Advent 2 B Mark 1:1-8

Over the week of Thanksgiving I went to see the movie Australia. It is great, like a wild west cattle driving movie except set in the Australian outback, not the American West. In it there are two ranching outfits. The one whose side we're on, a little family run operation called Faraway downs, and a bigger stronger one who is trying to crush Faraway downs. So as the movie goes on it is time to make the many day long journey with the cattle to get them into town by a deadline to sell them off and save Faraway downs from being absorbed or bought up by the other outfit. As the cattle drive begins you are exposed to the outback wilderness, canyons and desert, cliffs, very little water and fewer landmarks. It is a hard road but they lead the cattle and plug along until they come upon some water that is bad.

The cattle can't drink, the horses can't drink, the people can't drink and it is hot and it is dry and suddenly the wilderness is not friendly at all. And then a man comes along calling in the wilderness. Not so much calling really as singing. He is a tribal shaman. An odd character, one that the non-native people in the movie don't trust at all. He is even rather off-putting in appearance, wearing natural things, living off the land. But he has a message, the message of life, of water, of salvation. He can get them to water in time for them to survive, soon enough that, though it will be hard, their bodies will make it, but they have to trust him and follow him and believe his strange call and song. He says he will sing them there because the native people put all things into song, even terrain, they memorize by learning it in song form. So he will guide them with song.

The tension comes from the fact that where he will lead them is the real wilderness. The really uncharted territory. Before it had only seemed like they were in the wilderness but there were landmarks, there were familiar things, there were well-known rules and policies, ways to go, paths to follow. There was shade and shelter, it was relatively easy going and certainly an acceptable route.

In order to be saved by this strange man calling in the wilderness though they had to let go of those things. Let go of the things that they had held as safety and salvation before. They had to walk away from the familiar and go forward into the unknown with only a promise. What they had to do was to repent, that means to literally turn around, away from the safe well beaten path that they were on to something new, untamed and unprecedented. And so they go, they need to live, they need to drink and so they need to follow.

There is great tension in the movie at this point as you see them walk into dead, cracked dry desert, all you can see are heat waves for miles in any direction and a whole herd of trusting cattle and a whole crew of innocent cattle-hands follow behind them. They move slowly and painfully and they are very afraid. And then you see them standing still. As if they can't go any farther as if they will surely die, but their guide, the strange man that they are following through the wilderness knows the way to new life.

He knows the secret, that the wilderness is the only place where they can find living water and so he pushes forward and they push on. And then finally as cattle stumble, barely able to walk, as people faint from the heat and the thirst, you see him, the guide, dancing in the water, dancing in new life and offering it to all.

We start our gospel lesson today right at the very beginning of the book of Mark where the gospel writer says that he is beginning to write the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Christ. The whole story, from what happened there at the river Jordan all the way through the church on earth today, start, for St. Mark, with a strange man calling in the wilderness. He is dressed strangely, wearing a coat of rough fur and a leather belt-rather old-fashioned and odd for the time. And he has been living off the land. Eating locust beans (not the bugs) and wild honey when he can find it. But he knows the secret of salvation for the people.

The people you see are have been waiting for centuries to know God. To be close to God, to understand the laws and the love of God but they have run into obstacle after obstacle along the way. So they have created a familiar track. One that is safe with lots of landmarks. One that leads them to well known places. To worship in the temple and appropriate sacrifice. They know that their neighbors travel the same path. There is no danger and there is no chance of getting lost or hurt. There is even water for them. A little fountain by the temple where they can wash before worship. But John comes out calling in the wilderness promising them new living water and, even better, a new way to meet the living God.

But to get to this water and this God the people have to turn around. They literally have to leave the path that they take to get to God and take a new one. Instead of the temple they head to the wilderness and it is unknown to them and they don't know what to do but John is there ahead of them calling and promising that he knows the way and all they have to do is turn and follow. Then suddenly as people make it to the water and are baptized, Jesus comes down to the Jordan and says let me be baptized too. Let me enter into this water with you and give you new life.

Today is the second Sunday in the Advent season, we are moving closer with great anticipation to the birth of Christ. To the breaking-in of the kingdom of God all around us. And our lessons call us to wander in the wilderness. We get it in Isaiah too. For Isaiah it is promising the captive people, those forced to live in a foreign land, under the rule of a foreign king that the Lord will be their salvation. That just like in the days of the Israelites' slavery in Egypt when they were lead to freedom through the desert by Moses, God will make the wilderness safe and passable in order to lead His people home. The text says that a straight path shall be made in the desert as a highway for our God and that every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

A straight path through a land with no landmarks. A guided way through uncharted territory. That is what we as a congregation and we as a people of God are promised on this day in Advent. All we have to do is turn around. Turn from the familiar path that we are on that leads to nowhere, to the same old temple, to the comfortable social group, to the safe way that we worship and share our church and ourselves, that doesn't alarm the neighbors and be willing to walk through the wilderness to the manger. To the living Christ, to new life promised in the water of the little river Jordan.

We know that we have a guide better than any shaman with songs about the land, better even than any prophet calling us to repentance and baptism. We know that we have Christ himself at our side and we know that we are being called to face our fears and turn around.

So what would it look like if we as a society, as a people of the world
turned around and acted in entirely new ways toward our fellow women and men, following the
promise of Christ among us? What would it look like if your family turned around and did something entirely new in order to be centered in the call to follow Christ? What would it look like if we as a congregation turned around and did something entirely new in order to meet the living Lord? What would it look like, in your life, if you turned around and did something entirely new for the sake of experiencing the new life that you've been promised?

There is a man calling in the wilderness, turn, repent, follow, make straight the paths of the Lord, go in a new direction to a new place. Your God will meet you in that new place, he is there today. Amen

Advent 1 B Mark: 13:24-37

From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. I've been looking forward to this day for a long time. I love the advent colors, I love the extra candles. I love advent hymns. I delight in the anticipation of Christmas. I love that pine and fir boughs start to go up on everyone's doors.

But I have a hard time capturing the spirit of advent in my life. Advent starts for us with these words, Be aware, keep alert, stay awake. Watch for the son of man to come. Watch for the birth of Christ. Watch for the reign of Christ. I am not as good at watching and waiting for Christmas as I was when I was a child when I would watch presents appear under the tree and watch my stocking slowly growing fat.

Now I miss the magic of the first snowflakes because I have places to be other than staring out the window from the breakfast table. I don't keep a count in my head of which neighbors have put their lights up so far and which haven't because I am too focused on the road into town to notice the houses on the street. I don't even notice the bell ringers for whom the season means charity and giving because I am too busy trying to work out a budget in my head for food, travel, gifts, dinner party contributions and a hundred other little things. All those things which make the magic of the season are not gone but they seem more and more dim. You might argue that that is good, clear all that noise away so that I can focus on the true meaning of the season. On Christ, God's great gift to us. On his coming at Christmas and his coming again to make the world new and whole and healthy. But alas that is something I'm not so great at either.

Maybe it is because Advent happens every year. Christmas Happens every year. Church Happens every week. God loves us all the time. What really makes today different? What really distinguishes today from any other day? And really furthermore there is war somewhere in the world everyday. People die due to disease, poverty and violence everyday. Our consumer culture pushes us to buy more than we can afford or need everyday. We turn away from Godly things to worldly things everyday. How is today any different? How does Advent change any of that?

There is one thing that we know is different about today, though you might not notice it if I don't tell you, today is the beginning of
the church year. It is funny and rather inconvenient that the church
doesn't follow the same year as the calendar and that is why for the
most part we ignore our New Year other than this little mention during the
first sermon of advent. But I like it. I like that because
we are Christians we get to celebrate the New Year twice. That things
are twice as new for us. It reminds us that in Christ all things are
made new all of the time. That the world is ever being called into the
reign of Christ and therefore ever being called to renewal.

And because of that ever present and unchanging call to renewal we are
to beware, keep awake and be alert.

Jesus uses the example of springtime and growth to illustrate
this. He says to think about a fig tree. You can watch a fig tree in the spring time. From any fruit tree really, first is it dead and dry, at least it seems to be but if you look closer you can see tiny buds. Even in the harsh wintertime. Then as the thaw comes you wait and you watch and all of sudden the branches are loaded down with blooms and then before you even think to go trim one to put in a vase the blooms are falling off but you can see new growth on the tree, you watch it's leaves grow and turn a richer green and then you know that summer is near. That fruit will soon cover those branches, that harvest will come and wonderful treats will come from the fruit. Every year it happens. Every year it is springtime.

Every year it is hard to imagine when we look out a dead slick leaves, at brown, muddy grass, at bare limbs and empty gardens that spring will ever come. But then as if by magic, all of a sudden the life that was there all along springs forth. Jesus says the kingdom of God works like this. St. Mark reminded the early Christians that the kingdom of God works like this and I'm telling you that the kingdom of God works like this. Like Springtime, sometimes hidden because of all of the mud and muck and cold but always there.

Advent happens every year and there is still a lot that is broken in the world a lot of mud and muck so to speak. I look out, or rather in, at the paper and the TV, the news feeds and radio programs and it seems like this world may never bear good fruit again.

When saint Mark wrote
down these words of Christ, he wrote them to people who were
experiencing similar trials. There were persecutions and Christians were
sorely tempted to join into rebellious mobs. It was a civil war. The
temple was being desecrated and most people were denying Christ while
others were claiming that they had the right way, the only way to get
to Christ and it was through them. Mark had his hands pretty full
trying to teach Christ's words to these people and so he reminded them that Jesus had said wait for me, I'm coming, it is Advent all
the time because I am ever coming into the world so wait for me but...don't just wait.

As a matter of fact, Jesus never says the word wait. Instead he says watch, be alert, be awake. Notice the reign of Christ
around you. Notice those who would overthrow the reign of Christ too.
Notice the distractions but don't be distracted by them. Notice the wars
and fight for peace, notice the consumers and strive to be a healer
instead. Notice those who claim they know the only way and share with
them the gospel. Notice those who deny me and love them anyway. But
most of all notice the buds forming on the trees. Notice the kingdom
breaking into your world. Notice that I am with you always to the end
of the age. Don't wait for me, idly sitting, letting the world go by, dozing on a seat like your plane is delayed.

Instead watch for me as you go about my work. Act with the authority I gave. Trust in the words of the prophets and be awake. Watch for the budding of the trees, the opening of hearts, the sharing of the gospel and know that summer is coming, that I am near.

Advent happens every year. Christmas Happens every year. Church Happens
every week. God loves us all the time. What really makes today
different? What really distinguishes today from any other day? Today, like all days, God is the same, but we are different we are being called to renewal, we are being called to awareness, we are being awakened and we are waiting anxiously for the coming of Christ's life among us. This is advent the time that means the approach, it is new year's day for us and we believe that today is like every other day of the church year because today Christ will make all things new and that is great good news. Amen

Christ the King A Matt 25:31-46

Today is a busy day for us. It is Christ the King Sunday, the day that we think about Christ as our leader, guide and master and we are meant to reflect on what kind of king he is. How he compares with other kings, presidents, and leaders. It is also the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a time when we are called to give great thanks to God who provides for us. It is also the last day of the church year. The day before we begin advent and start looking forward to the coming of Christ among us at Christmas. And it is a day when our gospel lesson has this refrain: When did we see you? This is a lot to fit in, lets see how we do, you guys can keep score. I'll start with a story.

Some of you might not realize this about me but I am rather short in stature. In fact, I often end up on my tip-toes at some point during my sermons because I'm not quite tall enough for most pulpits. And like most other people who are short, this shortness is not new to me. I have always been on the smaller side of things. I remember as a child having a very hard time with it. Adults, you might know, tend to overlook children as it is. Turn a blind eye to them, filter them out, whatever. And I think the smaller the child the easier this is to do.

So as I became a pre-teen with an allowance and was old enough to do some things for myself, buy items, ask questions and the like, I was often frustrated and hurt by the way I would be overlooked or flat out ignored by people in authority, shop keepers, librarians, whomever. It was like they didn't even see me. I think this is the experience of most children short or tall but I felt like I must have been even easier to dismiss, because of my size.

But every once in a while there was some remarkable grown-up who could pick me out of the fray. Who would look past all of the big tall, important adults around. Who would look past business suits and credit cards down to me with my 50 cents for a candy bar or two dollars for some little treasure. This magical adult who could see me when no one else could, would reach out to me with kindness and I would feel like the most important person in the world even if I was only a 4' 9" little girl in the midst of a bunch of grown ups.

Looking back I remember very clearly a few of these people who saw me when no one else did. I think my parents, watching from a distance might remember one or two as well, being moved by my excitement to take notice. But I doubt seriously that any of them remember me, I doubt that most of them realized, even in the moment, that they were reaching out to someone that no one else could see. Their eyes were so trained with love or compassion or fairness or respect that they didn't even know how remarkable it was to notice a kid in a grown up world.

I was watching a TV drama about police recently on which an officer was newly assigned to be a detective. On her first day out the other detectives are trying to help her learn how to do her new job and they tell her that she needs to have "soft eyes". She needs to learn to look at things in a new way. Look at the same streets that she has always been on, the same types of homes that she has always been in, the same sort of people that she has always seen and notice new and different things, a little bit like each time she looks is the very first time she ever has. She has to learn how to see, to train her eyes in a new way.

In our gospel lesson today Jesus is talking to people about how they see. About what kind of eyes they have. There are two groups of people. One group with the right kind of eyes and one group without. Jesus tells both groups that they encountered him many times in life that he was in the midst of the hungry and the thirsty, the naked and those in prisons of all kinds. Both groups were exposed to these people throughout the years and both groups had no idea at all that they had seen Jesus.

So the difference between the two groups was what they did see. The first group saw the hungry, thirsty, naked and those in prison and they treated them with love and compassion. Once they saw them they cared for them. Jesus tells them that by doing so to those, little ones, those overlooked ones they were acting toward him as well. The second group, it seems, didn't even see those in need. They looked right through them or around them or past them. They didn't have the right kind of eyes. They needed gospel eyes. Eyes that were so sure of the message of God's love that love spilled over wherever they looked.

The two groups here are both in shock when Jesus tells them about themselves, the ones who saw and the ones who didn't. So clearly no one was trying to see. No one was trying to earn merit with God or be the ones who did the best job of caring for Christ so how is it that the one group knew how to see and the other didn't?

For that we need to go back to the text. It turns out that it was not the looking, the seeing or the doing that designated children of God in this story. It was being children of God that opened their eyes. It was knowing the message of the gospel. Those who saw were already identified as children of God before any mention of what they did. The seeing was a gift given to them, an ability apparent in them because of who their leader was.

That is where one of our themes for the day comes in. Today is meant to teach us about Christ as our king and leader and the lesson we get is all about taking care of the least among us. Kings in Christ's day, and other rulers for that matter, like governors and feudal Lords were all known for taking things from the people. Tax collecting was the chief endeavor of a king, taxes were collected in order to get enough money to run the state, to ensure lasting power, to fund wars and to live in comfort. So collecting both money and goods from people was common. In fact, even the first fruits of the harvest that were given to temples as a thanksgiving sacrifice to God or to some Gods were subject to confiscation by both the Greeks and Romans around Jesus' time. The king was paid even when people were giving thanks to God. Kings took what they wanted and sometimes they were benevolent and good to the people and sometimes they were greedy and cruel.

But on Christ the King Sunday we don't hear about the King taking from us, only what the king gives for his people.

The king is chief among us to have gospel eyes. Chief among us to see the least, the smallest, the neediest, the littlest. A good king even in Jesus' day would have dealt fairly with the people returning them protection in accordance to what they paid. Offering them freedoms in line with their tax bracket. But our great king sees those whom everyone else overlooks and instead of taking from those littlest ones gives them the kingdom. Gives them his mandate for peace to share with the nations, gives them his great bounty to celebrate at the harvest and most of all gives them one another and eyes with which to see both the love of God and the needs of God's people.

This is the close of the church year. We started with a baby, tiny, meek and fragile who was welcomed like a king and now on this last day we are welcomed by the great King of Kings to see like him and to be like him and to care for all those who are tiny, meek and fragile. This is a great gift, let us give thanks to God. Amen

Pentecost 27 A; Matt 25:14-30

I heard a story this week about Robert Louis Stevenson, the man who wrote Treasure Island. While living in France, before he was much of a writer, he set eyes on a woman once, one time, and knew he was in love with her. She lived in California. When she returned home he dropped everything and made the exhausting trip to find her just to try for a chance at winning her love. When he got to her he collapsed on her doorstep. They later got married and lived happily ever after, more or less. The details of the story are not all great examples for us but you have to admit that was a pretty bold move and a big risk.

So with that warm up today we're going to begin with a question for you to reflect on. What is the biggest risk that you have ever taken? It might have been a relationship risk like Mr. Stevenson. It might have been a career risk. It might have been a recreational risk (any hang-gliders or parachuters in the bunch?) It might even have been something that you only count as a risk when you look back at it. But take a minute, what is the biggest risk you have ever taken?

Why do I ask you might wonder? Well we have talked a lot lately about what following Christ and living a Christian lifestyle means. From forgiveness to charity, from faith to action in our community. One thing that we haven't talked a lot about is the risk that is involved in living in a Christian lifestyle.

But the gospel lesson today has something to do with risk. Let's look at it again:

A master leaves town and he leaves some slaves in charge of his household, his farms, his accounts, everything. He leaves them some money to operate with too. To the most capable he leaves the most and doles out money to the rest accordingly.

There seems to be no direct instructions for the slaves about what to do with this money. They are just free to use it as they see fit. They are not the lords all of a sudden, he did not give them his whole estate but he did leave them as functional masters, to do with what was his as they saw fit. They were to see to operations as best they could, using him and his work before he left as an example. He trusted that the skills that he had taught them and those that they had always had, that he had chosen them for, would see them through and help them to see his property through too.

So two of the servants took what they had been given, they followed the example of their master and they increased what he had left for them. They seemed to do it with little fear and little trouble. And they took huge risks. They invested it in high yield, therefore extremely high risk, places and it paid off!

But the third servant kind of missed the bus. He was confused. He misjudged his master. He heard only a threat in the promise of trust that he was given. And so he took the little money that he had been given and he hid it away, absolving himself, as far as the law at the time was concerned, of any guilt at all, whether the money remained, disappeared or somehow magically increased. You seee, in those days if you have buried money and it was stolen you weren't legally held responsible.

And so that last slave despite inflation and whatever else only had the first sum of money to give to his master upon the master's return, not even enough to run the place for a month.

I know a good next line would be that he had to ask for a government bailout because he had invested the money poorly. He should have asked for a bailout from the master I think. I think then he would have had rather better luck. If he had asked for mercy and acknowledged that everything that he had came from the master first anyway I think there might have been some mercy for him. But instead he blamed the master for the whole thing.

Saying: "Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."

And then, much to the surprise and dismay of this man, the master was not pleased at all that his fearful servant had chosen the hide the treasure. Instead he reprimanded the servant for feeling so fearful of him. It was clear to the master and clear to the other slaves that being left as stewards was both a sign of trust and an indication of freedom.

That is what allowed the servants to have hope. So they took what had been given knowing
that their master, their benefactor, their Lord, was loving and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

And that is why we are thinking about risk with this text.

Our master has been gone for thousands of years now and he entrusted us with much more than a little bit of money. He entrusted us with his church. Some have been thrilled with the responsibility and they have gone out and joyfully and spread the gospel all around bringing even more gospel back with them. Some have heard the gospel and buried it in the ground. Today's questions is which group are we part of? What have we here done with the great treasure entrusted to us?

Well, we've done some great things, we worked hard this year to take the gospel out and multiply it. Opening our doors to new people, welcoming them in our midst. Considering what our community needs and where our church fits into that. We have been good and faithful servants up to this point. But! we haven't taken very many risks and that is a shame because we have the freedom to. We are expressly invited in this lesson to take chances as a church and as people of God.

The popular theory right now about creating healthy churches says that the best thing to do, if you want to become a vital place where people are excited to come and hear the gospel, is to take chances! To take a risk. The idea is that very little that you do is really going to be the end of the world, especailly if it is done prayerfully. And so you always have the freedom to reach out and to try soemthing new. To reach God's people in a different way. To start a ministry in a coffee shop or to plan a big service project in your community. Even to start a little group that gets together on Tuesday mornings and reads the bible or one that has cookies together on Thursady night in the name of the Holy Spirit. Whatever it is, you are free to try it and to celebrate it if it works and to change gears if it doesn't work. Because part of taking a risk is being willing to fail. If Robert Lewis Stevenson from our story a minute ago hadn't gotten the girl? His life would have gone on and he probably even would have found love again but imagine the great gifts and the great accomplishment that he would have missed out on if he had never tried.

The servants who multiplied what they were given by the master were praised by being called good and faithful servants. And they were assured the chance to "enter into the joy of the master". First they got to enter into the work of the master spreading the gospel. And because of that they got to enter into his joy, the joy of sharing the great good news of God's abounding and steadfast love for us. So let us too, start taking risks and entering into the joy of our master. Amen.

Pentecost 26 A; Matt 25:1-13

Let's go back over the story from the gospel real fast here. There was a wedding planned for just after sundown. There were 10 young women, acolytes, whose job it was to hold lamps for a wedding procession, light the way for the bride and groom to come into the wedding celebration. Like most weddings, the wedding was delayed, one thing and then another, the dress needed to be taken up, the shoes weren't quite right, it started to rain. An aunt got lost on the way to the celebration and on and on until it was way past twilight and inching on toward midnight. So late! But the party must go on so everyone, finally ready, made their way to the groom's house in a procession, tradition at the time.

Finally it was those ten young acolytes' time to shine! Time for them to get up, wake up, because they had fallen asleep waiting, get their lamps going nice and bright and lead the way into the prepared hall. Oh but oh, some had been those types of people who are always ready for anything. The ones who seem to always have it together, especially when you don't really have it together. And others were, well...less prepared, they had come with lamps and plenty of oil for the wedding that was scheduled, but as time wore on, as it took longer and longer for the wedding to begin, their oil started to run out and they had no more. They asked for some from the others, asked if they would share but they said no, no way. We brought what we needed you didn't, go get your own oil. So the five bridesmaids without oil, went off in the middle of the night in search of oil. The text says that five of these bridesmaids were wise, and five were foolish. My question for you today is which ones were foolish? Which ones made the worse decision?

Here is another story for you. Once there were eight children on a playground. Four had remembered to bring a ball out for recess, four had been in such a hurry to finish their assignments before recess that they had forgotten to grab any toy or game. When they all got outside the four with the ball set up to play a game and the four without a ball realized that they didn't have anything to do. They asked the other kids, can we join your game? The first four said no, we brought the ball out and we don't want to play with people like you, especially ball forgetting people who took to long to do the same work that everyone got and finished. Go find your own game to play. So the four without a ball wandered away sad and sat out the rest of recess and when recess was over the four with the ball were scolded for not sharing with their fellow students. Who made the more foolish choice in this story?

Or how about in this case. Once there were four very hungry people. They had always looked out for each other and pooled what they had and never went hungry for very long. But one day someone gave two of them a huge sack of rice and promised them another at the end of every two weeks, totally free. It would feed all of them sufficiently until the next bag came but the two who recieved it decided to take it with them and hide from their friends. More for them that way and it was a more sure thing, just in case the next bag never came. But without the group of four life became much more difficult for the other two, now there were many nights when they went without anything at all to eat. At the end of the two weeks when the first two got more rice there was still some left over from the first sack, they had much more than they had needed but they had lost track of their two friends and now couldn't share even if they wanted to. Who made the foolish choice in this story?

Now a story from the New Testament, with a few extra details, one of the disciples was traveling on a road and he came upon another traveler, they rode together and they talked about the new church that was starting and finally they came up to some water. The traveler said here is water, what is to keep me from being baptized. But the disciple was going to be late for an important meeting, if he stayed to baptize this man, he wouldn't make it to worship on time, maybe not at all that day and he would miss the meal that the church shared, plus he was just so tired from traveling and he preached and baptized all the time, travel time was supposed to be time for him to relax. So he thought to himself, I don't have to share salvation, no one will know if this once I don't, besides God came to the people in Jerusalem, not to this traveler from Ethiopia. But then he thought to himself Jesus gave me very few commandments, mostly just to love my neighbor as God loves me and to go forth baptizing. I could stay and baptize this man making us both right before God or I could go and make it to worship on time and look right before God which would be the foolish choice? He was a wise disciple, he stayed and he baptized the man even at the risk of missing a worship service and a feast!

So the question again.

There were ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom to come. He had promised them all a place at the wedding feast but some ran out of oil in their lamps just as the wedding party was near, as they could see it coming up the street. The five who were out of oil asked of the other five, please, can we borrow just enough to make it inside where there is more light but the first five were proud of how prepared they were, they were tired from the wait, they wanted to be absolutely sure that they had enough oil and they felt no responsibility for the other five so they said no. And the five without oil went out on a futile mission at midnight in ancient Palestine to try to find an oil merchant. They didn't find one, and when they got back they had already been left out in the cold, unable to take part in the feast and utterly shamed. Who made the foolish choice in this story?

The prophet Amos in our old testament lesson speaks for the Lord saying. I don't want your festivals or solemn assemblies. Almost literally the Lord says through Amos, I'm not worried about the candles that you light before the wedding feast or the other ceremonial stuff. All that I desire of you is Justice and Righteousness. To receive the great gift of salvation from the Lord your God and share it with all of those who don't have enough or fall short at a crucial moment.

God requires these things of us as Christians, to share God's love with our neighbor at every opportunity, to do justice, to love righteousness and to share what we have. We can sympathize with the five bridesmaids who didn't share. Perhaps they didn't know that there were better lamps filled with oil just on the other side of that gate, that all they ten would have needed to do was keep their little lamps burning for a few minutes longer, just long enough to light the way for others, and they would receive all that they needed.

But don't sympathize too much because we don't have that problem. We know that we have plenty of this proverbial oil. We aren't being asked to share literal oil from a meager supply but rather the love of God with our neighbor and we know before we are ever asked for it that it comes to us in great abundance. It comes in the ever flowing waters of baptism, it comes in the ever ready feast at the communion table and most of all it comes in the comfort, love and sustenance that we can share this week, this day even, having come away from this place hearing God's promise that there will always be enough for us, that the more love we share, the more comfort we share, the more abundance we share and the more peace we spread, the more love, comfort, abundance and peace there will be in the world for God to share with us, we won't run out, we will never run out. This is good news, thanks be to God. Amen.

All Saints A Matt 5:1-12

Today is All Saints Day. It is a day set aside by the church for us to think about the saints. Not just the big ones like Saint Peter or Saint Paul or Saint Stephen but all of them. So what's a saint?

In some traditions a saint is one who acts on our behalf toward God, intercedes for us and provides us with someone less daunting to share our woes with. Certainly 500 years ago that was a very common way to think of the faithful departed. But we don't really need saints for this because we believe that any mediating that needs to be done on our behalf has already been done by Christ.

Another way to think about what saints do is to consider them great examples of faith. I was at the East Greenbush Library book sale on Friday and I came across a book called 365 Saints. It was a devotional with a page for everyday of the year and each day told you about the saint or shared with you a writing by them or about them and then ended with a prayer. Many times the prayers had to do with how a saint was martyred. How they died in the faith and it asked you to reflect on how you can grow in whatever faith area that involved. This is not a problem. It is great to have role models for your faith and the Catholic church has set aside some very remarkable people to fill this role. But this also isn't exactly the best way to think about saints.

For us the greatest example that a saint can provide is not how great their faith was but how great the faith was that God had in them. That God has in us all.

This is part of the reason that when we talk about saints in this church we don't just talk about folks who have been canonized by Rome but instead we talk about all baptized believing Christians who now enjoy communion with God. We consider all Christians who have died in the faith saints. Our New Testament text calls them those who have been through the great ordeal.

Those who have come through death and now stand washed clean in the presence of the Lord. But death isn't the only great ordeal, they all, any human person who lives, have been through a great many ordeals here on earth through which God and their faith carried them and all of those ordeals, along with all the people they knew and all the lives they touched are part of their identity now as saints.

This year, as a parish we have celebrated the lives of several saints who lived among us and finally finished their great ordeal. Between them we had a range of ages, a range of experience. Many of them were great examples of people who lived with faith but they all provide us with examples of God's faith for us, and in us, even in the midst of great trials.

Looking back over the year I was surprised to remember how many people who passed away this year had lost children when they were young adults. At least one in a tragic accident, several others to sickness and disease. They would have been the first to tell you that that is one of the very worst ordeals that a person can come through but they also seemed keenly aware that God was with them even in the midst of it. That when it was hardest to have faith they were bolstered up by the faith that God had in them, the faith that God provided them with.

Then, we had a funeral at Trinity for one young man whose life had barely started. Who was just into his adulthood and died suddenly, heartbreakingly in an accident. Having maybe just started to come through the throes of youthful rebellion but in the midst of quiet family pain and a huge church funeral there were witnesses to God's faithfulness even in that tragedy.

We had a funeral for sweet Dorthy ______ who came through the great ordeal of slowing losing grasp on reality, a painful and terrifying thing but God remained faithful to her even in those days when having faith by herself became difficult, if not impossible, she was wrapped in the promise of faith from God.

We had a funeral for a St. Stephen's member who died suddenly and without pain after
a full life of 97 years, he was a blessed example of another kind of faithfulness. His great ordeal was simply living long enough to lose so many others, to nurse a sick wife until she finally passed. To live beyond even having many friends or family to attend his funeral but God ever faithful, never left him.

How do I know that God never left and remained ever-faithful to Walter, or Dorthy, Chris or Ed, Julia or so many more? In part, I know because it was evident in who they were and how they are remembered, that is one of the great gifts of the saints, showing us how God has been faithful in lives even after they have ended. But I also know because I know that we were sent the great gift of Christ among us. Who died to win for us a place with God and who rose again as the greatest sign of God's faithfulness to us even in death. We were baptized in his name, sealed with the cross and marked with Christ forever, which is the church's way of saying with words what God is promising with God's whole self, that we are ever-beloved, ever-blessed and ever promised the gift of faith which leads to everlasting union with our God.

We get the beatitudes as the gospel text for this day, a list from Jesus' lips of who all is blessed, when, why and how. One of the Blessings it mentions is this:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

We who mourn, who throughout our lives have, and will, mourn the deaths of so many are blessed not only because the pain will lessen as time goes on and our hearts will heal. But, we are blessed because in the memory of each saint we learn about the love and faithfulness of God and because on this day especially we are promised that with all the saints who have gone before, those we knew and loved and those multitudes we never knew we will at the last stand washed clean of all great ordeals in presence and union with our God.

We will have time in a short while to remember those who have departed this year and those who died longer ago but that our hearts still ache for. As you do, remember not only who
they were to you but who they are to God. Beloved Children and now blessed saints and give thanks for their lives, the good and bad, the easy and the impossible knowing that God was with them all along, leading them in faith when they were weak and using them as examples of faith when they were strong and that God offers that same promise of faithfulness to all of us and provides us with the saints when we need reassurance and proof. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Pentecost 22 A Matt 22:1-14

In our gospel lesson today we hear about a wedding feast. In these days wedding feasts were a huge deal! They are a big deal now in many cases but they were a huge deal then. They lasted for a week. There were certain codes about what people should wear and how they would act and most importantly for our puposes it brought great shame if no one came. So the man holding the feast, a king, the father of the groom in this case did all that he should have, he invited people in advance, those people RSVP'd, they said they would come. But then the day of the feast came and the food was cooking and the flowers were out and everything was decorated and the bride and groom were ready. But no one came. And the host was getting anxious. What shame that no one would come, what kinds of friends were those anyway. He sent messengers out to check on people. They each made an excuse. I have to work, I'll be away for the week, that kind of thing. Some even chased the messengers away and gave no answer.

So the messengers came back dejected. Sad and unsuccessful they told the host that no one was going to come. After his rage had passed he said, "well then, we will invite the common people. We're still going to celebrate with great joy." He says to his messengers alright, go down to main street. You will find good people and bad people there, people in all walks of life and all stations. Bring them all! We will have the most fantastic feast. It will be filled with people, together we will express our love and well wishes for my good son and together we will share what we have to give each other, our time, our goodwill, our love and our possessions.

So the messengers brought people to the door and as they showed up gave them each a clean, new garment to wear. It was tradition to have garments provided at weddings for all those who didn't come in proper attire, there was a certain, uniform and ritual way that they were all supposed to look. In this case the clean garment did a little something different, it made them all equal in the eyes of the one holding the feast and in the eyes of all who were there. They were no longer there as rich or poor, as people who wore their occupation on their sleeves, as people who had a questionable history or even as people who had an important role in society, they were all just there to share in generosity and fellowship.

So they were all were ushered in, they were all seated and feed.

What a feast they must have had, a refined man who had planned an elegant feast now had a banquet filled with unrefined and unknown people but out of great love for his son he feed them, wined and dined them as if they were kings and queens. And we are led to believe that he was quite happy about it and so were they.

This story comes as a parable in a series that Jesus uses to put the Pharisees, the religious elite in their places. To explain to them that the kingdom of God comes in unusual ways, not just to the usual people but to all people, especially those people who are left behind and left out. But this parable unlike the ones that came before it focuses on the messengers. Those who go out and bring people into the wedding feast and who offer them the new garments to wear.
Luther says, remember that we're going to have a little bit of Luther every week for a while. Luther says in this case we are the messengers, we members of the church who go out in the main streets and invite any and everyone up to feast with us. The ones who call out to all people around us asking them to join us in the great joy of knowing God's love. He also says that, in the case of this story, the garment that everyone put on is Christ. That unlike a normal wedding feast the people here were brought in by messengers instead of by invitations that they had earned by their own merit and instead of silk or satin to wear they were offered the love of God as a common garment.

The whole thing is a reversal of the normal wedding rites and rituals.
Instead of elaborate invitations and qualifications all are welcome into this feast right off the street.

Instead of fine wedding garb of silk or satin all are made equal wearing the same clean garment.

Instead of a gathering of the elite, the proud and the important, the poor and hungry and those longing for comfort are brought together and fed the fine food and drink.

Instead of wedding gifts of gold and fine fabrics what is needful is provided to those in need.

Jesus says that this is what the kingdom of God is like. This is a picture of what it means to put on Christ. As messengers of the kingdom of God we respond to the love of God and the great gifts that we have been given by putting on this new garment that Christ offers and by offering it to other people. Mother Theresa, as she did work with the poor in India encountered many people putting on Christ in many ways but she tells a great story about one couple that she met trading in earthly wedding garments for the garments of messengers of Christ.

"Just a few days before I left Calcutta, a young couple came to our house and they gave me lots of money to feed the poor. In Calcutta every day we cook for 7,000 people. If we don't cook, they don't eat. And so these young people gave, me this money and I asked them, "Where did you get so much money?" And they said, "Before marriage—we have been married just two days—but before marriage we decided that we will not buy wedding clothes, we will not have wedding feast, that we'll give you the money to feed the people." And I asked them, "But why? Why did you do like that?" Because that's a scandal for us in India not to have the wedding clothes, not to have the wedding feast. [It is] one of the most beautiful days in their lives. And they gave me a most extraordinary answer: "Out of love for each other, we loved each other so tenderly that we wanted to give each other something special. And that was our love for the poor. We gave that love for each other by making that sacrifice." See, this is something so wonderful. To show that tender love for each other, they made that big sacrifice. Every day I get something like that from all over the world. You would be surprised what people write. And you must have experienced it yourselves if you have all worked for the beautiful project of the house.
Jesus made Himself Bread of Life to satisfy our hunger for His love, and then He makes Himself the hungry one so that you and I can satisfy His hunger for our Love. That is why I ask you [to] ask your priests to teach you to pray. Ask them to give you the beautiful opportunity to be alone with Jesus in adoration. Ask them to help you to come as close as possible to Jesus in the Eucharist. And often during the day say: "Jesus, in my heart I believe in your tender love for me, I love you." God Bless you."

This is what it looks like to be a messenger of Christ. this is what we are called to when we are called to love our neighbor. This is how we should live out our baptisms with the promise that just as often as we invite others into the love of God we ourselves are invited in as well. This is good news, Thanks be to God. Amen

You can find the text of this speech from Mother Theresa in several places, I used the version in this speech: http://www.ualberta.ca/ALUMNI/history/speeches/82autteresa.htm

Pentecost 19 A A

Our old testament lesson today is great,there is a lot of humor in it and Jonah is mad that God sent him all the way to a city that he doesn't like filled with people that he has no love or respect for and makes him announce that God is angry at what they were doing. And then much to Jonah's dismay the people repent. They repent and God forgives them and Jonah yells at God.

He yells at God, "I knew it! I knew you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." I knew it you jerk! It isn't Fair! And so God looks down an Jonah and asks what business it is of his who God forgives and how God doles out his love.

It is easy to laugh at Jonah, we are meant to, anything with the language God appointed a bush is meant to make us giggle. but I have another story for you.

Once during my first year of college, I had this instructor who was pretty demanding especially for someone teaching a freshman class. We had a lot of reading and a lot of papers due. Our final exam was an in class essay exam. We would have to write four one-two page answers to four questions about the reading for the semester. We didn't know which readings and so we had to know it all. Some people set up studies group and traded the papers that they had written over the semester to review, others reread many of the required texts. Some just kind of thought back over things and crossed their fingers, having ended up too busy to do too much studying. If I recall correctly this final would be 40% of our grade. So test day came. We got to class first. We waited for the instructor to walk in. He came a little late. He had his hands full, a briefcase full of what we could only assume were the test questions and a bag. He apologized for being late to the final session of our class. He set his briefcase down and he wrote a name and date on the board. There was panic, no one knew what he meant by it, it wasn't from the class material unless we'd missed it. There were nervous glances around. Then he turned to his desk and took the contents out of his bag, juice and cookies. Then he handed out sheets of paper to everyone in class and we each got a pack of crayons.

Finally he went back to the front of the room and explained that, in honor of the birth of his new baby son the day before, hence the name on the board, we were all excused from taking the final but instead invited to remain for class session, have some refreshments and our only requirement for the final grade was that we draw a picture of any scene from any of the literature that we had read during the class and post it on the board. Stick people were okay, we would not be graded on quality. Easiest A I ever received.

But once we were dismissed from class and the instructor was out of earshot a funny thing happened. People started to grumble. They were mad that the birth of the instructor's son had made us all equal in his eyes. The people who had prepared the most complained the most. Especially those who hadn't kept up with the reading all semester had gone back over the last week and worked very hard to get caught up. The only people who seemed genuinely happy were the ones who walked into the classroom sure that they weren't going to do well enough on the final to get a decent grade. This had been a moment of pure grace for them, undeserved pardon for their short comings. In the end the truth was that we all probably got better grades in the class than we were going to, after all, well prepared or not it is hard to be absolutely perfect. Still people were mad, it wasn't fair!

I have a third story about this. It is the one Jesus tells his disciples about the same theme.

There was a man who needed workers for his vineyard and he went out early and he found some eager and ready workers, he negotiated a wage with them and they went to the field. Then later he saw more workers, we don't know where they were in the morning, maybe they were there, maybe they weren't but he sent them out to the field anyway and again later he did the same. What this resulted in was some people working a very full day, some working a half day and some working only for about an hour. But when time came to be paid, he paid them all the same! The same wage that he had negotiated for a full day's work with the ones who worked in the hot sun all day. And he paid the ones who worked the least first, in front of everyone else! And he paid them just as much! It wasn't fair!

Jesus says it is like this with the kingdom of God. This is how God reigns in our lives.

People hate this! They get angry at God about this, they try to make certain rules that everyone has to follow no matter what so that everyone gets the same. But this isn't how God works. God welcomes in the new folks with the old. God offers complete love and grace and forgiveness to the most eager and the most reluctant of us. God offers love and grace and forgiveness to the most frustrating of us. This isn't fair. It is hard to hear. But Jesus doesn't really care about that.

This is the scandal of the gospel for us. It is the reason we make so many unspoken and spoken rules about what a Christian looks or acts like. Why we are happy to welcome certain people through our doors and ready to exclude others. It is because we feel like we are the ones who prepared for the test and gosh darn it why should God be willing to love and pardon everyone the same? Why does God have to keep loving someone who unfairly moved ahead of me in the line for a promotion? Why does God have to keep loving a spouse who had an affair? Why does God have to keep loving someone who hurt my son or daughter or mother or father or me? Why does God love people who do terrible damage to our world just as much as God loves those who work for peace and health? It isn't fair! God isn't fair.

But God also isn't wrong. God knows how much it means for someone who couldn't find work at all day after day, after day some much that he is worn down, weak and tired to once get a full days' wage for just an hour's work. God knows how much it meant to a city condemned, without chance of pardon to be given a second chance. God knows how much it means to someone who came completely unprepared and overstressed to pass a test with an A. God knows how much it means to us on the day that we are that unrepentant city, or that jobless laborer or that misled soul; on that day, that we are completely unable to be worthy or ready for grace, love or pardon to receive it anyway.

As Lutherans we say that we are saved by grace. Grace isn't something that we feel like we need every single day of our lives but that isn't why it is there, it is there to save us on the one day of our life that we really need it, the day when it is all that we get to fall back on. When it is more than we ever deserved or expected. Grace is unfair because grace is God's gift to those who don't deserve it. I know that you are worried so I will say Grace doesn't give us an excuse to get off the hook, to stop doing what we know is required of us by God. I would have been a fool to never prepare for a final exam again, I wouldn't have made it far in college but on that one day I experienced pure grace. And I learned how to share grace with others. We would all be fools to remain lost and distant from God because we believe in grace but on the days in our lives when we can't find hope no matter how we search, we have the promise of pure grace. And on the days when we need it less we have it as a gift to share, we get to speak the words of pardon or of hope or of love. We get to be, we have to be, the man who pays all of the laborers the same in the name of our graceful God.

This is good news. Thanks be to God. Amen

Pentecost 17 A A

Where two or three are gathered truly I am among them. This is a great saying. we use it often to comfort ourselves when we have only a few present for something, low attendance, few people at a meeting, not many people at a funeral. And in those cases it is comforting but have you ever wondered about the phrase?

I mean it is great if God is present when we gather together but what about when we are alone? Aren't we assured that God is always with us? Maybe especially when we feel the most alone, the most without help or hope? So what's with the gathering of two or more?

I have a story to start with that might help us figure that out. It is about a popular topic this week, school! Ah...the beginning of the school year...filled with...tension! I know not everyone here has school aged children in their homes, I certainly don't but you didn't need to this week in order to pick up on the tension in the air. I could actually hear it out my window, now keep in mind that the area around the parsonage is a popular pathway for many school kids of all ages. Well as the day that school started got closer the noise outside my window got more and more interesting. All summer long we could hear kids at all hours but now there was a lot more little bickering.

Kids fighting over skateboards, quarters, basketballs, dirty looks, you name it. But the funny thing about these bickering kids is that for the most part they were self-regulating. The fights never got very far. Most times it was because a third or fourth party would step in. not another parent, not an authority figure per se but another kid, a peer. This other kid would walk up and be a mediator or a distraction, in some cases a tie breaker. What really happened is that the extra kid coming out to play reminded the first two what they were doing there in the first place. They were playing, together, because they were friends because they love and enjoy one another.

It worked in positive ways too, sometimes two kids would just be bored wandering around outside clearly with no real plan but hoping to soak up the rest of summer, when a couple more kids would wander up and suddenly they would have enough for a game or an adventure of some sort. Just the presence of the other kids would bring them back to themselves and their kid nature, ready to have fun and be creative.

This third kid idea is straight from the bible, at least in a sense. Our text today is, strictly speaking, all about conflict, discipline and forgiveness. But on a deeper level it is about the idea of community. It starts out by telling us how to handle conflict and make peace within our communities. If we have a conflict with someone it says that we should name that conflict, tell the person. But if we continue to have trouble we should bring one or two witnesses with us and to help sort it out. The third kid idea. Bring someone in to remind everyone of the bigger picture and see what happens. In this case the bigger picture is God and the Christian community.

And then a little later we are reminded that this is because: "Where two or three are gathered truly [God] is among them.

Which could mean of course that God is present when there are more of us than one. It could mean that we have special power to punish or forgive when we are in bigger groups, that would be related to the text. But it isn't just letting us know that it is okay to have two or three gathered together but indeed we need to be gathered and have fellowship with each other. Our community needs it. We need each other! Which is certainly why we worship and spend time together, why we are taking special time to eat and play together after this service.

But today as we people from two congregations across Schodack worship together for the first regular worship service in nearly a year I think of how we need each other as congregations, like those kids outside this week.

We remind each other of our very nature. We remind each other what it is to be church. I missed the very early relationship between you two congregations but I suspect that it was a bit awkward. No one knew just where to be or what to say. Then names started to be remembered. A pastor was called. Then came time to actually work together.

An activity for the kids here, a visit to one another's place for a fund raiser there. And now we have gotten to a point where we revitalize one another. We feed each other.

A great example of that is operation Christmas Child, something that St. Stephen's does very well. The kids from Trinity were invited last year and it was a wonderful event, a record number of boxes were packed to be sent away. Kids got to see what it means to give and to share and they were excited about it, people talked about it for weeks. Somehow pictures of it made it into the paper twice! And there must have been some special blessing there too because for the first time ever children who received the boxes responded as you heard earlier. Where two congregations are gathered together God is truly present.

So now we have a new tradition, something that we will do together with each side collecting items and money and then pooling their resources to share in fellowship and do a great thing for children half way around the world.

And St. Stephen's has borrowed from Trinity too, Trinity has a great system for worship planning. Where a group of five or six musically minded people and one pastor get together and look over the upcoming season. Together we all choose hymns, share input, sing little bars, get someone to play a piece on the piano once in a while in order to convince the crowd of a choice. It is a great system, fun, orderly sometimes and a little chaotic at others but it gets the job done and with fellowship. Recently St. Stephen's has participated in this. Leslie, jumped right into the fellowship and chaos and was welcomed warmly. Now because of that both places have just ever so slightly more diverse worship music and they share it! So sometimes that hymn that makes you tear up just a little might have been chosen by a brother or sister at the opposite congregation. And on most mornings though our worship is separate we are singing the same songs in the same spirit. What a lovely way that we can participate together in worship at both places!

These are not huge things, they are little baby steps but they are also just examples. I hear two things most commonly when these two congregations talk about each other. Number one is "how is the other congregation doing, we should get together more" and the other is "Hey! Why is St. Stephen's doing that and we aren't or why is Trinity doing that and we aren't! We want to do that too!" And so new ministries are born and the love of God is shared in new ways!

We need each other, not for financial reasons, not for support, not in order to share a pastor but because Jesus tells us that where two or more are gathered in his name there God is truly present. We make God present for one another, like that third kid wandering out on to the Street to remind the others how to play like kids. Trinity reminds St. Stephen's of it's very nature as a part of the church of Christ and St. Stephen's reminds Trinity of the gift of God's love that it was created to share.

Just as we need each other, as our Sunday Schools need their students and teachers and parents, as our congregations need our singers and musicians, and vice versa, as our buildings need our property people. As our families need one another. We congregations and people alike need each other. And because we have each other and are gathered together, Christ is truly present with us in new, different and exciting ways all of the time. This is good news, thanks be to God!

Pentecost 16 A A

I was sitting in the Empire Plaza this week and there were a few preschool groups wandering around. You've seen the kind I'm talking about, about twenty, three year-olds all holding hands or paired off in two or threes and walking together. Well one of the groups was just clearly having a bad day. They weren't staying in line, some were crying, none seemed to be listening. So the leaders got them into a different sort of line and had them play follow the leader. You probably remember the game from when you were a kid, you would all walk in a line, then the leader would skip and so everyone would skip. Then the leader would run and so everyone would run. This is what they were doing, it went on for a while, they had the kids doing some pretty funny stuff, walking like ducks, mooing like cows. Like Simon Says but the leaders were just as into it as the kids and there was no way to end up "out". By the time the game was over all of the criers were laughing, the line was perfect and everyone was listening. So they paired back up and off they went on their way.

In our lesson today Peter tries to change the direction that Jesus is going in and Jesus says no. You can't redirect me. As much as you want to, as painful as it is for you, as much as you just want to sit down in the path and cry. We won't have any of that. To highlight how serious he is Jesus then says "get behind me Satan" to Peter. A famous and well known phrase. Peter who just last week was called the rock, the rock upon whom the church would be built now gets a stern rebuke, get behind me Satan.

Here's the thing though Jesus wasn't telling Peter to leave and never come back. He also wasn't saying, by calling him Satan, that Peter was capable of only evil. Instead he was saying to Peter that it was time to follow and to do just what he was told for a while, no matter how strange and awkward it might look.

As adults we don't really play follow the leader anymore because while it holds the rapt attention of a three year old, if we all tried to play we would be bored out of our minds and possibly falling all over ourselves. But we learned something important from our Kindergarten teachers by playing that game. The same lesson that Peter learns in the gospel text for today.

Sometimes when things are overwhelmingly impossible what a person really needs to do is locate the leader and start following for a while. In fact we play grown up follow the leader all of the time. I was in a small group led by Bishop Burkat of the Southeast Pa Synod, at a synod event recently. She was talking about how we do effective work in the church. She claimed that almost anything that a church needs a leader for can be taught to a member of a congregation with little to none of the terrifying implications that taking over a task carries with it. You do it by following the leader and there is all kinds of evidence for this method in the Old and New testaments, including the in the lesson we read today.

The process starts like this: First you find someone doing what you need to learn and you watch once. Then you do it side by side with them once with them leading. Next you lead and do the task side by side again. Finally you do it by yourself and the former leader watches. You repeat this as many times and you need and poof you're ready to go, even to lead others. Follow the leader church style, for grown ups!

We can use this model to learn how to run a coffee hour up in the fellowship hall, we can use this model to learn to teach Sunday School, we can use this model to learn to preach. Jesus used a similar model to show his disciples how to teach, how to preach and how to heal. When he said follow me he meant it and he taught them how.

That might have actually been why Peter was so afraid in our lesson. He felt like he was on top of the world with Jesus there to lead him. He was the rock of the church. He had the power to heal, he could literally walk on water! But what Jesus was talking about in this lesson was not being there anymore. At least that is what Peter heard. He heard Jesus say I'm going to die and that is the last thing Peter heard. I'm willing to bet that Jesus wasn't even done speaking when Peter started to rebuke him. To scold him and plead with him to change what he was saying.

All of this because he had a very real concern. His leader was going away. He wouldn't be able to see him anymore. What happens when you are playing follow the leader and then, suddenly, you can't see the leader anymore?

A few things in this case.

First you have to change what you're following. If you can't follow the literal steps and motions of the leader you have to listen to their voice to see where they are going and where they are leading you. If Peter had listened closer he would have heard the good news that was directly linked to the bad news that Jesus was sharing. Yes Jesus said that he would die but he also said that through him death would be overcome. He said that within Peter's very lifetime he would see death overcome and subsequently the kingdom of God alive and growing here on earth.

In order to listen like that though there is an element of letting go that needs to happen. Peter was much too occupied with his own needs and concerns to even leave room to hear Jesus speaking.

In explaining more to Peter Jesus says pick up your cross and follow me for those who want to save their life must lose it. Essentially he is telling Peter to put down as much of himself, his own insignificant worries, pains, fears and concerns as he needs to in order to be able to listen and follow.

At one of the camps that I was at the summer we took a night hike around the perimeter of the camp. Through the forest and a meadow, over a couple of little streams. And it was very dark. No lights, just a sliver of a moon. But the leader had been over the terrain many times and she lead the line holding a hand of the person behind her and we all took hold of the hand of the person in front of us and were led through the dark. The leader could tell the people around her where there was a bump or drop or some other kind of hazard and the message would get passed along. She would squeeze the hand of the person behind her to indicate a need for caution and the message would go down the line.

As you might imagine holding both a hand of the person in front of you and of the person behind you meant that you really couldn't carry anything that you didn't need for the hike. Water bottles, sunscreen, toys, papers etc. all had to be put aside so total attention could go to following the leader and keeping the followers behind you safe and directed.

We also had to put aside any disputes that we were having, any dislike for the people around us, any worries that would keep us from paying attention, any fear of the unknown, of trying a new thing, of learning from someone else had to go too, because you really needed to walk with confidence. This is what Jesus meant when he said put down yourself, your life and take up the cross.

He wasn't asking that you lead a life of unimaginable suffering just for the sake of it, quite the opposite. He was asking that you put aside all of the obstacles that distract you and weigh you down. Anything that keeps you from living fully into his love. Anything that closes your ears to the good news of the resurrection and the coming of the kingdom of God. These words are a call to put down anything that keeps you from following the leader. Let go of anything that keeps you from hearing his voice in the night and walking on the path that he shows you. Amen

Pentecost12 A Matt 14:13-21

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

We're going to work through our gospel story backward this morning but I'm going to start by telling you a story.

I used to ride my bike past a tiny storefront church when I lived in Philadelphia called "the church of the broken pieces". I would ride by and wonder what they meant by that, what broken pieces? Were they referring to themselves? Did they all come with terrible traumatic stuff to the church and find some kind of healing and peace there? Was it a reflection on how they had been treated in society? I pictured a group of people all broken but uniquely fit to
eachother like origami folded together so that they were made whole. A nice picture but I never knew what exactly they meant and never asked. Then this lesson came up in the lectionary one Sunday. Saying: And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

It says that there was so much abundance after Jesus fed a hungry crowd that the disciples went out and filled 12 baskets with the broken pieces of fish and of bread likely to send out into the world to keep feeding people who needed it.

The church of the broken pieces was talking about this. They were it turns out talking about themselves when they took the name broken pieces. But they weren't just broken pieces of humanity. They were signs of God's abundance. Signs that when God seeks to feed a crowd from just a few loaves and fishes, to break bread with us, to provide for us, his love is so abundant that even the scraps are overflowing with God's abundance.

Sure the people of the church were broken. We're all broken, sometimes by pain, fear, anger, grief, addiction and loss but this lesson made them realize that there is good in the broken parts. That even the broken parts were loved by God and precious enough to be gathered together and made into something new and nourishing. And that those broken pieces bear the message of God's love.

Now going back in the story a little there was broken bread and fish to pick up, ultimately, because Jesus had himself been feeling broken.

It all started at the beginning of our lesson with Jesus heavy laden with dark thoughts
and grief. The people closest to him, those who believed the most in him were
being swayed by popular opinion and were doubting his motivations and his
calling. And most present in his mind is that fact that his cousin and dear
friend, John the Baptist, has been beheaded by King Herod. Jesus'
closest companion is dead. And so he withdraws from the crowds to be by himself.
He wants to be alone. He wants some quiet time. He wants to mourn and be sad. He
wants a break from being the one that is in charge and the one people rely on.

The people of God who are following Jesus seemed to feel called in a different direction though. Just as he is seeking to be alone, trying to escape the eyes of the crowd for a short while they come to find him. They gather together in search of him, some of them healthy and able, others of them in hard places in life and in need of healing.

So the text says that when he saw them Jesus had compassion for them. He felt their pain with them, maybe even because of the pain that he had just been experiencing. And so he went to them and he taught them and he healed them and he brought God's love to them.
There is a kind of mutual ministry going on here. Jesus
was broken, sad and seeking to be alone after his cousin's death but the
Father saw that perhaps this wasn't best and so the crowds and the
disciples show up to "minister to Him" with their own brokenness.

I had an experience a few weeks ago that is a great example of this same type of mutual ministry.
I was visiting a member of another church in the hospital because her pastor was out of town. A woman who husband had suddenly become very ill and was in intensive care. I showed up with my little communion kit ready to help but when I got there someone else was already sitting with her, holding her hand and praying. After a bit of talking I learned that the gentleman sitting with her was not a realitive. He was not a close friend, he didn't really even know her that well. He was a fellow church member who has seen her situation and had compassion on her.

He explained that having recently lost both of his parents he was keenly aware of what a long hard thing it is to do, to wait in hospitals for days with little rest, little information and little companionship. So he decided that the best way to work through the painand brokeness that he still felt from that experience was not to bear it alone but to turn it into ministry to other people. So he takes it upon himself, when a fellow church member or friend has a very sick relative and few other people to be near them, to sit with them in the hospital.

He explained that he doesn't have much to say and what he does say might not be that great so he isn't really there to talk, certianly not to do any heavy lifting on the faith or the medical side of things. He doesn't have any trianing in either. Really he is just there because he knows what it is like to have no one and he is sure that God would want someone to be there. So he said he had little to offer.

That was his side of the story anyway. The report that I got from the woman with a sick husband was much different. In her eyes she had no one, she lives very far away. She was stuck and alone. Lonely, scared and broken down when he walked in. The walking, talking, love of God right there. She was the one who had so little but God took it and blessed it and multiplied it in this other child of God.

She says now there is enough love and peace in her heart that when the whole experience is over there will still be love, ministry and support to share. Broken pieces to pick up and gather together and send out again.

In his grief, Jesus took compassion on the people who were feeling pain like his own. He taught and healed them and when they were ready to leave hungry he took five little loaves, and two little fish and he made them so abundant that there were baskets full of precious broken pieces to gather together.

So too does God comfort and care for us and then gather us together, whole and broken, hungry and satisfied and make us signs for each other of His abundant love for us. Amen

Pentecost 11 A Matt 13:31-52

The kingdom of God is like....In our lesson today we get a series tiny, quick, short, little parables from Jesus, all describing different things about the kingdom of God. Little, short notes about what God is and does and how God works. If you were to update them a bit they might go like this:

What is impressive to you? What is a mystery to you?

For people in Jesus' time it was the mustard seed. But it seems a lot harder to answer that question today than it was back then. Jesus talks about how tiny a mustard seed is but with modern science we can see things that are millions of times tinier. We can almost map everything about us that makes us human. Our DNA, little variations in DNA, how they work, what they do.

There used to be a phrase that people used about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin. This was a great mystery and a great feat of God for people. We know now that all the things that make a human can fit on the head of pin. One cell that carries the map of who we are. Several cells dividing in a womb that if they continue to divide will be a person someday, can fit on the head of a pin. Something so tiny that you almost have to imagine because you can't see it. Certainly a thing that you have to imagine growing and working and changing because you can't see it and you won't even see their results for a very long time.

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like that. Like something so tiny that you could over look it or that you can't even see at first. Like a seed that you put in the ground and forget about. But it grows. It becomes a living thing, it dictates it's own direction and has it's own needs and value.

Next: What is a mystery to you. Again with modern science we know so much about how so many things work. For Jesus a mystery was a woman making bread, yeast was both mysterious and rather treacherous or dangerous seeming to people in Jesus' time. So the woman hides some leaven in flour and puts it aside and before you know it there is a loaf, there is food to eat, there is the warm smell of bread baking. There is fellowship for the family around this fresh homemade loaf.

Maybe this doesn't need updated even though we know know how yeast works. Bread is bread, we still have to eat to survive and after all these years bread is the most basic and essential part of our diet. And it is still amazing how adding just a little life, yeast is living in a sense, I was always mystified as a small child by how the little grains of yeast would jump around just a tiny bit and cling to the spoons and other cooking utensils. You add just this little bit of life to flour, maybe with a little sugar or salt and water and just like the seed you forget about it for a while. It is hidden and a mystery, you leave it alone but then before you know it everything about the flour has changed. It has become something new, all of it's own, unlike anything else.

The Kingdom of God is like this. So very everyday but a mystery that carries with it the very basic necessities of life and can transform us completely.

Next: The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Or the Kingdom is like a very, very expensive pearl that a merchant sells everything he has in order to be able to buy.

Ah treasure and the Pearl. I'm not sure that these need to be updated either. We are in quite the credit crisis in America right now because too many people have felt this way about too many things. People have been willing to bet the farm, so to speak, to go into great debt, spend their lives paying on certain things. Houses are the major part of this equation. The need to provide, to have a safe, reasonable place for the family to live has caused people to promise all that they will make working for many, many years. But with many people it has gone farther than this, a new car, new furniture, the newest and best television, expensive recreational equipment, the best decorative items, from fancy antique spittoons to famous works of art. It is like they are controlled by a desire to have these things. Like they are willing to put their whole lives on the line just in order to posses these things. Like they would sell everything they owned, forsake everything else to own a field where this great treasure is buried. Like these things have taken possession of them.

This is how the kingdom of God is, we pursue it and pursue it and pursue it. We want to have God, we want to know God, we want to control God, we want to tell God what to do and what we need. But at some point we finally realize that we don't posses the treasure. It possess us. This is how the kingdom of God works.

I have a parable of my own to add to this. It might be blasphemous to say that the kingdom of God is like the TV series Lost but it seems to fit right in with the things that Jesus is saying.

I don't know how many of you watch Lost but it is about a magical island. It really doesn't seem so hokey until you say that out loud but yes, a magical island. An island where a plane crash lands. And the island provides for the survivors of this crash everything that they need. Food, shelter, companionship, even healing, the magic of the island can make the lame walk and the sick well. That is the seed or yeast bit of the parable. The people who have crashed don't know how the island works. It is small and mysterious, even scary to them but it becomes their whole world. It provides them with every need and it's influence on them grows and grows like yeast or a seed. But the tension in the show comes from people on the outside who know the very thing about this island that is such a mysterious surprise to the survivors of the plane crash. They know that stumbling upon the island is like coming across a great treasure when plowing a field. And so they give up all they have, they sell the things they own, they devote all of their resources to possessing the island. It becomes an obsession and a competition to them. They have seen how it seems so innocent and natural but it contains the power of life. And so nothing else in the world matters as much as to them as having that island.

Now the series isn't over yet and I don't know how it will end but here is the thing, here is how the Kingdom of God is different from Lost, or from a beautiful pearl or from a field with buried treasure. The kingdom of God is a free gift to all of us. We can't buy it nor can we possess it but we can live as part of it and invite as many people as we choose to it and there will always be room. It doesn't need to be hidden and it can't be bought. But it will provide us with more good things, more things like healing, like sustainence, like fellowship, even like warm, wonderful, life sustaining bread, or tiny seeds producing lovely nourishing plants than anything else we will ever come across.

And we can't own it no matter how hard we try because it already owns each and every one or us. It already knows each of our names and calls to us.

The kingdom of God, the kingdom that possesses us in spite of all the work that we try to do to possess it, isn't just an island somewhere that we happened upon or that a few elite people are fighting over. It is everywhere in all time, opening it's doors to us, growing and changing, providing us with mystery and awe, riches and joy and eternal union with God and one another.

Thank God that the kingdom is not a treasure buried in a field or a seed hidden in the ground but rather a free gift in the Holy Spirit all around us. Amen

Pentecost 5 A Matthew 9:35-10:8

This week some members of the congregation and I attended synod assembly the annual gathering of the ELCA in upstate New York. We got together to address church matters, to conduct business and to learn and to worship as a church body. The theme for the week was vocation. Vocation is a bit of catch word in the church right now that refers to our calling in the world and our mission from God. The place where our passions and gifts meet to guide us in the ministry of the everyday. The idea behind Christian Vocation is that we are all given certain talents and abilities and we are all called to work in God's kingdom and that work will be best done and we will be happiest and most successful if we figure out a way to match up work in the kingdom with our own talents and gifts.

At Synod Assembly there were speeches, videos and workshops that tried to answer the question: Why are Lutherans excited about vocation? How do we as Lutherans manage to consider the work that we do in our employment, in our churches, in our homes, in our friendships and today being father's day we should mention even, as parents and children, how do we consider all that more than work but vocation?

The best answer that I heard this question was: That we do it because our baptisms mean something! They are an assurance from God that we will be cared for, a promise from God that we will be equipped to do good work and a call from God to care for his people.

We are excited about vocation because our baptisms mean something.

With that in mind I'm going to re-read a little portion of today's gospel lesson:
When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness...[skipping ahead] and these twelve Jesus sent out.

There is something great and a little trickey going on here. Jesus saw that the sheep needed a shepherd. His people needed things and he had great compassion and he asked the disciples to pray that God would send some people out. Then in just about the same breath Jesus himself called and sent the very disciples that he had just asked to pray, out to do what they were asking God for. Now maybe this all happened so quickly because Jesus had a extra-fast line to God and knew right away the answer to the disciples' prayers or maybe this happened in the way that, sometimes, when we are interested in seeing something happen, we ask for volunteers, no one steps up and we realize that if it is going to happen we are going to have to at least start the work ourselves.

This is part of how vocation works. How do you find your calling? Well, what do you find yourself praying for most often? If you are praying for the sick is your calling to visit the sick? If you are praying for the children in the community is your calling to be a teacher or mentor. If you are praying for a relationship that you have are you being called to work on that relationship? Again vocation is tied to passion so we get clues from what we care most about.

Let me tell you a story about a group of people who found their vocation in a pretty everyday way.

There was a wheat farmer. In a town called Othello near where I lived two harvest seasons ago. This farmer died very suddenly just after he planted the wheat fields in the spring. He was gone but the wheat kept growing. And as summer ended just like every year the wheat was ready for harvest. Now perhaps some of you farm here or have lived on a farm at some point and so you know what it is like for a farm family come harvest time. It takes up a lot of time and energy, it is the central event for the family. I know some families where a daughter or son is known to come home more reliably during harvest time than even for the holidays. It is hard work but there is also some excitement in the air, something strong and familiar, it is full not only of urgency but also memory and thoughts about the future. And harvest time is also the livelihood of the family. No harvest, no income and you lose whatever you put down on the fields to begin with. So, as harvest grew nearer it must have been very hard to be a widow with the wheat ready to harvest but no farmer around to do so.

The community must have thought so too because they went to church Sunday after Sunday for weeks and prayed and asked the people to pray for her and her farm. The prayer must have sounded similar to what Jesus told his disciples to pray, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, Lord send people to work those fields and care for that family.

Well God listened in that same funny way that he listened to the prayers of the disciples and when it came around to harvest time there, those same people who had prayed, were, getting their instructions and heading out into the widow's fields. One morning after a simple prayer an army of combines from the whole community set out to harvest the wheat of the deceased farmer while an army of loving friends set out to create new harvest memories with a the farmer’s wife. The men driving the combines were not preaching about God’s love, they did not sit down and gather anyone around to hear about what it means to reach out to a neighbor in the name of God. Instead quietly and efficiently they did so. The served this widow when she was most vulnerable and they filled an entire community with the love of God. It only took one morning and a bit of gasoline.

They didn’t do it because they thought that they would get a better place in heaven if they did the other thing our baptisms tell us is that we are saved not by work but by God's grace. They did it out of love for a friend and fellow farmer now gone and out of love and compassion for his wife. This is what it means to have vocation, it isn't foreign or uncomfortable. The best ministry is reflexive. It is doing what you are moved to do and what you are confident about.

In the case of this community the most everyday service was an extraordinary ministry. They figured out the call of their baptisms, to care for people in the ways that they understood, with a vocation they already knew together and with the help of God.

Jesus asked his disciples to pray for those upon whom he took compassion and then Jesus raised up people to care for them. Jesus asks us to pray for his people, and then he sends us out to care for them. This is what we are promised at our baptisms, that we will be given unique gifts, a unique call, the Holy Spirit among us and an entire community of people of God to work beside us.

The really good news here about baptism and vocation is not that we are sent but that God sends. Sometimes we are the shepherds, sometimes we are the lost sheep. Sometimes we help and sometimes we need help and God sends workers to bring in the harvest when we can't. Helpers to carry us through when we are weak and sheep for us to lead when we are strong.

God sends, because our baptisms mean something. Amen