jesus.  They reject the notion that God is somehow present and active in such a personal and immanent way.  God must be mediated through temples and rituals and priests.  God is not proximate, touchable, or close.  God is transcendent, somewhere else.  Jesus is saying something else and what he is saying is confirmed by a paralyzed man standing up and walking out.  He is calling the sick, the sinner to a new way of life. 
Finally, Jesus turns to two analogies to describe his actions:  the arrival of the bridegroom to a wedding feast and new wine. A joyful celebration is underway, full of goodness and love and sumptuous eating and drinking!  Wherever Jesus is, there is a party, a moveable feast!  Could this be a sign that God is present and active with Jesus---on the beach, in a boat, on the streets, in a house?  God is located where God is needed, sought.  In ordinary people experiencing hardship and struggle, exclusion and disconnection.  God is located in healing, forgiveness, and invitation to belong.  Because connection matters. 

Tomorrow, chapter 6: Sabbath, Prayer, and Wisdom.  

Advent in the Word. December 4. Luke 4.

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+4  (Click the link to continue the story).

Temptation in the Wilderness, Briton Riviere

Its never easy to confront someone with whom you disagree.  Few of us truly love conflict. At some point conflict is inevitable, even necessary, and often with those we love.  It is even more difficult to confront yourself when you are conflicted by a difficult decision.  Sometimes we are caught between a rock and a hard place--- damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Sometimes we have to choose between self-care and self-sacrifice.  Do I give that person the money or not?  Do I offer to help again or not?  We may ask ourselves along the way, "What's in it for me?"  Have you ever quit something or walked out of a relationship because it wasn't feeding your or scratching your itch or giving you what you needed or wanted?  Sometimes we make the selfish choice.  And most of us hope to avoid conflict with others.  I have personally experienced abandonment by people I thought were my friends.  It has felt as if I was used or bled or eaten until the other was full or found another way to get what they needed or wanted.  I have experienced much loneliness as a result.
Luke 4 is a narrative of personal and familial conflict, in which Jesus is both the instigator and recipient of opposition.  There is a 40-day journey in the wilderness that mimics the stories of Moses, Elijah, and the liberated Israelite slaves in the Hebrew bible.  This is meant to be a formative experience of self-surrender and utter reliance on God for sustenance. At the end of it, he is hungry.  At that moment Jesus is tested.  He is tested to use his status and power to serve himself, and acquire and consume for himself. Jesus refuses to use his status to sustain himself. Then he is tested to take a bribe to promote and advance his rule as Messiah.  Finally, he is invited to test God's faithfulness and love by jumping off a high peak and expecting God to save him from harm.  We notice that the way the devil seeks to gain access to Jesus and undermine his sense of self is through hunger first.  Then it is through lust for power.  Finally it is through a misreading of scripture's promises or a flawed theology, for it is patently false to assume that personal risk-taking and subsequent injury signifies God's lack of care for you.  You can't fault God for the law of gravity when you break a leg jumping off your roof.  Notice the devil knows God's Words.  Self-reliance, quid pro quo, and unrealistic denial of human vulnerabilities test us every day.   It may be, however, that in the wilderness moments of our lives God is more present to us than we acknowledge.  When we are weakest, most vulnerable, most lost to ourselves God is there. 
I suspect this encounter was more of an inner conflict that Jesus is resolving within himself about his identity and its implications for his life in community.
And we see what that looks like in the rest of the chapter.  From synagogue to street, from Nazareth to Capernaum, Jesus is facing expectations and assumptions.  His own neighbors assume that his inspired words and actions are for them, because of them, intended to them. He belongs to them and they get to decide what they will accept from him.  And they should expect him to treat them with deference, privilege, and advantage.  He challenges them with two ancient stories about God's prophets being sent by God to serve outcasts and enemies, when the same needs were found in Israel.  Jesus suggests that he is also sent to the outcast and enemy, despite their own needs.  And as a result he becomes one, cast out of the synagogue and chased out of his hometown.  He'll never return there.  The demons verbalize a response to Jesus.  Have you come to destroy us?  Perhaps he has.  He has come to destroy our resistance to God, our insistence on our own way, our insatiable appetite for more, our desire to control the outcomes, our desire to control the story, our fast abandonment of people when we are disappointed or don't get what we want, our isolating self-reliance, and our denial of how vulnerable we all are.  Transactional power is often imbalanced and dangerous.   Jesus confronts our desire to avoid pain, discomfort, inconvenience, hunger. He confronts those who experience a privileged status because of ethnicity, race, gender, or economic status.  We may not have seen it coming in the beginning, but it is becoming clear that Jesus---inspired and sent--- may bring conflict, confrontation, and challenge to us.  When Jesus speaks, a confrontation happens. How will we resist, oppose, reject, or avoid him?  What might it look like and feel like to embrace the conflict within us and follow Jesus? 

Tomorrow, Luke 5.  Jesus invites us to walk.   


   
               

Advent in the Word. December 3. Luke 3.

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=190196762 (Click on the link to continue the story)

Judean wilderness

What needs to change for the world to be more like heaven?

This story takes place in 29 AD.  More importantly, Luke names all of the major political and religious leaders of the day again.  (Tiberius ruled the Roman Empire from 14 AD to 39 AD. Pontius Pilate was procurator from 26-36 AD).  Luke does this to orient the story in history and to give this story and its characters significance.  What John and Jesus do here is happening under the noses of these world leaders.  Both Pilate and Herod, named in the beginning of the story, will have direct ties to the main characters.  Caiaphas, the high priest, will also play a role as the story unfolds.  But Luke's point is precisely that God is acting within history and on behalf of the oppressed members of society and not the ruling class.  God is not in the imperial courts in Rome or in palaces or temples, but in the wilderness with John and Jesus!

Here, we are reintroduced to John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth.  He is in the Judean wilderness.  He is preaching.  He is baptizing people into repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  People are visiting John there, hungry for a message from God, for truth telling, for an invitation to a changed life.  People who are aware of their own brokenness and vulnerability go to John for cleansing.  John is a voice crying out in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord." This is a reference to the Hebrew prophet Isaiah.  (See Isaiah, chapter 40). He is inviting and challenging people to a higher moral life under oppression.  Soldiers and tax collectors, aligned with the Roman empire, come to John.  He is not just attracting religious types.  In fact, the religious Jews are comfortable in their identity as Abraham's children.  They belong to God.  What more ought they to do?  John is challenging them to have a faith perspective, to see the world differently.  He is challenging them to see that the current system is broken and must be destroyed.  Those who benefit from the system must divest from it.  They must bear fruit worthy of repentance  That is their pubic actions, their productivity as active leaders and participants in the world must show that they have changed in ways that align with the values of the biblical God.  The strict adherence to the law of Moses requires an economy of shared resources, not competition in which there are winners and losers.  The rich and poor.  The book of Deuteronomy and its focus on social justice seems to play into the mindset of the storyteller and into the words of John.  Repentance means to move from an unjust past into a more just future.  It is to reject allegiance to corruption and harmful acquisition.  Baptism in the Jordan is also a reenactment of God's people crossing the Jordan to enter the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness and 400 years of Egyptian slavery.  It is an act of defiant emancipation!           
John's message resonates powerfully with people.  But John is not the Messiah.  His work is preparatory, to make people ready for the Messiah to come.  John suggests that the Messiah will be more powerful, more dangerous, more challenging, more inspirational than he.  And that he is coming soon.  Then John is arrested.  We don't know why yet.  Could it be his message of repentance? 

Jesus is baptized.  While he prays the Holy Spirit like a dove comes to him and a voice says, "You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased."  He is identified and empowered to act as God's representative.
Then we have this ancestral chart.  The intent of the chart is to tie Jesus to Adam as son of...son of....son of...God.  Aren't we all sons or daughters of God, according to the bible?  Yes.  Precisely.  Jesus is a human being.  Like me and you.  And yet, the language "son of God" has political implications in ancient Rome.  According to Roman custom, the Emperor Augustus was considered divine or a god.  And Tiberius is his son!  The Emperor is Son of God!  Or is it Jesus?  A Jew in the Judean wilderness? Son of God?  This is a Messianic claim, a challenge to Roman imperial hegemony and power.  Who is more powerful, Rome or Jesus?  Is a battle beginning?  We will see.

From what must we be emancipated as the children of God?   

Tomorrow, Luke 4.  Tested.   

Advent in the Word. December 2. Luke 2.

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+2  (Click the link to go to the story).

Roman coin denoting the divine sonship
status of Augustus

Here it is.  The Christmas gospel!  It starts with political history, who were the world leaders---both civil and religious.  This orients the story in time and gives it some historical significance.  Based on the references, historians suggest that the year was likely 4 or 6 BC.  (How could Jesus be born BC, "Before Christ"? Its likely that our calendar is a little wrong).   
Then we enter into a family story.  A forced migration for tax purposes brings the young, pregnant couple to the ancient town of Bethlehem---home of Israel's greatest King, David.  Placing this birth in this town gives it even more significance---a son of David is born, and therefore a future King of Israel.  Right under the noses of the Emperor Augustus, his rival is born, known only to insignificant shepherds.  They are the poor laborers in the fields, but also reminders to us that David was a shepherd.  This is ongoing confirmation that this birth is meaningful.  Just as David the shepherd was anointed King, so this child will be a King.  Messiah means anointed one.  And this baby is the Messiah.  Even oppressive imperial decrees serve God's purposes in this story. 
Angels sing about peace on earth and goodwill to all people---another suggestion that Roman peace and goodwill is insufficient and not of divine origin.  (Augustus Caesar was known as the divine son of God).  This newborn will usher in a new age of divine peace, unlike the Romans.  This is a political message hidden inside a birth story. A story that ties the baby to both God and royalty.
Faithful elders, prophets, seers, recognize this baby as God's savior.  We cannot fail to notice that a savior is needed when a people or nation needs to be saved.  This is a nation in trouble, oppressed, living in fear on the margins of existence.  Roman assimilation threatens to destroy whole cultures, religions, languages, traditions, holy places, and ethnic practices.  Judaism is both a religious faith and an ethnicity with traditions, laws and language.  All of this is threatened by Roman occupation.  Salvation means rescue from Roman imperialism and all that it means to Jewish life.  The Words of Simeon, "Now Lord let your servant depart in peace..."is one of the earliest hymns of Christian prayer for centuries, along with the songs of Zechariah (1:68-79), and Mary (1:46-55).  We can't underestimate these words spoken in the temple, the holiest place in Judaism.  It is considered the dwelling place of God.  God has acted on behalf of God's people through the birth of this child.  (Not unlike the birth of Moses or Samuel). This is the Nativity, the Christmas story, the birth of the Messiah.  Do you have a beloved Christmas carol?  "Away in a Manger" or "O Little Town of Bethlehem" or "Silent Night"?  The images are found here in Luke 2! 
Finally, we skip from birth in Bethlehem to eighth day circumcision in Jerusalem to a twelve year old boy in the temple.  Every way, he is fulfilling requirements of the Messiah.  Born in the right place at the right time, obeying the rules.  At age thirteen a Jewish boy becomes bar mitzvah, a son or practitioner of the commandments. Jesus is acting like this a year earlier.  It is a sign that he is preparing to be a disciple, a student of the Torah---the first five books of the bible and the core of Jewish teachings.  When he is twelve, his obedience to God makes him disobey his parents, since he fails to travel with them on their journey home.  "Did you not know that I must be in my father's house," he says.  What a strange kid!  He is not like the others.  He's different.  There is significance to this chapter.  It is simply layered with meaning, allusion, and connection---telling us that this birth is important.  Everything that happened here tells us that this child is born for a divine purpose.  But if he was, then so were Mary and Joseph.  So were Elizabeth and Zechariah.  So were those shepherds and Simeon and Anna.  Somehow his birth gives greater significance to all those named and unnamed in the story.  And by extension, perhaps his birth is significant to us.  And perhaps our births matter too.

Tomorrow, chapter 3.  The Baptist and the Son.        
       

Advent in the Word. December 1. Luke 1.

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+1 (Click link to read passage)

This Advent we will read together the entire gospel of Luke, a chapter each day from December 1 to December 24.  We will hear the entire story of Jesus in a month. There is great storytelling in this gospel. I hope you will be inspired by what we read together. 

Today, we start at the beginning.  We will hear of two households. Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph.  Both are visited by an angel, Gabriel, a messenger from God. Both respond to the messenger with questioning doubt.  Both will also sing a song of joy and triumph, of divine justice and mercy. An angel is a messenger from God. Have you ever received an angel or been one yourself?  Have you ever offered words of comfort, encouragement, hope, or promise to someone?    

This first chapter is all about expectations.  God’s people, Israel, expected a Messiah---an anointed King from the house of David, to rule Israel and bring about peace.  They expected this Messiah to battle and defeat the enemies of Israel, especially the Roman Empire who occupied their land, taxed the people, and exploited their resources and labor.  Israel waited for God to act decisively and powerfully on their behalf. For centuries, the people felt abandoned by God as they waited in silence for God to speak to them and act for them.  What are our expectations of God?  

Elizabeth and Zechariah are an older couple, childless, but faithful to God and one another.  Mary is a young woman, engaged to be married to Joseph. Both of these women will unexpectedly conceive and bear sons.  Both of these pregnancies are miraculous. The angel announces that it is God’s power at work in them. In the small and insignificant, God acts.  In unexpected and impossible ways, God moves us. This is a story of two sons. John and Jesus. Both with their own significance. Both with their own calling and purpose.  Both teachers.    

This is a story about people, ordinary people put in extraordinary and even dangerous circumstances.  It is a story about God acting in human families, showing up in homes and dreams. God acts through two brave women.  This is a story that may remind us of the story of the birth of Moses in Exodus chapters 1-2. Or the birth of Samuel in 1 Samuel 1 and 2.  Consider those stories as precedents to Luke and likely what he had in mind in his own storytelling.  

God answers the prayers and cries of God’s people.  God does come with power and with vulnerability. God comes into our humanity, filling us with God’s own self.  

Tomorrow, chapter 2.  Of shepherds and Emperors; infants and eldely folk.

Advent in the Word. Luke 1

http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+1 (Click on link to view text)

Advent in the Word:  December 1. Luke chapter 1.

This Advent we will read together the entire gospel of Luke, a chapter each day from December 1 to December 24.  We will hear the entire story of Jesus in a month. There is great storytelling in this gospel. I hope you will be inspired by what we read together. 

Today, we start at the beginning.  We will hear of two households. Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph.  Both are visited by an angel, Gabriel, a messenger from God. Both respond to the messenger with questioning doubt.  Both will also sing a song of joy and triumph, of divine justice and mercy. An angel is a messenger from God. Have you ever received an angel or been one yourself?  Have you ever offered words of comfort, encouragement, hope, or promise to someone?    

This first chapter is all about expectations.  God’s people, Israel, expected a Messiah---an anointed King from the house of David, to rule Israel and bring about peace.  They expected this Messiah to battle and defeat the enemies of Israel, especially the Roman Empire who occupied their land, taxed the people, and exploited their resources and labor.  Israel waited for God to act decisively and powerfully on their behalf. For centuries, the people felt abandoned by God as they waited in silence for God to speak to them and act for them.  What are our expectations of God?  

Elizabeth and Zechariah are an older couple, childless, but faithful to God and one another.  Mary is a young woman, engaged to be married to Joseph. Both of these women will unexpectedly conceive and bear sons.  Both of these pregnancies are miraculous. We think about families; those struggling with infertility and pregnant unwed, single teenage girls. God is in their lives. The angel announces that it is God’s power at work in them. In the small and insignificant, God acts.  In unexpected and impossible ways, God moves us.

This is a story of two sons. John and Jesus. Both with their own significance. Both with their own calling and purpose.  Both teachers. Both will follow a spiritual path. Both will invite others to join them.   Both will suffer violence. Stories about two people, two brothers, will come up throughout the gospel of Luke. Pay attention to them.

This is a story about people, ordinary people put in extraordinary and even dangerous circumstances.  It is a story about God acting in human families, showing up in homes and dreams. God acts through two brave women.  This is a story that may remind us of the story of the birth of Moses in Exodus chapters 1-2. Or the birth of Samuel in 1 Samuel 1 and 2.  Consider those stories as precedents to Luke and likely what he had in mind in his own storytelling.  Luke is riffing on some old tunes.

God answers the prayers and cries of God’s people.  God does come with power and with vulnerability. God comes into our humanity, filling us with God’s own self.  

Tomorrow, chapter 2.  Of shepherds and Emperors; infants and eldely folk.   

Cornerstones

On October 13, 1889 the first cornerstone of Zions Lutheran Church on Main Street in Akron, PA was laid.  83 years later, a new cornerstone was laid for a new building.  The old cornerstone was placed beside it.  These stones are the foundations of new buildings. Now they may represent the past, but then they symbolized a present and future hope. And that is what we are invited to see. 
Many changing, struggling, or dying institutions- like the church-cling to a nostalgic view of the past.  We remember and long for those halcyon days when our worship services were full of participants, our Sunday school classes full of kids, our staff and leaders full of energy and commitment.  Our institutional memory dates between 1965 and 1985, when many small mainline churches experienced the most growth and participation.  This is when baby boomers brought their families to church.  We forget that it was not always this way.  Consider that the first 50 years at Zion, communion was given and receive twice a year.  And for the first decade, the average number of communicants was 22 people.  The first 3 pastors over the first 20 years never communed more than 51 people.   The first two decades, the first three pastors baptized a total of 30 people.  They buried 26 people. 
Yes, Zions once had a worshiping attendance that exceeded 150 people, in the late 1970s and through the 1980s.  But declining worship attendance has been the pattern ever since then.  And I want to say, So What?  Zion has been many congregations over 130 years.  13 pastors, hundreds of people.  We are blessed to have a descendant of a charter member on our current church council.  Very few people here have institutional memories that preceed the 1940s.  Most of us who remain have memories of that golden age between 1965 and 1985.  I was born and raised in a Lutheran congregation during those years.  And I'm grateful for it. But those days are long gone.  We have to do the next thing, lay the next cornerstone, build the next church for our children and grandchildren.         
The church is at its best when it is taking risks, starting new ventures, planting and building something new.  Followers of Jesus live on the edge, on the margins, on the outer limit of institutional structures.  When we become stagnant managers of institutions, we avoid risk and ignore God's calling on us.  There is no call story in the bible that allows for the called person to keep on doing what they've been doing in the comfort of their own lives.  Abram and Sarai, Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Mary, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Paul, Stephen, the disciples, the deacons, the evangelists and pastors---all were called to leave and go; to surrender and follow; to trust and move; to die in the hope of resurrection promises. 
In my tenure as pastor, we have explored the edges within the comfortable confines of the congregation.  Peter's Porch has allowed us to make contact, to welcome and serve our neighbors---and especially those who struggle with food, housing, health, and financial insecurity. We have been a stable and caring presence for about a decade now, serving breakfast and clothing and food to the guests we welcome here once a month. 
Dinner Church has been the furthest we have traveled beyond ourselves.  And we have met Jesus in those people we have encountered along the way.  I will never forget parking lot baptisms during Peter's Porch or the brave testimonies we have heard from people struggling with addiction, suffering from abuse, searching for an identity, longing to belong.  I have seen Jesus gathered around a big table, rich with food, where strangers become family and all the voices are expected to be heard.  Those gatherings cannot happen with 50 people.  They are extended family size gatherings that are ideally between 20 and 40 people, including children and adults from three or more generations.  I have written about and practiced dinner church for four years.  I believe in micro-churches; small, relational, mission-focused communities that gather with intention for spiritual connection. 

I think large congregations are important.  They can offer inspirational worship, lots of resources, a well- trained and gifted staff, and many learning opportunities.  But anonymity is rarely transformative and large congregations struggle to build caring, sustaining relationships.  They have to work hard to create more intimate experiences for people to get connected to one another. Big churches have to figure out how to create small churches within themselves.  This is because the heart and soul of church is a small group of people struggling to follow Jesus, encourage one another, do justice and serve humbly together.  Jesus did not recruit 5,000 hungry people.  Jesus recruited the 12 disciples.  And he sent them to feed those hungry people.  Some of them followed and shared and practiced and embodied his teachings.  Most ate the bread and went home.  I am personally focused on finding followers. And I think more Christian leaders should be.  Many people are not interested in large churches.  Too structured, too hierarchical, too consumeristic, many people want a more personal and relational community of faith and love.  Rather than financially manage and maintain a building, some people will connect to smaller gathering spaces.  House churches are emerging as an alternative to larger congregations.  We don't have to build new buildings to be the church.  But we can't be the church if we don't build new relationships through which people come to encounter Jesus and experience God's powerful grace. 
Cornerstones may also be new ideas.  A new way of being the people of God.  What are we building together?  What must be torn down to make way for the next thing God is calling us to do?  What if we joined forces with a large congregation (St. Paul Lutheran, Lititz) in order to become the church meeting on the edges?  What if we were the ones to start house churches and dinner churches and Peter's Porches in other places?  What if we risked the "stability" of weekly Sunday morning worship gatherings, in order to be on mission weekly? 
On Sunday, October 13th we will explore and envision our next cornerstone, even as we celebrate our first one.         
               
   

race, faith, and forgiveness

Last week, a white woman was convicted of murder.  She was a Dallas police officer who shot and killed a young black man in his own apartment.  She mistakenly believed he was trespassing in her apartment and shot him in the chest.  She wept on the witness stand in her own defense.  She expressed remorse.  On the night of the shooting, she apparently expressed her concern that she might lose her job over the deadly mistake.  Her lawyers used a sort of stand your ground defense, suggesting that she was defending herself and her apartment from what she believed was a break in.  As a police officer, she is trained to shoot with deadly accuracy.
After she is found guilty of murder, the younger brother of the victim offered her forgiveness from the stand.  He said he loved her like anyone else. He asked the judge for permission to giver her a hug.  They embraced.  Afterward, the judge herself gave her a hug and her own personal bible.  Both the judge and the victims's brother are African American people and Christians.  They offered the forgiveness of sins and a life in Christ for the defendant.
Many people were stunned and moved by their public witness, a testimony to their faith in God.  The victim;s parents were surprised by their son's testimony.  In their devastating grief, they were not yet willing to offer forgiveness.  In  fact, they continue to seek justice for their son. His murderer faced a life sentence; the prosecutors asked for 28 years ,the age of her victim, Botham Jean.  She received ten years, with the possibility of parole in 5.
If the racial identities had been reversed.  If a black man had accidentally shot and killed a white woman in her apartment, the trial and sentencing would have been much different.  No doubt, he would face the death penalty in Texas.  No doubt, there would be a lynching and little in the way of public forgiveness.  Race plays a major factor in sentencing. African Americans make up 14%% of the U.S. population and more than 40% of death row inmates.
Racial bias played a significant part in the murder of Botham Jean, in the trial, conviction, and sentencing of his murderer, and in the response by the judge and the brother.  A white woman experiences sympathy and forgiveness.  African Americans are expected to suffer violence and forgive.  They're supposed to behave like Christians, to model Christ like behavior.  Black grief and cries for justice are heard as excessive emotional outbursts.   The racist double standard is that the white person is offered a chance for restored innocence, while the black family's grief and anger is perceived as excessively punitive. 
What's troubling is that forgiveness is good, godly, Christ-like and worthy of imitation.  Its just that black folks are either being punished by white folks for being black or they're forgiving white people for violently mistreating them because they are black.  The expectation and practice of public forgiveness suggests that its okay for white people to abuse, hurt, or unjustly treat black people.  It excuses racist acts like the one that took Botham Jean's life and the lives of Michael brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray.  White people can and should be forgiven for their crimes against black men.  This is the painful truth of a racist society.  Quick to forgive, we see the psychological effects of internalized racial oppression.  In the name of Jesus, the system is perpetuated.   
In this case, should the sentence have been longer?  Would that have brought about justice?  Should they have withheld the public act of forgiveness?  Botham Jean's mother commended her son for his courageous and faithful act in the courtroom.  But she also demanded reform to a corrupt and racially biased criminal justice system.  And she is right.  Her son's death must lead to change in law enforcement practices and in rooting out racially baised profiling that turns deadly when coupled with gun violence. 
How do Christians wrestle with this?  Do we show mercy and offer forgiveness? Do we seek justice for the oppressed?  Do we lift up the systemic racism that causes these deadly encounters?  Do we pray?  Do we give away bibles and "let God do the rest of the work?"
I think Christians need to have an open conversation about racism, about violence, about systemic oppression, and about repentance.  Forgiveness without the hard and necessary work to transform  unjust systems is complicity with injustice.  Justice without forgiveness is often retributive and punitive.
The hardest work begins inside my own heart and mind.  How am I confronting my own biases, prejudices, and privileged place in a racist system that favors whiteness and maleness?  What stories do I still need to hear in order to change?         
   

  

Green Team News

This week was the UN Climate Action Summit and a global climate strike led by Greta Thunberg, a sixteen-year old Swedish activist. Millions of people around the world marched for climate justice on Friday, because the largest carbon emitters on the planet (U.S., China, and India) are not doing enough to reduce their impacts. We are facing a very uncertain future on the planet. The time for action is now! There is no debate about climate change. It is real and there is plenty of evidence. But even if it weren’t as dire as predicted, Christian are called to love, cherish, care for, and protect the earth. From Genesis to Revelation, humans are called by God to serve the creation and bless the earth. Earth is our only home, created by God for life to flourish. Our home is threatened. We are to blame. We have to act.

Three billion birds have disappeared from North America in the past 50 years due to habitat and climate disruption. Like the canary in the coal mine, this news about bird loss indicates that ecosystems are collapsing. Floods, wildfires, massive storms, and heat waves threaten many populations. We are facing a mass extinction event. 150 to 200 species (plant, insect, bird, mammal) go extinct every day! This is upwards of 10,000 times the natural rate of extinction.

Every one of us must do our part to reduce carbon emissions and curb the effects of global warming and climate change. As Lutherans we are called to enact climate justice. Perhaps nothing we do will be more important in the next decades than what we do to impact the earth.

Sometimes the news is so bleak and hopeless about climate change, the adaptive changes humans must undertake so drastic, that we feel paralyzed. So here are a few things you might consider in the hours, days, weeks, or even months ahead.

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Get educated about climate change, the growing ecological crisis, and personal steps we must take collectively. Check out: https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Environment_IPCC_Report_Resource_1811v2.pdf

Reduce your personal impacts.

1. Buy local. Research the environmental aspect of a company before you buy their product our shop in their store.
2. Purchase ecofriendly products: from bathroom tissue to kitchen trash bags, there are companies that make and sell environmentally friendly products you use every day. Check out: www.whogivesacrap.org.
3. Consider a household energy audit. Check out your electric generation supplier. Are they generating electricity with renewables (solar, wind)? Switch to a 100% renewable energy generator.
4. Compost food waste. We will make 5 gallon buckets available for every household to begin composting. Bring your compost to St. Paul. The green team will use it here and at Wittel Farm.
5. Consider solar panels for your home.
6. When shopping for a vehicle, take emissions and gas consumption more seriously. Consider a hybrid or electric vehicle. 
7. Bike or walk to school or work more often
8. Refuse single use plastics: sandiwich bags, drinking straws, plastic grocery bags. Check our www.creationjustice.org/blog/52ways-to-care-for-creation for more ideas.
9. Sign up for Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in PA action alerts to learn about how you can support public policies that promote climate justice.  
10. In 2019, St. Paul and Wittel Farm are teaming up with the Lancaster Conservancy to develop native habitat, plant trees and gardens. We encourage your participation.  

The one about your power to heal

In Easter season the church worships, ponders, and considers the resurrection of Jesus.  We are not so much interested in proving the validity or historicity of the claims that God raised Jesus from the dead.  It cannot be proven scientifically.  100% of human experience contradicts the claims of Jesus’ disciples.  We have before us ancient texts, written by Jesus’ followers who tell us what they saw and heard, what they experienced.  Empty tombs and appearances of Jesus in the flesh are only part of that story.  In fact, if we read the gospels, Acts, and all the letters—the easter stories take up only a small part of the material.  Not that much is actually said about the risen Jesus.  In Mark’s gospel, he doesn’t make an appearance and the empty tomb story is a mere 8 verses that ends with the terrified women fleeing the tomb in silence.   Luke and John have extended stories about the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus and on the beach beside the sea.  But even these stories are strange.  Jesus appears, disappears, is recognizable and hidden from their recognition.  He is there, but on his way somewhere.  Going to the Father.  It is told by Luke that after 40 days Jesus ascends, is taken up.  St. Paul records that he appeared to the women and apostles, to 500 people, and finally to Paul himself as one born at the wrong time---as if to say his vision of Jesus was by happenstance, at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Or right place at right time. Not sure what he meant, actually.  Nevertheless, the resurrection was an event that reimagined the power of God and the people of God.  Rather than a divine liberation and rescue of all the people of Israel,  God rescues Jesus from death.  This Exodus was not like the first.  And it did not put an end to Roman oppression.  One could ask, what about the lived experience of the people of God changed as a result of Jesus’ death and resurrection?  This is a critical question for us.  Because we need to have an answer to this accusatory question.  If the answer is, nothing, then why does it matter?  And if it doesn’t matter, then why worship or any devotion whatever?  I suspect some people might say, Jesus was a good teacher.  His teachings inspire.  Living like Jesus is the right way to live.  But was it?  His revision of Torah that rejected purity laws got him crucified.  Jesus didn’t so much teach his followers how to live as how to die.  Basically serve others, pouring yourself out for the needy, until you die. Ok.  Very few people will actually do this.  The rest will fail miserably.  If martyrdom is the Christian life, most of us will opt out.  So what of the lived experience of the people of God changed as a result of the resurrection of Jesus?  That is perhaps more significant than proof of his bodily resurrection.  How did they live after that? 

Peter and John are arrested, standing before the same Jewish leaders that accused Jesus and had him dragged before Pilate and killed.  The High priest was a powerful man of influence and justice in Jerusalem.  He was the shepherd of the flock of Israel, whose job was to keep the peace and the commandments so that the Romans would allow them to practice their religion.  This meant identifying and silencing zealots and extremists.  Were Peter and John two of them?  They healed a man at the gate of the temple.  Then they proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead as a sign of God’s favor and vindication in their conflict with Jesus that ended in his crucifixion. If so, Jesus won.  And they said that faith in his name healed that man.  So they arrested them for stirring up the crowds with talk of resurrection from the dead.  And they questioned them and Peter responded with the verse we heard. But verse 13 says it all:  Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were ordinary uneducated men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.  When they saw the man who had been cured standing there they had nothing to say.”   Peter has been speaking boldly and publicly about Jesus.  It seems that the confrontation between Jesus and the authorities did not end with his death on the cross.  The assumption was that the movement dies with its leader.  But now a new leader has emerged.  Maybe even more than one.  Cut off the head and two new heads emerge.  Peter’s proclamation about Jesus is clear and very Jewish.  He is bold enough to accuse them of killing Jesus, quoting Psalm 118 a Messianic Psalm.  Basically Peter is saying, Jesus was the Messiah, the king.  You killed him.  God raise him from the dead.  That power also healed this man.  If we are being accused of doing a good deed by healing a sick man, let it be understood that we are not guilty.  Jesus is!  And they can’t arrest Jesus.

The community of the resurrection consists of ordinary people with no special abilities, competencies, or powers.  That’s good news for us.  Jesus powers their action. And ours.   Health and healing are signs of God’s mercy.  And when a sick person becomes well, many things change.  His social status changes. He need not beg anymore.  He is whole, so can participate in the community’s religious life.  His healing was not just physical.  He was seen, heard, received, and treated as one worthy of health.  They did not throw money at this problem.  They empowered him to stand.  Healing is spiritual---its about the whole person within a family. One might say everything changed for that person.  The risen Jesus lifts up people who have been made low.  The community of the resurrection acts under that power—the power of love to heal.  How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  The church is called to respond to that question.  The love we dare is the power of the risen Christ in us to heal people. How have you participated in someone's healing? In a broken health care system in which there are no winners, what is our calling as a community of the resurrection?  What role do we play in health care?  Nutrition?  Education?  Addiction recovery?  Hospitality?  Are we a hospital, welcoming guests in need of care? Do we provide emotional healing or spiritual healing for those who have been wounded by a venomous version of Christianity?  What is your healing story?  Did you know that it was Jesus?   I have been seriously ill three times in my life. Once as a four year old, and twice as an adult. Yet, here I am to tell you that the Lord Jesus healed me so that I may share this good news with you.  Having been infected by Jesus' healing power, we are empowered to become healers in the name of the risen Jesus. How will you and who will you heal this week?  

the one about how faith frees us from fear

The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews. This was the cultural experience of the first Christians on that first Easter.  Fear.  They were afraid.  And yet, none of them had been arrested alongside Jesus in the garden.  Despite his identity being questioned, Peter is not mistreated by the restless public.  It was clear that Jesus was the one victim and example the Jewish leaders wanted to make.  If you publicly shame and destroy the leader, the followers will abandon the cause.  Better that one man die for the people than all Israel suffer, said the High priest.  So, given this information why were they afraid? 

 The fact that some of the disciples were absent must have caused alarm.  Was Thomas betraying their location, like Judas?  Crucifixion under the Roman occupation was an effective tool to control deviance, to maintain authority and order.  What they did to the human body was gruesome, bloody torture.  Living under violent oppressors for decades, seeing random violence and the destruction of Palestinian bodies, having their land and resources taken from them they were a helpless and hopeless people. Intimidated into paralysis.  But Jesus had helped the people and given them hope.  Hope for freedom and peace.  But they had taken him from them too.  Violence and hopelessness breed a high level of fear.  The disciples had a reason to be afraid.  They had experienced the betrayal and death of their leader.  They were leaderless, lost, and possibly in danger.  What if they were labeled as deviants and seen as a threat and sought for arrest or even death? 

We understand fear.  Despite FDR’s statement, there is nothing to fear but fear itself, we continue to live in it.  Since 9/11 Americans have lived under a constant state of anxiety-producing fear, documented most prominently by sociologist D.r barry Glassner in his book “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things.”  We live in fear.  The fear of attack.  The fear of violence.  The fear of disease.  The fear of accidents.  The fear of terrorists, gunmen, and violent criminals.  Fear of the other, the non-white, young adult male. Fear of the stranger, the foreigner.  Fear drives daily politics.  Who is threatening us this week? If it bleeds it leads.  News is full of violence, making it seem common and local and universally threatening.  What is the level of concern you have for safety?  The local police are conducting building safety and active shooter trainings for churches.  We will attend one of these in two weeks.  Our doors are not locked.  But many people are suggesting that it is foolish of us not to do so.  And I believe they are right.

Most of the time, when we hear this gospel story, we focus on doubting Thomas.  I think his doubt is not the real matter.  His absence from the group is.  Why wasn’t he with them?  Where was he all week?  What does it mean that Thomas is both present and absent in this story that shows the disciples huddled together in fear?  Was he somehow less afraid? Was he hiding somewhere else?  During his absence, Jesus appears among them.  He shows them his wounds.  They are forced to confront their fear of crucifixion and the taste of disgust that accompanies their fear.  They rejoice that they have seen him.  They evidently leave the house and find Thomas.  This is the first sign that their life as Jesus’ people will continue.  I think this is why Thomas is absent.  So that they have a legitimate reason to leave the house, to seek him out and tell him the news. It restores their mission—to invite others to come and see Jesus!   A week later, Thomas is with them and Jesus appears again.  Like Thomas, Jesus is both present and absent in the story.  He shows up where and when they need him to be present.  He shows up so that others might also come and see.  But more than his mere presence, he gives gifts.  Peace and the Spirit breath of life.  Jesus passes on to them his own breath, his own spirit—that which gives life to his body he gives to them.  We all breathe the same air.  And in this way we are joined to one another. Jesus gives them a spirit of peace.  Can you imagine not feeling anxious or afraid or worried or concerned about safety?  Can you imagine feeling confident and brave?  Can you imagine risking your own safety to do Jesus’ work?   One of my colleagues was arrested on good Friday at a nonviolent protest at Lockheed Martin.  Others face threats because of their public witness. What gives them the courage?   

Somewhere between hiding in fear behind locked doors and the liberal and generous and public testimony about Jesus’ resurrection and the radical sharing of all their possessions, so that no one among them had need—something had happened to them.  Between John 20 and Acts 4, they become a different group of people.  No longer hidden, locked, afraid, they are boldly telling others about Jesus and publicly claiming their loyalty and faith in him.  What happened to them?  The body and the Spirit of Jesus happened to them.  The Thomas problem is how the gospel writer tells us that Jesus’ resurrection appearance was not a collective illusion or trauma induced hallucination.  It was real, happened more than once, and to specific individuals.  Jesus is both present and absent as the crucified and risen Christ. Why? He is free.  Free from death’s power, and therefore free from fear.  Only someone with faith and hope in the resurrection from the dead can be truly free from fear.  From locked doors to public sharing---this is what the body and spirit of Jesus does to the disciples.  He frees them from fear to love with power and joy.  What is he doing with us?  He gives us his body and spirit today.  He is present.  We hear his voice. Receive the holy spirit.  Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have come to believe. He’s moving us out of safety and comfort to confront the world with love and peace.     

The one about the Eunuch, sexual discrimination, and the church's accompaniment mission

We follow a three year lectionary cycle of scripture readings following the life of Jesus and the church year.  We are in season of Easter year B.  The cycle allows us to hear about 70 % of the bible in 3 years.  If we hear all four readings every Sunday, which we don’t.  I’m telling you this for two reasons; one we hear a lot of the bible in worship, but not all of it.  There are good parts that we never hear.  So you have to fill in the gaps yourself.  At home.  With a bible.  Two,  I don’t choose the readings we hear or I preach on.  They’re chosen and sometimes they’re crap.  Sometimes the lectionary is like going on a date with someone you sort of know like a friend set you up?  Sometimes that date is amazing, and you talk for hours and have a ton in common and you can se yourself being in love with this person.  And sometimes its like that date, a dud, the one where you have nothing in common at all.  Nothing to talk about.  No attraction. Just a desire for it to end so you can go home and watch a movie on the couch.  This is the lectionary.  Sometimes it’s a treasure field.  And sometimes its like dumpster diving for a half-eaten piece of fruit.  All of this is to say that about 60% of the time I feel like I’ve heard treasure and have treasure to share.  And 20% I’m still looking for the half eaten banana. 20% is reserved for treasure that I just miss because I’m too tired.  Its not you, Jesus, its me.  Sorry.

Today is a treasure trove.  I could preach three sermons.  So here’s one.  Philip is a Christian and a deacon in Jerusalem.  His job was to serve the poor in the name of Jesus, so the 12 apostles could devote their time to preaching and teaching and writing the gospels.  Instead, a persecution scatters the Jerusalem church and prohibits them from distributing to the poor.  So Philip is waiting.  And Stephen, his fellow deacon is stoned to death for preaching about Jesus.  So Philip doesn’t apply for that position.  Who would?  Then he is sent by the Spirit.  He is dropped into a story.  An Ethiopian Eunuch, in the court of the Queen, and the treasurer of Ethiopia, is traveling home from Jerusalem, in a chariot.  Reading a scroll of the Prophet Isaiah.   This is a very black, very wealthy man.  He is Jay Z.  Wearing Armani.  In a Limo. He is literate.  Though he is likely reading Hebrew and apparently struggling with it.  A personal scroll of the prophet Isaiah was a treasure itself.   He is a worshiper of God.  Jewish religion and theology was known around the ancient Mediterranean.  It was old.  They proclaimed one God, the creator. Their temple was a wonder to behold.  Their sacrificial worship was a massive religious machine.  He is a Eunuch.  A mark of slavery.  Though not to be correlated exactly, this text opens us to acknowledge sexual and physical discrimination.You’ve heard of transgendered or gender nonconforming or queer? These are aspects of sexual identity that I didn’t know about until recently.  I thought people were male or female.  I was ignorant.  But just because we don’t have knowledge or understanding of something or someone doesn’t make them wrong or abnormal.  We get to learn, to grow, to change.  Neither the eunuch nor the 21st century gender nonconforming youth chose a path of vulnerability and discrimination for themselves. This Ethiopian man was someone with a very high status, who was likely dismissed in Jerusalem because of his low status as a eunuch---they were outcasts in Roman and Jewish society.  Gender non-conforming, transgendered, queer.  Not accepted.  Not welcomed.  Branded on his body as a nobody. Unable to participate in the worship of God. He lives with physical humiliation.  He is status inconsistent in a world that loved and required status consistency.  Black men who make it in this country still experience status inconsistency.  The privilege of wealth or education and the disadvantage of being black make for an uncomfortable life.  Philip is sent to this man.  And asks if he understands what he’s reading.  Philip doesn’t seem to notice the external issues---wealthy, foreign government official, branded on his body as a nobody. He sees an internal struggle, pain. He is reading a passage from Isaiah about someone who has experienced humiliation.  And he wonders, is this about Isaiah or someone else?  I think this man went up to Jerusalem to worship and was rejected there because of his status as a eunuch.  I believe he was humiliated in Jerusalem.  Isn't it amazing that he opens this text from Isaiah about humiliation?  I think his question is this;  How is it that my humiliation still haunts me, despite my place in the court of the queen of Ethiopia?  How am I both royal and a nobody at the same time?  I wonder if he heard his own story in Isaiah?  A royal figure who gets rejected in Jerusalem because of his nonconformity.  Philip share the gospel about Jesus with him—a gospel about the Son of God, the savior of the Word.  Titles reserved for emperors. From the house of David.  A King of the Jews, a prophet, a preacher, a healer, a teacher, the hope of the people.  Crucified.  Physically Humiliated.  But raised from the dead.  God turns Jesus’ humility into the power of salvation and life.  Especially for those who experience humiliation and shame.  Jesus death and resurrection means that God loves the rejected ones; the Eunuchs and the gender noncomforming and the transgendered and the queer and the black man and the cis-gendered, heterosexual white upper middle class pew sitter.  So this Ethiopian finds water in the desert, because God is crazy, and says what is to prevent me from being baptized?  Well, eventually the church would.  But on that day, before all the rules and dogma and exclusionary sexual morals, nothing could prevent it. Because nothing can separate us from God’s love for us.  Not even bad religion.  And he was washed and welcomed as a child of God.  And the spread of Jesus’ message leaves Israel in the abused and humiliated and loved body of an African man.  Black and brown bodies received this gospel before us.  They are our ancestors in faith.  Our great grandparents.  What wisdom they have to offer us, if we’re willing to listen.  Just as quickly as Philip entered the story, he left it.  Holy encounters may be brief, confrontational, and transformational.  But these personal one to one accompaniment relationships are where real authentic gospel ministry happens.  This accompaniment mission is how the gospel is shared, transmitted, and spread.  Not by forcing people to read the bible, but by coming alongside people who are wrestling with their shame and pain and humanity in the context of their faith in God.  You may meet someone tomorrow who changes your life, who guides you, shows you God’s love and grace anew, makes you feel welcome and accepted and treasured.  Or you may give that to someone else.  Either way, that’s where we see the risen Jesus.  Amen.