Luke 15:1-10

Things go missing at my house all the time. We have two small people dedicated to relocating everything they can get their hands on, so things are rarely found where they’re supposed to be. Mostly, it doesn’t matter, except when the missing thing happens to be Pooh, or Roo.  These are my children’s favorite toys. Unfortunately, some days Miriam hides Pooh behind a living room chair or Simon puts Roo into a kitchen cabinet, and so the bedtime search can become quite challenging. But no matter what, Pooh and Roo must be found if everyone is going to go to bed happy.

Today’s gospel reading contains two parables about losing and finding.  A shepherd with a hundred sheep is so determined to find the one sheep that he has lost that he leaves the other ninety-nine in the wilderness until his sheep is located.  A woman who has ten silver coins is so eager to find the one that she has lost that she lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she has it in her hand.  These are the parables that Jesus tells just before the parable of the prodigal son that we remembered together this past Lent.

You may have heard at the beginning of the gospel reading that Jesus tells all three stories about finding what is lost in response to a complaint.  Some people are upset because Jesus has been spending time with the most despised members of their society.  He’s been welcoming sinners, people known for flouting God’s laws. He’s been eating with tax collectors, folks who get rich by collaborating with the oppressive colonial government and fleecing their neighbors.  But Jesus, as he tells these parables, makes it clear: he is seeking these outcasts on purpose.  He noticed that they’ve become a little lost, and he wants them to know that they are desperately missed. He cannot rest without them.

One of the hardest parts of reading bible stories today is figuring out how to apply the story to our current context.  When we look around us today, who are the folks that Jesus is seeking out for special care?  And who are the folks who are trying to keep these outsiders from joining the party? (more…)

Our last Sunday in the garden for the summer included art projects for the kids, play dough for all, Chris singing at communion, back pack blessings, friendly fellowship, Sunday School and Youth registration, bubbles, and more! Here’s Hannah’s sermon and some pictures.

Psalm 139
Jeremiah 18:1-6

How can we become perfect?

This summer, I read a story about David: Michelangelo’s statue of the biblical hero who slew Goliath and went on to become one of the greatest kings of Israel.

When the writer of this story encountered David for the first time, he was a young adult on a European tour, and he was completely overwhelmed. “Perfect,” he thought. He stood there for hours, taking it all in: a marble figure 17 feet tall, three times the size of a human being, and astonishing in every way: strong and graceful, stone and yet soft, full of detail and elegantly simple.

“Perfect,” thought the writer. But, as he discovered later on, David is not perfect. Far from it. David was carved from a massive block of marble that was badly selected; it is full of holes and veins. As the marble travelled to Florence, it fell into a muddy ditch. Once it arrived, it sat outside for 30 years, becoming dirty, dry, and brittle.

It’s hard to believe that Michelangelo turned this beast of a block into a masterpiece. But he did. The people of Florence were very impressed, and David was installed as the key feature of their central square.  But even after he was carved, David was not perfect. The center of gravity of the statue is slightly different than the center of gravity of the base. And over the years, the ground also shifted underneath the square in Florence where he was initially installed, so that David began to lean several degrees to the side.  All this tilting did serious damage to his ankles. David now has hairline fractures that threaten his structural integrity.

David has suffered other injuries, too. His left arm was broken in half during a riot. His right little toe has been lost multiple times. Someone took a hammer to his left foot. Finally, David was moved inside a museum for protection. He is now perfectly upright, protected from weather and vandalism. Still, because of the flaws in his ankles, an earthquake could bring him tumbling down at any time.

How can we become perfect?  Perfection is the goal, it seems. We are constantly offered products to help us conceal anything that our culture considers a physical imperfection.  Even worse, we are taught to hide anything that might be considered an internal imperfection: grief, trauma, illness, addiction, betrayal, depression, unemployment, anger, debt.  Messages within and outside of us urge us to be like David: larger and more beautiful than real life. And so we scramble to replace our missing toes, and repair our broken arms, and shore up the hairline fractures in our ankles, so that no one else finds out about them….so that we, too, might seem perfect.

Praise be to the living God, for she has something else in mind for us. When God forms the first people in the book of Genesis, she uses earth; clay.  She molds this clay with her own hands. Then, she breathes into it, bringing us to life.

The passage from Jeremiah that we heard today reminds us that God is our potter not only at the beginning of time, but also throughout our lives.  That clay that made us was never fired in a kiln.  It has never become static or fixed, or hard and brittle like marble. We are a work in progress, soft and pliable, capable of being formed and reformed, converted and re-converted.  No wonder it’s hard to give the impression that we are 17 feet of perfect marble. God made us to be small, beloved, imperfect and unfinished lumps of clay.

Sometimes we may wish that God was a bit more like Michelangelo, and we were a little more like David.  Iconic beauty, international fame, and perpetual youth don’t sound so bad. But instead of fighting time and circumstance in the effort to keep up appearances, we get to embrace our inevitable change.  God is our creator and recreator, and our life is an artistic partnership.  We make plenty of mistakes along the way, the process is far from straightforward, but sometimes what starts out as a flaw or a tragedy can become the most beautiful part of a person. The goal we’re headed towards is not perfection or preservation or even completion, but a more responsive and joyful journey with God.

I brought some play dough with me today.  For the next few minutes, I invite you to hold your clay in your hands, shaping it if you wish. Consider: how has God been molding you this year, this season, this summer?  And, looking towards the fall, how do you long to be reformed by God?

O Lord, you are our potter. You formed us with your hands long ago, and breathe us into life. You search us and know us in every moment, and lay your hand upon us. You rework us into new vessels, as it seems good to you. Open our hearts, so that instead of being perfectly brittle or privately broken, we may embrace our imperfections and the movement of your spirit, and be remade again and again and again. Amen.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Shema, yisrael. Adonai, elohenu. Adonai Echad.

These words begin a commandment that is vitally important to both Jewish and Christian faiths.  Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

The words come to us from God through Moses.  They are part of the vital teaching that Moses shares with the people Israel before his death, as a way of preparing them for their new life in the promised land.

In Jewish tradition, the words are often called  “the shema”, and they are woven into everyday life. Many believers have the words transcribed onto scrolls and put in beautiful boxes, fastened to their doorposts. Some recite these words twice a day in prayer, in the morning and in the evening. Some wear the words in special boxes on the forehead or on the arm during prayer.

In Christian tradition, we remember that Jesus called this the greatest commandment.  This is our touchstone, the teaching that all teachings can be boiled down to, the heart of faithful living.

When Cindy and I were talking about this service, she suggested that this passage from Deuteronomy might be a good scripture reading for today. It’s always good to spend time with the greatest commandment, but why particularly now?

God says: Keep these words in your heart.  Recite them to your children. Today we celebrate the end of this year of Sunday school.  God says: Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away.  As summer approaches, some of us will be following this commandment at home, while others travel.  God says: talk about them when you lie down and when you rise. I am beginning my sabbatical time, when I hope to spend at least a little more time following God’s commandment while lying down, so that I might rise up with more energy to join you again in September.

As seasons pass and travel takes us away and transitions occur in our lives, we can always hold onto this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord is Our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

How shall we love the Lord our God with all that we are, this summer? What does it really mean, to love God?

Love is a word with so many definitions.  We love things that give us pleasure: food, art. We love people: as friends; as family members, parents and siblings and children; as romantic partners of a moment or of a lifetime.  In the ancient near east, the word love had at least one additional layer.  Love was a word used in political treaties.  People pledged their love, by which they meant their loyalty and their faithfulness to a ruler and an agreement.

Which of these kinds of love should we give to God? Maybe almost all of them. Our relationship with God can at times be full of pleasure or passion.  But to love God with all of our heart, soul, and might, sounds most similar to the love of a family member; or the love of the covenant of marriage; or the love of loyalty to a ruler. It is love forged not only by experience and emotion, but by intention and action over time. Intention and action to love God and, by extension, God’s people and God’s creation.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. This is such good news. We need serve nothing else in this life but God. No other obligation has such a powerful hold on us.  We are free: to love our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might.

Whatever the next few months hold for you, I hope you will keep this commandment with you, and try to follow it. I will do the same. It’s ok if we make mistakes along the way. There’s a reason that we’re asked to recite these words, talk about them, travel with them, sleep with them, put them on our bodies and on our houses.  Following this commandment, loving in this way is not about perfection or completion but persistence. We choose to honor God with our lives, and we return again and again to this intention, using all that we’ve got: heart, soul, might.  Our commitment connects us back again to the God who is always reaching towards us.  Our commitment connects us back again to ancient traditions of faith, the great host of saints, and to each other, our local faith community.

As you leave today, I invite you to take a little card that has the words of this great commandment written on it. Keep it with you, as you stay or as you go this summer. Consider sharing its words with someone else: reciting them, talking them over. You could keep the card by your bed, and read it as you go to sleep, or as you get up in the morning.  You could tape it on your bathroom mirror, or on a doorway you pass each day. May you discover each day new ways to love the Lord our God.  May God, in turn, bless you and free you with her love. Amen.

1 Kings 18:17-39

Our scripture today has all the makings of a summer blockbuster. It’s got a hero: Elijah, a prophet of the Lord God, known for his powerful miracles. It’s got a villain, or rather 450 villains: the priests of Baal, a Phoenician and Canaanite storm and fertility god. It’s got a spectacle: a huge showdown in front of all of the people of Israel.  At stake is nothing less than the faith of the people, who have been wavering in their loyalty to the Lord God.

When all of the people are assembled, Elijah comes near and asks them: “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” In other words: It’s time to make a choice! Your indecision is literally injuring you. But the people say nothing. They’re not ready to commit. So Elijah decides to put an end to their equivocating in another way. He sets up a competition between two gods.

First, the 450 priests of Baal ask their god to send down fire to light their offering.  And they really put their heart into it. They call out to Baal all morning. But there is no voice, no answer, no response. They cut themselves with swords and with lances. But there is no voice, no answer, no response. The only voice to be heard is Elijah’s. He mocks the priests of Baal mercilessly — nobody said that prophets were nice.

Finally, Elijah begins his own work. He asks the people of Israel to come in, to come closer. He builds an altar of the Lord, and a deep trench all around it. He sets up wood for the fire, and puts the bull on top of it. He has the people help him pour jars of water over the bull and the wood three times. Then Elijah calls on the Lord: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. And the fire of the Lord falls and consumes everything: the bull, the wood, the stones, the dust,even  the water. The people are finally convinced. They cry out, “The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.”

It’s a fantastic story: huge in scale and with a great dramatic ending. I wonder what it has to do with our everyday lives, with our everyday faith.  I suspect no one here has been tempted to follow a Canaanite fertility god.  So — what is the take-away message for us? (more…)

 Psalm 8
John 16:12-15

Why won’t Jesus tell us the whole story?

In the passage we hear this morning from the gospel of John, Jesus is offering his final teachings to the disciples. They are gathered to share their last supper. Jesus speaks on and on, telling them many things. He speaks words of warning and words of comfort. He reminds the disciples to keep his commandments, and gives them a new commandment: to love one another. Jesus even says, “I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” (15:15). You would think, then, that Jesus has explained it all. And yet, one chapter later, in our passage this morning, he says: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” (16:12)

What a terrible teaser. What a heartbreaking cliffhanger. What else did Jesus have to say that night? What teaching of his is missing from this gospel? Why won’t Jesus tell us the whole story? (more…)

Acts 16:16-34

What kind of God have we gathered here to worship today?  Consider how this morning’s story begins, and how it ends.

As our story begins, a chain of events lands the traveling evangelists Paul and Silas in jail.  This is not surprising.  In the book of Acts, followers of Jesus are being arrested and even executed all the time. These people have not committed crimes. The followers of Jesus offend people simply by existing, because they are crossing every religious, political, and economic boundary of their society.  Among them are Jews who follow the resurrected Jesus, and gentiles who follow the Jewish God. Among them are poor fishermen and wealthy centurions and independent women. The folks who get together in the name of Jesus are a strange and motley group, whose willingness to worship and practice their faith together is such a challenge to the status quo that folks arrest and even kill them, given the slightest excuse.

For Paul and Silas, the excuse is that they perform a healing, an exorcism, on an enslaved young woman. It turns out that the young woman’s master does not approve of this exorcism. His slave was more profitable to him beforehand, while sick, while possessed. So, the master falsely accuses Paul and Silas of disturbing the city and violating the law. Things escalate as crowds get rowdy against the outsiders and the magistrates take action. Paul and Silas are stripped and beaten. They are brought to a jail. The jailer, ordered to keep them securely, puts Paul and Silas in the innermost cell and fastens their feet in stocks.

Try to imagine it: Two lonely participants in an extremely unpopular movement are sitting in stocks, in the innermost cell of the prison of a city that has turned against them. It’s hard to imagine how this story could end well. (more…)

Acts 11:1-18

Peter is in trouble. He has been eating with gentiles. In fact, eating with gentiles is only the tip of the iceberg.  Peter has been doing all sorts of things that he’s not expected to do as an observant Jew and a leader in the Jesus movement.

It all starts when Peter is invited to the house of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius.  Peter is not supposed to accept hospitality from any gentile, let alone a Roman Centurion, a leader in the colonial power structure. But the Holy Spirit whispers in his ear, and so Peter goes.  When he arrives, Peter receives another surprise. The house is full of people, and they all want to hear about Jesus! Peter hedges a little, but then he goes ahead and gives his stump speech, a short summary of the whole incredible Jesus story. It’s a good sermon, if you want to look it up (Acts 10:34-43).

Peter begins to give his speech to this crowd of outsiders who want to hear about Jesus —  and then things really get crazy.  As Peter is speaking, the Holy Spirit comes upon the crowd and they begin to speak in tongues and praise God, just like the crowds do at the feast of Pentecost.  Peter is so overcome by awe and gratitude that he goes ahead and baptizes the whole lot of them. Then, to cap it all off, he decides to stay on as a guest for several days, eating and sleeping in Cornelius’ house. Peter is in trouble.

Now you may be asking – “What’s the big deal?”  Peter is just doing his job. He’s spreading the word about Jesus. Isn’t this a stroke of luck, a wonderful action of God, that Peter comes across all these gentiles who want to hear more?

Consider the context, though. All of the very first followers of Jesus were Jewish, just like Jesus.  They follow the customs of the Jewish faith, including practices concerning food and table fellowship and circumcision. This is how they have always lived, and part of what binds them together. These practices are a sign of their devotion to God.

As the word about Jesus begins to spread, however, more and more non-Jewish people become interested in following him.  These newcomers are people for whom these food guidelines had no meaning.  The idea of circumcision in particular is less than attractive.  These folks also differ from the first followers of Jesus in other ways: in wealth, in social position. The Jesus-following community has some big decisions to make: What should we eat?  Who should we associate with?  And most importantly, who can be baptized into our fellowship of faith?

Peter is in trouble because he answers all of those questions on his own while far away from the community.  Moved by the Spirit, he eats with people he has never eaten with before.  He shares the story of Jesus with people he isn’t even supposed to associate with.  And then he baptizes a whole crowd of people who no one had ever imagined would be part of this movement.

Peter is in trouble.

We are in trouble, too.  Not for the same reasons. Peter gets in trouble for breaking through barriers without appropriate community discernment.  We are in trouble because we have gotten too good at setting barriers up. (more…)

Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17

What is your favorite name for God?

Our scriptures are more than generous in providing us with words, names, and images for the divine.  Many names refer to the things that God does: Advocate, Redeemer, Refiner, Comforter.  Some compare God to nature: Rock of salvation, Morning Star.  There are names for God that are very abstract: I am who I am, Alpha and Omega, Light of the World.  There are also names that are very concrete and near at hand: Bread of Life, Mother Hen.

The most famous concepts for God in our tradition are the three persons of the trinity, sometimes called Creator, Christ and Spirit. We have scheduled out these biggest God categories over the course of our year.  We often focus on God our creator during the summer and fall; and on Jesus during Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter; and on the Spirit at Pentecost. But there is one other name that is given a specific place on the calendar.  The name “Shepherd” or “Good Shepherd” gets its very own Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter.

Why has this name for God been singled out for so much attention? (more…)

Luke 1:26-38

Why are we listening to this text this morning?

The angel Gabriel is sent by God with a message for a young woman in the town of Nazareth. The woman’s name is Mary. Gabriel arrives and says to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you…Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High… He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Why are we listening to this text this morning? Why are we listening to this story, which is often called the “annunciation”, the great announcement that Jesus is on the way? Doesn’t the pastor remember that Jesus has already been born this year? He has already been born, and in fact, he has grown up to teach and preach and heal. He has lived, and died, and then risen again (just two Sundays ago). Why are we back at the beginning?

This past week, on April 4th, the feast of the Annunciation was celebrated in Catholic churches. In Orthodox tradition, this feast is always celebrated on the 25th of March. But in Catholic tradition, this date is moved if March 25th falls during a Sunday of Lent, during Holy Week, or during the first week of Easter. So, it fell this week instead.

The reason for the date that we remember the annunciation is simple if you think about it. The date of Jesus’ birth is fixed in our yearly calendars at December 25th. March 25th is 9 months earlier, the length of a pregnancy. March 25th is, therefore, is a good time for Mary to conceive, so that she can carry her bouncing baby boy to term by the next December 25th.

But the significance of this pregnancy calendar doesn’t stop there. Both Christmas and the date of the Annunciation are also significant in our natural world. December 25th is near to the winter solstice, the longest night of the year; while March 25th is the spring equinox. And there is at least one more layer of meaning, too. Traditionally, Jesus dies on March 25th as well; that’s the day that Good Friday fell this year. So his date of death, and his date of conception are the same.

I promise you I’m not making all this up. And this has nothing to do with the Da Vinci Code or any other Christian conspiracy theory. These traditions around the conception and birth and death of Jesus date back to at least the 3rd and 4th centuries. The great theologian and bishop Augustine wrote: “For [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since.”

I’m not making this up. So the big question is: Why? Why did the early church map out the life of Jesus onto the calendar in this way? What does it matter? What does it mean, for them, and for us? (more…)

John 21:1-14

What do you do after a resurrection?

Simon Peter decides to go fishing, and several other disciples come along, too. All things considered, it’s not such a strange choice; many of them used to be fishermen, before they started following Jesus.

For all the fishing know-how in the boat that evening, though, things don’t go very well. The disciples fish all night, and catch nothing. Then, as dawn approaches, they see someone on the beach. This stranger gives them some advice: cast the net on the right side of the boat.

If I were the disciples, I don’t think I would have followed that advice. Why listen to a stranger on the shore? Also, I don’t know anything about fishing, but this advice makes no sense to me. Maybe the fishers in the congregation can enlighten me, but what does it matter which side of the boat you put your net down? The fish are either there in the lake, or they’re not! But, as it turns out, when the disciples cast again on the right side of the boat, they cannot not haul the net back into the boat, it is so full. They catch 153 fish.

This is when the story gets truly ridiculous. The beloved disciple recognizes the figure on the shore: it’s Jesus! Simon Peter promptly loses his mind. He puts on some clothes – not wanting to be immodest in front of his Lord and Savior – and jumps into the lake. Fully clothed, he swims to Jesus, not wanting to wait one second longer than he has to. The other disciples, who evidently have more common sense, make their way towards Jesus little more slowly, bringing the boat, and the gear, and all the fish that Simon Peter left behind. Then everybody eats freshly roasted fish and bread together on the shore.

What do you do after a resurrection?

The gospels and the book of Acts reveal that no one is quite sure what to do. In these scriptures, we see the disciples in many settings, and in many moods: afraid, bewildered, excited. The most surprising thing about these stories, however, is not what the disciples do, but what  Jesus does. Jesus is an unpredictable guy during his lifetime, but post-resurrection things get even stranger.

Let’s consider just the gospel of John. First, Jesus appears resembling a gardener and tells Mary Magdalene: Don’t touch me! Don’t hold me! As if, perhaps, a resurrected body could not or should not be touched. In the next story, Jesus appears among the disciples, moving through a locked door like a ghost. Then, he invites Thomas to touch the wounds in his hands and his side.

What happens next? He appears on the shore of a lake, gives fishing advice, and then acts as a sous chef for his best friends, feeding them breakfast (one of the inspirations for this April Fool’s joke).

What do you do after a resurrection? Maybe it’s as simple as this: expect surprises. The risen Jesus is with us in some mysterious way. He may appear at any time, and do anything. We just need to keep an eye out, so that, like the beloved disciple, we recognize him.

I wonder, as this Easter season begins, where has Jesus appeared recently in your life? How is God surprising you?  Maybe you were full of grief, like Mary Magdalene, and Jesus showed up with unexpected good news. Maybe you were full of fear, like the disciples in a locked room, and Jesus arrived to bless you with peace. Maybe you had an exhausted heart and an empty net, like the disciples who fished all night; and Jesus filled up your net and made you breakfast, to boot. Consider the surprising ways that God has popped up in your life in the past few weeks; or where you are longing for some surprise in this season.

Thank you God, for sending us Jesus: who lived among us, died and rose again, and lives now among us in new and surprising ways. Open our hearts to recognize him however he arrives, and receive the gifts he offers us.  Amen.