Lose to Save

Lent 2B, 3/1/15
Mark 8:31-38

Jesus says: Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

God, help us to hear the words of Jesus and let them change our lives. Draw us closer to you, and help our faith community make a difference in the world. Through us, bless all your people. Amen.

Last week, I had a meeting with a group of other pastors. One person in that group talked about how every congregation seems to have a banner year, the year that becomes the point of comparison for all future ministry of the church.

If someone is talking about the success of the children’s education program, for example, it will always be compared against that year when we had 47 kids in confirmation.

Remember that?    If only we could get back to those days.  

Or when a new program is being developed, or worship is being planned, or basically whenever anything changes in a church, there will always be someone who says, “that’s not the way we’ve always done it.”

It doesn’t really matter whether that something actually was always done the same way or not – what matters to people who think like this is that the new idea doesn’t mesh with their memory of the banner year in the church’s history.

And so, by the most important comparison they can muster, this new thing is set up to be an automatic failure.

I’m assuming that most of you have had experiences in communities like this – if not in a church, then maybe in another organization that you’ve been involved with – or maybe even in your own families.

Does anyone else have those holiday traditions that you thought you did every year? If you go back and count, it turns out that the most memorable traditions maybe only happened half the time.

But our most meaningful experiences of something are deeply tied to our emotions, and so we often go back to “the way we’ve always done things” because it’s comforting to us.

It can help us find meaning.

This is especially important when the world around us seems to be changing. When things that are familiar to us are disappearing, we turn back to places and rituals that give us comfort as a way to deal with the changes, because we don’t know any other way to handle them.

If you do a quick online search for trends in the church today, you will find countless experts writing about how to keep the church the same as it has “always been.”

The headlines don't actually say that, of course. They state things like “Sunday morning worship continues to decline” and “growing interest in small-group ministries” and “more emphasis on families in church.”

Continues to? Growing? More? In comparison to what?

Clearly, the people conducting studies and writing articles about the church today have an unspoken assumption about what the church of yesterday was – and everything that the church is today is compared to what it used to be.

This is not healthy.

Whether it’s a church member complaining about a different way of doing Sunday School, or a professional researcher comparing worship attendance numbers today to an unspecified historic benchmark– the church today is not and cannot be what it used to be.

Thank God.

The ideal church that lives in the back of many people’s minds is the church of 1942 or 1976.

It is a church that only recognized the professional ministry of men.

It is a church that condemned gay and lesbian people.

It is a church with buildings that were not wheelchair-accessible.

It is a church that occasionally participated in the institutional oppression of other groups of people – you would be shocked to read about the role of Lutheran churches in Germany in the 1930s and 40s.  

But maybe even worse than that, the idealized church was characterized too often by inaction, or passivity, or ignorance of the injustices that were being done in its name. 

Jesus says, “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

What about, “those who want to save their church must lose it, and those who lose their church, for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Thank God that our church no longer suppresses the voice of women, or excludes gay people.

Thank God that we now pay attention to accessibility for people with various physical needs.

With God’s help, we can overcome our history of oppression and inaction, and instead work for justice for all people, in our neighborhood and around the world.

But in order for the church to become what it is today, that old church had to die.

We had to let go of those things that were preventing some people from hearing the Gospel, in order to keep the church alive.

The people who stuck with the church, who carried it through the times of transition, were the ones who weren’t afraid to try something new, even though there were huge risks involved in the new way of doing things.

Let me tell you a story.

I’ve been pastor at your congregation for a whole month now.

I certainly don’t know everything about how this congregation works, but I have been to a lot of meetings!

Here’s one of my first impressions that I’d like to share.

At the council meeting in February, we had a report on some of the updates that are needed to our original church building. Some building materials were used that we now know to be unsafe, so at the very least, those need to be replaced. But a few other suggestions were brought forward also, to make the space more user-friendly, and more welcoming overall.

         Here’s the part that was surprising to me.

I didn’t hear a single person say that we needed to restore the original building because it’s always been there, or because their parents donated the money to build it, or because having a newly refinished building will help grow our Sunday School program.

The suggestions for building use were mostly social outreach programs.

What do we need to do so that the school can still keep meeting in our building?

What other community groups might need a place to meet?

How can our building be an asset to the community?

These were the questions that seemed to be driving discussion. Sure, if our congregation needs it, having some more usable space would be great. But supporting our own desires is not the ultimate good here. Supporting the needs of the community is more important.

If we’re going to update the original church building, it won’t be for our own sake, but for the sake of Jesus and for the sake of the Gospel.

We can put aside the baggage of what that building was created for in the first place and realize that it might serve a different purpose in the new reality of what our church is today.

This is a very faithful way to think about how we use our possessions.

At some level, our congregation has already moved past the trap of the way it’s always been and has started focusing on the way that is best for the Gospel.

The people who have made our church what it is today are like the disciples in the Gospel lesson.

Jesus rebuked the disciples and told them that they must change or die.

The disciples didn’t like this any more than you or I would like being given such a harsh ultimatum. Peter especially didn’t like what Jesus had to say.

But Jesus said – it’s not about you.

It doesn’t matter what you like or don’t like, it doesn’t matter whether the new reality fits in with your preconceived notions of what a faithful community should be.

What matters is Jesus.

The disciples had to be willing to give up their lives for the sake of Jesus, and for the sake of the Gospel. Only then could they truly appreciate the importance of their lives, and of Jesus’ sacrifice on their behalf.

Judas didn’t get it. Judas stuck with the old way of doing things, with legalism and the tradition and trying to appease the powers that be.

It didn’t work out so well for him.

If you’re not familiar with the story of Judas, come back for worship on Maundy Thursday when we hear the story of how he betrayed Jesus for his own gain.

Most of the disciples though – even Peter, despite his argument with Jesus today – most of the disciples finally decided that it was worth putting their own egos aside for the sake of spreading the message of Jesus to the world.

The leadership at our church has found ways to set their own egos aside for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel. We don’t do it perfectly, but at least some of the time, we listen to Jesus’ instructions to lose our own lives for the sake of the greater good.

The leadership of our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has at least occasionally done the same thing.

On a more personal level, I’m sure that all of us have had to do this for our families at some point in time – putting our own priorities on the back burner for the sake of a spouse or child or parent or sibling.

Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

         The same goes for the church.

We can’t live our lives, as individuals or as a community, by constantly focusing backwards on some idealized time in our memory.

The only way that we can continue to live, and do ministry, and grow together, is by looking forward to the ways that God can use us in the future.

So let’s move forward together, like the disciples did, and like Jesus asks us to.

And may God guide us on our way.   

Amen.

Symbols

Lent 1B, 2/22/15
Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15

God, you have established your covenant with us, your people. As your kingdom draws near, help us repent and believe the good news.

Have you ever noticed that the church seems to have its own dialect of words and symbols? I like to call it “church-ese.”

When we use words like “sacrament” or “consecration” or “epiphany” or “parament,” we make it hard for newcomers to understand what in the world we are talking about. We sometimes assume that everyone knows how to “share a sign of God’s peace” or that purple is the color of Lent.

In today’s children’s sermon we learned about the paraments and how (and why) they change color for the different seasons of the church year.

So, as you can tell, I plan to spend at least a little  time teaching our children some of the churchy words that they might encounter here.

But I also think it’s important that all of us learn why we have these symbols, and what these words really mean... and at some point it’s important to consider whether we should keep using these words and symbols or not.  

If we know why we follow a particular tradition, then we can prayerfully consider whether we still actually want to do it.

And if we understand the meaning of the churchy words, then we can define them for newcomers who might be confused by our lingo.

So. Today is the first Sunday in the season of Lent.

There’s the first churchy word to define.

         Contrary to popular belief, Lent isn’t defined by giving things up.

Lent is a 40-day period of repentance – of refocusing on our relationship with God. Lent helps us prepare for Jesus’ death and resurrection, which we honor every year during Holy Week and Easter worship services.

During the season of Lent, we will encounter many symbols. For those of you who were here for worship on Wednesday, we saw the first symbol of Lent then. On Ash Wednesday, we received the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads.

Those ashes remind us that we were made from the dust of the earth – and when our lives are over, we will return to the dust from which we were formed.

The ashes in the sign of a cross remind us that we are children of God, tied to God’s family through our baptism.

The cross is another symbol.

We were marked with a cross of oil or water at our baptism.

On Ash Wednesday that sign gets retraced.

At the beginning of Lent we remember that we are only human – we are not God, but we are God’s – we belong to the family of God and the body of Christ.

Towards the end of Lent we will be inundated with more signs in worship. Palm branches will remind us of Jesus’ kingship when he enters Jerusalem.

The Passover meal shared by Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper carries all kinds of symbolism. Some of our children will learn about this at the Communion class today. Each item of food, the words that are spoken, and the very fact of the celebration of a Passover meal all connect the Jewish people with the defining moment of their identity, when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt.

The symbols continue through Holy Week. On Good Friday Jesus will carry a cross – a sign of torture and death – while wearing a crown of thorns – a sign of royalty turned into a painful tool of punishment.

Religious symbolism was nothing new in Jesus’ time, however.

Today’s first reading describes one of the earliest stories in our tradition.

The book of Genesis, chapter nine, has some very important and lasting symbolism.

Today’s passage covers the end of the Noah story. I’m guessing you remember the beginning. God was unhappy with the people because they were constantly being evil and sinful and basically not following the lifestyle that God wanted them to live. Out of desperation, God decides to start over.

It’s like the world is an electronic device that God can’t get to work right – so God turns it off then turns it back on again.

God chooses Noah’s family as the best of the bad people in the world, and tells them how they can save themselves from the destruction that is about to come.

Noah and his family and a pair of each kind of animal enter the huge ship that Noah built, and from there they weather out the flood that God sends to the earth. All other living creatures are destroyed. 

I'm not sure why we use this story with kids - it's really not a nice story.

Finally, after all the destruction, the waters start to recede and the ark comes to rest on dry ground.

Now enter our Bible lesson from today.

God makes a promise to Noah and to Noah’s descendants and to all living creatures. God’s promise is that the world will never again be destroyed by a flood. In other words, God rebooted the creation with Noah’s family, but if people start making God mad again, God will find other ways to deal with our sinfulness. Complete and utter destruction of the world is out. It’s been done once, and it won’t happen again.

And then God hangs up his bow. You know, a bow as in a bow and arrow. Can you see the resemblance in shape between an archery bow and a rainbow?

God’s bow hangs in the sky as a symbol that God is not at war with humanity. God will not destroy us again.

Whenever the rainbow appears in the sky, it is a sign of God’s promise to Noah, and to us.

Now, of course, it is also true that rainbows are what happens when light shines through water, and the various wavelengths of light are separated, dispersing the colors into the full spectrum of a rainbow.

But just because there’s an explanation for something doesn’t mean that it isn’t a sign from God.

Just because we can explain how a baby is made and comes into the world, doesn’t mean that a birth isn’t a miracle.

Just because we can explain how certain species came to be through evolution doesn’t mean that God didn’t intend them to be that way.

And just because we can explain how a rainbow is made, doesn’t mean that it isn’t a symbol of God’s promise.

That’s a lot of negatives.

Basically, something can still be a miracle even if we know how it happens.

You know, it is easy to be jealous of the characters in today’s Bible stories.

         Noah gets to talk with God and sees a sign of God’s promise to all humanity.

Jesus sees the Spirit descending on him like a dove, and is waited on by angels in the wilderness.

         Where are these signs when we are looking for them?

Many of us have doubts about our faith.

Why can’t God give us a sign like Noah and Jesus got, to help us when we don’t know what – or whether – we believe?

Here’s the thing.

We do still get the signs.

Every time a rainbow appears in the sky, it can still be a reminder of God’s promise that the weapon has been hung up and there is no war between God and people any more.

Seeing a rainbow may not always feel novel to us, but the rainbow does still carry that meaning.

Likewise with the sign of the cross, and ashes, and the crown of thorns.

The symbols of Christianity exist to help remind us of God’s presence and God’s promises throughout history.

The reason we’ve held on to all these insider symbols in our tradition is that someone, or probably lots of someones, found it to be meaningful.

Believe it or not, having purple paraments for the season of Lent has helped some people with their spiritual growth.

Obviously, though, the color of the tablecloth is not the most important symbol in Christianity.

There are many other signs of our faith that we encounter on a regular basis.

         Take Communion, for example.

Every week, when we share the bread and wine together in worship, we are reminded of God’s grace and forgiveness, and our own membership in Christ’s body.

As the students will be learning today in Communion class, sharing this meal isn’t something that we do just because we’ve always done it. Communion is something we celebrate because it brings us closer to God.

Communion is another symbol that has multiple layers of meaning.

Is it bread and wine or flesh and blood?

It’s both.

Is it a sign of God’s promise or the actual body of Jesus?

It’s both.

Why do we keep such a confusing tradition alive?

Whether you’re talking about Communion or another religious symbol – the reason we keep them is because they provide ways for us to meet God up close and personal.

For Noah, the rainbow brought him closer to God.

That is always the intention of our Christian symbols, and even of our complicated church-ese language.

When our words or our symbols start separating people from one another and from God, that is when they must be scrutinized.

That is when we might decide that it’s time to change our tradition.

So here is my hope for us during this season of Lent. I hope that we are able to open our eyes and our hearts and our minds to see God in new ways.

When we encounter church traditions, we can experience them deeply, and when we see symbols and signs around us, we can meet God through them.

I also hope that we are able to be attentive to the need of the outsider or newcomer among us. The language of church is not intuitive, so maybe you and I can serve as translators for people who are still learning the language.

Most importantly, I hope that we will experience God’s grace and forgiveness somehow during these next 40 days, whether through a traditional ritual or a brand-new experience.

God does continue to work in our lives, a little at a time, drawing us in and helping us grow in faith. That is today’s good news and that is my encouragement to you this Lent. I hope that we all will be able to see the new and old and exciting ways in which God works in our world.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Piety

Ash Wednesday, 2/18/15
Matthew 6:1-6; 16-21

Create clean hearts within us, O God. Give us new and right spirits. Forgive our sins and have compassion on us, and help us remember that you are God and we are not. Amen.

Beware of practicing your piety before others!

Sometimes this instruction seems too easy.

Sometimes we interpret this Gospel passage the wrong way.

We hear Jesus say, “do your faithful actions in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” We focus on the part where it says “in secret.”

This works with our lives. It’s uncomfortable for most of us to talk to other people about our faith. It can be scary to think about discussing deep and important matters – like God – with other people.

When we hear this Gospel passage that way, we hear it wrong.

Jesus is not saying that we should keep our faith to ourselves and never share it with others.

Jesus is saying, instead, that we should refrain from using our faith as a status symbol to try to get ourselves ahead in life.

Faith is good, but not as a tool for self-advancement.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus was talking to people who liked to show off in front of others. They liked to pray long prayers and brag about their generosity, and they took pride in their pious actions. Showing off their faithfulness was a way for them to gain respect, and that was really the only reason they did it.

They didn’t pray in order to talk to God, they prayed to show off for one another.

That’s not the right way to pray.

It’s as if the people Jesus was talking to thought that if they could just be holy enough, they would earn God’s favor.

We know that’s not the way it works.

There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s grace.

God’s favor is something we are granted despite our own unworthiness.

So that’s where this teaching comes from.   But in my experience, the problem that the early Christians had is not the same as the problem that we face.

Most of us like our comfortable lives.

We may tell other people about our church, but how often do we really tell them about our faith? Do we ever talk about how God gave us the strength to get through that difficult chapter in our lives? Do we share how we felt compelled to act in a certain way because God was leading us to it? Do we discuss what forgiveness means, or redemption, or salvation?

For most of us, the answer is no, or at least, not often.

For most of us, we may occasionally talk about faith with our family or with our Bible study group, but we don’t tend to share these beliefs with neighbors or coworkers or folks in line at the grocery store.

Most Christians in 21^st-century America are in absolutely no danger of practicing our piety before others.

So Jesus’ warning in this Gospel lesson doesn’t really apply to us.

But there is a different part of the Gospel lesson that is relevant to our lives.

“Don’t be like the hypocrites.”

Whenever you pray, or give, or engage in spiritual practices, do not be like the hypocrites.

The hypocrites are those who say one thing and do another.

They are the people who are totally consumed with image, not with faithfulness.

Hypocrites give to the poor, but only because doing so makes them look good in front of other people.

But you – when you give to the poor – do it because God has given you compassion for your fellow human beings. Give to the poor because Jesus wants you to. Give to the poor because you can’t bear to see a sister or brother suffering.

Don’t give to the poor because someone asked you to, but because you legitimately want to do so.

Hypocrites pray, but only because they think they’re going to get something for themselves in return.

But you – when you pray – do it because it’s the only way to communicate with God – and you have a burning desire to commune with the Holy.

Spend time in prayer listening as well as asking.

Pray to give thanks for what you have received, not just to get something that you want.

Hypocrites fast, and follow other spiritual practices, but only because the people around them expect them to, and their reputation suffers if they don’t.

But you – when you start a spiritual practice – let it change your life. Let it influence your behaviors. Let it deepen your faith.

Don’t let your spiritual practices be a badge of honor to show off in front of the world. Practice spiritual disciplines because you actually enjoy and get something out of them.

My grandmother was one of the most faithful people I have ever known. She had a deep relationship with God and was active in her congregation.

She saw needs in the world and met them – she helped people in nursing homes, assisted the less fortunate, and just generally showed love to everyone she met.

I am sure that my grandmother had a deep personal piety. But believe it or not, I don’t know much about that. I didn’t have those kinds of conversations with Grandma. Mostly, I know how my grandmother influenced the people around her, including her children and her friends.

Someone once asked my grandma why she didn’t wear Christian symbols – jewelry or t-shirts or other things that would proclaim her faith to the world.

Grandma had a wonderful answer.

People should be able to tell that I’m Christian from my actions.

If my actions aren’t communicating my faith to others, then I have no business wearing other Christian symbols to advertise my religion.

Matthew tells us today, “Beware of practicing your piety before others.”

But do be sure you practice it.

         Faithful actions are good for Christians to do.

And then, once you have developed spiritual practices, let them influence the way you live your everyday life.

Don’t brag about your faithfulness – but go ahead and let it be known. Let your actions reflect your faith. Tell people that you believe.

Just don’t be like the hypocrites.

Hypocrites are a primary cause for people to leave the church, or to never join to begin with.

Did you know that? 85% of people who have chosen to stay away from church believe that Christians are hypocritical.

And they’re right. We are.

We pray, but only for our friends – not our enemies, as Jesus told us to do.

We volunteer, but only when we have something to gain.

We visit the sick and the imprisoned, but only when they’re related to us.

Or worse yet, we don’t do any of these things.

We don’t pray at all. We don’t read our Bibles. We don’t give to the poor and we don’t visit people who are lonely.

Or, what seems to be more likely for a crowd who shows up for Ash Wednesday worship… we go to church on a regular basis and we think that is enough.

We pray, but don’t follow our prayers up with actions.

We volunteer to do something at the church, or we toss a couple of dollars in the offering plate, but our faith never really ends up influencing our lives.

Have you ever found yourself in that situation? Do you know what it’s like to claim to be leading a life of faith, but still have that feeling that you could be doing so much more?

Karl Rahner was a brilliant theologian of the 20^th century. Here’s what he has to say about the matter.

“The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim God with their mouths and deny Him with their lifestyles   is what an unbelieving world   finds simply unbelievable.”

Don’t be like the hypocrites. Do live out your spiritual disciplines.

There are a lot of “do’s” and “don’ts” in this Gospel passage.

So where’s the good news today?

On Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent, we begin an intentional time of spiritual growth in preparation for the most meaningful celebrations of the church year during Holy Week.

In Lent we have the opportunity to change ourselves.

We have been hypocritical.

But we know better.

God has promised to forgive us for those times when we’ve been self-centered or hypocritical. That’s the good news. So let’s respond to that by turning our lives to God and trying to do better in the future.

Here is my challenge to you this Lent: Let’s get better about sharing our faith.

Let’s practice our piety in secret and practice our faith in public.

And our heavenly Father, who sees in secret and in public, will reward us.

Amen.