A Collect for Christ the King Sunday

A Collect for Christ the King Sunday

King of Kings, Prince of Peace,
The edicts and decrees of the world’s would-be rulers surround us,
From the tops of towers,
The halls of power,
The broadcasts of satellites,
The reality of violence,
The starvation of children,
The whispers of the human heart;
Grant us the wisdom to discern usurpers to your throne
And give us the courage to take up our crosses,
Follow your ways of peace, mercy, justice and love,
And to give allegiance to you, and you alone.
In the name of the one who rules by sharing glory,
Who shows authority by suffering,
And whose kingdom is love,
Jesus Christ, Our Savior and Lord,
Amen.

Sermon: Against Stewardship Sunday, or, On Not E-Trading the Gospel

"Against Stewardship Sunday, or, On Not E-Trading the Gospel"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
13 November 2011
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Texts: Zephaniah 1.7, 12-18
Psalm 90
1 Thessalonians 5.1-11
Matthew 25.14-30

"Everything else seems beyond us,
we aren’t ready for it, nothing that was said
is true for us, caught naked in the argument,
the counterpoint, trying to sightread
what our fingers can’t keep up with, learn by heart
what we can’t even read. And yet
it is this we were born to. We aren’t virtuosi
or child prodigies, there are no prodigies
in this realm, only a half-blind, stubborn
cleaving to the timbre, the tones of what we are,
even when all the texts describe it differently.

And we’re not performers, like Liszt, competing
against the world for speed and brilliance
(the 79-year-old pianist said, when I asked her
What makes a virtuoso?—Competitiveness.)
The longer I live the more I mistrust
theatricality, the false glamour cast
by performance, the more I know its poverty beside
the truths we are salvaging from
the splitting-open of our lives."
-from "Transcendental Etude" by Adrienne Rich

-If you’re like me, then you’re really thankful that today is not Stewardship Sunday! While filling out my six-month Vicar evaluation, when I came to the section to discuss "stewardship," it was with great glee that I wrote: "House does not have a stewardship campaign or committee."

-For those of you who grew up without this lovely slice of Christian Americana, Stewardship Sunday is the day when they read a parable like today’s, the “parable of the talents.” The talents of course are not, as in the Greek, gigantic sums of money that would boggle the minds of the original audience. No, on Stewardship Sunday, they would, of course, be the “talents” and gifts that you possess: time, skills, and of course, cash. And if you want to be a good little churchmouse, then you’ll pay attention to the first two slaves in the story, who took their talents and invested them. And gave them back. With interest.

-And you would, of course, not want to be like third slave, who just buried his gift in the ground – “hid his light under a bushel, no!” – and did nothing with them. You’re supposed to give your “talents” because you’re supposed to just be "so thankful that Jesus has given so much to you.” And so you cannot help but want to give back. And there’s some good truth in that. Yet, tacitly, the message is also that if you don’t give, you’re somehow ungrateful. Or lazy. Or certainly, “not really a good committed church member.”

-Now I’ll reckon that if you’re here at House, you’re probably not too concerned about being “good church member.” So maybe you’ll share my indignation when I say how manipulative of a reading of this parable I find Stewardship Sunday to be. See, this kind of stewardship reading, it doesn’t make me want to go out and give abundantly, just because everyone else, is making like the first two slaves. This reading makes me feel like that third slave in the story. Cautious. Guilt-ridden. Used. Suspicious. Definitely afraid.

-See as someone who struggles with fear, who often wants to bury my gifts in the ground, what troubles be about this parable is not stewardship per se. Rather, I wonder: why does that third slave feel so afraid? He tells the Master when he returns, “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow…and so I was afraid.” Afraid. It’s not that he’s lazy. Not that he doesn’t care about his gift, or his community, or even his Master. I mean, he kept the money safe! He gives exactly what he was given right back to the Master! No, it says the guy’s afraid. Which makes me wonder: where does that fear come from?

-I wonder if his fear - as well as his suspicion - has to do with those first two slaves. The ones making a killing sitting in front of their laptops buying Apple stock and e-trading biotech mutual funds. I wonder if he saw them sitting atop their swelling piles of talents. Began comparing them to his single, meager talent. Saw the Master reward them for making him rich off their accumulated interest – a practice, by the way, thoroughly forbidden for the Jews in Jesus’ audience. I wonder if the slave arrived at this pyramid-scheming Bernie Madoff of a god, because, comparing himself to his fellow slaves, rather than trusting his instincts and sticking to his guns, instead found himself enthralled, and further enslaved, to the corruptions of his culture.

-In my experience, I’m often afraid – and also get most of my distorted pictures of God – because I’m comparing my self and my failures with the successes and imagined perfections of the people around me. I’ll see people who are really “living the Christian life.” Who are really prosperous, or happy. Who receive recognition and respect. Who are really radical, or progressive, or intelligent, or holy, or even rebellious. And I idealize them. It seems like they’ve been given five talents – five times as many as me – and that they’re getting back even more! They lead lives that make mine look paltry and embarrassing by comparison. They seem like they are living an abundant life. And mine, certainly, is not. Or, at least, I think it’s not.

-And then, on top of all that, I start to think about God. Maybe God is the type of God that wants me to be like them. And not like me. Wants me to be really invested, really busy, really successful, really active or activist, wants me to keep adding more commitments to my schedule. Or belong to a certain political party. Or sub-culture or counter-culture. Or maybe its about being progressive enough. Or accepting enough. Or even, to do something I know with all my heart is wrong.

-Pick your poison. But then, the rub: I start to think that maybe these are things God is expecting, even requiring me to do, if She is going to accept me. If God is going to view my life as a worthwhile investment, worth the time She took in creating me. My picture of God becomes distorted. Because I let the people around me, or the culture of comparison and propserity, or the fear in my own head, tell me who God is. And who I am in God. Equating “how much I do” with the “who I am” in the eyes of the Master. And so, like that slave, I too want to say, “yes, that God is shrewd and ruthless Master.”

-See, when I hear this parable of the fearful slave, I don’t see a vision of God’s dreams for his people. I see, rather, a reflection of the nightmare that results when we get lulled to sleep by the empty promises of a fallen world. The paralysis that results from comparison and competition. The hell of believing that God is not for us, but against us. And that's when I begin to get afraid.

-But see, this is where I think St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians we read today comes in handy. Because Paul urges us to “keep awake! Keep awake and remain sober!” And I think this is less advice on how to avoid having a hangover in church Sunday morning – or evening, as may be the case - and more an urging to resist becoming intoxicated by the deceptions of the world. And, by the problematic comparisons by which we read the others and ourselves. Advice, about not conforming ourselves to what people tell us we should be doing, or what they think God should look like based on their own successes or addictions. About how to see clearly in the rays of a different light.

-Maybe we need to stay awake, so we can recognize the true God, when that God comes to finds us. Because did you catch what Paul says next? “God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation in Christ Jesus.” Paul doesn’t say keep awake so you can “look at what I Paul am doing.” (At least not here!) He doesn’t say, keep awake and follow the Protestant Work Ethic. He says, “keep awake, and look at JESUS CHRIST.” And then, “encourage and build up one another.” Jesus is where we look the see the face of the invisible God. Jesus is where we look to see God’s will for our life. Because any other God, except this God, is terrifying. Will lead us to start erecting these ladders of success and these rat-races of achievement. Will lead us into competition and prosperity thinking. Rather than mutual encouragement. Collaboration. New creation. Freedom.

-And, what’s more, as we compare ourselves, not to the world's corruptions, but to the cross-torn face of the Incarnation of Love and Grace itself, we see something else too. We see our own faces looking back. Not condemned. But transfigured, with an eternal beauty and splendor. Our beauty, the beauty which God sees in us, is such a magnificence, such a marvelous light, that it is God, and not us, who is willing to invest all of God’s talents and efforts, to make us God’s own. Christ buried the talent of his own life in the ground, that all his riches might be taken and given to us, we who are most invested in the five-talent world of the other slaves. That we who are enslaved to the ugliness of sin, might be made beautiful, free, abundantly alive. In the words of St. Iranaeus, “God became as we are, that we might become as God is.”

-By unmasking the truth about the world’s lies, the parable reveals all golden ages as gilded cages, all ideals as idols. But the parable is also a gift in that it prepares us to hear the liberating news of the Gospel. That God is for us. That God’s economy is an economy of mercy and freedom. That it’s really less about our stewardship, and more about God’s stewardship of US.

-The Good News, that when we gaze into the bloody, sunken eyes of the Crucified One, we discover we are not only precious in God’s sight, but that God does not play dice with the good gifts he has given the world through us. God does not ask us to speculate or eTrade with the gift of our lives. God gives freely – gives us freely! - that we might also give freely to all. Invites to take up the gift that we are, to take up the very image and beauty of God that has been fashioned in us, and to boldly, creatively, fearlessly let the light of that splendor shine before the world. Not for the sake of gaining more talents or rewards. But for the sake of our brothers and sisters, and for the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

-Because God did not create crap. Because God does not place a price tag on Her children. Because God thinks we are far too good of gifts not to share us freely with others.

-Amen.

A Collect for Reformation Sunday

A Collect for Reformation Sunday

God of Liberating Truth,
Who refuses to let us justify ourselves
by any self-delusion we can invent
or by any empty promise of our rat-race world;
Take our lies, our deceptions,
And all other idols we make or merit
And nail them to the door of your grace;
That we may know your Gospel of Freedom,
And experience Love’s reformation in our hearts.
In the name of the One who is the Way,
The Truth and the Life,
Jesus Christ Our Savior,

Amen.

22: Sign of the Times

Sermon: "The Other 100%," or, "Render unto God that Which is God's"

"The Other 100%," or, "Render unto God that which is God's"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
16 October 2011
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Texts: Isaiah 45.1-7
Psalm 96.1-9
1 Thessolonians 1.1-10
Matthew 22.15-22

"What's your plan go to do with me?
If the bell tolls, let freedom ring
And find the new ways that we must be king
Instead of leading the young to our suffering...

So study war no more this millennium
It's never again for me or anyone
So think harder when you refer to us
Rather make our children martyrs than murderers...

This is love and not treason..."
-Flobots, "White Flag Warriors"


-Earlier this week, the Pastrix and I talked about “collaring up” and heading down to Civic Center Park to interact with the Occupy Denver protestors. For me, I hoped it would be good sermon research. How could we read such a politically charged story, in which Christ, occupying the Jerusalem Temple, tells us to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” without attending to the outrage stirring in our own time?

-So it was disappointing – and harrowing - to drive by the park on Friday morning to discover, not tents and signs and protestors, but packs of policemen, armored up in full riot gear, keeping watch over an empty patch of green. I came hoping to catch a glimpse of Christ, and instead found myself starting into the visored eyes of Caesar.

-But maybe, this vision was just as important for me to see. Maybe part of the ongoing success of the protests has been this unmasking of Caesar. There was something horrifyingly absurd about a powerful government like ours, in a prosperous city like Denver, sending in armed troops to deal with a bunch of unemployed, non-violent political dissidents. See, at the heart of Caesar’s power is not the promise of peace, but rather, the threat of coercion and force. Simply by voicing their demand that the “other 99%” be heard, simply by desiring to call a thing what it is, these nobodies on the margins brought forth the true identity of the Powers that Be. And the Powers that Be are...afraid. Paranoid. Power-addicted.

-I wonder if such an unmasking is also what Jesus is really up to in his rebuttal of the Pharisees’ attempts to “entrap him in his words.” OK, actually, it’s the Pharisees’ disciples, their seminarians and vicars, who come to Jesus. Because if I’m the Pharisees, I can think of no better way to torture my enemy then to afflict him with the know-it-all questions of my graduate students! No wonder St. Matthew tells us that Jesus senses their “malice!”

-Maybe it’s that malice Jesus is trying to unmask. And a political conversation is the perfect context for such a move. Because let’s be honest: political conversations have a way of bringing out the worst in us. Whether its that awkward Thanksgiving dinner argument, or the attempts to one-up each other on facebook, or the passionate rhetoric surrounding election season, or even an honest question about whether we should pay taxes to Caesar, political debate is rarely about politics itself. Maybe that’s why Jesus seems less interested in offering a political theory, and more intent on the people before him.

-If I’m honest, most of the time I enter into a political or even a religious conversation, I’m not out to listen. I’m out to win. I may not have riot police like the mayor, or armed Herodians like the Pharisees’ seminarians. But I have my own weapons: my ideologies and agendas. I have my fears, and insecurities, my own need for power and control, my own need to be noticed and to feel important. What if the real issue, which also lies at the heart of all political and religious conflict, is not merely the brutality of Caesar, but the darkness in every human heart? The fear that leads us to pay tribute to the Kingdom of the Lie?

-That’s why I feel that Jesus’ rebuke is actually a gift to these young, impressionable seminary students – and to all of us who seek to be His disciples. See, Jesus is unafraid to be unimpressed by their flattery. And, he is unafraid to speak the truth, harshly, in order to break the cycle of competition, fear, malice and manipulation that has been passed down from generation to generation. Such interventions can be nothing less than a Gift of healing from God, unmasking and exorcising the demonic systems that demonize us, and lead us to demonize others.

-Yet, Jesus is not merely against the Kingdom of the Lie. He also seeks to break the endless cycle of violence by pointing outside it, beyond it, to a more cosmic vision. Because Jesus does not occupy the temple like the Pharisees and scribes, hoping for a battle of word-wrangling and one-up-manship. He doesn’t occupy the temple like the Romans, with an Imperial program of peace won through the threat of violence. Jesus doesn’t even occupy the temple like the Wall Street protestors, claiming to represent “the other 99%” against the rich 1%.

-No, Jesus is the Incarnation of the very God who is worshipped in this temple. This Incarnation is God’s own occupation action, by which God re-claims not only a religious space, but the entire creation, the complete 100% of what God has made and loves. By which God comes to restore God’s image in every human being that God has created. By the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has initiated the ultimate subversion, the new creation. Christ comes to declare the deeper reality that, in giving to God that which is God’s, we no longer deal in the currency of tax dollars, political parties and propaganda, or personal agendas. Rather, this new creation is a Republic of Grace.

-New Creation is a truly radical revolution, getting to the very roots of who God is, and so who we are. A revolution, in which we are invited to lay down our arms, take off our riot gear, and set aside our fear. A revolution, taking up the currency of freedom given by the One who came as the servant to all, that all may be free to serve one another in true peace, under the true God whose justice is grace, and whose authority is love. It is a revolution, in which God cares far less about giving us some new political program, and more about making us into a new kind of people. A revolution, capable of creating a new politics. A revolution Dorothy Day called “a revolution of the heart.”

-I feel I caught a glimpse of this new kind of revolutionary politics, yesterday, on HFASS’ contemplative retreat. At one point, we were led down to a prayer labyrinth. If you’ve never seen one, a prayer labyrinth is basically a giant circle in which is contained a winding pathway that twists and turns its way towards a small space in the center. Its essentially a metaphor for the spiritual life, in which our path seems chaotic and unpredictable, yet, asks that we trust in the guidance of God to arrive at the heart of abundant life.

-I was one of the first to finish the labyrinth, and as I walked up the hill back towards camp, I turned around and was struck by what I saw below. The circular shape of the labyrinth resembled to me, in light of our Gospel, a kind of coin. And on that coin was not the image of Caesar, seeking to solidify his own security through inciting fear, competition and manipulation. Instead, I saw thirty fellow pilgrims, at various points on their own spiritual journeys, their pathways weaving in and out of one another’s. Like a kind of dance, or a magnificent, musical fugue. As paths crossed, I was struck by how often each party would move to the side for each other. There was no competition. Only mutual respect and service, cooperation and community, room for all, unified together in our beautiful diversity.

-Contemplating the image on the face of the coin of that labyrinth, I saw the face and the image of the Triune Troubadour, and the music she sang carried up the hillside, placing in me the insatiable desire to twirl, to dance, and to hope.

-In Christ, God has occupied creation, with dancing, with music, with the Gospel that all are God’s children, minted in God’s image. That the true grain of the universe is not violence and competition, but the crazy, unpredictable, merciful justice of grace. As the church, it is our great and only political agenda to be God’s street theatre, the vanguard of God’s occupation. To be healed by the truthful words of the Occupying One. And to go forth, like the Pharisees’ seminarians, not with malice, but in wonder, marveling in delight and in hope that thankfully, God is God, and Caesar is not. That in the Republic of Grace, our value is not tied to coins or taxes, to ideologies or opinions, but to the gold standard of the Creator’s image, and His Spirit, dwelling in our hearts. That in God, there is no “other 99%,” but only the 100%, beloved of God, and so given as gifts to one another. Amen.

Cross-bloggination: Becoming a Church of the Cross

I was recently asked by the folks at the Fund for Theological Education to write a post about my experience at House for All Sinners and Saints, especially as it related to leadership and discernment of vocations within congregations. The post was published today on their website, which can be found here. Thanks to FTE for the amazing grant they recently gave to the HFASS community!

Sermon: Follow God's Folly, or, Jilted Jonah and the Unfairness of Grace

"Follow God's Folly, or, Jilted Jonah and the Unfairness of Grace"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, CO
18 September 2011
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Texts: Jonah 3.10-4.11
Psalm 145.1-8
Philippians 1.21-30
Matthew 20.1-16

"But we know that grace is not fair
and that is something we can't bear
so we take eternal truth
and snuff it out, that's what we do...

and here's the rub though we have stayed
and say we've kept the narrow way
and kept the unclean ones away
God welcomes us in anyway"
-"If Grace is True" by Neal Hagberg


-“I just knew you were a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love!” So spaketh Jonah in a scene that easily wins him the Emmy for best biblical episode featuring a drama queen. The knowledge of God’s goodness is, apparently, so horrible to this prophet-turned-whale-appetizer-turned-shrub-keeper that he proclaims he is so angry with God that he wishes he were DEAD! I mean, what did Jonah want the Ninevites to say? “Um, wow, a loving and gracious God! That sounds great, but, well, you know, we’ll take destruction instead. Thanks though.” I mean, they even put sackcloth on their sheep! Of course, Jonah’s too busy to notice, crying about his dead shrubbery.

-This story is clearly proof that the Bible is not without a sense of humor. And yet, the story might be even more hilarious still, if it weren’t for the fact that it so accurately captures the rage, the resentment, the sense of entitlement, that we sinful humans often feel when confronted with the sheer unfairness of God’s grace. Like all great comedic geniuses, the writer of Jonah knew how to take a hard truth about us, and force us to confront it through humor. Our peels of laughter peal away to reveal deeper places in need of healing and transformation.

-Because let’s be honest. God’s grace really can piss us off sometimes. Especially when it starts to meddle in our own notions of fairness. Recently, a slew of books have tried to make the argument that there is no such thing as hell. Or, if there is, that it is empty. After all, a gracious God simply could not possibly stand to torture Her beloved creations for eternity, right? And you’d think such an idea – which is actually as old as the Bible itself – would be welcome to all of us who are clearly in need of that gracious God, and not the angry one. Right? And yet, no idea since evolution has caused such a stir in the Christian community. Because as loving as we like to think we are, surely, there has to be more “justice,” more “fairness,” than that. Surely, Hitler shouldn’t get to have the same eternal accommodations as the Jews he gassed. The rapist should not get to dine at the heavenly banquet with the child whose innocence he stole.

-Right?

-These questions are by no means resolved. (I for one am going to side with Marty Luther in leaving it in the hands of a gracious God.) But I do think the question of God’s fairness brings to light just how unfair we human beings really are. In reality, the systems of justice and fairness that we create are, far too often, stacked decks, designed to be only as fair as can make me feel secure, me feel powerful, me feel important, me feel in control. In a world where we imagine God’s blessing to be exclusively dealt out to a select chosen few – of which we are, of course always a part! – we begin to hoard them, all the while seeing the good fortune of others as a threat to be held at bay. Or, if possible, eliminated.

-But what I think really jilts Jonah is having to face the fact that, despite our best efforts to be more unfair than God, God simply won’t let us be better at something than God is! Like the writer of Jonah, God is also in the business of satire and folly, and God is an expert at turning tables. It happened at Ninevah, where God used the conversion of the most debauched city in the ancient world to show the supposedly-righteous Jonah he had a lot to learn. It happened in today’s parable, when the life-time employees of God’s kingdom micro-brewery come to collect their pay stubs only to learn they have made the exact same as the Gentile day laborers who have only just crossed the border into the promised land of grace. It happened on the cross, where God Incarnate exposed the unfairness of human fairness and justice, removed the veil from human piety and human holiness, and clothed God’s-self in the folly of humanity, confounding all systems of human entitlement and control. Like Jonah, we are forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that, yes, the God who created the universe is in fact “a loving and gracious God.” And the God of Jesus Christ is far more unfair than we could ever hope to be!

-See, this unfair God who unfairly calls unfair jerks like Jonah, like you and like me to come work in His vineyard, this crazy God of grace also shows His unfairness in God’s utter unwillingness to let us continue in our unfairness. Because, at our worst, we all can be Jonah; can be the workers who got there first, wanting others to be made last so that we can feel important. But at God’s best, we are also those who, standing around idle, rejected by all other employers, are approached, again and again, by a loving God and invited to join in the joyous work of the kingdom. We are often those who God delights in making last, so that all can experience the glorious unfairness of the kingdom where all are first in the eyes of God’s love.

-And, as if to make sure that we know just how unfair God’s grace can be, God seems to love using the very late-comers, the very newcomers we resent, to woo us back into God’s feast of fools. See, I feel that God brings along, even converts people, for our good, not just theirs. We need to receive the gift of the enthusiasm and the wonder that newcomers bring. Because I wonder if every good thing left to the hands of workers who have been at it for a long time, might eventually fall into mediocrity and neglect.

–Which also means that, through the gift of another’s transformation, we can receive back some of the joy and delight we lost by caring more about being fair, than in being wooed. Like a parent who hears his kids listening to old forgotten records and suddenly remembers, “oh yeah, I really do love that song.” So with the kingdom.

-Part of the grace of forgetfulness is the gift of getting to remember delight again as if for the first time.

-It’s like this friend I had back in seminary. Recently, he’s become kind of a big deal on the emergent church blogging and speaking circuit. For a long time, I felt a lot of resentment towards my friend, because like the workers in the parable, I thought that God’s blessing him somehow meant that I was getting jilted. And in fact, I was. But not by God, and not by my friend. I was jilting myself. For too long, I let my resentment keep me from hearing the amazing story of redemption in his life. From being blessed by yet another sign of the kingdom come. From realizing that, yes, God still is in the unfairness business. Which means there is still real hope for unfair people like me.

-See, good news for others only means bad news for us if God’s grace and love are scarce resources. But in the new creation, good news for anyone is good news for everyone. One person’s blessing is in fact a blessing we can all share. God’s unfairness cuts both ways. Because in being unfair for someone else’s gain, God shows Himself willing to do the same for us, too.

-That’s why I think God cares so much about wooing us jilted ones back into the vineyard, no matter how unfair Her ways may seem. Because it’s a good, a wonderful, a joyful thing to work in God’s vineyard. To work together, enthusiastic newcomer and seasoned old-timers, in cultivating the grapes that will eventually be served as the wine of the new creation at the end of all things. Like the New Belgium brewery whose slogan is “follow your folly,” God invites us to follow God’s folly, God’s foolishly gracious unfairness, so that when time comes for the party, there will be plenty of delight to go around, and plenty of forgiven enemies on the dance floor. Not staring at our feet, bitter at all of the unexpected bandwagoners ruining our scene. But full of the joy of the knowledge that indeed, God gives up on no person, does not cease to pursue us until all of us – Jonah, Israel, the Church, you, and me – let go of what is fair, and embrace what is true, good, and beautiful. Because this is a comedy, and the ending is just too good for God to allow it to be missed.

Sermon: "Stick it to Satan Sunday"

"Stick it to Satan Sunday"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, CO
11th Sunday in Ordinary Time
28 August 2011

Texts: Jeremiah 15.15-21
Psalm 26.1-8
Romans 12.9-21
Matthew 16.21-28

"In whose interest is it to keep us all divided?" - Dr. Jeffrey Stout

-If there’s one thing Lutherans have always been good at, it’s sticking it to Satan. In baptism, the first vow we make is to “renounce the devil and all his empty promises.” Long before Motley Crue told us to “shout at the devil,” it was Martin Luther who first offered the famous advice to “mock the devil and he shall flee from you.” It is in this same Luther’s study that you can find, to this day, the ink stain on the wall where he reputedly threw a pot of ink to drive away his netherworldly nemesis. (Incidentally, I tried it out this week on a particularly satanic little squirrel that’s been eating the bagels in our kitchen. I missed too.) “Defy boldly,” and not “sin boldly,” was the constant refrain of Luther’s movement. And the more the Gospel was preached, he believed, the more the devil was defeated.

-So on the one hand, we who follow Christ in the tradition of the great Reformer should live for today’s Gospel, when Jesus delivers one of the great one-liners in all of history: “get thee behind me Satan!” If Jesus hadn’t said it, Lutherans would have had to invent it. We seriously wrestled this week with whether to call tonight’s worship “Stick it to Satan Sunday.” A Satan-shaped piñata may have been suggested. There is something powerful, even prophetic, and certainly cathartic, when human beings, made alive by the truth of the Gospel, can stare evil in the face, call a thing what it is, and defy its empty promises.

-Except, more often than not, we humans are not exactly experts at discerning demons. If we believe in the existence of the satanic at all, we are less likely to direct our ire towards a little red creature with horns, a tail and a pitchfork. No, we are, tragically, much better at seeing horns on other human beings, and in particular, those we experience as enemies. That’s something else Luther and his progeny, were ruthlessly skilled at. And this never ends well for either party. Just ask the Jews of Germany.

-Incidentally, this is the kind of luciferian logic that leads Peter to rebuke Jesus for revealing to his disciples that he will be crucified by the Romans. See, for many of the disciples, as well as the majority of the people of Israel, the Romans were the embodiment of the demonic. Just a few verses earlier when Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, he probably did so expecting that, soon and very soon, the Christ would stop wasting his miraculous power on healing peasants and gentiles, and would eventually get busy annihilating the oppressive reign of domination under which his people lived. Too often, many of us can admit to having been guilty of the same logic: our enemy is Satan, and God will surely take my side, to the misfortune of those we hate.

-Of course, Peter does not say all this directly. Because, obsessed with seeing Satan in others, its easy to become the deceiver we despise. In this case, Peter, the recent recipient of the keys to the kingdom, shows himself to be shackled by his fear. And if there’s anything that the real devil delights in, it is manipulating people who are afraid. See, when Peter says, “God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to you!” what Peter is really saying is, “God forbid it Lord! This must never happen to me!” Because as Jesus makes explicit: “if any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.”

-The kingdom of Satan is the network of domination systems in this world that seek to manipulate people’s fear of death and suffering by convincing brothers and sisters that they are in fact enemies. And so must compete with and destroy one another in order to remain safe. In rebuking Jesus, Peter shows himself to be possessed and thus manipulated by that same fear that so often also possesses and manipulates us. Fear of change. Fear of suffering. Fear of death. Which also leads us to treat other people as means to our own ends. Which tempts us to do violence for the sake of our own security. Which leads us to simply react and rebuke. Which twists us to see the world as a competition and a battlefield full of enemies. Which leads us to see the worst in others. Which leads us to doubt God at God’s Word.

-This is precisely the satanic system of slavery, the Babylonian mathematics of manipulation, that Christ came to defy and to overthrow. Not with armies and a holocaust. But with the Gospel, and a cross. Because Jesus refuses to be manipulated by fear. Because Jesus refuses to allow his enemies to remain his enemies. Jesus looks Peter in the eye, and says “get behind me Satan,” not because Jesus desires to eliminate Peter. But because he wants to liberate him. Because when Jesus says, “get behind me,” it is not an incineration of Peter’s life, but rather an invitation to return, to be reconciled, to let go of fear and be re-integrated into a life that can be called truly abundant. Because Jesus will not allow his friend to be manipulated into throwing out the resurrection with the baptismal bathwater of the cross.

-While the kingdom of the world seeks to create enemies who manipulate, react and rebuke one another out of fear of suffering and death, Christ’s cross has created a community in which enemies are re-created, reconciled, and re-integrated into communion with one another. Because as the kingdom ruled by the one who suffered death at the hands of his enemies rather than destroy or manipulate them, the people of the Gospel are those who have been shown that death is not the worst thing that can happen to us. We the church, gathered around the table of the one whose death has become the bread of life for all people, are those called to be agents of this kingdom, and so to take up our crosses with Jesus. With Jesus, to “defy boldly” the empty, manipulative promises of the powers and principalities who destroy life in their quest to avoid death. We are called to be those who, as Paul writes, “are not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.” And the good of the cross is the ministry of reconciliation given to all those called to be agents of the new creation that God has fashioned out of the devil’s chaos.

-As agents of this new creation, the church is called to continue to “stick it to Satan.” Yet, we are called to do so, not out of the captivity of Peter, but rather, out of the freedom of Christ. As those who are called to take the risk of letting go of our fear of suffering and death, as those called to embrace the promise of resurrection, we are also those empowered by God to seek not only to not kill our enemies, but also to pursue their restoration and reintegration into the liberating reality of God’s grace.

-And we need not be Martin Luther King or Gandhi to do so. We need not be great saints like Mother Teresa. In fact, it is precisely in using people like us who are so very not saint-like, who are more like Martin Luther than MLK in our propensity to resort to violence in our words and in our thoughts, that God delights in defying the devil. Because while the satanic scoff at the folly of the cross, seeking to manipulate the broken beauty of the world to avoid the inevitability of death, the God of the Gospel delights in the cross’s foolishness, choosing to work with the beautiful broken things of the creation to proclaim the glory of the Gospel of resurrection. Because when we are all fearful people, when we are all manipulators, when we are all busted stuff and sinners, when we are all cross-shaped and cruciform – it is then that we have nothing to fight about. There are no enemies when there is nothing over which to compete. Grace is the great equalizer.

-Having been promised that death is not something to fear, but rather, the unavoidable first step on the path that leads to the new creation of the resurrection, we are invited into a strange new way of being in the world. While the world asks, “how can I manipulate others to keep myself safe?” we are invited to wonder, “how might this enemy, this struggle, this cross, this death, in fact be a source of friendship, of life, of growth, of newness, of surprise?” The Church is called to be the kind of people who, even while still fearful, manipulative sinners, nevertheless explores and experiments with the answers to this question, seeking reconciliation, restoration and re-integration, even as we view the world from the shadow of the cross that won reconciliation and restoration for us all.

-The Church is God’s ultimate weapon against the power of the satanic. Not a weapon as the world knows it. But as a shattered sword that has been fashioned into a ploughshare. As an abandoned military base transformed into a refugee camp for all sinners and saints. As the rotten wood of an old rifle fashioned into a guitar, singing the love songs of the Triune Troubadour. The devil is mocked most when God takes broken human beings who were once enemies, and gathers them together as friends. When God refuses to let enemies refuse each other. Whenever and wherever this happens, there can be said to be “Stick it to Satan Sunday.” So come, let us “defy boldly.” But let us be more bold in our love of Jesus Christ, and of the brothers and sisters to whom, today and every day, we extend a sign of the peace of the new creation. Amen.

Sermon: Let's Get Scandalous, or, "Take Up Your Cardboard Sign and Follow Me""

"Let's Get Scandalous, or, 'Take Up Your Cardboard Sign and Follow Me'"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, CO
Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
14 August 2011

Texts: Isaiah 56.1, 6-8
Psalm 67.1-7
Romans 11.1-2a, 29-32
Matthew 15.20-28

"Dear God, I'm trying hard to reach you
Dear God, I see your face in all I do
But sometimes, it's so hard to believe in you...

Why is the world ugly when you made it in your image?
And why is livin' life such a fight to the finish..."
-"Dear God 2.0" - The Roots feat. Monsters of Folk


-My old undergrad thesis advisor was fond of saying that “if people knew what was actually in the Bible, wild horses couldn’t keep them from reading it.” Parts of Scripture read more like a South Park script than sacred holy writ. Yet, as much as we Americans love a good scandal, nothing’s prepared us for where Matthew takes us in this week’s Gospel.

-Pick your poison: you’ve got the Jewish Jesus traveling in unclean Gentile territory. You’ve got the male Jesus talking to a woman. You’ve got the powerful Jesus denying deliverance to a demon-possessed daughter. And then, of course, there’s the matter of that racial slur, of the Son of God calling the pleading mother the modern day equivalent of “Charlie,” or “Towel-Head,” or "Spick." Pick your poison – it’s that really that offensive.

-Confronted with such a challenge, it is tempting to do what we are so used to doing in the face of scandal: paper it over. This week, I’ve read countless creative attempts to square the circle of this scandalous text. My favorite one proposes that, faced with the Canaanite woman, it is Jesus who learns the valuable lesson. As one prominent emergent leader puts it, “Jesus is converted and healed of his racism by the woman he calls Bitch.” While it may be a tough pill to swallow to believe Jesus, as human, can learn something new, its worth it for the comfort of know that Jesus is learning not be a racist - just like a seminary student at Iliff or a regular church-goer in a progressive emergent church! Learning to let go of prejudice. To embrace those on the margins. A Jesus just like us enlightened urban postmoderns! Hooray! Scandal removed. Next text please.

-Problem is, this version of the story just doesn’t get the facts straight. See, the people of Tyre and Sidon were not poor little puppies and ragamuffins, but wealthy sea-traders, merchants, and war profiteers off the Roman occupation of Palestine. Sort of the Halliburton of the Ancient Near East. They also had a documented history of murdering Jews en masse. So like other Gentiles in Matthew who approach Jesus for help, this woman is not as marginal as we’d like to think. For her to address a Jew, it’s a step down, not a step up.

-It's less like the comforting, sentimental image of the homeless guy with a cardboard sign begging the rich, white male executive in his Benz for spare change. More like the exec pulling his Benz over at the entrance ramp to I-25 in a rough neighborhood to ask a woman with a cardboard sign, “um, so, do you have some change I can borrow for gas? I’m empty.” And her response? “Sorry, rich man, you’re screwed.”

-See, I think that’s the scandal, the true outrage, the utterly terrifying part about this story. That sometimes, even in the face of our deepest, most desperate need, Jesus, can and sometimes does say, “no.” Jesus’ God does not look on our privileged status as Americans. Doesn’t look upon the riches of our theological imagination or our bank accounts. She does not look at how biblical or orthodox, or how radical or progressive our community is. There is absolutely nothing human beings have to offer to impress or manipulate this God. Like the woman, we are the privileged reduced to beggars. At the mercy of a God who can look us straight in the eye when we come to Him as beggars, and can say, “sorry. Not this time.”

-This “No” would be less terrifying if it didn’t come so damn often. And we’re not talking in response to the deluded prayers of frat boys hoping to pick up a date, or the whispered pleas that the policeman walking up to our window will overlook his radar gun in favor of my spotless record. We’re talking God’s NO to real prayers. Desperate prayers – prayers that dad will make it through this recent bout of health problems. Prayers that the dark clouds of depression and despair will lift. That employment will finally find us. That our marriage or family or job will not fall apart. That children will no longer go hungry, that the world will be healed of its demonic possession by the powers and principalities of sin, injustice, violence and death.

-There are few things more scandalous, more disturbing, more offensive to us than the apparent refusal of God to hear the agonized cries of a world resounding with the echo of God’s refusals. And so, rather than confront this pain, we find a tamer God we can live with. The progressive God, who asks us to fix the world’s problems for Her. Or the distant, watch-maker Deity, whose absent silence is just part of the design. Or, we simply stop seeking this God at all, and we walk away, refusing to carry on the conversation any longer. We settle for the silence we’ve come to expect.

-But the Gospel of this Canaanite Woman is that she doesn’t take God’s “no” for an answer. She refuses God’s refusal. For this woman knows that this is “the Son of David.” That when she begs for scraps, it is from the “Lord’s table.” That this God is the God spoken of by the Jews, Jews like Isaiah, who promised that along with the Outcasts of Israel, so too would people of all nations come to worship at the mountain of the Lord. Its as if this woman says, “wait a minute, are you the God the Jews told us about, or not? If you are who you say you are, Jesus, then you’d better not refuse me. Keep your promises!”

-In this response, filled not only with Gospel truth, good theology, and right worship, but also with impetuousness, defiance and even a little sarcasm, this Canaanite woman acts as the Jewiest of Jews. She is like Abraham, bargaining with God over Sodom and Gomorrah. Like Moses talking God down to repentance when he is ready to obliterate the obstinate Israelites in Exodus. Like Jonah, shaking his fist over forgiven Ninevah, declaring, “Bollucks! I just knew you were a merciful God!” Like Jesus, on the cross, crying out with the Psalmist’s words, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This mortal enemy of the Jewish people has learned from the outcasts, the descendents of immigrants and slaves, that the God of the Universe is not a vending machine giving out “Yeses” when fed the correct theological or ritual change. She has learned that this is a Living God, a God unlike any other in the world. That this God may say “no.” But that this No is also not the end of the conversation. It is rather its beginning.

-This woman teaches, not Jesus, but us, that relationship with God is a no-holds barred affair. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel until he gets his blessing, and so being named “Israel,” we who have been included by Christ’s cross into this conversation are invited to get in God’s face. To challenge this God when God seems to have foreclosed on God’s promises. As children of this God and of Her promises, as theologians of the cross and not of glory, we are called like the Canaanite woman to abandon our privileged entitlement and come before the God of beggars and bums with boldness, impetuousness, and even a bit of sass. We are called to rage against this God when He refuses. We are called to dance naked like David before Her when we experience the Yes of Her love. For this God desires mercy, not sacrifice; conversation, not cold calculations; relationship, not rationalizations. This God is not afraid of conflict, or of scandal, or of offensiveness. And as this God’s children, we shouldn’t be either. What is scandalous to the proper is the salvation of the desperate.

-Many of us are here at House because we’ve been made homeless by the wounds inflicted by churches who have settled prematurely for what they thought was God’s No. Our challenge is not to find “a church that speaks to us,” but rather, to become a church that truly “speaks with God.” Because with God, no should not always mean no. God’s Yes is far too brilliant. And the Church is the people willing to hold God accountable to the goodness we know She is capable of. Because we know God can tell a better story than this. And we can demand that He lives up to it.

-We’ve all been approached by homeless persons telling the same old sob story, seeking to manipulate our emotions with lies when all they really want is a couple of coins for beer. Its hard to feel good about giving in this situation. How surprising, then, when we see a cardboard sign that appeals to the best in us – not by BS’ing us, but by making us laugh! By telling us, not “Need money for food,” but “wife attacked by ninjas – need funds for karate lessons!” or “why lie? Need a cold beer!” Even in scandal, there is also room for playfulness, affection, and joy. May we be these kinds of beggars as we set down our privilege, pick up our cardboard, and follow Jesus. Life is too short, the world too needy, our God too great, not to be desperately scandalous before Her. Let us settle for nothing less.



(Signs were made by HFASS community members during Open Space following the sermon)

Sermon: "The Family's the Feast, the Church's the Miracle"

"The Family's the Feast, the Church's the Miracle"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, CO
31 July 2011

Texts: Isaiah 55.1-5
Psalm 145.8-9, 14-21
Romans 9.1-5
Matthew 14.13-21

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will...

f it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well
-Leonard Cohen, "If It Be Your Will"


-It’s comforting to know that even Jesus had a crappy week here and there. Even before the whole Holy Week betrayal-torture-crucifixion thing. This week’s Gospel finds Jesus on the tail end of one such week from hell. After a frustrating run at the Parable Café, Jesus heads back to Nazareth for some hometown rejuvenation. But there, we are told, even his own family and friends took offense at him, so much so that he “could do no miracles there!” Not even mom’s kosher cooking can take the sting out of that.

-Then, the back-breaker. Jesus receives news that his very own cousin, John of Baptizing fame, has been beheaded by King Herod. It turns out that speaking the truth to power by calling out the ruling monarch for marrying his brother’s wife is not a sure-fire way to become a talking head on Fox News. The only place for such a prophetic head is on a silver platter. I cannot imagine Jesus not being shaken up. The writing is on the wall. This is what happens to prophets. We got your cousin. You are next.

-Its been a crappy week for Christ. And so he loads up his backpack, climbs in his boat, and sets sail for “a deserted place” for some well-deserved R&R. (Jesus was from Colorado). But no sooner does he reach the shore than is he greeted by people –five thousand men to be exact. Oh, and also women and children! I’ve never been a celebrity – hell, I don’t think I have even a fifth that many facebook friends! – but I do know that my day off is sacred. Like the disciples, I would be inclined to say, “Jesus, get rid of these people. Let’s take some me time.”

-And yet, St. Matthew tells us that when he saw the crowds, “he had compassion on them and cured their sick.” That evening, the people are getting hungry and the disciples are annoyed; yet Jesus seems jacked up, seems to be drawing energy from this needy crowd who has sought him out in the middle of nowhere without a mind to provisions or time. “Send them away?” he asks. “We’re just getting started!”

-Jesus came to the seashore, weary and grieving; Jesus comes to the end of the day, rejuvenated and renewed. Jesus began the week misunderstood and unable to work wonders; he comes to its close, preaching marathon revival meetings and once more doing his miracle-maker magic. So what changed?

-Too many of us have been taught to think of neediness as a burden, a weakness. We live in a world devoted to the pursuit of independence, power and control. We are too often made to feel ashamed for our own neediness. And in so doing, I wonder if we also close the door on discovering the depths of our true power.

-Not Jesus. You see, while I think certainly, the crowds came to be ministered to by Jesus, I’ve been thinking that maybe God also sent the crowds to minister to Jesus. Because like the crowds, Jesus experienced great need in this time of grief, disappointment, uncertainty and death. And from the beginning God’s response to the pain, the brokenness and the fallenness of His good creation has always been to gather a family.

-When the man was lonely in Eden, God created a family for him. When the first family ate of the forbidden fruit and creation descended into darkness, God called the family of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to be a witness to the nations of the original goodness of the world. And here, on this shore in the middle of nowhere, when Jesus’ earthly family had either rejected him or been killed, notice what God does. God sends Jesus an entire army of a family to come and be with him in his time of grief. To give Jesus the opportunity to minister to them, not in spite of, but out of the midst of his own seeming needfulness, his very real brokenness. And in the process, to give Jesus the bread he needs to persevere in his own journey into the uncertainty of the future. It is not good for the Man to be alone.

-Have you ever noticed that when you are struggling, when you feel hungry and weak and depleted, when you are grieving or in despair, that you are suddenly replenished and re-energized when someone comes alongside you and says, “yeah man, I’ve been there too?” When they share with you, not pat answers, rote Bible verses, or equations of easy optimism, but rather, when they show you their scars? I think this is what Matthew’s after when he notes that Jesus had “compassion” on the crowds, and I wonder if from this compassion flowed his healing – of others, and his own. For compassion means nothing more than, literally, “to suffer with.”

-This past week, God ministered to the brokenness in my life by gathering a family. Many of you know that my father had a massive stroke on Monday evening. You know this because within minutes of either Nadia’s or my sharing this terrible news with you, you responded by filling my inbox with prayers. Throughout the week, you shared stories of your own experiences with tragic illnesses and accidents. People I have never met before – strangers within the family of God – gathered at the seashore to meet me and my family as we climbed out of the boat. We were in need, looking for rest. And we found the open arms of the Church. You were both Christ and crowd to us, and in you, we discovered the true meaning of the communion of saints. Because in our need, God gave you to us. To suffer with us. To walk with us. To pray for us.

-I’ve hesitated whether to share with you the fact that on Monday night, we also experienced a miracle. When I got on the plane in Denver on Monday night, the last I heard was that my dad would either end up dead or vegetating in a nursing home. When I arrived at the hospital on Tuesday morning, my father was feeding himself breakfast, and a team of surgeons, doctors, and other miscellaneous experts was telling us that “there is no scientific explanation for how well he is doing.” I’ve hesitated to share this, because while I firmly believe in the reality of the miraculous and the supernatural, I’ve also struggled with the implications of this. Maybe its just because I’m a German Lutheran, and thus particularly adept at finding the brokenness in just about anything. But I also know that for every Keith Nickoloff, there are a million other fathers who don’t get to hug their son in the morning. For every five thousand fed, there are five million more who must watch their children starve to death in their arms. God can do miracles; why God doesn’t do more, I don’t know, and I probably never will.

-With extreme gratitude can come extreme outrage. I think that too is part of what it means to be part of God’s family. Miracles show us that we are a people of endless need, and we have no power, control, or independence apart from the provision and grace of the God revealed in Jesus Christ. Miracles reveal that the family of God, the Church, are the people, the community, who learns what it means to be needy while not being in control. That knows the reality of abundance, without the luxury of guarantees. We are the crowds that come to Jesus in the middle of nowhere, parched, lonely, broken, grieving, starving, beggars one and all. Who say, “we have nothing to give you but our need for you. We do not always like our neediness. We do not always like your way of doing things. But we are hungry, and you are the Bread of Life” This is what it means to be the Church. We praise God together, we pray for one another, and we also ask these hard questions and lament. We are unafraid to be needy, and to need one another. Always together.

-I’d like to tell you one more story from my own crappy week. Like Jesus, I came to the end, weary and tired. My plane pulled into town, and I was ready to crash. Then a friend left me a message on my answering machine and said, “I know you are tired, but we’d really love you to be at the show tonight.” I ended up at the Stuart’s here – aka Shirley Delta Blow’s – variety drag show. During the course of the evening, Shirley herself told the delighted crowds about Rainbow Alley, a non-profit in Denver that provides shelter and guidance to LGBTQ youth. At one point, Shirley invited us to make an “It Gets Better” video to encourage queer youth to persevere in the face of persecution and pain. Breaking character and tearing up, she told the camera, “I don’t know who you are, but if you have not found a place that accepts and loves you, then come to Denver. We love you, and we will welcome you, and we will walk with you and give you a home.” While I am not gay, in my need, I heard myself being addressed by this message of invitation and hope. I needed to be with my family that night.

-The Kingdom of God is like a Drag Queen telling the broken that “it gets better.” That there is a family of God waiting for you.

-As the family of God, as the Church that is God’s witness to the Kingdom, it is we ourselves who are the miracle. I will never forget, nor cease to praise God, for the miracle of Monday night. But when I do, I will not be able to do so without also remembering the one hundred emails in my inbox. I will remember that, just as Jesus took the meager offerings of his disciples – five loaves and two fish – and blessed them, and broke them, and gave them to his disciples to feed the people who first fed him, so too, Christ took you, blessed you, broke you, and gave you to us, us to you, and all of us together, to be bread for the hungry world. That out of nothing but need, God has created a community of abundance, has filled this community with His Holy Spirit, and has deigned to call this community the Body of His Son Jesus Christ. This family, this church, this Eucharist, is God’s answer to the cries of protest, and the deepest longings, of a needy, broken humanity

-The Kingdom of God is not like this. This is the Kingdom – the family - of God. When you share the peace – when you share in the feast – give thanks for the miracle you are. Amen.