Sunday, March 29, 2020 – Lent 5

Lent 5 2020

Our Savior’s La Crosse

John 11:1-45

 

What keeps running through my mind as I consider this long story are two short words: Jesus knew.

Jesus knew Lazarus would die.

Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus knew he was “the resurrection and the life” (11:25)

Jesus knew the resurrection of Lazarus would glorify him, therefore bring glory to God (11:4).

Jesus knew.

After hearing of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus knew all that was about to happen, so he stayed where he was for two days longer (11:5).

Two infuriating days.

Jesus loved Mary.

Jesus loved Martha.

Jesus loved Lazarus.

And yet, after hearing of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus stayed where he was for two days longer.

Because Jesus knew.

Mary and Martha (and maybe Lazarus himself) must have had an inkling Lazarus would die.

Mary and Martha (and maybe Lazarus himself) had no idea Lazarus would be raised from the dead.

When the two sisters summoned Jesus, they must have wanted him to come quickly because they knew of his power to heal.

John tells us that, after Jesus finally arrived at their home, Martha said to Jesus “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:21).

Read between the words.

Martha was saying to the friend who loved her, to the friend who loved her sister, to the friend who loved her brother “Where were you?”

“When Lazarus was still alive, where were you?”

“God will give you whatever you ask” Martha said (11:22).

“I trusted you to come, knowing God listens to you, knowing you have the power to heal. Where were you? If you had been here he would not have died.”

Jesus replied with words that weren’t specific enough; Martha didn’t know what he knew. So when Jesus said “Your brother will rise again” (11:23) she thought he meant later, at the last day, when all would rise. (11:24).

Imagine her despair. Imagine her frustration. Imagine what might well have been fury.

Which is why, when Jesus told her “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die.” And then he asked her “Do you believe this?” (11:25-26)

I believe her answer is more of a “yah, yah, alright already” than it is the bold statement of faith some people hear.

“Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah. I believe that you are the Son of God. I believe that you are the one coming into the world” (11:27).

I think her answer is more fury than faith because what does she do next?

She walks away.

She walks away from Jesus, and she goes and gets her sister Mary. (11:28)

She might have well have said “Big whoop-de-do.”

Then Mary went to Jesus and Mary said “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11:32).

You can tell Mary and Martha were talking about Jesus before he even got there, they were talking about what he didn’t do, because Mary used the exact same words as her sister Martha. “If you had been here my brother would not have died!”

But, Jesus knew.

Jesus knew Lazarus would die before he ever died.

Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus knew he, himself was “the resurrection and the life” (11:25)

Jesus knew the resurrection of Lazarus would glorify him, Jesus, therefore bringing glory to God.

Jesus cried out “Lazarus, come out!” (11:43).

The brother of Mary, the brother of Martha, the man Jesus loved dearly, Lazarus came out of his tomb (11:44).

These days we are living in are infuriating. We are waiting. We are waiting. We are watching from our homes as we wait for something to change. We watch as we wait for things to get better…

I wonder, if Jesus came up to your door or my door and said “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die.” And then he asked us “Do you believe this?”

What would we say?

“Yah, yah, alright already.”

“Big whoop-de-do.”

Well—yes. Big whoop-de-do.

Jesus defeats the power of death because in him the world meets the power of the love of God incarnate (cf. Rom 8:35-39). God’s full sharing of power over life and death with Jesus is an expression of God’s love for Jesus and for the world. Because God loves Jesus, God has given all things to him (3:35),    culminating in the power over life and death. Because God loves Jesus, God has given him the glory that is revealed in the raising of Lazarus, in the defeat of death (11:4; 17:24). Because God loves the world, God gives Jesus to the world for its salvation (3:16-17), so that the world might come to know fully God’s love for it and live grounded in that love (17:23). Jesus’ own death is a measure of this love (10:17; 15:12), because in it Jesus’ power as the resurrection and the life comes to fullest expression. (“John 1:1-44 Reflections” by Gail R. O’Day in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 9,  p. 694)

This is what Jesus knew.

This is what we believe!

“The way to experience the power of God’s love for the world that defeats death, to receive the promises of God as the reality of God, is to believe in Jesus” (ibid).

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who believes in me will never die” Jesus said.

“Do you believe this?”

Yes.

Yes, we believe. We believe.

Amen.

Sunday, March 22, 2020 – Lent 4

Lent 4 2020

Our Savior’s La Crosse

John 9:1-14

 

A seminary professor, doing some research on the gospel of John, discovered that the phrase “put out of the synagogue” (which we see in verse 22) is used three times in John, but nowhere else in the New Testament and in no other known Jewish or Christian writings of that time.

Knowing this, the scholar proposed that this phrase to “put out of the synagogue”

refers to the Benediction Against Heretics that was introduced into the synagogue liturgy sometime after 70 [AD] and probably between the years 85 and 95 . On the basis of this benediction, [the writer] concluded that the Fourth Gospel was written at the end of the first century… in and to a community that was being expelled from the synagogue, and that this conflict with the synagogue decisively shaped [John’s] story of Jesus.

(Gail R. O’ Day “John 9:13-41 Commentary” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 9, p. 657)

As is said in verse 22 of our reading, the parents of the blind man Jesus healed feared the Pharisees that interrogated them. The parents feared the Pharisees because, if the parents were to confess that Jesus was the Messiah, they would be “put out of the synagogue.” The Pharisees’ questions were a trap. And, in real life (in the late first century), this was happening. Christians were put out of the synagogue for confessing their faith in Jesus.

You who are watching this service have been “put out of the synagogue.” Literally. And you aren’t alone in that.

Doors are closed in mosques, temples, churches, shrines and other holy places around the world. Like you, people are worshiping at home: maybe sitting at the kitchen table watching the screen on their tablet, maybe in another part of the house at an altar of their own construction.

Most of us would prefer anything but this. Others of us, because of illness or age or frailty, have been worshiping online for weeks or months or years—unable to physically be in the sanctuary of their choice.

We have been told to take sanctuary outside of our sanctuaries.

The crowds of people in normally our sanctuaries create risk.

Some of us feel hurt. Some of us are angry or frustrated because we think everything is being exaggerated. Some of us are afraid. Some of us are lonely. Some of us might be doing ok, having fun with family or with friends online.

The parents of the blind man Jesus healed feared the Pharisees that interrogated them. The parents feared the Pharisees because, if the parents were to confess that Jesus was the Messiah, they would be “put out of the synagogue.”

They feared they would be “put out of the synagogue” because of their faith in Jesus.

We are not in our places of worship, in part because our faith in Jesus leads us to stay home. Because Jesus calls us to love one another we stay home to minimize risk. Because Jesus calls us to care for the sick we stay home, not wanting to make things worse for them. Because Jesus calls us to care for our elders we close our doors to people who have been accustomed to “going to church” every Sunday for decades. Because Jesus calls us to care for those who are most vulnerable those who are strong do all they can to protect those who immune systems are weak or weakened.

This is hard, in part because many of us are used to doing whatever we want whenever we want with whomever we want. We have had this privilege. Now our privileges, our freedoms are being denied us.

*   *   *   *

When the Pharisees were questioning the man who had been blind, they said of Jesus “we do not know where he comes from” (John 9:29). The man who had been blind replied (in part) “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes” (John 9:30).

How might Jesus open your eyes today?

What astonishing things might you see?

Close your eyes and imagine a place you would go if you wanted to find sanctuary. A place you would feel safe. A place you would feel protected and comforted and calm. Your place might be a geographic location or in a specific building. Your place might be outside. Your place might be wrapped in your loved one’s arms or held by a parent…

Now imagine yourself in that place. Take a deep breath. Take another deep breath.

Imagine yourself with friends or family there if that makes your safe place a better place for you.

Now answer in your own mind or speak the words out loud… Why is this the place you are imagining as your sanctuary? Why do you feel comforted there? Why do you feel calm there?

Now, in your mind hold on to your safe place, your sanctuary because this place you are imagining is a place you cannot be “put out” of. This place lives in your mind and you can take yourself there anytime you need to.

Your place is your place.

And you are not alone there. God is with you. Imagine being able to physically feel God’s presence with you there.

Now open your eyes and look around. God isn’t just in the place you have imagined in your mind. God is with you now, in this moment. Where you are.

If you haven’t already done this, are there ways you can make the place you are into a sanctuary? Can you make the place you are into your own or your family’s sacred spot? Can you add a candle? Can you lay a few smooth stones or beads or coins to the desktop or table that you can pick up and hold in your hands? Can you add a photo of a friend or family members? Do you have a bible or a hymnal you can keep near you as we worship? Can you or someone else color pictures to decorate the area for worship? Think of your home, or wherever you are, as your sanctuary during this pandemic.

*   *   *   *

The hymn we are about to sing is an advent hymn: All Earth is Hopeful. Advent is our season of hope—hoping for the return of Jesus to the world even as we remember and re-tell the stories of people waiting for Jesus to come.

This moment, these days, these weeks are not a time to lose hope. Jesus is here, with us. As the 4^th verse of the hymns tells us: We first saw Jesus a baby in a crib. This same Jesus today has come to live in our world; he is present, in neighbors we see our Jesus is with us, and ever sets us free. (ELW #266)

Jesus is with us. Always.

Amen.

Sunday, March 15, 2020 – Lent 3

Lent 3 2020

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Waking Up White Series

Galatians 3:26-28

 

On our bulletin cover you see a graphic of international trade routes during the time when people were being captured, shipped, bought and sold. The graphic illustrates the horror of the times: that human beings are listed as “slaves,” as items for trade alongside rum, lumber, sugar, gunpowder, and other dry goods.

History tells us that, to transport people:

Two by two the men and women were forced beneath deck into the bowels of the slave ship. The “packing” was done as efficiently as possible. The captives lay down on unfinished planking with virtually no room to move or breathe.

Some [people would] die of disease, some of starvation, and some simply of despair. This was the fate of millions of West Africans across three and a half centuries of the slave trade on the voyage known as the “middle passage.”

Doctors would inspect [people] before purchase from the African trader to determine which individuals [were] most likely [to] survive the voyage. In return, the traders would receive guns, gunpowder, rum or other sprits, textiles or trinkets.

The “middle passage,” which brought the slaves from West Africa to the West Indies, might have taken three weeks. Unfavorable weather conditions [would have] made the trip much longer.

[Captives] were fed twice daily and some captains made vain attempts to clean the hold at this time. Air holes were cut into the deck to allow the people breathing air, but these were closed in stormy conditions. The bodies of the dead were simply thrust overboard.

Upon reaching the West Indies, the [people] were fed and cleaned in the hopes of bringing a high price on the block. Those that could not be sold were left for dead. Those [sold] were then transported to their final destination. It was in this unspeakable manner that between ten and twenty million Africans were introduced to the New World. (“The Middle Passage” U.S. History Online Textbook //www.ushistory.org/us/6b.asp copyright 2020 accessed 3/11/2020)

When Jeanne and I were in Memphis two years ago I bought the print you see here, in front of the altar. The print is of a painting done by the artist i.Babatunde, and is sold as a fundraiser for a house that was once on the Underground Railroad. The title on the painting is “The Middle Passage.”

The print depicts the souls of deceased people rising from the ocean water, their faces pointing toward heaven. These people had been transported on a slave ship, where they died. Their bodies were thrown in the ocean water, chains still binding them. In the print the peoples’ hands are lifted upward, broken chains hang from their wrists and from collars around their necks.

I’m telling you this because of the looks on the peoples’ faces in this print.

They are rising from the water, their hands and faces looking up. I believe they are looking toward heaven. The chains on their hands and around their necks are broken. Their spirits are free… free to rise up… looking at their faces I see joy, I see joyful anticipation. These beautiful human beings have escaped the chains of slavery and are going to God.

St. Paul wrote to the Galatians “As many of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ” (Galatians 3: 27-28).

Professor Richard B. Hayes wrote that, in Paul’s time

In baptism, the person being baptized confessed the lordship of Jesus Christ over all creation, disrobed to signify the putting off of an entire way of life, was immersed below the water as if undergoing a burial…, was raised to a new life, and was clothed in new garments symbolizing the transformation that had occurred. (“Galatians 3:26-29 Reflections” The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 11 p. 274)

They disrobed… taking off their old ways of living.

They were clothed in new garments… clothed in Christ!

They were putting on Jesus!

With everything going on in the world around us right now… now is the time to remember that in our baptisms we were transformed, we were clothed in Christ, we put on Jesus! And Jesus has never left us. Jesus is with us.

After worship our church council will meet. We will discuss the La Crosse County Health Department’s recommendation that people not meet in large groups right now. Here we are, meeting in a large group. I’m recommending to council that we not meet again in worship until we are certain it is safe to do so. I’m recommending our worship be online only.

These recommendations come to us and we receive them not out of fear, but with love for every person. All of us who are at risk (And I’m at risk in multiple ways) are asking those whose risks are less to live in solidarity with us, by practicing social distancing.

Because we have been clothed in Christ we continue to receive Christ’s call to love one another. People still need to be fed, in fact, with schools closed, feeding hungry people is going to be more urgent. We need to find safe ways to continue serving the hungry.

Because we have been clothed in Christ we continue to receive Christ’s call to love one another. People still need to be prayed for. I urge you all to pray for one another and for the people working in health care and for people without medical insurance and for people who will feel the pains of loneliness and/or depression as they self-isolate. Pray for our elders in nursing homes or living alone at home. Pray for those in prisons who are in lock-down as governments try to lock out disease.

Because we have been clothed in Christ we continue to receive Christ’s call to love one another. To love every other human being as Christ loves us. To delight in our diversity.

Because we have been clothed in Christ we are called to hope because our hope comes from God. Our hope is in God. Our trust is in God.

Because we have been clothed in Christ we look toward heaven with joy, knowing (as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said) “our God is able.”

Our God is able.

Amen.

 

Sunday, March 8, 2020 – Lent 2

Lent 2 2020

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Waking Up White series

Ephesians 4:1-16

Pastor Jehu Jones was the first African-descent pastor in the Lutheran tradition in America. “Pastor Jones was born in the South.” His family was “part of the so-called mulatto aristocracy of South Carolina” (p. 25). Pastor Jones “was an Episcopalian who eventually found his way to the Lutheran Church” (p. 26). Pastor Jones was “ordained in New York City… he was [assigned] to work with the American Colonization Society,” asked to lead“a Lutheran mission” to Liberia” (p. 27). “Instead, upon his return to Charleston, he was arrested with every other free black… He languished in prison…” (p. 27).

Eventually, Pastor Jehu Jones was sent to Philadelphia where he “founded St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Center City… He bought the land and started to build [the church] with his own money. In 1836, the foundation of a truly free black Lutheran Church was laid down in this country” (p. 28). But, “he was never paid. He was constantly under financial pressure, with no help from the Pennsylvania ministerium… After a while, he was viewed as a failed experiment… that must be shut down” (p. 29). The church’s “assets and land were purchased by the Pennsylvania ministerium and sold off for a profit” (p. 29). (As told by Pastor Lenny Duncan in Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the U.S. chapter 2, Fortress Press 2019)

A few weeks ago I helped my dear friend Pastor Becky Swanson and her husband Gary Anderson finish packing up their belongings so they could move to their new call to ministry in central Illinois. I spent about six hours with them, loading boxes into a truck they rented and cleaning the parsonage. It has been years since I’ve done as much vacuuming as I did that evening.

The next day, my body hurt. There were places that hurt that I forgot were places I had!

In his letter to the Ephesians, the apostle Paul tells us the body of Christ is no different. We are part of the body of Christ. The body of Christ consists of all who believe. Paul wrote there is one body and one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4). Paul wrote

Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16).

The body of Christ cannot function properly when any part of the body is neglected or abused.

Pastor Jehu Jones was both neglected and abused. As Pastor Lenny Duncan wrote in his book Dear Church, “Jehu’s welcome into ordained ministry in the church of Jesus Christ was chains and jail” (p. 27).

“He was never paid.”

“He was constantly under financial pressure.”

“He was viewed as a failed experiment.” (all quotes from p. 29)

Pastor Duncan wrote “The story of Rev. Jehu Jones is instructive to a church that screams for diversity and can’t seem to understand why it remains so white” (p. 29).

Like most other professions, our pastors of color and women pastors in the ELCA are paid less than white male pastors even though all pastors come out of seminary with a boat-load of debt. This leaves our pastors of color and women under more financial pressure. Ministries that are developed in communities serving African Americans or Hispanic Americans struggle to find support.

Some of you might remember Pastor Melissa Gonzalez from Tapestry ministry in Richfield MN. She preached here about a year and a half ago, when she was biking down the Mississippi River in memory of her son. Some of her parishioners came and led our service…

Their ministry is multi-cultural and constantly struggling to find financial support. They need help. Maybe we should help them.

Jesus calls us to speak truth in love. The apostle Paul said that, to do this, we need to grow up in every way into him (Ephesians 4:15). If we don’t grow into Christ in equitable ways, (as illustrated in my young persons’ message) we have a body completely out of proportion!

Never forget, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians:

“…each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (4:7).

For this reason we are called to

“…lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3).

Amen.

 

 

 

Sunday, March 1, 2020 – Lent 1

Waking Up White Lenten Series

Lent 1 2020

Philippians 2:1-6

Entering into conversations about race, specifically racism, is a difficult thing to do. We all have our own thoughts about race, about racism, about who we are and who other people are. Knowing this, beginning an entire Lenten series that is about race, specifically racism—is daunting.

No one wants to feel like they are being attacked.

No one wants to feel like they are being judged.

No one wants to address the elephant that is in almost every sanctuary or worship space in the ELCA: that we are the whitest church in the United States. There are a whole lot more white people in our congregations than there are black people, or brown people; there are a whole lot more people of European descent than there are indigenous people, or people of Asian descent.

Obviously, Lutheranism’s heritage is German, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish… aka northern European.

Just as obviously, generations have passed since people of those ethnicities immigrated to the United States in large numbers, establishing congregations in the communities where they settled. In that time, most of our Lutheran churches have not changed, even when the communities they are rooted in have.

As Lutherans, we need to ask ourselves why this is true. Why aren’t our congregations more diverse? This is not a question we direct to the people of color we know. This has to be a question the white people in the room ask ourselves. What are we doing or thinking or saying or believing or not doing or not thinking or not saying or not believing that leads to our being the whitest denomination in the United States?

Our synod recently had Anti-Racism training for all rostered staff in our congregations. I was unable to attend because of my father’s death. But, at the Anti-Racism Task Force meeting I attended this past Monday, colleagues told me the training began with some ground rules, including that there would be:

No blame, no shame, and no guilt.

The workshop was led by a black man. The workshop was attended by dozens of white rostered ministers and one black minister. No other people of color. Friends who attended said the leader was a master of facilitating no blame, no shame, and no guilt. Even when people said things that made others cringe and want to climb under the furniture, the leader of the workshop stayed true to his own rules. Some attendees were surprised he was able. I’m not. If he has lived in this part of the United States his whole life, he is most likely accustomed to being the only black person in the room, which means he has spent a lifetime nurturing the ability to practice no blame, no shame, and no guilt.

I was studying a commentary on the scripture reading I selected for today, the reading I selected to begin our 40-day Lenten journey with. The writer wrote that “theology and ethics are inseparably joined together” (Morna Hooker, “Philippians Commentary” in the New Interpreter’s Bible vol. 11 p. 514).

As an Ethics teacher, I disagree. There are millions of people in the world thinking about ethics who have no belief in God, and thus no theology. But, as a pastor I agree with the author. As Christians, our theology and our ethics are inseparably joined. Our ethics, our figuring out how we ought to live, is rooted in our knowledge of God. “Theological affirmation leads to ethical demand” (Hooker).

Saying “yes” to the reality of God leads us to an obligation to be the people God calls us to be, doing the things God calls us to do.

Paul is clear in his letter to the Philippians: “Those who confess Jesus as Lord should not be looking for status or power” (Hooker p. 515). “Rather, they should be humbly considering others better than themselves” (Hooker p. 516).

The scholar I cited wrote about today’s scripture reading: “the church as a whole has never taken to heart the true significance of this passage…” adding that we have attempted to “detach theology from ethics” (Hooker p. 516).

When I talk about Christian ethics I am not talking about a set of rules God has provided, like the 10 commandments. I am talking about a way of living, a way of living Paul sets before us when he boldly embraces humility. “Paul, in his teaching, always went back to first principles. In effect, he is saying, ‘This is the gospel. This is what God is like. This is what God has done for you, and this is what God expects you to be like” (Hooker p. 516).

It is vital that we approach our conversations these next 40 days with humility. It vital that we listen to others. It is vital that we set aside our own notions and open ourselves to hear voices that are not our own. It is vital that we have as our ground rules: No blame. No shame. No guilt.

We are seeking to better see our systems, better see our policies, better see the cultural values we have had that are exclusive and privileged and counter-productive to our call to live as disciples of Christ.

In Christ we find our community. Knowing this, the relationships within this community– if they are rooted in love, rooted in selflessness, rooted in concern for others (as Christ calls them to be)—they will be transformed. Doors previously shut will open. Hearts previously hardened will soften.

As Paul wrote:

“If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord…” (Philippians 2:1-2).

Amen.