Sermons

Alright, I know I am breaking the rules about there not being music during this service, but I think that this song captures the spirit of the Wise Men�s journey quite well. They were filled with joy and anticipation, emotions similar to those of Nebraska fans as they journeyed to Pasadena last week. They were so caught up in their emotions that they completely ignore common sense. I mean how crazy can you be? You don�t just go the reigning monarch, especially Herod, and tell him that there is a new kid in town who will be the Shepard of the people of Israel. Shepard of the people�in that little phrase, all of Herod�s inadequacies, his inability to cast off the Romans and protect the nation, the fact that he was a mere puppet ruler on a roman string, come to light. You can�t do it Herod so God had to send someone else. It must have been like a slap in the face. Why in the world would these so called �Wise Men� do this? It just doesn�t make sense.

As I think about this, however, I think I might have a little insight into their logic. I mean we have no idea how far they traveled. We do know that they traveled over some pretty rugged country, and crossing the wilderness had to be tough. There had to be a point when there reason came into conflict with their faith. They had been trusting this star to lead them, but it wasn�t taking them where they expected. King�s live in palaces, opulent displays of luxury and power. But the star was leading them to Bethlehem. I believe that at some point they maybe a had a little bit of a crisis of faith and decided to go the palace in Jerusalem just to check, just to make sure the star was going in the right direction. But they didn�t find Christ there! They were sent on to find the Christ child, the new king and Shepard of the People, not in a palace, not in some grand hall with servants and a wealth of food and drink, but in a small shack of a house. There were no servants. It is doubtful there was more than a day or twos worth of provisions, and by no means food worthy of a feast. Here in this humble setting they find the Christ the savior of all and Shepard of the people.

Now, I am by no means a �wise man.� Some days I am doing good just to have my shoes on the right feet and make it out the door on time. But I just got back from a journey that in a way is similar to that of the Wise men. For New Years, I went to the 2001/2002 National Gathering of Lutheran College Students. This year we met in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Pointe Hilton resort on Tapatia cliffs. This resort was about the closest thing to paradise as you are going to get. Built into the side of a desert mountain, it had wonderful views, 10 pools, and 5 hot tubs. They served us wonderful food and treated us like royalty. Add to this that 550 other Christians all about my age and about 75 percent were women, and let me tell you I had a great time. We worshiped hard, we worked hard, we played hard and we prayed hard, it couldn�t have been better. Except, I really didn�t have the mountain top experience I thought I would have. That epiphanal moment when you realize you are standing in the presence of the risen Lord.

The gathering ended on New Year�s day, and most of my friends left and went back to their schools and lives. 40 of us however, stayed for a post gathering project. We checked out of the hotel, traveled by van down to Tucson, and then slept for the evening on the floor of the Campus Ministry center at the university of Arizona. The next day we went across the border to the town of Nogales, Mexico. If you have read The Grapes of Wrath and can picture the Hoover-villes and shanty-towns Steinbeck describes, then you can picture the neighborhoods of Nogales. Most of the houses belong to squatters. Who after living on their small scrap of land for five years can petition to buy the land and then petition to have services such as electricity and running water made available. Here is where I met the savior on my trip. We went to eat lunch at a ladies house. She was considered to be middle class because she had running water and electricity in her concrete house. She had a wonderful presence about here and an amazing understanding of the meaning of the gospel. �Only God should judge,� she says when she asks why the U.S. still has the death penalty. "How can you Americans, with every convience at your fingertips, lose you sense of community?" I was in the presence of God. This was my epiphanal moment. By her simple words, I sat convicted as never before.

What I have learned from this experience, and what I hope to convey to you is that soon and very soon we are going to see the king. It won�t happen where or where or how we expect to happen. So I challenge you and myself to be alert and watchful, because soon and very soon we are going to see the king.

I am Judas!

Delivered on 26 March 2002
Wednesday of Holy Week
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Hebrews 9:11-15, 24-28
St. John 13:21-35

I once saw a t-shirt that read, �Christianity is not about rules�it�s about relationships.�

This supper was a party, or at least it was supposed to be. Jesus and his crew had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, to celebrate YHWH�s deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt. The biggest party of the year went on in Jerusalem for the Passover. Also, Jesus, as a Jew, had intimate knowledge of the rituals and customs surrounding Passover. We know that Jesus had been to the Passover feast in the city before when he was twelve. In all likely-hood, Jesus had been to Jerusalem for the feast every year of his life. Within this context, it makes Jesus� actions during this last week of his life very non-kosher. Riding into town on a donkey amidst a crowd of admirers is strange enough, but at least it is festive. Following this, Jesus is very quick to throw a monkey wrench into the festivities by kicking the moneychangers out of the temple. Then all week long Jesus was preaching in the temple, and when he wasn�t talking about his death, he was saying thing that made the higher ups really mad�mad enough to kill. And finally we come to the last supper.

This really was to be a festival dinner. The closest thing we have to it is thanksgiving. You gather with your closest friends and family and praise God for deliverance and providence�thanksgiving. Reading this gospel, however, it sounds like a really uncomfortable thanksgiving dinner. You know, the ones where the relatives from hell shows up. Everybody makes stilted conversation, because if they really say what they are thinking a riot might breakout, and nobody wants to call the cops to their thanksgiving dinner. Maybe a better example would be from that movie, Guess Who�s Coming to Dinner, where everybody is uncomfortable because Sydney Portiere is black, but nobody wants to say that they are uncomfortable because Sydney Portiere is black.

That�s what I think it was like in the upper room that night. Jesus had been preaching about his upcoming death for a while, and the apostles just wanted to sit down to a fun dinner and forget this talk of death. They wanted to wallow on denial. Under no circumstances was anyone supposed to talk about the elephant in the room. Jesus cares too much for them and about their relationship to sit still however. He just up and airs out the dirty laundry right their at the dinner table. Jesus remains present, true, and open to the community. He is blunt and specific. Why? Well, because the apostles are boneheads. Judas walked and talked with Jesus for almost three years. I mean how many sermons must a man give before somebody gets the point. (I�m not sure I want to the answer to that.) Anyway, Judas sat at Jesus� feet and heard the message of love, but never learned it. And so he betrayed Jesus. But let�s not forget about the other guys and gals in the room too. These people never could see the forest because of the trees. All week long Jesus had been talking about being turned over to the powers that be and being killed. Here he tells them not only that the traitor is among them, but who that person is. And what�s their response?

�Hey man, where�s Judas going?�

�Oh, he�s probably just going to give something to his precious poor. Can you pass the butter?�

Why didn�t one of them stop Judas, or follow him, or at least do something. Judas was one of them. Didn�t they care enough about him to find out where he was going in the middle of the night�why he was leaving the festival table? Didn�t they care enough about Jesus to do something? I have the image of Jesus just shaking his head after Judas leaves, as much because of Judas as for the other guys too.

The apostles let Jesus down. Judas let Jesus down. We let Jesus down. How many times have we heard the message of love, and yet not practiced it? How many times have we let the truth go unspoken because we are afraid of the reaction? How many times has God called us to get our hands dirty, to do the jobs that nobody else wants�feed the poor, heal the emotionally, physically, and spiritually sick, stand up for God�s justice and not man�s? How many times have we failed? Everyday I am Judas! Everyday you are Judas!

But there is hope. After the ultimate in betrayal by both Judas and the rest of the apostles, Jesus gives them this wonderful commandment. Love one another like I love you. Relationships. Jesus calls us to loving relationships with him and with each other. Jesus is our example in this. He is ever present. He always loves his disciples; even to the point of telling the truth when it isn�t what anyone wants to hear. Judas didn�t want to hear it, but on Judas� way out, what did Jesus do? He gave Judas food, bread. Even in the moment of betrayal, Jesus feeds his betrayer.

We are called to relationships built on truth spoken in love. This is hard. I mean even the apostles, Jesus� handpicked twelve, couldn�t do this very well. The good news, however, is that for us, as for all of his followers through out time, Jesus will continue to be an example of this love and will continue to give us this love, even though we are boneheads!

Primal Grace

Delivered on 11,12 May 2002
Wednesday of Holy Week
Ezekial 39:21-29
Acts 1:(1-7)8-14
St. John 17:1-11

(I realized after I wrote this sermon that its Mother�s Day, but I�m talking about my father. But oh well, here it goes.) When I was twelve years old, we lived in Counce, Tennessee. It was a small community near Pickwick dam on the Tennessee River. (Father Bob, I will refrain from making dam puns at this time.) Anyway, There were a lot of qwerky things about this place. For instance, our little small, unincorporated community didn�t have garbage pick-up. There was a dumpster at the bottom of the hill, and my father and I would load up the garbage in our car and take it to the dumpster every few days. One day, a very scary thing happened. We loaded the garbage into the car. Then my father handed me the keys, and said I was going to drive that day. Now when I was twelve, I was about a foot or so shorter than I am now. The first thing I thought was, how am I going to see over the steering wheel? The next thing I thought was that my sister, who was four years older than me and didn�t get to learn to drive until she was fifteen, was going to be jealous. But I got over that really fast, because the next thing I know I was behind the wheel, backing out our driveway, and trying not to hit the big oak tree next to our mail box. Well, we drove slowly and my father never gripped the armrest quite as tightly as he did that day, but the garbage got dropped off and I didn�t wreck the car.

It is important to note the importance of the car in this story. My dad was a rural pastor. It wasn�t uncommon for him to put a couple hundred miles on the car in a day. At times, it literally was his office. That day he was entrusting a major component of our livelihood and his ministry to me. He didn�t just hand me the keys and tell me to go however. He rode with me, at my side, guiding and instructing me, sometimes very loudly, in what to do. He was present for every moment of that experience.

I think that�s the way it was with Christ except God entrusted Jesus with something much more important than a car�us. Christ was entrusted with showing us exactly how to live in a perfect relationship with God. A relationship so intimate, so true, that Jesus says they are one. God and Christ are inseparable, working in perfect harmony, complete communication, and total trust. Jesus was present every moment with his disciples--guiding, teaching, and even rebuking them at times. All the time he was trying to prepare them to live in complete communion with God. That�s good stuff.

Now, there came a day, a few years after that first driving experience of mine, when I said to my dad that he had taught me to drive and it was time for him to trust me to do it alone. This was a big deal for us. It was time to take the level of trust in our relationship to a higher level. That�s what Jesus is saying in this prayer. It was time for him to trust us. Christ had given us everything we needed to know in order to live in the kingdom. It was time for God to honor the work Jesus had done, by bringing him home and letting us work through those lessons, so that hopefully one day we may be one as they are one. This is scary stuff.

Trusting in an unseen God can be very scary. Also, living in faith is scary, because, as Peter points out, people don�t always understand that faith. They don�t understand that the peace, which is ours, is free and open to them as well. People can be afraid of what they don�t understand. Add to that, to that the fact that to some people the only thing better than a moral person is watching a moral person fall. The sum then is persecution and suffering not for what we have done wrong, but for what we have done right. Plus, we can never forget that we live in a broken world. Bad things happen to everybody, and they make the least sense when they happen to those close to us. This is tough stuff.

It is tough to carry pain and brokenness. It is tough when things don�t turn out the way we think they should. It is tough to see our friends hurt. It is tough to feel helpless and disconnected when tragedy strikes. It is tough to stand for what we believe in when it would a lot easier to follow the crowd. It is tough to love those that God commands us to but society says we should ignore or hate. All of this pain and suffering and challenges would be too much to handle, but for one thing. We don�t have to do it alone. My dad did let me drive the car by myself eventually, but that did not stop his concern over me. It didn�t stop either of my parents from being there with me in spirit. I can still feel my parents love for me wherever I go. Not only them, the communities I have been a part of also care for me and hold me up when I can�t hold myself up. Christ did ascend into heaven. We have been left to drive the car ourselves, but we are never alone. This is because we live IN Christ. Christ lives IN us. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit we can be constantly connected with Christ, in total communion, ever dwelling in God�s loving embrace.

I won�t lie to you; however, I don�t always stay connected to that primal grace. Standing in the reality of the brokenness and pain that is our world, it is hard at times for me to accept the grace of God. I struggle with getting myself to be quiet enough to really hear God. I struggle to keep the bells and whistles of our modern world form distracting me from God. I struggle at times to believe things that I can�t see. I don�t have any magic answers. I don�t know any special words or deeds that will suddenly remove all our struggles. Instead, I am going to keep struggling; struggling to hear God in everything and to see God in everyone, and I invite you to join me in this struggle. We�ll have our successes and our failures, but with some work on our part, and a whole lot of the Holy Spirit, guiding and correcting us when we make mistakes, we just might get to be there when God heals part of our broken world.

Faithless

9 June 2002
Year A, Proper 5
Hosea 5:15-6:6
Romans 4:13-18
Matt. 9:9-13

I am faithless. You heard me correctly. I have no faith. You might disagree, but I assure you, I am not faithful.

To understand me let�s talk about faith a little shall we? Paul refers to Abraham as a model of faith. Totally trusting in God, Abraham left his homeland and traveled to a far off place he had never seen before. You might say, �Well, Jason you left your home and came all the way to Nebraska.� But to be completely honest that wasn�t an act of faith on my part. I didn�t want to be in school any more, and I needed a job. This job came with a free house and no utility bills, so here I am.

Let�s look at another angle. Some say that faith picks up where reason leaves off. When we can no longer figure something out with our intellect then our faith kicks in. Well, if this is true I definitely have no faith, because I see evidence of God all the time. Only God, could have painted the sunset I saw from rosenblatt stadium Thursday night. Only an omnipotent being could create the hills and trees of the great state of Tennessee. Only a higher power could order the universe so precisely, and yet with such a delicate beauty. My reason is tied directly to my beliefs. I think applying reason to understand our mysterious God is an intense and powerful spiritual exercise. So, by this definition, I have no faith.

The Jesuit priest, author, and psychologist, Anthony De Mello says that faith is the willingness to really listen to someone, not to merely confirm what you already believe, but with the understanding that what he or she has to say might demand of you a change of mind. In other words, I should always listen to others with the understanding that I might be wrong. Now, if any of you have ever tried to talk politics with me, you know that I won�t budge an inch. I don�t care if you are smarter, if you have more knowledge or experience than me, even if you are actually right, I�m not going to change my mind. So again, by the standard of openness, I�m still faithless.

Now, let�s go to the definitive source on faith�Jesus Christ. Jesus had the faith to be real with every person he met. It didn�t matter whether you were a Pharisee or a tax collector, whether you lived in the right part of town, wore the right clothes, drove the right car, owned a big house, robbed banks, stole your neighbor�s wife, went church on Sunday�it just didn�t matter. Jesus would walk into your house and eat with you, talk to you, pray with you, the same as he would with anybody else. He wasn�t always nice either. In today�s gospel, he gives the Pharisees an earful. If you read the book of Mark, it seems like every other page he�s calling the disciples idiots. I mean the man was blunt. Jesus had the faith that God was in charge that things really were going to work out in the end. So, he didn�t have to act a certain way with certain people to maintain the status quo.

Me I�m not real. I have a big conformity streak. For example, I grew hair on my head and shaved it off of my chin because I in part thought it would make things easier with the powers that be in my ordination process. I have worked in this congregation for almost a year now, but I hide the fact that I�m a pacifist and I don�t believe there is such a thing as a just war. Even with my own roommates, I never had the gumption to say, �That drives me nuts when you do such and such, could you please stop.� Therefore, compared to Jesus, the one true real person, I have no faith.

So, by now, you might be asking yourself, what in the world are you doing up there preaching at us if you�re faithless? What are you doing in the resurrection house program? What are you doing going to seminary to be a priest? What in the world are you doing? I�ll tell you, I�m faking it. And that�s okay.

There is a motto in the AA recovery tradition that says �Fake it until you make it.� I am not Christ! I am not even a very nice person. But I want to be like Christ. I want to be real and live in that wonderful kingdom. So I act that way and try to make it a habit. Every now and then, I forget myself enough and remember Christ enough that I do something faithful. My move to Nebraska was an act of faith. Abraham followed God with the promise of being the father of many nations. I followed God with the promise of a roof over my head and food to eat. I don�t feel that faith picks up where reason leaves off. I think that our reason can strengthen our relationship with God. I am still struggling on listening with an open mind, treating everybody the same and being honest about who I am, but that struggle is in itself an act of faith and one in which hope you will pray for me.

Hosea 6:3 begins by saying, �Let us know, Let us press on to know the Lord�� We are all broken. We are not God. But in our brokenness, within our sinful natures, we can fake it. We can simply try and be like Christ, to be Christian. And I think the world will be a better place because of it. AMEN!

George and William

Delivered on 6 October 2003
For Preaching 1 Class at GTS
The Feast of William Tyndale
James 1:21-25
John 12:44-50

�welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.� (James 1:21)

In the name of �God the Adventurer, God the Companion, and God the Powerfully Present One� . Amen.

I heard a story one time, of a student in a bible college. For the sake of storytelling, let�s call him George. Now one year George found himself in his first preaching class. This made George very nervous. See, unlike the safe confines of our intimate preaching labs, George had to preach in front of the whole school during the community worship with his grade on the line. In fact, he was beyond nervous, he was scared! As the day of his appointed turn in the pulpit approached, our dear George applied himself to the disciplines of study and preparation with much fervor and devotion. However, the moment he stepped in the pulpit his mind went blank, his mouth went dry, and his tongue was as tangled as the plot line of day time soap opera. George panicked! He looked out over the crowd and said the only thing that he could think of, �Do yall know what I�m gonna say?� The congregation shook their heads no, and he replied, �Neither do I.� And promptly sat down.

After the service his preaching professor did not rant or rave, nor comfort and console. The professor merely told George he was due up again next week to preach.

George spent the week in prayer and study, frightened out of his mind, yet determined not to repeat the previous Sunday�s performance. The time for the service arrived, the hymns were sung, the announcements were made, and it was time for George to preach. Once again, the fear rose within George and took hold of him like a mighty python and squeezed. George opened his mouth and said, �Do yall know what I�m gonna say?� The congregation was less shocked and nodded yes. So, George replied, �Well, if you already know, then I don�t need to tell you.� And George sat down.

As you may have guessed George�s number was called again for the next Sunday, and he was again scared. The congregation of students and teachers were befuddled by this point as well. And so, when George got into the pulpit they didn�t know what to expect. They held their breath hoped beyond hope that he would do well. And our dear George opened his mouth and said, �Yall know what I�m gonna say?� This time half the congregation shook their heads no, and the other half nodded yes. So George said, �Well, Good! Those you who know tell those of you who don�t.� And then he sat down.

After the service, George just knew he had committed strike three. He just knew his professor was going to ream him a new one, and it was with more fear and trepidation than he had approached the pulpit that he approached his professor. His professor took George into his office. Sat him down, and told him, �George, that was the best sermon I�ve ever heard in my life.� Those that know tell those that don�t know.

Today is the feast of William Tyndale, a priest, educator, and translator of the bible from the late middle ages. Tyndale knew the story, and he felt everyone had the right to access the story. His singular passion was to translate the bible into English�into the language of his people. His desire for this task was so strong that Lesser Feasts and Fasts reports him saying to a prominent churchman, �If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more scripture than thou doest.�

The church and state were not supportive of his campaign to make the scriptures available. He first fled England in 1524, and lived a life of the hunted and desperate until eventually he was betrayed by a friend, and on this day in 1536 he was strangled at the stake, and his body burned.

Why was he so harried and eventually killed by those in power? We know the answer. The story that he knew, the story of the bible, the story of God�s love for people, is a subversive one. As Archbishop Tutu put it, scripture begins with the most subversive statement of all, �So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.� We are the image of God. God�s representatives here on earth. God wanted to draw home this point so emphatically, that God became one of us. Born, bled and died, Christ was and is one of us. This is so central to the story, so essential to living the Christian life, that Christ told us to hedge our bets. Christ tells us to assume that everyone we meet is Christ himself�to assume that whatever we do, we are doing it to Christ.

This story is scary to those in power. So often in our world the exercise of power comes at the expense of the powerless. But imagine if word got out to the powerless that they are in fact, as bishop Tutu put it, God�s viceroys. That whenever they are oppressed, whenever they are slaughtered, whenever they starve, we are oppressing Christ, slaughtering Christ, starving Christ. How would the powerless react if they heard the story?

I must admit that I have not yet completely learned the story. Each and every day I fail to meekly accept the implanted word; the primal grace of God that is in each and every person that will surely save my soul. I am learning the even as I try and tell it. That is our call.

You and I in this room have been called to learn and tell this story of love through the particular ministry of the priesthood. Though I hope that our sacrifices will not be as painful as Tyndale�s, there will be sacrifices. In fact, we have already sacrificed just to be here. We have sold houses and cars, left family and friends, given up careers and lives to answer this call. I wish I could say the sacrifices stopped at seminary, but they won�t. But the reward is great. James writes, �But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act-- they will be blessed in their doing.� Tyndale�s translations of scripture wound up comprising close to eighty percent of the Authorized King James Bible of 1611. His doing was blessed. The story got out. Archbishop Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Mother Teresa, and even Gandhi, great champions of the children of God have known this story�have told this story. But the work is not yet done. Wars still rage. People are hungry and abused. This very night, in our city alone, 30,000 people, most of them children, will not have shelter. We are the inheritors of this story and must continue to tell it. Those who know, must tell those who do not. Amen!

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