Sermon for Maundy Thursday: "Unsurrendering Love"

Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged for treason by the order of Adolf Hitler at Flossenburg Concentration Camp on 9 April 1945 - eighty years ago last week.  I have been continually challenged and comforted by Bonhoeffer’s writings and the stories of his life, most notably his choice in 1939 to return to Germany and continue his work in the Confessing Church, resisting both the Nazi Party and the majority of German Christians who had fallen in line with the government.  He had the option to remain in the United States, but Bonhoeffer insisted, “I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”  Within months Bonhoeffer was a co-consiprator against Hitler, working to smuggle Germany Jews out of the country, using his ecumenical contacts to try and alert the Allies to the presence of an active resistance within Nazi Germany, and providing counsel to the people who were involved in several plots against Hitler from within the military intelligence community.  Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943; after a lengthy period of imprisonment and interrogation,  Bonhoeffer and others were sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, then to Flossenburg, where they were executed.    

In a July 1944 letter from Tegel Prison in Berlin to his friend Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer wrote something I want to tie to the gospel reading for this service:

“Christians... have no last line of escape available from earthly tasks and difficulties into the eternal, but, like Christ himself, they must drink the earthly cup to the dregs, and only in their doing so is the crucified and risen Lord with them, and they crucified and risen with Christ.  This world must not be prematurely written off...”

“Like Christ himself, [Christians] must drink the earthly cup to the dregs.”  In the Gospel of John it is written, “Having loved his own who were in the world, [Jesus] loved them to the end.”  This commitment to see things through “to the end” is, I believe, the essence of what gathers us here tonight.  

Tonight is Maundy Thursday.  “Maundy” comes from the Latin mandatum, “commandment.”  We call it “Maundy Thursday” because of what Jesus said to and did for his disciples on his last night together with them.  He kneeled and washed their feet, a chore generally regarded as beneath even the lowliest servants.  He broke bread with his friends, even though one of them would leave the meal to betray Jesus to the authorities who wished him dead.  He commanded them:  “love one another as I have loved you.”  Then Jesus continued to love his disciples to the very end of his life; abandoned, rejected, scorned, humiliated, flogged, crucified and executed.  These are the deeds of the One who loves his followers to the dregs, to the very end, to the bottom of the bitter cup.  

This is not an easy thing for us to gather and remember.  It is a far cry from Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem that we celebrated on Sunday.  Even the crucifixion is easier to handle if it’s interpreted in a certain way.  I remember a shirt I used to wear that had a picture of Jesus doing a push-up with the cross on his back with a “Lord’s Gym” logo underneath.  The idea, of course, was that Jesus took on the cross the way the Cornhuskers take on the Hawkeyes, or Reál Madrid takes on Barcelona:  the ultimate rivalry, the grudge match, the game in which the good guys must emerge triumphant. 

No one comes out triumphant on Maundy Thursday.  Judas left to betray Jesus to the authorities. Peter and the rest of the disciples fell asleep while Jesus prayed and ran when Jesus was arrested.  And Jesus?  He surrendered.  Utterly.  No resistance, no protest of innocence.  Jesus let himself be taken into the hands of authorities who would rather see him dead than hear any more about the relentless, unconditional love and mercy he had been preaching.  

There’s only one thing Jesus did not surrender on his last night with his disciples:  his love.  The gospel of John tells us, “Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.”  
He surrendered his privilege when he knelt and washed his disciples’ feet.  
He surrendered his trust when Judas betrayed him with a kiss. 
He surrendered his dignity when the priests and authorities questioned and tortured him.   
He surrendered his power and his authority when he was paraded through the streets and crucified, an execution meant for the deadliest enemies of the state.  
But Jesus would not surrender his love for his disciples, then or now. 

This is what it means to “love to the end.”  This is what makes Jesus’ commandment a “new” commandment.  There was nothing new about the commandment to “love one another”— that had been one of the two great commandments since the time of the Exodus.  What makes Jesus’ commandment “new” is Jesus’ living example of the lengths to which that love will go.  God will give up everything else in God’s unsurrendering love for sinners.  This is not the sort of love you find in a Hallmark Christmas movie or a Harlequin romance novel - that’s the sort of love the Greeks called eros, and while there’s nothing at all wrong to have that kind of love, it’s not the word that’s used here. The Greek word used in this chapter of John is agape. Its Hebrew equivalent is chesed. It’s the sort of love that sacrifices for the sake of the beloved. In the Psalms we translate it as “lovingkindness” or “steadfast love,” and above all else, it does. not. surrender.  Ever.  This love drinks the earthly cup to the dregs.  This love goes all the way to the end.

This message of love hasn't been getting a lot of air time recently in this part of the world.  You and I both know that there are a lot of people right now who insist that there are limits and conditions to God's love, and that there are limits and conditions on how God's church should be living out that love in this part of the world.  Allow me to make this as clear as I possibly can:  those. people. are. wrong. The God we worship loves you without limit, without condition.  The God we worship will love you all the way to the end.  The gospel is clear:  in a world that has always been far too worried about what separates us and makes us different, the unsurrendering love of God is the thing that unites us in love and makes us siblings in this family God has called together from all across the world.  

The first letter of John says, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”  Take this time tonight and consider what it means to be God’s beloved. You, tonight, as you are in this moment, are the intended recipient of God’s unsurrendering love.  The cross is the final proof of God’s relentless, unsurrendering love.  The gospel says “Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.”  You are his own, brought into the body of Christ through your baptism in his name.  You are his own in the world, tonight, remembering the night long ago when Jesus gave us this meal by which we remember his love for us, and in which we are made part of the story ourselves.  Now, friends, know this – to the very last end of all that was, is, or ever will be, you are the object of God’s unsurrendering love.  Believe in that love – live in that love – serve in that love, now and forever.  Amen.

Ash Wednesday: Bring Your Kid

I originally wrote this piece four years ago, but it seemed worth revisiting this year.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.  For Christians, the Ash Wednesday service marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a penitential period in which we fast, discipline ourselves, and reflect on the life and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a holy time of anticipation and purpose, and for many it is our "favorite" season of the church.

But Ash Wednesday begins with a stark reminder of our mortality.  Ministers dip their thumbs in a bowl of ashes made from the palm branches waved to honor Jesus on Palm Sunday and mark a cross on the foreheads of all participants, while pronouncing a death sentence on us all:  "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

March Newsletter Article

Beloved in Christ,

Stepping away from our series on worship to give you some snapshots of things going on at St. Petri that deserve some extra attention.

February Newsletter Article

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

In a few short days, the season of Epiphany will come to a close and the liturgical season of Lent will begin. I am one of those people who finds the season of Lent to be an annual challenge and blessing – it is a time in the church for heightened awareness about our sin, God’s mercy, and the life of Jesus in which that mercy overcame that sin.

Sermon for Maundy Thursday - "Commendable Community"

Palm Sunday Sermon - Being A King Was Not Enough

Ash Wednesday: Bring Your Kid

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday.  For Christians, the Ash Wednesday service marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a penitential period in which we fast, discipline ourselves, and reflect on the life and love of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is a holy time of anticipation and purpose, and for many it is our "favorite" season of the church.

But Ash Wednesday begins with a stark reminder of our mortality.  Ministers dip their thumbs in a bowl of ashes made from the palm branches waved to honor Jesus on Palm Sunday and mark a cross on the foreheads of all participants, while pronouncing a death sentence on us all:  "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Sermon for Ash Wednesday - Saved In Ashes And Rent Hearts

The story that gives rise to Psalm 51 is terrible.  King David, the man after God’s own heart, the shepherd boy chosen by God to be the leader of God’s people, was standing on high and looking out over the city of Jerusalem when he saw a beautiful woman bathing and fell victim to his own desire and power.  He had the woman, Bathsheba, brought to his chambers, where he took her against her will and conceived a child with her.  When she told him she was pregnant, King David brought her husband Uriah home from the battlefield so that he might visit his wife, sleep with her, and thus hide the illegitimate pregnancy as one of his own.  But Uriah was faithful to King David and his fellow soldiers.  Uriah refused to leave King David’s house.  He slept on King David’s doorstep the first night, and stayed there the second night even after King David fed him wine and rich foods to get him drunk and fool him into going home.  In the end, King David sent Uriah back to the battlefield and ordered his commander, Joab, to put Uriah at the front of the army, attack their enemy and pull back quickly so that Uriah would be killed.  Joab followed King David’s orders, Uriah was killed, and King David took Bathsheba into his household as one of his wives soon after.

Sermon for Maundy Thursday - "Belonging in Love"

Preaching Texts

God uses the church to show the world what God’s reign looks like.  The church observes Holy Week to remind itself of the full story of Jesus Christ, the one who we follow, worship, and adore. 

Jesus, Self-Awareness and Stones In Need of Dropping

³The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, ⁴they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. ⁵Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” ⁶They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. ⁷When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” ⁸And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. ⁹When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.  John 8.3-9

Ash Wednesday - Giving Up

"Create in me a clean heart, O God,
     and renew a right spirit in me."  Psalm 51.10

Gerhard Forde, one of my professors at seminary, was famous for saying, "Whenever I get the urge to do a good work, I lie down until the urge passes."  I've been thinking about that a lot this Ash Wednesday.

Sermon for Ash Wednesday: "The Difference between 'What?' and 'Why?'"

Preaching Texts

Every year about this time, my campus pastor would start hectoring us about our Lenten disciplines. “What are you going to give up?” he’d demand, and every year it seemed like Larry would badger us into really sacrificing for Lent. One year, my roommate and I decided to join Larry in giving up smoking at the Center for Lent. It was that year when we discovered that disciplines are only disciplines if you can keep yourself from skirting the rules. We went so far as figuring out how far away from the Center we had to stand before we could have our cigarettes in good conscience. After that year, I considered giving up giving things up for Lent.

Maybe you’ve decided to take up a discipline for Lent this year. You’ve picked up a devotion book somewhere and you’re going to spend some time reflecting on God’s word every day. You’ve chosen to abstain from meat or beer or chips or soap operas or anchovies or Facebook or something else you really love. Good for you, and if I can help you in any way, let me know. But Jesus had something to say about these things: Beware. It is his warning we must also heed as we move from the revelation of Epiphany to our prayers of supplication in Lent.

Have mercy on us, Lord Jesus. You call us to humility and service – help us to be humble and serve. Tear down our love of attention and build in us a desire to help the poor, to pray honestly, to hold the things of this world lightly. Amen.

“The call to be extraordinary is the great, inevitable danger of discipleship…The extraordinary is not supposed to happen in order to be seen…[it] should not be done for the sake of its being extraordinary.”[1] So wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Nachfolge. He agreed with Martin Luther that spiritual disciplines, no matter how extraordinary, have no value in and of themselves, and can become dangerous to us because they can lead us into sins like pride, self-righteousness and exclusivity.

But Bonhoeffer also said this: “A life which remains without any ascetic discipline, which indulges in all the desires of the flesh as long as they are ‘permitted’ by the civil order [justitia civilis], will find it difficult to enter the service of Christ. Satiated flesh is unwilling to pray and is unfit for self-sacrificing service.”[2] So, which is it? Which fire are we playing with as Lent begins: the slow smolder of our souls choking on our excess, or the searing heat of pride from our extraordinary spiritual disciplines?

The answer, of course, is neither. Tonight we gather to remember that the fire is already out when it comes to our Sin, and Sin won the battle over us. Tonight we are marked in ashes as a reminder of who we are: broken, sinful, mortal women and men who have no hope of overcoming our sin in this life. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But there is another here tonight who has the power to raise up mortals out of the dust, to breathe Spirit into lifeless clay and make it live, and that one, Jesus Christ, has promised us that He has won the victory over our sin, that every day we live is a day when He washes away the ashes of our sin, cleansing us through His cross, raising us out of the tomb with Him into resurrection life, both here and in the kingdom to come.

Tonight we are marked with our death as a reminder that we have no power over it. Bonhoeffer wrote, “The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus’ death. They turn their living into dying; such has been the case from the very beginning. The cross is not the terrible end of a pious, happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.”[3] But I tell you tonight, this death is a death we need, for God puts us to death in our sin so that Christ may raise us up to new life, through the covenant made through Baptism, lovingly maintained through the forgiving power of His body and blood.

The first Lenten discipline is the one which renders all other disciplines moot: the ashes which mark us as those who will die. But the second Lenten discipline renders the first moot: God raises you out of the dust into life. Yes, you are marked with ashes. Yes, you are dust, and to dust you shall return. But probably not tonight, and certainly not at this very moment. What you have received is a reminder of your mortality, a sign of the eventuality which will come upon every last one of us. But mortality does not equate to fatalism. The fact that you will die does not render the time between now and your death without meaning. What you know right now is this: you will die. But what God is saying in the meantime is this: what will you do with yourself and the sentence of life God has pronounced upon you? Tonight’s question is not, “How shall we die?” Tonight’s question is, “How shall we live?”

The harsh words about fasting from Isaiah and Jesus in tonight’s readings are not critiques of fasting itself. Isaiah and Jesus criticized people, not fasting. Isaiah asks the question of God, “Why do we fast, but You do not see? Why humble ourselves, but You do not notice?” And God’s reply: “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. You fast only to quarrel and to fight and strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high…if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”[4]

When it comes to Lent and the spiritual disciplines we may or may not take up, the operative question isn’t “What?” – it’s “Why?” Why give up Facebook? Why give up chocolate or beer or meat or cigarettes? One of my old camp friends is giving up the “F-bomb” – to which I say, more power to you if you can do it, but why? God is not impressed if you stop swearing but continue to treat your neighbor with contempt. If you give up cigarettes but spend the extra cash on yourself, nothing changes. If you give up cable TV but spend the extra free time watching movies you’re trading one idol for another. Fasting is not about giving things up to make God proud. Spiritual discipline is about recognizing the power of the distractions in our lives. Spiritual discipline is about shifting our focus from ourselves to the needs of others. Most importantly, spiritual discipline is not like training for a marathon or triathlon: it isn’t about meeting our own goals. Spiritual discipline is about humbling ourselves privately so that we might praise God publicly.

I hope you do remember tonight that you are dust, and to dust you will return. Accepting your mortality, your limits, is in itself a humbling experience. You are not eternal. You are not the center of the universe. This creation will move on long after the day your body crumbles into the dust. But that day is not today, and we dare not let ourselves fall into the trap of thinking we can overcome our mortality by impressing God with our humility. We will die, but more importantly, we live, now, and how we live is far more important than how long we live. We who will die are called to live and follow and serve the best that we can. May your journey this Lent be a journey that strengthens your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. May you learn what it means to follow in ordinary ways, on ordinary days, even when others around you think it extraordinary. May your private humility help you praise God in your public living. May you discover joy and meaning as the ashes of your sin are washed away by the extraordinary grace of Jesus Christ, and may the breath of God’s Holy Spirit fill you with humility, discipline and life, now and always. Amen.

---

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 4: Discipleship. © 2001 Augsburg Fortress. p. 148-149.

[2] Ibid., p. 158

[3] Ibid., p. 87.

[4] Isaiah 58.3-4, 10-12

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent: "Faith Enough To Follow"

Preaching Texts

Let’s pray: Lord Jesus Christ, You come to us in our darkness and ask us to trust that you will lead us into Your light. But it’s scary out there. Our weaknesses will be exposed. Our prejudices will be challenged. Our cynical nature rebels because we prefer to stay hidden in the dark with our small hopes and dreams. Turn us inside out. Show us that there’s a better way to live as Your followers, a justified way that is true to the gospel with which You have called us. Lead us down that way through the power of your Holy Spirit. All this we ask, knowing that we cannot understand or control how it will happen, that we must simply have faith in You. Help us, above all, to put our faith in You. Amen.

Four volunteers who will be blindfolded and led around the sanctuary. Each leader has a different path that encompasses the icon, the baptismal font, the door to the sanctuary and ends at the cross.

Questions:

· How did it feel being led in this way?

· Were you worried about where you were being led? The person who was leading you?

· Were you completely ready to go from the moment I asked for volunteers?

· How about where you ended and the blindfold was removed – did that mean anything to you?

Here’s the question for us today: do we trust enough to follow where we are called? I believe that the biggest obstacle facing the church today isn’t a lack of spirituality. It isn’t Biblical illiteracy or shaky morals. It isn’t homosexuals and it isn’t heterosexuals and it isn’t Republicans or Democrats, either. I think the biggest obstacle facing us today is a lack of faith.. Specifically, I think we lack faith in God to lead us where we need to go, and faith in each other to travel on that way together without trying to control each other. Faith, pure and simple.

Our scripture readings today show us a lot about faith and trust and following where you’re called. Let’s start with Abram, shall we? What can you tell me about Abram? Ancestor in the faith. Name means “Father of many nations.” Married to Sarah. Did you know that Abram was born and raised a pagan, worshipping many idols before he started hearing one voice above all the others? Abram was not a man raised to believe that one day, the God would come calling in a voice he could hear: Abram was a man raised to believe that gods were distant, plentiful and rarely concerned with the actions of the mortals who worshiped them. This pagan sheepherder, several hundred years removed from Noah, the last to hear the voice of God, was called to pick up and leave everything he knew, all that was familiar and controllable, and move to an unknown land several months’ journey to the west, where he would be a sojourner, a resident alien. And the voice of God didn’t stop there: he also promised that Abram and Sarai, well past child-bearing age, would become the parents of a multitude upon the earth.

We would do well to consider the pattern of Abram’s faith and the following he did. According to the book of Genesis, Abram did follow as he was called, but there were problems along the way. Abram didn’t understand exactly what he was being asked to do – all he knew was that God was up to something in his life. Abram didn’t know exactly where he was going – all he knew was that God would show him the way. Abram wasn’t sure he was the right person for the position – after all, how could a couple with no children become the parents of a multitude? Abram didn’t always follow with complete trust and confidence in God – sometimes Abram took things into his own hands, like the two occasions he tried to pass Sarai off as his sister to protect them both. Abram and Sarai went so far as to try to accomplish what God had promised on their own by having a child through a surrogate, Sarai’s servant Hagar, because Sarai was past the age of childbirth. But even with all this, with all the times Abram and Sarai stumbled, lost their way and rejected God’s promises as false, in the end God delivered what God had promised: a multitude of nations now cling to the memory of Abraham and Sarah as our ancestors in the faith. Was their faith perfect? Hardly – Abram and Sarai had only enough faith to begin the journey and see what would happen. But that’s all the faith that was needed: faith enough to follow.

Consider also, then, the story of Nicodemus and Jesus from the gospel of John. Nicodemus was described as a Pharisee of high standing, one who paid attention to the ancient covenant between God and the people of Israel. But Nicodemus came to Jesus because he believed that something was happening through Jesus. He was, if you will, in the dark about Jesus – and Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus at night was no accident. In John’s gospel, light and darkness have deep meaning, far deeper than simply night and day. Darkness stands for evil, ignorance, a desire to keep ourselves hidden from God, while light stands for righteousness, revelation and the presence of God and God’s people. So when the gospel tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark, it tells us that Nicodemus had only enough faith to come and see what was going on – but again, this is all the faith that is required: faith enough to follow.

Today, we know little more than Nicodemus did that night he came to Jesus. We’re not even sure if John 3.16-21 is actually be the words of Jesus – some manuscripts do not include these verses as a quotation. We’re confused about whether or not the most well-known and over-used verse in all scripture was actually spoken by Jesus. Taking this fact into consideration, then, how exactly can we expect to understand everything the Spirit blows into us, or everything the Spirit blows us into? But we do believe that the Spirit is active, do we not? Jesus tells us: the wind / Spirit / pneuma blows where it chooses, and we hear the sound of it, but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with all of us who are born of the wind / Spirit / pneuma.

Being parents, of course, Kris and I know a little something about being born. First, the body is whispering, to mother and child, then it nudges, then it shouts and pushes the infant toward a new world. Is it comfortable? Hardly. But, is it necessary? Absolutely – because there is a limited time the infant can remain in the womb. So it is with us – when we are reborn through the work of the Spirit, first there is a whispering, then a nudge, then finally the strong, clear voice of God bringing us into a new life, a life we don’t always understand but into which we are called as God’s children, washed in the waters of baptism and given faith enough to follow once we have been called.

One of my seminary professors says that “We tend to talk about "our faith" or "having faith," assuming that it is a done deal, that believing is as simple as acquiring faith. But the Gospel of John never refers to faith as a noun. Faith is not a possession, not something that one gets, not something that one has—it is something that one does. Believing for the characters in the Fourth Gospel is a verb. And as a verb, believing is subject to all of the ambiguity, the uncertainty, and the indecisiveness of being human. We need to ask more often than we are willing to admit, "how can these things be?" We need to take seriously what faith looks like when it is active, living, permeable, and dynamic. We need to consider earnestly that having an incarnated God may require an incarnational faith – that believing is just as complicated as it is to be human.”[1]

I wish I could tell you exactly how this works, where the Spirit will call you, into what you’ll be reborn today, but I can’t. I don’t know how this works any better than you – I’m not the one whispering, nudging, pulling you into a new life. What I can tell you is that as your brother in Christ, I will celebrate the journey with you, believe in you and put my faith in you as you seek to discern the Spirit’s voice in your life, help you find the way to follow Jesus as you help me find my own. But most of all, I can promise you this: you have all you need to follow Jesus already, because the Spirit has called you here and reminded you that your sins are forgiven, the life you have lived is behind you, and the future of faith enough to follow is here for you, today, in this place. May God bless the journey into which you are called today, and praise be to God for giving us faith enough to follow in all the days to come. Amen.

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[1] Caroline Lewis, Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Luther Seminary. http://workingpreacher.org

Wednesday Reflection: "Little Ones"

Matthew 18.10-14: “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.”

My friend Caroline got a kitten while we were in seminary. She named it “Mikra,” which is the Greek word used for “little ones” in these verses from the Gospel of Matthew. I thought Mikra was cute for a kitten but wouldn’t work for a cat who could, for all I know, weigh 20 pounds and resemble a furry rock more than a kitten these days.

I don’t know much about naming cats – Ike and Reggie just seemed like, well, Ike and Reggie when they entered my life. But I remember feeling the same way about them as Caroline did about Mikra: even if you’re not a cat person, it’s hard to resist a kitten. I remember the day my girlfriend brought Ike home; he was a yowling ball of fur, hiding in the back window of her car and scared out of his wits, but once he got used to my little one-bedroom apartment, he became my best friend. To this day, Ike is still “my” cat, even though his kitten days are long gone and the girlfriend who brought him home is now my ex-wife.

As much as I like thinking about the cute, fuzzy days of kittenhood, that’s not what Jesus was talking about here – it’s not even close. The love of God is not the warm, oogly mush of fuzzy kitten sentimentality: it is the raging, protective, all-encompassing love of a benevolent parent for a child. If Ike or Reggie had wandered through an open door or window and been lost, I would have been truly sad, of course, but not for long. Growing up on a Nebraska farm, I’ve gotten familiar with losing pets over the years, and old age has seldom been the cause of death. The love I had for Chee-Chee, Lady, George, Rocky, Patches, Ed, Cheddar, and all the other cats and dogs, all our “little ones” over the years was strong, of course, but nowhere near as strong as the care a shepherd shows for his sheep or, speaking from personal experience, a parent for his child.

Last Saturday we had a house full of family in town for my installation and to celebrate Ainsley’s first birthday. I’d been working on a few odds and ends around the house, and my tools were kind of all over the place, so as Kristin and my Mom headed off to check into the hotel where my parents were staying, I was running up and down the stairs putting wrenches back in the tool box and other stuff. My Dad was watching my nephew Zach and our Ainsley, but kids are quick and distracted parents make mistakes. I made a big one. I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher when I heard a loud thump on our basement stairs, followed by another, then another, then nothing. My heart dropped right into the pit of my stomach as I realized that I’d left the door open and Ainsley had just fallen down the stairs. I raced downstairs to find her wedged against the gate at the bottom, startled and trying to breathe. I scooped her up and checked her from head to foot for any serious injuries while she caught her breath and proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs for a couple of minutes. We’re talking serious crying here: she was scared, hurt and not afraid at all to let the whole world know about it. And me? I felt like the worst parent in the world for letting something like that happen to my little girl. I would have gladly taken the fall on myself if I could have, and in the days since that fall I’ve been hyper-vigilant about where my little girl is and whether the doors are shut or not.

This is the kind of care the Father has for us – His “little ones.” You see it over and over throughout the Bible: God the Father is in anguish when we are hurt and scared because we’ve fallen and cannot stand on our own. The prophet Hosea was given a glimpse of this love when he wrote,

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

²The more I called them, the more they went from me;

they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols.

³Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms;

but they did not know that I healed them.

⁴I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love.

I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

⁸How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?

…

My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.

⁹I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim;

for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath.[1]

This is the love Jesus described when He told his disciples, “It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.” You are God’s little ones, the ones for whom God’s heart is yearning. This is the love of Christ, so powerful and passionate that even the prospect of crucifixion was not enough to cause Him to renounce His “little ones.”

Lent is about the journey of Jesus to the cross, but we know that we cannot walk the road with Him; we stumble and fall and find ourselves gasping, out of breath, terrified by our own mistakes and the misfortune of suffering for someone else’s sin. But the love of God for us, His “little ones,” is the love that stoops down, picks us up, caresses and soothes until the terror is gone, peace reigns in our hearts, and we are able to walk once again. Little ones, be assured that this loving God is yours, tonight and forever. Amen.

---

[1] Hosea 11.1-4, 8-11, New Revised Standard Version

Friday Five: First Friday of Lent

1. Did you celebrate Mardi Gras and/or Ash Wednesday this week? How?
We did a pseudo-Fat Tuesday this week: ate good, thick crust, Chicago-style pizza with lotsa meat & a few veggies, and watched a movie. Not that we're giving up movies for Lent - it just seemed like something fun to do.

2. What was your most memorable Mardi Gras/Ash Wednesday/Lent?
I remember one Lent where a girl with whom I was head over heels in love ended the relationship. Turns out I was a "not so sure about the guy I want to marry, so I'm going to explore a bit" guy - and I do say that with kindness intended. Years later, of course: at the time I was devastated. Anyhoo, Lent was definitely a walk in the wilderness that year: as one of my friends put it, I was a "mucking fess."

3. Did you/your church/your family celebrate Lent as a child? If not, when and how did you discover it?
We went to midweek services, and the ones I remember most were when Pastor Marek was our pastor, because we did a Service of the Word from our hymnal, and we sang canticles, which we'd never done before. I can still sing them in my head: "We believe / that Jesus Christ / has died for us, and has risen from the dead. / He is our saving Lord / He is joy for all nations."

4. Are you more in the give-up camp, or the take-on camp, or somewhere in between?
I'm in the Both-And camp this year. Giving up red meat and other kinds of meat when possible (can't go WITHOUT meat if I want to share meals with my pregnant spouse), no alcohol or ice cream, and more exercise. Mostly, I'm trying to follow the advice of Michael Pollan: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

5. How do you plan to keep Lent this year?
With joy. I'm reading Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and he and others insist that disciplines are to be undertaken with joy, not sorrow, for in learning to hold the world lightly we learn to cling all the more to Christ, "like water to a pitcher," as Martin Luther once said. I'll be glad when I can lift a beer again, but I'm also excited to think about the health benefits and, most importantly, the way my own walk with God may change this year.

Sermon for Ash Wednesday: "Ordinary Dust, Extraordinary Discipleship"

Preaching Texts

Every year about this time, my campus pastor would start hectoring us about our Lenten disciplines. “What are you going to give up?” he’d demand, and every year it seemed like Larry would badger us into really sacrificing for Lent. One year, my roommate and I decided to join Larry in giving up smoking at the Center for Lent. It was that year when we discovered that disciplines are only disciplines if you can keep yourself from skirting the rules. We went so far as figuring out how far away from the Center we had to stand before we could have our cigarettes in good conscience. After that year, I gave up giving things up for Lent – because it just wasn’t working.

Maybe you’ve decided to take up a discipline for Lent this year. You’ve picked up a devotion book somewhere and you’re going to spend some time reflecting on God’s word every day. You’ve chosen to abstain from meat or beer or chips or soap operas or anchovies or something you really love. Good for you, and if I can help you in any way, let me know. But Jesus had something to say about these things: Beware. It is his warning we must also heed as we move from the revelation of Epiphany to our prayers of supplication in Lent.

Have mercy on us, Lord Jesus. You call us to humility and service – help us to be humble and serve. Tear down our love of attention and build in us a desire to help the poor, to pray honestly, to hold the things of this world lightly. Amen.

“The call to be extraordinary is the great, inevitable danger of discipleship…The extraordinary is not supposed to happen in order to be seen…[it] should not be done for the sake of its being extraordinary.”[1] So wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book Nachfolge. He agreed with Martin Luther that spiritual disciplines, no matter how extraordinary, have no value in and of themselves, and can become dangerous to us because they can lead us into sins like pride, self-righteousness and exclusivity.

But Bonhoeffer also said this: “A life which remains without any ascetic discipline, which indulges in all the desires of the flesh as long as they are ‘permitted’ by the civil order [justitia civilis], will find it difficult to enter the service of Christ. Satiated flesh is unwilling to pray and is unfit for self-sacrificing service.”[2] So, which is it? Which fire are we playing with as Lent begins: the slow smolder of our souls choking on our excess, or the searing heat of pride from our extraordinary spiritual disciplines?

The answer, of course, is neither. Tonight we gather to remember that the fire is already out when it comes to our Sin, and Sin won the battle over us. Tonight we are marked in ashes as a reminder of who we are: broken, sinful, mortal women and men who have no hope of overcoming our sin in this life. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. But there is another here tonight who has the power to raise up mortals out of the dust, to breathe Spirit into lifeless clay and make it live, and that one, Jesus Christ, has promised us that He has won the victory over our sin, that every day we live is a day when He washes away the ashes of our sin, cleansing us through His cross, raising us out of the tomb with Him into resurrection life, both here and in the kingdom to come.

Tonight we are marked with our death as a reminder that we have no power over it. Bonhoeffer wrote, “The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus’ death. They turn their living into dying; such has been the case from the very beginning. The cross is not the terrible end of a pious, happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.”[3] But I tell you tonight, this death is a death we need, for God puts us to death in our sin so that Christ may raise us up to new life, through the covenant made through Baptism, lovingly maintained through the forgiving power of His body and blood.

The first Lenten discipline is the one which renders all other disciplines moot: the ashes which mark us as those who will die. But we who will die must also live and follow and serve the best that we can. May your journey this Lent be one which strengthens your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. May you learn what it means to follow in ordinary ways, on ordinary days, even when others around you think it extraordinary. May you discover joy and meaning as the ashes of your sin are washed away by the extraordinary grace of Jesus Christ, your Savior. Amen.

---

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 4: Discipleship. © 2001 Augsburg Fortress. p. 148-149.

[2] Ibid., p. 158

[3] Ibid., p. 87.

The Time Complete: Ash Wednesday to Good Friday

T.S. Eliot - "Ash Wednesday"

V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.


O my people.

"Knowing Jesus"

Our good friend Kathryn, an ordained Lutheran pastor in a suburb of the Twin Cities, wrote the following for her congregation's March newsletter. After Kathryn shared it with me, I asked her if I could post it here for you to consider. I love it when a good friend writes or preaches something that challenges me and provokes me to think about what it means to be a follower of Christ - thank you, Kathryn!

X percentage of people in the United States know nothing about Christianity. That statement was made by someone in a documentary I just finished watching. The actual percentage quoted makes no difference, because the point is that when the statement was made, my first thought was, I don’t buy it. Not for one second. I dare you to find someone in the United States (the world actually) who knows nothing about Christianity. I know that a lot of people have a lot of ideas about Christianity that are not true. A lot of people have negative feelings towards the idea of Christianity, but I can’t imagine where you would find someone who hasn’t heard of Christianity and who doesn’t at least think they know something about it. Christianity is too imbedded in United States history and politics (not to mention the history of the world…remember the Crusades to name unfortunately just one bad example).

Jesus. Now that is a different story. You’ll have no problem finding someone who doesn’t know Jesus. Someone who not just doesn’t know Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior, but someone who has been hurt by the idea of Christianity (by individual churches, by government, by people) so much so that they have a completely upside down view of who Jesus is. To far too many people, Jesus is the person who is followed by people who claim to be Christian. And let’s face our ugly story: Christians aren’t always the best examples of following Jesus.

This March, this Lenten season, I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t know Jesus. The Jesus who created the world and all that is in it. The Jesus who was born in the most unlikely of places to the most unlikely of parents. The Jesus who became one of us so that we would know that our creator loves us enough to become one of us. The Jesus who died, who overcame death, so that each one of us would know that death is nothing to fear: the wages of our sins, all our sins, even the stuff we don’t like to admit to ourselves, is death. But death doesn’t matter anymore because God, in the person of Jesus, swallowed it up. No more death, no more tears, no more crying.

It is crazy and radical and astounding Good News! And one of the best ways for people to hear about this Jesus is if you tell them about this Jesus. The Jesus you know. Not the Jesus that people throw around to win votes, or “save souls,” or pump up their personal banking accounts, but the Jesus who overcomes the world not through power and prestige, but through serving others. Serving us. All the way to the cross. And through to Easter morning. And through all our tomorrows. That’s the real Jesus. That’s the Jesus worth talking about. That’s the Jesus worth knowing.

Sermon for Ash Wednesday - "Dismal Hypocrites, Devoted Hypocrites"

Preaching Texts

One of the central arguments many people use against God’s church has to do with hypocrites. If I may caricature the argument, it usually goes like this: “I don’t have anything against God or Jesus, but the church is full of hypocrites. That’s why I don’t belong to a church.” And usually the defense is pretty predictable, too. Sometimes the church apologist uses the “mea culpa” defense: “Yes, there have been hypocrites in our church; but we’re working on it and we hope you’ll forgive our mistakes.” Sometimes the church apologist uses the humorous defense: “I know the church is full of hypocrites, but there’s always room for one more!” In the end, however, it doesn’t matter how you defend the church: the label of hypocrite sticks like white on rice.

Jesus gives some pretty strong arguments against hypocrites in our reading tonight from the Sermon on the Mount. Hypocrites, according to Jesus, give their offerings loudly. Hypocrites, according to Jesus, pray loudly in public arenas and with lots of flowery words. Hypocrites, according to Jesus, take on spiritual disciplines like fasting with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Hypocrites are the loud church members, according to Jesus; the kind who need a nameplate on every lightbulb and hymnal, who obsess over whether or not others know how hard they work at their faith, who would never give their opinion in 10 words when 100 will do.

So then, our task this Lent should be avoiding hypocrites, right? If only it were that easy. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we do not come to you as we should this evening, but only as we are able. We come as dust, in desperate need of your Spirit to bring new life into us. Fill us, we pray, with your life-giving breath. As we receive the mark of ashes, remind us that only you can heal our infirmities and forgive our many sins. Repent us of our pride, our envy, our anger, our laziness, our lust, our hunger for that which does not nourish, and our hypocrisy. Turn us again to set our faces on your Son, to remember His journey to the cross and our salvation. Be, as you have promised, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. In the name of Christ Jesus we pray. Amen.

Jesus does give a fairly detailed description of hypocrites in his words to us tonight. But in the prayer Jesus gives as a remedy for hypocrisy, we find that even if Jesus’ description doesn’t indict us as hypocrites, his prayer certainly does.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” Right off the bat we’re in trouble. We invoke the name of God for all kinds of trivial, meaningless prayers, and in times of genuine need or outright thankfulness, we develop amnesian and are unable to remember who it was who promised us forgiveness and delivered what we need. We are hypocrites because we have been given the name of God and we treat it like God had given us a dead fish.

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Of course, Lord, by that we mean that your kingdom and will should give me everything I desire. Better yet, rescue me from this boring life and bring me into a heaven of my own choosing. Heaven forbid God’s will and kingdom should inconvenience or challenge us. We are hypocrites because we confuse God’s will and kingdom with our own will and our own, personal kingdoms.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” And bread for tomorrow and the day after as well. As a matter of fact, Lord, I don’t care about my neighbor’s daily bread; I want a bigger house and another boat. A snowmobile would be nice, too. We are hypocrites because we take our daily bread for granted and wish for more than we need.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But not that jerk of an ex-husband, Lord – I can’t forgive him just yet. Don’t you remember how he treated me? Besides, he’s never even ASKED for forgiveness! We are hypocrites because we think forgiveness is for the sake of others – forgiveness is for our own well-being, and it is God’s greatest gift to us.

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Don’t lead me into temptation, Lord – I can find the way myself just fine, thank you very much. We are hypocrites because we ask God to deliver us from our own irresponsible, ill-considered choices, and from the evil consequences they bring about.

With all of this, it’s easy to see that avoiding hypocrites this Lent will be about as possible as jumping over the moon. The gift of Lent is not a freedom from hypocrites – there’s always room for one more! The gift of Lent is the choices God gives us, and the opportunity we have to turn our lives over to God and be changed by what might happen, even in the midst of our hypocrisy.

We have the choice this Lent to be dismal hypocrites or devoted hypocrites. We can be the kind of hypocrites Jesus describes – the loud, obnoxious, deceitful, miserable hypocrites who have sucked every ounce of vitality and freedom out of their faith and exchanged it for a system of dry prayer, never-ending sacrifice and continual acts of penance. We can slouch every step through Lent, as if our perpetual misery has some kind of saving grace in itself, only to arrive at Easter miserable, despairing and unchanged – as dead as we were on Ash Wednesday.

Or, we can be devoted hypocrites. We can give our offerings in faith, focusing on what God asks of us and nothing more. We can pray in silence, listening for God’s still, small voice and joining that voice in conversation about our needs, our hopes, the needs of our neighbors and our growing trust in God’s peaceful presence. We can forgive sins and actually let them go, freeing ourselves from the burden of anger and grief, letting those who have wronged us find their peace with God in their own time and in their own way. We can dedicate ourselves to spiritual disciplines, but with an eye for how we might be changed in the process. We can take on a fast to rediscover the joy of simplicity; we can give up worldly pleasures to redirect our attention in other areas; we can leave behind any thought that simply suffering without what we want will impress God in the least.

We have lots of choices before us this Lent. The one thing we don’t have a choice about is our status as hypocrites. We will be marked as such tonight: as dead in our hypocrisy as we are in our other sins. But that’s not the focus this Lent – the focus is our growth in faith and our trust that if God loves sinners, we’ve been called to the right place. After all, saying we aren’t sinful would be, dare I say it, hypocritical.

Pastor Luke Bouman wrote a wonderful Ash Wednesday sermon a few years ago that I still read occasionally, not only because he quotes Paul Simon, but also because he closes with these incredible words:

We are called to rediscover who we are as God’s people. We are called to face our fears and our failures with courage and dignity, relying on God’s love and mercy. We are called to be God’s children. God does not need us to hear the words of confession that come out of our broken human spirits and our sin. We need to speak these words as a reminder to ourselves of our link with our human past…Lent marks again the earnest journey home for us, God’s flock. Wear your brand in humility, but never in shame, for it is the obvious reminder of God’s love and claim on you.[1]

May you be a devoted hypocrite this Lenten season, and may God use these forty days to change and transform you in new life for the sake of Christ our Savior. Amen.

---

[1] Rev. Dr. Luke Bouman, Tree of Life Lutheran Church, Conroe, TX.

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-7/050209-2-e.html

Lenten "Discipline"

"Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation - if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God's sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." 1st Peter 2.2-5

We're drawing close to Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the church's season of Lent, where we reflect closely upon Jesus' journey to the cross, his humility in the face of suffering and his steadfast faith. In years past I've given up something for Lent, almost every year for the past ten or so. One year during college I gave up fast food for Lent. That was a big deal because I was living off campus and stopped at Burger King in the union almost every day for lunch. Another year I joined my campus pastor and gave up smoking at the Lutheran Student Center. Four years ago I gave up cigarettes entirely, though that might have had something to do with the cute youth director from Oregon that I was itching to ask for a date at the time. I've given up beer, television, red meat, all meats, chocolate and a host of other things I love during Lent over the years.

This year may be a bit different. I've had my discipline forced upon me in 2007. Here's what I'm giving up: nights of uninterrupted sleep, free time, being responsible only to myself, uninterrupted movies on DVD, quiet meals at home with my wife, the middle seat in the back of my car, and a sizable portion of my income.

The quicker folks reading this have already realized that our newborn daughter is my Lenten discipline this year. Like the year I gave up cigarettes for good, though, this one is going to be a long-term project. We've been given something incredible: the opportunity and responsibility to shape a life. This is no yoke to lay down when Easter Sunday rolls around: I won't be sleeping any better by Easter than I am now, (let's hope that changes by Pentecost!) and even when Reformation Sunday rolls around, I still won't be able to just pick up my clubs and go for a round of 18 without checking to be sure my family doesn't need me.

But I'm not so concerned about what I'm giving up this year. The far greater impact is how my life is being changed by God through this wailing child. Though Kristin and I have gone to classes on parenting, and though we have an entire shelf of parenting books at home, it isn't our preparation that's allowing us to be parents now. Being parents is changing our lives far more than preparing to be parents ever did, and in ways we never would have imagined possible (For example, I never thought that my parental responsibilities would involve cleaning poo off the ceiling.) Just as our newborn is changing with every day of life in this world, we are changing with every day of being her parents; we are being remade into something other than what we were before, and God is building something in us that we never could have built in ourselves.

I think that today I understand more fully what Lent and the spiritual practices tied to the season are intended to do for people of faith. A Lenten discipline isn't something to suffer through for a short time and leave behind when Easter finally comes. Lenten disciplines are intended to change us, in definitive ways, changes that last far longer than the relatively short 40 days of Lent. In baptism God raises us out of death into new life, and the journey of faith that follows is the means by which God takes our dead lives, bound into sin, and remakes us in the image of Christ. Being people of faith changes our lives far more than preparing to be people of faith: living into the new life of Christ means giving up the reins and letting God decide what needs to be done in our lives. This is the impetus behind Lenten disciplines: that God might use this time to work changes in us that will affect our entire lives, and perhaps even the lives of the people around us.

Have you taken on a Lenten discipline this year? Wonderful: good for you. But if you've given up something you love only for the season, you may be selling yourself and your God short. Take up something new, something that will change you for a lifetime, and BE a person of faith. God bless you in your Lenten journey.