You may have heard the hub-bub caused this week by the chairman of BP, Karl-Henrik Svanberg of Sweden who, in expressing his regrets over the situation in the Gulf of Mexico, referred to the residents there as the “small people” for whom the oil giant is so very concerned.  While he later apologized for having been clumsy in choosing the wrong word (perhaps something got lost in translation from the Swedish) (which can so easily happen!), there were no words to reverse the damage that had already been done.  The “small people” of the Gulf — the taxpayers, the small-business owners, all those who depend upon the Gulf for their livelihood — responded in a big way — being certain Mr. Svanberg ate every letter of his misspoken words.

This morning’s Gospel text from St. Luke is a story of how Jesus went out of his way for the “small people” — intentionally seeking out those who were the least, the outcast, and the most marginalized.   This intentionality on the part of Jesus is actually set up in his mother Mary’s song of praise at the very beginning of the gospel.  Mary, when she learns that she would bear in her womb the Son of God, sings of a Mighty God who “looks with favor on the lowliness” of his servant, a strong One who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.   Perhaps little did Mary know that she was also singing of the mission of her son Jesus in the world:  feeding the hungry with good things, granting mercy to the humble and meek, and lifting up the lowly.

In this morning’s Gospel text, opposites attract and the lowliest is lifted up.

In crossing the lake known as Galilee, Jesus leaves behind the familiar for what is unfamiliar, he leaves behind those who are most like him for those who are most different from him, he leaves behind what his tradition considered ceremonially pure and undefiled for that which was considered ceremonially defiled and unclean.

In crossing the lake, Jesus crosses boundaries of culture and class to the country of Gerasa, or of the Gerasenes, “which,” according to St. Luke, “is opposite Galilee.”  Opposite: which is to say, opposing, completely different from, separated.   Jesus is in territory which, for Jews like him, is unclean and where he will encounter the unclean such as demons, the demon-possessed, pigs, and the tombs of the dead.  To the Jews in Galilee, the Gerasenes were “those people, over there” — the people who didn’t matter;  if you will, the “small people.”

For the first time in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is taking his mission of healing and freedom beyond the boundaries of his home territory, his familiar turf of Israel.  Here on this alien turf on the other side, Jesus is encountered by “a man of the city” who embodies everything opposite, everything contrary, everything opposing to what is familiar to Jesus.

The man of the city is naked, signifying shame; he is cut off from community; he is living among the tombs as a dead man and has clearly been in bondage for a long time; he has lost all social and religious status and is truly a non-entity, even among his own people the Gerasenes.   And so in all his shame, in all his isolation, in all his torment, he shouts at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  What, if anything??

It is the question all of us ask when we are feeling most cut off, most ashamed, most distant, most opposite from the presence of God:  “What do you have to do with me, Jesus?”

It is the question of the lowly, the powerless, the small people.

For this man of the city, one who struggled with a legion or a mob of his own personal demons, feeling as opposite from the Son of the Most High God as one could, truly wondered why anyone like Jesus would want anything to do with anyone like him.

Martin Luther was known to struggle with demons of his own.  A product of medieval thought and spirituality, Luther believed in them literally and even threw an ink bottle at the shadow of one he thought he saw while he was hiding out in the Wartburg castle.  But belief in demons literal or figurative is really beside the point.  What Luther did when he felt oppressed by his own inner spiritual struggles was to boldly say whether shouting out loud or using his interior voice (but I suspect the former rather than the latter):  “I am baptized!”   Yes, Luther claimed the waters of baptism as his refuge from all evil within and without even as we, whenever we claim the promises of baptism for ourselves or for one whom we are to baptize, take a moment just before baptizing to renounce not once, not twice, but three times the power of evil.

“Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?” we are asked.  And with God’s help we say “I renounce them.”

Or, putting it another way, we are asked “Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God?”   And in God’s strength we say, “I renounce them.”

And finally, putting it yet another and final way, we are asked “Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?”  And by God’s grace we say, “I renounce them.”

Middle Eastern demonology believed that evil spirits could not survive in water.   Later in the gospel of Luke, Jesus describes how demons inhabit “waterless regions” — and so it is not surprising that when Jesus commands the legion of demons to depart from the man, they do so by way of ritually unclean swine which then jump off the steep embankment and into the lake — a symbol of the abyss, the primeval depths — into which they begged Jesus not to send them.

My sisters and brothers, our brother Martin Luther had it right.  The powers of evil are indeed sent reeling by the waters of holy baptism, and we who are washed by them are given the promise that there is no pit so deep that God’s grace is not deeper still.

Jesus, the one who saves small ones — Jesus, the one who heals small ones — Jesus, the one who delivers small ones — Jesus still crosses over to our side, still undemonizes those who oppose him, and still answers that ancient questions “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God” with one simple word:   everything.

And that shouldn’t get lost in translation.

When American composer Leonard Bernstein gave his six famous Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University in 1973, he mused, “When God said ‘Let there be light’ (”Y’hi orr”) I doubt God said it like he was ordering lunch. I’m sure God sang creation into being.”

Bernstein’s whimsical understanding of God as creator perhaps can set the tone for our reflection on the Holy Trinity on this festival day celebrating pure mystery.

Perhaps you found your head spinning from the get-go this morning, as the prayer of the day ushered us into the scripture readings: “we worship your glory, eternal Three-in-One, and we praise your power, majestic One-in-Three.” Three-in-One and One-in-Three. All we have is language and most of the time our words for God, our logoi theoi, our theology, our words don’t quite measure up.

But before we prayed that prayer of the day, there was the gathering hymn which seems to have captured the same sort of playful, whimsical notion of the Triune God as Bernstein used in his Harvard talks as he described the Creator. Hymn writer Richard Leach uses imagery of a dance to describe the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity: “Come, join the dance of Trinity, before all worlds begun — the interweaving of the Three, the Father, Spirit, Son. The universe of space and time did not arise by chance, but as the Three, in love and hope made room within their dance.” © 2001 Selah Publishing Co. Inc.

But our hymnwriter isn’t the first one to imagine the Trinity as the interplay, interweaving, intertwining of the 3 in a divine dance. In a few moments, we will use the ancient words of the Nicene Creed in our communal attempt, feeble as it may be, to ascribe some verbiage to our belief in the Triune One who transcends all language and all thought. Those words, written in 325 of the Common Era, say in part, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son…”

The Greek word used in the Nicene Creed for this word “proceeds from” is perichoresis which can literally be translated “to dance around, or in a circle.” So one could argue that, since the earliest centuries of the church, the notion of a God-in-Three-Persons-Blessed Trinity, so layered and laden and encumbered with words over the centuries-turned-millennia, has really been confessed all along as a circular dance.

Now that can either be something of a relief, or perhaps be even more disturbing to us. Do we have a God who suffers from multiple personality disorder and dances alone in a circle with two other self-manifestations? Or can we, with holy imaginations sparked by the Spirit, envision a triad relationship which moves and flows and, yes, dances in and through and among one identity? Such words and such a dance still invite us into mystery. God is beyond our descriptions and yet we believe God has given us the capacity to wonder and to adore, though as yet — in the words of St. Paul - “we see in a mirror dimly.” (1 Cor. 13:12)

Our own identities can be rather complicated, so perhaps we should permit God’s identity to dwell in that realm as well. To our parents, we are ever the child — adult or no. To those who experience us through our career, we are what we do: administrator, manager, legal expert, medical professional. To our children, we are mother or father, the parent. To our spouse, we are partner, lover, friend. We are the same person and yet we function in different roles according to our relationships in the dance of life. And, at times, that dance can get very complicated!

As Jesus was preparing his disciples for his departure on the night before his death, we hear his words to them in the opening lines of today’s Gospel: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear to hear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:12) That same Spirit — the Spirit of truth whose wind filled the disciples on the Day of Pentecost with the very breath of God, is the Spirit of wisdom and truth and understanding who speaks to us from the proverbial words of the first reading: “When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth — when God established the heavens, I was there, when God drew a circle on the face of the deep… then I was beside God… and I was daily God’s delight, rejoicing before God always, rejoicing in God’s inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

Sisters and brothers, this Spirit of wisdom which accompanied God in creating the heavens and the earth, the Spirit of the Risen Jesus whose powerful presence we celebrated in community last week, this same Spirit so also now delights in creation and so delights in us, that we cannot help but be drawn into the delight of the divine dance ourselves.

And yet, as the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico becomes increasingly drenched and darkened by the BP oil spill on this day 41, and as all attempts to repair the leak systematically fail, we must acknowledge that the mystery deepens further and the plot thickens all-the-more as humanity destroys the creation in which the Divine Dance takes such delight. As we continue to be drawn into the dance, may the Spirit of wisdom show us the way to wholeness and restoration of all creation whose primordial groans are increasing in volume.

God did not create the world in isolation. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And the Word who was and is God sent forth the Spirit to renew the face of the earth.
May that Spirit — the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of Jesus crucified and risen, the Spirit of the creative God of all — may that Spirit of the Holy Trio sing us into the dance of all things now living — so that we, in relationship with the Thrice-Holy, may continue (in the words of Bernstein) to sing into being the renewal of all creation. Amen.

I don’t remember a thing my pastor said in his sermon on my confirmation day. But that was way back in 1977 — 33 years ago — so cut me some slack. So what I say to you young men in white shirts, red ties, and khakis in the next few moments today, (Jack, James, Lars, Steven, and Kevin) I hope and pray you will remember for the foreseeable future at the very least. And to help you, I just happen to have these handy-dandy little green sheets! There just happened to be five of these sermon-notetaking sheets remaining in a pile on the table in the narthex, and since none of you actually made the minimum quota for taking notes over the past two years… why let them go to waste?!

Actually, you don’t need to take notes this morning. It’s true, none of you quite fulfilled your pastor’s expectation for completing 2 of these sheets per month for the past two years because I don’t have anywhere near 48 sheets from any of you. But here is the first and primary lesson we have learned in our confirmation studies: it’s all grace. None of us could ever meet all of God’s expectations of us, none of us could ever keep every commandment perfectly, and none of us could ever be flawless enough to fulfill all the requirements for salvation. Which is precisely why God sent us Jesus, the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, to save us from sin and to save us from ourselves. We don’t get it right. But Jesus gets it right for us and makes it right for God on our behalf.  It’s all grace. And the Holy Spirit, whose fiery presence and power we celebrate this day, will see to it that you keep living by grace and in grace and with grace every day of the rest of your lives.

The Holy Spirit enabled the 5 of you to hear some amazing truths over the past two years: and here are some of the things you said you got out of worship over the past couple of years. When asked to summarize the main point of the sermon, here’s what I think is “the best of” what your notes indicated: James noted: “It’s not my good works that will get me to heaven, it’s accepting God’s grace, God’s invitation.” Kevin asserted: “Jesus was inclusive.” Jack reflected: “We don’t only pray to God, but Jesus prays back.”  Steven proclaimed: “God’s Spirit will lead us through the forest.” Lars declared: “We all sin, let’s just get over it.”

Some of you also asked some mighty probing questions and made some pretty astute observations. Here are a few: Why didn’t Jesus write any of this down?  Today, the bread and wine gave me strength to be a better son. Today I heard that we become the human face of Jesus in the world.  One of you, upon hearing the parable of the widow who gave away everything she had, asked, “If we give all our money to the poor, we become poor. Can I just cut out the middle man and just give my money to the future poor me?  Today worship made me think about the environment and what I can do to help, and who were the quilts going to?  Another of you said this of our communal prayers: During the quiet time, I prayed for the people of Haiti and thought about how lucky I am to have food. And finally: worship led one of you to create this very Lutheran equation: Martin Luther = Jesus minus the miracles.

Indeed, as the prophet Joel was quoted in the first reading today from Acts chapter 2: “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your youth shall see visions…”

During our interviews this week, you each had an opportunity to tell me something about what arriving at this day in your lives meant to you. You each wrote a personal statement of belief, and without fail each one of you acknowledged that you have experienced God’s grace in Jesus through this community of faith. Whether it has been in our time together in the classroom, or on a retreat at Cal Lutheran, or giving God praise and offering prayer here in this worship space, or serving on the ground in New Orleans last summer, you have each come to experience grace in community as we have studied together, prayed together, read the scriptures together, received Holy Communion together, helped to paint a school together in New Orleans or assemble health kits together for the people of Haiti.

Today is the Day of Pentecost, the 50th day of Easter and a day when we remember the story of how the Spirit of Jesus filled the very first fearful disciples with the very breath of God, enabling them to speak in the languages of all the people who lived in Jerusalem at the time, even though they had never learned the language.  But if you look at the first sentence of the first reading, there’s a very important detail about how the Holy Spirit worked on that first day of Pentecost, and how the Holy Spirit still comes to us today. The reading begins: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” You see, something powerful happens when we gather as people of the cross and empty tomb: with simple water, the Spirit of that crucified and risen Jesus comes and washes away our sins, with simple wine and bread, the Spirit prepares for us a meal of forgiveness and inclusion and transformation. And in one breath, the Holy Spirit makes us into one body, although we are many and as different from each other as our skin color, our gender, our primary language, our immigration status, our age, our sexual orientation, our spirituality or our nationality or our physical abilities or disabilities.  Whenever and wherever we gather, the Holy Spirit of God and of the Risen Christ is poured out on everybody, no exceptions.

The five of you began learning this lesson about being together from the very first time we gathered together as a class. Do you remember? That very first day, for our first lesson, we took a long stroll around the neighborhood in an exercise called a “faith walk” — looking for things in nature and in the world around us that spoke to us in our journey of faith. We were almost back at the church, coming up the alley in the back having walked about a 3-block radius around the whole neighborhood when all of a sudden we heard Steven let out a yelp and then a cry for help. He was having a close encounter with a bee out back, and had managed to get himself stung for the first time in his life. It brought us together as a class as we suffered together in community right then and there for the very first time as well. We learned the truth that “none of us are free if one of us is bound,” bound in suffering, bound in pain, bound in prejudice, bigotry or intolerance.

Yesterday for the first time in our state’s history, California (with the exception of Kern Co. Public Schools) observed Harvey Milk Day, remembering the very first gay publicly-elected official in the nation, a man who had a vision of equality for all people and who had the courage to speak out for all who suffered from oppression, resulting in his murder along with San Francisco mayor George Moscone. As he would often begin his political speeches, “I’m Harvey Milk, and I’m here to recruit you.” More than recruiting volunteers for his campaign or the programs he was advocating, he was recruiting people to give others hope by being authentically human beings — being who they were — created in the glorious and fabulous image of God. To offer anyone hope who had ever suffered any sort of oppression due to being different in anyway — be it racial, gender, economic, sexual orientation, age or ability. “And you, and you, and you,” Milk said, “you have to give people hope.”

My brothers and sisters, when we give people hope, we are prophesying in the Spirit: speaking a word on behalf of the Living God, and living in the power of God’s holy and life-giving Spirit which promises to be poured out upon all flesh.

So guys, I’m here to recruit you this morning: to live in grace, to give people hope, and to trust in God’s promise — a promise which says you are God’s beloved sons and with you God is well pleased.

You can bet your sweet baptism on it.

Amen.

“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. No one will snatch them out of my hand.”
 
We live with the constant threat of snatchings. In a split second, your purse (or my murse) can disappear from the grocery cart faster than you can say Marie Callender turkey pot pie.  With one misguided swipe of our ATM card at some location being stealthily monitored unbeknownst to us, our personal identification number can be siezed and our hard-earned cash snatched right out of our account.   Even many of our brothers and sisters gathered in other houses of worship at this very hour believe that one day, in the time it takes for an eye to twinkle, they themselves will be snatched up from the earth by the great Shoplifter of Souls in what they refer to as “the rapture” — the great snatching-up from the earth of the ones who are really the beloved of God, with everyone else who didn’t make the A-list being “left behind”. One moment we are seemingly in good health, and the next moment our very life and breath can be snatched away.

And now, as of this weekend if you happen to be passing through the state of Arizona, and if you happen to show some sign of being an undocumented resident of these United States, law enforcement now has the legal right to snatch you out of your car or off the street, snatch you away from your home and family and children, if you are unable to produce papers proving your legitimacy and worthiness of being present on the ground — in Arizona.  I hear they’ve already renamed the city of Carefree, Arizona, “Be Careful”, Arizona. To be sure, Governor Jan Brewer is convinced that undocumented Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, British, and most especially those wretched German illegals are just as much in danger of deportation as those with more pigmentation-than-thou, but stay tuned because other than by brown skin it isn’t altogether clear as yet how they will identify the undocumented Europeans.  But rest assured, all will be snatched out of the tenacious clutches of Lady Liberty whose mouth for the moment has been taped shut so she no longer needs to sing “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse…”

Yes, we know all-too-well of the threat of snatchings in our world and right here in our very country for whom we pray “God mend our every flaw.”

So, what joy and frankly what a blessed relief this morning to have our worries and our cares and our burdens and our disappointments confronted and our troubled lives intersected by the promise of the very words of Jesus which assure us amid all that can be so quickly and cruelly snatched away in life that “no one can snatch them out of my hand.”     

“Them” being us — the wandering sheep of Jesus’ fold, the lost lambs of Christ’s flock, the beloved sinners of Lamb’s redeeming.  What joy to come to the 4th Sunday of Easter and once again be reminded that we have a Good Shepherd, one that leaves 99 good and obedient sheep behind to go and bring back that one lost and head-strong little lamb that insists on going its own way.  But lest we think we for the most part belong to that good flock of 99, the words of the prophet Isaiah remind us that “we all, like sheep, have gone astray,” and that “we have all turned to our own way.”

After all, this is Good Shepherd Sunday — not good sheep Sunday. In the gospel this morning, Jesus is confronted by some suspenseful sheep. The gospel of John refers to them simply as “the Jews” — not a very helpful statement because Jesus was a Jew and his followers were Jews. “How long will you keep us in suspense?” they asked Jesus. “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

“I have told you,” Jesus answered, “and you do not believe.” He goes on to say that everything he had been doing in his Father’s name — all his works of healing, blessing, feeding, delivering — everything pointed to his identity.

Jesus has harsh words this morning for all who hear his words and witness his works but in stubbornness refuse to follow him. “We all like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way.” They are words of a shepherd who refuses to let any sheep stray away despite their most ardent efforts to do so. 

We are a congregation blessed with a growing number of young families, one of whom is Maggie and Nathan who will be bringing their little one, Scout Violet, to the waters of baptism in a few moments. As a pastor, I delight in watching parents shepherding their wandering toddlers in worship but also out on the green pastures of our front lawn during coffee hour.  Often times, the more the parent calls out after the child by name, the further and the faster the child runs in the opposite direction of the voice calling after them. It is the human condition being played out before our very eyes. Parents, the pretty-good-shepherds, protecting, providing, preventing, being pro-active, and mirroring the Good Shepherd whose goodness and mercy follows us all the days of our lives, even when we don’t follow in return.

Today, the great Shepherd of the Sheep who follow and of the sheep who wander, comes and gathers us again. From the second reading we are shown a vision with St. John of that time and place where there will be no more hunger, no more thirst, and no more tears, “for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life.”

As Maggie and Nathan brought Penelope and now return to bring their newest little lamb Scout Violet to the baptismal waters, it is a picture of the Good Shepherd among us — persistent, unrelenting, faithful, guiding along right pathways, wiping away tears, leading beside still waters, calling out our name, calling us back, keeping us close, holding us forever. A Good Shepherd whose promise makes it Easter all over again for us this day: “My sheep hear my voice. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. ”

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!  
“It’s all grace.” - Ben Larson

Christ is risen – even if you haven’t been here since Christmas.  Or last Easter.   Alleluia?!  Alleluia!

Christ is risen – even if you were here on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and were among the Holy Saturday decorating crew yesterday, don’t think by your being here you had a hand in helping him rise. Alleluia?! Alleluia!

Christ is risen – even if you’re only here because you thought it might be nice to go to an Easter service before that brunch with the bottomless mimosas over at the hotel.  Alleluia?!  Alleluia!

Christ is risen – even if you’d rather still be in bed, or are already back to sleep during this portion of the service. Ahhhhhh-leluia?!

Christ is risen – even if you’re still P.O.’d about the traffic on Lincoln Blvd or had to park on Montana Ave and hike in on a nippy Easter morning. Grrrrrowl-elluia?!

But all kidding aside:

Christ is risen – even if your situation in life has got you lingering in the Good Friday mode, unable to utter the A-word with most everyone else.

Christ is risen – even if you feel something in you has died and you’d rather roll the stone back into place and be left alone in the dark tomb to grieve.

Christ is risen – even if you think the whole story is a big ol’ crock of sssshhh-iny jelly beans and even if you cross your fingers behind your back every time you come to those parts in the Apostles’ Creed where we say “I believe… on the third day he rose again,” and “I believe in the resurrection of the body…”

Because — especially if any of those last three even come close to being you — you’d be in fairly-fine apostolic company, at least according to St Luke’s version of the resurrection story.

Luke tells us that “the women” — namely Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and “the other women with them” — went to the tomb at early dawn that morning only to discover that the body they were going to prepare for burial was missing.  The tomb wasn’t exactly empty — first of all because they themselves were standing in it, and then there were these two fabulously-dressed men (okay Luke’s words are “two men in dazzling clothes”), who asked the women that haunting, mysteriously Easter-y question:  “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” which makes you wonder if some brave soul among them might have considered blurting out with some grief-laden anger, “Because he died.”

Well, if one of the women did, Luke doesn’t tell us that part. Instead, we’re told that they are reminded (by the two fabulously-dressed gentlemen) how Jesus had told them while he was still in Galilee that he “must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” And apparently that did the trick, because as soon as they remembered Jesus’ words, the women then were off to see the apostles, and to proclaim to them the very first Easter message “He is not here, but has risen.”

And according to Luke, the apostles didn’t believe a word of it. In fact, they — like some of us — thought it all seemed like an idle tale. The Greek word for idle tale is leros, the root of the word delirious. Yes, the apostles’ misogynistic response to the first-ever proclamation of Christ’s resurrection was that it was a bunch of jibberish, coming from a group of hysterical women who had gotten up too early.

But the thing is: everyone was grieving. Death will do that to you. Just ask anyone who is sitting here this morning having lost their beloved — whether it was a spouse or a friend or a lover or a pet or a parent or sibling or mentor or family member. Resurrection hope doesn’t make a lot of sense when you’re in the throes of grief, and it’s not always that much easier when you’re on top of the world either, I might add. Resurrection hope — after all — can seem an awful lot like whistling in the dark. Maybe because that’s how it all started.

St Luke writes that the best any of the eleven could do was Peter, that apostolic gadfly, who “got up and ran to the tomb” to have a look for himself. And there they were: the burial linens. And then he went home, amazed but not enough to tell anyone else. Quite yet.

A few of us were gathered outside the church on the front sidewalk on Good Friday night, after the service had ended. The newly-installed and freshly-dedicated crucifixion windows were being illuminated from the inside out for the very first time that night, and a we were huddled out in the darkness to see how well-lit and visible the windows would be with the three 1500-watt lamps that had just been installed during Holy Week. No one was prepared for the piercing beams of light that came exploding through the glass, illuminating the body of Jesus hanging on the cross, his grieving mother Mary and his beloved John and Mary Magdalene sorrowing on either side of him.

I think the hope of resurrection is like that — amid our darkness, in our pain, in our brokenness, in spite of all that is unjust and so not right in the world and in our lives, in the darkness of war and poverty and disaster, in the abyss of corruption and abuse in institutional religion, in the political and economic arenas and in society at large, in the pit of racial and sexist and gender prejudice comes the explosive ray of resurrection promise bursting through all that is death and darkness within and around us.

Martin Luther put it this way:

This life, therefore,
is not godliness but the process of becoming godly,
not health but getting well,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way.
The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on.
This is not the goal, but it is the right road.
At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle,
but everything is being cleansed.

Through our baptism into his death and resurrection, Jesus, the Life and the Light of the world, illumines our darkness and sets us free — despite our selves. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” proclaims today’s second reading from St Paul’s letter. But meanwhile, that piercing light sometimes seems only to illuminate our pain and emptiness.

“The symbol of Easter is the empty tomb” writes beloved author and minister Frederick Buechner. “(But) you can’t depict or domesticate emptiness. You can’t make it into pageants or string it with lights. It doesn’t move people to give presents to each other or sing old songs. It ebbs and flows all around us, the Eastertide… He rose. A few saw him briefly and talked to him. If it’s true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not true, there is nothing left to say. For believers and unbelievers both, life has never been the same again. For some, neither has death.”

Christ is risen — even if all this seems a bit delirious.

Amen.

Tonight, as they usually do, actions speak louder than words. “Talk is cheap” they say. “Practice what you preach,” they say. “Walk the talk,” they say. “Don’t do as I say, do as I do,” they say.

Tonight, as they usually do, actions speak louder than words. Read the rest of this entry »

During my years as a student at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, I was privileged to sit under the wise teaching of Dr. Lowell Satre, a New Testament scholar who, I found out after coming to St Paul’s ten years ago, was also the grandfather of former St Paul’s member Kari Ristvedt Mahaffey. Dr. Satre taught classes on the gospels as well as the letters of Paul, and for every course he taught there was the requisite term paper due near quarter’s end. Regardless of the content or quality of one’s term paper, the ever-pastoral, the ever-gentle-and -dear, and the ever-zealous-for-the-gospel Dr. Satre would inscribe two simple words at the end of his comments on the paper. Two words always underscored and then followed by an exclamation mark. Two words which echoed those of St. Paul’ to the Philippian church from our second reading this morning: “Press on!”

Read the rest of this entry »

Alleluia! Jesus is risen! Trumpets resounding in glorious light!
Splendor, the Lamb, heaven forever! Oh, what a miracle God has in sight!
Jesus is risen and we shall arise. Give God the glory! Alleluia!
Walking the way, Christ in the center telling the story to open our eyes;
Breaking our bread, giving us glory; Jesus our blessing, our constant surprise.
Jesus is risen and we shall arise. Give God the glory! Alleluia!
Weeping, be gone; sorrow, be silent; death put asunder, and Easter is bright.
Cherubim sing: O grave, be open! Clothe us with wonder, adorn us in light.
Jesus is risen and we shall arise. Give God the glory! Alleluia!
Text: Herbert Brokering, 1926-2009, Evangelical Lutheran Worship No. 377

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When Martin Luther died, tradition records that his final words were “We are beggars, this is true.”

By that he didn’t mean we need to beg and grovel for God’s mercy and forgiveness. But rather, at the end of his lifetime of shining the spotlight on the riches of God’s amazing grace, he recognized that, like beggars with empty hands outstretched, all we can truly do is receive what God freely gives us.  God’s heart does not need to be inclined toward us by our begging or asking or pleading. Instead, God’s heart is so overflowing in love for us that before we can even stretch out our needy and empty hands, God is there with hands outstretched, reaching toward us first.

“We are beggars, this is true.”

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I invite you to turn to Hymn 325 and to sing the first stanza a capella with me. Then mark that page and we’ll return to it throughout our meditation together this morning.

I want Jesus to walk with me, all along my pilgrim journey,
Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.

Our Lenten journey brings us face to face with the age-old question, “Why does evil happen?” and our all-too-human-and-feeble responses to that question.  I want Jesus to walk with me, but will he stay by my side if I screw up?

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