It's OK to Point...and other lessons from John the Baptist

Mathis Grünewald, from the Isenheim Altarpiece (c. 1515)
"He must increase, but I must decrease."

Advent 3, Year B – December 14, 2014

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace are yours, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

One of the lessons that I was taught as a child was that it was impolite to point at someone. I remember learning this especially from both of my grandmothers – so, for instance, if we were in the grocery store, and I saw someone doing something…strange (in my mind, anyway), as a child, my instinct was to point at them and ask what they were doing. “No! Don’t point!” I’d be told. “It’s not polite!”

What is humorous about this to me is that if you look at artwork of John the Baptist from throughout history, in many portrayals, he is breaking these modern rules of propriety by pointing. In some artwork, he’s pointing this way, in other artwork he’s pointing that way. If we were to form our opinion of John the Baptist based solely on this artwork, we’d think that the most important part of his job description is to point.

Which, of course, begs the question – to what or to whom is he pointing?

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” John’s purpose is to point others to Jesus.

I am reminded of a church building that I was aware of as a child. We would sometimes drive by this church building, just to look at it. What was the architectural feature that drew us to drive by this particular church? Was it beautiful stained glass or a beautiful garden?

It actually was the steeple – for high atop the steeple of this very simple church building was – not a cross – but rather a large, gold hand, with one finger pointing up. One finger, pointing up to God, I guess was their thinking – and the image was so ludicrous to us as a family that we would make pilgrimages to see this steeple with its golden hand.

And yet, as an adult, I now think about this image – the hand with the finger pointing up to God (as if God is up and nowhere else) – and I think, that’s what John the Baptist’s purpose was – to point to Jesus (God) – and to give his witness to the power of God at work in our world.

Later on in this gospel, John the Baptist will say about Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease”[1] – kind of like the relationship between our Sun and our Moon – the Moon reflects the light of the Sun – the Moon gives us light, but it is the Sun’s light, and not its own. John knows that he is not reflecting his own light – not at all – but rather reflecting the “true light, which enlightens everyone.”[2]

Today’s gospel lesson about John tells us that he came to testify as a witness – in other words, John the Baptist came to tell others about what he knows to be true about God. What is John’s testimony about Jesus? In the very next verse after today’s lesson – so, verse 29 - John’s testimony is that Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

How much sin is there on the evening news? Or on the morning news? How much sin is there in each 24-hour news cycle – how much sin in a complete day’s worth of news?

Each week, as we prepare for Holy Communion, we sing “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us…” The struggle for us is that we quite obviously still have sin with us, so if Jesus has taken it, he hasn’t taken it very far.

But Jesus didn’t come to remove sin from the world – at least, not in this here-and-now. Jesus came to remove the ultimate power of sin over the world. In other words, Jesus came to trample sin under his feet – to say to sin, “You don’t get the final word here. The final word will be the love of God for creation.”

It is this Advent season that reminds us: we don’t live in a time wherein all of that has been fulfilled. We are still waiting for Jesus to come again and to make all things new – we are still waiting to see that final word made complete. So while Advent is a time for us to prepare to receive the newborn King – Jesus – it is also a time for us to remember that there is another day for which we are still waiting: the final day. The day and the hour that no one knows.

In the meantime, we are called to be witnesses to the Light. We – like John the Baptist - are called to decrease, that Jesus may increase. We – like John the Baptist – are called to point to Jesus and say, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” – this is the one who takes away sin’s ultimate and final power over us and over all things.

“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.”[3]

Amen.

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[1] John 3:30

[2] John 1:9

[3] 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, ESV

"The Head of our Church is Jesus Christ"

Christ the King and Commitment Sunday – November 23, 2014

Texts: Ephesians 1:15-23 and Matthew 25:31-46

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace are yours, from the One who was, who is, and who is to come, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Today is the last Sunday in our Church Year, and the Sunday set aside as Christ the King Sunday. This particular commemoration is a rather recent addition to our Church Year Calendar – it was added in 1925, so less than 100 years ago. The goal of taking one Sunday each year to focus on Christ as king was to remind the Christian faithful that it is Christ who is our head, our sovereign, our king.

The problem, for me, is that kingly language doesn’t really resonate with me. I don’t have a king – I never have – and the kings (or queens) who are around today are not particularly powerful. Even if they are influential, most monarchs today are figureheads – and a mere figurehead is not how we should be thinking of Christ.

So, if Christ as king isn’t a helpful image for us in 21^st Century America, what image might we use?

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

A windmill near my home.

Lectionary 33, Year A – November 16, 2014

Text: Matthew 25:14-30 (Parable of the Talents)

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace are yours, from the One Who was, Who is, and Who is to come, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

If everything that we believed about God was based solely on a quick read through this one parable, I don’t know how many of us would be Christian at all. This parable is yet another allegory – like so many of the parables are - where the characters in the story symbolize someone else. Typically interpreted, the man handing out the talents is God, and the slaves are the disciples of Jesus (and then us, by extension). With the characters assigned that way, at first glance, this parable makes God out to be a jerk who punishes the wicked and the lazy.

The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away...

Pentecost – June 8, 2014 - Year A

Texts: Acts 2:1-21

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace be with you, from God our Father, from his beloved Son, and from the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Have you ever been bewildered by the power of the wind? I have, many times – I’ll share one time with you. My mom and stepdad and I went camping together in the mountains of New Hampshire one summer. We had a beautiful campsite, right along a small brook, complete with babbling water. The campsite was surrounded by towering trees, which formed a sort of outdoor cathedral over our heads.

We set up our tent under the towering trees, next to the babbling brook, and, after we finished setting up the rest of our camp, we enjoyed a lovely dinner by the campfire. This was  before smart phones and Kindles – I don’t think I even had a book light – so, when the night reached a point of deep darkness, and the campfire had died down, we went to bed. The babbling brook sang us a lullaby as we drifted off to sleep.

And then…

We were awakened in the middle of the night by a storm, picking up steam. Our tent was rainproof, we discovered. But what struck us was the wind. The wind, blowing a gale (as my mother-in-law would say) – picking up items we’d left out and blowing them around. We wondered to ourselves if the tent might blow away. Our beautiful cathedral of towering trees was transformed into a seemingly living and breathing space – and all three of us were in the tent, wondering if the ceiling of the cathedral might come crashing down on top of us.

It didn’t. The next morning, as we left camp, Mom talked with the park ranger, who had asked how our night was. “Noisy,” she responded, and he agreed, telling us that the winds on the mountain that night had clocked in at 50mph with gusts even higher. No wonder we felt so bewildered by that wind.

I’m thinking that the disciples gathered for Pentecost must’ve felt somewhat the same – bewildered. There they are, gathered together, celebrating Pentecost – which was the Jewish feast during which they remembered God giving the Law to Moses and the Israelites so very long ago. These disciples who are gathered have been witnesses of Jesus – to Jesus’ life and death, to his resurrection and ascension.

And then…

“…suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

And this is how the promised Holy Spirit arrives into their lives – through the rush of wind and the glow of tongues of fire. Beyond that, the disciples are given the ability, through the Spirit, to speak in languages that are not their own so that they may proclaim God’s deeds of power in the life and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ in the languages of the gathered community.

And there are some there who are bewildered by it all, and others who think they’re all drunk, which gives Peter the perfect opportunity to stand up and bear witness to work of God in their very midst. We don’t hear the end of Peter’s sermon today, but when he finishes, the crowd is “cut to the heart” and they begin asking, “What should we do?”

And Peter simply responds: “’Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.'”

We then hear that three thousand of them are baptized that day, and so the work of the Holy Spirit continues to expand. Out of that first group of Christians, God is birthing the Christian church, and empowering it with the Holy Spirit to get out there and spread the word that God freed Jesus from death and, in doing so, he frees us from the power of death, also.

“Repent and be baptized,” Peter says to those first Christians, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” – and that is the promise that we still have from God to this day – that when we are baptized, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is the gift which Brooklyn will receive today – because the promise is for everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

We are not called by God only for our own sakes. Similar to what I said last week – I wonder where on earth we’d all be if those first Christians who received the Holy Spirit had kept their mouths shut - if when they received the Spirit, they’d gone home, shut their doors, and gone to bed!

Thank God they didn’t. Thank God that the Spirit drove them into their homes and marketplaces, to the synagogues and the wells where they drew water – so that they could speak about God’s deeds of power to others, so that others would also be called by God to believe.

We are not called by God only for our own sakes. We don’t receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for it to be hidden away. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and we are empowered by that Spirit to proclaim the great love of God. It’s bewildering sometimes – God is calling me? Yes, my brothers and sisters – God is calling us. “For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”

Amen.

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Living stones, used by God

A Easter 5 – May 18, 2014

Text: 1 Peter 2:2-10

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace be with you, from God our Father, and his beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

One of the first people we met on our trip to the Holy Land in February was a young woman named Angel. Imagine – a woman named Angel, from the town of Bethlehem. She spent the better part of a day with us, showing us around a local university. We were still getting our bearings – still dealing with jet lag – still trying to sort out where we were and what we were doing exactly. And for me, the moment it all hit me was when Angel began to talk about her identity.

Angel is a Palestinian. And she’s a Palestinian Christian. (A Palestinian Christian, named Angel, from Bethlehem, no less!) And because of her ethnicity and her religion, and because she’s from Bethlehem, she officially has no status whatsoever. She explained to us: she is officially a citizen of no country. She may reside in Bethlehem, but if someone asks her what her citizenship is, she has none.

Try to wrap your mind around that.

It’s a challenge. And standing there, in the library of the university, listening to her try to explain her status to us – it all hit me between the eyes: how much of my identity is tied up in being a United States citizen, a resident of the State of Texas, a resident of Mansfield. If someone needs proof of my identity, I can provide a drivers’ license, a passport, a passport card, Social Security Card, birth certificate, marriage certificate, proof that I changed my name when I got married, and on and on. These are markers of my identity.

This particular lack of identity for Angel was unsettling for us, the big group of Americans. Not because we blamed her – it’s not her fault – that much is very clear. She is kept from having citizenship by those in power. Her situation was unsettling because it stood in sharp contrast to our own situations – our identities being so clear to both our own government and the governments of foreign countries.

But Angel’s story didn’t stop there. She didn’t dwell there as she talked with us. She instead began to talk with us about another identity she has – one she knows she has – one that cannot be taken away from her: her identity as a Christian, as a beloved child of God. That is the part of her identity that she clings to.

Our time with Angel taught me to cling to that part of my identity, too. To cling to it – to hold it fast – to never, ever let it go. Because I know and trust that God certainly is never, ever going to let me go.

“…like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…” Peter writes in today’s epistle. He’s writing, of course, in the years right after Jesus lived and breathed and walked on the earth. He’s writing in the years right after Jesus died, rose, and ascended into heaven. He’s writing to a group of brand-new Christians, still trying to figure out what their identity in Christ is. “What does this mean?” as Luther would ask. What does identity in Christ mean?

So Peter uses a picture that most anyone will understand: that of a stone. And not just any stone, but a stone used for building. And not just any building stone, but a living stone. A living stone, put together with other living stones to form a spiritual house. Does this imagery remind you of anything?

This is our identity, too! Called to be living stones, not stones that sit around and collect dust, but living stones – stones that are used for building. Stones that God uses for building up his church – stones that God uses to bring love and peace and healing into his world. That’s us – the group of living stones.

[Passed out tags in picture above...]

Let’s read these together…

Let yourselves be built into a spiritual house. So, who is the builder?

And it is God the Holy Spirit who calls us through the gospel, enlightens us with gifts, makes us holy, and keeps us in the true faith, just as the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth – all of us! – and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.[1]

This is our identity as the living stones of God: called, enlightened, made holy. And we are called, enlightened, and made holy for the glory of God and to do the work of God, not just here at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, but in our workplaces, our schools, our homes and neighborhoods, and on and on. Our identity in Christ is washed over us at baptism and so we cling to it, certainly, but – here’s the good news – that water clings to us too. And God never, ever lets us go.

You now have a tangible reminder of another part of your identity: you are living stones, brothers and sisters. You are living stones built into a spiritual house. Take these reminders home – use them as bookmarks as you read your Bible (in 90 days or whatever time period!), hang them on your rearview mirror or your bathroom mirror. And remember that you are living stones, beloved by God and called by God.

Amen.

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[1] Taken from Martin Luther’s explanation of the Third Article of the Creed in the Small Catechism.

Good News!

Audio will be coming soon!

A Epiphany 2 – January 19, 2014

Text: John 1: 29-42

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today, I’d like to talk about how we talk about Jesus.

Like some of you, I grew up in the Bible Belt, so I am very used to hearing people talk about Jesus in all kinds of places and in many different ways. Very little about what I hear people say about Jesus surprises me anymore.

Many of you know that I grew up in the Episcopal Church, the daughter of a very faithful woman – who was also in ordained ministry. By virtue of both my denomination and also being the daughter of an ordained woman, I was doubly in the minority, growing up in Houston.

Once, when I was in high school, a friend decided to talk with me about Jesus. He was not Episcopalian – in fact, he didn’t really know what an Episcopalian was, but he was pretty sure we weren’t “normal” Christians (whatever that means) and so he felt it was his duty to tell me about Jesus, to make sure I knew the “real Jesus.”

This is someone I had been very good friends with all throughout middle school, but for whatever reason, when we hit high school, he got really on fire with sharing what he knew about Jesus. And so, he did share what he knew about Jesus – in a nine page letter – and he also let me know that I was on my way to hell for sure because I belonged to a denomination that didn’t really meet with his approval.

We didn’t remain close friends too much longer after that.

That experience stayed with me for quite a while, and even into college, it came back to me every so often when I would encounter someone who was particularly passionate in how they talked about Jesus.

Fast forward a few years, to when I was 19, and began discerning my call to ordained ministry. One of the biggest mental roadblocks for me was that, as a pastor, I would be required to tell people about Jesus – like, professionally! – and I didn’t want to be the kind of person who told others they were bound to be going to hell.

It took some time to get past that – and lots of Bible study, and prayer, and conversation, and lots of people showing me Jesus in very loving ways. I finally realized that telling people that they’re going to hell really had no place in any conversation I would ever have with someone about Jesus, because that isn’t my experience of Jesus at all. And whenever we talk about Jesus, we really should do so in a way that is true to our own experience.

The word “evangelism” gets a bad rap these days, but all it means to evangelize is simply to share good news. More specifically, I think of evangelism as first, seeing what God is up to in our lives and in the world around us, and then second, talking with others about what we’ve seen.

That’s really what’s going on in today’s gospel lesson with John the Baptist and Jesus and the first few disciples. Today’s story happens after John has baptized Jesus, and he begins to tell others what he sees God is up to: “And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. ’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

John here is, of course, talking about the Holy Spirit alighting on Jesus at Jesus’ baptism. John sees the hand of God at work in all of this, and he begins to tell others about it – to tell others that this Jesus is the Son of God – or, using another image, the Lamb of God, come into the world to take away the sin of the world. This is what he sees about Jesus, what he knows to be true about Jesus, and so this is what he tells others about Jesus.

 Then, the next day, John’s standing there with a couple of his disciples, and Jesus walks by. He tells these guys about Jesus, too, and they follow Jesus – and then we he asks what it is they’re looking for, they want to know where it is he is abiding (the translation says “staying”) so that they can go abide with him, too. They have heard and seen enough to want to hear and see more.

After spending the day with Jesus, they begin to share the good news with others that they have found the Messiah – the anointed one – the one for whom they have been waiting. And more people hear this good news and decide to follow Jesus, and from these few first followers, we have the very beginnings of the Christian movement, and then the Christian Church, which continues to this day.

And all of this because some people in the First Century noticed what God was up to in their midst and decided to tell others all about it.

So, if I am to be an evangelist myself – I first must notice what God is up to, and then I must tell others about it. Where do I see God working? Most certainly here, among us – in how we care for each other during difficult times; in how we celebrate during happy times; in creative ideas for ministry and loving – although sometimes difficult - conversations. I see God working in and through my colleagues and friends – in the work they do to care for others in God’s name. And these, then, are some of the stories I share with others.

But I am not the only one in this room called to be an evangelist – for we all are called to tell others good news about what God is up to. It may seem daunting – and maybe it is, at times – to talk about God or our faith. But really, all that is needed is for us to first, notice what God is doing in our lives, and then second, to talk about it as we have opportunity.

When I talk about God with others, I think in terms of these questions: How is God taking care of me, or others around me? How is God leading me? For what am I thankful? These are the types of conversations that we can have quite easily with others before diving into deep theological inquiry.

And the conversations often move from there to other things, including where the other person sees God working - or maybe, where they don’t see God working, but they desperately want God to work.

My brothers and sisters, I challenge each you to be an evangelist in your own ways – to be ones who share good news – the good news that God so loved the world – that God so loved you and me and everyone out there! - that he gave his only Son, Jesus. The good news that God loved us then – God loves us still.

Amen.

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