Ash Wednesday, March 5, 2025

“There was a man who had two sons.” This is how Jesus begins this parable we have come to call the Prodigal Son. There was a man who had two sons and one day the young er son came to the father and asked for his share of the inheritance. The father gave his son his share of the property and the son left to make a new life in a new place. The younger son used his fortune to buy friends and throw parties. Then tragedy struck. There was a famine. And the younger son ran out money and ran out of friends and wound up feeding pigs and wishing he could eat so well. So, the younger son decided to go home. “I can’t just walk up to dear ol’ dad and expect him to feed and clothe me,” the younger son thought to himself. “I’ve burned that bridge. I can’t be his son. But I can be his slave.” So, the son goes home and as he nears the house his father, who’s kept his eye on the horizon ever since the younger son disappeared behind it, runs to meet him on the road. The younger son can’t even get out the little speech he’s been rehearsing the whole way home. The father won’t have it. “Quick!” the father shouts to a slave, “Get a robe! Get some shoes! Get a ring! My son is home!! I thought you were dead, But you’re alive! We’ll have a party! I’ve been fattening up a calf for just this reason!! We have to celebrate!!” This is where the older brother comes in. Maybe it’s the end of the day and he’s come from the field for dinner. Maybe the sound of music or the smell of the roasting meat drew him home in curiosity. Whatever the reason, When a slave says the party is for his younger brother he’s indignant. He cannot, WILL not share this meal. “Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you,” protests the older son. “never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!” Now, If we’re being honest, I’m sure most of us can concede that the guy has a point. I mean, this older son has stayed and done his job, honored his father, as the law commands. He’s been there the whole time and now he’s expected to celebrate the return of his whoremongering little brother? I mean, for heaven’s sake, no one even told him about the party!! He had to ask a slave what was going on. I’m not sure I would have gone in either. Maybe you’ve had this same feeling. Maybe you’ve lost a brother or a sister to years of addiction and your Mom or Dad seem to be enabling them. Maybe you’re working harder and longer, struggling to make ends meet, and folks who don’t seem to work at all are eating up your tax dollars in social services. Maybe you’ve been in line at the grocery store behind someone speaking Spanish and using an EBT card and thought to yourself “I can’t believe I’m paying for that.” Maybe you’ve been angry that so much time and resources have been spent on wars in other countries when there are so many problems in this country. The rising tide of nationalism and classism in our nation has been exploited to drive a wedge between neighbors, even between family members. Those of us who were born citizens, or had access to the resources to become citizens, we, like the older brother, may see the plight of our Latinx siblings, the quagmire of foreign entanglement, the rising food prices and falling stock prices and say, “Not it! Not my problem. You need to stay where you are, fix your own country make your own money.” This is what the older brother means when he says “this son of yours.” He means, “this is your problem, and not mine.” This thinking largely comes from the fact that we have been fed a steady diet of individualism and hyper-capitalism that teaches us that life is everyone for themselves, the rich have worked harder than the poor, and that with enough work we too will be rich. We have no responsibility for anyone but ourselves. What I have I earned, I deserve. If you don’t have, you did not earn, and do not deserve. But Jesus’ parable leads us in a different direction. ‘Son, you don’t understand,” the father says to the older brother. “You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours— but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!” A clean conscience needs no mercy, and the older son wants the younger son to pay, to work for it, to deal with his problems on his own, just like he had. But the father reminds the older son that everything he has he has by the same benevolence that killed the fatted calf to celebrate with the younger son. Where the older son wants to distance himself from the younger son, the father calls him a brother. “this brother of yours.” This meal is not just a party, it is an act of reconciliation. You see, this feast not only reconciles father to child but child to child, brother to brother, and this feast, by which the father receives back his son, is the same feast by which the older son receives back his brother. The feast of our reconciliation is the Eucharist, where we are not only reconciled to our Parent, but to each other, brother to brother, sister to sister, sibling to sibling. God is reconciling the world to Godself and to each other. No matter how far away the younger son went, how much he squandered, how shameful his living, how little he thought he deserved it, he was always a son, always a brother. And no matter how much time and energy is spent working for the father, doing what is right, avoiding what is wrong, the older son is no more a son that the younger. Nothing could undo or augment their relationship to their father and brother. But by this celebration feast, each could begin to renew his relationship with his father and brother. Beloved, there is nothing in all of creation that could ever separate us from the love of God. But none of us are only children. This meal that gives us back our relationship with God our Parent also gives us back our neighbors as brothers, as sisters, as siblings. We can no longer say “This son of yours is here illegally.” “This daughter of yours is not my responsibility.” Because we are God’s children too, and every child of God is our sibling, our responsibility. This feast of our reconciliation is not a private meal for two, but an open invitation to celebrate that we are all God’s family by the same grace. We were dead and are now alive!! We were lost and are now found!! And this is something to celebrate!! AMEN. 

“Have you heard the news?” I hear this question a lot. We like to be in the know, to have the scoop, the latest information; to be informed, on the inside. As the new s cycle has gone from the morning paper and the evening news to real time, live-tweeting, video streaming, 24/365, keeping up with the news has become quite the chore. In the early twentieth century, German theologian Karl Barth advised preachers to write their sermons with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. As a smartphone has replaced a newspaper this sort of preaching has become ever more elusive, and I sometimes change the direction of my sermons to address midweek changes, sometimes even early Sunday morning changes. Our screens have become extensions of our psyches, even of our bodies. TVs, computers, tablets, smartphones have become part of how we communicate, how we show up in the world and how the world shows up to us. As these technologies become more and more immersive they become more and more subversive of our ability to rightly perceive reality. These devises, their apps, and their creators are dividing us into market segments in virtual spaces, and into us and them, we and they, the rational and the duped, the sane and the insane, the good and the evil in actual spaces. Algorithms sort and silo us, monitoring and predicting our behavior, radicalizing us with confirmation biases, and then when they can predict exactly how we will behave, they hit us with ads, a private form of propaganda, and sell us whatever they are shilling. These apps are free to us because of what marketers will pay for access to us. Corporate pimps are trafficking us and we are grateful for the opportunity. And it is in exactly this contrived environment, this virtual reality, that most of us consume the news. That news is rarely good. The occasional feel-good, human interest story might sneak past the editors, but crime, mayhem, tragedy, and terror all sell far more clicks and downloads, streams and views, than 80-year-olds graduating college, lemonade stands to fight cancer, or dogs saving their owners from housefires. Folks generally take one of two approaches to the constant barrage of bad news. First, escape. Folks will turn to forms of religion that promise the great by-and-by, the ‘far off sweet forever,’ where suffering will be no more, and my absolution here and now not only frees me from guilt, but also responsibility. Others escape into a liquor bottle, or a pill bottle, or through a syringe, pipe, or straw, through sexual encounters, junk food, social media, video games, or whatever habit or substance they can use to ignore the terror and despair of reality. Some even choose sheer ignorance, a genuine unknowing of the state of things, a sort of ‘plausible deniability’ for any responsibility for the way things are. Escapists are easily manipulated because they’re already looking for alternate realities, and the creators of these screens we all love so much are the very folks selling you their brand of alternate reality. The second way folks respond to the cavalcade of terrible news is confrontation. Some folks are fighting mad, ready to mount an army to take on the forces of darkness in this world. But this is often its own form of drunkenness, an intoxication from too much consumption, and while the fervor for justice is laudable, they usually burn out quickly, like gasoline. And the purveyors of these screens we love are counting on the combustion of this energy to drive more and more time with these very screens. Ok. What does any of this have to do with the lessons for today? Isaiah is written to the people of Israel after they have been conquered and exiled by a foreign power and the prophet is calling the people not to be persuaded by the glamour and glory of the tyrant, but to remember and return to the Lord. The Apostle Paul writes to the city of Corinth, a Greek city conquered by the Roman Empire and living under Roman rule, and the Apostle tells them to remember that God rescued the Israelites from slavery to Pharaoh. Jesus’ entire ministry happens in Judea, which is also a Roman occupied territory. Empires rise and fall. Regimes come and go. Principalities and powers spring up and wither. And in the meantime, tyrants commit atrocities, tragedies happen, customs and cultures die out, plates shift, storms destroy, pandemics disrupt and kill, etc., etc.. Suffering is part of this life. No one escapes it entirely. And direct opposition usually makes the suffering worse. But Jesus proposes a third way. Repentance. And before you accuse me of victim-blaming, stay with me. We tend to think of repentance in terms of guilt and reform, of feeling bad and trying hard to do better in the future. But, given the context, maybe there is a better way to think of repentance. Jesus is not blaming the victims of Pilate’s atrocity for their own desecration. Nor is Jesus blaming the victims of a falling tower for their own demise. Instead, Jesus calls his hearers to repentance— that is, to change their minds, to set their minds on reality as it is, and each time they find themselves drawn to escape or confrontation to return to reality as it is. In our modern parlance, we might call this mindfulness or meditation. The mystics and monastics might have called it contemplation. Others might just call it prayer. And science is starting to discover that this mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer literally changes our brains, creating new neural pathways, thickening the prefrontal cortex, changes our brainwave pattern and makes us less likely to feel anxious or depressed. And even for those who suffer from clinical depression and anxiety disorders, mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer are often part of the clinical approach to treatment. This mindful repentance anchors us in reality as it is and disentangles us from the lies and terrorism of tyrants and tycoons, of algorithms and advertisers, and roots us in reality— that is, it roots us in Christ, who is “reality with a personality,” as Richard Rohr says. When Christ becomes our lens for reality, we can see the cross as the form reality takes, the intersection between matter and spirit. Reality includes suffering and reality transcends suffering with meaning and purpose. This is precisely what we mean by redemption, the making something from nothing God has always been doing in Christ. This mindful repentance is the path through the wilderness in which our Lenten journey began, the path through this wild, uncharted place filled with bad news and anxiety, and the temptations toward easy answers, quick fixes, and addiction. The call to repentance is not a call to feel guilty and try harder. The call to repentance is the call to change our minds, to reclaim our minds from those trying to co-opt them, to reject all the false realities of tyrants and tycoons, and to root ourselves firmly in ‘reality with a personality,’ in Christ Jesus. And when we find ourselves anxious and avoidant or anxious and confrontational, the call is to return to reality as it is in Christ, and to return and return again and again as often as we stray. This takes practice. This is practice itself. But paths through the wilderness are made by walking. And there are many of us walking this path with together. So, when you hear bad news, be mindful, return to the Lord, remember that reality includes suffering and transcends it. We have to change our relationship to the news in order to change our relationship to reality. Mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer is the practice of repentance, returning the heart and mind to Christ, who is reality itself. In changing our minds, we make ourselves less manipulable. We have to do some research— which is not the same thing as googling— and be much more discerning about the media we consume. We must seek our experts and we must listen to them. And when we have cut ourselves off from the tools the tyrants and tycoons are using to manipulate us, we become little outposts within the empire where “alternate ‘realities’” have no sway. We become digital hermits, leaving behind social media and entering society. We become pilgrims and sojourners in an adopted land, seekers of truth in the realm of false gods. Have you heard the news? The good news that Jesus is calling us to repent, to change our relationship to reality, returning with all our heart and mind to Christ, who is the Truth, reality itself. Amen. 

Earlier this week, I received a call from my brother. He had a couple of questions about our father’s estate and the beginning of the probate process. In the course o f our other small talk, he asked me, “So, what did you give up for Lent?” I was shocked. I hadn’t even given the idea a passing thought. In all I had had going on in the lead up to Ash Wednesday and Lent, I had not so much as considered what discipline I might undertake in this season of reflection and renewal. After a flabbergasted silence, I said, “Absolutely nothing.” He chuckled and said, “That makes sense.” But the question stuck with me. What did I give up? I’ve been closer to just giving up. I thought to myself. And I am not alone. I have had a number of conversations, in hushed tones, before or after Bible Study or Christian Conversations, even during the Fish Fry on Friday, where people have shared with me their anxiety, fear, despair, hopelessness, restlessness; their palpable anger and staggering helplessness regarding the current political climate, about how their neighbors are terrified to leave their homes, about how the ministries they support are being defunded and their clients targeted, about how churches are declining and animosity among neighbors is on the rise. There is a pervasive and nearly tangible sense of dread all around us, and it is difficult to maintain a sense of hope, to remain grounded in the kingdom of God, to display the resilience of a people of faith. As the gap widens between the world God has promised and the world we are living in, we would be fools not to ask, What is taking so long? Abram asks God much the same question. “What will you give me?” he asks in response to God’s promise to defend and reward him. “Prove it,” says Abram. “At the moment, I have no children. How can this promise possibly be true?” God responds to Abram’s question with a second promise to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and God counts Abram’s trust as righteousness. So God asks for a sacrifice, a sign and seal, a sacrament; an action that does what it says and says what it does. Abram sacrificed livestock and waited on the Lord. And in this waiting, he is exhausted and overcome by a terrifying darkness. Paul advises the Philippians that despite many living as enemies of the cross of Christ, all appetite and revelry, with their minds set on only what they can see right in front of them— despite this, these imitators of Paul and followers of Jesus are citizens of another nation, members of a commonwealth, an independent state within the empire. The state of the world is what it is, and the duty of the followers of Jesus is to stand firm, to wait for the Savior who will transform their humiliation into vindication. But our question remains; What is taking so long? It has been some 2000 years since Paul wrote these words to the church a Phillipi, and only God knows how long it has been since God spoke these words to Abram. The psalmist believed that he would see these promises in the land of the living— that is, in his lifetime. I am not sure I share his confidence. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus seems to be doing some waiting of his own. Warned by some Pharisees that Herod wants to kill him, Jesus speaks in parable about his death and resurrection, dismissing their concern and Herod’s authority. “Tell that old fox that I will doing what I came to do,” Jesus tells the anxious Pharisees, “and I’ll be doing it in his backyard. I came to die and it could only happen in Jerusalem. “O Jerusalem, How I have longed to gather you up like a mother hen. But you were too busy watching the fox. “You weren’t content with the wings of a hen, and you preferred the wings of Caesar’s eagle.” Like the good people of Jerusalem, we tend to get ourselves in trouble while we are waiting on the Lord. We think this waiting is passive, inactive, boring. In our boredom, we begin to doubt God is going to keep these promises, and we begin to listen to the fox, and we begin to prefer the eagle. In our boredom and disbelief, we destroy ourselves and each other, we begin to worship our appetites, we begin to wallow in our shame, and we begin to focus on only what we can see right in front of us. We begin to live, as Paul says, as enemies of the cross. But God is not waiting to keep these promises, nor is waiting on the Lord a passive, boring endeavor. God counted Abram’s faith as righteousness and called him to sacrifice. Paul tells the Philippians that while we await a savior, we already have our salvation— liberation from wanton consumption and self-abasement, and we have a new citizenship in the Commonwealth of God. And Jesus is about his work despite the distraction and desertion of Jerusalem. God shows us what it means to wait on the Lord by waiting on us. God showed up for Abram in his deep and terrifying darkness. The savior we await does not prevent our humiliation, but transforms it into God’s own glory. God has heard our cries from this deep and terrifying darkness, and God is wondering what is taking so long? God is wondering when we will begin the sacrifice. Will we give up listening to the Fox? Will we give up our preference for the wings of a tyrant’s eagle over those of a mother hen? Or will we just give up, simultaneously bored and overwhelmed, faithless and hopeless? This deep and terrifying darkness is the very place God has longed to meets us. These bodies of humiliation are the very bodies God has longed to transform into the glorious Body of Christ. If you are tired of waiting on the Lord; if you are despairing of the depths of the darkness all around you; stand firm, beloved. God is waiting on you. Be strong, take heart, and wait for the Lord— give up your appetites for destruction, stop wallowing in your despair, and set your minds on the whole truth. You are citizens of the commonwealth of God, so act like it. God is counting your faithfulness as righteousness. Amen. 

This week, I overheard a phone conversation between Pastor Jennifer and our nephew. He’s a very bright kid, needs to keep his hands busy, as well as his brain. “Aunti e,” he said, “did you know the Statue of Liberty used to be bronze?” “Do you mean copper?” she asked. “Yeah, copper.” he replied, “And now because of a chemical reaction with the weather, it’s all dull and green.” “That’s right,” Jennifer replied, “it’s not new and shiny anymore is it?” “No, it’s not. It looked better the other way.” Since he’s 9 years old and the Statue of Liberty was gifted to the US by the government of France in 1886, I’m not sure how he knew it looked better before. We are receiving two new members today by Affirmation of Baptism. In the 3½ years I’ve been the pastor here, we have received 3 members by letter of transfer, one by baptism, and one by transfer from inactive to active. And now, these two here today. We have had quite a number of visitors over the years. I often get to see new visitors in the narthex before worship as they interact with our regular crowd. I often don’t get to share a table with them during the fellowship meal, because new visitors are usually at a full table by the time I make it to the Fellowship Hall after worship. In these interactions with our members, I often hear a lot of pleasantries, the normal, cordial sort of stuff: “Where are y’all from?” “Did you just move here?” “What do you do for work?” But I have also heard some stuff that makes me want to hide under a pew, the sort of stuff that, the equivalent of which, would end a first date with no hope of a second one. More than once, from more than one person, I have heard our members say to first-time visitors, “We Lutherans like to sit in the back, so you can probably find a seat up front.” “Don’t worry about sitting in someone else’s seat; most of the pews are empty most of the time anyway.” “Yeah, we used to be 400 members, but this is us now.” Quite the first impression. I am not naming any names, and as I said, I have heard these and similar statements multiple times, from multiple people, over the years. Glory fades. It would be so nice to string along from glory to glory, from victory to victory, from mountaintop to mountaintop. But that isn’t where the majority of our lives are lived. Glory is like a burst of lightening; flash and thunder, a mix of awe and terror, and then it’s gone. Only traces remain. Racing hearts, hair standing on end— or a wake of destruction. When Moses ascended the mountain to meet with the Lord, the radiance he had first seen set a bush ablaze without consuming it shone from his face. The Israelites were afraid to look at him and he had to wear a veil over his face. But like the Statue of Liberty, as time passed, so did the shine. When Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain he was transfigured before them, holding court with the prophets of old. Sleepy, big-mouthed Peter says, “It is good for us to be here. Let’s build a camp and stay.” It is not Jesus, Moses, Elijah, or the other disciples that respond to Peter’s suggestion, but a voice from a cloud— the cloud that led the Israelites by day, the cloud that swallowed the summit when Moses met with God, the cloud that brought a chariot of fire to sweep Elijah into the presence of God without tasting death. This voice says to the disciples, “This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him.” And then it was all over. Moses, Elijah, the cloud, the voice, and the radiance, all gone, Only the traces remained. It’s the traces that haunt us now. The traces of a youth ministry that was once filled with our own kids. An empty nursery, Sunday School space occupied by renters. We have kneelers in the pews and a rail at the altar because our knees used to let us use them. We have projectors and screens, hand-held mics, and a keyboard because we used to have the volunteers to have regular band and more contemporary music. We have a sanctuary this size because, yes, we used to seat 400 worshipers on a given Sunday. And none of those things changed because we wanted them to. None of those things changed because we were ready to move on. None of those things changed because we were unfaithful, ungrateful, or unwilling to carry on. All of those things changed because change is the very nature of reality. Who among us cannot relate to Peter? Who doesn’t share his sentiment? It is good to be here. I wish we could come here, meet with Jesus, share the experience with each other, and nothing would ever change. But that’s not how this works. Moses didn’t stay on the mountain. Moses came down the mountain because the people needed to hear from God. Jesus didn’t stay on the mountain. Jesus came down the mountain because the people who needed his ministry weren’t on that mountain. Jesus came down that mountain because a desperate father and a suffering son needed deliverance. Jesus came down that mountain because a desperate people and as suffering world needed death to be defeated and resurrection to be realized. God cares about those in the valley. We have tried to stay on this mountain for far too long. The glory has faded and the cloud dispersed. The shine has dulled. We keep trying to get folks to show up and marvel with us at the traces, at the remnant, at the historic marker where the glory used to be. We keep trying to recruit folks to our historical re-enactment troupe, hoping they’ll keep fighting old battles with us. But Jesus has left the mountain. Jesus has gone on ahead to find the hurting, the grieving, the desperate. Jesus expects us to follow him, and he won’t wait for us. We can keep trying to interest folks in our faded glory, or we can follow Jesus down the mountain. We can meet our neighbors where they are, we can know their needs— and their names— and we can become the kind of fellowship that frees our neighbors from all that holds them captive. The truth about the Statue of Liberty is that the patina on the copper is the natural state of copper. The shiny, polished state is unnatural. The shiny, polished state is somehow less real. The call to follow Jesus is the call to live in reality as it is— not as we wish it was, not as it used to be, not in its shiny, polished state, but in all its demonic, frothing, desperate reality. To follow Jesus is to speak truth to power, and especially when that power lies. To follow Jesus is to take the side of the oppressed, the side of the invaded, the side of the demonized, the side of the refugee, the side of the immigrant— and to call out the faithlessness and perversion of the oppressor, of the invader, of the demonizers, of the colonizers, of the nationalists. Glory fades because change is the natural state of reality, and reality as it is is the enemy those who would use your longing to make reality glorious again to seize you and keep you down. Jesus has come down the mountain to show us reality as it is, to show us that the God of the mountain is still God in the valley. Will we linger here, seized and held down by the spirit of our former glory? Or will we follow Jesus? 

Anybody else feel yesterday’s weather right in the joints? I always know when the weather is about to change, because at some point, my left hip became a sort of weath er station, sensing the slightest change in pressure, humidity, and temperature and alerting me by hampering my ability to walk. It is a literal pain in the rear. Maybe it’s not your hip, but I would bet you can relate to some degree. Living in these bodies can be a challenge. This is much more true for some than others, but even the most able bodied among us know the limits of living in a body. Our Bodies can be a source of immense pleasure and a source of debilitating pain. Our bodies divide us, isolate us, scare us when they need food and drink, shelter and healthcare. Our bodies break and get sick. Our bodies are embarrassing, inconvenient, uncomfortable, sweaty, smelly, gross. And then they die. We worry that there isn’t enough for me to have what I need and for others to have it too, so we try to take care of ourselves, of our families. We think, I’d better get what I can, while I can, and before someone else does. So, generally, we take one of two different paths. Some folks commodify bodies, exploiting our fears and aspirations, promising safety and plenty, so long as we prioritize this group of bodies over that group of bodies. And in this eutopia of safety and plenty, we forget we live in a body, never hungry or thirsty, never uncomfortable or sweaty, because some other group of bodies has borne that burden for us. The second path seeks to transcend the body in an entirely different way. This path leads to the sweet by-and-by, a blessed tomorrow when the world will be made right, where our suffering bodies will be exchanged for a cloud and harp, a disembodied existence where pain and need will be no more. Similarly, some seek to transcend the body by becoming a digital avatar, projecting their egos into a virtual reality where they can be a preferred version of themselves and not have to think about the limitations of having a body and all its messy, inconvenient needs. It seems to me that our readings for today are mostly about bodies. Jeremiah seems to be saying, “Don’t live disembodied, cut off like a shrub in the desert from the source of life and vitality. We shouldn’t be fooled by every impulse toward self-preservation or nihilism, but we should be grounded in reality, rooted by our baptism, and we will be able to weather the storms and droughts, blessings and woes, of this life.” Jesus’ answer to a disembodied existence is incarnation. We are more than an animated corpse, more than a soul in a flesh prison. We are an extension of the incarnation. Paul argues that our hope in the resurrection comes from sharing in the incarnation; if Christ is raised bodily from the dead, then we can hope to be raised bodily too, because we share in the incarnation. Jesus comes down to this level place, and he meets all sorts of people bound up in the condition of their bodies. Jesus does not exploit their pain to gain a following. Jesus does not tell them to ignore all their pain and suffering because there is hope in the great beyond. Jesus heals their bodies. They reached out and touched his body. Power to heal was coming out of his body. Then Jesus speaks to the poor, and the rich. He speaks to the hungry and the well-fed. He speaks to the grieving and the maligned, as well as the jubilant and celebrities. God cares about bodies. God cares enough about bodies to come down, to inhabit a body in all its messy inconvenience, to stand on level footing with other messy, inconvenient bodies; and to redeem embodied-ness from birth to death and beyond. Sharing in this incarnation calls us to a very specific way of being in the world. We are baptized in our bodies that we might be like a tree planted by the water, that we might be planted in a community of other bodies, that we might be planted in the body of Christ. We are nourished by the body of Christ, by wheat and wine and word that has become body and blood for us. These sacraments are not given to us as concessions. These sacraments are not given to us as poor substitutes of things to come. These sacraments are not given to us because we cannot yet transcend our bodily existence. These sacraments are given to us because we share in the incarnation, because there is only one reality, because God cares about our bodies. God came down to us in Jesus to show us that we share in the incarnation, to teach us that our bodies should bring us together and not tear us apart. We are like a tree, planted in the solid ground of reality, with our roots stretching out toward the waters of baptism, toward a community of other bodies. We are not trapped in our bodies. We are incarnate, a meeting of matter and spirit on level ground. This old hip may ache, my beard continue to gray, my eyes and ears weaken, my heart fail, and my corpse decay. But I share this incarnation with One who has come down to redeem this union of matter and spirit and promises to raise me up on the last day, not with harp and cloud, but in a body. And in the meantime, this incarnation is shared not only with Christ Jesus, but with the whole of humankind, with every other body. If your body is sick, hungry, thirsty, cold, naked, sweaty, inconvenient, uncomfortable, scary; then my body is not safe until yours is. There is only one reality, one incarnation, and we share it— good and bad, storm and drought, dying and rising, blessing and woe. The incarnation calls us to equal footing in a level place, shared with Jesus and each other. Amen. 

To the best of my knowledge, I have never met anyone famous. I have met the authors of a few of the books I’ve read, but I wouldn’t call academic theologians and Biblic al Studies professors famous people. I think I saw Matthew Perry in an airport once, but I can neither confirm that sighting, nor can I call a supposed sighting the same thing as a meeting. Do you know of the game ‘six degrees of separation’? The idea is that between you and anyone else there are only six degrees of separation, or a maximum of six relationships separating you from someone else For instance, I have a friend and colleague who discerned his call to ministry while sitting at the kitchen table of Coretta Scott King and talking about the state of the world. So, I know this friend, who knew Mrs. King, who was married to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. There are only two degrees of separation between me and Martin Luther King, Jr.. This same friend met and received a blessing from Pope St. John Paul II, which I think makes him a second-class relic. I have another friend who, in the course of our last conversation, casually mentioned that Bryan White had called him that morning to see if my friend had any songs he could record for his new project. That’s one degree of separation between me and Bryan White. I have never met anyone famous, but I know people, and I know people who know people. And to be honest, I get the same kind of feeling from all our readings today. Each of our readings give us an account of a direct encounter with the Living God. “In the year that King Uzziah died,” says the prophet Isaiah, “I saw the Lord.” “As one untimely born,” says the apostle Paul, “[the risen Lord Jesus] appeared to me.” “[Jesus] got into one of the boats,” St. Luke tells us, “the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore.” Isaiah is grieving the way things used to be and reeling from his newfound sense of uncertainty at the end of the 54-year reign of King Uzziah. Paul, then called Saul, is murderously angry at the followers of Jesus and on his way to take action that would rid the world of these folks. These fishermen and would-be disciples are exhausted from an unfruitful third-shift when a street preacher shows up and asks for a favor. Maybe you can relate. I know I can. Exhausted, grieving the way things were, mad at those other people who are messing things up and wishing I didn’t have to share the planet with them… Where is my encounter with the Living God? When is God gonna show up and shake the doorposts of this place and give me a new purpose? When is Jesus gonna come and prove the resurrection to me? When is Jesus gonna step into my boat and show me what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time? Grief, and anger, and exhaustion have a way of distracting us from the bigger picture, of turning our gaze inward until all we can see is our own pain. And in each of these stories of encounter, this is precisely where the prophet, apostle, and weary fishermen encounter the Living God— in the depths of their pain. It was IN Isaiah’s grief and uncertainty that Isaiah saw the Lord and became a prophet It was ON THE WAY to murder the followers of Jesus that Jesus knocked Saul off his high horse and called him to be an apostle. It was IN THE EMPTY BOAT that Simon discovered the Living God in Jesus. Each of these hurt, hateful and harried folks, encountered God IN their exhaustion, grief, uncertainty, and blind rage, and each of them are called to obedience. The invitation to obedience, to faithfulness, to discipleship, is the call to be transformed by an encounter with the Living God in the midst of our circumstances. Discipleship is the result of encounter and obedience. But, what if you’ve never had that encounter? What if it feels like there are too many degrees of separation between me and the Living God? If discipleship is the result of encounter and obedience, then start with obedience. Start right where you are. Are you grieving the way things used to be? Then go and share that grief with those who are grieving. Are you angry you have to share the planet with those other people? Then climb off your high horse and follow the risen Jesus. Are you worn-out and burned-out with nothing to show for it? Then be faithful and trust Jesus for the result. By our faithfulness, by our obedience, we embody the presence of God. And an exhausted, grieving, uncertain, angry world discovers that we and the Living God are all in the same boat. Discipleship is the result of obedience and encounter. By our faithfulness, by our obedience, we will become the world’s encounter with the Living God. Paula D’Arcy says, “God comes to us disguised as our lives.” There are no degrees of separation between us and the Living God. But sometimes it takes an encounter to see through our grief, uncertainty, anger, and exhaustion. And sometimes that will take a disciple. Who else has God sent? Will you go? 

If you haven’t remembered, yes, this is exactly the same gospel reading as last week. The Revised Common Lectionary had the reading split up into two separate readings, but I found it hard to discuss one half of the story and not the other. So, last week, we talked about the consequences of preaching. Jesus preaches and while many speak well of him, when he preaches in his hometown, they cannot hear his critique and nearly throw him off a cliff. Preaching has consequences, because a good preacher will show you the law— which will offend and condemn you— before they show you the good news— which will comfort you. Preaching has consequences for both the preacher and the hearer. This week, we hear comforting passages from Jeremiah and from I Corinthians. “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb,” says the Lord to Jeremiah, “I knew you.” A comforting thought, for sure, echoing the sentiment of Psalm 139. And then, I Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter, read at many a wedding, including my own. We so often hear this passage in the context of a wedding ceremony that we forget that the passage comes in a longer discourse about spiritual gifts, and assume that Paul is talking about marital love, covenant love, an all-you-need-is-love kind of love, the love-will-keep-us-alive kind of love, instead of the God-is-Love kind of love. This passage from Jeremiah’s call story and this passage from I Corinthians play into a way of reading the Bible that I think is exactly what got Jesus in trouble that sabbath morning in Nazareth. When we read these passages, we glom onto the parts that make us feel good and we gloss over the parts that make us confused or feel bad, and we assume that we are the main characters, the ones being saved, the prophet being called, the lovers having their union blessed. We hardly ever see ourselves in the wayward backsliders who need a prophet to call them to repentance. We hardly ever see ourselves in the softheaded and hardhearted congregation who needs the apostle to write to them so they remember that the whole of the law and prophets is summed up in Love. We hardly ever see ourselves as the assembly turned lynch mob who wouldn’t even have Jesus for a preacher. None of these passages— not a single one of them— was written with a single living person in mind. Each of them were written in different places, at different times, in different languages, by different authors. We can read the scriptures and we can find parity with the people of Israel in Jeremiah’s day; we can feel a sense of kinship with the faithful and foolish followers of Jesus in the ancient city of Corinth; we can find ourselves sitting in the pews and listening to a sermon that confronts us a little more than it comforts us; and this is a very faithful way to read the scriptures. But it is unfaithful to gloss over, leave out, refuse to listen to the bits that ask something of us, the parts that call us to repentance, the pieces that call us to the carpet and show us how we should be living. It is the job of the faithful preacher to call you out, to dress you down, to rattle your nerves a bit. It is the very work of preaching itself to assail your ego as Public Enemy No. 1, to expose you to yourself as you’ve been unable to perceive, to hold up the mirror to the spinach in your teeth. There is a part of preaching that should feel like that dream where you’re back in high school, you’ve shown up for the exams, in your underwear, all your pencils are broken, and the test is in a different language. But the rest of preaching should feel like being suddenly shaken out of that dream, coming to consciousness, realizing that high school has long passed, all your exams are over, and your safely in your nice warm bed. God has sent us apostles, prophets, teachers, and preachers to show us who we are and to show us the way to a better world. And Jesus has come to show us that still more excellent way. Preaching certainly has consequences, but by and large, those consequences depend on the hearer and not the preacher. We can choose what the consequences of preaching will be. We can kill the messengers or we can heed the message. So, let me show you this still more excellent way. If I could preach like Jesus and Billy Graham but didn’t have love, I would be no better than any other late-night, cable-access huckster that wants to sell you miracle water. If I could see the future and answer every question you could muster with perfect clarity; If I had the faith of all the saints such that I could cure all your doubts and diseases, but didn’t have any love, what good would I be to anyone. If I were to give away everything I owned; If I were to give away a kidney, part of my liver, and my bone marrow, but I didn’t do out of love, what good could it really do? Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful, or arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Said another way, Love doesn’t make itself the main character. Love can be the consequence of preaching if we will choose it. Love can be our response to being called out. Love can be our response to feeling exposed by the law. Love can be our response when our neighbors have less than we do. Love can be our response to a world in need of good news. Love can be our response to our neighbors awash in cable news. Love can be our response when party loyalty demands our allegiance. Love can be our response when everyone else wants to throw Jesus off a cliff. Preaching has consequences, but I think we get to choose them. What will we choose? Will we drive Jesus away? Will we be offended by his message and his ministry if it feels like it’s more focused on our neighbors than on us? In our rage, will we let Jesus pass through our midst? Or will we choose love? Will we let God be the main character? Will we rejoice with the truth even if it stands on our toes? Will we let love be our response to both the law and the Gospel? Will we choose the still more excellent way? Amen. 

This morning, I lengthened gospel reading through verse 30 of Luke 4 to include the rest of the story, which we would have heard next week. This week and next we will be hearing this same passage, in its entirety, and we will be talking about preaching and consequences. What are the consequences of preaching? For the Preacher? For the listener? Looking at today’s lessons gives us some clues. In the reading from Nehemiah, the Persian King has allowed Nehemiah to come back to the ruined city of Jerusalem and rebuild it. But before they do, he has Ezra the scribe open the book of the Law of Moses and begin to read it to the people with interpretation, so that the people might remember and the city might be consecrated. The people listen to Ezra, standing in reverence to hear the reading of the book of the law, and the people are moved to tears. They cried Amen, Amen— or “Let it be so!! Let it be so!!”— and they bowed their heads and worshiped God, afraid even to look up as they worshiped. Ezra assured them of the Lord’s favor and called them to wipe away their tears. It is this “with interpretation” that we call preaching. Ezra not only read the text to them, but expounded and explained it to them, such that they were able to see themselves as in a mirror, and they were cut to the heart by what they saw. Ezra didn’t stop there, but assured them of God’s grace, the Lord’s favor. This is what God does by the law, holds up a mirror to our sin and shame, forcing us to face and fix it. And, this is what God does by the gospel, assures us of the unearned favor of God who now calls us to repentance and reconciliation instead of sin and shame. Jesus’ preaching, on the other hand, seems to have mixed reviews. Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returns to Galilee. Where was he? Jesus comes back to civilization from the wilderness. He has just been tested in the desert, fasting and fighting with the devil for 40 days. When the Spirit brings him back, he preaches in the synagogues and is “praised by everyone.” But then he goes home. When Jesus comes to Nazareth, he goes to the synagogue, “as was his custom,” he stood up, read the assigned text, everyone sat down, and “the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.” If Luke were a TV writer, I am certain this is exactly where the network would have inserted the commercial break. “We’ll be right back after these messages.” And maybe that is what the compliers of the Revised Common Lectionary were trying to do, build a little suspense to keep folks in the pews next week too. But I hate it when they do that on TV and I’m not gonna do it here! Having crescendoed to this moment, the Gospel of Luke gives us Jesus’ inaugural sermon. “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus said. Luke says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’” So far, so good. But Jesus had more to say. He brings up the prophets; Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, Elisha and Naaman the Syrian. He says a prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown. And these folks who were just speaking well of him, are suddenly so violently angry that they drive him out of town to the edge of a cliff hoping to throw him down to death. Yes, beloved, Preaching has consequences. For Nehemiah and Ezra, their preaching led to worship and restoration. For Jesus, they tried to throw him off a cliff. Preachers are under an enormous strain to be funny, to be smart—but not too smart. Preachers have to be poignant and timely, without being too trendy or edgy. Preachers have to be insightful and inspiring but they also have to be practical. Preachers also try desperately not to offend anyone, though most often, we only get to choose who to offend. Because Preachers also have to preach the Word of God. Now hear me, I do not mean to sound like one of those Bible-thumpers screeching diatribes and polemics, insults and hate-speech while hiding behind a literal reading of the Bible and calling it the Word of God. When I say that Preachers have to preach the Word of God, I mean three distinct things: First, Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Second, God’s promise to love and save the whole of Creation through Jesus, which is contained in the Bible. Luther called the Bible “the manger that holds the infant Christ.” Third, the proclamation of who Jesus is and God’s promise love and save the whole of creation. This is what preaching is. And the main problem with this kind of preaching, is that it is impossible to not offend everyone. And that is just what Jesus did. He talked about the poor, which offends the poor by embarrassing them and the rich by pointing out that they exist. He talked about releasing the captives, which means that he’s advocating amnesty, which offends the lawyers and the judges, and people think he’s making the streets less safe. He’s talking about recovery of sight, well that’s healthcare. He’s talking about the oppressed, and that’s just socialism. And then he proclaims that it’s the year of the Lord’s favor. “What’s that supposed to mean, Jesus? We know your dad. We know your family. Who do you think you are, anyway?” If Jesus’ sermon can go this badly, if Jesus’ preaching offended everyone, well, then, maybe we cut every other preacher a little slack. This is what Preaching does. It wounds our egos with the Law before it comforts our souls with the Gospel. Preaching holds up a mirror so we can see the broccoli in our teeth. Preaching will embarrass us a little, will cause us to bow our heads and worship with our faces to the ground, before it calls us to raise our eyes and hearts in praise and adoration. Preaching has consequences. Stephen, the first Christian martyr recorded in the book of Acts, is stoned to death after giving a sermon in response to a question. Through the centuries and millennia, preachers have been stoned, arrested, imprisoned, and assassinated as a consequence of their preaching. Jesus was almost thrown off a cliff. Preaching has consequences. So, if you hear an offensive sermon, lean in and not away. The Law has wounded your ego, but the Gospel is about to free you, to restore your sight, to proclaim the time of God’s favor. There is some bad preaching out there, and some bad preachers. But we should be asking ourselves; Did this sermon offend my conscience, or did it offend my pride? Was it way off base, or was it a little too close to home? Preaching has consequences. For both the preacher and the listener. 

I was recently reminded of a story, a sort of parable, that I believe originates with AA, though I was not able to verify this. A man was walking down the street and ha ppened to fall into a hole. The hole was deep and the man was wounded from the fall, and there was no way he could climb out by himself. Shortly, a doctor walked by the hole and the man yelled up, “Help! I’ve fallen down this hole, I’m hurt, and I can’t climb out.” The doctor pulls out a pad and pen, writes a prescription, throws it down the hole, and shouts, “Good luck!” as he goes on his way. A short time later, a priest walks by, and the man yells up, “Father, help me! I’ve fallen down this hole, I’m hurt, and I can’t climb out.” The priest has pity on the man, and prays for his healing, offers his absolution, and continues on his way. A short time later, a good friend of this man comes by and notices his friend in this deep hole. Without hesitation, this good friend jumped down in the hole too. The man says, “Are you crazy! Now we are both stuck down here!” The friend says, “Yes, but I’ve been down here before. I know the way out.” I like this story. It reminds me of another quote I heard recently from Brittany Packett Cunningham, who says, “Train yourself toward solidarity and not charity. You are no one’s savior. You are a mutual partner in the pursuit of freedom.” This man in a hole needed help. The doctor’s concern was the man’s health and his response was professional, even if unhelpful. The priest’s concern was the man’s soul and he appealed to God for help, and offered the man God’s forgiveness when the man had fallen in the hole, not jumped, and all the blessed assurance of God’s grace this priest could offer did nothing to change the man’s circumstances; he remained wounded and in a hole. The man’s friend understood the assignment, as the kids say these days. The man’s friend had fallen down this hole before, he had suffered the same woundedness and he knew that neither medicine nor ministry were going to change this man’s circumstances. What this man needed was solidarity. He needed someone who knew what it was like, someone who knew that the doctor’s prescription felt like a Band-aid on a bullet hole. He needed someone who understood that being forgiven for something you cannot control, for circumstances you cannot change, feels more like judgement than absolution. There is a sociological term coined by Abraham Maslow for the law of the instrument, “Maslow’s hammer.” Essentially, Maslow says, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail. The doctor and the priest where just utilizing the only tools they had, and the tools they had were not designed for the problem at hand. The doctor saw a patient, the priest saw a sinner. But the friend saw a friend. The friend had been down there before and knew he needed no special tools. He didn’t need the rescue squad, didn’t call 911, didn’t rush to the hardware store and buy a ladder. He knew the only way his friend was coming out of that hole was with guidance and support. So the friend drew close, close enough to lean on, close enough to share the danger and the burden, as long as it took for the two of them to walk out together. This is solidarity. Said a little more theologically, this is incarnation. In our own context, we don’t have to look far to find folks who are down the proverbial hole. There is often so much more suffering around us that we are able to address with the tools we have. It is understandable that we might take the Maslow’s hammer approach, doing what we can with what we have, and hoping that if it doesn’t fix the problem, that all our hammering might at least make a dent. Or, we take a different approach. Recognizing that we cannot solve the issue, we avoid it, we walk away, turn a blind eye, labeling the circumstances a “tragedy,” absolving ourselves or our self-protective apathy. So, what do we do when we find someone in hole, and we don’t know the way out? This story of the wedding at Cana gives us some insight, I think. Jesus and his mother, and all the disciples, have been invited to a wedding. These ancient near-eastern weddings were essentially a multi-day feast. If you were throwing this party, you wanted your guests to thoroughly enjoy themselves, and it was more than a social gaffe to run out of wine before the whole thing was said and done. Jesus’ mother seems to be the first to notice. “Do something,” she says to Jesus. “This is not our problem,” says Jesus. Mary turns to the waiter and says, “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary saw that the hosts of this wedding were in a hole. They were running out of wine and out time before this was noticed. Mary knew that she didn’t have the tools to solve the problem, and she didn’t know the way out of this hole. But she knew the one who did. Mary didn’t try to be the savior herself, but she directed them to the savior and the savior to them. Mary practiced solidarity with the wedding hosts, drawing close enough to know the problem, standing and calling attention to the problem, knowing she was not the savior, but knowing that the savior would know the way out. We are not the savior. We are Mary. Our calling is not to be the savior, but to bare this savior into the world, to stand in solidarity with the suffering of the world, to call the savior’s attention to this suffering, saying, “Do something!” and the attention of the suffering to the savior, saying, “Do whatever he says.” And that is where the miracle happens, in the following together. In the following together, we find that we have more tools at our disposal than a bludgeoning hammer. In the following together, we find that the tragedies of the world do not absolve us from standing in solidarity even when all we can do is share in the ache. In the following together, doctors and priests and professionals have a role to play alongside friends and strangers. In the following together, we not only find the way out, but we can begin to fill in these holes so our neighbors don’t fall down there in the first place. We are not the savior. We cannot solve many of the problems of the world. We cannot save the world. We cannot rescue everyone from every inescapable circumstance. But we can learn their names. We can know their stories. We can grow close enough to feel their hurts and hopelessness, to hear their stomachs growl, to dress their wounds, to wipe their tears as we shed our own. And we can call the attention of the savior to this suffering. We can call the attention of the suffering to the savior. And we can follow the savior out of this hole together. Amen.