This Great Experiment We Call Faith

Originally preached on April 16, 2023 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Reading, PA.

Gospel text: John 20:19-31; The story of Thomas experiencing Jesus post-resurrection.

Today’s gospel lesson has a lot to do with belief, and seeing and what ultimately sounds like needing proof that Jesus showed up to the disciples in the locked room. It is not always easy to take a story at face value. We, as humans, have skeptical brains and want some back up proof to understand and accept what others have told us. I’m sure each of us have had those doubts – maybe not about faith but about something – and we certainly have people in our lives who do have questions. Every time I read this passage, Every time I approach my faith, I try to make understand without seeing and feeling Christ’s wounds what being a Jesus follower is all about. My science brain starts trying to make sense of this story, and I might be with Thomas on this. 

Before shifting into a career in ministry, I worked on research biology within the environment. I loved it. I studied the health of streams in agricultural lands that primarily had cattle farms by checking out the bugs that lived in the water. It was a year’s long survey that helped analyze the effectiveness of efforts to repair the vegetation around the streams to see if the water quality got better for the insects and fish who lived there. I loved following the scientific method from a question, to hypothesis, setting up an experiment or figuring out how to best collect data and then analyze for the universal truth I was trying to prove. That’s just how my brain works, and I think that’s how Thomas’ brain works.

So beginning with the question: What is Jesus up to with his post resurrection appearances?

Now a hypothesis: Jesus is leaving us with two major takeaways: he commands us to forgive, and as a result Thomas is the first to proclaim Jesus as God.

Lets set up our survey in the Bible and locate when Jesus is appearing to the disciples. If this was a scientific paper, a lot of this information would end up in the introduction. We’re only days after his resurrection, the Passover celebrations are winding down and people are leaving Jerusalem. The disciples are hiding out of fear of the Jews – which is really the Jewish leaders at the time, likely referring to the leaders who were collaborating with the Roman Empire posed a threat to first Jesus followers. 

We have to be careful about our language here because so often we conflate this small group of people being referenced here with all Jewish people. We allow this small group to represent all of the Jewish community, even today, and down that road leads to antisemitism and hatred for our Jewish community members. That’s not okay. We can be smart in our reading and understanding of context and translation here in the Gospel to know who exactly the disciples are afraid of. And that is not our current Jewish neighbors who. The anti-defamation league put out a report  in late March that antisemitism is on the rise in the US, and we need to remember that Jesus was also Jewish and have compassion for our neighbors.

Back into the story and our scientific inquiry into scripture, we find out later that Thomas was not among the disciples who were in a locked room when Jesus appeared to them after the resurrection. Well, any good method for testing a hypothesis has a control group, a neutral who didn’t experience Jesus firsthand, and a group who does. 

We don’t know where Thomas was. He could have been in deeper hiding somewhere, out on a grocery run, or checking in on the state of the city after the events of the week for the rest.

Here’s the crux of this experiment: Jesus breaths the Holy Spirit on the disciples. We are looking to see how the disciples respond vs Thomas. This breathing the Holy Spirit on the disciples is the same word in Greek, the Hagia Pneuma, when God breathed life into humanity in Genesis 2:7. This is Jesus breathing eternal life into his disciples. Into us. Into this community, laying the foundation that forgiveness is central to this community. I like the way this is translated in the Message Bible: “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?”

Now Thomas shows up and I can’t help but wonder what the mood in the room was when Thomas, our control group, walked in? Were the rest of the disciples excited that they got to see Jesus, or spooked that he came through a locked door? Were they confused? I can imagine what the emotional whiplash might be: in the fresh grief of losing a beloved teacher, he appears before them. I am not sure if I would be comforted or challenged by his appearance.

Thomas’ reaction to their news is understandable. There are several moments of unbelief throughout the Gospels, including earlier in this chapter when Peter had to go check the tomb because he did not believe Mary’s proclamation that Jesus had risen indeed. So Thomas has his questions and wants to see himself. He yearns for a living encounter with Jesus just as his sibling disciples had. I can relate, and maybe you can too, to Thomas who can’t settle for someone else’s experience of resurrection, but sticks around in the hope of having his own. We can relate to someone who dares to confess uncertainty in the midst of those who are certain. To someone who recognizes his God in woundedness, not glory. When we look at Thomas, we see a man who yearns for a living encounter with God. Aren’t we all looking to experience Jesus’ resurrection too?

Jesus has charged the disciples to forgive, to go out and share that good news? Jesus first forgives them - for their abandonment, for their fear, for their paralysis. Then he charges them to go and do likewise. This is the point on which this whole great experiment of faith is hinged upon: Jesus has, died and rose again, and does that matter? How do the disciples respond? Once Jesus’ Holy Spirit breath is in each of us, how do we respond? 

Early in the Gospel of John people are invited to “look” and to “come and see” (see John 1). We are invited to learn about this ongoing experiment of faith, and like gravity, prove the hypothesis over and over again that Jesus is present in our lives. In John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene proclaimed good news to disbelieving disciples, and they’ve witnessed to Thomas, who was absent from the first resurrection appearance in the locked room. It is Christ centered community that helps to make the resurrection real to each of us – we see the evidence of Jesus’ presence —Today that might look like rejoicing together over a new job, surviving an illness, living in recovery, accomplishing a goal, ability to pay off debt, and so on. We point to the goodness of God with our lives, wounded and transformed. 

Like any classic experiment, our results are not quite what we expected. The result to experience faith isn’t that we stick our finger in Jesus’ wounds, but we understand that Jesus experienced this wounded world, and whenever we experience it, it brings us closer to Jesus.

But sometimes this is hard to see. Thomas is known in John’s gospel as the one “called the Twin” (11:16; 20:24; 21:2). Professor Johanna Haberer brilliantly describes Thomas as our “twin” in doubt and faith.* She points out that he is the patron saint of precise things: building, construction, architecture. All very STEM fields. Thomas wants to understand what he’s getting into and asks probing, analytical questions. He’s the same disciple who asked Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (14:5), to which Jesus responded, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (14:6). Seeing/not seeing, asking questions, and believing/disbelieving are a part of Thomas’s personality; Jesus never reprimands him for this.

So here’s our conclusion this morning: and Thank you for coming on this journey into scripture with me. Jesus is big enough to handle our questions, our doubts, our unbelief. What we are left to figure out is how we respond to the proclamation of Jesus present, alive, resurrected among us? We are forgiven, which means we can share the good news that we are so incredibly loved by God that God sent Jesus to live with us, and the Spirit to inspire us. May the way we live our lives be evidence in this great experiment of faith.

Amen.

Scandal at the Well!

Originally preached on March 12, 2023 at St Luke’s Lutheran Church, Devon, PA

Texts: Exodus 17:1-7; John 4:5-42

Gospel Reading and Sermon begin at minute marker 30:00.

Grace and Peace be with you all from our God who lives among us. Amen.

Good morning. I am so grateful to be among you, proclaim the gospel at Pastor Matt’s invitation. As you heard earlier, my name is Mycah and I am currently on a final year pastoral internship in Reading, PA at a mission developed site called Common Ground Recovery Community. We work with folks in addiction recovery, and people who live with food and housing insecurity, and mental health struggles. Our ministry is focused on the intersection of twelve step spirituality and inclusive Christian faith, recognizing the brokenness of all people and sharing God’s loving Grace. My wife and I move to Downingtown, PA when I started seminary at United Lutheran in Philadelphia and have enjoyed living here for nearly four years now. 

Before I came to seminary, I worked in a church in Virginia as a Communication and Ministry Specialist. I had a lot of varied responsibilities during my time there, but part of my role was to support our new member class. 

Every new member class included a short Bible study on the story of the Woman by the Well from the Gospel of John (4:7-26). One of our longtime members was a woman a Biblical Storyteller, and she would preform this passage for us before we broke out into small groups to talk about what the passage might mean. The first time I went through this process as a new member myself, I was bracing myself for some tiresome anti-woman rhetoric. I’d heard it before, and maybe so have you.

I have heard this woman preached on time and again, and those interpretations had left me feeling a little jaded toward studying this passage with church folk. The woman at the well was immoral because her ethnicity made her less than Jesus and the disciples (implied racism), her marital status was in question (sexism), and not to mention the scandal of a woman being alone and approached by a single man (patriarchal scandal). I was in for a surprise when the pastor leading our class introduced new perspective and context to this scripture passage. We talked about the meaning of hospitality, and the importance of Jesus’ ministry to the Samaritan woman. The history of text reception of the woman at the well is steeped in unforgiving assumption, but by divesting Jesus and the woman’s interactions at the well of those assumptions, we can pull out important message: Jesus’ call to go out of his way to show care for all.

This is a long gospel reading, right? And at first glance, Jesus leaves us with a few more questions than he does leave us with answers. We open with this conversation with a Samaritan woman, alone, at a well. This is the making of an old testament meet cute – just like Moses and his wife Zipporah, or Jacob and Rachel. What could it mean that Jesus pauses to speak to this woman, alone, in the middle of the day, who happens to be a Samaritan?

This is a pretty scandalous scene, but not for the reasons that I grew up hearing, and maybe you did too. We might have questions about what it means that this woman was at the well in the middle of the day – could it mean that she was an outsider in her own community, not drawing water early in the day with the rest of the women, or that she was in great need of more water for some reason that day? We really don’t know. What we also don’t quite know is the significance of her five husbands – it’s not that she is promiscuous or immoral, but maybe that she is in a dire situation.

But this is not what made this interaction stick out to early Jesus followers.

She was Samaritan! Jesus is in Samaria! From the perspective of Jew’s at the time, Samaritans had all the history, but told the stories wrong. They worship the wrong mountain, one near them called Gerizim instead of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and the temple there instead of in the Holy City. The book of Ezra details their ethnic background, being brought into this land during the Assyrian occupation while Israel was in exile. And somewhere along the way one of the Scribes changed the wording of the Samaritans from “we do sacrifice to God” to “we do not sacrifice to God.” The Jews’ refusal of the Samaritan’s help became the basis for excluding others from temple worship for centuries to follow. 

There’s a lot of ethnic and cultural drama between the Samaritan woman, and Jesus who is a Jew.

In fact, this is likely the most scandalous part of this interaction. It is not that she is a woman, but that she is a Samaritan, and Jesus asks for her help drawing water. He is inviting her to play host, inviting himself into a hospitality relationship that is still so sacred to this day. A Samaritan, hosting a Jew and drawing him water. Even with all the animosity, hatred, distrust, scandal between them, Jesus puts his trust in her.

But, in a very classic move by Jesus, just after asking her to give him water, he takes the role as host to offer her living water. Her confusion here is genuine because the Greek word for Living could also be translated as spring water, but how would Jesus know about a nearby spring that her people who have lived here for generations did not know about? We know the water Jesus is offering her is more than something that will quench her physical thirst, but nourish her spirit as well.

And as we get to know this woman, Jesus is not condemning her for any perceived promiscuity or forgiving her of her sin – that is something that we read into the text ages later – it is that Jesus is turning to her with compassion and inclusion. Despite her painful personal history, Our painful personal histories, despite their people’s history of hating one another, and the conflicts that stretch into the 21st century now, Jesus shares the Good News about God with us.

The woman even asks – Where should I worship God? On this mountain near here, or the one in the Holy City? She wants to settle this old debate, as if revisiting this specific history will settle generations of hurt. Jesus responds with inclusion. We will not need a holy mountain to praise God on, because the Spirit will be with us always. 

The geography matters here, right? And we still have conflicts over access to clean, drinkable water and other resources. 2000 years later and we are still asking Jesus the same question about where we should worship God. Where can we get a draw on that living water?

But how does Jesus respond? 

Scholar Karoline Lewis wrote, Jesus has to go to Samaria, not geographically, but theologically, because God so loved the world (John 3:16) and Samaritans are a part of that world that God loves. Jesus had to make that clear. The Spirit of God will be with them. The last place that the disciples and early Jesus followers would expect Jesus to go, there he went.

You see, Samaria was out of his way, and his disciples questioned why they would pass through this region when a safer, more direct, more welcoming route was available. 

But Jesus has to go to Samaria. Jesus has a message to share and that is that God so loves this world, that God shows up even in Samaria. Even in Devon, even in Reading, even in Kensington. Sharing the good news that God has come to be with the people.

Jesus has to go out of his way to make it clear that the last people we might expect to be objects of God’s love are right at the top of the list for Jesus to go see. To minister amongst. To raise up new disciples like the Woman at the Well and encourage her to share with her neighbors. 

That is who we are called to be. Jesus invites us, in this story, into the scandal of his inclusion. We are called to go out of our way to welcome people on the margins, who are at the well in the middle of the day for whatever reason, and also be the one to share out of our neediness. 

It is something we do at Common Ground, and something y’all have done with the Welcome Church in Philadelphia or participating in an upcoming blood drive. It’s something we can do every day. We, like the Samaritan woman have the opportunity to share the living water that is Jesus going out of his way to be with us. Something that satisfies our bodies and also our Spirit. That shows us a new way into the future where old historic divisions can be set aside to honor God amongst us by caring for each other.

So may we be an extension of Christ’s welcoming and loving inclusion for all. Amen.

Imagine the Beloved Community Jesus Imagined for Us.

Gospel for the day: Matthew 5:21-37

Recorded at Atonement Lutheran Church in Wyomissing, PA on February 12, 2023. The Gospel reading and sermon begins at the 20:00 minute mark.

Here is the sermon manuscript I had in front of me but it is not the exact words I preached:

Good morning, grace and peace to you from God our creator and Jesus our Christ.

This season of Gospel readings is from the sermon on the mount – one of the best stretches of moral teachings we get from Jesus in the gospels. This section might sound familiar to us, not just because it’s so quotable but because Jesus is doing some explaining about the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people living in Galilee under Roman Rule.

It is important to remember that Jesus came to the Roman-occupied Jewish people as the Messiah – But we’re going to put a pin in that for later.

Right now, we have some pronouns to unpack. The very first word spoken aloud by Jesus in this passage as we translate it is, “You.” So often when we read scripture, the translations we have of the Bible don’t quite capture the difference from Greek or Hebrew between a singular you, and a plural you. Sometimes I want to go through a reading for a Sunday and change all the plural you’s that I know are there to y’alls or yinz or yous people just to make it very clear in scripture who is being spoken to as a whole body or a whole church, not just as individuals. While the practice of our faith is yes, an individual pursuit at times, it is importantly also a community endeavor. Jesus is not just preaching on individual acts of faithful living, but a way of faithful Community living that is more important than a singular pursuit.

Now lets step into the deep end of this passage. The four major moral teachings Jesus is touching on here are anger, adultery, divorce, and oaths that on first glance might remind us of a transactional type of law & reward message. If I do good, say the right things, come to church every Sunday, pray just right, God will love me and I’ll be hashtag Blessed, as the social media trend goes.

Or “If you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment.”  “If your right eye causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Yikes.  What are we supposed to do with such dire warnings?

Again, when we read the ‘you’s’ here, remember that Jesus is speaking to the crowd. It is so easy in our 21st century thinking to think of Jesus’ teachings here as something that me, Mycah, needs to heed all by myself.

What if instead, Jesus is helping the multitudes who listened on that mountainside in Galilee and for the multitudes gathered here today imagine a whole new community. What if we are building an active beloved community who doesn’t commit murder because we learned that murder comes from anger, and anger’s ability to dehumanize our neighbor and justify violence but instead we go to that person and reconcile immediately. 

What if we are imagining a world where adultery, which was so often exploitation of vulnerable people and their bodies, was protected against? Jesus warned against divorce because it would bring so much shame to the woman and oftentimes leave her destitute on the street. She could not go home, and her husband would have removed her from his home, leaving her without resources or connection – thankfully that is not as often the case today, and we have community connections that support people in that situation. 

But there’s a lot of injustice in the world that strips away our humanity. Jesus had picked these examples to help us imagine what would the world be like if instead of abiding by unjust understanding of how we have understood our community, we began imagining something new. Something that doesn’t demand a transaction to earn love or faith or salvation. What happens if we read this as Jesus imagining a new way for us to live?

What Jesus was saying was radical to the Jewish people back in occupied Galilee. Here’s that pin about the Roman Empire: There was so much injustice under the empire. When Jesus was born, there were often revolts against the Roman governors in the province of Asia Minor where they were located. The people were hungry for a Messiah, The Messiah, to deliver them from under the Romans. Y’all see, the Jewish people knew what it meant to live unjustly under someone else’s rule. They had done so for many generations under the Egyptian pharaohs – and then Moses shows up and delivers the people into the wilderness on their way to promised land! Great!

But what does Jesus do when he shows up? He came to preach and teach. To heal and challenge social norms, but not smite the Roman Empire. Jesus imagined a new way of living in community. A new way of living that doesn’t demand transactions to be reconciled, or a community that needs us to earn our right to humanity. A new way of looking at the laws that were leading to injustices that stripped away people’s humanity, left people feeling less than whole, living partial lives, and imagined a way to live together where we make each other whole, reconcile with one another, as a community. To be the imagined beloved community that centers the love that Jesus had for each of us on the cross and in the resurrection. God created us with that inherit humanity. This new way of living is about loving God, and our neighbor as ourselves. All the laws and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

A modern way of thinking of how Jesus imagines a beloved community might be a twist on our focus on how Jesus says y’all instead of just you. Lets imagine what we would be like if we focused less on self-care and more on community care.

I was remembering my first week on internship recently, getting used to the commute from my home in Downingtown to here. I tend to take back roads by Honeybrook and Morgantown because it’s a bit faster and usually the only traffic I hit is Amish traffic maybe once a week. But my first week felt like a trial by fire commute. On my second day coming home, there was a literal car on fire on the highway, and then later in the week, I got rerouted through farmland around Honeybrook because of a silo catching fire. It was a devastating pilar of smoke to see as I watched my GPS continuously reroute me toward Reading. 

At one point, I could tell I was probably going the right way because I watched over a dozen men and boys on horses or push bikes fly past me toward the flames. Later, as I drove home and again the next morning when I was on my commute, I drove by the farm and saw the buggies lined up alongside several extra parked trucks and watched the silo get rebuilt swiftly day by day.

That was community care in action. 

I know I’ve experienced community care whenever I have needed to move or been able to help my friends move. I’ve been part of the community care team for friends with chronic illnesses or cancer diagnosis, driving folks to appointments or being there for care after procedures or on hard days. Community care is the work we do as a church, or through ministries like Lutheran Disaster Response who are currently on the ground helping relief efforts in Turkey and Syria after the earthquake or ministries more locally focused like Common Ground Recovery Community. It’s the work of the pastoral care team here at church checking in on folks.

Sometimes community care is scaled down. Sometimes it’s a shared meal or a thoughtful call or text. It’s connecting with one another to recognize the inherit beloved-ness that God created each of us with. 

Our actions as a community extend beyond the walls of this church, though they begin here. They begin when we hear the Word of God and the message of Love, Reconciliation, Grace, and Hope that Jesus brought into the world to all y’all. What we remember each time we partake in the feast at the communion table. 

How does the church become a place of divinely inspired community care? How do we change from a ‘you’ mindset to a ‘y’all’ mindset? It starts by remembering God’s love for us. For God’s saving Grace that he made a free gift of when God sent Jesus to live, teach, preach, heal, die, and be resurrected amongst us. Realizing there was nothing we could have done to deserve that but be made in God’s beloved image.

So we remember at the Communion table that this is a place to be fed and sent out into the world to be God’s hands and feet. Grace Pak once preached “Worship includes all aspects of our lives outside of the sanctuary. The relationships we have, how we treat each other, and what we say and do express our faith in God. Thus being worshipful “out there” inspires true worship ‘in here.’” (Grace Pak, The Abingdon Preaching Annual 2020, p. 16).

So imagine along with me the community Jesus might imagine for us today. Now, go and be part of that ministry in the world. Amen.

Waiting in Advent, you brood of vipers!

Advent – Waiting 

Matthew 3:1-12

Preached at Atonement Lutheran Church in Wyomissing, PA, and live-streamed. The Gospel and Sermon start around 16:30 minutes.

This is the sermon manuscript that I preached from.

        Advent is one of my favorite seasons of the year. I like to lean into the blues and light of the season. The twinkle lights everyone is putting up and added candlelight for the long nights. Here in church we see that too – reflected in the paraments and the trees. Advent is a period of waiting for Emmanuel, God with us – we do this at Lent as well. We use this time to contemplate that very idea of waiting – How do we wait for things? It’s not always easy. That pause between taking an important test and getting a diagnosis. The waiting between job interviews and the offer call. The exciting things we count down to as well – families who are expecting to expand via marriages, births, and adoptions. A trip we have been counting down the days to or seeing a loved one again after a long break. 

        One of my other favorite parts of Advent is John the Baptist. We don’t see him depicted in a lot of Christmas cards or on Advent calendars, but his presence is a vital part of this season.

Not every Gospel has Jesus’ birth story – but each one has John the Baptist. He is an important part of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He is who his mom, Elizabeth, is pregnant with when Mary sings her song rejoicing in her own pregnancy with Jesus. He is the voice crying out in the wilderness about Rome’s rule over Israel, and the one who baptizes people in the Jordan River, including Jesus.

John is a rough and tumble kind of guy. He lives an aesthetic lifestyle out in the wilderness. He wear rough clothing and eats locusts and wild honey. He doesn’t wear fine robes or live in privilege in the city like he could, being the son of a priest and a holy man himself. Instead, he moves into the wilderness, proclaiming some pretty unpopular opinions against Rome and Rome’s governors. Opinions that will anger Harrod enough to call for John’s head eventually.

But there is something special about his relationship with Jesus. There is always a John the Baptizer calling us to be prepared before there is a Jesus of Nazareth. So what can we learn about and from this important figure who sets the prologue to our Holy Advent story?

Wilderness

Location is the first thing to notice. We meet John in the wilderness. What does the wilderness represent here? This landscape is a barren dessert. Why the lonely desert for our Advent reflections? First of all, the wilderness represents a lack of a safety net. Far away from a wealth of food or water, the wilderness is a place where we must rely on God. Our vulnerabilities, shortcomings, and insecurities have nowhere to hide out in the wilderness. Any idea of being able to solve every problem on our own is quickly shattered, and at the forefront is needing to rely on our community and God when we need help.

And it is here in the wilderness that John calls for people to repent of their sins. To leave the lives they once knew, repent because the reign of God in heaven has come near, and prepare for the Reign to come. There is something about the wilderness that brings us to our knees in repentance as part of our preparing for Jesus to be with us.

The word repentance has a lot of heavy meaning for us today. It reminds me of fire and brimstone preaching that doesn’t always include a lot of Grace which we really like as Lutherans. When we hear repentance used, there is usually a lot of shame, guilt, and condemnation wrapped up in the use of it. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I hear messages from some siblings of faith to repent because of my sexuality, calling me sinful despite being made in God’s wonderful image. Repentance has been weaponized as a moral tool to control people’s behavior and make us feel unable to have a relationship with God. 

        John is all about repentance however, and there is no getting through Advent to Jesus without John. So is there something about this repentance that might lead to relief, then?

  

The Greek word used for repent in this passage is metanoia, meaning “Change your whole self.” We can think of repenting, then, as understanding what went wrong and knowingly making a change in our lives. Understanding how sin operates in our lives, the choices we make or do not make, the things we say or do not say when we should. Sometimes we think of sin as these great big immoral actions we take that we totally separate us from God. Or breaking God’s law like the 10 commandments, or falling short. These are some ways to think about sin but don’t quite capture a Lutheran understanding. Another way is what Augustine describes: sin as curving in on ourselves and away from God; sin is not just some great big thing that destroys our relationship with God, but an understanding of those things that come between us and God. Not a relationship destroyed, but something that needs to be worked on. Mended.

So as we understand those things that cause us to curve in on ourselves, create barriers between us and God, we can then make a conscious decision to repent. To then be open to receivign God’s saving Grace through Christ on the cross which is there for us whether we repent or not. Overall, this is a practice – a spiritual practice – of noticing, reflecting, responding, and then reflecting again on our actions and our relationship with God. Easier said than done, right? But what helps is having an open curiosity when reflecting rather than a strict judgement which can lead toward shame and resentment; we are here to openly choose to listen for God’s will in our lives rather than choosing our own. That is what John is calling us to do. To reflect and be open to our relationship with God because Emmanuel, God with us, is on his way. 

Brood of Vipers

Now - John gets a bit heated in the gospels about this. He’s a bit of a hothead, a strong, prophetic voice that gets him into trouble later. He talks about being baptized in fire to the Pharisees and Sadducees, which were the religio-politico figures during Jesus’ time. He calls this group a Brood of Vipers and they are showing up in the wilderness to what? Act as they always have? Rely on their positions and ancestry to insist that they do not have to repent but want to be part of this community all the same? John knows who these people are, his father can be numbered among them, and he is not letting them get by on their connections, history, and nostalgia. John is holding their feet to the flame and reminding them that we all need to do this Advent work. John is leveling all of us, not raising one above another, but reminding us that when the one who is coming after him finally arrives, we will all be equal in his sight and all equally welcome in Christ. We are preparing for the way of the Lord in our own hearts, making the pathways easy to travel.

We are preparing our hearts, our lives, and this world for God to be here with us, what fruits will we bear? We are receiving this awesome free gift of Grace from God through Jesus’ coming to live among us; how will we respond? A quick answer to John the Baptist is to think of the Fruits of the Spirit from Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 

Repentance is an invitation to a new way of life which is demonstrated by its fruits. Being a son of Abraham or being born again through moral standards isn’t enough - our lives must change and our actions must bear out that reorientation in response to God’s grace. Are we, like John, willing to prepare the way of the Lord this Advent?

 Amen.

Zacchaeus, Jesus, and the 12-steps.

October 30, 2022

Reformation Sermon at Lutheran Chruch of the Good Shepherd in Coatesville, PA

Luke 19:1-10: Zacchaeus & Jesus

Livestream: Gospel reading and sermon start at 25:00 minutes.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be pleasing to you, O LORD, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

It is so good to be back here at Good Shepherd. I cannot believe how nearly five months has flown by for us all since started my pastoral internship and since Alyssa and I adopted Minnie and Clio officially. For a while this summer I was telling time by cat milestones. By how willing Minnie and Clio were to explore the house. Then by how well or not they interacted with our other cat, Clem. I can safely say that after a few months and a lot of different tactics, we have reached a peace agreement of cat territories separated by a strategic tall baby gate in the house. All the cats are loved very deeply and doing well. 

My internship, as some of y’all might remember, is working alongside people in 12-step recovery programs and people affected by addiction in Reading, PA. The basis for our worshipping community is an understanding that the practice of the 12-steps as spirituality usually in an Anonymous program could bring a unique connection to God through a deep understanding of honest Hope and overwhelming Grace. 

Part of our weekly worship is a time of sharing. Whenever someone gets the microphone, we introduce ourselves by saying, Hello, my name is Mycah, and everyone greets the person back “Hi Mycah”. It is humbling to sit in a room where we are intentionally learning each others names, hearing one another’s stories, celebrate gratitude’s together, provide support when asked, and creating these sacred relationships in the presence of God by recognizing the way God is working in our lives.

The more I get familiar with the 12-steps, the more I have begun to understand how transformational these steps can be for people in Recovery and their loved ones, and the wisdom those of us not impacted by addiction and recovery can learn from our siblings in Christ who are.

As I read this week’s Gospel story about Zacchaeus and Jesus, I heard some of those themes I hear at my internship echoed here. Seeking a higher power, God. Making a fearless and moral inventory. Admitting wrongs and making amends.

We enter this Gospel lesson on the road. Jesus has set his path toward Jerusalem and toward the events right before his crucifixion. Jesus has spent time with some questionable company like a roman soldier, a ‘good’ Samaritan, tax collectors, and people with difficult questions.

Now along this journey is Zacchaeus – who happens to be a tax collector and rich. These tell us a few things about him. One, a tax collector is someone who was of the community, a neighbor, but working with the Roman Empire who was oppressing the Jewish folks. And because he was rich, we know he was good at his job. Perhaps similar to the unjust judge, Zacchaeus could be viewed as someone who was financially rich but spiritually and morally poor. Zacchaeus recognized his need for a higher power and was seeking Jesus out. Steps 1 through 3 are about recognizing our need for God and being willing to hand ourselves over to God.

Now, Zacchaeus’ neighbors might see him as a traitor to for the job he had. Zacchaeus could have had a huge desire to be in the crowd and learn from Jesus while Jesus was in Jericho, but feared being in the crowd because he was working with the empire. Very reasonably, Zacchaeus wanted to stick to the outside of the crowd – what would happen to him if the people he had collected taxes from who are undoubtedly mad at him, turned against him in the crowd? He is trying his best to be safe but still seeking his higher power, faith and understanding through Jesus.

Here is this huge crowd, and Jesus is undoubtedly somewhere in the center of the crowd, and Zacchaeus is somewhere on the margin of the crowd, of course he can’t see over everyone’s heads to see Jesus. While the text says ‘he was short’ – it is not quite clear in the Greek who was the short man in this situation. Here’s the thing – that’s a fun detail included by the gospel writer but there’s probably not a direct correlation to someone being short and having bad moral character. If Zacchaeus is the short one which historically he was assumed to be, it his height is not an inverse relationship to needing Jesus, and a tall man would need Jesus less.

But because the crowd was so large and no one is tall enough to see over all of it, Zacchaeus does what any normal middle aged chief tax collector would do and climbs a tree to get a good vantage of this famous teacher. 

Jesus spots the man in the tree and calls him by name to come down and Jesus invites himself to Zacchaeus’ home. A bit of a reversal of how hospitality works here. Usually it’s offered by the host, but here Jesus as the guest is reversing the role and inviting Zacchaeus into the role as host in his own home. At this point it is an honor to host Jesus, and the crowd grumbles. This guy gets to host our teacher? The one we believe is the Messiah? But he’s a rich tax collector. He is the least of all of us. In fact, we no longer consider him one of our own. Why would Jesus spend time with him? 

In response, Zacchaeus begins a fearless and searching moral inventory of himself to Jesus, steps 4 through 7, offering the ways he makes amends, Steps eight and nine. This is a very abbreviated version of those steps that take months, if not years to work through for folks. It is part of the tough spiritual work off Recovery. Zachaeus says he “will give back” according to this translation. Other Greek scholars would argue that he said “I give to the poor now, I give back fourfold whenever someone is defrauded”. It’s not a promise that Zacchaeus is making to Jesus upon meeting him, something he is promising to do in the future in response to Jesus’ sudden physical presence in his life.

While meeting Jesus and learning from him can be a conversion story like we get with the woman at the Well in the gospel of John, what we have here is Jesus’ presence revealing the amends Zacchaeus was already trying to make. This person who everyone thought was doing wrong all the time. Who people had prejudged because of his occupation, social and economic statuses, had been cast out of his own community, has actually been making amends to his community from the resources he had as a tax collector. Helping the poor and returning more when Zacchaeus has defrauded someone. Turns out Zacchaeus is a real Robin Hood figure disguised as an antagonist. He has been living out step 10 to continue to take moral inventory and when he messed up, promptly admitted it.

Jesus came to seek out the lost and save them – who is the lost in this story? Who needed saving? Was it Zacchaeus who had been seeking out Jesus in the first place? Or is it the crowd who needed to hear Jesus’ message? 

So often I think we hear about a person’s job, social status, money or life situation and pass judgement. Oh that person? They sure do need a little Jesus in their lives, while missing our own need for Jesus’ saving grace for ourselves. Zacchaeus knew he needed Jesus in his life. Zacchaeus had no illusions about who he was. Sure, he was rich and he had financial power as a chief tax collector but when it came to spiritual matters, he was seeking Jesus as a teacher and redeemer like the rest of us. Continuing to build a relationship with God is part of step 11. 

What is shocking is the crowd – the very crowd who is trying to walk with Jesus and learn from him, demonizing with false assumptions the very person Jesus is dining with. We are tricked into agreeing with the crowd, and sometimes applauding the very sin this story is condemning. Who are we to pass judgement when Jesus is revealing the good in people we least expect? Not just this tax collector, but also a Samaritan who acts out of kindness, the roman soldier seeking mercy, and the humble questions of faith from the people most lost.

How often have we met someone who is in recovery from addiction and passed judgement? Have we seen the judgement from friends and family when someone is bravely taking the steps toward recovery, trying to cast shame on the situation. There’s an awkwardness in not knowing how to act. How to support one another. Sometimes we turn into the judgmental crowd rather than meeting that person on the road to Jericho, offering a chance to be seen and connected like Jesus did for Zacchaeus who was making amends. 

Finally, perhaps Zacchaeus was ready for step twelve: having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, he will try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all his affairs. 

I read in a book recently that over 23 million Americans are in Recovery from addictions. Can you imagine a world where we all continue to reach out to one another with compassion? Were we have a fearless and honest, and prompt response to making amends when we mess up? A community where we listen to one another’s stories and connect our stories to the stories of faith in the Bible? Jesus came to seek us out and save each of us in our own lostness. May we be willing to climb down the tree of our own faults and host our savior for dinner. 

Amen.

Persistence!

Luke 18:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable to you Lord God, our rock and redeemer, amen.

Good morning. I am so happy to with all the good folk of Atonement and excited to be preaching a Word with you all today. A little about me is that I am the Common Ground pastoral intern this year, and I live in Downingtown with my spouse and our three cats. We moved up here from Virginia when I started attending United Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia.

My wife and I are cat people. We recently adopted two of the cats after a friend died this past spring and have had a pretty steep learning curve of what it’s like going from one cat household to three. If you caught me in conversation since June and asked me how I am doing, I inevitably have equated how I’m doing to how the cats are doing. We have had to divide the house into territories for everyone to get along, split our time between the cats, and get used to new feeding schedules. If there is a lesson I have learned in the past four months, it is the persistence of cats. 

Clio, an absolute pain, digging into an empty cat food bag (this is not a paid advertisement!).

Particularly when they’ve decided they are ready for food. If we are anywhere close to their feeding time – like within four hours of dinner time - and get up from our desk or happen to walk into the kitchen, there is no end to the meowing from the two new cats. They will constantly rub against our legs and meow and follow us around the house starting around 3:30 in the afternoon some days despite not getting fed until sometime after six and I promise they have never missed a meal. It’s a real treat. And every time I look into their sweet little faces and just know they think we are being unjust. Why wouldn’t we just feed them? All of this could be over if we just put a little kibble in their bowls and let them snack. Don’t we know that they are just wasting away while we stretch out the time until it’s time for food? Sometimes I do not think I have known persistence as well illustrated in my daily life as I do the hope that lives in our cats’ little faces every time I stand up.

Minnie and Clio, pacing at my feet waiting for me to set their food bowls down.

Persistence is a key theme in our gospel this week; Jesus is telling his disciples a story to illustrate how we should be persistent in prayer. And then he goes on to talk about a widow who will not leave a certain judge alone. This judge doesn’t fear God or respect the people around him. But this widow will not leave him alone and finally the judge relents in her case. 

On our first read through, this could be read as a celebration of Women’s persistence over time. Like Elizabeth Cady Staunton or Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Malala Yousafzai or Angela Davis, Marsha P Johnson or bell hooks. When we pray – like the widow, perhaps we too shall move mountains. 

Another way to read this parable is as a re-definition of prayer. Greek Scholar Mark Davies: Prayer is not simply us talking to God, but it is any expression of a demand for justice. (for instance In The Hobbit, one is reminded that the word “pray” is not simply a religious term. When Bilbo continually asks forgiveness for offending Thorin upon their first encounter, Thorin finally answers wearily, “Pray, don’t mention it.” The word “pray” – in its widest definition – is simply a plea from one to another.) 

The plea for justice is often wearying and seems futile, because the powers that be often act with immunity – as if there is no moral order to the universe and as if there is no respect that one ought to have for humanity. if we pray without working for justice – then it’s just empty words. If we do justice without prayer & faith, we center ourselves in the imperative work of justice rather than centering Christ. Then when justice isn’t done, it leads to despair and lack of hope. However, persistence can be effective even in advocating for justice. In this sense, “prayer” would indicate not just our cries to God but also our ministry in this community here matters. There will be vindication of the true and just and there will be a slow, persistent journey of raising one’s voice over and over again. 

Now, I think we can all hope that our prayers are not being lifted to a God who we view as the unjust judge. Jesus say that God will not delay in granting the widows request for justice. If we did view God as the judge in this parable, I think there would be some trouble then in how we viewed prayer to God as some sort of transactional exchange. If we are the widow and persistent enough to have our prayers answered, what happens when they are not answered? Are our prayers not meaningful enough for God? Are we not persistent enough to have God’s with us? That’s not true. Each of us is beloved by God through Jesus. The truth is, when God is the judge, God does not delay long in helping. So what does that look like?

So what does that leave us with? Why would Jesus be telling the disciples this parable and why was it important enough for the Gospel writer to write down?

Our parable pivots at the end – and Jesus makes this curious statement about faith. He says “I tell you, God will quickly grant justice to them (those who cry to God day and night). And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

While we are on earth, when we look to earthly justice – sometimes the world is the unjust judge. And perhaps it is the Son of Man, Jesus, who comes and persistently cries for justice to us. But the despair of falling into compassion fatigue, burnout from over work over stress has taken a grip on so many. As author Debie Thomas writes – the truth is, the judge lives in each of us, and if the parable this week has anything to offer, it is that prayer alone will wear down our inner judge.

The inner judge that says I have nothing to offer. The inner judge that lifts up our woundedness, fear, shame, inattentiveness, rather than our faith and hope in God finds us falling short. The inner judge that separates us from the love of God through Christ – who persists for us. Thank God we have a loving savior who will not quite on us. Who will continue to reach out a hand to us – to listen to prayer and bring us hope, love, compassion and grace rooted in the persistent symbol of a cross in our lives.

So yes, God is the ultimate judge who will not delay on our behalf. God is a just judge who will always listen to our cries. But God is also that persistent widow, coming up beside us in the most unexpected ways to remind us of how very loved we are. Giving us a persistent reminder to pray so we can soften our hearts, not be like the unjust judge that humanity can so easily turn to – and instead open ourselves to the work of the God’s Grace in the world. Through daily reminders. It might be a cat reminding you it’s dinner time. But the reminder to persist in faith and love and grace and hope can be found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Symbolized by the cross and an empty tomb. 

What we are left with at the end of the parable is this question. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?  Faith that persists? This is the question that matters. Will Jesus find such faith in us? May it be so and may we persist in prayer that seeks justice with Christ.

Amen.

A God who Celebrates You.

Luke 15:1-10

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

Today in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is a day of service called God’s Work Our Hands Sunday. Across the ELCA, hundreds of churches participate in a variety of ways like packaging meals, doing park clean-ups, or supporting their ministry partners with a special act of service. Today is a wonderful celebration that we are one church, freed in Christ to serve and love our neighbor.

Service activities offer an opportunity for us to explore one of our most basic convictions as Lutherans: that all of life in Jesus Christ – every act of service, in every daily calling, in every corner of life – flows freely from a living, daring confidence in God’s grace

In my few months of experience at Common Ground so far, I have seen God’s grace at work in so many ways. God is in the stories we share. Both the Gospel and the sharing time that each member does during our worship service. God is in the meal, both the nourishing one we serve on Sunday afternoons and the Eucharist. God’s grace is also heard in the beautiful gift of music. Every service, we sing Amazing Grace, and this week I was really struck by one line: “I once was lost, but now am found.”

The idea of being Lost and Found connects directly to our Gospel reading today in Luke. Jesus is spending time with a wide audience: Pharisees, and scribes who are traditional Jewish authorities, but also sinners and tax collectors who were known to work with the Roman Empire. 

The Authorities of the time, who had invited Jesus to dinner where he was teaching, are now grumbling at him for his inclusive welcome to all. Not those people, they grumble. Not the ones who are sinning and we don’t approve of. Not those tax collectors who work with the Romans and don’t respect our traditions. And how does Jesus respond? By telling them stories about people in authority. 

He begins by telling a story about a shepherd whose job is to keep their sheep. Many people who were listening to Jesus speak would be familiar with this kind of caretaking. When the shepherd notices that one of his sheep is missing, he doesn’t cut his losses and sticks with the 99. It was his responsibility to keep the one hundred together, and by goodness, that Shepherd is going to go find who was lost. It’s his responsibility to find his lost sheep, not leave the sheep in the wilderness. And then the shepherd rejoices once he has brought the 100 sheep into the full community again. It is the Shepherd who does the saving here. 

Likewise, in the story of the woman who lost her coin, she upends her entire house to find it again. She sweeps out the whole space and when she finds it, she does what the Shepherd did and rejoices. 

These are two really beautiful stories of realizing that one was left out. One that belonged, was cherished by the Shepherd and the Woman, was lost. The Sheep and coin were their responsibility and belonged in the community already. They wouldn’t have gotten lost if it wasn’t for the shepherds and the woman’s to lose in the first place. 

These stories are not about outsiders suddenly finding salvation and becoming Christians. Rather, they are stories about us, each of us who come to church faithfully and reads the Bible, who by all accounts should be counted among the 100 sheep and 10 coins, but feel lost and separated from the Love and Grace of God. That is what sin is. Anything that separates us from God. 

It’s not that when we are found we are magically changed once and for all from a sinful lostness to a righteous found-ness.  We get lost over and over again, and God finds us over and over again. As Lutherans, we believe that we are simultaneously Sinner and Saint. We are both being lost all the time and being found by God all the time.

What does it mean to be lost? Is it that sudden diagnosis or illness? Is it turning on the news and seeing all the devastation worldwide? Is it the pandemic that has been ravaging our society for the past two and a half years? Is it stresses from overwork? Family conflict? Our own struggles with addiction, identity, mental health, heartbreak, unforgiveness, or hatred or bitterness?

It sucks feeling lost not only from God, but also from our community. Feeling isolated. We have spent the past few years feeling pretty isolated because of COVID. And it was all out of necessity but it was hard. And now we are trying to find our way back together. 

And God is right here, like the Shepherd and the woman, working hard to find us. They aren’t pretending to look for us like we might a toddler is ‘hiding’ under the covers as a pretty obvious lump. Oh no. God the Shepherd is scouring the wilderness looking for us. God the woman searching ever corner her home has had to get extra light and check every nook and cranny for us. 

And when we are found? There is a genuine celebration. Not a scolding of how dare we get lost - but a huge party. God calls up every neighbor and their neighbors to come to celebrate kind of party. God was genuinely scared when missing us and is ready to Rejoice deeply now that we are found. 

The Pharisees and Scribes were grumbling about who Jesus was including at the table. But God does not grumble when we come to the table. In fact, God rejoices DEEPLY that we made it to the table. 

What does this tell us about God? God is not hanging out where I suspected God to be at first. God is the seeker, trying to track down every one of us who feels lost. God is not settled in somewhere cozy, deep within the throng of the 99 who are content to stick together or stops counting at 9 coins with a shrug of, well maybe this is enough. 

God knows the journeys we’ve been on. The wildernesses we have been through and the furniture we have slipped behind. God is not satisfied until we are all together. God is out here searching for each of us. Which means, that if I am with God, I need to get a little lost too. I need to also seek the lost. I need to seek not only other people who feel Lost but recognize how I am lost and need to be found. 

And through no power of my own will I be found. God will do the finding, all we need to do is recognize our need for God and God will do the rest. Saved by God’s grace to be God’s hands and feet in the world.

This isn’t always easy. I know I need God but sometimes I am really good at pretending I can find myself all on my own. This requires trust that God wants to find me when I’m feeling lost. We have to trust God that we are enough as we are and that God thinks we are worth looking for. And we have to trust that when God gets us back, God is going to throw a huge celebration. 

God loves us so much. God loves us so much that God sent his own child Jesus to come among us and preach the Gospel and bring us into everlasting life with God. This is Amazing Grace When we are lost, we will be found. And Thanks be to God for that. Amen.