14 Pentecost

 

Sept. 10, 2006

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church

Fargo, ND

 

Isaiah 35.4-7a; Psalm 146; James 2:1-10,[11-13],14-17; Mark 7.24-37

 

So, I know you have been asked this question before:

 

 

 “What command do you suppose is the most repeated in the Bible?”

Do you remember?

If you don’t, don’t worry.

I’m, not grading anyone. I promise.

But think about it a bit.

What command do you think is the most often repeated command in the Bible?

No doubt, the first thought to come to you is probably one of the ten commandments, I’m sure. “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” Or “You shall have no other gods.”

If we look beyond the Ten Commandments, we might try to find a few others that sound good.

Certainly, we might think about the command Jesus gave us,  “Love one another as I have loved you.”

I can just imagine what people outside the church might think when they are asked about what is about most repeated command.

No doubt they will think of something that begins “Thou shalt not…” and includes some sort of shame.

Or certainly with all the issues going on in the Church today, they’ll think of a commandment that has something to do with sex, since that’s all the church seems to be able to talk about lately.

But none of those are the most often repeated commands.

The most often repeated command in both the Old and New Testament is  “Do not be afraid.”

Certainly it was, by far, the most often repeated commandment of Jesus in the Gospels.

But we do encounter quite often as well in the Old Testament.

And sure enough, in our reading this morning from Isaiah, we do in fact here it.

“Do not fear,” God tells us through the prophet Isaiah.

Those are soothing words to most of us, because, let’s face it: we all feel fear at times.

We live in scary times. There is a war going.

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on this country.

Those of who remember it well, remember too the fear we felt that day.

And it was a true and palpable fear.

And now, five years later, the war rages on.

Men and women are dying over there as we gather here this morning.

We ourselves are still surrounded by threats of terrorism and violence.

As if terrorism wasn’t enough, we still have to live alongside hatred, anger,  bigotry and homophobia and sexism in our world.

There is illness, there are setbacks, there is frustration and there is a whole lot of hurt out there in the world and, and not just out there, but right here in our midst as well. 

As much as we want to think the world is nice and happy and wonderful, it isn’t always.

The world we live in is not always a pretty place.

So, most of us are longing to hear God say to us , “Fear not.” We want God to command us to put aside our fears.

The fact is, it’s sounds easier than it actually is.

After all, when anyone usually says something like this to us, we shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes and think, “Right. Sure. Easier said than done.”

We can tell ourselves all we want to not fear but the fact is the fear will probably remain.

However, it is more than just a matter of saying it.

We need to believe it and we need to live out in our lives.

Those words—Fear not—need to be the “call words” for us throughout our entire lives.

Those words need to be reminded of again and again in our lives.  

No matter how much we claim our own braveness, we do feel real fear.

And we’re not the only ones.

Isaiah and the people he was prophesying to in our first scripture reading from today knew a few things about fear.

Isaiah’s message for today  came in the midst of a message few people wanted to hear.

He was in the midst of telling those people that the world they knew and cherished was about to come to an end.

Armies were amassing, ready to overtake the lands of Judea and Israel and send its people off into exile.

Most people who heard Isaiah, of course, didn’t believe him.

How could we—God’s chosen people—be driven out of this land that God led our ancestors to?

As you can imagine, prophets were not always popular people.

They were popular when the prophecies foretold good times that were to come.

But those prophets of joy and happiness were few and far between.

Most of the prophets were prophets because they were the vessels through which God wanted to warn people.

More often than not, a prophet was one who had to stand up and say, “unless you repent, punishment will come upon you.”

Let’s face it, none of us would want to hear that—especially from someone who claims that God told them to tell us that.

And I’m none of us would want to be in the prophets place either.

Imagine for a moment, having a prophecy of a future disaster that is about to befall an entire nation.

Would you seriously want that responsibility?

Would you want the responsibility of saying to people, “Listen, if you don’t turn away from your wayward habits, there is going to be some major destruction coming your way.”

These poor prophets were not lucky. Yes, God chose them and spoke to them in a special way.

But the words God spoke to them became yokes to them. They became weights on their shoulders.

They had many years of toil ahead of them as prophets—struggling under the weight of God’s words in their life.

And often the reward many of them received for their toil was exile and occasionally violent deaths.

Isaiah, it is popularly believed, died after being put inside a hollow log and sawed in half for what God compelled him to speak.

So, even Isaiah knew the power fear had over people.

But in the face of these stark realities, in the face of the stark reality of the exile that awaited the people of Judah and Israel, God was still able to speak through Isaiah that somehow, despite all the bad things that were about to happen, ultimately, God would prevail.

Even in the face of the invasion by foreign armies, God was still able to say to those people with real conviction, “fear not.”

This call is not some “pep rally” cry. God isn’t telling them not to fear just so they rally and win the big game.

The “fear not” from Isaiah is a command of real integrity.

It is a command of true bravery and real spiritual strength.

God is saying to them through Isaiah that, yes, terrible things are about to happen to you, but what is more important than these terrible things?

God is. God is more powerful than anything that can possibly happen to you.

So, even in the face of overwhelming defeat you can truly not be a slave to fear.

Let’s face it: fear is crippling. It is a prison. Fear blocks us from carrying out what God calls each of us to do.

If fear rules, we cannot live our lives with any sort of fullness.

If fear rules, God becomes an afterthought.

God loses out to fear if we let fear control our lives.

Certainly, we all must face our hardships in life.

Now, maybe violence in not in our futures (I hope it isn’t in any of our futures), but we do all have much to face in our lives before our own journeys are over.

We all have much to be afraid of at times.

But in those moments, the words of God cut through those uncertain futures like a blinding light.

“Fear not,” God is saying to us still.

Nothing you suffer from this time forward will be hidden from your God, who loves you.

Nothing you have suffered so far can be hidden from God. God knows what you’ve been through and what you will go through.

God is not turning a blind eye to you in the face of these hardships.

Why? Because you are valuable.

Just as we hear throughout scripture that we should not fear, we also hear that we are valuable.

We are precious in the eyes of God. Each and every one of us is important to God.

We are so precious that God came to us as one of us in the person of Jesus.

We are so precious that God, who knew we feared—who knew that we are at times crippled by our fears and act violently and ridiculously out of our fear—came to us in Jesus and, in Jesus, showed us that fear, although real, is ultimately  temporary.

In a sense, it is an illusion.

Fear is somewhat like a nightmare.

When we are actually going through the nightmare, it seems so real—so horrible. But when we awake, the nightmare just sort of fizzles in our memories.

That is what fear is like. When we are afraid, there is nothing else like it. It dominates our lives.

But when we are beyond the fear, we forget in many ways how terrible it was.

God came to us as one of us and in our own words, with a mouth like our mouths, told us “Fear not.”

God came to us as one of us and said to us in our uncertainty those words we  long to hear.

“Fear not.”

So, take to heart what God is saying to you in the prophecy of Isaiah and through the words of Jesus and through all of scripture: fear not.

Rather, rejoice in God’s love and presence and know that nothing can separate you from a God who longs to know you and to take your fear from you.

 

 

 

 

2 Pentecost

 

June 18, 2006

 

Mark 4. 26-34

 

In the Name of God, Father,  X Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

This morning we find Jesus speaking, yet again, in parables.

 

Most people, I find, feel a certain level of frustration when they come across these parables.

 

After all, we, as a society, aren’t comfortable with such things.

 

We want something straightforward.

 

We don’t want to think too deeply about these issues.

 

We want something simple and clear.

 

As some of you know, I teach theology.

 

Almost every time we study the parables in class, I have one student or another who just sort of throws up his or her hands and says, “Why couldn’t Jesus just tell us what he was thinking? Why did he have to tell us these stories that don’t have anything to do with us?”

 

Of course, the gist of this is that the student usually misses the point completely by that very statement.

 

The fact is, when we start talking about God and God’s work among us, we are dealing with issues that are never simple and clear.

 

To put it bluntly, there is no simple and clear way to convey the truth of the Gospel.

 

That is why Jesus spoke in Parables.

 

The word parable comes from the word “parabola,” which can be defined as “comparison” or “reflection.”

 

“Relationship” is probably the better definition of the word.

 

When we look at Jesus’ parables with that definition—reflection, comparison, relationship—they start to make even more sense to us.

 

These stories Jesus told then—and which we hear now—are all about comparison.

 

The Kingdom of God—which is difficult for us to wrap our minds around—are we talking about heaven, some otherworldly place? or are we talking about the kingdom of God in our midst?—is explained in a way those first hearers could understand.

 

Jesus spoke in parables simply because the people he was speaking to would not have understood any type theological explanations.

 

Jesus used the images they would have known.

 

When he talked that day of a mustard seed and what it grows into, those people understood that.

 

They could actually wrap their minds around the fact that something as massive as a bush of mustard can come from such a small seed.

 

Yes, they could say, even with the smallest amount of faith in our lives, glorious thing can happen. That is the message they were able to take away from Jesus that day.

 

So, this parable worked for those people who were listening to Jesus, but does it work for us—here and now?

 

Does this comparison of the kingdom of heaven being like a mustard seed make sense to us?

 

First of all, we need to establish what is the kingdom of God?

 

Is it that place that is awaiting us in the next world? Is it heaven? Is it the place we will go to when we die?

 

Or is it something right here, right now.

 

Certainly, Jesus believed it was something we could actually experience here and now. Or, at least, we experience a glimpse of it here and now.

 

Over and over again, Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God can be found within each of us.

 

We carry inside us the capability to bring God’s kingdom into being.

 

We do it through what we do and what we say. We do it by letting our faith grow from the tiniest kernel into a vibrant, fragrant bush.

 

We can bring the kingdom about when we strive to do good, to act justly, to bring God into the world in some small way.

 

Yes, the mustard seed represents our faith, but it also represents in some way, those small actions we make to further the Kingdom.

 

Those little things you do in your life will make all the difference.

 

Don’t ever think they won’t.

 

Even the smallest action on your part can bring forth the kingdom of God in your life and in the lives of those whom you know.

 

But those small actions—those little seeds that we sow in our lives—can also bring about not only God’s kingdom but the exact opposite.

 

Our smallest bad actions, can destroy the kingdom in our midst and drive us further away from God.

 

Clergy deal with this all the time.

 

We clergy have to be careful about those small actions.

 

I cannot tell you how many times I hear stories about clergy who said one thing wrong and it destroyed a person’s faith.

 

I’m sure almost everyone here this morning has either experienced a situation like the first hand or has known someone close who has.

 

Now, possibly these remarks by clergy were innocent comments.

 

There may have been no bad intention involved.

 

But one wrong comment—one wrong action—a cold shoulder or an exhausted roll of the eyes—he fact that a priest did not visit us when were in the hospital or said something that we took the wrong way—is all it takes when a person is in need to turn that person once and for all away from the church and from God.

 

My mother is a prime example of one of these people.

 

My mother was actrive in the church for years.

 

But one day, the pastor made plans to have a package delivered to my mother’s home.

 

The package never came—it simply got lost in the mail—and the pastor jokingly made the comment that my mother probably still had it at home.

 

Now, I know for a fact that the pastor never meant to accuse my mother of “stealing” the package. 

 

But my mother took his comment to heart as an accusation and, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to go to church for a very long time—at least several years.

 

That mustard seed all of a sudden takes on a whole other meaning in a case like this.

 

What grows from a  small seed like this is a flowering tree of hurt and despair and anger and bitterness.

 

So, it is true. Those seeds we sow do make a huge difference in the world.

 

We get to make the choice. We can sow seeds of goodness and graciousness—seeds of the Gospel. We can sow the seeds of God’s kingdom.

 

Or we can sow the seeds of discontent. We can, through our actions, sow the weeds and thistles that will kill off the harvest.

 

We forget about how important the small things in life are—and more importantly we forget how important the small things in life are to God.

 

God does take notice of the small things.

 

There a wonderful poem that the poet Daniel Ladinsky translated from the Indian poet Kabir:

 

What

kind of God would [God] be

if [God] did not count the blinks

of your

eyes

 

and is in absolute awe of their movements?

 

What a God—what a God we

have.

 

We have often heard the term “the devil is in the details.”

 

But I can’t help but believe that it is truly God who is in the details.

 

God works just as mightily through the small things of life as through the large.

 

This is what Jesus is telling us this morning in this parable.

 

Take notice of the small things.

 

It is there you will find your faith—your God. It from that small place—those tentatively attempts at growth—that God’s kingdom flourishes in our lives.

 

So, this week, be mindful of those smallest seeds you sow in your life.

 

Remind yourself that sometimes what they produce can either be a wonderful and glorious tree or a painful, hurtful weed.

 

Sow God’s love from the smallest ounce of faith.

 

Further the kingdom of God’s love in whatever seemingly small way you can and let it flower and flourish in your life before God.

 

 

 

Wednesday of 4 Lent

 

March 29, 2006

Central Cities Ministry Noon Lenten Worship

St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Fargo

 

John 11.17-25 [32-45]

 

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

Today, we come across a story that really speaks to us now in the depth of Lent.

 

We encounter a truly gruesome story in today’s Gospel reading—one we don’t want to face or think about.

 

The first thing to notice in the Gospel story for today is that when Jesus arrives, Lazarus had been lying in the tomb for four days.

 

This is important. It was the belief at the time that the body and the soul were finally separated three days after death.

 

After that point, there would have been no hope of Lazarus being raised.

 

Also, the physical damage that would have been done to Lazarus’ body would have been extensive.

 

Be aware—that in Jesus’ time, there was no embalming of bodies as we know it now.

 

The heat of that part of the world often sped up the process of decomposition.

 

So, we start out with some overwhelming facts.

 

What Jesus faces is his friend, Lazarus—the name means “God helps—Eleazar—who has been dead, four days.

 

His soul is gone for good, his body is returning rapidly to dust.

 

In the face of all of this, Jesus commands “Take the stone away!”

 

After he has raised Lazarus, he commands again, “”unbind him and let him go!”

 

As the layers of his shroud come off, Lazarus, who would have suffered much physical damage from the decomposition was made complete and whole.

 

He was revealed to be the person whom Jesus loved.

 

So, what does all of this say to us—here and now?

 

First of all, we need to face the facts that what happened to Lazarus was not  resurrection.

 

Resurrection, as we have come to define it and believe it as Christians, is the belief that we are raised into a new life with Christ—a full and complete life.

 

What happened to Lazarus is not that kind of raising.

 

After this encounter, we hear nothing more about Lazarus.

 

Jesus makes no demands on him to go forth and live a new life.

 

One day in the future, Lazarus would die again.

 

One day in the future, he would lie in the tomb again.

 

What we have here is a classic resuscitation.

 

But, this is good for those of us who are anxiously looking to this story with hope.

 

Let’s face it, when we hear this story, who do we relate to the most?

 

Some of us might say that we relate to Lazarus’ family, mourning and weeping at the side of the tomb.

 

After all, many of us know what it is like to stand at a grave and weep and mourn for someone we love and cherish.

 

Others might say they relate to the skeptics who are present.

 

It would take a lot for us to believe that anyone can raise another from the dead.

 

Even if we saw it with our own eyes, we might still not believe it. We might think to ourselves; “It’s a trick!”

 

But the one we should find ourselves relating to the most, is of course, Lazarus.

 

We are, after all, Lazarus.

 

We are Eleazar—God has helped us.

 

We all know what is like to be bound in the shrouds that bind us.

 

The shrouds in our life may be our own physical  or mental health.

 

It might be our physical limitations or even own psychological limitations.

 

Certainly those of us who have experienced either know how constricting and crippling illnesses of this sort can be.  

 

The shrouds that bind us might be an addiction of one sort or the other.

 

To put it bluntly, the shrouds that bind us are those things that prevent us from being completely and wholly who we are in the life God meant us to have.

 

When we fall short of ourselves, of one another and God, we find ourselves bound.

 

So, we understand what it is like to be Lazarus.

 

We have been in those moments in which we have felt wrapped up and swallowed inside the tombs of our lives.

 

Most of us know what it is like to be sealed off from everyone we love and care for by what feels like a huge stone.

 

That stone blocks out the light and we are left in a dark dankness, by ourselves, bound by our sense self-worthlessness.

 

In a sense, we know what it means to die—if not physically, at least spiritually and emotionally.

 

For most of us, this has happened more than once in our lives.

 

So, the fact is that we have been resuscitated many times in our lives as well.

 

Each and everyone of us knows what it means to be buried—to reach those low depths in which it felt, at times, like if we were not dead, we were very close to it.

 

And yet, despite it all, we have survived.

 

Jesus, the one who loves us as he loved Lazarus his friend, has come to us in that awful place.

 

In that place, Jesus has commanded—and we have heard the commandment—“Roll back the stone!”

 

Light, like the life-giving light of Christ, came to us in that dark place with the rolling away of the stone.

 

And who did we see standing in that light but Jesus himself?

 

We know what it means to have life breathed back into us.

 

Those parts of ourselves that at one time seemed decayed and putrid have been renewed.

 

Hopefully, as we look back at those moments in our lives, we can see that even in the darkness and dankness of the tomb, we could still look up through the shrouds of our despair, and see the figure of Jesus standing at the open mouth of our own grave.

 

Hopefully we too could hear his words to us, to come forth from the darkness—from the clutching hold of the grave and to step forward into the light.

 

Most of us have heard preachers who talk about being born again.

 

And those people who have experienced this spiritual rebirth know how life-altering it can be.

 

What I’ve discovered, however, is that these born again experiences are not always a one-time deal.

 

Often times we are reborn again and again.

 

In a sense, we have died and been brought back again and again.

 

Hopefully, we too have heard the words of Jesus saying, “unbind this shroud and go forth.”

 

Jesus wants us to be renewed in those moments.

 

Jesus wants us to cast off the foul trappings of the grave and to go into the light complete and whole.

 

See, the story of Lazarus is our own story.

 

Like Lazarus, we are loved by Jesus. And, hopefully, like Lazarus as well, we love Jesus in return.

 

As one beloved by Jesus, remember that Jesus will do anything for you.

 

Jesus will come to you in that dark and terrible place in which you have been lying and will restore you.

 

This is the true message of Lent.

 

The tomb of Lazarus—our own tomb—will be replaced in just a few weeks by the tomb of the one we love and who loves us.

 

But there will be no resuscitation for him.

 

He will not be raised into a life like his old life.

 

He will be raised into a new glorious life—a life which he promises to us.

 

He leads the way.

 

Yes, we will die. Yes, we may be resuscitated. But, one day, we will be resurrected.

 

We will raise from the grave to never die again and we will be renewed, once and for all.

 

This is the message we can take away from this story today.

 

We, the beloved of Jesus, have a glorious future ahead of us, even though it might not seem like it when we are still in the tomb or even in the depths of this Lenten season.

 

We, the beloved of Jesus, will go forth on some day in our future, and the call we hear at the mouth of our own graves will be a call unlike any other we have heard.

 

When we leave that grave, we will never return to it or anything like it again.

 

We will be renewed—we will be whole and complete.

 

And we will live up fully to that name Eleazar—God helps.

 

The stony coldness of our former life will be warmed in the light of Christ and we will know only that love that we have longed for all our lives. 

 

 

3 Lent

 

March 19, 2006

 

John 2.13-22

 

 

“Take these things out here! Stop making my Father’s house  a marketplace!”

 

This cry is part of the very vivid picture we have of Jesus in this morning’s Gospel.

 

This is not the meek and humble Jesus some of us have come to know—this is not the gentle and compassionate Lord who called the little children to himself.

 

It is, rather, the Jesus who stands up to injustice.

 

It is the Jesus who, when provoked, comes forward and cleanses the Temple.

 

“Take these things out here!”

 

This image of the chaotic market place, with all of its sounds and smells, is one we can easily imagine, even today.

 

In this place, the people who came to the Temple to worship God were being cheated constantly.

 

Foreign coins (with their images of pagan gods and rulers) were not allowed in the Temple, so on the porch, they had to be exchanged (at a ridiculously high rate) for shekels.

 

These were then used to buy animals—usually lambs—that could be sacrificed by the Temple priests for the release of sins.

 

If people brought their own animals, they were often inspected and told they were not worthy to be sacrificed because of blemishes or defects and were often refused.

 

Yet, despite the unfairness of all of this, Jews were expected to come to the Temple and make sacrifice there.

 

So, what we find here is a people being abused by the religious leaders they trust.

 

You can see why Jesus gets so mad over the situation.

 

“Take these things out here! Stop making my Father’s house  a marketplace!”

 

These are pretty strong words from Jesus.

 

And his action of driving out not only the guilty money-changers, but the innocent animals as well says a lot to us.

 

We no longer have to make these sacrifices.

 

Jesus becomes the ultimate Lamb—the one who was sacrificed once and for all on the altar of the Cross.

 

“Take these things out here! Stop making my Father’s house  a marketplace!”

 

This Temple that Jesus cleanses would not, for much longer, be God’s dwelling place.

 

Begun in about the year 20 B.C.. (or B.C.E.), it would be destroyed by the Romans about forty years after Jesus’ prediction.

 

More immediately, when Jesus talks about rebuilding the destroyed temple in three days, he is not talking about the building in which he stands at the moment.

 

Rather, he is referring to his own resurrection.

 

His body—a new and glorious Temple—would be destroyed,  yes, but in three days it would be rebuilt in a more glorious way than anyone could predict.

 

Still, we can’t quite ignore that resounding cry:

 

“Take these things out here! Stop making my Father’s house  a marketplace!”

 

To some extent, this is the rallying cry for all of us during these days of Lent.

 

The message for us—here and now—is not just about a building—or even this building in particular.

 

It is a message about the very temple of God that is our very body.

 

Now I’m going to mention something we Episcopalians shy away from in the pulpit—sin.

 

The fact is, we DO sin.

 

We are most profoundly aware of our own sins during this season of Lent, hopefully.

 

Sin is, to put it bluntly, a choice we make.

 

We choose to sin—we choose to turn away from what we know is right. That is, quite simply, what sin is.

 

We sin—we chose to do wrong—in many ways.

 

We sin against others, we sin against ourselves and we sin against God.

 

We sin against our bodies—that Temple in which God most profoundly dwells—in many ways.

 

We don’t exercise enough. We don’t eat right. We overindulge or we punish our bodies unnecessarily. We might drink a bit too much. We might eat too much. Or we might not eat enough.

 

We might have unhealthy and unrealistic self-images.

 

More than that, we are, at times, arrogant and conceited. We put ourselves first and foremost. In a sense, we make idols of our selves.

 

And we sin against each other.

 

We don’t respect those people who share our lives with us.

 

We backbite. We gossip. We turn away from others with a coldness and an indifference that distances us from those around us.

 

We don’t respect the worth and dignity of others.

 

The Quakers teach that doing wrong to others “wounds your own soul.”

 

And it does. How can we love ourselves with a holy and real love, if we don’t love others with that same love?

 

And, in turn, how can we love God with that same love if we don’t love others, or ourselves?

 

In a sense, we pollute our own temples with these thoughts and actions.

 

We commit sacrilege to our own temple—that very dwelling place of God—when we do these things.

 

This Lenten season is a time for us to recognize that it does not have to be this way.

 

It is a time for us to say to ourselves—see, I have fallen short in what I can do.

 

“Take these things out here! Stop making my Father’s house  a marketplace!”

 

We occasionally have to take a good, long look at ourselves and do some major housecleaning.

 

Like Jesus, we need to take up the rope and to start casting out from ourselves those things that make dirty our own sacredness.

 

But the message we can take away from this morning’s Gospel is that, sin as we may, turn away as we might, there is always a chance for cleansing and, in doing so, we can make right, in some way, the wrongs we have done.

 

The season of Lent isn’t a time for us to beat ourselves up over what we have done wrong.

 

It is a time for us to recognize our failures and to make an attempt to do better.

 

It is a time to take joy and delight in the fact that God dwells within each and every one of us.

 

This divine Presence within us is what ultimately renews us and makes us whole and holy.

 

It is what makes us tabernacles of the Most High.

 

It what makes each of us, like the Virgin Mary, a Theotokos, a God-bearer.

 

Like Mary, we too carry God within us.

 

And in doing so, God makes us holy.

 

So, be aware of uncleanliness of your actions and deeds.

 

Cast away your arrogance and your cold-heartedness.

 

Get angry, like Jesus, at the profanity that is being done within you.

 

And, like Jesus, cleanse the Temple of your self.

 

Let God dwell within you and shine through you with a brilliance that, no matter how hard you might try, you will not be able to hide.