Christmas 1 A

Matthew 2: 13-23
Merry Christmas! Jesus Christ is born to us, a savior and a king. Jesus whom they call Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

In addition to Christmastime this weekend we're about to celebrate the new year with most of the world. We know that for the church the year starts before Christmas but it is still pretty new and this is a good time to think about the previous year. All the major events and the ups and downs.

All of the magazines and newspapers are doing it, the best and worst recipes from the year, the best and worst dressed, the most profitable company, the least. The best movie, the biggest flop and so on and so on.

Tim and I were reading an article yesterday about scientific findings for the year, mostly about things relating to nutrition. About how what we eat affects everything from our chances of getting to cancer to the intelligence of our children. It was daunting at best but it ended with a funny little bright note. About how peoples who for centuries have eaten high starch foods have adapted to that kind of diet and so the bright side of the whole article was the possibility that the metabolism of our great great grand children will be adapted to eating fast food and lots of Chocolate cake without needing to watch their waistlines!

All these article that survey the years finding an pull out the best and worst of them got me thinking, what would it look like if we each made our own personal "best" and "worst of" issues for this last year? What would be the greatest thing that happened in 2007, the thing that brought the most joy or the greatest results of most complete sense of accomplishment to your life? What would be the worst, the hardest or saddest? And what would be the surprising bright side to it all?

Take a second to think about it. We're not doing resolutions here, not what you wish you could change, more like reflections, what really happened, this year, how'd it go, what are the results? Where is the good news in it?

I know there have been all kinds of life changes here over the past twelve months, in your homes, jobs and families. Losses and gains, new living situations and different responsibilities new family members, new outlooks. All kinds of changes.

I can certainly look back on some major changes over the past year. A year ago almost today I received a phone call out of the blue with an area code I didn't recognize asking me to take a trip to upstate New York to see if maybe it was a place that I would be interested in living. And Tim and I wondered why so far from home. It was a full nine months before we moved out here. Long after a cold winter day when I was driven around Schodack quietly just so that I could see the place. It felt like a big confusing whirlwind then, so theoretical and so far from home but looking back it is clear to me that God was at work here and God was at work in Spokane, Washington. With the same words and the same ever patient love for all of us. Calling to us with patience and comfort to get up and start again.

While that was all taking place it was hard to hear the words of God promising to be with us, it was probably hard here too. But in the story of the trials of his own son's life we get an example of the way God is always present, always with the same tender words of love and care, sometimes calling us to a new place and sometimes telling us that it is safe to settle in for a while.

There is a sort of recapping of a year or so's worth of events in our gospel lesson today.

This week we hear about a time after Jesus is born. We're not sure just how long it was but we know it was when Jesus was still pretty young, Joseph had another vision in a dream. Remember in Matthew the communication that we get about Jesus from God comes to Joseph through dreams.

This time in the dream he hears that King Herod will try to kill Jesus. We learn that Herod has heard that someone has been born who will be a rival for the throne and so he decides that it is best to stamp out this threat before it even occurs. So Joseph gets the message to flee from Bethlehem, and he goes to Egypt. The land where people go when they are in various kinds of exile. A land where God's people have been held in slavery and terribly oppressed and a land where God showed the greatest mercy and compassion for the people of Israel. As he goes there the angel says I'll tell you when you can come back.

God says, even as you flee I will be with you, watching over you and calling you back to me.

We don't really know how long they are in Egypt but we know they get pretty settled there. They spent enough time waiting that it started to feel like home and they were safe. It is a foreign land but they were safe in it and God was with them.

Then finally the angel appears again to Joseph, in a dream, and tells him that it is safe to go back to his homeland. To take Mary and Jesus and go. And so he does. The language used to refer to Joseph's communication and his actions is the same throughout the narrative (in Bethlehem and in Egypt). When he is in Bethlehem the angel says "get up, take the child and his mother and go" and the text says Joseph "got up, took the child and his mother and went". Once in Egypt again the angel said "get up etc." and the text says Joseph "got up etc."

It is important the words are exactly the same in both places because it is important that God is the same both in the time of great joy that comes in a wonderful birth and the time of pain and fear that comes in fleeing, running, changing everything just so that you can get by. God is with Joseph in exactly the same way in both instances.

A baby was born a gift from God, what a great joy and god was with them, but then there was great danger and they had to flee but God was with them. Then they were able to come back and in the exact same words each time was a promise that God had been there all along and would always be.

In the news this week there has been horrible unrest in the region all around where Jesus was born and that his family fled to. It is scary to watch the news and imagine the horror of actually being in a place where there are bombs in the street and where leaders are under constant deadly threat. These terrible things still happen in the world because we have not come to the fullness of time, because we live where we yet get only glimpses of the kingdom to come.

But through today's text we have an illustration of the promise that we receive with the birth of Christ that God has come to dwell among us in our broken world and through each event and each day in the years past and those to come we know that God has been and continues to be with us. And through the Holy Supper that we are about to share we continue to live in the presence of Christ knowing that there is an even greater promise yet to come.
Amen

Advent 1 A

Matthew 24: 36-44
I spoke to my mother the other day about Christmas presents. She was telling me about something that she is going to get for my father. I'll have to make sure not to post this sermon to my blog so he doesn't find out because this sure would ruin a big surprise. But would you all like to know what dad is getting? At least one of his presents?

He is getting...A flashlight! Pretty darn exciting gift huh?

Now my knowledge of flashlights is limited at best. But what he is getting is not just any flashlight but a big, high powered, rechargeable flashlight on a stand. A spotlight really.

You see my parents are building a house along a river in what could almost be described as a canyon. It is dark there at night. No lights from the city, no neighbors, no porch lights (at least yet). No street lights. Just the stars and moon and mom and dad. But sometimes, especially on these long winter nights there are things to look at. Animals on the riverbank, a car that needs repair, the pump on the well the dogs running off to bark at something in the woods. And so dad needs a light. Something to overcome the darkness on those occasions.

The light that mom is getting him is something like 10 Million Candlepower. Candlepower is an older way to describe the measurement of light but they still use it for things like flashlights. the equation is very complicated but basically the distance and brightness of this light will be ten million times that of a candle.

Imagine 10 million candles lit and glowing all at one in the same place. It would start with just one light one candle and it would spread first to two, then to Four, then to eight and sixteen and thirty two and sixty four and and one hundred and twenty eight and two hundred and fifty six and then...well you get the point. The river bank is getting pretty bright already.

Advent works like this. We light candles. We start with just one candle and each week we add one, filling the sanctuary with a little bit more light and warmth each time and then by the time we are finished, by late on the night of Christmas eve we will each have our own candles, the sanctuary will be filled with light and warmth and glory and, not just that, the sanctuary down the street at Scared Heart will be filled with candles, and many peoples yards and windows in between with real candles or Christmas lights meant to represent candles. And St. Paul's up on the hill and many yards and windows in between and St. Davids on Brookview and Love Lutheran in East Greenbush. And, well again you get the point, the valley is getting pretty bright already.

We keep adding lights because that is how waiting for Christ works. We keep adding lights. In some ways celebrating advent during the month of December just gives us a chance to think about what we are doing as a church all of the time. We are living in the light of Christ that shone in Bethlehem on Christmas morning and in the light of the empty tomb on Easter. And now in many ways we have the job of acolyte.

We hold the candles and we're promised that all of the little lights will add up and be made complete and glorious through Christ's presence.

I want to go back and reread part of our old testament lesson for today to think about what this might look like. From the book of Isaiah: Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. ”For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

What a wonderful prophecy this is. How unlike the world that we live in today. Weapons of death, swords and spears will be turned into instruments of peace. Not only of peace but of prosperity and sharing. Imagine if suddenly every war effort was turned into an effort to create food and feed the world. And if every institution that teaches trains military everywhere stopped.

Now you have to go out on a limb here because this isn't the kind of stopping that leaves behind fear of vulnerability. It isn't as if the people just decided that they would do away with their standing army. In this vision God does away with war and violence. Completely and forever. Later in Isaiah we hear more about what this would look like. The peace it turns out extends even to the wild animals. Lions will lay down with helpless baby lambs. It will be safe to let your children play right in the midst of deadly snakes. Even nature will be completely at peace.

And there will be no war. Anywhere. Just peace, completely peace. And lifelong soldiers will take their weapons apart and start to feed the hungry and heal the world, this would extend not just to armies but even to cities and towns and families. People will live completely in peace, pain, fear hatred and hunger will be gone. The prophets say "all the tears will be wiped away"

And there is more to the vision, mighty kings with the power to give life to the dead will humble themselves even so much as to be born amid barn animals, dirt and cold and then he will submit to death on a cross.

Advent is about this. About this remarkable peace. This remarkable world where all are safe and all are fed and all are comforted. About these impossible prophecies. And about the impossible that has already come to be. About peace at the last and a growing light in the darkness now.

The first Sunday of advent is the one where we focus what is yet to come. Sometimes it is said to be Prophecy Sunday, sometimes Hope. We spend most of advent time looking forward to the birth of Christ. Retelling the story of the time before his birth up through Christmas. We celebrate and remember the miracles that we have been given but this first Sunday we think more about the miracles that are yet to come.

There are little signs of these miracles all around us, signs of hope, Christ's light in the darkness. And often we get to be the ones who hold the candles. Peace grows in Schodack and in America and around the world and the light gets a little brighter, Wounds are healed and another light shines, angers are forgiven and light shines. Hungers are fed and light shines. We visit those who mourn and light shines. We send food to the local foodbank and light shines. We collect hats and mittens for children who shiver in the cold and light shines. We pray for neighbors who are suffering and light shines. We visit lonely friends and a light shines. We proclaim the gospel in the world and more lights shine. We sing carols at the houses of our homebound brothers and sisters and more lights shine. And, well, you get the point, the world is getting pretty bright already and this is only the very beginning, a very small example of Christ's work in the world, for us and trough us.

With the birth of Christ God's words and promises broke into the world. A candle flame in the dark growing and moving. And it continues to grow and to move. The Prophet says "O house of Jacob come let us walk in the light of the Lord" and I say to you, it is advent and we know that Christ is the light that shines in the darkness, the light that no darkness can overcome, so come, come let us walk in the light of the Lord. Amen.

Advent 4 A

Matthew 1: 18-25

Have you ever noticed how when a baby is born and everyone is so excited to see and hear about the new little bundle of joy the parents sometimes get overlooked? That happens with the parents of the Christ child too I think. Mary and Joseph are so important to the story but they almost get left out! which is too bad because they are two of the best examples of faith that we have in all the gospel stories. But it make sense too that we don't talk about them a lot. First, Joseph just barely made it into the story. As it is the poor guy has no speaking part anywhere in the bible. But I like him. He reminds me of us. He was kind of on the outside of the events that were unfolding in Nazareth. Mary was forewarned of what would take place, even her cousin Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband were forewarned both of their child and hers but Joseph was just kind of hanging out doing some carpentry when all of a sudden his bride to be comes to him and says “I’m pregnant”. Now knowing that he had nothing to do with that shocking news he was probably more hurt and confused than anything else. I can imagine him angry and sad cursing God, ashamed to go to his parents, who had no doubt set up the engagement.

Lets take this right from the start here. We know that Mary is about 15. Joseph would have been older but he was probably still pretty young, early twenties maybe. What were the real first thoughts he had. He was so excited that there was this girl he really liked and his parents had agreed that she was alright and set it up so that they could get married. He was still learning what marriage was about but now he was going to be embarrassed in front of his friends and he was kind of missing out on part of the parenting thing. He hadn’t gotten to live with Mary to get to know her, to set up a home with her and to dream about what their children would someday be like. Instead he came into a relationship with a scared pregnant girl! That would be rough! And if you remember the story one of the first things he had to do was put her on a camel and take her across the desert to be registered. So much for the Honeymoon!

Do you know the law actually gave him the right to kill Mary. It wasn’t like a modern day broken engagement. Even if he didn’t kill her and if he did dismiss her they would both be living in shame. So just as you and I might have Joseph started having bad dreams. Dreams that he was doing the wrong thing by breaking off the engagement, dreams about marrying her. Finally he had a dream that was so vivid he woke up realizing that it wasn’t just a dream at all. That it was a message from God that God was calling him to do something that he never would have dreamed of doing.

Now here is the part about why I like Joseph so much. He did as he was called to do. And we barely see him when he does it. I can even imagine the story without Joseph. An angel came to Mary, Mary had a son named him Jesus and he grew into the Messiah. But without Joseph this might not have happened. Mary would have been without a protector, without a partner. After Jesus was born the emperor sent soldiers to find and kill Jesus. It was Joseph who got the message to take Mary and the baby and hide. It was Joseph who gave Jesus his name both his name as one in David’s line and his name as Jesus, God saves.

So if Joseph is a good example of listening to the call of God, mary is a good example of how to praise God for everything.while Jospeh was doing this dreaming and this leading what was Mary doing? Mary was praising the mystery of the whole thing. The scripture says she was pondering the things she heard in her heart and that she sang praises for the work the Lord was accomplishing through her. We get her song in the Magnificat:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Mary understands that the greatness of the Lord comes in the most unexpected ways. In looking with favor upon lowly servants. She didn't have an easy task in front of her, mother of the lord or not, she was still young and pregnant with a ruined reputation and some pretty confusing information. She didn't make the mistake of, thinking that now that we have the Lord everything will be simple but instead she gathered her spirits and her voice and sang about how very, very amazing it is that God would come to walk among the everyday. That God would consent to being not in the company of kings but that of Inn Keepers and shepherds, of carpenters and fallen women.

Sometimes I laugh when I read the gospels at the disciples, and at many of the people that Jesus encounters in his life. They just don't seem to get it. I think that is why they are there. Because they are like us. Often confused and pretty far from the right answers, even a lot of times the right questions. They are there to wonder and bicker, to fear and to doubt. And thank God for them because in his infinite wisdom he knew that the only way we would get it would be if we saw other people like ourselves trying to figure out the mystery of the faith too. But thank God on days in the dark stillness of advent with all of us gathered around, for making sure that Mary and Joseph made it into the story too. Devoted, proper Joseph who threw tradition out the window in order to be lovingly obedient to God and Mary. Mary who lets us know that even in the most confusing places God comes to us as a messenger, as family, as a child and as a friend and even if we don't get it at all we just have one thing to do. We have only to sing God's praise.

To say with her, My soul magnifies the Lord.
And my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.
God looks with favor upon his servants even though they are lowly and unsure, filled with doubts and pains and fear. All that will be wiped away and
From now on all generations will call us blessed.

Amen

Advent 2 A

Matthew 3:1-12
For the past couple of weeks we have been going back in time through our gospel lessons. We started on Christ the King Sunday at the crucifixion, right at the end of Jesus' time on earth. The last week we heard a story from Jesus ministry, after he was established as a teacher and preacher but before he was tried and put to death. Now this week for the gospel we hear about the first public appearance that Jesus made. His first appearance as an adult, the preparation for his ministry and his baptism by John the baptist.

A little background on John. John's father was a priest in the temple, Zechariah and his mother was Elizabeth. They were too old to have children when an angel came to Zechariah in the temple and announced that Elizabeth would bear a son who would prepare the path of the Lord. We get most of the story about these folks from Luke's gospel and in that gospel when the angel came to Mary it shared with her the news that Elizabeth would have a son as well, and so Mary went to see Elizabeth. And they spoke about the children that they would bear.

Once John grew older he did as the angel said he would. He announced the coming of the kingdom of Heaven. That is where we find him today. Baptizing in the river Jordan and proclaiming that all should Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is near.

Now it just so happens that I have a letter from this period of John's life that he wrote to his mother or he could have, if he did I think it would have been like this so just sit back, relax and hear about this work in the words of John the baptist. Chosen one of God, the new Elijah, the cousin of Jesus, the one who prepares the way of the Lord...

Dear Mother Elizabeth-

I'm sorry that is has been so long since I last wrote to you. I've been wandering in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey, wearing camel hair clothes and a leather belt. Now I know what you're going to say but please don't worry. The wilderness isn't so bad and besides according to the prophets we have all been wandering in the wilderness ever since Adam and Eve and their...um incident. And if things really go as planned we're going to be out of the wilderness very soon. After all “someone” is coming. Someone that they call a new Adam, the son of God and the son of Man. He's coming to fix our relationship with God. You know, maybe put a new spin on the apple thing...I'm not really sure. No one ever told me just how he will fix it. I know a few things about him though, old stuff from the Torah. Things we read in temple. Mostly from the prophet Isaiah.

Like they say that the one who comes to be our new, great Messiah will

Be filled with the spirit of the Lord

With Wisdom and understanding

With counsel and Might

With knowledge and fear of the Lord (you know that means reverence and love and respect)

In fact his greatest delight will be in this fear of the Lord.

I guess that means he will be a good leader. In fact they say he will be mightier and more wonderful than David or Solomon or even David and Solomon combined! And he will be a new kind of leader because if his concerns are really the same as God's then he will care about those who need his help and he won't get hung up on power or money or anger or fear. Much better than some certain leaders that I know whose names begins with seize(ceasa) and end with ours (rs). If you know what I mean.

Anyway I am out here in the wilderness telling everyone that someone is coming. I haven't really harped on the fact that that someone is my little cousin Jesus whom I met before we were even born. I remember you used to tell me a story about before I was born when Mary came to visit you and before she even told you that she was going to have the baby Jesus, I leapt around in your womb with joy at the upcoming birth of Jesus. You told me that that was how you knew that he was going to be something special, something different. Because I showed you. And you told me that that would be my job. More like a calling than a job. It isn't as if I get paid for wandering around foraging for food and telling people that “someone is coming”. But anyway you said that would be my purpose in life to announce the coming of a Christ, a purpose I fulfilled before I was even born.

But I have to confess I don't really know what I am doing now. I'm following father's instructions. After all, he is a priest, he was given a vision in the temple about me and Jesus before we were born. How I would be the announcer, making straight the paths of the righteous and how “someone” would come then with the words and knowledge and power of the Lord. I guess it wasn't right away that you guys put together that that someone was going to be Mary's son.

Because of that though dad says that it is very important that I live the life of a prophet wandering here in the wilderness. He calls my ministry the return of Elijah. Can you believe that?! I mean yes, Elijah was the greatest prophet and was carried away by the Lord in a fiery chariot and we believe he will come back at some point to announce the wonderful plans of the Lord. But ME! Does that sound like me to you? Greatest prophet ever, chariot of fire, undead...But you know dad. He is proud of his family and he is so sure that some great change is about to take place. That something wonderful is coming. That we live in a time of Advent.

That “someone” is coming. So here I am announcing an advent. We are waiting for someone or something remarkable. A great change is coming. I'm not even sure what an advent is or what it will be but people keep coming to me, asking to be baptized, telling me that they repent that they are ready to change and to turn to God. They are sure that something new is about the happen. I hear rumors and murmurs of the kingdom of heaven. They seem to feel it in their hearts. Maybe they should be the ones announcing this “someone”. Anyway I think they will help me spread the word when they go back to their homes and villages. They sure are walking away from here telling stories. People from all of Judea proclaiming that the kingdom is coming. Saying hear the good news (do you like that? "hear the good news" I came up with it, little play on the word gospel).

Oh! Mom I've got to go someone is coming. I think, yes I recognize him. It is Jesus. He is coming to the water. Coming to...to be baptized. How can that be. He is the change, he should baptize us. Why would he want such treatment from me. I'm just the messenger. You know that, I know that, even the man who thinks I'm Elijah knows that, doesn't he know that?! What good is a messenger to baptize when the very Lord is here.

Oh but I know, I know what you would say. I am here to do the work of the Lord. I was born for it so I'd better go and do what he asks. Go and baptize the son in the name of the father. Imagine, the one of whom the prophets spoke. The one who will be God among us. The one born to sweet Mary, the one born to forgive all ours sins and cleanse us and make us whole. The one whom the prophets promised would bring new order to the world is here coming to us as we baptize and are baptized and saying he wants to be baptized with us.

I'm not sure I understand how I could ever be worthy of this after all, like I said, I'm just the messenger announcing that “someone” coming. Hmm...I guess I need to proclaim that he is here. A king unlike any other is here. A messiah walking among us here by the riverside and with you and father up in Jerusalem and with all the people throughout all of the ages. Truly, truly he is here. Can you believe that father was right, the prophets were right. Repent and hear the Good news that Jesus the Christ comes to us! Amen

Your Son,

The last Prophet, John (the baptizer)

Christ the King C

Luke 23: 33-43
Truly I tell you Today you will be with me in paradise. Today.

Today in the gospel Jesus speaks these words to a dying criminal. Today is a funny day for this gospel lesson. Right at the end of the church year, miles away from Easter and the story of the resurrection, today we hear about the crucifixion and today we hear promises of Christ with us. Today.

This is Christ the King Sunday and the criminal in the gospel today seems to be the only one in the whole lesson who really gets the type of king Christ is and the nature of his kingdom. Many people mocked Jesus as he was tried and then executed. One of the primary insults that they had for him was calling him "king" saying that people claimed that he was a king and yet he couldn't even save himself from a painful and humiliating death. He couldn't even get himself down from the cross. Now for the most part Jesus ignored this mocking.

But the criminal who is being executed along with Jesus, as he hangs, dying, sees that even in the midst of death on the cross Christ brings new life and so he asks Jesus to remember him in the kingdom. And Jesus responds, Today you will be with me in paradise, in the kingdom.

For this criminal hanging on a cross, with these words Jesus was surely king and Messiah and throughout his life of preaching and teaching there were other times that he was truly king, a new kind of king but a king.

This is kind of the way with the gospel, Christ is a king but in ways that we might not even notice at first, in unexpected ways because the kingdom is different than one we might picture.

But for a Judean man whose daughter died prematurely and was visited by such power and grace in Jesus that she walked again that same day Jesus was surely king and messiah, one sent by God to free humanity even from death.

For a group of outcasts, tax collectors and sinners, people who had jobs that made others shy away from them and kept them from even entering the temple, with whom Jesus ate and drank, shared fellowship, and love Jesus was surely king and messiah, one sent by God to unite the people and to share the gospel of love.

For a woman who was made by society to float from one man to another in order to find the most basic support for herself, whom Jesus turned to and treated with compassion and dignity Jesus was surely king and messiah sent by God to the oppressed, to the orphan and widow to bring living water and everlasting forgiveness.

This picture of a king, one who stoops down, one who knows the names of the nameless and the faces of the forgotten is not the king that we think of today when we envision power and strength, he is not the king that was thought of in his own day when people envisioned control and leadership bordering on the cruel and certainly with a conquering spirit.

Instead of this the King that we confess is the Prince of Peace and the Bearer of Grace whom we call the King of Glory.

So the last Sunday before Advent we have Christ the King Sunday. For many of us a lot of what we think about kings and kingdoms comes from works of fiction, I think of the greedy prince in the story of Robin Hood or the kindly royalty in Disney movies. Or I think of the monarchs of today, mostly figureheads with limited power. Certainly when I think of a kingdom it is limited to a certain space, part of what a kingdom is, afterall, is a piece of land.

This is disconnected from how we think of the kingdom of God, as a place transcending time and space, a place where the subjects are recipients of the great gifts of love and freedom and where we are served humbly by our Lord and King.

Martin Luther explained the difference in this way. He said: "Christs kingdom...[is] a kingdom of heaven and eternal life; a kingdom of truth and peace; a kingdom of joy, righteousness, safety, salvation, and all good. In this kingdom Christ, the King of glory...rules His Christians in faith through the Gospel and the Holy Spirit, amid sin, death, devil, world, and hell."

This is how we are meant to think of Christ our one and only King, as the king of joy, righteousness, safety and all things good. The kind of king who promises eternal salvation to a dying criminal, the type of king who heals sick children, the type of king who befriends the outcasts, the type of king who brings new life to those who feel their lives are over.

His kingdom calls to us, and pulls us out of ourselves and into the places that look most like Christ's kingdom, to the homes of the lonely and the halls of the lost. We learn from Jesus that his kingdom exists not to conquer but to free, not to tax but to provide. And our call as citizens of this kingdom is to hear the gospel as it speaks of these values, to organize our lives in ways that reflect the kingdom and, above all else through the gifts we have been given, to act, as Christ acts, with the love, grace and mercy that define our unique and everliving kingdom.

To call Christ king is to stand knowing that we are subjects in need of the great gifts that come through the kingdom of the Christ Child and to stand knowing that because our king is great and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in steadfast love for each of us we will receive both the energy to work in the kingdom and the peace of knowing that the kingdom has been given for us through love. Today.

This is Good News, Thanks be to God. Amen

Pentecost 17 C

Good morning. We have a funny gospel text today. It is actually really funny. It is a story about a man who is accused of being a poor manager. His master, his boss got word that he was squandering money and not acting reputably or appropriately. We don't really know what he was doing wrong but he was doing something wrong so he got fired. Really he was given notice. Tie up all of your affairs and get out, he was told.

And oh boy did he tie up affairs. He called in everyone who owed his master money and he reduced their debt. He just cut their debts in half or took quarters off. Leaving himself with some good friends and his master with some happy clients, if a little less money that he would have had.

Now I don't really recommend this type of business operation. I think it might lead to some litigation and and certainly some complications but it leaves us with some interesting things to think about.

The master in this situation might be the most interesting character in the whole story. I think it is fair to say that he wasn't holding up his end of the deal very well either. He didn't know for quite a while that his accounts were being handled poorly and once he found out he fired the man who was the problem who then proceeded to give a bunch of his money away, what does he do next? He commends the manager, the man who had done a poor job, the man who had been fired and the man who gave away money that wasn't even his to give in the first place.

Something strange is happening here, a few things don't really seem to add up but I wonder if maybe the master learned something from the manager. You see the manager seemed to know something that his master didn't. He knew that the master didn't really need all of the money and goods that were owed him, that he would be just fine, maybe better than fine without them, otherwise he would have called his debts in long before. He also knew that everyone involved would do be a lot better off if the wealth was spread around some. He knew that those people who owed the master very desperately needed a hand, needed a little bit of relief and so he offered that to them. He also knew that these debtors would hold both him and the master in high regard if their debts were lowered. They would be more inclined to have positive dealings with them in the future. So in a sense he made friends for life for both himself and the master and helped out some struggling people in the community and I think this is really what the master was commending him for doing.

He did a nice job of working for and finding forgiveness in all kinds of unlikely places. And so the master learned from this steward about building community even in the midst of sacrifice and change. That, I think is why, even though this is a strange story for Jesus to be telling, he tells it because through sacrifice and change the characters end up at grace and forgiveness.

It is good for us to see how community sustains us during times of transition, especially when the outcome is grace and forgiveness. It is good for us here today especially because there is some change going on...

It is a good time for us as a community to talk about sacrifice and change on your first Sunday with a new pastor!? In a lot of ways today is even more than that. Not only do you have a new pastor, in a lot of ways this is the first Sunday that you are truly in fellowship with your sister church St. Stephens. What a day filled with blessing and meaning and yes, maybe even some sacrifice and certainly some change.

Our texts today concludes by saying that those who are faithful in very little are also faithful in much.

I know this has been a long road for you but I think you did it faithfully. I suppose it started the day Pastor Jim announced that God was calling him to do ministry somewhere new. There must have been great sadness here when that happened but you faithfully sent him off to his new work. And God was calling you to change your ministry too. So faithfully you figured out how to handle the little things, faithfully the church kept going, kept praying, kept worshipping kept hoping. Then you learned that the synod had some plans for new partners in your ministry and faithfully you entered into an agreement with St Stephen's. Did all this faithful work require some sacrifice? Of course it did, it is hard to grow and to change but from where we all stand now it is clear that the changes were filled with grace and faithfulness. The church who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.

I know this has been a long road for you but I think you did it faithfully. I suppose it started the day that your last pastor left and you came to realize that God was calling you to new types of ministry as you learned to make the church run during a time of vacancy. So faithfully you figured out how to handle the little things, faithfully the church kept going, kept praying, kept worshipping kept hoping. Then you learned that the synod had some plans for new partners in your ministry and faithfully you entered into an agreement with Trinity. Did all this faithful work require some sacrifice? Of course it did, it is hard to grow and to change but from where we all stand now it is clear that the changes were filled with grace and faithfulness. The church who is faithful in very little is also faithful in much.

This has been a long road for me too. Literally it has been a long road, a long road from Washington to here and a long road before that form college to seminary off to internship, back to seminary and then waiting and praying for just over a year before I heard about you folks and started to think about the ways that we might fit together. Faithfully people all around my home synod prayed for you here in New York and faithfully we started conversations about working together.

And so finally today here we are Pastor Amber and Trinity and St Stephens and we have just begun to change. It is great to be here and to see a congregation full of faithful people who have been worried and excited, exhausted and renewed by this call and transition process. And I can tell, just by your presence here today that you have been faithful in the little things. we are the church, we are called and baptised children of God. So here was are called to be stewards of word and sacrament and together we will share these gifts from God with one another, with our brothers and sisters at St. Stephens and with the people around us.

Our texts today says that those who are faithful in very little are also faithful in much. Just as we have been entrusted to be faithful in the everyday things we are also entrusted with the gifts of the kingdom, with grace and forgiveness and life everlasting.

Together as a community we will continue to be faithful in the little things, in sharing the peace with one another, in sharing our skills for ministry, in reaching out to those who have wandered off, reminding one another over and over again that we are here because we are called here and that we will always be called, in coming to the font to make baptismal promises, in coming to the table to receive the great gifts of God's mercy and forgiveness and through these things it will be clear that we have been entrusted with so much more and that we are truly promised a place in the kingdom and that we are the body of Christ in the world. And we will act as the body of Christ as a new community and as part of the community that we have always been a part of together with all the saints and the whole catholic church. This is good news. Thanks be to God

Amen

Pentecost 18 C

The final words of the gospel lesson for today are a bit frightening, Jesus tells a parable about Lazarus and a rich man. The rich man gets a pretty hard time in modern discussions for being rich but his real problem is that he hasn't gotten the message that he is called to be faithful to God. He spends his whole life seemingly unaware of even his closest and most troubled neighbors. He walks by poor starving, dying Lazarus everyday without offering any help or, maybe even worse, without even a kind word, without ever acknowledging that he and Lazarus are made in the image of the same God, that they are both beloved children of God.

Well the as the story goes, because of this, he ended up in Hades. He ends up tormented in flames while Lazarus who suffered at his gate is received by Abraham into a pleasant and rewarding afterlife. Once it is clear to him that he can never be freed from this fate the rich man, maybe for the first time ever, thinks of someone other than himself. He thinks of his brothers. He asks for someone to warn them to be faithful.

The answer he gets is troubling: even if one were to return from the dead the brothers would not believe or change their ways. How terrifying. First of all I get the sense that we are the brothers in this story and we have had someone return from the dead, have we changed our ways? do we believe now? Are we safe from Hades?

I think that in the response to this question there is some good news and some bads news and then maybe even some very good news.

The good news is that for the most part, as individuals we respond to God's love, as a congregation we respond to God's love, as a church we respond to God's love and we earnestly try to help those in need, the hungry, the homeless and the spiritually poor.

The bad news is that what we do is limited by our fears and our prejudices and our greed and it falls short, it is impossible for us to fix all of the problems of the world. And this is frustrating and hurts.

I want to tell you a little bit about what I did yesterday because I think it relates to this good news/bad news discussion. Yesterday I attended the Hudson-Mohawk conference assembly.

Part of the business before the assembly was to pass various budgets. And there was some great news, this conference does some great ministry and has some very capable partners in ministry. There seems to be a special emphasis, just like the bible calls for in taking care of those in need and in nurturing young people in the word of God.

Some other good news is that the conference is dedicated to helping fund these ministries and has some funds set aside to help. It is great to see us, the church able to give to programs that we know work and to people that we know God loves.

The groups that are active in this area doing great things in the name of God keep growing too. The special stipulation on the bequests is that they be used for developing ministries, like seed money. They can also be used to expand and diversify work. For example a shelter down in Rensselear that helps women and children to move into safer, more permanent housing but now that they have helped so many of them move into their own hosing and start getting on their feet it is clear that they need a new branch, they need someone who can work with these mothers as they continue to reintegrate into society, someone who can be a career counselor and help locate child care options.

This is a great program and would have been a great place to send the $5000 that they asked for.

There are also several campus ministry programs, they nurture young people as they move away from home, as they plan for their futures and even as they consider roles as leaders in the church. These would be great places to send the several thousand dollars that they requested.

Ah but here we start to get at the bad news side of the coin.

The fund had 16000 in requests from about ten ministries. The fund has just under 7000 to give away this year, sure there is other money in the conference budget but it was needed elsewhere. Some great ministries will get some help from the churches in the Hudson Mohawk conference. No ministry will get as much as they asked for. They will have to turn their backs on some people, they will have a hard time loving each of their neighbors as they are commanded. Just as we as a conference do.

The good news here is that we have heard the gospel and we have been responding in loving and amazing ways. We have cared for the children of God in some wonderful and effective ways.

The bad news is neither the assurance of the gifts of salvation nor any kind of warning seem to have made us able to solve all of the local problems with hunger, disease, violence and poverty much less those farther afield. As hard as we work it seems like there is always more to fix. there are always more people to feed. We always have other responsibilities that keep us from fully committing ourselves and our resources.

This is what makes the words of the parable so worrisome. How much faithfulness is enough? How many Lazaruses do we walk by each day?

The rich man begged for someone to warn his brothers to respond to God's love in the ways he never did, with awe and reverence and generosity. And he heard Abraham say that nothing, not even someone raised from the dead to warn them could save the brothers.

But remember I said that the good news and bad news were followed by some very good news. So here you are.

We are loved and redeemed even though we fall short. This is very good news. Martin Luther called us simultaneously saints and sinners. This means that we are at once and always part of this the world, stuck here in the brokenness of humanity while at the same time sparkling clean, loved redeemed and forgiven children of God. This relates to the work that we do for our brothers and sisters in the world. We believe that we are drawn to care for all of creation as a response to Christ's love and our state of forgiveness but we know that we are beloved and redeemed children of God

So we know that even in the very midst of sin, of brokenness we are not the ones who have the last word.

We work to get the world a little bit closer to the vision of the kingdom of God. We are called to do all we can but our work has nothing to do with whether or not we receive salvation. Abraham was right the brothers on earth couldn't earn their own salvation but the story leaves out the ending. The one who did come back from the grave. The Triumphant resurrection of our Lord.

The one who was raised from the dead for us came to lead us and guide us and to do the work that we could never do. Certainly he was raised to do so much more than just give us a warning.

The really good news is that the one who returned from the grave for us was not Lazarus, he was not simply a messenger. The one who returned from the grave for us came back to offer us the promise of salvation. To strengthen us to do new work in the kingdom while assuring us that we are never alone or abandoned by our God.

We should work for all of the people of God we should support those wonderful ministries that the conference lifts up. We should faithfully feed, clothe and pray for all of the children of God. We should certainly love one another here within these walls and we should find ways to create peace in the world.

And as we do so, knowing that we live in the kingdom of god and we look forward to the kingdom to come, let us never ever forget that the one who returned from the grave for us came back to assure us that as saints and even as sinners we are loved and forgiven, made clean through the sacraments and welcomed to the fold of Jesus. This is good news.

Amen

Pentecost 19 C

In our text today Jesus is giving his disciples some instruction. If you read further you find out that when this happens he is on his way to Jerusalem where he will be tried and executed so he is really giving instruction for how the disciples should act and live once he is gone. As you might imagine this instruction is intense. It is overwhelming to the disciples and so they ask Jesus to increase their faith. Well, the response that they get isn't what they wanted or expected. Jesus doesn't say he won't or can't do that, he doesn't say that they are wrong for asking but he seems to tell them that that isn't what they need. That they have already been given faith and the amount doesn't matter, there is no amount of faith that is less powerful or more powerful than any other amount.

What Jesus says is this. "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed it is enough to say to that big tree over there, be uprooted and go plant yourself and grow in the middle of the sea and it will".

Does Jesus mean here that faith can move trees? When Matthew tells a similar story he says faith can move mountains.

Imagine enough faith to tell the giant maples and oaks around us to move and they will, enough faith to tell them go grow in the middle of the Atlantic and they will. Or someone telling mount Everest that it better get out of the way. Imagine that happening...Now if you really imagine it you get a kind of odd scene. What a silly picture!

And why would we want this, what good would this do us? Would it increase your faith, would it feed your family? Would it bring peace and prosperity to the people of the world? No, it would just move some things around, so maybe this isn't exactly what Jesus meant in the first place.

I wonder if maybe the language here is a bit unconventional because faith is a bit unconventional too and because we just can't think about it in exactly the same way that we think about other forces. Sometimes trees grow in impossible places and mountains move in ways that are more subtle at first but more revolutionary in the end.

This week the Lutheran Church in America is asking us to lift up and learn about the Lutheran World Federation, an organization that includes our ELCA here in America as well as hundreds of other Lutheran churches throughout the world. The LWF works to relieve hunger and create sustainable water systems and farms throughout the world as well as to improve the quality of life in developing countries in many ways. On their website I found a story about a man who either needed to move a mountain or make some trees grow in some very unlikely places indeed.

Julio lives just outside of Cajamarca, Peru, in the upper central region of the country. His father had been considered a serf under the old hacienda system, someone who is very poor and basically works as a slave for the owner of the hacienda.

His family owned nothing and they were forced to work the land. His only Christmas gift was permission to kiss the hand of the hacienda owner. [He was what we think of as an indentured servant, not quite a slave but something close.]

[Then something hopeful happened, the control of the government changed and the sort of indentured work that he was doing was outlawed. So he was free and even better he was given some land by the government! This was great, all of sudden there were seeds in his life. Little tiny rays of hope. But this hope was complicated because he was given only dry mountainous land to farm. He either needed land that was flat and easier to water or he needed crops that would miraculously grow without water...In this situation the family was lucky to squeeze out one harvest a year if the rains would come–not enough even to feed them.

As a result, adults and children in the family wove straw mats and Julio sold them as a wandering peddler in the coastal cities. He was separated from his family for many months each year and still barely made enough for them to live on. The children, who often went to bed hungry, faced a grim future of begging for food on the streets...or worse.

But through a great gift of faith the mountain was moved and trees began to grow in the most unlikely of places.

The thing about faith that we need to remember here is that we don't work for faith, we don't accrue faith we can't even force faith to grow. Faith is a free gift from God. Faith is given to us. And so it is a great ending to Julio's story that gifts were given to him through faith and by faith and from other people of faith.

Through Lutheran World Relief, Julio received training in earth-friendly agriculture. This is the part where the mountain moves and it wasn't quite as easy as just a command. Starting at 4:00 every morning, Julio began to carry boulders up 45-degree slopes to build terraces on his land. and with the small purchase of a $150 gravity pump that brought water up the steep slopes Julio is now able to harvest crops three times a year.

The seeds that he was storing up, hoping that someday they would bear fruit finally had moist healthy land to grow in, the dry mountain side was now a fertile farmland with the soil gaining nutrients all the time. Julio had a shed full of seeds and some faith to work, the people who came to teach him had knowledge of farming and the faith to train him. Now finally and for the first time in any of their memory, there is enough to eat and sell, for Julio, his family and their community. Julio has great hope and big plans for the future but his joy lies primarily in his daughter, Elena, who is not only attending but also excelling in school. Now Julio looks proudly at his daughter and thanks God for how far he and his family have come. “We have moved from a life of hand-outs,” he says, “to a life we [can] hardly imagine.”

Is this what Jesus had in mind when he said that faith the size of a tiny seed could move mountains and make trees grow in impossible places? Maybe not but he was sure that even little bits of faith when treated with the same type of hope that a starving farmer might treat a seed with could certainly do amazing things.

Our text today commands us to do some pretty though things as followers of Jesus. We are asked to forgive people for their sins and trespasses and insults and carelessness over and over again. Up to seven times a day we should forgive them and I would wager even more often than that. and then at the end of the day when we have done these wonderful Holy and Christian acts of faith, love and forgiveness we are told that we should expect no reward, no one to pat us on the back and thank us for our work.

We shouldn't expect even the smallest but thanks but instead because we have been given the great gift of faith to be children of God, we shall live in the kingdom of God. In the Old testament the prophet Habbakuk is told that this is so very true that he should write in out so that even someone running past could read it. God says if you aren't sure you believe, make a billboard to remind yourself.

There should never be any doubt that the kingdom of God is truly yours when your faith feels smaller than a tiny seed and when you see faith bearing beautiful fruit all over the world. It might not happen just like you think, but faith moves mountains and commands the trees to grow! This is good news. Thanks be to God!

Amen

Pentecost 20 C

We have a gospel lesson today that I think a lot of you might recognize from Thanksgiving. It is the text that we often use at thanksgiving time. The reason it is a thanksgiving text is because it tells us that God does great things for us, it asks us what do we do in response to those good things and it makes sure that we know the answer should be that we offer praise, in all kinds of ways and in all kinds of places with our bodies and with our minds and with our hearts and souls and thoughts and prayers and actions.

So we start with a story about Jesus healing ten lepers of their disease. He heals them and sends them away so that they can be part of society again. And of the ten one comes back and he thanks Jesus, he kneels at Jesus' feet and he praises what Jesus has done for him.

Jesus responds lovingly to the man, telling him to go, his faith as healed him but he wonders where the other nine who were healed went. Why didn't they come to thank him. We never know, we don't hear in the story.

But imagine you were one of the ten lepers. you have a terrible disease, you are cast out of your home, your town maybe even your country to live outside of the community without contact with the people you love, not allowed to go to the temple or the market or even the local well. You are completely an outcast and the only way that you can survive is to beg on the streets out of town.

This is where the lepers in our story today are. As they see Jesus approach they call out in loud voices to him for mercy. Loud voices because they are not allowed to be close to him for fear the disease will spread and mercy because they need money to live and food to eat. Instead of responding to this plea for money though Jesus takes away their need to be beggers.

So, say you're one of the ten you have been made clean, given a second chance. A new lease on life. What would you do? What did the ten from our story today do?

A couple of them must have had families. When they came down with leprosy they were forced away, first for fear they would infect their loved ones and then by the rules of the society that said you must not be around healthy people if you are sick. I Bet these people ran home without missing a beat, straight to their families. Scooped up children and wives or husbands and wept with joy. I think many of us might react in this way to being healed.

Others must have had good jobs, they made money and were successful and they were filled with shame when their bodies betrayed them and they were deemed sick, unclean by those over whom they had once had power. They were made to ask for handouts from people who used to pay for their services. I bet these people went back to the office, straight back without missing a beat to try to rebuild the empires that they had controlled.

There may have even been a priest in their midst, someone who had spent his time in the temple offering sacrifices and following all of the commandments for how to praise God. He had been filled with shame and hurt when he had to leave the temple, had to be separated from the God he had served. So as soon as he was shown to be clean he slipped back into the temple, into his comfortable life, knowing that he was chosen by God, why God had even healed him. I bet he made a sacrifice to God in Thanksgiving.

So as these people all went their own way, back to how life had been I wonder if they said goodbye to one another, planned to keep in touch, perhaps they had bonded over their common exile. And I wonder if they noticed one missing from the group. Already well on his way back to Jesus. I wonder if they chased after their fellow from Samaria to ask what he was doing.

If they had they might have realized that there was something different about him. That he seemed to be changed. Not only was he healed, they all were, but he, he was determined. He ran back to Jesus and fell at his feet and said I know that you are the one who healed me. You are the one who gave us the strength and will and reason to go to the temple, to show ourselves to the priests. to reclaim our lives.

The scripture lets us know that this man, the one who ran back to Jesus is the one who got it. The only one one who got it. He understood that he had been healed. He knew that something great had happened. He was more than just happy to have his old life back, he realized that he had just been part of a group of people who had been given new life. And he was thankful. How amazing this life was going to be be because it was given with such grace and trust and so little expectation.

After thanking Jesus did this man who understood return to his family and his job? I'm sure he did, back to the life he had left, but not back to his old life. He returned a new person, a clean whole child of God, filled with thanksgiving.

I'll bet he never stopped telling the story for the rest of his life of how without even asking for it he had been healed and I'm sure that through him maybe without his even knowing it great things happened.

What would you do if you were given new life? If suddenly you were made completely whole? Would you run toward the source of healing proclaiming loud thanksgivings? Is that why you are here today?

I was talking to a member of the congregation this last week who is need of some great healing herself. I was there to pray with her and her family. But in the midst of explaining to me how and why she needed to be healed she was constantly turning to the people in her family who had been healed and cared for so many times and who are great sources of joy and healing to her now.

Even while sick she is filled with thanksgiving, she knows that she has already been given new life.

What do you do knowing that you have been given new life? Can you talk even in the midst of great doubt about the Lord who heals you?

Yesterday we were given a new life, we were formally commissioned by some official people with some official words to be a family together. To be a new configuration of the body of Christ. In a lot of ways yesterday was a little bit like a reaffirmation of baptism for us all. We were reminded that we are called, claimed and sealed children of God and that as a community we have been pulled together out of brokenness and to proclaim our faith and thanksgiving.

But yesterday didn't change anything. Yesterday just reminded us that we are already changed, we are already new. We already belong to God, we are already living new lives baptised and claimed by a risen saviour. Yesterday just posed the question again:

What are we going to do with this new life?

Will we go back to our comfortable habits? Or will we run toward its source proclaiming our thanks in a loud voice?

Will we quietly keep to the business we generally do here? Or will we tell the story over and over throughout our community?

Will we look like just the same people, people who might go to church on Sunday but nothing much seems to happen there? Or will we become a new creation in response to our new life?

I have great hope that we will remember, each day that we spend together, that in Baptism we were given new life and made a new family and we will make our thanksgivings known!

I don't know what the right kind of thanksgiving will look like for us. I don't know what we can do here that is equivalent to running and falling at Jesus' feet. Do you?

What are we going to do with this new life?

Whatever it is, whatever we do, let us always be proclaiming the good news with great thanksgiving!

Amen

Pentecost 4 C

So in our lesson today Jesus is just arriving in a new land, we learn that is a gentile land, a ways away from where Jesus spends the rest of his ministry. We're not sure why he went there but many people think it is because he heard about a man who needed healing. There was a man there who was tormented by demons. He was violent and mentally very unwell, he wouldn't wear clothing and couldn't be a functioning part of society. The local solution to this problem was to regularly chain him up, keep him under guard and make him live in the tombs. So Jesus came to this man looking to heal him. By this time rumors would have spread about Jesus' power to heal but despite this no one from the community comes out to ask Jesus to heal the sick man And when he tried to speak to the man the first thing Jesus heard was "what are you doing here son of God, leave me alone". This doesn't seem to matter though undaunted by the lack of welcome Jesus proceeds to heal this man who seems so hopeless.

Once healed all the man wants is to be Jesus' disciples he kneels at Jesus' feet and asks to follow him. This is a familiar reaction, we have heard this kind of thing about other people that Jesus encountered but once the man is healed other people from the community start to show up too, people who have heard about the amazing work that Jesus did. But they don't do what you might think they would. They don't praise Jesus, they don't ask for healing themselves, they don't even question Jesus. The scripture says they were afraid of Jesus and they asked him to leave. They acknowledge that Jesus is the son of God but even more than this they make it clear that they don't want him around.

This isn't how we expect a story to end, not a story from the bible and really not any other story. Jesus was a hero here, he healed a man who was literally chained in a tomb to protect himself and everyone else. Common sense demands a hero's reception for Jesus after that kind of thing right? At least a friendly reception right?

Maybe, though, when we think about real life it doesn't. Perhaps the people's fear made sense. Maybe Jesus was something to be afraid of. You see these people had a system. They had it figured out. Their solution might not have been the best but it worked, everyone was safe and sheltered. Maybe they had a community rotation to keep track of the sick man, everyone could feel good about it, they rallied around it and anyway it sure did make other problems seem smaller. But then Jesus showed up and turned that all on it's head.

What he had to offer might have been great, it might have meant healing for all, but what might they have to give up, they were scared, what would the new community look like if they let this man stick around? If they listened to this powerful teacher, if they exposed their weaknesses to this powerful healer. It was better that now that he had taken care of the worst of there problems he go away and not make any more changes to the lives that they had made fairly comfortable.

I recently went to listen to a speaker at Whitworth. Her name was Anne Lamott. She has written quite a few books and each one is more successful than the last to the point that she enjoys a great deal of fame and success nowadays. She writes books about her life and her family, about raising her son as a single parent and about her faith. She tells a story about a time when she was a young adult, say 25 and she was an alcoholic, unemployed and living full-time in a houseboat. She will certainly tell you now that these were times for her when she was tormented just like the man in the gospel lesson. At the time she might have called herself an atheist maybe a quasi-jew because she had a lot of jewish friends but she certainly wouldn't have let anyone call her a Christian! She had grown up believing Christians were hypocrites at their best and crazy at their worst. But as her life got more and more buried in pain and confusion there was this church that she would often walk by on Sundays that had beautiful gospel music that drew her to its door, she would stand there for the whole service but then during the last hymn she would practically run out the back door before anyone could talk to her or ask her to sit or stay. At the same time she happened to make friends with a local pastor of another church and as hard as she tried to hide all of a sudden everyone she encountered was calling her a child of God. She says that more than once she asked Jesus to leave her alone just like the people in the story but as many times as she asked people kept showing up, calling her a child of God.

This was the last thing she wanted because after a while she started to believe it. All of a sudden this new title started making her feel like she should give up the other titles, the title of drifter and alcoholic of unwanted and unemployed, so slowly at the prodding of many nice church people she started to realize that she was Anne, Child of God. Anne spends all of her time telling this story now, in news ways to new people, she tells about how it develops, how it moves forward (and backward because it does that too) how is stood with great fear and trembling and finally learned to let her herself be called child of God. Her story isn't very clean or pleasant, and she often isn't either but this might just make it one of the best examples of both what the people in today's gospel were afraid of and the ways that the gospel moves to overcome such fears.

At the font each of us is given a new name, as infants, teenagers, young adults or parents ourselves even as whole communities of people who ask Jesus politely over and over again to heal the big problems and then go away we are forever given the name child of God. Despite the fear and pain that surrounds change we are invited to the font and Christ slowly and gently washes all of our old broken places and makes us into shiny new creations who bear his own name.

In our second reading today Paul says that among the children of God there is no greek or jew, no male or female, no slave or free, no titles. Instead of these old names we are given something much better than any title we might ever have. We are all made one in Christ ans we will be cared for and healed according to the promise of Christ because in baptism we have been marked with the cross of Christ forever and we no longer have anything to fear.

This is good news. Amen

Pentecost 5 C

Well, it is definitely summer here now, the fourth is this week, I live just off of highway two on the north side and I swear everyone who goes by has some kind of a boat with them, they aren't all big boats some are just kayaks or canoes but there is clearly an exodus to lakes happening in Spokane. It seems urgent. People are desperate to get out of town. It is a road-trip frenzy! Even our gospel lesson today is talking about a road-trip. Jesus and his disciples are on a road-trip with sandaled feet to Jerusalem.

Really a great deal of Luke's gospel is committed to Jesus' journey to Jerusalem. We get ten chapters out of only 24 filled with traveling and with stories from the road about the people and things that they encounter. I get the sense from this then, that ministry is a journey and a great deal of it takes place on the road. Jesus teaches on the road, he heals on the road, he tells stories on the road, he sends out disciples from the road and he teaches us to pray from the road.

The journey that we hear about is fascinating, like nothing most of us have ever experienced. As Jesus and the disciples are walking along people are coming up to Jesus asking him all kinds of things including can I come too. Imagine traveling around and having people stop you to ask if they might join in as well. Jesus responded in some pretty interesting ways to these people. The first one who comes along says "Jesus I will follow you wherever you go" and Jesus calls his bluff. He says following me isn't easy, even birds have nests and foxes have dens, even wild animals are more settled than me. I am just walking along, I don't even know what I will eat or where I will sleep tonight, are you sure you want to come?

Jesus wants to make sure that any follower he has knows that ministry is a moving, changing thing, there might be rewards but certainly it won't be easy. There is no road map but it takes a lot of travel.

As part of my time at seminary I did an internship, you all kind of know the process, I think, as there have been some interns here in the recent past. I spent a year as a kind of assistant pastor under a seasoned pastor in Philadelphia named Gordon. Gordon looked at ministry as a journey. For him it was a daily journey through the neighborhood that housed the church. When he first started there the church was dying and they weren't sure they were going to be able stay open, much less pay him. He and his wife decided she could be the bread winner for a year and he would see what came of the church. They thought it would be an adventure for a while. So he started out with no map but some pretty big travel plans.

The church knew that they were going to have to start thinking in new ways so as part of the agreement when he was hired the traditional role of a pastor, in the church office during the week and up at the pulpit on Sunday's was thrown out. The kind of ministry they were going to need was going to involve a new approach. So 60% of his paid time was to be devoted to traveling around the neighborhood. Visiting with people outside of the church.

He got himself a bicycle and rode around the neighborhood, keep in mind we have tightly packed city homes here, knocking on every door. He didn't knock to say, hey please come and join our church though, he knocked to say "Hi, Tell me about your neighborhood". This was his ministry. He very slowly traveled around knocking on, I think it turned out to be 1700 doors, saying tell me about where you live. This was his ministry or rather this was how it started.

He knocked on doors not to try to get new members but to try to find out how to be the church in a neighborhood that looked so different from when the church had first started there. He learned things and he took them back to the congregation. He learned the the neighbors wanted a Sunday school so they started one. He learned that the local AA chapter had been kicked out of their meeting place down the street so they opened the church doors. He learned that the kids in the neighborhood were running around unsupervised in the summer so the church started a vacation bible school that turned into an eight week long day camp for low income families. The people of the neighborhood did things for them too, a faithful woman down the street who could type fast and loved to answer the phone volunteered to take way too little pay to be the church secretary. A woman with a degree in music stopped in and heard some potential in the voices around and started a choir that now sings all over the city.

These things didn't happen overnight and they weren't necessarily free or easy but the congregation figured out how to make them happen because they came to realize that there really was ministry to be done on the road, the one right outside the church doors and that the best way to be a church is to be one on a journey!

I wonder how much of what we get of Jesus ministry came out of people he happened upon because he was traveling, did he share the Lord's prayer because he met someone who needed help praying, did he send out his disciples because he met someone who told him of the great needs in the surrounding towns? Certainly Jesus knew what he was doing setting his ministry up as a journey.

One of the things Jesus did on this journey was to send out scouts, messengers the text calls them, to kind of make up a path to Jerusalem. It was the task of these messengers to be ahead of the rest of the group, to find them places to stay and people willing to feed them as they went along.

They told people that Jesus was coming and they prepared a place for him within communities.

I think that is our job, they way we fit best into this story, we are the scouts, messengers. We are each messengers sent by Christ. Gordon was a messenger sent by a congregation of messengers. Emmanuel is a church full of messengers. And as messengers we are called to spend our time preparing the way for Christ, doing our best to let people know about him and doing our best to be his disciples down here on the road.

The great part about the messenger bit of the story is that sometimes the messengers fail. Right at first in our story they failed. They tried to tell a town that Jesus was coming and that they should open their hearts, arms and homes to Jesus. the town said no and the messengers went back with their tails between their legs but it really didn't phase Jesus much, he said don't be mad at them, just move on. He told the messengers that he loved them anyway even if they didn't accomplish what they set out to do. Perhaps this was because they were doing ministry just announcing Jesus presence, just by being part of the journey.

So do we know where we are going? Has our ministry been a journey? I think of Emmanuel about 15 years ago when I first walked through the front doors, I see some of the same faces and some new ones. Certainly ministry here has been a journey, I hear great things about the campus ministry program based here. I know that past members of the youth group have gone on to do great things. The congregation has sent several members off to seminary and nurtured other seminary students as interns. Members have worked with the town of Cheney on the food bank and other projects. I look forward to seeing where the journey leads next and I feel blessed everyday to be a part of where it has been. What a blessed ministry this community has. What an exciting journey it will always be on and what a joy it has been to be a part of it both up close and from a distance.

It can be dizzying to think that our life with God is always moving and changing. I get tired of my own life always moving and changing I would like a place to be still, but this is the great news about Jesus' journey and our own Journey, as the church on earth, both journeys end in great joy and celebration, in resurrection and life everlasting and in peace at the last. Ministry might be a living, moving, changing thing but God is unchanging, and in Christ we always know our destination.

This is good news, thanks be to God. Amen.