Keeping the Season

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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

"food1" by bigbrand ., on Flickr

John 6:35, 41-51
Jesus said to [the crowd,] “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

---
Rachel Held Evans begins one of the middle chapters of her latest book, Searching for Sunday, with the sentence, “I didn’t know I was hungry.”

Having left the church of her youth and having not yet found a church to call “home,” she recalls how, on a book tour, she was welcomed, supported, and fed by a wide variety of churches across the country:

The Methodists of Jackson, Tennesee, served barbecue and coleslaw at their women’s retreat. The Baptists of Houston, Texas, brought in food trucks so we could picnic over Tex-Mex on the church lawn. I threw back shots of tequila with a van full of Presbyterian pastors as our taxi sped along the coastline of Cozumel, Mexico. I tried the iced cowboy coffee at Common Grounds in Waco, while a gaggle of Baylor University students waited for the thumbs-up.

In Grand Rapids, a reader named Caroline handed me a stack of salted dark chocolate chip cookies tied up in a baby-blue bow, which made such an impression I now know the recipe by heart. In Seattle, Pastor Tim and his husband Patrick served up fresh salmon with avocado mango salsa, asparagus, quinoa, and local red wine. In Bolivia, a guinea pig farmer welcomed our team of World Vision bloggers into her one-room home with a meal of boiled potatoes, which we passed around like communion bread. In Hope, Michigan, the Dutch Reformed grilled up hot dogs and hamburgers and sent me home with a pair of wooden shoes.

I shared homemade bread and jam with the Quakers of Portland, shrimp and grits with the Wesleyan Foundation of Williamsburg, macaroni and cheese with the Mennonites of Harrisonburg, Virginia, and melt-in-your-mouth roasted chicken and mashed potatoes with the Dominican nuns of Siena Heights. The Free Methodists of Greenville, Illinois, introduced me to Adam Brothers homemade chicken noodle soup, for which i still get insatiable cravings whenever I’m sick. The Disciples of Christ took me to my first In-N-Out Burger, where I pretended to have the religious experience they expected. I even ate blueberry pancakes at the White House, where, at the annual Easter Prayer Breakfast, civil rights leader Otis Moss gave the best sermon on Resurrection I’ve ever heard in my life. I dined with rocket scientists and musicians, Bible scholars and activists, rabbis and priests, monks and nuns, the homeless and the wealthy, professional chefs and home cooks. I may have gained a few pounds.

For Rachel, it took be fed, over and over again, with good food, good community, and the love of Christ, to realize that she had been hungry.

Isn’t that just how it is for us sometimes? That we don’t realize our hunger until we’ve been fed? Those times that we order food at a restaurant, and when it arrives, inhale everything on our plates in five minutes flat, without meaning to, and then commenting to ourselves, “Huh, I guess I was hungry.” Or those times that you grab a granola bar for a snack, and once you’ve finished it, you’ve awakened the hunger in your belly and now want to eat everything else in sight. Or maybe I’m the only one who’s ever done these things…

Jesus said to the crowd, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

I think that everybody is hungry for something. I also think that we often don’t realize just how hungry we are until we are given a taste of the food that satisfies.

The manna in the wilderness was a miracle, no disputing that. Jesus knows that, for his listeners, manna is the prevailing symbol for God’s provision in their hunger. And yet, how quick these crowds are to forget that even though the manna satisfied the bellies of their Israelite ancestors, it did not satisfy their spirits.

Instead of enduring gratitude for the provision of God, it was not very long before the Israelites started grumbling at Moses once again, saying “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”

Last week, many of you turned in your Connection Cards with answers to the questions, “What does ‘having enough’ mean to me?” and “What is keeping me from being satisfied with what I have?” I was humbled by your honest responses to those questions, and especially to that second question. Because most all of you confessed that, even though you had enough manna in your lives, you were still hungry for meat and fish, leeks and onions, garlic, cucumbers, and melons. Whether because of advertising or ego, pressure from family to succeed or physical limitations that hold you back, you were honest about your struggle to keep your spirits satisfied.

Jesus has more than manna to offer to the crowds. And he has more than manna to offer to us. Jesus fed the five thousand in a reckless sign of both power and generosity, and yet he even has more than a miracle to offer to us.

“Your ancestors at manna in the desert and they still died. You ate your fill of the bread and fish and you will still be hungry.” Jesus points out. “But I am here to offer you the bread of eternal life.”

Jesus doesn’t just give us food. Jesus gives us himself as food. Theologian N.T. Wright says, “When [Jesus] wanted fully to explain what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give a theory. He didn’t even give them a set of scriptural texts. He gave them a meal.” (Simply Jesus)

For Rachel Held Evans, all the food that was shared with her was food, yes, but more than food. It was the food of faith, the food of the love of brothers and sisters in Christ. It was food that satisfied her hungry belly, but also satisfied her soul, which was hungry for a taste of Christ himself. It was communion. A feast that reminded her of just how hungry she really was for God’s mercy and sustenance.

When we celebrate communion each week, we believe and trust that what we are receiving is not bread and wine, but Jesus himself. This meal for us is the food that endures for eternal life. It is a foretaste of the feast to come. It is a little bite and a small sip of the food that satisfies.

And this meal does two things.

It soothes our hunger. For in this meal we receive real grace, tangible mercy, tastable forgiveness, sip-able assurance of our salvation. We receive Jesus himself, just as he promised, the bread of life that he gives for the life or the world.

But this meal also makes us hungry for hope. If this meal is a foretaste of the feast to come, then it is a taste of the world as it ought to be, where all are fed, where peace prevail, where we are brothers and sisters with one another and all creation. And this little taste of eternity makes us hungry for God’s kingdom when we leave the table.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus says in the Beatitudes. Blessed are those who hunger for justice and peace. Blessed are those who hunger for reconciliation. Blessed are those who hunger for the well-being of their neighbors and enemies alike. Blessed are those who hunger for God’s kingdom.

As you look around the world, what is it that our world is hungry for? What are the unmet physical needs that leave people feeling like they are on the outside of God’s abundance? What are the hunger pangs of oppression and injustice that leave our brothers and sisters feeling empty? What are the emotional burdens that leave our neighbors hungry for love or hope or peace that this world cannot give?

Since the start of this stewardship focus, we have talked about the gifts we have, the barriers to sharing those gifts, and now the needs of the world. In the last two weeks, we will start to look more deeply at God’s invitation to share his abundance, that all hunger might be satisfied and all people might find their place at God’s overflowing table.

I pray that this week, God might continue open your eyes to the hungers of the world, that the Spirit might continue to spur you on toward generosity toward one another, and that Christ’s body and blood might not just sustain your spirit, but make your spirit hungrier and hungrier for the kingdom of God.

Question for reflection:
What is our world hungry for?

"Don't waste bread! 1917" by kitchener.lord, on Flickr

John 6:24-35
When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were [beside the sea,] they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ ” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

---
It is week two of our five weeks of "bread of life" gospel readings, and week two of our stewardship emphasis, as we consider Jesus as the bread of life not just for us but for the whole world.

Last week, Jesus fed the crowds with a meager offering of loaves and fishes, and we considered the question, "What do we have to offer?"

The responses to that question were varied and wonderful. You all offered up up gifts of cookie baking and card making; volunteering with youth events and other church activities; gifts of money and of increased pledged giving; gifts of hard work, of time, of a spirit of adventure; hearts that seek to serve others, to show compassion, to pray, to show love, to offer a smile, a handshake, a listening ear; organizational skills and serving in worship; working with the food pantry and participating in mission projects.

All of these responses show an expansive ethic of generosity in this congregation, of both stuff and of spirit. They show your faith that God is able to bless what we offer and turn it into a miracle of abundance.

Today, we take up a harder question: "What is enough?"

It is a timely question. Look at the current state of our world. The gap between the richest and the poorest continues to widen. Our planet grows ever more fragile and volatile due to our increasing demand on its resources. Younger and younger children are being treated for anxiety and depression brought on by increasing pressure to succeed and increasingly busy schedules. For most of us in this place, our overstuffed closets and bellies stand in stark contrast to gaunt faces and naked bodies in other parts of our community, nation, and world.

I suspect that most of us in this room, myself included, function under a false understanding of "enough." In a middle class community here in the United States in the year 2015, our problem is that we are too often told that "enough" isn't "enough." We are bombarded every day by messages that perpetuate a myth of scarcity, trying to convince us that we always need to be saving more money for infinite rainy days ahead, that we need to keep putting additions onto our houses and building bigger closets, that life should be a relentless pursuit of self-improvement and achievement. It is often hard for us to believe that we have enough, and even worse, it is sometimes difficult for us to see that even having "enough" is a profound blessing and gift of God.

The crowds in today's gospel had just been satisfied by a miraculous meal. They'd eaten their fill of bread and of fish, they were satisfied, the'd received enough food to quiet their hungry bellies. But it wasn't enough for them.

They chase down Jesus, who rightly interprets that their enthusiasm is merely for the bread that they have eaten, and not for the the bread of life who performed the miracle. The crowds keeping asking Jesus for more signs, for more proof that he is who he says he is. They keep asking for the bread that endures for eternal life, for more manna, for more miracles.

Even though their bellies are full and Jesus has offered his very self for them, they still seem unsatisfied. They keep asking for more.

"God gave our ancestors manna in the wilderness," they say to Jesus. "What are you going to give us?"

And Jesus points back to that formative story, of the manna and quails that we heard about in our first reading, to remind them that the manna was, and still is, a deep sign of God's continued trustworthiness as gracious provider.

When the Israelites wandered in the desert after Moses led them out of Egypt, they grew tired and grumbly and hungry. God listened to their hungry cries and provided them quail and manna. He gave them what their bodies and souls needed to thrive; enough for each day, so that they didn't need to gather any extra or store any away. In fact, God told them that if they were to gather more than they needed, it would spoil overnight anyway. It was an exercise in trust. And God proved that he was trustworthy.

Time and time again in our history of faith, we hear about how God provides; how God gives us enough; how our world produces enough and how we are called to seek "enough" for our neighbors.

In Leviticus, we find laws about leaving the edges of your crops available for gleaners, and we find laws about cycles of farming and fallow, and debt forgiveness and about the resting of both slaves and the land; that all might have a share in the abundance of God’s hand.

Think about the parable Jesus tells about the man who, at the harvest, finds himself with an abundance of grain. He has a little conversation with himself about how wealthy he is, and he tears down his barns and builds bigger ones to store all of this extra grain for himself. And then God comes and says, “you fool - tonight, your life will be taken from you.”

Or how about when Jesus talks about how God feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the fields, and if God cares for the birds and the flowers, how much more will he provide for you and me?

We could talk of Elijah and the widow of Zarepeth, and the oil and flour that never ran out; or the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine; or the ram caught by its horns in the thornbushes that saved Isaac's life at the very last minute; or any of the Psalms that sing about the abundance and generosity of God, who stretches out his hand, yielding crops in due season.

The lesson, over and over again, that God is a trustworthy provider, and we do not need to hoard the gifts of creation, for God has and will continue to provide enough for us.

According to 2015 statistics provided by the World Hunger Education Service, there is enough food on our planet to provide each of the world’s 7 billion people between 2500 and 3000 calories a day. Distribution is the challenge, and making food affordable, but the fact remains that there is enough food to feed us all. Enough food for all, enough wealth for all, enough to go around.

This question of "enough" is perhaps the most fundamental question of stewardship. Because being a good steward, a faithful manager of God's gifts of creation, wealth, and opportunity, mean that we take what we need and leave behind what we don't; that we share the world's resources and that we trust God to provide for us instead of hoarding creation out of a fear of our own scarcity.

Because, truthfully, how many bedrooms and closets do we actually need? How big of a yard do we need and how often do we actually need to water it? How many cars do we need and what kind? How much is a responsible amount to keep in our savings and retirement accounts?

Where is the line between "enough" and "extra?" And when we find ourselves with "extra," how do we manage that excess to the glory of God and to the service of neighbor?

Are we good at figuring out where the line is between "enough" and "extra"...and do we do a good enough job of managing the "extra" to the glory of God and to the service of neighbor?

Friends, is it not enough of a miracle for us that our bellies our full, our bodies are clothed, our water is clean, our families have roofs over their heads, and our spirits are nourished with the bread and the wine of Christ's very body and blood, given to us as the bread that endures for eternal life?

Our stewardship challenge today is to break free from the myth of scarcity and instead to recover a deep sense of gratitude for the miracle of "enough" that we each have been given. It is from God's hand that you have been given even the most basic necessities. It is the easier work to see God's blessing in seasons of abundance, when there are twelve baskets overflowing after 5000 have eaten their fill. But it is the deeper work of faith to see God's blessing in the "enough." For God is our trustworthy provider, the one who gives us the richness of the earth, that we might both be satisfied and also seek the satisfaction of our brothers and sisters.

Questions for reflection:
What does “having enough” mean for me?
What is keeping me from being satisfied with what I have?