Month: March 2019

March 31, 2019; Prodigal; Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM

There was a man who had two sons…  It is “fiction,” of course. Or at least it is not “the truth” in the ways we are most accustomed to thinking of “truth,” for we are told right up front that Jesus is telling stories now.

And yet, the characters, setting and plot are so familiar to us that it IS real.  And it is TRUE in all the ways that matter. It is a universal story.  It is a story like so many other biblical of other fathers and other sons. Think, for instance, of Isaac and Esau and Jacob.  Remember all those sons of Jacob — especially Joseph — second to the youngest of that clan. And surely, don’t forget David, who was the youngest of seven or eight sons of Jesse.  Again, and again, the Biblical witness offers us stories of fathers and sons.

So when Jesus began, “There was a man who had two sons…” his listeners would have been able to identify quickly with the characters.  And they would have also remembered all those other fathers and all those other sons. They probably expected the drama to play out around the story of the younger son

• They knew the story of Jacob the younger twin and his need to flee his brother Esau’s wrath after having cheated him out of his birthright. 
• They were well acquainted with Joseph, the second to the youngest and his tendency to lord his father’s favoritism over his older brothers. 
• And David was always in their minds, both his profound gifts, and also his profound failures.

As in the parable Jesus told, eventually each of those younger sons found their way back home — either literally or figuratively. And in their returning, each was an example of the power and the grace of God.  The same is true in the story we’re looking at today.

The parable of the man with two sons is told primarily for those who identify with the older son. At the beginning of the chapter we hear the grumbling of the faithful, the Pharisees and the scribes, voicing their distress that “this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  This story is aimed at all of us who forget it is only because of the power of God at work in the lives of Jacob and Joseph and David, or even our own lives, that any of us may be called ‘righteous.’

I recently read a review of a book, by Jeanne Bishop, titled, Change of Heart:  Justice, Mercy, and Making Peace with my Sister’s Killer.  Bishop draws on our gospel today as a tool for her process of forgiveness and reconciliation.  The author’s story is similar to that of a couple I knew quite well, who lost a child in 1991 in a horrible crime.  My friends, Don and Mary Streufert’s then 18-year-old daughter was brutally murdered by two men.  Don and Mary and their other daughter, Emily, endured an excruciating dialogue process with the two men, guided by a mediator from a restorative justice project of the University of Minnesota. They wanted to express their feelings and get answers to questions unaddressed during the trial.

The Strueferts were members of the church I served in Duluth and Don and I later worked together in an ex-offender re-entry program.  He became an expert at restorative justice and reconciliation, but he didn’t set out to forgive, initially.  But, over time he began to experience something like forgiveness.  It was something happening inside him that had nothing to do with the behavior of the two men.  He says, “seeing our common humanity is a watershed decision. I’m as human as those two men. I’ve come to see there’s a man there. There is care. One of the killers expressed remorse.”

My friends were able to move from profound brokenness to healing. Just like the author, Jeanne Bishop, their journey was rooted in and directed by their faith. In Bishop’s description about her own need for reconciliation, she drew upon the story of the prodigal son. In her first attempt to reach out to the man who murdered her sister she wrote him a letter where she says:

You and I are no different in the eyes of God. I am someone who has fallen short and hurt God’s heart; I have sinned, to use that Biblical word, just as you have. You are a child of God, created in God’s image, just as I am. God loves you every bit as much as me; nothing you have done could ever stop God from loving you. The division I have made between us — you, guilty murderer, me, innocent victims’ family member — was a false divide. I was wrong to do that.  The only thing that could possibly pay for the loss of Nancy, her husband and their baby is this nearly-impossible thing: that you would make your way home to God, the way the Prodigal Son in one of Jesus’ parables finds his way home.

The parallel she draws is not exactly the same, of course. There is no grisly murder in the story Jesus tells. There is, however, profound brokenness in the relationship the two brothers share as the older one feeds his own sense of self-righteousness which has been building for his entire life. Oh yes, his deep resentment appears to have him seeing himself as “fundamentally different from the other.” As better, somehow. As more deserving, more worthy.

The Streuferts and Jeanne Bishop only found any semblance of wholeness again AS they sought to move towards reconciliation with the ones who took so much from them.  I know this was also the case in at least some of the other stories those first listeners must have had echoing in their memories as Jesus spoke.

Think of Joseph’s brothers whose remorse was real enough that they would do all they could to protect their youngest brother Benjamin. And whose lives were not really ‘whole again’ until they were united once more with the brother they had wronged. One could certainly argue that this was doubly the case for Joseph who clearly had nursed his resentment against his older brothers all those years — and who never even made an attempt to be in touch with his aging father.  And think of Esau, who in the end, met his brother, Jacob, on his way home — and welcomed him with open arms.

Indeed, the saddest part of the story Jesus shares today is not that the younger brother had strayed, but that the older brother is allowing himself to remain bound up in his own bitter self-righteousness, in his own resentment. There is profound joy in the story when the younger son finds his way home. Only the father’s joy will not be complete until his older son finds his way home as well. Home to that place where love is the first and final arbiter of all that matters.

Home. Where we are meant to remember that God’s power is at work in all of us. All of us. And where we will only find the wholeness God intends for us when we extend that wholeness to others. Most especially, perhaps, those who have hurt us most of all.

Forgiveness is powerful.  And it is very hard. Today, March 31^st, is the hardest day of each year for me.  40 years ago on this date I was deeply hurt by another person.  Each year that has passed I’ve had a sort of trigger reaction. I have worked hard to process the experience.  In the early years I suffered from active PTSD and sought the support of counselors, pastors and support groups.  I’m proud and relieved and grateful when I say that I’ve let go of the fear, and most of the resentment and anger.  But not a year goes by that I don’t feel the residue of an assault that changed the course of my life.  This year, I’m asking myself if I really want the wholeness that comes by recognizing God’s love even for the person whose actions still affect me. 

This familiar parable is incomplete.  We do not know if the older brother ever finds his way inside to the party. If he ever finds his way ‘home.’ I imagine Jesus left the plot dangling right there so that all of us might somehow experience the invitation as well. As Esau did. As Joseph and his brothers did. As Jeanne Bishop and Don and Mary Streufert did. As I am experiencing that invitation yet again. I expect Jesus did not tell us the ending of this parable because we each need to write our own ending, even now.

Who hasn’t heard the prodigal son story a hundred times?  We think we know what it means, but it is so powerful the message in this text.  It pushes us to the limits of understanding God’s grace.  I’m sure each of you have a grudge you’re holding, a hurt you can’t let go of, a place of brokenness that runs deep.  Even our current polarization in political terms encourages us to vilify the other.  So what shall it be?

• Shall we, set aside own bitter pride and celebrate the God’s who forgiveness knows no bounds?  Shall we go inside, and join the celebration after all? 
• Will we accept this invitation to wholeness which can only be ours if we recognize God’s love even for those who have hurt us most of all?
• Or shall we continue to deny the power, the grace, the love of God for the ones we have deemed to be somehow ‘fundamentally different’ from us?
• Shall we sacrifice our own potential wholeness to prove a point which was never God’s point at all?

Indeed, how will this story end?

As far back as we can imagine, human beings have marked the passing of time using the movement of the sun, the moon and the stars. Kings and Emperors have set the calendars and priests and shamans have designated holy days. The Hebrew people’s calendar goes back as far as the time of the Exile in Babylon, with the New Year, Rosh Hosanna, falling in October.

The early church established festival days and identified seasons leading up to or following those holy days, each with their own mood, color and emphasis. Most Christians follow what is called the liturgical year, a calendar distinct from the secular calendar. Our church year begins not in January but 4 weeks before December 25th. While the rest of the world is singing Christmas carols and partying in December, the church established a counter-cultural tone by observing Advent, a four wee season of hopeful waiting, expectation and preparedness for welcoming Christ into our lives. The season of Christmas in the church is only 12 days long, from Christmas Day to Epiphany, the season that starts with the celebration of the star that led to magi to Jesus and continues until Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Epiphany’s theme is revelation, how we see Christ showing up in the world, and in our lives.

Ash Wednesday is determined by counting back 40 days, not counting Sundays (since every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection) from Easter. In the year 325 the leaders of the Council of Nicaea decided that Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox, which is why Easter isn’t on a set day each year but varies according to the moon. Lent, like advent is supposed to be a time of preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. It has often been a time for considering our sinfulness, marked by making sacrifices to remind us of what Jesus gave for us all. It is a time for extra prayer, self-discipline, bible study, service and devotion.

Holy Week starts with what used to be known as Palm Sunday , most often now referred to as the Sunday of the Passion. Maundy Thursday is the day that remembers the last supper and the foot washing, Good Friday focuses on the crucifixion, and of course Easter focuses on the resurrection. The season of Easter examines the post-resurrection appearances of Christ and leads up to Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Spirit descended like a dove in tongues of fire on the early church gathered in Jerusalem. The season between Pentecost and Advent is called Ordinary Time or simply the Sundays after Pentecost. During that long season we get the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry, his parables and teachings.

Ever since its earliest days the church has established a schedule of scripture readings for each Sunday and festival of the church year, based on the seasons. That system of readings is called the lectionary. It is a three year cycle of readings that includes an Old Testament reading, a psalm, a New Testament reading and a gospel text. Year 1 or A has readings from Matthew, Year 2 or B Mark, Year 3 or C Luke and John’s gospel is divided among the three years. The plan is designed to lead worshippers through nearly the entire Bible every 3 years.

Today is the first Sunday in Lent. Every year we hear the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. This year, year C, we also stand with the ancient Israelites on the edge of the wilderness, looking into the promised land. There is the Jordan River valley, where Jesus’ cousin John will baptize him centuries later and God will name him, and every child of God, as beloved.

Lent invites us to step intentionally into that which is broken and torn, a space in which we learn to be vulnerable again so that we may journey into the very heart of God. We slow our pace during these 40 days because the landscape of Lent takes us through the wildernesses of our own hearts and souls, where we must walk carefully, think deeply, allow our hearts to be broken open, lay bare all that is hidden, buried, or repressed.

Lent is un-apologetically counter-intuitive. It continues the work that Mary sang in the Magnificat of the world turned upside down, where the lowly are lifted up and the mighty are brought down from their thrones. Lent, like Advent, is a turning an overturning, a re-turning. Lent disrupts the conventional wisdom of a world that says we begin in life and end in death.

Many congregations observe Ash Wednesday, a smudgy reminder that death is only the beginning, a cross on a forehead as a declaration to the world of our intention to die to all those things that keep us entombed, pride, avarice, self-doubt, fear, isolation, cynicism and every single other barrier that prevents us from living a wholehearted existence with God. It is a yearly reminder that we are mortal and each moment is precious. The ashes challenge us to be fully human, to acknowledge that life is hard. It comes with unwelcome diagnoses, seemingly insurmountable challenges, impossible decisions, systematic injustice, grief, pain and loss.

The ashes of Lent set the tone for the season and mark our mortality. Yet, we are on a journey of life. We face situations that break our hearts daily, and yet we declare those hearts belong to God. We admit that we have strayed from the pathways of righteousness, even as we profess our repentance and turn toward the good.

Ash Wednesday’s text includes the prophet Joel’s call out across the millennia, “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing.”

Rend your hearts! Break them open! Those walls that you have built around your hearts to keep them safe and comfortable shut me out! Those walls block everything that makes you so delightfully and uniquely human! Remember that you are fearfully and wonderfully made! Turn around; come closer; come home,” says our God.

This is the call of Lent. When things seem hopeless, when there is fear and trembling in the land and a day of great darkness descends, and armies are encamped just outside the gates of our well-guarded hearts, that is when the call to return to God becomes most urgent and necessary. The lectionary texts for each week are blessings that God has left us, like a trail of breadcrumbs, that lead us into resurrected lives. Fed and nourished this way, we can endure the wilderness. The heart of all heats will not leave us wandering and directionless. Each Sunday there will be a signpost taht marks another step toward life, toward the rising that takes place once we are brave enough to rend our hearts. There is an old gospel song that we’ll sing next Sunday that suggests an image of God sitting on the porch in a rocking chair waiting for us, wayward children that we are, to find our way home again. Through blessing, breadcrumbs, Scripture and ash, the heart of our God is calling, “Come home. Come home. You who are weary come home; calling O Sinner come home!”

Today’s Old Testament lesson invites us to stand on the edge of the wilderness today, looking over Moses’ shoulder, and Jesus’ shoulder, so to speak. We look ahead into the promised land of life in Christ, of rising with him. The Old Testament text carries a story that the Israelites are asked to repeat over and over as they bring their first fruits to the priest to be blessed. “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” the story begins. It is a reminder that even when thy have inhabited the land for such a long time that they come to the Temple with their arms laden with the fruit of their harvest, they never forget to whom the land truly belongs and the story of how they came to be. It is a story that grounds them in a tale of survival and struggle. Even when, perhaps especially when, they begin to get comfortable and are tempted to forget that it is God from whom all blessings flow, they are called to remember. This history called to mind the truth that at some point we have all been hungry, nomadic, rootless, dispossessed, dependent on God and one another for comfort, care, and survival. Maybe not in our own lifetimes, but certainly in the lives of those who came before us.

My own grandma told the story of her journey from Norway to North Dakota, hungry and longing for a small coin to buy an apple from a woman selling the fruit on the train. My grandfather had been sick on the boat across the ocean and shifted from one line at Ellis Island to another, afraid of the officer in the first line who seemed to be scrutinizing the immigrants more closely than the other officers.

The Deuteronomy text ends with a celebration, a feast where those who cannot or do not own the land will feast with those who do! If we look one verse forward we see that the priests, the immigrants, the widows and the orphans are included. This is a journey that ends in all being fed. This is the promised land–heaven come to earth–this is the purpose of remembering this story. When we recall our own vulnerability, our own desert wanderings, then we are more apt to include those on the margins who know too little joy, compassion or kindness.

Powerful things happen when we remember, when we look from the wilderness toward the promises of God. Our hearts as well as our tables become more open, more generous. We recognize the abundance of gifts we have been given is meant to be shared. Suddenly our hearts and our tables begin to look more like God’s heart and Christ’s table. “Do this in remembrance of me,” Christ says. Tell this story, eat this bread, drink this cup share all that you are and all that you have in Christ’s name. Amen.

March 24, 2019; The Full Fragility of Life;  ICCM; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

When I do hospital visitation, the calls I dread most are not the ones to the emergency room, or the psychiatric ward, or even the morgue.  The hardest calls come from the pediatric floor or the neo natal unit, where little babies lay in cribs with bandages closing their eyes or where sweet faced children push IV poles down the hall. 

I suppose that is in part due to our own family history. Steve’s youngest daughter was born without a right ventricle and spent her first months in Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis, MN.  She had two open heart operations during her first month of life, another a year later, another at the age of 13 and her most recent surgery was a valve replacement 4 years ago.  That last one wasn’t open heart, instead of cracking her chest open a fifth time, they were able to do a valve replacement via catheter. 

Steve’s brother in law is currently recovering from quadruple bypass surgery and his elder brother is undergoing yet another round of chemotherapy.  He recently wrote the following message in a text group with his siblings who were expressing just how hard their current experiences have been.  Steve’s a great writer and a deep thinker.  He wrote: 

I’ve been asked questions about how I dealt with knowing my child could die in any one of her surgeries.  I answer, “We All Have a Children’s Hospital.” We don’t know when, what or how it will be.  But something that exposes the full fragility of life will happen in each of our lives at some point.  Then and only then do we know who we will deal with the crisis.  But, deal with it me must.  There is no other choice.  A gifted counselor once asked me if I was prepared for my child to die?  Had I faced the very real possibility that she would not survive me?  Through those questions I confronted my unspoken fears and when I did, I knew I was not alone or unique in any way.  This path has been traveled by everyone and will be travelled again and again.  We all share in this walk.  There is no escaping it.  Walk strongly, walk with courage, walk with the love and support of those who surround you.  Find peace and comfort in sharing your burdens and knowing you are not walking alone. 

One of my other favorite writers, Barbara Brown Taylor, writes about her experiences as an Episcopal Priest, visiting the pediatric waiting room.  One day, she received a call to come sit with a mother while her five year old daughter was in surgery.  Earlier in the week, the girl had been playing with a friend when her head began to hurt.  By the time she found her mother, she could no longer see.  At the hospital, a CAT scan confirmed that a large tumor was pressing on the girl’s optic nerve and she was scheduled for surgery as soon as possible. 

On the day of the operation, Barbara found her mother outside the hospital on the smoker’s bench.  She was smoking and smelled as if she had smoked a whole pack right there on that bench.  She was staring at the concrete in front of her with her eyebrows raised in that half-hypnotized look that warned her to move slowly.  She sat down beside her.  The mother came to, and after some small talk she told her just how awful it was.  She even told her why it happened. 

“It’s my punishment,” she said, “for smoking these damned cigarettes.  God couldn’t get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.”  Then she started crying so hard that what she said next came out like a siren, “Now I’m supposed to stop, but I can’t stop.  I’m going to kill my own child.”

Barbara Brown Taylor says it was hard for her to hear.  She decided to forego reflective listening and concentrate on remedial theology instead.  “I don’t believe in a God like that,” she said, “The God I know wouldn’t do something like that.”  The only problem with her response was that it messed with the mother’s world view at the very moment she needed it most.  However miserable it made her, she preferred a punishing God to an absent or capricious one.  Barbara may have been able to reconcile a loving God with the daughter’s brain tumor, but at the moment the mother could not.  If there was something wrong with her daughter, then there had to be a reason. She was even willing to be the reason.  At least that way she could get a grip on the catastrophe.

Even those of us who claim to know better react the same way.  Calamity strikes and we wonder what we did wrong.  We scrutinize our behavior, our relationships, our diets, our beliefs.  We hunt for some cause to explain the effect, in hopes that we can stop causing it.  What this tells us is that we are less interested in truth than consequences.  What we crave, above all, is control over the chaos of our lives. 

Luke does not divulge the motive of those who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices.  The implication is that those who died deserved what they got, or at least that is the question Jesus perceives in the background.  “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all the other Galileans?”

It is a tempting equation that solves a lot of problems.  First, it answers the riddle of why bad things happen to good people.  Next it punishes sinners right out in the open as a warning to everyone. And finally, it gives us a God who obeys the laws of physics.  For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction.  Any questions?

It is a tempting equation, but Jesus won’t go there.  “No,” he tells the crowd, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  It’s a sort of giving with one hand and taking away with the other kind of answer.  No, Jesus says, there is no connection between the suffering and the sin.  Whew.  But unless you repent, you are going to lose some blood too.  Oh.

There is no sense in spending too much trying to decipher this piece of the good news. As far as we can tell, it is not meant to aid reason but to disarm it.  In an intervention aimed below his listeners’ heads, Jesus touches the panic they have inside of them about all the awful things that are happening around them.  They are terrified by those things, for good reason.  They have searched their hearts for any bait that might bring disaster sniffing their way.  They have lain awake at night making lists of their mistakes. 

While Jesus does not honor their illusion that they can protect themselves in this way, he does seem to honor the vulnerability that their fright has opened up in them.  It is not a bad thing for them to feel the full fragility of their lives.  It is not a bad thing for them to count their breaths in the dark, not if it makes them turn toward the light. 

It is that turning that he wants for them, which is why he tweaks their fear.  Don’t worry about Pilate and all the other things that can come crashing down upon your heads, he tells them.  Terrible things happen, and you are not always to blame.  But don’t let that stop you from doing what you are doing.  That torn place your fear has opened up inside of you is a holy place.  Look around while you are there.  Pay attention to what you feel.  It may hurt you to stay there and it may hurt you to see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death.  It is the kind that leads to life.

Depending on what you want from God, this may not sound like good news to you.  I doubt it would have sounded like good news to the mother on the smoking bench outside the hospital.  We all have a Children’s Hospital like experience that pushes us to our deepest fears, where we face our mortality or that of our closest loved ones, or where we push through the depths of despair or injustice.  It’s the reality we know.  We discover that we cannot make life safe, nor can we make God tame.  The gospel becomes enough, it is all we really have, the presence of God, who knows our suffering, the love of others who help us through. It is a life-giving fear that pushes us to turn our faces to the light.  That way, whatever befalls us, we will fall the right way, into the everlasting grace of God. 

Fox and Hen; Luke 13; March 17, 2019; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM

Have you seen the movie Braveheart?  It’s an old movie with Mel Gibson playing William Wallace, a Scottish clan leader who inspired and led a revolution against English rule.  This Scottish uprising for freedom took place at the end of the 1200’s.  The movie is filled with lots of bloody combat scenes and takes plenty of historical liberties.  As the story unfolds in the movie, Wallace has many chances to accept a settlement from the English Crown, to trade his power with the people for personal ease, to exchange his conviction for prestige and wealth.  Over and over he holds true to his purpose and determination.

Even when he is betrayed by a man he trusted, he does not lose heart or give up.  At one point, just before being drawn and quartered he is offered a drug to ease the pain of his impending death.  His refusal of the drug that would dull his wits comes with the words, “every man must die, not every man truly lives.”  He stays true to his goal, unwilling to compromise, to weaken, to recant—even when to do so would save his life or ease his own suffering.  He was determined to win freedom for Scotland even until his last breath.

I’ve seen the movie several times, and whenever I see it, I think about Jesus, who showed unwavering determination all through his life.  Jesus had numerous chances to soften his tone, to compromise, to save himself.  But to do that would have been untrue to his purpose.

Today’s gospel is one of those times when it might have been strategically wise to soften his tone, but he didn’t.  Some Pharisees came to warn Jesus that Herod was out to kill him, that he should leave Galilee.  It was no idle threat.  Herod’s power was great.  It was Herod who had first imprisoned John the Baptist, and then had him beheaded.  Yet Jesus didn’t waver, even when threatened with the power of the king.  It’s as if Jesus was saying:

Herod’s power is not final. Go tell that fox I have work to do.  Herod may think he’s a lion, but he’s a crafty little fox and I’ve got more important things to do than focus on a threat to my own safety.  Self-preservation is not the issue.  I’ll be casting out demons and healing today, tomorrow, and the next day until I have accomplished what I need to accomplish. Then I’ll go to Jerusalem, they can kill me there, as is fitting.

Jesus knows his purpose is to love with the protectiveness of a mother hen.  Threats and rejection are not enough to stop him.  He won’t retreat or shortcut or settle for half truths or half measures.  He heads right into the center of the conflict, right to the central city, Jerusalem. 

In many ways this passage is about a conflict of wills.  We have four wills to consider here: 

• Herod’s will to get rid of Jesus
• Jesus’ determination to stick to his purpose
• Jerusalem’s unwillingness to receive the prophets of God, including Jesus
• And God’s own will to save humanity.

This passage is about God’s passionate determination to save and human determination to resist that salvation.  It is about the intensity of God’s wanting to give us mercy, God’s unceasing desire to gather us like a hen under her wings because God sees what our life is life and what it would be like without God.

God’s will is the one that wins in this contest of wills.  Jesus is obedient to go and do what God wills alone, not what anyone else dictates.  That will includes going to Jerusalem. Jesus repeats that will in Luke 18:31 when he takes the 12 aside and says to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” 

Luke uses Jerusalem as a structure for the central part of the gospel.  In Chapter 9: 51 Jesus “sets his face toward Jerusalem.”  In chapter 19: 41-44 he laments over Jerusalem one more time, he says,

If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you and hem you in on every side.  They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God. 

Then after those fire-y words of prediction he goes on to cleanse the temple.

In between setting his face to Jerusalem in chapter 9 and cleansing the temple in chapter 19 we have this long journey to the city with repeated reminders along the way that this path to Jerusalem is God’s will and has to do with saving the world.  Our text today stands at the midway point in the journey.  It is both a reminder that this determined messiah cannot be sidetracked or made to compromise his purpose and a prophetic sign that Jesus is aware that resistance and rejection are part of God’s saving purpose, resistance that pushes him all the way to the cross.  Here, midway to the cross, we see our savior, caught up in the passion, love, judgment and struggle of wills.  We see a savior who knows his function is to love with the protectiveness of a mother hen, no matter what threats or rejection stand in the way. 

Ok—let’s pause here and explore the images.  Herod is a fox and Jesus is a mother hen.  What does that mean?  Not many people have much exposure to mother hens these days.  Steve and I had laying hens when we lived in Duluth, but without a rooster the eggs weren’t fertile and those hens didn’t get to brood over their eggs or any chicks.  Some of you may have raised brooder chicks with lamps and feeders and heaters and such.  We see the occasional chicken on the back streets here in Mazatlan, but the days of mother hens as a common image are almost gone. 

A friend of mine was raised on a farm.  Her mother raised hundreds of chicks for butcher in a brooder house, and they had laying hens too, but they had roosters too and each year they would let the hens brood over a nest of eggs, one nest for each of the kids in the family. My friend and her siblings were responsible to raise those chicks to maturity.  When they sold the grownup chickens, then the money went to pay for books or toys or special clothes.  She told me that to see a mother hen was a heartwarming sight.  The mother hen would cluck to call her chicks and they would come running.  She would stand with wings outspread and when they were all tucked in close, she would fold her wings over them, hiding them completely from sight, protecting them from whatever dangers were there.

Another friend of mine, Pastor John Sippola, once told me a story about just how protective hens are.  John’s uncle was a farmer and had a hen house, like many farmers did. One night the hen house caught on fire.  They were unable to put the fire out.  The next morning John’s uncle was out surveying the damage, kicking around in the ashes.  He came up to the charred body of a hen and lightly nudged it over.  Underneath were live chicks.

Jesus loves us with the love of a mother hen.  That’s no soft image.  It is determined and protective.  1^st John puts it this way,

God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way:  God sent the Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loves us and sent the Son…Beloved, since God loves us so much, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us.

This is what we need to know.  God is love.  Jesus Christ shows that love, so we can live it.  Nothing need stand in the way of that love.  Jesus showed us that.  Not threats by kings, not desertion by closest friends, not hanging on a cross, not death or burial.  The last word is love that rises from the ashes of death.  There is a harsh intensity to God’s love.  God will give it all for the love of us. 

Thy Holy Wings, O Savior, spread gently over me, O close thy wings around me, and keep me safely there, enfold us, one and all.  Amen.

Good Morning! Steve and I are back from a lovely week-long trip to the Mexican state of Colima. We went with our good friends Karen and Dave to escape the noise and commotion of Carnaval in Mazatlan. We hiked up the side of the most active volcano in Mexico, kayaked in a caldera, went bird watching at dawn, and explored the sleepy town of Comala.

I posted a bunch of sermons today, having fallen WAY behind in my blogging. Sorry about the delay for those of you who look for these weekly. I’ll do better! Thanks for reading.

What Goes around Comes Around; February 24, 2019; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM

There’s a scientific law called Newton’s third law of motion.  It goes: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”?  Or maybe you’ve heard another version of that idea—What goes around comes around. 

It’s true in science and it’s also true when it comes to human relationships, isn’t it?  Our choices have consequences, and sometimes those consequences outlive us.   We see that in the lives of the families written about in Genesis.  Today’s reading comes at the end of a four generation saga. We often focus on just an isolated story from Genesis.  If you haven’t ever read through the whole epic journey of Abraham’s family I encourage you to do so.  There is a lesson about God’s grace and the option of forgiveness that runs through chapters 12-50 of Genesis like a red thread through the fabric of this great book. The characters are true to life—not like superheroes of faith, but men and women riddled with self-doubt, trickery and scheming. The repercussions of their bad choices ripple out, again and again, over generations and finally it is grace and mercy that carries the day.

For those of us who think our families are dysfunctional, well, these families make yours and mine look rather normal, if not downright boring.   Just think about the wild ride they’ve all been on:

• Abram claimed that his wife Sarah was his sister because he could tell the king of Egypt was interested in her, and Abraham was scared he’d be killed.  Nice. 
• Sarah convinced Abraham to have a child with her slave, Hagar, then tried to kill both Hagar and the child when she got jealous. 
• Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac on an altar. 
• Isaac and his wife Rebekah raised two sons Esau and Jacob, each the favorite of one of their parents.  Their sibling rivalry was extreme, a matter of life and death.  After tricking his brother Esau out of his inheritance Jacob ran away to his Uncle Laban.
• Laban lied to him and tricked him out of marrying his true love, Rachel—on his wedding day, no less.  Jacob wound up with two wives and two concubines, 12 sons and a daughter.  He destroys his relationship with his uncle Laban and after a 20-year estrangement from his birth family, Jacob fled once again, this time back to his homeland, hoping his brother Esau wouldn’t kill them all.
• Esau, remarkably forgave his long lost brother’s deception and betrayal and Jacob was able to return home and raise his big family there. 
• Rachel, Jacob’s favorite, died while giving birth to Benjamin, leaving Jacob grieving and clinging to her memory through the favoritism to the two boys she bore.

As I said, what goes around comes around.  It’s a fascinating saga—of betrayal and deception and ultimately of forgiveness and the power of grace to transform and restore.

• Joseph, one of Rachel’s boys, the second to the youngest of the 12 sons of Jacob, had been assigned a sort of supervisory position in the family business, at the tender age of 17.  He was responsible for reporting back on the activities of his brothers—who were busy managing Jacob’s herds and flocks. 
• To make matters worse, Jacob had given Joseph a beautiful coat that reminded anyone who saw it, which son had the favor of their father . . . and which ones didn’t.  Day after day, Joseph would come down to the fields and strut up and down, his beautiful coat swinging easily around his ankles, his brothers work clothes drab in comparison.  Then he would hurry back to his father Jacob and report any indiscretions he observed, any questionable behavior he saw in his brothers. Joseph’s behavior, totally encouraged by his father Jacob, was bound to have a ripple effect.
• And, it did.  Boy, did it ever.  The straw that broke the camel’s back happened one day when Joseph traveled to where his brothers were working and proceeded to tell them about some dreams he had had, dreams about all the brothers out in the fields, binding sheaves of wheat, when suddenly all the brothers’ sheaves bowed down to Joseph’s.  And another dream, about the sun, the moon and 11 stars, all bowing down to Joseph. 

Joseph interpreted those dreams to mean that he was to be in charge.  The meaning of the dreams was obvious to Joseph’s brothers, too, and they were sick of it . . . sick of Jacob’s favoritism, sick of feeling second best, sick of Joseph’s arrogance . . . just sick of the whole situation.

And so the narrative ball keeps rolling; you know what happened.  The brothers plotted to kill Joseph out there in the field one day and throw his body into a pit.  But somebody’s conscience was pricked—Reuben and Judah convinced their brothers to sell Joseph to a passing caravan, to get him far, far away and out of their hair forever.

They staged the whole thing, killed an animal and smeared that beautiful coat with blood. Then they took it back to their father who assumed Joseph was dead.  Jacob’s grief nearly crippled him, he was so devastated by the loss.  Then, life continued, as it always does even in the face of tragedy and violence and pain. The brothers probably felt avenged for a lifetime of favoritism.  But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and you’d better believe the brothers’ behavior had consequences.

This saga continues with Joseph’s adventures as a slave, then advisor to Pharoah, culminating finally in Joseph’s forgiveness.  God appears in all manner of ways in the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but here in the Joseph sa story, God is not mentioned.  All we have are the actions and reactions of human beings, trying desperately to live in community, in family, with each other, and not doing too well at all. 

It was unjust and unfair, no matter how you look at it. No one deserved the treatment they got, not Joseph’s brothers, not Joseph, not Jacob.  But, they made choices to address what they experienced as injustice with other acts of injustice or violence. Except for Esau who broke the cycle with his forgiveness, and finally Joseph does the same at the very end of the story.  Newton’s third law of motion operates throughout, as we know by now it always does.  When faced with injustice we have a choice about how to respond.  And remember, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

 Simon Wiesenthal was a Jew who lived during World War II in an area of Europe that was conquered by Germany. During the war he was forced to live in a ghetto and then sent to a work camp where he faced the possibility of death every day. One day in the work camp, Wiesenthal was summoned by a nurse to hear the dying confessions of an SS Nazi soldier. The soldier asked for forgiveness for the things he had done to the Jewish people; he wanted forgiveness as he was dying because he was afraid that his soul would not be able to rest in eternity unless he was forgiven.

In his book The Sunflower Wiesenthal tells about trying over and over to leave the room because he was so afraid and because he hated Nazis. But he stayed and listened to the dying man out of pity and also because the soldier begged him not to leave. Wiesenthal recognized that the Nazi soldier was showing true repentance but he also knew that the soldier was ignorant, selfish, and a member of the group that had taken away the lives of his friends and family.

Overwhelmed with the heaviness of the decision, Wiesenthal eventually just left the room.  The next day he found out that the soldier had died and left all his things to Wiesenthal; Wiesenthal spent the rest of his life asking the question: “What would you have done?”

The book’s newest edition includes the contributions of many noted Jewish and Christian thinkers who comment on the dilemma Wiesenthal faced.  Most agree that Wiesenthal could not have forgiven that solider on behalf of an entire race of people, but many also note: there’s something powerful in stopping violence and hatred with forgiveness and love. 

Desmond Tutu, who presided over the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after Apartheid writes of Wiesenthal’s dilemma: “It’s clear that if we look only toward a retributive justice, we might as well close up shop.  Forgiveness is not some nebulous thing.  It is practical politics.  Without forgiveness, there is no future.”

Often, things happen to us that we can’t control, the same things that happened then: infertility, political oppression, famine.  Or it may be that we set out, like Jacob, expecting to marry Rachel and end up married to Leah, or we are betrayed by our brothers.  But even when these things happen, we always—always—have a choice about how we will respond to the situations in which we find ourselves.

We can respond to the injustice we face with anger, hatred and violence.  Maybe some would say a response like that is even justified.  But remember: every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and violence and pain and injustice always . . . always . . . breed more violence and pain and injustice. 

What pain could have been avoided if Joseph’s brothers were able to face the unjust situation in which they found themselves and respond, not with violence, but with forgiveness? What if someone had said “I’m sorry?” “Forgive me.”

What pain could we avoid if we train our hearts with the discipline of answering injustice with forgiveness and love? Today – each day – we make choices, like Jacob and Joseph, that impact our lives and the lives of others. What choices will you make? Will you invite God into the process? Choose wisely, dear friends, choose wisely.

Let us pray:  O Gracious One, help us to do to others as we would have them do to us, to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse us.  Help us to be merciful, as you are.  You tell us not to judge, lest we be judged, to forgive and we will be forgiven, to give and it will be given to us, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, for the measure we give will be the measure we get back.  Amen.

Blessed; ICCM 2.17.19;  Psalm 1; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

I think that I shall never see, A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest, Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear, A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

My Grandma Rustad taught me that poem when I was a little girl.  It leads my thoughts right into Psalm 1.  Grandma gave me my love of poetry and compelled me to memorize scriptures.  My sister Betsy and I spent a part of a week with her and my Grandpa many summers.  Each evening after supper we would go for a walk around the little town of Nevis, MN.  Grandma would point out the wildflowers and the birds, naming each one.  For her, Joyce Kilmar’s poem led right into Psalm 1.  We learned them both as we walked together.

Blessed is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on the law meditates day and night.
like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, whose leaf does not wither.

Like all good poetry, we are left with an image to hold onto here—to be blessed is to be like a fruitful tree, planted by the water, with shiny healthy leaves. 

At the end of worship today I will once again invite you to receive the benediction.  I will raise my hands like this, and I will use scriptural words to pronounce God’s blessing on this congregation.  Today those words will come from two of our appointed texts, Jeremiah 17: 8 and Psalm 1: 1 and 6

May you be like trees planted by water who yield your fruit in its season, watched over and protected by God. 

I have lived nearly all my life in Minnesota—our trees are oaks, maples, elms, birches, tamaracks, white pines.  Right now, the landscape there is monochromatic—whites and greys, hints of blue.  The trees stand bare against the vast grey skyline, waiting for spring.  Even the trees planted by the streams are just stark reminders of the light and warmth that will return. 

The trees here are certainly different, probably more like the trees the psalmist referred to.  The evergreens of this climate are the palms and cacti.  I noticed the other day a Guanacaste tree’s new season’s leaves emerging and the elephant ear shaped pods growing shiny and strong on the huge arching branches.  Soon the Jacaranda trees will reach over the buildings with their glorious purple flowers. 

Trees are indicators of life. Their seasonal changes mimic our own patterns. They lift their leafy up; they send roots down deep into the soil. They are both grounded and growing, stationary and on the move. They stretch, they reach, they seek what gives them life—water, soil, and sun.

Nature teaches us. It is the first expression of God, remember—let there be light and life, and fruit bearing trees.  All of creation is connected in the Creator in ways we’re still learning about.  Scientists recently discovered how trees are connected to each other and can communicate and transmit chemicals between them through the web of fungal connections called mycelium. Wow!

The love of God is revealed in all that God has infused with life. So, it should not surprise us that images of trees, shrubs, water, and earth appear throughout our scriptures. These images are of God and of God’s blessed relationship with us. 

In our Gospel, Jesus preaches the Beatitudes in his Sermon on the Plain. For each present reality—poverty, hunger, weeping, hatred—Jesus offers a promise that is to come. The poor will reap the kingdom, the hungry will be filled, the ones who weep will laugh, and the ones who are excluded will leap for joy. There is promise of immediate change, though.  Even those who are right there in Jesus’ presence and hear his words the moment he speaks them are promised gifts of life and joy to come, but not that very day.

Jeremiah 17 and Psalm 1 paint a similar picture. The green, fruit-bearing tree shall be our hope and future. That tree shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green. Even in darkness and drought, the tree shall grow. Even when everything around it tries to take away its life, be that desert heat or bitter cold, the tree shall not die. In the Lord’s care, the tree will live.

It is not the future we trust in though; it is God. We don’t trust in ourselves. We trust in the God who blesses us through our troubled present and leads us to the other side—to a future of hope. When we despair, we hope in God who holds the past, present, and the future—God who knows the poor, the hungry, the weeping, the hated, the excluded, the defamed. God who keeps promises.

But that’s not the end of the passage is it?  At the end of the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus continues to speak of a future—but this time, a future of woe for those who are rich, who are full, who are laughing now. Their promised future shall be filled with sorrow and emptiness. It’s an uncomfortable, even scathing promise. In Jeremiah, those whose hearts turn away from the Lord “shall be like a shrub in the desert,” parched and alone in the wilderness. The other side of the blessing is woe. The other side of promised hope is the reality of lived suffering and despair.

We inevitably live in both conditions—trusting in God or trusting in ourselves. Hungry and full, weeping and laughing, hated and loved. Jesus reminds us that when we are full, we can be sure that we will one day be empty again, and that the only true fullness that endures is from God. When we are weeping, we can be sure that we will one day laugh and rejoice, and that our joy is from God. For every part of life, there is another time that God holds before us, ensuring that we do not forget God’s presence and power infused in everything we do and through everything we live.

As the changing seasons remind us, God’s promise is that there is always another experience and always a reason to hope. It is winter, even here, and spring will come.  I close with one of my favorite scriptures, this time from the Living Bible translation. 

Ephesians 3:17-19 

¹⁷ And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; ^18-19 and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high God’s love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God’s own self.

Luke 5: 1-11, Isaiah 6: 1-13 Extraordinary Power; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Miraculous events and visions raise many questions.  The Old Testament lesson and the gospel for today are no exception to that.  We ask what these extraordinary events have to do with our ordinary, everyday lives.  Our immediate response is usually skepticism, much like the mother who asked her son what he learned in Sunday School that day.

“We heard all about a man named Moses.  He went behind the lines and rescued the Israelites.  Then he came to the Red Sea and called in his engineers to build a pontoon bridge.  After the Israelites got across, he saw the Egyptian tanks coming, so he got on his radio and called in the Air Force who sent in dive-bombers to blow up the bridge with all the Egyptians still on it!”

“Now, son,”  said the mother, “is that really what your teacher told you?”

“Well, not exactly, but if I told you what she told us, you’d never believe it in a thousand years!”

Sometimes we respond in a similar way when we hear of miraculous happenings.  Perhaps because our lives are pretty ordinary.  We have a pattern of life.  We have routines and rhythms that give our lives order.  Right now, it may be the Gordon Campbell series, or golf, or bridge games.  It may be volunteering as a tourist guide at an orphanage, or as an English teacher.  We live with ordinary joys and common struggles that give our lives meaning.  So, when, from our everyday routines we come across stories like those in our lessons today, it’s hard to know just how to respond. 

The Old Testament lesson is the call of the prophet Isaiah and his glorious vision of God’s holiness, from which we draw our response to the words of institution in our communion liturgy each week.

Visions, even in the Old Testament, are rare.  Many people live their whole lives without even a glimpse of the mystical aspects of life.  Others experience transportive visions or theophanies.  Our season of Epiphany is full of biblical stories about amazing events and the season invites us to open ourselves to the holy in life and through prayer and spiritual growth. 

Like the little boy who retold the life of Moses in believable terms, we can be tempted to pass off such experience or adjust them to make them more believable.  Whatever happened to Isaiah, it lies beyond the realm of everyday common experiences.  It was extra-ordinary and provocative, and it brought a response of faith in the prophet.  Throughout this event God was shown to be active and present in the life of a believer in a powerful way.

Today’s gospel lesson presents us with another outstanding story. The marvelous catch of fish and the subsequent call of the disciples is another, extra-ordinary, provocative account.  We come to these texts with our 21^st century mindsets asking modern questions, overlooking the messages conveyed in the stories– that Jesus brings God’s power into all of life. 

When our lives seem routine, or even dull, we can imagine how excited we would be about God if we saw a miraculous event or had an awesome vision.  It’s easy to imagine that if only we had been there to see amazing things we could believe as the original onlookers did. 

But, if seeing is believing, then the people who actually saw the miraculous catch of fish would have been so overwhelmed they would have stopped everything to worship, praise and follow Jesus.  All of Palestine would have known Jesus as Lord.  The word would have quickly spread to the whole world.  His ministry would have been fulfilled then and there. 

That didn’t happen though.  Some people, in Jesus day, as much as today, quickly forgot the good and astounding things that happened to them.  Maybe some of the people who saw Jesus’ miracles explained them away as we often attempt to do.  Seeing is not necessarily believing, because seeing is subject to interpretation.  People often look only at those things that prove what they already believe.  So, they see nothing new or different that might challenge them to change.

What do we see when we look around?  Has God stopped raising people from the dead?  Has God stopped healing people, calling people, restoring the broken to creative lives, or inspiring people beyond their self-accepted limits? 

I see these things all around me.  A woman I know had crippling arthritis which is now gone.  She was not cured by medicine but by prayer.  Another woman I knew lived for 30 years in a nursing home, crippled by arthritis.  She was not physically healed like the other woman, yet her positive attitude and her faith spread love throughout that home.  Those who came to visit her left with a blessing.

I know many recovering alcoholics whose once broken lives have been restored to productivity and joy through their trust and dependence on God.  In my years in ministry I’ve seen people once devastated by loss and anger and bitterness who have been transformed emotionally, spiritually, and relationally.  God is working miracles every day, sometimes in extraordinary ways, sometimes in very ordinary ways. 

There are countless people who live lives of quiet heroism.  They may seem so ordinary that we look right past them.  Single parents care for children while maintaining a home and earning a living.  Many people have pushed through the despair at the end of a marriage either through divorce or death, overcoming obstacles and carrying on with courage. 

I had a great aunt who live to be 95 years old.  After her retirement from public school teaching she served endless hours in community work, feeding and providing for the needy in her small hometown in a quiet and respectful manner.  Her life extended beyond its own limits in ways that revealed her faith and strength.  Each of us know people who live or lived beyond themselves because of a commitment to the example of Christ.

What do the miraculous and visionary accounts of the Bible have to do with our ordinary lives?  Everything!  We only need to open our eyes to the extraordinary to find it all around us. 

Actually witnessing a miracle or having a vision did not then and does not necessarily now convert people to a new way of seeing.  The event itself does not change lives.  Many look and do not see anything special.  What is important is the ability to see Jesus as the source of new life, to hear the call and follow.  The real miracle, in any outstanding event, is the impact of Jesus that turns lives around.

The most extraordinary event is that Jesus laid out his life to convince us, to show us the outstanding power of God in all of life.  Jesus still brings us to see him, to enter deeply into his meaning for life.

Dr. Nelson Traut was the commencement speaker at my graduation from Wartburg Seminary.  He told of his visits home to see his mother.  Each time he came in the door his mother would greet him warmly and then say, “Come and see what the Lord’s been doing.”  Then she would show him how the house had been painted, or tell him about someone who got a job, or show him how well her garden was growing.  Traut said he learned from her that it was indeed the Lord who made these things, all things, happen.

Jesus’ power of transforming lives involves making us see him in all the ordinary everyday events in our lives.  Then our lives become no longer ordinary but outstanding witnesses to the power of God.  The events may not be different but the way we see them is.  Look and see the extraordinary power and glory of God in everyday life.  Amen.

God is Love; February 3, 2019; ICCM; 1 Cor 13: 1-13; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Will Willimon is known as one of the best preachers of our times.  He poses a question about today’s gospel. What do you expect in a sermon? What would you most like to happen to you when you are listening to a sermon? Over the years, he’s heard these responses: I like a sermon that helps me think about a biblical passage in a new and fresh way. I think a sermon ought to point out ways that I have gone wrong and to suggest ways that I can get my life back on track. I want inspiration from a sermon, a feeling that I have been taken to a higher place or have been given a special feeling as the result of the sermon. The best sermons are those that give me something that’s easy to remember, something I can take home with me. He agrees that, while there is some truth in all of those responses, the problem is that none of them align well with this Sunday’s gospel – Jesus preaching at his hometown synagogue in Nazareth.

Our gospel picks up right where we left off last Sunday.  Jesus has read from the scroll and sits down to elaborate on the text.  Instead of reciting some memorized rabbinical teaching, he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  He goes on, in his lifetime, to live out this inaugural sermon of his, bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight, and announcing the Jubilee year of justice. 

The people gathered that day must have been excited.  Could it be, at long last, this long-awaited time of deliverance, foretold by the prophet Isaiah, is fulfilled?  They were having a great service, the music was the right tempo, they got to sing their favorite songs.  It was a nice day.  And then, here come the words about God’s salvation for them, oppressed, occupied Israel. At last, God is making good on God’s promises. At last, God is coming for them. Good news!

Jesus was their hometown boy. They were proud of him, feeling puffed up to claim his as one of their own. But, then he had to preach didn’t he?  He said, in effect, “Isaiah says that God is coming to deliver the faithful. I say that that day of the Lord’s advent is now.”  We can picture him pausing for effect, “Now let’s see, when was the last time that God came to us? During the time of the great prophet Elijah, there had to be many famished Jewish women when there was a great food shortage in the land. It is interesting to find that God’s prophet gave food to none of those hungry Jewish women, but only to a Gentile, pagan woman.”

This wasn’t the sermon they wanted to hear.  Scowls, crossed arms, sideways looks. And Jesus the preacher continues, “And there had to be lots of people suffering from various illnesses during the time of the prophet Elisha, but God’s prophet healed none of them. Only one, a Syrian Army officer, was healed.” When he said “Syrian Army officer” we can be certain it meant exactly the same thing then in Israel that it means today. 

And Luke tells us what happened “When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was filled with anger. They rose up and ran him out of town. They led him to the crest of the hill on which their town had been built so that they could throw him off the cliff.” 

Well, I’ve had some negative reactions to my sermons over the years, but never has anybody in the congregation tried to murder me because of my preaching.   Sometimes in sermons you get helpful hints for better living. Sometimes you receive answers to your most pressing questions. Sometimes the sermon is well-crafted.  But the thing that really matters is that you hear not the preacher’s words, but God’s Word.  In worship we get the gift of drawing close to God who, in Jesus Christ, has chosen to love us and be close to us. Sometimes that closeness with God feels good and sometimes it doesn’t feel so good. But, our feelings are not the main point. Sometimes what we hear sounds like good news and sometimes it sounds like bad news. The main thing is we have heard God’s news.

Will Willimon says that he has a Rabbi friend who says, “Judaism is a rather simple religion that is based on two profound articles of faith. One, there is only one God. Two, you are not it.”  That might be just what the folk at Nazareth experienced in Jesus’s sermon that day.  They arrived at the synagogue with their conceptions of God firmly in place. But then the preacher, using nothing but scripture, corrected, expanded, critiqued, and enriched their idea of who God is and what God was up to. God’s projects, God’s intentions, God’s concerns are bigger than any congregation or person. I agree with Will Willimon when he says an effective sermon occurs when we are reminded that God is God and we are not.

I think that’s what happens in Paul’s message to the church in Corinth, too.  Yes, I know that it’s extremely hard to hear this love chapter without thinking it’s meant for weddings.  It conjures up memories of rented tuxedos, unity candles and nervous mothers of the bride.  But that’s the farthest thing Paul would have expected this chapter to be used for.  This chapter isn’t about Romantic Love, it’s about God’s unconditional love.  Whenever I preach on this text at a wedding I remind the couple, that no matter what their intentions are—they will at some point in their lives together each be everything this text says love is not—they will be irritable or impatient, rude or boastful, unkind or arrogant.  I remind them that by getting married in the church they are calling for the blessings of God to surround their lives and my job is to remind them that when they are envious or insisting on their own way—to remember that God’s love undergirds and supports their promises and calls them to repentance and forgiveness.

As you may know, this chapter is the culmination of Paul’s long message to the divided congregation in Corinth.  They’ve been jockeying for status among themselves, refusing to share, scorning their neighbor’s spiritual gifts, boasting in their own.  They’ve become clanging gongs.  Without love their gifts are nothing.  All their efforts and accomplishments will come to an end.  The only things that last are faith hope and love. The greatest thing, the thing that lasts is the thing we give away—love.

Paul has been building toward section for 12 chapters.  In chapter 1 he says, God is the source of your life in Christ. In chapter 3 he says, so neither the one who plants, nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.  In chapter 4 he asks, What do you have that you did not receive? If you received it as a gift, then why boast?  In chapter 5 he says, Your boasting is not a good thing.  Chapter 8 gives us these words: Yet for us there is One God, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.  And Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by God.  The love Paul is leading up to in our reading today is meant to be the reality of God’s presence in our lives, and among us, the very basis of who we are. 

Paul isn’t just scolding the congregation here.  He writes in the first person, using himself as an example, since he speaks in tongues, is a prophet, fathoms mysteries and knowledge, performs miracles and lives self-sacrificially.  Each example builds on the one before, if the ability to speak in tongues of mortals is amazing, how much more so the ability to talk with God in ecstatic language.  If prophecy is good how much better the ability to understand mysteries. And so on, all the way to sacrificing one’s own body like Jesus?  But they are all nothing without love. 

Personally, I feel convicted whenever I read this passage.  I know I can be irritable and impatient.  I’ve been known to insist on my own way.  Perhaps you have too.  And what happens when we admit our failings?  What happens when we are convicted and we confess, when look in the dim mirror of self-awareness and go to the one we’ve hurt.  A miracle happens when we are received in love and forgiveness.  We feel the grace flood over us and restore us, grace not based on our strength or talents, not based on our accomplishments or accumulations, but solely based on love—freely given.

There’s a story from the 4^th Century Desert Fathers, about Abbot Moses.  He was evidently a tall, muscular man with rich ebony-colored skin and warm brown eyes. He had lived a life of scandal and wrong-doing as a robber and murderer before coming to the monastery in the desert where he begged for quite a long time to be accepted as a monk. Now he had lived many years in prayer and contemplation. He knew the long road of remorse and forgiveness. So, when he was called to a council of brothers to consider the consequences of the misdoings of a young novice he refused to come. The brothers and other Elders continued to implore him to be present. On the day of the council Abbot Moses arrived carrying a basket of sand. The basket had a hole and the sand poured out of the hole creating a trail behind the holy man wherever he went. When asked about the basket and the trail of sand, Abbot Moses replied, “My sins run out behind me and I do not see them. Yet I am summoned this day to judge failings that are not mine.” Chastened by this answer from Abbot Moses, the council released the young man with loving words of encouragement for his spiritual path and prayers for his future.

For those first listeners to Jesus that day in Nazareth, for the Corinthian congregation, for the monks in the desert in the 4^th century, and for us…it’s easy to think we know the answers.

Every person in the synagogue in Nazareth that day began the day by reciting the great Jewish Shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one.” Jesus, good Jew that he was, reminded the faithful that it’s not like the Syrians have their God, and we have our patron God who runs errands just for us. There is only one God. God is not our tamed pet. God is God. We are not.

We are always in danger of attempting to cut the great, glorious God down to our size, to substitute other gods for the true and living God. That’s when we ought to pray that we’re about to hear a sermon that again reminds us that God is bigger than our meager concepts, our vain desires, and our little projects.

Paul says Love is the more excellent way.  Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love the lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.  And he encourages us saying, as the Father’s love abides in me, so I abide in you, abide in my love.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God, Those who love not, know not God for God is love, beloved, let us love one another.

ICCM  1.27.19  Sweeter than Honey; 3 Epiph C; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Each of our texts for today point our attention to the role the Word of God plays in the lives of God people. 

The Old Testament reading from Nehemiah gives us a peek into the life of the Judeans, after their exile in Babylon. Emperor Cyrus of Persia had beaten the Babylonians and established his own, more tolerant rule.  He allowed the Jews to return to a small portion of the land that had been theirs, to resettle there and live as they wished.  The Jews had lived for two generations or so in a foreign land.  When the returned, their homes and temple and familiar places had been destroyed and taken over.  They had been exposed to new ideas and world views and struggled to rebuild and adjust. They couldn’t just pick up where their ancestors had left off. They had changed, their world had changed, their understanding was broader. They had new questions. In today’s reading they gathered to hear the word of God read and interpreted for them, and they were overcome with emotion, weeping and rejoicing both. 

Over the past seven years the world has witnessed another exile of people from the middle east.  I imagine that sometime, maybe it will take one or two generations like it did in the Old Testament times, or maybe it will take longer for some of the current refugees’ descendants to return to Syria and face the same sort of disorienting re-settlement.  Having lived their whole lives with the stories of their ancestors’ memories told and retold to them first from resettlement camps in Turkey, or Sweden, or Germany and later from established homes there or elsewhere, they might return to be overcome and overwhelmed to the point of tears at being able to worship in the old ways in the old places once again.

The epistle for today comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth. He instructs them in how to handle their divisions and differences, encouraging them to recognize their interdependence as mutual giftedness. In the early church there were Jewish people, like Paul himself, who saw Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.  They were steeped in traditional Judaism, the Hebrew Scriptures and practices but were challenged to understand them in new ways because of Jesus. 

There were also growing numbers of followers of Jesus who came from the Greco-Roman worldviews, who hadn’t been circumcised, who didn’t know the Jewish law and the prophets. That was just one of the divisions the early church struggled with. Apparently, in Corinth, there were factions developing, those who spoke in tongues and those who didn’t.  In the chapters just before our reading for today it seems there were cliques, the rich eating by themselves in their gatherings and not sharing what they had with the poor.  The Roman world was highly stratified, and those social distinctions set people apart, rich and poor, slave and free, Greek and Jew, men and women. It is a timeless problem.

Our congregation here is a bit like the one in Corinth, I think.  We come, like they did, from various parts of the world, from various backgrounds and yet we are the body of Christ, one body with many parts.  Just in the last few weeks I’ve been asked several questions that speak to our differences as a body.   

I was talking with a friend a few weeks ago about the different ways we read the Scriptures.  She shared a time early in her Christian walk when she gobbled up every opportunity to learn and to read the Word, attending study groups, reading stories to her boys before bed.  And the changes that have occurred in her understanding over the years, sometimes reading for answers and clear direction, and later growing into an approach that is ok with a recognition that we don’t know all the answers.  Through the course of our conversation I could see that even though she and I approach the Bible differently, the Word has generated deep faith in both of us.   

I grew up in the church.  I learned the song “Jesus Loves Me” as I learned to speak I think.  Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so… We went to church most Sundays and prayed before meals and before bedtime.  My mom taught Sunday School and Vacation Bible School.  I was steeped in the Word.  I grew up in a family where I was encouraged to speak my mind, to question and explore.  For me that meant asking questions about faith too.  I participated in a 5-year-long confirmation program with weekly release time from school.  I had great pastors and teachers who welcomed my probing questions.

When I was in about 7^th grade or so I went to bible camp.  It was a powerful week for me, a turning point in beginning to make faith my own.  At camp Emmaus we learned a song based on our psalm for today. 

 “The law of the lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple, more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.”

After camp, my friend Nancy and I started with Matthew and worked our way, 5 chapters a week, through the new testament.  The word was sweeter than honey.  We were eager to grow and learn and share.  That was the beginning really, of my hunger for the Word.  A few years later, my pastor, Dave Solberg taught me to use Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina as methods of study and devotion.  Then in High School I was invited into an intergenerational study led by a college religion professor in our town.  There I learned how to read the scriptures from an historical critical method, digging into the context of each passage, comparing one biblical text to another for clarification.  In college and Seminary I learned new skills and tools, including learning the original languages and more about the history of Christian interpretation and theology.  We examined the variations in ancient manuscripts and wrestled with how God still speaks across the ages, not only in the words of the Bible, but through the process of study and interpretation. 

Dr. Gary Chamberlain said something to us that I’ll never forget.  He said, “Don’t be afraid to rigorously examine the Scriptures.  They will stand up to any examination you can undertake.  Think of it as a compliment to the Bible to test it, question it, and dig for understanding.”  He quoted the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer which calls on God’s people to not only hear but to “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” Holy Scripture.  He reassured us that Bible isn’t like cotton candy or Cheetos it won’t melt away.  No, God’s word has substance!  We could chew on it in all its complexity and depth.  Some of the passages are difficult to digest, sure, but we risk missing the fullness of God’s word if we just stick to the parts that are simple and easy to understand. 

I love that the Scriptures are like the ocean, we can wade in its shallows or dive deep into its inexhaustible depths.  I’ve spent my entire adult life probing and questioning, studying and reading, and each time I dig into the Word I find new understanding.  Isn’t that beautiful?  We grow in wisdom and understanding, sometimes overcome with joy or tears. 

The testimony of the lord is sure and righteous altogether, says our Psalm.  The precepts of Yahweh are true, they gladden the heart and enlighten our sight.

The gospel today relates Jesus’ first “sermon” so to speak, at his hometown. He speaks and interprets and enlightens, drawing on the ancient texts to show his mission in the world.

Luke gives us a peek into the way that Jesus was grounded in God’s Word.  Luke relates the experience of the listeners in the Synagogue on that Sabbath day in Nazareth.  They reacted strongly.  After his baptism and long wilderness fast, Jesus came home. It seems the whole town turned out to see for themselves what they have been hearing about him.  Jesus had been prepared well for life, raised as a faithful Jew.  Surely, he had been brought to the synagogue every week.  That day, he was invited to read the lesson from the prophets. There was no lectionary to consult to determine this reading; the choice was up to him. Nor was there a book to flip through. Instead, a bulky scroll was brought to him and placed upon the lectern. Jesus, searching for a familiar text, unrolled it to a place near the end of the scroll. He read aloud these words:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Finished with this brief passage, Jesus rolled up the scroll, returned it to the attendant, and took his seat. It was the custom for teachers to sit, rather than to stand. So, when Jesus sat, everyone looked at him, expecting some commentary, some explanation of this text that was well known to many of them.  There were no professional preachers then. The synagogue president could invite any appropriate person to comment on the text. Often these remarks were less than inspiring. While the people were biblically literate, commentary on scripture by such speakers was often no more than rote recitation of lessons all of them learned at an early age. Kind of like Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Or a recitation of a catechism text.  The congregation usually knew what would be said before it was said.  The only question was whether it would be said correctly or not.

But that’s not what happened.  Jesus didn’t recite a rote lesson.  He claimed those ancient prophetic words as his own personal mission statement.   God’s Spirit came down on him at his baptism to empower him to do precisely this: bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; let all the oppressed go free; and announce the sweet Jubilee Year when God’s justice will reshape society.  This was not just a string of high-sounding words. Everything that followed in his life amounted to the living out of the prophecy he claimed for himself that Sabbath morning in Nazareth.

He kept doing those things every chance he got, every time he turned around, until finally it got him killed. Some people welcomed what Jesus did, but others did not because it upset their unfair advantage, questioned their complacency, and pushed them to recognize their habitual infidelity to God. They found their discomfort increasingly intolerable and expected that his execution would bring an end to the matter.

They were wrong, of course. Jesus’ death didn’t stop anything.  Through the gospel, through the church, here in Mazatlan and back in Canada or the United States, everywhere… those ancient words continue to be fulfilled.

The law of the lord is perfect.  The commandments of the Lord are clear, abiding forever.  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.  Amen.