Keeping the Season

"Palm" by brooklin, on Flickr

Luke 19:28-40
After he had said this, [Jesus] went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying,

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

--
Friends, here we are, again, at the beginning of the end. Palm Sunday, our entry into Holy Week, the first movement of a long and difficult story that leads to death, and then to resurrection.

Palm Sunday is the beginning, which makes it a bit of a challenge to preach, because every sermon seems unfinished. Jesus has come to the city, but for what? We don’t actually hear the most important parts of the story until later in the week.

This year, as I kept pouring over the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem, I found myself thinking most deeply about the disciples, and about how joyful and confident they are in their faith today, and I started thinking about how their faith will crumbles as Jesus gets closer and closer to the cross.

Did you notice, when we read from Luke’s gospel today, that unlike the other gospel writers, he doesn’t say anything about palm branches? And the word “hosanna” doesn’t show up? And there aren’t huge crowds of people and children. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is heralded only by the disciples (who are doing their best to make some noise) and the Pharisees (who are trying to hush them up).

Jesus comes down the path, and it is the disciples, the faithful ones, who can't hide their excitement about Christ their king, who is is Son of God, Ruler of the Universe, teacher, healer, redeemer. In this moment, they aren't ashamed of who they are or what they believe.

They "praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen" and they shout, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” It's a reprise of the song of the angels at Jesus' birth

Right now, on the hillside, with nobody but a few religious authorities to see them, they don't care that they are making a ruckus, they aren't worried that their shouting might offend the empire. When the authorities rebuke Jesus for this unsightly and unsanctioned demonstration, he says that if the disciples weren’t shouting, the very stones along the path would be crying out.

The stones and the disciples alike trust that Jesus is the one who brings cosmic love, forgiveness, redemption, salvation, peace, and grace to the deepest longings and groaning of the universe. I have no doubt that the disciples were sincere and earnest as they cheered alongside the road. They have noble and grand intentions.

But things are about to get unsafe. And difficult. And real.

There will be an awkward washing of feet and a last family meal. There will be an armed cohort rushing them in the garden, and a kiss of betrayal, and all of the sudden, the obnoxious but neutral Roman occupation will start to feel threatening, and Jesus will be treated as a common criminal, and all of the sudden, all of the beautiful, idealistic visions of Jesus's promised kingdom will seem less immediate and less important than keeping a low profile to save their own skins.

Do I think that the disciples intended to desert Jesus in the garden? Do I think that Judas, when he first started following Jesus, intended to become cynical and greedy and bent toward betrayal? Do I think that Peter intended to deny Jesus around the fire? Do I think that the disciples, looking post-resurrection, intended to be so afraid that they would lock themselves away in an upper room?

I don't think the disciples intended any of this.

They followed Jesus as far as they did because they believed in his vision of an upside-down kingdom. Every miracle that he did, every person he healed, every parable he taught revealed to them a beautiful world of hope and healing, running counter to politics and power as usual.

But maybe they hoped that Jesus was exaggerating when he said that this kingdom could only come through suffering and his death. And when things start to look dangerous and bleak for Jesus, and for the disciples by association, their fears start to overcome their faith. Giving into the anonymity off the masses starts to sound appealing. Staying silent seems more prudent than crying out.

As I've been preparing for Holy Week this year, I've started to latch on to the absurdity off this holy story at the very heart of our faith. That we need Jesus to be a servant, to give his body for us, to give up his pride and his life on the cross. That somehow death and resurrection bring salvation. It is a crazy-hard sell.

So I guess what I’m saying is that on days then the stakes aren’t so high, I’m right there with the cheering disciples who praise Jesus as king. And I am great at talking a big game about how Christ’s suffering redeems our suffering…when there is nothing in particular riding on those words. And sure, I can stand up here and preach inside the safety of the sanctuary that Jesus is Lord.

But ask me the last time I started a conversation about the saving grace of the suffering Christ with an acquaintance down at Java John's. Ask me if I always have the courage to believe that God really is suffering along side me when I am feeling lonely as I grieve for myself or for the world. Or ask me the last time that I shamelessly stood up for the plight of the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the homeless, the immigrant, the refugee, the outcast or the outlaw...without either first putting a disclaimer on my words, or following up my words with an apology.

I totally understand the reluctance of the disciples to keep up their cheering as the pathway led closer and closer to the cross. Sometimes, when the stakes get high, it seems far more practical and neutral to stay quiet, lest you offend anybody, and to stay hidden, lest you accidentally admit to yourself or others that maybe you don't have your faith all figured out.

This is exactly why we can’t skip from Palm Sunday to Easter.

I mean, if life were all Palm Sundays and Easter mornings, then faith would be only confident hosannas and joyous alleluias. And we’d send out the message that being a person of faith means that you always get it right, and you always live up to your end of the baptismal covenant, and that nothing bad happens and nothing ever scares you and somehow faith means that death or despair aren’t real.

Except that today we laud a king who is marching into Jerusalem not to pretend that everything is perfect, but to take on every fear, every doubt, every frailty. Jesus did exactly what we could never do. He took the difficult, awkward, painful, shameful, weak stuff in our hearts and in our world, and instead of bringing shame or judgement, he brought redemption and resurrection.

It is how salvation is meant to work.

God shows up in fragile places: in a helpless baby, in a mortal human form, in an outcast, a suffering servant, one who washes feet and touches lepers and reinterprets himself as the Passover lamb, one who is mocked, tripped, unjustly accused, hungry, thirsty, bleeding, dying.

It is the cross that exposes God. It is the cross that exposes us. It leaves nothing hidden and, more importantly, it leaves nothing unredeemed.

What a crazy story our faith is. That the God of everything would be brought to nothing so that all of your own weak and worried parts would be brought to new life. So that all of the dark shadows of this world might not win the day. So that the hidden things might be uncovered, and all might be brought to light. Your fear and your shame, our brokenness and our ailing creation. All of it revealed. All of it redeemed. All of it saved.

So maybe….maybe we give a little grace to the disciples this week. And maybe we give a little grace to ourselves. It is okay if we don’t have it all together this week, because honestly, the whole story of our faith is about to come unhinged. It’s going to get scary and painful and confusing.

So if you get squicked out on Maundy Thursday at the thought of someone washing your feet, it’s ok.
If you get angry at Judas for betraying Jesus and if you get angry at Peter for denying Jesus, it’s okay.
If you cry on Good Friday when Jesus dies, it’s okay.
And if you spend Holy Saturday in a fog, because you really aren’t exactly sure what happens in the waiting space between death and resurrection, it’s okay.

If you have grand intentions in faith, but get scared, it’s okay.
If you love Jesus but don’t have it all together, it’s okay.

The disciples didn’t have it all together, either.

And yet…Jesus died to save them anyway.
And he died to save you too.

Amen.

"Fall Sun" by maxine1313, on Flickr

Hebrews 1:1-4
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

John 1:1-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

--
As the first birds start to sing their song over Bethlehem, Mary opens her eyes. Joseph is not yet stirring, and the newborn Jesus is still sleeping, tired from all the work of entering the world. The first ribbons of daylight creep through the cracks in the ceiling, and in the rising light of dawn, Mary feels all of the anxieties of the night lift away.

The darkness had been full of hard things: a hard journey over the hard ground; the sharp pains of labor; the rough disappointment of hearing that there was no room; the sting of fear that comes with being vulnerable, homesick, and in pain in the deep middle of the night, when the shadows are darkest and when the world seems most uncertain.

But it is morning now. The morning is still and clear. The rising of the herald star is now eclipsed by the rising of the sun; light upon light. There is a softness here, a hush, a waking moment to ponder all the wonders of the night. For the first time, Mary can see every detail of her baby boy's face; each soft curve of his cheek, each eyelash as it flutters, every wisp of downy hair.

What has come into being with him was life, and the life is the light of all people. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Light was the first miracle of all creation - in the beginning, when the world was a formless void and the Spirit of the Lord hovered over the face of the waters, God spoke into the darkness and said, "Let there be light." And there was light. And it was good.

We repeat this miracle every morning - from darkness, light rises with each new dawn. Today, once again, the sun has risen, in hazy streaks of light that tumble over the bluffs and reawaken the sleeping earth from its nighttime dreaming.

But this morning, the light seems different, doesn't it? Somehow it is clearer, holier, filled with the shimmer of deep miracles; in the light, we get our first real look at the tiny, red, wrinkled face of the newborn Jesus. I'm not sure whether it is the gravity of this baby's divinity that makes our hearts soften, or whether it is merely the effect of being in the presence of an impossibly tiny, fragile, untried, adorable baby. But either way, don't you feel your heart soften just a little when you, like Mary, take your first deep look at the baby Jesus, our newborn savior, God in a wee bit of flesh?

We live in a world that keeps its edges sharp. We tend toward cynicism instead of good will, sarcasm instead of genuineness. We take pride in having hard noses and being hard-headed and drawing hard lines. Politicians and news media drive us toward establishing clear, fear-filled boundaries between races, religions, political ideologies, and worldviews. We are told that we will succeed if we are tough, unrelenting, and defensive instead of vulnerable, soft, and considerate.

But against all of these hard edges, the light of Christ spills over into our world with shifting edges, moving into all the dark corners, spreading over hills and valleys, uncontained, unrestricted, making fuzzy the edges of our shadows, making permeable the boundaries of our hearts and minds. That’s what light does! It flows and fills; it cannot be captured or hoarded. Light has power to banish darkness; brightness to bring clarity; gentleness to rouse us from dark nights of the soul.

The soft light of Christ’s dawn does not just rise over Decorah this morning.

The light of Christ’s dawn rises over children awakening in refugee camps and over homeless families in makeshift shelters.

It rises over Democrats and Republicans and Independents; democracies and monarchies and parliaments.

The light of Christ rises over Israel. And over Palestine.

It rises over peaceful, sleepy small towns and war zones and crime-ridden corners of giant cities.

The light of Christ rises over farmers and police officers and bankers and electricians; piano teachers and custodians and stay-at-home-parents and CEOs.

It rises over Lutherans and Catholics and Methodists and Presbyterians; over Jews and Muslims; atheists and agnostics.

The light of Christ rises over shrinking ice caps and barren forests; over flourishing farms and rolling seas.

It rises over those who have spent this dark night in fear, in grief, in anxiety, or in sleeplessness. It rises over those who slept deeply and in peace. It rises over those who have worked the night shift and over children who awoke in the wee hours of the morning, wide awake with excitement.

John tells us that Christ, the true light coming into the world, is the light that enlightens everyone. Christ is the light that opens our eyes to see a world that God loves, deeply. And Christ is the light that calls us to serve and love all people and all places that the light touches.

Just as Scrooge’s heart was enlightened by his visions, softening him to become a person of compassion and generosity; just as the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes after hearing the Whos down in Whoville singing in the morning light, so also does the birth of Christ call us toward enlightened eyes that see one another and the world with new softness, new compassion, new love and generosity and graciousness of spirit.

My prayer today, for you and for me, is that this Christmas morning might re-enliven us in our God-given calling to love one another. That we might take the risk of being vulnerable and crossing boundaries, just as God himself crossed the boundary between heaven and earth to become a fragile human baby in our world. My prayer is that we might not draw up walls and fences around the light, but instead be bearers of the light, vessels for Christ, vehicles for the ongoing illumination of the world.

I bless you and commission you for this task, in the words of poet Jan Richardson:

Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light

Blessed are you
who bear the light
in unbearable times,
who testify
to its endurance
amid the unendurable,
who bear witness
to its persistence
when everything seems
in shadow
and grief.

Blessed are you
in whom
the light lives,
in whom
the brightness blazes—
your heart
a chapel,
an altar where
in the deepest night
can be seen
the fire that
shines forth in you
in unaccountable faith
in stubborn hope
in love that illumines
every broken thing
it finds.

Amen.

Psalm 126
When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
 we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
 and our tongue with shouts of joy;
 then it was said among the nations,
 "The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us,
 and we rejoiced.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
 like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
 reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
 bearing the seed for sowing,
 shall come home with shouts of joy,
 carrying their sheaves.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-18
And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

—-
I don’t know if this was the same for any of you growing up, but around birthday time and Christmas time, there was a rule in our family:

When you receive a gift, you always say “thank you.” Even if you hate it. Even if it is something weird. Even if you plan to exchange it the very next day. You always say “thank you.”

It was a small learning for us as kids, but the bigger lessons are profound: that gratitude transcends our own desires; that thankfulness is a disposition, not just a reaction; that we are gracious as a sign of love, compassion, and relationship to the giver.

In Psalm 126, the Psalmist challenges the people to rejoice and give thanks to God, the giver, both in times of exile and in times of restoration; in good times and in bad. For the Psalmist, rejoicing and giving thanks is a sign of faith. God has restored their fortunes before, and they can trust that God will restore their fortunes again. Therefore, they can rejoice over God’s faithfulness and give thanks. God is their creator - all life and blessings are gifts.

Every time I hear this Psalm, I hear Paul’s words to the Thessalonians ringing in my ears when he says: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

What words these are for us today, we who live in such a time of both abundance and anxiety, we who live in such a time of disparity between rich and poor, we who live in such a time of war and terrorism and fear of our brothers and sisters of different nations and different faiths!

But Paul says: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances.

It is easy for me to give thanks when the world is going my way, when it feels like God has everything under control, and I am safe, happy, and fulfilled. But to give thanks when things are difficult? To rejoice amidst the pain in our world? To be grateful even in the midst of hunger and fear and loss?

That is a much harder task.

We are broken people living in a broken world. For some of us, we face the first holiday season without a dear loved one. Some of us are unemployed or underemployed. Some of us are lonely. Some of us struggle with body image or envy or chronic illness. Some of us feel our hearts break in two every time we turn on the news.

Being grateful doesn’t mean that we ignore the suffering in our world, or pretend that our brokenness doesn’t matter. In fact, Paul’s call to rejoice and give thanks comes in a paragraph where he also urges believers to encourage the fainthearted, to help the week, to be patient, not to repay evil with evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all, and to pray without ceasing.

And so, with grateful hearts, we yet care for refugees and we feed the hungry. We weep with those who weep. We bear one another’s burdens. Because in the midst of all of it, we have faith that our God, who created all things, is the God who offers us grace and resurrection and redemption, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We can give thanks in all circumstances, and rejoice, because we have faith that pain and suffering and death and darkness will all pass away. We can give thanks in all circumstances because we hope and trust in God to bring lasting peace and light to our world.

May those who today sow in tears one day reap with shouts of joy.
May those who now go out weeping come home again with shouts of joy.
May we be thankful and rejoice, in all circumstances.
For God in Christ is faithful.
And we, in faith, have hope.
May we live each day in gratitude toward God
and generosity of spirit toward one another,
for the sake of Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Prince of Peace Icon by by Fr. Gabriel Chavez de la Mora, O.S.B., of Tepeyac Abbey

First Reading: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne,
his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool;
his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire.
A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence.
A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.
The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.
As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away,
and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

Second Reading: Revelation 1:4b-8
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Gospel: John 18:33-37
Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

--
Terrible, terrible things are happening in our world. Terror attacks in Paris. Terror attacks in Mali. Suicide bombings in Cameroon. The city of Brussels remains under its highest terror alert amid a warning of a serious and imminent attack.

Christ the King Sunday couldn’t have come at a more important moment for us.

Our kingdoms of safety and security feel fragile. The kingdoms of evil and violence feel like they are rising to power. And in the midst of these realities, we hear a word today of the kingdom of Christ, a kingdom that brings in peace and cosmic reconciliation, a kingdom that stands forever, even after all other kingdoms have fallen.

Christ on trial stands before Pilate, the man who has power to decide his life or his death, and proclaims, “My kingdom is not from this world. If it were, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. But as it is, my kingdom is not from this world.”

These are words of truth, and words of promise.

Christ speaks the truth that violence is a hallmark of all kingdoms of this world. If his kingdom were like our kingdoms, then there would have been a battle instead of a cross, he says.

Our world is a horribly violent place. We meet violence with violence, thinking that the way to rid the world of terror is to kill it off. When we are threatened, we believe that we can kill our way out of it. We think wars can bring peace; guns can bring safety; armies can bring security. We misplace our fears and think that we should close our borders to refugees, make Muslims register themselves in a national database, and go out and throw as many bombs over the Middle East as we can. We think that flexing our might will teach the world a lesson, and that all we have to do to cure evil is attack ISIS faster than they can attack us. We think that there is something to be won by choosing the path of violence in the name of peace.

It is interesting to me how we so often justify the violence in our world in terms of a cosmic battle between good and evil that is ours to fight; that it's our job to neatly categorize everyone into teams: the good guys and the bad guys. And then that all we have to do is be stronger than the bad guys and everything will be okay. As if this battle is ours to fight and win.

If we want to talk about cosmic battles between good and evil, we might do better to look at our readings from Daniel and Revelation this morning. Both of these texts are apocalyptic in genre. Meaning that they are words of hope written to people suffering violence, persecution, and terror at the hands of oppressive empires.

The images in these texts - of fantastic beasts and horned creatures, seas and thrones of fire, divine warriors, scrolls and trumpets - represent the spiritual battle waged between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdoms of this world. One by one, every evil creature and every power of destruction falls at the hands of God’s anointed one, who at the beginning of Revelation, is described as “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, the one who loves us and freed us from our sins, who made us to be a kingdom; to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Even if the crazy beasts and battles in Daniel and Revelation are enough to give you some strange nightmares, these apocalyptic books aren’t meant to bring fear. And they certainly aren’t meant to paint an accurate picture of the end of the world. They are meant to convey one eternal, cosmic truth:

In the end,
Good wins.
Evil loses.
God wins.
Darkness is vanquished.
Forever.
Forever.

If the kingdoms of this world are defined by violence, they are also defined by their frailty. When we read Daniel, who himself lived through a series of kings and kingdoms, we are reminded that all rulers will rise and fall away. All kingdoms will flourish and crumble. Nothing in this world lasts forever, even the violence and fear of this present time.

It will all crumble. Everything will fall.

This might be the most profound word of hope for us right now, we who can no longer bear the weight of all the horrible, terrible acts of violence and cruelty that surround us.

All the kingdoms of this world will pass away. All the rulers of this world will come to their ends. But Christ, who conquers death, is the one who stands forever.

When Christ says, “My kingdom is not from this world,” he gives us the promise that not only will he defeat death by his own death, but that at his rising, he brings in a kingdom that has no end. A kingdom of lasting peace and truth, of true reconciliation, of love and of grace, where lions and lambs lay down next to each other and where all of our swords have been beaten into plowshares…for all eternity.

Brothers and sisters, we are living a double life. Because we are living in two worlds at once. We have one foot in this world, with its kingdoms of fear and violence and greed and death. And we have one foot in the world to come, Christ’s kingdom of hope and peace and life.

So what, then, shall we do?

If we take our cues from Jesus’ words, and from Daniel and from Revelation, then our calling is simply this: To remain faithful. To remain patient. To persevere in hope.

In the cosmic battle between good and evil, it is God who takes up the battle. Not us. The calling of the faithful is to remain peaceable and faithful, even through deepest trials and tribulation. We are called to holy patience as a sign of our faith - sitting on our hands instead of giving in to our human desire to lash out with evil deeds in the name of doing good. Trusting our lives and our futures to the alpha and the omega, the eternal one, the one who is, who was, and who is to come; the one who has the power to destroy death; the one who has already destroyed death by his own death and resurrection.

The question before us, then, is whether we can cling tightly enough to the victory of the cross to give up the illusion that we need to cling tightly to our fists and weapons. Whether we can live as people who are recklessly hopeful - and relentlessly patient - instead of recklessly terrified.

Because the strongest alternative to the fear that closes in around us is not the flexing of muscles. It is the flexing of a strong and rebellious and defiant faith in the coming reign of Christ. In faith, we stand up to the powers of darkness, and say:

We lay down our weapons.
We are not afraid!
for Christ is coming soon.

Let the stars shake loose from the sky.
Let the kingdoms fall.
Let the earth tremble and the seas roar.

We will not fear.
For Christ is coming soon.

Light will vanquish darkness.
Life will conquer death.
Hope will wash away despair.
Peace will prevail.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.
Reconcile the nations.
Restore the creation.

Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.
For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory -
forever and ever.

Amen.

1 Kings 17:8-16
The word of the Lord came to [Elijah,] saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.

Mark 12:38-44
As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

--
Every year, as we cross into November, a few things happen. We look toward Thanksgiving and start to think deeply about the gifts God has given us. We start talking about stewardship and the ways that God is seeking to share his gifts through us to the world. We renew our faith through the remembrance of the saints that came before us, and we look with hope and expectation toward Christ our King, the one for whom we wait, the one who promises the rebirth of all things.

In the midst of this, we also take time to celebrate one of the important partner ministries of our church: the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, otherwise known as WELCA. This weekend is Thankoffering weekend, when we lift up WELCA’s work and we take a special offering for the good work they do in the world.

Now, let's be honest. When I said "WELCA," how many of you immediately jumped to an image of retired women gathering to sip coffee, polish the church's silver, and run the church kitchen? Maybe also a group of women making quilts in the church basement? Show of hands? You can be honest…

What most people know about WELCA are the ways that the women of the church serve their local congregations and perhaps do a few projects like quilt-making and assembling care kits. And this is valuable service, but it is only the tiniest bit of what WELCA is really all about.

If you take a swing by the WELCA website, however, you can read a much more robust description of the work that WELCA does: "We engage in ministry; we take action through advocacy; we promote healing and wholeness; and we support one another in our callings. We offer anti-racism training; address domestic violence, commercial sexual exploitation, and human trafficking; and support families with special needs. We assist participants in their desire to discern God’s call in their lives and to discover their spiritual gifts through workshops, retreats, resources, scholarships, and global education. We offer grants to not-for-profit organizations, both domestic and international, that support healing and wholeness for women of all ages through the affirmation and advancement of women’s emotional, physical, and spiritual health."

In 2014, WELCA made as one of their top priorities the ongoing work of education and advocacy to promote awareness and to combat human trafficking. Human trafficking covers a wide range of exploitative practices, all of which involve recruiting and coercing fellow human beings into situations of forced labor or sexual exploitation for the profit of the traffickers.

According to statistics complied by the Polaris Project and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

• More than 12 million people worldwide are trafficked for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
• More than 80% of trafficking victims are female.
• 50% of trafficking victims internationally are under the age of 18.
• Annually, an estimated $9.5 billion is generated through trafficking activities

And here's the thing about human trafficking. For as huge of an operation as it is, it doesn't really look like anything. It happens right under our noses, a recent sting taking place as close to us as the LaCrosse area, and yet we don't notice it. It is those who are already vulnerable - those in poverty or addiction, runaways, the abused - who are most at risk to be trafficked.

The first step in bringing and end to trafficking is to see it. To notice it. To stop pretending it isn’t there. In our readings today, God extends a call to us to see the world with God’s eyes, which means noticing the unnoticed and seeing the vulnerable in our midst.

Both our Old Testament and Gospel readings today involve the plight of widows, who in their time would have been numbered among the most vulnerable and most overlooked people in society. And in both of these readings, it takes the eyes of God to notice women who would otherwise have been ignored.

In our gospel reading, Jesus laments that the very scribes who should be concerned with faithful execution of the religious law were the very ones who take advantage of the law to exploit the poor, devouring the households of widows.

As Jesus sits outside the temple treasury, he notices one of these very widows coming to bring her offering. The scribes and the disciples and the bustling city crowds: nobody notices the widow except for Jesus. This widow who had nothing left. Who came to the temple bringing all that she had, a pathetic two coins. The unjust economic system had already taken everything from her, and now the treasury was taking the rest. Jesus laments that she has now given all that she has. That's it. It's all gone now.

Her plight echoes the words of the widow Elijah visits in Zarephath: "As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing; I am preparing to make a last meal for my son and me, and then wait for our death."

Again, God is the one who sees the widow and her plight. Elijah travels to Zarephath because the Lord sends him there. Elijah seeks out the widow because the Lord tells him to. God sees this woman in her need, and brings her a prophet who will not only see her, but save her.

What both of these lessons teach us today is that God notices those whom we overlook...and God turns our hearts us to notice them, too.

In another month, when we light our candles and sing our Christmas carols, we will tell the story of a Christ child who also entered this world unnoticed. A fragile baby entering the world outside the gaze of the powerful and the rich and the famous. (At least until that star and the magi and Herod got involved later on.) This unnoticed Christ came to save us all. And especially to bring salvation to those who have nothing left, who are scraping their knuckles against the bottom of the jar of meal, those who have had everything taken from them and who are still asked to give more. When Christ cried out on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he cried out in the voice of all who feel like God and the world have forgotten and forsaken them.

God sees those who don't have a warm shelter in these chilly nights. God sees those who have to choose between food money and rent money. God sees the widows who mourn the start of another holiday season that only reminds them of their loss or loneliness. God sees those whose struggle with depression and anxiety worsens as the days grow shorter. God sees the sons and daughters who dread going home for Christmas because it means yet another year of hiding their sexuality from disapproving parents or grandparents. God sees the children in the sweatshops making cheap goods for our Christmas consumption. God sees the forced laborers and coerced sex workers who have been trafficked, taken advantage of, and who are trapped in modern-day slavery.

If you ever needed a compelling argument for the work of the church and all of its partner ministries, it is exactly this: we need the support of a community of faith to seek out the forgotten, to provide care and resources for the unnoticed, to enact Christ's self-giving love for the powerless and the forsaken. If faith were merely a matter of personal devotion, then we might as well all be sitting at home, sipping tea and reading a few lines of scripture alongside the Sunday crossword. But we come together to remind one another of our collective calling to serve as Christ served, to encourage one another in this task, to take up offerings so that we have the means to do the ministries set before us, to praise God for his gifts and promise to us and to the world.

When we shuffle up the aisle for communion, we walk as people unnoticed. People burdened by our griefs and our hopes alike, casting our eyes to the floor as we approach a God who sees all and knows all. In that unremarkable bite of bread and that ordinary sip of wine, our eyes are opened to the great mystery of a Christ who died for us and for all. Our eyes are opened to a God who does not just notice us, but who loves us, graces us, saves us, sustains us.

May the open eyes of God become our open eyes today. May the God who sees us freely give us the strength to see others and to serve them. May we work for justice and peace in the world, not because it is demanded of us, but because we cannot help ourselves.

Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see Jesus.
Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see you in the face of our neighbors.
Open our eyes, Lord. We want to see your salvation for all our unnoticed world.
Open our eyes, Lord. Help us to see. Lead us to act. Draw us to you.

Amen.

"Luther's Rose" by Jen, on flickr

Romans 3:21-28
But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

John 8:31-36
Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

--
Well here we are again. The church is dressed up in red, and some of you are dressed in red, too! Red is the color of the fire of the Holy Spirt, the color for defenders of the faith, the color of Christ’s freeing sacrifice for us and for the sake of the world. It is Reformation Sunday and is a very red day, as we celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit in the church and in reformers like Martin Luther, who worked - and continue to work - tirelessly to make sure that the church bears faithful witness to free grace of God in Christ. Yes, today is all about the color red, and today is all about freedom.

The catch, however, in talking about freedom, is that freedom is never the beginning of the story. As we learn from Jesus in today's gospel and as we learn from the work of Martin Luther, freedom only comes on the far side of bondage. We, and the church, cannot speak of our freedom without first talking about what we need to be freed from.

This is at the heart of the argument that Jesus finds himself in in today's gospel reading from John.

Jesus is in Jerusalem to celebrate Feast of Tabernacles - a festival celebrating God's care for the Israelites while they were wandering in the desert after Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt. He gets into a conversation with "the Jews who believed in him" about discipleship and freedom, and the conversation gets a little prickly.

An argument unfolds between the people and Jesus about whether freedom comes from being sons of Abraham or through Jesus the Son of God. Jesus argues that while, yes, Abraham was deemed righteous through his faith, this doesn't mean his ancestors can mooch off his faith. Their Abrahamic heritage might define them and their history, but it is not what saves them. Jesus has to convince them that they need a savior, that they need the Son of God, that they are slaves but that he can offer them freedom. The people insist that Jesus is mistaken in his offer to set them free, because, "we are sons of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone."

In this declaration, they prove that they have missed Jesus' point two times over. First, they insist that they have never been slaves to anyone, except that, of course, the defining moment of their faith heritage up until this point is the Exodus - Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt; not to mention the fact that they are now gathered in Jerusalem for a festival that celebrates God's provision in the wilderness on their way from slavery to the promised land. But second, they miss the point and think that Jesus is talking about actual slavery when he is really talking about slavery of the heart; slavery to sin and death and brokenness.

What they can't see, or don't want to admit, is that we are all slaves to something. We all need to be set free. We all get stuck in our own cycles of pain or fear or destruction. Some of us are in bondage to fears of inadequacy or the pain of broken relationships; some of us are slaves to material ambition or to resentment; others of us are in bondage to grief or addiction or illness; or are slaves to self-centeredness or pride, prejudice or anger; or are held captive by tight finances and hungry bellies. Whether by choice or by circumstance, we are all salves to something.

But Jesus says to us, "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free". And what is the truth? The truth is Jesus himself, the word-made-flesh who came to dwell among us full of grace and truth; the one who says of himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," the one who says, "everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

This is our good news. It is Christ our truth who sets us free; we do not break the chains of our slavery ourselves. Paul in Romans says, "Now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed...through faith in Jesus Christ....For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Christ sets us free from sin and puts us back into right relationship with God and neighbor; he gives us free and unrestricted access to the grace of God - not through the law, not through works, not through our heritage. We find our salvation and freedom simply in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone.

Part of what Martin Luther was seeking in his church back in the 1500's - and what what he didn't find there - was this assurance of being made free by the grace of God in Christ. He saw a lot of fear around him, and he saw a church that exploited the people's fears for its own gain.

When Martin Luther nailed up his list of grievances to the church door, he was resisting practices that said that God's grace was something that could be purchased; he was resisting practices that said God's grace needed to be purchased. He was resisting practices that exploited people's fears of death and the afterlife. He was resisting a church structure where those in power were the gatekeepers of worship, the sacraments, the Bible, and really, of grace itself.

Martin Luther wanted the church to be a place of freedom, where all could come and praise and participate together, as a priesthood of all believers, where God's grace was freely preached and given, where the Bible was in the language of the people and where people were free to explore their faith apart from the constraints of church dogma.

The church is still striving to be a place of freedom and grace. Despite the good work begun in the church through Martin Luther’s witness, over these last 500 years, the church has still fought wars, hurt and excluded people, gotten sidetracked by unimportant or even corrupt things.

Thank goodness that Christ died for the church as well as for the people in it. One of the really important lessons of the Reformation is that the church should still always be reforming, by the grace of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Faithful individuals and faithful churches alike continue to repent of the things that keep us in bondage, so that Christ's grace, generosity, and freedom might shine through us anew.

The question for us, here and now, is: Where do we, as individuals and as a church, need Christ to set us free to be gracious and generous, as we are called to be? How can we continue to repent and reform so that the we can make a safe place for seekers and doubters and all those whom the church has, at other points, shut out instead of inviting in?

Because thing about the church is that it should be a place where people gather together by God's grace, in God's grace, for the sake of being reassured, time and time again, of that grace. We worship together and hear God's grace in confession and forgiveness, touch God's grace in the waters of baptism, taste God's grace in the bread and wine, the saving body and blood of Christ.

If we believe that the Church, capital C, is truly the body of Christ, the community of faith bound by our experience of God's grace, then the Church is the one place - even if yet imperfect - that we can always come to feel safe, loved, and free. Which is not to say that you won't ever feel challenged here. As you seek and touch an untamable God in this sacred space, there's a chance that this place might just break your heart open. But it will also be there to help put you back together.

The community of faith is a place where you can come, just as you are, into the presence of God, free from what binds you. Here you can pray and lament, to have good days and messed-up days, to be happy or bored or curious.

Confirmation students, I know that we spent a lot of time in your interviews talking with you about where you might find a place for yourself here after confirmation, and encouraged you to find ways to stick around. We didn’t talk about all of that stuff to try to guilt you into being here. We truly and honestly want you to trust that this is a place for you different than any other place that you have in your world. A place where you are valued because you are blessed and beloved children of God. A place where all of you is welcome and you don’t have to hide. A place free from the pressures of achievement that you might feel elsewhere. A place that you can come back to, over and over again, when you need grace. Love. Kindness. Forgiveness. Hope. This place is for you. This place is for me. This place is for all. It is safe. It is free.

For here, in this place, we aren’t the sum of what we are, what we’ve done, or what we fear. In this place, we are all children of God, one in Christ and one in grace. This is our truth. This is our hope. This is our freedom.

Thanks be to God.

"Coffee and thin mints" by David Ou, on flickr

Isaiah 53:11b-12
The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great,
and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;
because he poured out himself to death,
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Hebrews 5:7-10
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Mark 10:35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

--
Whoever wishes to become great must become a servant. Whoever wishes to be first must be slave of all. The last will be first. If today's gospel reading sounds a little...familiar...it's because you've now heard Jesus say the same thing in a row...three times.

At the very beginning of the gospel, Mark boldly proclaims that he is telling the story of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Jesus has spent much of the gospel up until now doing miracles and then shushing people up about them, because he doesn't want people to think that the heart of his identity and mission is to do flashy signs of power.

Now, finally, in chapters nine and ten, which we have been reading through for the last month, Jesus gets to the heart of the matter.

He teaches his disciples that his divine purpose here on earth is not to do deeds of power, but to suffer and die. Three times in a row, Jesus predicts his death. He tells the disciples that he will be arrested, beaten, handed over to death. And three times in a row, the disciples don't quite understand what he tries to tell them. They keep arguing about greatness, they keep looking for the silver lining, the reward. But Jesus keeps turning their heads back toward the cross, because that is both his identity and purpose.

All of our readings today speak clearly about this. Christ, like the suffering servant that Isaiah speaks about, is the one who takes on the suffering of the world, who bears our burdens in his body, that the world might be redeemed through him. Christ, like the high priests in the Old Testament, is the one who offers prayers and sacrifices and tears to God on behalf of the people. Except that unlike other high priests, the prayers, the sacrifice, and the tears are his own.

Christ knew that the only way to heal a broken world is to love it back into wholeness. You can't force the world back into balance through acts of power or stores of wealth or accumulation of political or military victories. You bring the world back into balance by transforming hearts and restoring creation, and you can only do this by serving, by getting yourself out of the way, by making good for others and trusting that others will make good for you. Following Christ isn't about reward; it is about loving as we have been loved, and trusting that God will use our acts of compassion and service as subversive means to topple the world back into divine order.

Friends, I don't know that I have anything new under the sun to say about servant leadership. But I do know that the self-giving, other-loving, sacrificial model of Christ is the grand contribution of Christianity to our longing world. We walk a faith that is defined by redefining greatness. We cling to a saving faith that finds the heart of God in the deepest longings and sighs of the world.

Back in August, I read an article by reporter Nevin Martell entitled, "The Most Exclusive Little Coffee Shop in Kabul, Afghanistan." It is a real-life story of servanthood and generosity. I found it charming and poignant. I hope it makes you smile, too.

To get a cup of coffee at Gratitude Café, you’re going to need a heavily armed escort and the right paperwork. The tiny coffee shop is located in the U.S. Air Force’s Forward Operating Base Oqab...a small compound of only a few acres surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire in a corner of Kabul International Airport on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. It’s home to roughly a dozen senior-level officers and approximately 40 security personnel. Another 230 or so troops call it their home base, though they are housed nearby….

Obviously, this is not your average Starbucks. The café is located in a revamped old connex — the military term for the corrugated metal shipping containers used for everything from living quarters to, well, coffee shops — with a deck built onto the front of it. It looks like a makeshift office on a construction site. The space inside is roughly 10 feet by 25 feet and eschews the fancy fixin’s of modern coffee shops. There are a couple of tables and a counter in the rear that holds the coffeemakers, espresso machines, electric kettles, various supplies and boxes of cookies, biscotti and other snacks. The walls are decorated with handmade thank-you cards and letters of appreciation sent to those stationed at the base.

Since this humble café opened in early 2014, it has been the home to a surprising social experiment created by now-retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General John Michel, who was the base’s commander and the Commanding General of NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan until last summer.

Gratitude Café is the exact opposite of an officers’ club. At this java joint, only senior leaders on the staff are allowed to work the counter. “We didn’t want to send a message that we built a coffee shop so the folks of a lower rank could serve us drinks when we came in,” says Michel. “We wanted to invert the concept. We wanted to say, ‘This a great opportunity to exemplify servant leadership.’”

Early every morning, a self-proclaimed den mother or den father, who volunteers to handle the overall management of the operation, walks over to tidy up the space, fire up the coffeemakers and run a custom-made Gratitude Café flag up the pole. “The concept is ‘Flag up, fuel up,’” says Michel.

This project bringing caffeination to up to 85 troops daily doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime. All the equipment, snacks, beverages and attendant materials — cups, stirrers, sugar packets, etc. — are donated by Americans back home. So service personnel may find themselves sipping on all kinds of coffees, ranging from mass-market brands like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts to more artisanal roasts from M.E. Swings and Kicking Horse, depending on the latest haul. Nearly every day, packages arrive from the States after having made the two-week trip through the USPS and the Military Postal Service Agency. “Some people send boxes decorated so pretty we don’t even want to open them,” says Michel….

One unexpected benefit of the café is that it created a casual space where Americans could meet with their Afghan counterparts — who generally choose tea over coffee. Since many formal interactions include a gift exchange, Michel and his senior officers began giving out the extra boxes of packaged baked goods, which were harder to come by and more expensive for Afghans to obtain. “We might look at a cookie or a cupcake and think, ‘That looks good,’” says Michel. “But it shows your desire to do something good for them. When they walk away with three boxes of Girl Scout cookies, it becomes a psychological, tangible reminder that this is a beneficial relationship that goes beyond all our day jobs. So I would look to see how big their pockets were when they left to gauge the success of an interaction.”

I think that if Jesus were telling a parable about servanthood today, he might say that being last of all and a servant of all means serving coffee to your subordinates. And it means stuffing the pockets of your enemies with Thin Mints. And it means raising a up flag to invite the homesick into a place where they can sip a soothing taste of home.

A coffee shop in the middle of a military base in the desert is both unexpected and welcome. In the same way, any faithful act of compassion, generosity, or patience is both unexpected and welcome in a world that would otherwise expect us to be impatient, self-seeking, or angry.

There is nothing glamorous about all of this servant leadership stuff. But of course, there’s also nothing terribly glamorous about a dusty carpenter who touches all sorts of sick people and washes people’s feet and embarrasses religious and political leaders and who, at the end, will be executed like any other common criminal.

But it’s not about the glamor, and we know it.

It’s about the promise: The son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom. And it is in our own serving that we come face to face with Jesus, this redeemer of the world. It is in our weakness that find God’s strength. And it is in dying to ourselves that we receive back the full measure of God’s glory revealed to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our servant, and our life-giving Lord.

"LGBTQ Equality: Creating Change Conference" by One Voice Texas, on flickr

Numbers 11:24-29
So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again. Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord‘s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

Mark 9:38-50
John said to [Jesus,] “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

---
It was during the 2007 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that I first encountered the Shower of Stoles exhibit.

The otherwise boring walls and ugly carpet of a Chicago Hyatt ballroom where we worshiped together were made beautiful by racks and racks of clergy stoles on display, all around the room. These stoles were a fantastic array of colors and styles, sizes and shapes, patterns and textures. There were hundreds of them. And on the back of each, there was a small card with a story attached.

Each stole in this exhibit belongs to a member of the clergy or worker in the church who, because of their sexual orientation, has been denied their position, removed from their office, or works in silence and fear of being found out.

As I moved from stole to stole, reading people’s stories of call, and reading the devastation of being denied that sense of call, I thought about my own journey through seminary and candidacy. For me, my sense of call had developed slowly and quietly, feebly, even. And here I was, reading story after story of people who knew, deeply, loudly, strongly, that they had felt God’s Spirit moving in them. And somehow, I was going to be the one moving easily through the ordination process.

Questions flooded my head and heart: "If all of these people have so clearly heard God's call to ministry, who are we to tell them 'no?' Who are we to tell them that they must be mistaken, that they hadn't actually heard the voice of the Spirit? Does the church really need my voice, or how much moreso does the church need the service of these brothers and sisters, whose sense of call is so clear, so strong, so passionate?”

And here’s the thing. All of these thoughts and questions were brand new to me. Mind you, I already had graduated with my M.Div, had already spent an extra year at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago; I was two-thirds of the way through the ordination process! And all of this was just occurring to me? It took me that long to realize that it was, at best, absurd, and at worst, downright sinful to put barriers and stumbling blocks in front of faithful people seeking to serve Christ and dedicate their lives to discipleship?

Friends, even pastors and pastors-in-training have their "aha" moments.

We are now in 2015. Much has changed. Policies and polities have shifted, and many expressions of Christianity continue to widen the welcome. But we still face the same struggle that the disciples faced in today's gospel, that Joshua faced in today's first reading: the struggle with our temptation to put order and boundaries around the movement of God’s Spirit.

From the faith of the Israelites through the prophets and judges, from the life of Jesus through the letters of Paul, our narrative of faith is a decidedly counter-cultural narrative, filled with concern for the poor, with values of humility and compassion, with an emphasis on the community rather than on the individual, with a savior who modeled a way of self-giving instead of self-righteousness.

And anytime you are trying to be something counter-cultural, you have to try to define your values; to clarify our mission. That’s fine and normal. The danger is when we start turning definitions into barriers and clarifications into stumbling blocks.

Earlier in this chapter in Mark, the disciples, Jesus’ closest friends and followers, had failed to cast out a spirit. And now, today, they watch someone outside of them succeeding at casting out a demon in Jesus name, succeeding at the very thing they were unable to do. I suspect that the disciples were feeling jealous and insecure, fearful and frustrated. And so they insist that doing the work of Christ means first following the rules of the insiders.

John says, “Jesus, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, but stopped him because he wasn’t following us.” Huh. We stopped him. Because. He. Wasn’t. Following. Us. I think that when we say it slowly like that, we realize just how ridiculous it sounds. But we also realize just how often we say the same things.

• That person can’t possibly serve on church council. They just joined the church six months ago.
• I couldn’t lead an Adult Forum or a Bible study; I don’t have an advanced degree.
• I’m glad we have acolytes, but can’t we make a rule that they have to wear dress shoes when they serve?
• That’s a great idea for a ministry project to serve the community; let’s put it on hold until the next budget cycle, though, to make sure that it fits our financial priorities.
• There’s no way that a person who claims to be a Christian could come to any other conclusion about the political and societal issues that matter to me.

On our best days, we can laugh at ourselves for the silly barriers we put up; we joke about the rules we have inherited regarding tablecloths and centerpieces and which cups and plates to use for which event in the fellowship hall. But on our worst days, we say truly damaging things about other Christians, other denominations or worship practices, other forms of ministry and discipleship, in the name of wanting people to follow us and to follow our way of serving Christ.

I think about a church that I attended where a local pharmacist, who everyone knew as a man, came out as transgender and started attending worship as female. I remember how the congregation celebrated her and welcomed her…until she asked to be put on the list of lectors and assisting ministers. All of the sudden, people got uncomfortable, started making excuses, starting backpedaling their support and welcome. Not because they were bad people, but because this was a new challenge to them - it was stretching their idea of leadership in the church.

Stretching is uncomfortable. Kicking apart stumbling blocks is even more uncomfortable. But opening the door to discipleship to all people is part of our calling. Inviting all to share in ministry. Jesus, so aware of the real and pressing political and theological conflict that would eventually take his life, looks at his disciples woefully, and says, “Do not stop anyone from doing ministry in my name. Whoever is not against us is for us. Don’t create enemies where they don’t exist. God knows there are enough real threats out there without us having to invent them.” And then in a series of gruesome hyperboles, Christ charges us with cutting off and plucking out and destroying anything that bars people from joining his ministry.

Because according to Jesus, what does it take to do the work of Christ? Simple. Doing the work of Christ. Let me repeat that. What does it take to do the work of Christ? Doing the work of Christ. No boundaries to entry. No stumbling blocks. No prerequisites. Who can serve Christ? Anyone. Who can serve the world in Christ’s name? Anyone. What makes you qualified to do these things? Faith, the Spirit, the God-given desire to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.

James tells us today that the practical and essential work of the Christian community is to pray, to sing, to anoint, to confess, to be honest with one another about our brokenness, and to do whatever we need to do to bring people into the community…or back into the community. These are the works that show our faithfulness. These are the works that we are called to celebrate whenever and wherever they happen; whether within the provisions of our church constitution or out in the wild in the world; whether they happen via people we like and respect or via loud-mouthed politicians that we can’t stand.

The truth is that we need the wide and diverse witness of all who act in the name of Christ, because the burden would be too heavy for us to shoulder by ourselves. Poor Moses, out there in the wilderness with an angsty and hungry group of Israelites, is at his wits end, and cries out to God, and says “Did I conceive this people? Why am I to bear their burdens alone?” And what does God do? God gives Moses seventy elders to help him out, to share the burden. And whether they prophesy in the camp our out of the camp, Moses recognizes them as filled with God’s Spirit, and celebrates the work of the Spirit wherever it may yet show up. Can we believe that God has given to us such a community of ministry as well - filled with the Spirit of God, whether in the tent or in the camp or in the wilderness, whether Lutheran or not, whether like us or different from us?

Let us all today recommit ourselves to following Christ and, with gratitude, encourage all who seek to do the same. Let us tear down the boundaries and stumbling blocks we put in front of those who want to join in this work of ministry. Let us not waste energy on figuring out who is in or out, and instead rededicate ourselves to the work of prayer and praise, confession, healing, and reconciliation - the very tasks Christ has called us to do, the very tasks God empowers us to do in our baptisms.

For work of Christ is the work of Christ is the work of Christ. Thanks be to God.

"Syrian Refugees Face an Uncertain Future" by World Bank Photo Collection, on Flickr

Isaiah 50:4-9a
The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary with a word.
Morning by morning he wakens—
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
The Lord God has opened my ear,
and I was not rebellious,
I did not turn backward.
I gave my back to those who struck me,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
from insult and spitting.
The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me;
who will declare me guilty?

Mark 8:27-38
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

---
It is difficult to turn on the news these days and not encounter ongoing coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis. The ongoing civil war in Syria has left some 300,000 people dead, tens of thousands of protesters and activists imprisoned, more than 7 million people displaced from their homes, villages, and cities, and more than 4 million people fleeing the country as refugees. The majority of these refugees have been living in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. But hundreds of thousands of refugees are also making the dangerous trek across the Mediterranean Sea, hoping to find both home and hope in Europe.

Two images from this Syrian refugee crisis have captured media attention recently; both have brought me to tears.

The first image is a picture of a Turkish police officer standing at the edge of the shore, cradling the body of a three-year old Syrian boy who, along with his five-year old brother and a dozen others drowned when two boats of refugees capsized on their way to Greece. It is an image of ultimate human weariness.

The second image is a video clip showing refugees arriving at the Munich Train Station, having finally arrived safely in Germany. As hundreds of weary travelers pour off the trains, they are greeted with cheers and shouts of welcome - the station is packed with German citizens waiting to offer these exhausted refugees food and water, chocolate, toys for the children; a smile and a warm welcome to exiles seeking the hope of a better life. This video is a picture of selflessness and sustenance.

Isaiah, in our first reading today, is prophesying to a people who, themselves, are in exile. He speaks to the weary and broken people of Israel, who have suffered through violent conflicts with Assyria and Babylon, who have seen Jerusalem conquered and the temple destroyed. They are people who have no city, no center, no homeland. They are living under Babylonian captivity, lamenting, “how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”

To these weary exiles, Isaiah is called by God to offer words of hope, promise, and comfort, assuring them that God will restore them and bring them home. Today’s passage is one of four times in Isaiah that we hear the voice of a “suffering servant” - a figure chosen by God through whom the promised hope of restoration and justice will prevail.

Geoff McElroy, a pastor in the United Methodist Church, writes: “The [image of the suffering] servant is a model of and for anyone who hears God, who is given a “word” to comfort, and gives of themselves to be the servant they are called to be. Of course, Christians confess that Jesus is the perfect embodiment of this ideal, God Incarnate, the Word-Made-Flesh, the perfect obedient servant to the will of the Father. But to reduce this passage to just a prediction about how Jesus would act in the face of crucifixion is to do the vision of the prophet a disservice.

Instead, this passage is a poetic and powerful motif for what it means to stand for God in the midst of injustice and evil, to be willing to suffer abuse and scorn for the kingdom of God, and to speak a word from the LORD even when you know that it is going to be unwelcome.” (from “Desert Scribblings,” March 16, 2008)

Isaiah’s prophecy was offensive to those in power, those who had orchestrated the fall of Jerusalem and who weren’t keen on the idea of a ruler coming in to conquer them and rebuild. Like all prophets, Isaiah had to do the hard work of preaching real hope to a people feeling real fear and real despair. That’s hard work. Like all prophets, Isaiah had to do the hard work of preaching real justice and restoration under the gaze of an empire that profited from injustice and broken systems. That’s hard work. But Isaiah keeps preaching, because God has given him a heart for the sufferings of his people.

For all of us who follow in the footsteps of the prophets, for all of us who follow in the footsteps of Isaiah’s suffering servant, for all of us who follow in the footsteps of a suffering Christ, God has given us, too, a word to speak, and God has put on his heart the weariness of the world. With the prophet, we say: “The Lord God has given us the tongue of a teacher, that we may know how to sustain the weary with a word.”

And who are the weary? Today, they are the Syrian refugees, weary of violence and oppression and civil war. Weary from their dangerous journeys. Weary of being turned away at the border. Weary with grief. Weary because they have risked and given up everything, that they might find their lives again in a promised land.

I wonder if Peter would have had an easier time understanding Jesus’ words about suffering, cross, and death if he himself had been in such a place of unbearable weariness. In his strength, Peter rebukes Jesus because he doesn’t want a Messiah who might be vulnerable. He doesn’t want a savior who might die.

We live in this culture of fear, where we are taught to be afraid of everything from immigrants to oil shortages, same-sex marriage to trans fats. And a culture of fear has a really hard time getting on board with a savior who is vulnerable to suffering and death. We want saviors who are superheroes, who wear shiny tights and masks and utility belts, who leap tall buildings in one bound. We want our politicians and our movie stars alike to be be right and good and age-defying; infallible and invincible and immortal and strong. And from all of the pictures that are out there of strong-jawed Jesus wearing fatigues and holding a machine gun, it seems we want Jesus to what way, too.

Except that God’s plan isn’t to come in with a bulldozer, tearing down this world like the Babylonians tore down Jerusalem. God’s plan isn’t to cure fear by being even bigger and even scarier. No, God sends us Christ, who walks the weary footsteps of all those in our world who already have risked and given up and lost everything in hope of finding life. And he plants himself deep in the earth so that all life might grow. hope and justice and peace will spring up from the earth. And the new Jerusalem will float down from heaven. Friends, this is no comic book or presidential election. This is resurrection: weakness to strength; weariness to restoration; death to life.

Isaiah’s suffering servant and Jesus the suffering servant and all who put themselves out there to do God’s work of restoring health and wholeness to weary neighbors and our weary creation: these are the ones bearing Christ’s cross of hope. These are the ones who have answered the call to choose resurrection over fear, who follow a vulnerable savior into a marvelous way of everlasting light and life for the sake of the world.

Today is Rally Day. We usually mean this day to be a rallying of the troops - a welcome back after summer travels, a kickoff to the start of the Sunday School and program year.

But let’s rally differently today. Instead of celebrating ourselves, let’s make a covenant today to rally around the weary in our midst and in our world. Let’s make a promise to ourselves and to God that we will rally around those who have lost everything, or lost their faith, or lost themselves somewhere along the way. Let’s rally around those who are mistreated in blatant or subtle ways because of the color of their skin. Let’s rally around those who are unemployed and underemployed. And together, let us do real, honest, God-empowered works of hope and relief and resurrection.

Take the time at fellowship hour or at Whalen cabin or this afternoon to participate in our God’s Work Our Hands service projects. Take out that insert in your bulletin and make a donation to Lutheran Disaster Response for their work with the Syrian refugees, or flip the insert over and decide how many towels and bars of soap you can afford to purchase to make personal care kits that Lutheran World Relief can distribute to refugees and families in need across the globe.

May God give each of us the heart of a servant, the tongue of a teacher, the shoulders to carry the crosses our brothers and sisters bear. And may God empower each of us to sustain this weary world with a word: The Word, Jesus Christ, our suffering servant, our vulnerable savior, our resurrected Lord.

Amen.

Heart poster from Ork Posters

James 1:17-27
Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around [Jesus], they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

---
In July of 2012, astrophysicist Summer Ash underwent open-heart surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm caused by a congenital heart defect known as bicuspid aortic valve disease.

Her successful surgery left her with a healthy heart and a healthy body once again. It also left her with what she refers to as her “bionic” heartbeat. Her heartbeat is so strong now that she can feel her heart thumping against her chest. She can hear it. People who hug her feel their bodies rock in response to it. When she leans her chest against the edge of a table, ripples echo through water glasses. Friends sitting still in a quiet room with her can actually hear it. No stethoscope required. It’s like living in an Edgar Allan Poe story.

Now, doctor after doctor has assured her that her heart is healthy, strong, and doing perfectly what it is supposed to be doing. And yet one quite knows why it is beating so loudly or so strongly.

For Summer, her physical recovery from open-heart surgery has been far easier than dealing with the emotional and psychological repercussions of having an impossibly loud, impossible strong, impossible to ignore heartbeat.

She says,

“At first I thought my bionic heartbeat bothered me so much because it felt like something must still be wrong. Why else would it be so loud and so forceful? Surely it must be trying to tell me something. But it’s not fear [that I feel these days], it’s anger. Really raw anger. …

My heart, the organ that gives me life on a moment to moment basis, lied to me. It violated my trust. When it was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.” (Heart Wars Trilogy Part 1: The Bionic Heartbeat)

This might be the best description of faith that I have ever heard.

When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.

The heart is the center of our body, the life-giving muscle that gives warmth to our extremities and carries oxygen to our brain. It beats in rhythm, keeping time, circulating life through our very being. The heart is the metaphorical center of our soul, our passion, our deepest longing. When we are speaking our deepest truths, we describe our words as being "heartfelt." When we experience the pain of loss, we talk about having a "broken heart."

And when we talk about faith, we also talk in terms of the heart. The Bible says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart." God says to Ezekiel, "I will give you a new heart and a new spirit." The Psalmist sings, "Create in me a clean heart, O God.” Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart.”

When John Wesley, theologian and founder of Methodism, had a deep experience of God's presence, he described it as feeling his "heart strangely warmed."

In the same manner, when each of us come to fully grasp God's grace through faith, we feel it in our hearts. James today talks about "welcoming with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save our souls." This implanted word - the gracious love of Christ - takes up residence in our hearts. And through faith, God works on us to make our formerly silent, failing hearts healthy and loud once again.

When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.

Jesus said, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile; for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come."

The scribes and Pharisees have just tried, once again, to catch Jesus on a technicality. Nevermind that he and the disciples have just fed thousands of hungry people or healed countless sick and infirm in the villages. The Pharisees care only about whether the disciples have correctly ritually cleansed themselves before eating.

Jesus gets a little angry.

“You accuse me of abandoning God’s commandments?” he says. “As if God really cares so much about whether a little dirt gets on our food and into our mouths? It is not what goes into the body that determines whether you are pure in God’s sight. God is concerned with what comes from within. God cares about what comes from the heart. If your heart is filled with evil intentions, no amount of hand-scrubbing is going to make you pure.”

The scribes and Pharisees had been following the traditions and laws of the elders for so long that they hadn’t noticed that their hearts had gone silent; that there was something wrong deep in their bodies, that their hearts had been silently lying to them about what faith was all about.

Our hearts silently lie to us, as well. We trick ourselves into thinking that everything is fine if we belong to the right denomination, attend the right church, or worship the right way. We let ourselves believe that we are spiritually healthy so long as we are generally responsible, decent citizens in public. We let ourselves think that we are still doing God's will when we serve our neighbor even if we judge or insult them out of earshot.

Jesus tells the scribes and the Pharisees and us that it is time for a check-up. It is time to stick on all the electrodes and to pump up the blood pressure cuffs and to take our pulse. Because God is concerned, first and foremost, with making our hearts healthy. It isn’t just about believing or about doing, but it is about being changed by God from within, that whatever good things we do in faith come straight from our healthy hearts.

When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.

For God seeks to work in us constantly to destroy the evil intentions of our unchecked hearts: our selfishness, our impatience, our greed, our carelessness with one another and our creation; to move away from violence and cruelty, anger, revenge, dishonesty, neglect, wastefulness; to release our grudges, our prejudices, our desire for haphazard justice - "you get what you deserve."

God is always working on our hearts us by his Spirit, so that, like the Grinch who Stole Christmas, we might feel our hearts grow three sizes, transforming us into people who, from the very depths of our being, are loving and gracious, kind, generous, perceptive, helpful; slow to anger, patient, dutiful; careful, peaceful, forgiving, merciful, and compassionate; self-giving, modest, humble, and honest.

I'd be straight-up lying if I were to tell you that this transformation of the heart is anything other than slow and painstaking work. Beautiful work, certainly, but work that takes a lifetime. For God in Christ is freeing your heart and mine from layers of brokenness and shame, fear and regret. Christ is breaking down the walls around your hearts so that it can grow and change; so that you can grow and change. God wants your heart to beat through your chest, that every good deed and every good intention might come straight from the implanted word of Christ, which has the power to save your souls and the whole world.

When my heart was in grave danger it sat in silence. Now it’s perfectly healthy and it won’t shut up.

Can you hear your own heart?

Can you feel God working in you, not just calling you to do good things, but changing you day by day into a closer picture of who you were created to be?

May God bless you with a bionic heart
that beats in time with the divine.

May God bless you with a new heart and a new spirit,
transforming you from within.

May God bless you with a healthy heart
that just won’t shut up.

Amen.