Faith

Easter 2A, 4/27/14

Confirmation Sunday

John 20:19-31

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

The disciples had a complicated relationship with Jesus. They alternated between loving him, questioning him, overstepping the bounds of their relationship, and outright doubting him.

This morning we heard the extremes of the relationship between Jesus and the disciples. The disciples are fearful the evening of that first Easter. They’ve locked themselves up behind closed doors. Then Jesus appears to them and they rejoice. Then Jesus commissions them – he sends them into the world to continue his work – and the disciples don’t go. The following week they are still locked up in the same room. So the disciples were disobedient.

That second time that Jesus visited the disciples – one week after the first Easter – Thomas was there. And Thomas offered the most direct statement of faith that we get from any of the disciples. My Lord and my God!

Fear, joy, disobedience, faith – today’s Bible story has it all.

Where do you find yourself in this story?

We’re like the disciples, you know – we are followers of Jesus too.

Even though we’re all Christians here, and we’ve all hopefully experienced God’s love and Jesus’ presence at some point in our lives, we probably don’t find ourselves that close to God in every single moment.

Like the disciples, we have good days and bad days – good weeks and bad weeks. Sometimes God’s promises seem a little more real than other times… sometimes we find ourselves seeking proof of Jesus’ love for us.

Can you relate to the fear of the disciples who locked themselves up? To their disobedience in failing to respond to Jesus’ calling? To Thomas’ profession of faith, once he finally gets the chance to see his risen Lord?

Fear, joy, disobedience, faith… these are all normal experiences for Jesus’ disciples, and they are normal for us as well. The Christian journey is not always easy.

We’ll have some amazing, life-changing experiences and we’ll encounter bumps in the road.

Welcome to the journey, confirmands. Consider this fair warning for you. As you keep following God now into adulthood, sometimes things will seem really great. Sometimes you’ll know    for sure    that God is working in your life.

And sometimes you won’t. Sometimes you’ll try to pray and have a hard time finding words. Sometimes you’ll have doubts about your faith. But that’s OK. God’s followers have always had a rollercoaster ride in faith, starting with the very first disciples.

But we don’t remain Christians because our lives on this earth are necessarily made any easier by following God.

We remain Christians because Jesus calls us just like he called those first disciples, and he gives us a mission, and we know that our job is to follow through on that calling and that mission even when we have our doubts.

There may be times for each one of us when it’s difficult to see Jesus, when it’s difficult to believe in his Resurrection. But that doesn’t make it any less real. And if we remain open to the possibility that God will be more active in our lives in the future than in the past, we just might have the opportunity to get proof of the Resurrection.

That’s what happened for Thomas.

He doubted the other disciples’ experience of the risen Christ – he thought they might have been playing a trick on him. But he stayed with the community and remained open to the possibility that Jesus would show up again.

And Jesus did come back. One week after Easter, Jesus appeared again to the disciples, locked up in their room, hiding. Thomas finally got the proof that he needed, to actually see the risen Christ in person.

And then Thomas makes the statement that Jesus is God. This is a huge jump, that none of the other disciples had made yet. But now that Thomas has his proof, for him there could be no further doubt. This Jesus, his Lord, is also his God.

The question that faces us today is the same as the one that the disciples faced the evening of that first Easter Sunday. It’s the same one that Thomas faced a week later.

What difference does the Resurrection make in our lives? 

Jesus rising from the dead is the founding event of Christianity.

You might think that Christmas would be the first Christian holiday… but that day was nothing special until Jesus did something extraordinary. At first, Christmas was nothing more than the birth of another Jewish prophet.

But Easter – that is when Jesus broke all the rules of how God was expected to interact with humans. An innocent man died and then defeated the power of death. Easter changed everything. It’s the reason we even exist as a church today.

So what does the Resurrection mean for you?

I asked this question at the Council meeting last Monday. Answers were thoughtful… the Resurrection means total upheaval, fulfillment of promise, hope, new life and forgiveness. Among other things.

But we’ve had 2000 years of church history to reach those thoughtful answers.  Put yourselves in the shoes of the disciples on that first Easter evening. What did the Resurrection mean for them?

         Based on today’s story, it meant fear. Doubt. Confusion. Inaction.

Even after the risen Christ had appeared to 10 of the remaining 11 disciples, even after Jesus had done his best to give them courage and a purpose, those 10 disciples stayed locked up in a room. They didn’t tell anyone about Jesus rising from the dead, except Thomas, and he didn’t believe them.

Do we ever behave like those 10 disciples?

Think about it.

If Jesus really has risen from the dead, and has given us new life and hope and a purpose and forgiveness and all kinds of good things… has his resurrection changed the way we live our lives? Would anyone know, by looking at us, that we have received such wonderful gifts?

Or are we still locked up in a room for fear of other people?

What difference has the Resurrection made in the life of this community? What difference does Jesus conquering death make for our church?

Council had some answers for this question too, and you can read this month’s Newsletter article to find out more.

But I want you to think about your own list right now. Feel free to jot down answers in your bulletin.

Does the Resurrection matter for us?    If so… How so?

And if so… how will others ever know about it?

How can we tell other people about the wonderful gifts that Jesus’ resurrection brings to us? How can we show our new life to the world?

We talk to each other about the meaning of the Resurrection from time to time. We show off new life within our own walls when we have baptisms – or on days like today when we celebrate a confirmation, which is actually a public affirmation of baptismal promises.

But how many of us really come to church every Sunday expecting to meet Jesus in the breaking of the bread? In the proclamation of the Word? In singing together our story of faith? Did you expect to meet Jesus when you got out of bed this morning?

I don’t know if Thomas expected to meet Jesus that evening ages ago, a week after the very first Easter.

But I do know that when Jesus showed up, Thomas allowed him in. He allowed Jesus to change his life and his priorities.

The disciples didn’t go out into the world until after Thomas believed in Jesus as God.

I’m guessing that Thomas was so excited about this revelation that he couldn’t help telling other people about it… and the rest of the disciples followed along behind him, perhaps with a little less courage, but with just as much experience and with just as valid stories to tell.

Their lives had been changed, just like Thomas’ had. The other 10 simply needed a little nudge to get out the door.

Did Thomas doubt that Jesus had been raised from the dead?

Yes. He did. He’s been stuck with the nickname Doubting Thomas for millennia.

But Thomas also made the greatest profession of faith in Jesus that can be found anywhere in the New Testament.

Thomas allowed his doubts to be proved wrong.

He opened up the locked doors and – and he didn’t let Jesus in, because Jesus was already able to get in behind those locked doors.

What Thomas did was to let Jesus out.

He talked about Jesus to other people – he must have done so, or we wouldn’t be here today. Someone made those disciples leave the locked-up room. The turning point in the story seems to be the faith of Thomas. Once Thomas came to believe, the Christian story could no longer be hidden behind locked doors.

Young people, as you are confirmed today, are continuing the journey of faith that was begun when your parents brought you to be baptized. But now, you’re taking responsibility for your own faith journey going forward.

So here is my prayer for you as you take those next steps. May you have a faith like Thomas.

When you see Jesus, may you believe in him enthusiastically!

And when you doubt your faith, may you continue to remain with the church community, waiting and hoping for Jesus to inspire you again.

May you always remember to let Jesus out into the world, sharing your faith with others so that they may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing they may have life in his name.

Actually, that is my prayer for each one of us.

May we live always in the knowledge of the Resurrection and the difference it has made in our lives. May our faith be life-changing for us and for everyone we encounter. May we have faith like Thomas.

And may God give us courage to bring that faith to the world.

Amen.

Christ Is Risen, Indeed!

Easter Sunday A

Christ is risen!

         Christ is risen indeed!

Please pray with me.

God bless the reading, the hearing, the singing and the preaching of your Word today. Amen.

Let’s start with an informal poll here. Which ones of us have beloved Easter traditions that we’ve either already done this year, or are looking forward to doing later today? Show of hands?

         How many spend time with family on Easter?

         How many dye eggs?

         Have Easter baskets?

         Eat jellybeans or chocolate or marshmallow Peeps?

         How many have the tradition of going to church on Easter?

I’m glad you’re here today and that you chose to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord with us this morning.

Here’s one of the Easter traditions that I remember most from my childhood. We would call up my dad’s parents on the phone, or they would call us, and we had to be the first ones to give the traditional Easter greeting.

         Christ is risen!

                  Christ is risen indeed!

The catch was, my grandfather is Russian Orthodox. So we had to remember to do this on Russian Easter. Orthodox Christians use a different calendar to calculate the date of Easter, and most of the time that date is not the same as our Easter.

Also, we had to know the right language for the greeting. Worship services are held in a different language in my grandfather’s church. It’s not actually Russian, it’s Church Slavonic – an old-fashioned Slavic language that only remains in use in some Eastern Orthodox churches.

Kinda like Latin in the Roman Catholic church – it’s stayed in use over the years in churches even though no one actually speaks it any more.

Anyway, back to the Easter traditions. On Russian Easter in my family, we would call Papi up, or he would call us, and whoever spoke first would say “Christos voskrese!” And the other person would have to respond “Voistinu voskrese!”

I remember, as a child, really wanting to be the person who spoke first, because I couldn’t remember both halves of the greeting and the first half seemed easier to me.

Fast-forward about 15 years.

As a young adult, I had the opportunity to spend an Easter at Taize. Taize is a Christian community in France, initially founded by some Catholic brothers, but it’s now an ecumenical community, and the brothers have special dispensation from the Pope to serve Communion to anyone who comes there.

A lot of simple chant music comes out of Taize. Taize attracts people – mostly young adults – from all over the world. They speak all kinds of different languages. So their music is written to be simple and repetitive, so that each worshipper can sing in their own language.

Or, if you’re singing in a foreign language, by the third or fourth time through a song, you figure out how to pronounce the strange words so that you can sing them prayerfully for a few more repetitions of the tune.

Taize attracts about 40,000 people for Easter every year. These people sleep in tents and sit on the carpeted floor of the worship space. You can fit a lot more people into a space when you don’t need to accommodate furniture for each body!

Those people come from so many different cultures and speak so many different languages, but on Easter Sunday they all worship together to celebrate the thing that unites them, the Resurrection of our Lord.

When I was at Taize, I had woken up early in the morning on Easter Sunday to watch the sun rise. I enjoyed some time in the quiet before thousands of others started stirring. And as I was walking back to join my group of traveling companions, I crossed paths with a stranger who was also out for an early morning walk.

He said something to me, and I couldn’t understand the words… but it was Easter. So I knew that the correct response, in any language, was, “Christ is risen indeed!”

That’s what the Easter message is all about.

Regardless of the language you speak, and regardless of when you actually celebrate the Resurrection, Jesus has risen from the dead! He has conquered sin, he has saved us from death, he has opened the way to life everlasting!

That’s what the empty tomb means on Easter.

It is a promise for all people. It is a promise that we can celebrate together, setting aside our other differences, knowing that Jesus rose from the dead that we might all have life.

Whether we celebrate Easter according to the Orthodox or the Western calendar… whether we can’t wait to get home to the huge family meal or we dread an afternoon of loneliness… whether we look forward to marshmallow Peeps in our Easter baskets or we’re disgusted at the very thought of sugar-covered fluffy sugar animals…

No matter what little traditions mark our celebration of Easter, the reason for the celebration remains the same.

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen indeed!

Christos voskrese!

Christ is risen indeed!

¡Cristo ha resucitado!

Christ is risen indeed!

Kristo Amefufukka!

Christ is risen indeed!

Alleluia. Amen.

Communion

Maundy Thursday 4/17/14
Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

O Lord, I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you. Amen.

Several years ago some of my friends brought their roommate to church. It was the first time that person had ever been to a Christian worship service. He seemed to be fascinated by it, and paid close attention to everything that we did.

And when it came time for Communion, he chose to stay in his seat. He didn’t really understand what was going on with this ritual when his roommates and all the other worshippers stood up and walked forward to receive a small piece of bread and sip of wine… but he could tell that it was something holy.

And as an outsider – a first-timer – someone who wasn’t sure whether or not he was going to stay – he figured he shouldn’t violate our sacred moment without being able to give it the full honor it deserved.

This person’s experience in worship spoke two things to me.

First, he had a great deal of respect for religion and its teachings and practices. In this, he was not unique – many young adults are respectful of and curious about what religion has to offer, even if they have never participated in worship before.

The second thing this experience taught me is that this young person was able to figure out from the way in which the congregation treated Communion that it was a holy meal that deserved to be treated with respect. Even if he didn’t understand it’s meaning, he understood its importance. That understanding was due to the reverence of the other worshippers.

Tonight, we are at an advantage over this acquaintance of mine. We don’t just have to sit back and wonder at what’s going on. We are blessed to have the chance to learn and to fully experience what Communion, our weekly worship practice, one of our two sacraments, really means.

Tonight we heard the story of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, and we heard the Bible verses that get repeated every time we celebrate Communion. So let’s remind ourselves of why we share this meal together as part of our worship.

The Eucharist and the Lord’s Supper are other names for this ritual that we consider to be sacred – a sacrament. In order for something to be a sacrament, according to Lutheran theology, it needs to meet three requirements. It must be commanded by God, it must be accompanied by an earthly sign, and it must carry a promise of God’s grace and forgiveness.

The practice of Communion was commanded by Jesus when he shared his last meal with his disciples, and told them “do this” as often as you gather, in remembrance of me.

The earthly element of Communion, of course, is the bread and the wine.

And the promise of forgiveness comes with the belief that Communion is really the body and blood of Jesus, which were sacrificed on our behalf to save us from our own sinfulness.

That’s a lot to try to digest during your first experience ever of Christian worship.

And we don’t necessarily do a good job always explaining what Communion is or why we practice it.

But hopefully, we treat the sacrament with reverence, like that congregation did in my story. Hopefully a visitor to our worship service would recognize that the small meal we share together is the highest, most holy moment of our gathering.

When he celebrated his final meal with the disciples, Jesus wasn’t just throwing a dinner party. He was giving a new meaning to an old tradition.

The phrase “we’ve always done it this way!” would carry no weight with Jesus. He was all about doing things in new ways, and with new meanings.

On this particular occasion, Jesus was celebrating the Passover with his disciples.

We learn about the Jewish holiday of Passover in tonight’s first reading, from the book of Exodus.

On Passover, the people of Israel remember the night when the angel of death passed over their homes. Because they had followed God’s instructions, God spared the people the death of their firstborn. Any household that failed to follow God’s command had to suffer losing their eldest child.

This plague, the death of the firstborn, was what finally convinced Pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt several thousand years ago. Jewish people still celebrate this holiday, remembering how God helped to bring them freedom.

Actually, today is the third day in this year’s Passover celebration – it’s such an important holiday that Jews observe it for a whole week.

Passover is celebrated as a festival to the Lord, as a day of remembrance, and a commemoration of freedom from slavery.

So Jesus and his disciples were sharing the Passover meal together. They were remembering when God freed their ancestors from slavery in Egypt. And then Jesus takes this old, sacred, symbolic meal and turns it into something else.

         God doesn’t just free us from slavery.

         God frees us from ourselves.

God frees us from our sins, from our mistakes, from our selfishness. God saves us from our human nature that keeps us from living life perfectly.

We know from the story in Exodus that God is all about granting freedom to people. And we learn more about that freedom in the reading from Corinthians and in the story from John. The freedom that God has to offer comes through the death of Jesus. The saving grace is that because Jesus died, we are free from death.

That’s the freedom we celebrate when we share in the meal of Communion.

Jesus took an old tradition and turned it into a new promise of God’s grace.

Just like God saved the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, God continues to offer us freedom from sin and death, through the body and blood of Jesus.

Each time we celebrate Communion, we remember that promise of grace, of forgiveness, and of eternal life with God.

God is present with us, whenever we share this special meal, in memory of Jesus.

Whether we actually eat and drink the body and blood of Christ, or whether we sit back and observe the ritual, as my friends’ roommate did, we recognize that there is something holy happening.

God is here.

Forgiveness is here.

In the gathered community that follows the commandments of God using earthly elements, a sacrament occurs – a sacred moment appears.

We are that sacred community of God.

Living in God’s grace, old things are made new – God takes our old selves and makes us new. That’s the promise of Communion. That promise is why we celebrate this meal together.

In remembrance of Jesus, and in thanksgiving for his sacrifice on our behalf.

Amen. 

Funeral Sermon

Palm-Passion Sunday A 4/13/14
Matthew 26:14-27:66

O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth might declare your praise.

The worship committee laughed at me when they saw my notes about this worship service from last year. The team debriefs major services at our monthly meetings, and we make plans for how we cant to celebrate the same day next year. So, at last year’s debrief of Palm and Passion Sunday, I made a bunch of notes.

We liked starting the service with the palms – we want to remember that the crowds loved Jesus when he entered Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week.

And the worship team also wanted to do the whole Passion reading. We liked the idea of hearing the entire story of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, and crucifixion all at once. It gets the point across better, don’t you think? The story means a little bit more when you read it a chapter or two as a time. When we pull out segments of the Bible to read out of context, a few verses at a time, we sometimes miss the overarching story.

So the worship team really wanted to do the Passion reading as part of worship on this day. But they also wanted to have a sermon. We won’t have a sermon on Good Friday, we’ll let the story just speak for itself on that night. But for today, they thought, a little explanation is in order.

That’s when the worship committee laughed at my note in the worship order.

I had written next to “sermon” – keep it short!

A colleague of mine asked me this past week if I was preaching today, since he knew that we were doing the whole long Passion reading. I said yes, but it would be brief.

He asked if I would be doing a homily – and really, I don’t know what the difference is between a sermon and a homily. If you look them up in the dictionary, they mean the same thing. So I just responded that I was giving a short sermon… that my message would be funeral sermon length.

Well, that’s appropriate, isn’t it? What better day to give a funeral-length sermon than on a day when we are remembering Jesus’ death?

At funerals, people don’t want to hear elaborate biblical interpretation or thoughtful theological tomes or exemplary scholarly preaching… they just want to hear words of comfort.

So pastors don’t usually preach for 45 minutes at a funeral. We keep it short and sweet, we focus on the good memories we have of the person, and we focus on the hope that our faith gives us for forgiveness and eternal life.

When I’m preparing to preach a funeral sermon, I have a go-to formula.

At funerals, people need to hear three things.

1. Jesus loves you.

2. Jesus loves the person who died. 

3. We will all be together again someday.

In almost every scenario, that formula works perfectly.

Today, though, not so much.

We’ve got #1 – Jesus loves you. We’ve got #3 – we will all be together again someday.

But what does it mean to say that Jesus loves the person who died… when Jesus himself is the one who died?

Remembering Jesus’ death is tough.

Like the disciples, we just don’t quite know what to do with it. His death doesn’t fit with the rest of what we know about him.

Jesus is a teacher and a healer. We remember the story about him raising Lazarus from the dead, and we can’t make sense of his own death. We think about how much everyone celebrated Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. How quickly things have changed!

Why did this wonderful man have to die? Why did he suffer an unjust execution?

Even if we believe that (#1) Jesus loves us, and that (#3) we’ll be reunited someday with our loved ones and with Jesus… how does his death demonstrate love?

That’s the counterintuitive mystery of the Christian message.

Remember how you felt 20 minutes ago? Remember the energy that started the service today?

And somehow, by reading just a few pages from the Bible, the mood has changed completely. We were upbeat, and now we’re subdued. We were cheerful, and now we’re somber.

The story of Jesus’ death makes us doubt #2 in my go-to list for funeral preaching.

Jesus loves the person who died.

That point doesn’t seem to apply today, because Jesus’ love wasn’t enough to stop the suffering and death.

Doesn’t that happen a lot in life? We know that Jesus loves our family and friends, but their illness still isn’t healed. Death happens even in the midst of Jesus’ love.

And it’s confusing.

It’s hard to understand, because we know that Jesus came to bring life, and yet here he is, suffering betrayal and torture and execution.

Our loved ones – and Jesus’ loved ones – suffer and die in spite of his love.

But God’s love remains, even in the midst of all that suffering.

Even on the cross, when Jesus cries out, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – even then, God has not forsaken us.

That’s what makes Jesus’ funeral sermon different from the one I would preach for any of you.

At your funeral, I would tell your loved ones that God’s love was present throughout your life, and is present in the promise of your resurrection from the dead. That’s the hope that all Christians have – because of God’s grace, we can look forward to eternal life with God and all our loved ones.

It’s different today.

In the Bible story we just heard, God’s love for us is shown in the fact that Jesus died. God allowed for his suffering in order to save us from the same fate. God’s love, in this case, is directed at all humanity. It comes at the expense of Jesus.

Too bad for Jesus, right?

That’s the thing, though.

Jesus’ death is different.

Jesus didn’t have to wait long for the promise of life eternal.

We know the end of the story. We know that on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead – he conquered death. And this is good news for us. It’s the best news for us! The power of God brought Jesus out from his grave, alive.

Death no longer has power over our lives. Because God loves us (#1), and because God loves Jesus who died (#2), we are all able to look forward to seeing Jesus and our loved ones again someday (#3).

Today’s story makes no sense based on what we know about Jesus. He didn’t deserve death. His betrayal and suffering seem opposed to everything we know about how God works in the world.

But then, when Jesus is raised from the dead, new meaning is given to everything we’ve heard about his suffering.

Sure, Jesus didn’t deserve death.

But we do.

We’ve sinned. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve denied the power of God in our lives.

But because of Christ’s death on our behalf, we don’t have to worry about punishment for our mistakes. The penalty has already been paid.

Jesus’ death is a difficult story to hear. But his resurrection is the best story that has ever been known to humankind.

And the resurrection could not have happened if Jesus hadn’t died.

The story of Jesus’ betrayal and trial and execution only make sense in light of the resurrection. That is when we get the good news of God’s forgiveness for each one of us, and that is when we learn that we don’t need to fear death any more.

         Come back next week for that story.

For today, we remember Jesus’ death.

And we give thanks.
Amen.