Sermon for August 23

Sermon for August 23

The reading

John 1

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

The message

For the first time in a few years, I changed the readings this morning. The bible verses we just heard are the texts for the celebration of St. Bartholomew, usually observed tomorrow on August 24^th. I figured we could all use a break from the bread of life readings that we have shared and tried to figure out for the past 4 weeks.  Growing up, whenever we went out for dinner at a restaurant, my mom would always tell my brother and I to not fill up on bread. She knew if we ate too much bread, we would not have room to enjoy our actual meal. In some ways, I think of that this morning.  Along with the challenges of understanding Jesus’ statement “I am the bread of life” and his command that to have eternal life, one must eat his flesh and drink his blood”, we also heard that God is present in the world and that we are joined to Christ for our salvation. 

This morning, our changed texts invite us to explore what that means, what life looks like when we recognize that Jesus is the bread of life, the way to salvation.  Today is set aside to honor St Bartholomew, Bartholomew was one of Jesus first disciples.  Some of you might wonder why he is not actually mentioned in the readings today, since it’s his day and all. In fact, the name Bartholomew does not appear in John’s Gospel at all.  It does appear in the other books that talk about Jesus life and the early church, he is part of Acts, Mark, Matthew and Luke.  It seems like in John, Bartholomew is called Nathaniel, the man that Jesus sees under the fig tree and who declares “Rabbi, you are the son of God”.  No one is quite sure why this is the case but it seems like they are the same person. If this is true, the easiest explanation is simply that his name was Nathaniel Bartholomew.  After Jesus death, resurrection and ascension, no one is sure where Nathaniel went.  There are stories that he traveled to spread the good news of God’s love in Asia minor, Mesopotamia, Persia or India.  It is clearly documented that his ministry ends in Armenia where he shares the Gospel for several years before he is killed. He is said to have converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity. After this, Astyages, Polymius' brother, ordered Bartholomew's execution. 

Bartholomew’s faith story starts the day after Jesus called Peter and his first disciples. The next round of calling apostles starts with Phillips joyful statement to his friend Nathaniel “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus  son of Joseph from Nazareth” and his loving invitation “Come and see”.  After this and a brief, sort of strange discussion with Jesus, Nathaniel starts a lifetime of faithful and loyal service. 

Although today is set aside for Nathaniel, these lessons and events can be applied to many of God’s saints throughout history and in our lives today. The invitation “come and see” and Jesus promise “you will see greater things than these, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man” are reminders that our faith is experienced. We are invited to jump in.  When I look at Jesus invitations to follow and first calls to faith, I think of my first few weeks at my internship at Gloria Dei in Connecticut.  I just got my drivers license a few days before I moved there and needed to get a car.  The church was about 20 minutes outside of Hartford in a part of the state where you needed a car to live and function. One of the members at the church helped me find a truck (which I named Mr. Truckie), get everything registered and ready to drive.  Since I was a new driver, had almost no idea where I was going (something that stayed with me throughout my time there) and this was the first time in my life I owned a vehicle, I was not exactly comfortable or confident. The day after I picked up the truck, I decided it was time to get on the highway and drive to Hartford. There was a young member of the church receiving care at Hartford’s childrens hospital.  I drove slower and faster then I should, got a little lost and it took about 15 minutes to figure out how to park but I made it there and back, safe and sound.  I was relieved to get my first highway drive out of the way.      

Jesus first followers all jump into their faith.  They hear Jesus invitation to follow and they go, they hear Jesus call “come and see” and they keep their eyes open.  In some cases it seems border line irresponsible, they leave work, home and even people who depend on them.  They move around, travel through familiar and strange places, perform miracles like healing the sick and casting out evil spirits that separate people from God, tell people remarkable and hard to believe things like “God is with us” and “this Jesus who died is alive”.  None of Jesus first followers knew what to expect.  No one thought they would convert the rich and powerful or the poor and ignored. They would win debates with great scholars and religious leaders, they would end up working alongside Saul the great and seriously feared persecutor, None of them were qualified to do these things. None of them were particularly trained in these things either, they are sent out with faith, with trust in God, with a desire to tell the others and the rest happens. Jesus invitation is a call to action, a call for us to show others what we believe through how we live, to go, to speak, to see, to do. 

Its easy enough to say, go and do that, but I would like to talk about what that actually looks like and where I have seen it here: This summer, we had the youth gathering in Detroit, where 30,000 or so young Lutherans gathered to learn, help, serve and be reminded we are part of something bigger and we had the pulpit exchange where Pr Irving and I and our communities tried something brand new. Over the past few years here we have opened our church to many different and diverse communities who now share our space with us….  The more important things that happen here, the ways we truly follow the example of the saints,  are the things we do not all know about, the times when you leave this building and go someplace to help others, pray for people in our community, call or check in on people, invite someone to join us at church, assist someone in trouble because you see them as a child of God, share your time and resources with someone in need because its what our faith tells you to do.  We come to this place to be fed, strengthened and reminded of God’s love, After that, we are asked to jump into the world, to go out and do something.  

 

Sermon for August 16, 2015

The reading

John 6:51-58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

The message

So after 3 weeks of reading these scripture verses from John 6 about Jesus identifying himself as the bread of life and then talking about something else (the youth gathering and pulpit exchange with Prince of Peace in Cambria Heights), I am actually going to talk about the gospel reading this week.

John’s Gospel, his telling of the story of Jesus life, death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins, is the last of the 4 Gospels and is rather different from Mark, Luke and Matthew. The first 3 are narratives, they are basically a timeline and story.  They describe the places Jesus went as well as the things that Jesus said and did.  John is organized based on 7 signs of power or miracles. Each act is followed by a discourse or long conversation Jesus has in which he explains the deeper significance of what happened, of what the sign reveals about God’s power and love for each of us.  In today’s reading, the sign of power is Jesus feeding of a great crowd with a few fish and a couple of loaves of bread and the discourse is about Jesus as the bread of life. 

After Jesus feeds the crowd, some of them figure out what happened and they follow Jesus to see more. They track him down and expect magic. I get the sense that they are telling Jesus “feeding all of those people was pretty good but show us the best you can do, and if it impresses us, we will believe you are from God and we will follow you”.   The crowd wants another sign, Instead Jesus tells them  “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  The people are taken back by this language and get uncomfortable (like many of us probably are). Since Jesus is right there in front of them, they do not have to figure out what he means, they just ask him “How can you give us your flesh to eat?”  Instead of backing down, saying It’s just a metaphor or figure of speech or explaining his choice of words, Jesus is even more aggressive and clear, he answers them by saying “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life”.  This is not what the crowd expected. They anticipated a great sign of power, something even more miraculous then feeding thousands of people with a little bread and fish. What they got instead was Jesus telling them the way to everlasting life.  In some ways this is like meeting your partner, the true love of your life, for a quick lunch at the local diner and they ask you to marry them, you expect a decent meal and you get a life changing, joyful moment.  

Unfortunately though, the way to eternal life involves eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood.  In this case, the way does not seem easy, it seems downright nasty. This stuff about eating flesh and drinking blood sounded as creepy and bizarre then as it does now.  In fact, verses like these led some opponents and enemies of the early church to accuse them of being cannibals and performing rituals that involved human sacrifice or the drinking of human blood.  I mentioned this a few weeks, but it bears repeating, often when I read these verses, I think of blood sucking Vampires and brain eating Zombies.  This is not the most comfortable part of the bible for us to talk about (trust me, every 3 years when these bread of life readings come up for 4 or 5 weeks in a row, most pastors that follow this shared list of readings are complaining (the whining usually starts sometime in May and goes through September). Many pastors talk about the other bible texts from the Old Testament or Paul’s letters or doing a summer series about something else.     

Of course, when we are given only 6 or 7 discourses in John’s Gospel, its hard to just ignore one of them, especially since this one about the bread of life comes after the feeding of the crowd, one of only two miracles in all four Gospels (the other one is Jesus resurrection).  Plus when Jesus says you need to do this to inherit eternal life, we ought to pay attention. Before we have a blood drive and put Jesus steaks on the BBQ, we need to look a little deeper about what Jesus means.  I hate to say but this is one reading I have a hard time dealing with.  I am going to try and share how I understand all this talk of flesh and blood.    

(Late Saturday night I decided I did not think the end of my sermon was good or correct so I changed it on Sunday morning, I will try to write what I said here)

The first question we need to ask is “if the bread of life is talking about Holy Communion or something else?"  Scholars, priests and teachers in the Roman Catholic Church argue that John 6 is clearly a communion text.  Luther and many others from different Christian faith traditions have argued otherwise.  In John 6 Jesus uses the word for flesh, in all the references to communion Jesus uses the word for body.  There is no ritual or invitation to share in John 6 and the timing is off. This conversation about the bread of life happens at least a year before Jesus celebrates the first Communion with his disciples on the night in which he was betrayed.  Perhaps the biggest problem with thinking about this conversation about the bread of life as Holy Communion is that Jesus tells the crowd that to inherit eternal life, to be part of God’s promises and kingdom, they must eat his flesh and drink his blood. Now, as important as Holy Communion is to us, and as much as it is a time when we mysteriously encounter the presence of the Risen Christ, the act of receiving communion alone is not how we inherit eternal life. 

In some ways, it helps make sense of the bread of life by asking the question, “what is the way we inherit eternal life”. That is accomplished by God grace, God’s gift of faith, and through Jesus Death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins. That is the message of the God’s revelation to us, through the scriptures, though Jesus words and actions, and through our experiences.  That means whatever Jesus is talking about when he refers to eating his flesh and drinking his blood, must point to those things.  It must be a way of Jesus telling the crowd that to part of God’s kingdom they need be joined to him, to be one with him. There are many examples in John when people misunderstand Jesus by thinking he is talking about physical things when he is really talking about Spiritual things, for instance when Jesus tells Nicodemus “you must be born again”, Nicodemus asks “how can I enter my mother’s womb and be born a second time”. In that sense, by eating and drinking, Jesus may be simply reminding the people that to inherit eternal life, We must be connected to him.    

Sermon for August 8 (reflection on church exchange with Prince of Peace)

Our Gospel readings for the next few weeks are very similar (all from John 6 and focused on Jesus’ identity as being the bread of life).  Instead of talking about the reading today, I am going to spend time talking about my experiences at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Cambria Heights.  Two weeks ago, on Sunday, July 26^th   , I had the opportunity to exchange churches with Pastor Brenda Irving.  She led worship here and I led worship at her church in Cambria Heights.  I’d like to talk a little about how and why this happened and share some things I learned from the experience.  

First, I would like to recognize and celebrate that Brenda was amazed at the level of welcome, care and support she received from all of you as she meet our church and led worship in our community.  I am not surprised but I am so glad that you were able to show Brenda who we are and what is so special about this congregation. This happens because each of you understand that the church is a place for everyone and take that fact very seriously.     

The church exchange came out of some comments that Brenda made at a dean’s meeting in May. She lifted up the importance of churches and leaders being together, getting to know each other, and thinking of the church as more than the building and people we see every Sunday.  She discussed the possible role pulpit exchanges could have in this work. This was not the first time she has brought this up, but it’s the first time I heard it and after some discussion we scheduled the first exchange for Sunday, July 26^th.  I’m not sure we knew what to expect, how to prepare, or how it would go, we just knew it should happen and trusted that our communities would figure it out.

Prince of Peace is a mainly African American Lutheran Church located in Cambria Heights, a middle class African American neighborhood behind JFK airport  (E train to last stop and then a bus for about 20 minutes, I’m sure cars can go there too, I just don’t have one). They had about 60 people at worship, which seemed like a decent summer turnout.  The first thing I noticed was that their Pentecost banners, inviting in and proclaiming the presence of the Holy Spirit, were still up in the sanctuary.  This is something I wanted to do for a long time and something I started to do here this year. We are a Pentecost people, able to function, thrive, care for each other and experience God’s joy because the promised Holy Spirit is here. That is the bread of our life together, the stuff that nourishes, sustains and supports us (figured id at least mention the Gospel reading). The banners were a beautiful, strong red reminder of that.

I was amazed at how welcomed and comfortable I was at Prince of Peace. The music and praise band were uplifting and joyful. I found myself semi hidden behind the pulpit, clapping and singing along (which, as you have all seen, is very rare for me to do). Something just drew me into the worship.  Other than the occasional confusion about where to stand, what to do, or why there were so many different things on the communion table, things went incredibly well.  Members at the church patiently walked and talked me though the service with care. The time flew by (the service was about 45 minutes longer than it is here but I barely noticed). The sharing of the peace took a long time and everyone tried to make sure they greeted everyone else (a practice and tradition we have here every week as well).  There was a great spirit, joy and energy at Prince of Peace. I could feel that everyone was happy to be there and so was I.  The entire service and community projected God’s love, a true openness to others, acceptance and welcome

For my sermon, I preached just like I would here. The only change was that my message was longer then usual, about 2 sermons in one. I talked about Jesus feeding the crowd as a reminder of God’s care for us and an invitation for us to care for each other. A few years ago, I preached and led worship at the Indonesian Baptist congregation that shares the space with us.  I quickly learned how ridiculous it will feel, look and sound to adopt a style you are not comfortable with because you think it’s what people expect. (I think many of the members there still remember how awkward it was). 

Although there were many, I want to share two moments  from the day that stayed with me.   First, throughout parts of the service, there was a baby crying near the front of the church.  During one crying session, the assisting minister whispered to me “there is so much hope in that sound”. I was amazed by the depth, faith and beauty of that thought.  Some people would apologize about the distraction or ask the family to take the baby outside, but here, it was the sound of joy, a cry that filled the congregation with hope for the future. Second, at the end of the service, we sang “Go My Children, With My Blessing”. This is the song we sang here a few weeks ago as a sending to the National Youth Gathering and one of my favorite hymns.  This time, as we sang “Go, My Children, Fed and Nourished, closer to me” and  “Here you heard my dear Son’s story, here you touched him, saw his glory”, I felt like that is exactly what happened in this church that morning. 

Last week, as I talked about the youth gathering, I celebrated the idea that we did not pretend Detroit was okay and the church was doing great.  The speakers, events , leaders and work were honest, facing the reality of struggle, poverty, doubt, and racism with faith.  I want to say something similar now.  As much as I love the diversity of people here at St Jacobus, at worship with us and in the churches who share our space ,I know its not normal. The ELCA, our church is the second least diverse church in the United States.  The only church body in America with less diversity then ours is a group called the National Baptist Convention, which is a black church  that was founded on the principle of being apart to confront and counter racism. (other historically black churches like AME are actually more diverse than we are).  I do not want to claim or pretend this one church exchange has fixed all that,  but hopefully it will be a start of something exciting in our synod and church, All it takes is a willingness for us to get to know each other, a desire to learn from one another and chances to share our faith, beliefs and traditions. I am glad we all had a chance to do that on July 26^th and I look forward to other opportunities to do so in the future.

Sermon for August 2, 2015

I have been away from our church for the past 2 Sundays. Two weeks ago, I was away for the ELCA National Youth Gathering in Detroit and last week was the church exchange with Pr Irving and the community at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Cambria Heights.  Since our Gospel readings are going to be very similar for the next 4 or 5 weeks (Jesus talking about the bread of life metaphor)  I am going to talk about and focus on my experiences in Detroit and in Cambria Heights, this week and next week.   

This is actually the second time I am going to talk about my experiences in Detroit.  Due to a series of decisions and events, which in an amazing way all turned out for the best, I ended up flying home from Detroit a little early with Ellie and Maria. I got back to NY on Sunday morning at 7:30 am.  At 7:31 am, Pr Jean from Grace in Forest Hills, who we went to the gathering with, called me to see if I could lead worship at her church (their scheduled supply pastor called out with a health emergency).  At Grace, I talked about the 23^rd pslam and our experiences in Detroit. That was a big change for me. I am used to talking about the 23^rd pslam as God’s care and presence with us during difficult days, at times of struggle, extreme loneliness, uncertainty, at the end of life, or to share God’s comfort with those who mourn.  There at Grace, I had a chance to ask what these words about the Lord being our shepherd mean for us while we are healthy, strong, able to serve, welcome others and share our faith.  Not only is the 23^rd psalm a proclamation of God’s care, it is also an invitation for us to care for each other.  

The Youth Gathering was about care. There was the care people at the gathering had for each other.  Groups welcoming new friends, individual kids who were there alone with a parent or pastor and getting bored. There were people walking with and helping those who were getting sick from the heat and long days, there were kids caring for worn out leaders and leaders trying to help make the trip great.  One thing I will remember is that on our first day, I took my phone for a swim in the hotel pool. After my phone was destroyed, I had to borrow phones from people to find a store to get a new one, talk to Jennifer and check in with a few people.. Maria and Ellie lent me their phones when I needed to call Jen, check in with someone or check my email.  I have described our time in Detroit as exhausting but great. A large part of what made the experience great was being immersed in a space of care, faith, community and hope.  

There was also care for the city of Detroit.  For many of us one highlight of the trip, the part that impacted us all the time, was the fact that it was good to be in Detroit, to be in a place where our spending, work and presence mattered. People who lived and worked in Detroit,  who were worn out and losing hope in the struggle to bring Detroit back, would stop, honk, pull over and yell “thank you for being here” as we walked on the streets.  One of the majors service projects at the gathering was helping a local non-profit clean up a 100 block area.  It was a mixed neighborhood (the mix was abandoned houses, empty lots where abandoned houses where knocked down and places people still lived). My conversations with some of the residents in these areas were filled with needs, hope and thankfulness.       

We could pretend people had a good attitude and things were fine, that it was all about cheers and welcome. I could talk about the Art Museum, which was incredible and the new parking lot covered with 10 stories of murals and a great view of the city. The truth is that Detroit is not a positive city in good shape with some plucky people ready to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. There are abandoned skyscrapers all over the downtown area. It is one of the most violent and dangerous cities in the United States. They have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs, there is very little tax base and almost a million of the 1.7 million residents of the city have left. The street lights are not on at night since the city cannot pay its electric bill and they are so far behind on the water bill, there are actual rumors of a shut off.  

Most of the speakers at the gathering did not pretend things were okay either.  They spoke about real, difficult truths with faith, During the mass gatherings, when all 30,000 or so Lutherans got together at Ford field (the stadium for the Detroit lions football team) to listen to bands, speakers and bishops, things were not positive, neat and easy.  One ELCA staff person talked very publically about her very private struggles with divorce, depression and mental illness as she invited everyone there to get help if they needed it.  One Pastor talked about the feelings and events after a young black man who was a vital part of his church with a bright future, was killed by a neighbor for no real reason other than being black. One pastor serving in NYC talked about the aftermath of Sandy in the Rockaways, where many poor people struggled alone with little or no help from anywhere. One speaker talked about that awful list of inequalities between the very rich, poor, and very poor and encouraged us to do something about it (one of my favorite points she made was that anyone, especially young people could do things that mattered. Her example was that the titanic, which sank on its first voyage, was built by the best professional engineers and boatbuilders in the world while Noah’s ark, which survived the great flood, was built by amateurs).   Each of these conversations confronted the dark and ugly parts of our church, society and world with the light of God and the command to love one another. The idea was as people of faith together, we could rise up. 

Personally, one of the most profound experiences for me was part of a booth at the cobo center (this convention center was set up with 100s of displays and things to do).  There was an area put together by the ELCA group that advocates for and works with the disabled.  Part of the area was something called disabled dodgeball.  Each player was randomly assigned a disability. There was a wheelchair, crutches, googles to experience being blind, and headphones to experience deafness.  Once these items were taken, everyone else had allergies to certain colors and could only touch one color ball (there were 10 balls, 2 of each color). I ended up being allergic to everything except red. My first thought was that, that’s not a real problem, this will be easy. Of course a minute into the game, it turns out the red balls were not getting used. They were just sitting there on the other side of the court and I had nothing to do. Im not sure if the other team was intimated by my great throwing strength or if it was random, but I just stood around for most of the game doing nothing while everyone looked on and wondered why I was doing nothing. Towards the end I started to break the rules and run across the line to get the red balls (a highly risky strategy for which I should have been disqualified). My disability, being allergic to anything but red, meant I could not participate.  

At this time I am going to invite Maria and Ellie up to share some of their experiences.