by Trinity Admin | Apr 9, 2020 | Mark, Sermons
Mark 8:27-9:8
There’s this idea in Celtic spirituality called “thin places”. And, according to the Celts, “thin places” are times and places when the veil between heaven and earth is so thin, we can nearly see through it. When we are given a glimpse of the “story behind the story.”
The Celts would say that “thin places” have a certain energy about them. A sense of awe or transcendence or closeness that, at another time or place, just isn’t there. “Thin places” aren’t places that you see or touch, they are places that you “feel”. And you can’t find them, or make them, they can only be stumbled into. Never captured, only discovered.
And in a very real and literal sense, the story of the Transfiguration is a “thin place”. A place where heaven and earth collide. Where the “story behind the story” breaks through. And I am certain that Peter, James, and John had no idea what they were stumbling into. But all the sudden, there they were. In the presence of Moses and Elijah, being confronted by the voice of God, trying to wrap their minds around this “other Jesus” who was glowing.
And maybe it goes without saying, but this is not normal. This isn’t every day. This isn’t the story as we know it. This is something beyond us. And I know, I know, the Transfiguration story is kind of weird. And I’ll be honest with you, I don’t really get it. I don’t really get what God is up to here. What we’re supposed to make of this. But I know enough to know that it’s important. I know enough to know that on that mountain, something happened.
And in a way, that’s enough. Because “thin places” aren’t places of understanding. They are places of presence. Of knowing you are not alone. That you are in the presence of another. And on that mountain, at the Transfiguration, God was present. God was there. And we caught a glimpse of God’s story that holds our own story.
Turn out, Jesus was not just about small town Jews of the 1st century! He’s bigger than that! Jesus is God’s story! God’s story that stretches beyond creation, to the other side of time itself. That draws together Moses and Elijah. Galilee and Green Bay. All of it and everything, little stories within and held by God’s story.
“Thin places” are places of awe and transcendence. Places of presence and connection. Where the veil between heaven and earth is so gloriously thin. And the Transfiguration is a pretty obvious “thin place”, but it’s not the only one. Baptism and Communion. These are thin places. When the presence of God is so near we can touch it and feel it, literally!
And you know, I’ve heard from so many people who talk about times they have felt the presence of someone they love who has passed on. Moments when it feels so much like they are there. Like they just know they are there. You can experience a “thin place” while watching a beautiful sunset. Or surrounded by people at a park. Or even sitting alone in your car.
The Kingdom of Heaven is continually breaking into our lives, tugging on our hearts, reminding us that we are not alone. That our story is held within God’s story. But “thin places” are not just for Transfigurations, for moments of divine beauty and awe. When we are overcome by all that is good and right in the world. “Thin places” can be found in the darkness, too.
Just before this story of Transfiguration, Jesus, for the first time, reveals to his disciples where this story is going. How this is going to end. And it’s not pretty. It’s going to involve suffering and rejection and betrayal and death. And, of course, the disciples don’t get it. That’s not what Messiah’s do. Messiah’s don’t die, they win. But not this Messiah. This Messiah takes on the cross. This Messiah knows the only way to defeat death is to go through death.
Too often, I think, we look at faith as the thing that supposed to help us avoid hard stuff, avoid suffering. But Jesus doesn’t take on the cross so that we don’t have to. Jesus takes on the cross to lead the way. To be present in every human experience, even suffering. Even death.
And that, too, is a “thin place”.
Sometimes, the places where we feel God’s presence most clearly are not the moments of awe, but moment of agony.
I can tell you, in my life, I have had a handful of those mountaintop experiences with God. Moments of joy and beauty that took me completely by surprise. But I can also tell you that the moments that have stayed with me the most, that have changed me the most, have been the times of meeting God in the darkness. The times when God has shown up in suffering and despair, not to fix it, but to be there. To remind us, “You are not alone.”
“Thin places” are places of presence. Times when the veil between heaven and earth is so, so gratefully thin. When we see, again, that our story is held within God’s story. The good, the bad, the ugly, the miserable. Times of joy and times of sorrow. There is no moment, no place, so far removed that God is not there.
All the way from the mountaintop to the cross.
And wherever you are in your journey, wherever you are right now, that is just where God meets you. That is where the Good News finds you.
And we hear again God’s word of promise –
You are not alone.
Amen.
by Trinity Admin | Apr 9, 2020 | Mark, Sermons
Mark 7:1-23
So there’s a couple things we need to understand about Judaism in the first century to really get what’s going on here. But to drastically oversimplify things, we need to go all the way back to Abraham. And the covenant that God made with him.
See, God told Abraham that from him would come a great nation, blessed by God. And through this great nation, God would bless the world. And then a couple hundred years later, God clarifies the covenant even further on Mt. Sinai. God says, “If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be my won possession among the people. For all the earth is mine, and you will be to me a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation.”
And from that came two different schools of thought that played tug of war throughout Judaism all the way up until the time of Jesus. Both viewpoints were about living as a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. The difference was really just about who was doing all that “priestly living”.
One school of thought, held mostly by those who worked in or around the temple in Jerusalem, said that the temple priests were sort of “holy enough” for everyone. You know, the temple was the holiest of all holy sights. The epicenter of holiness. And the closer you were to the center of the temple, both literally and by virtue of your job, the holier you were.
So holiness was really the job of the priests in the temple. And us “common folk” benefit from their “trickle-down holiness”. But our job, then, is making sure they can do their job, supporting them to be holy on our behalf. Making sure we’re given enough money or food offerings, doing what we can to support the temple so that they can be holy enough for all of us.
The other school of thought said, “No! Holiness is not just for priests! It’s for all of us! We are all called to holiness. All set apart to be a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation! God’s covenant is for all of us to live!” And the teachers of this school (we could call them “Pharisees”) would go from town to town, trying to teach the people how they, too, could be a part of God’s holiness. How they could live out their faith in their daily lives. In a sense, they were the very first to teach about the “priesthood of all believers”.
And in the reading today, Jesus says, “You’re both wrong. You got it wrong from the beginning and you just kept going. Because holiness is not a human project. It’s not something you can produce or achieve. It’s not yours to give or pronounce. Holiness is a God thing. It’s God’s gift to give.”
And the problem with turning holiness into a human project is that we get all sorts of ideas about what holiness is and isn’t. The temple priests understood that holiness radiates from the temple. And the further you got from the middle, the less holy (and less important) you were. So holiness is moving closer and closer to the center.
No accident that the only time Jesus moves towards the center, towards Jerusalem, is when he goes there to die. Most of his ministry is out in Galilee, way out in the farthest, most remote corner of the Jewish world. The “Jewish sticks”, if you will.
The Pharisees understood holiness as lifting yourself above the ordinary and everyday. As being “set apart”. What’s interesting, to me anyway, is that the word that gets translated as “defiled” in our reading (as in, ‘they ate with defiled hands’), that word could also be translated as “common”. So the opposite of “holy” is not “dirty”, it’s “common”. To be holy is to be “not ordinary”, but to be “extraordinary”.
But, Jesus says, that’s all wrong. Because it sets holiness up as something we can achieve. Something that’s our job to be or to do. And holiness is God’s job. God’s gift. The Pharisees criticized Jesus and his disciples because, in their eyes, not only had they tainted themselves by dropping down into this world of “ordinary, common, defiled things”, they didn’t seem to be doing anything to change that! Like, they didn’t even care that they were defiled!
But Jesus isn’t playing that game. Because they’ve got it all wrong.
All the earth is God’s! Don’t you remember? Therefore, there is nothing in this world, nothing outside of us, around us, in this life that can make you “unclean” or “defiled”. Nothing you can eat or drink, nothing that anyone else can say to you or do to you or think about you that can remove, overpower, or negate God’s gift of holiness and grace to you. There is nothing outside of us that has that power.
The real problem is the stuff that comes from within us! If you want to know where trouble starts, look there! You want to know what really comes between us and God? How about pride. Envy. Greed…The list goes on and on. You want to worry about something? Don’t worry about whether or not you washed your hands the right way. Worry about what direction your heart is pointed.
“I have seen the problem, and the problem is me.”
The things that pull us away from God are not outside us, they are within us. The good news, of course, is once you have an accurate diagnosis, you can start to look for the right cure. And it’s not moving to Jerusalem or giving up bacon or doing all the right things right. These things outside of us, they can’t defile us. But neither can they fix us. The only real cure is death.
And specifically, Jesus’ death. Because Jesus’ death is the only one that leads to God’s life. And we haven’t gotten there yet in the story, but we know where this is going. Pretty soon, Jesus turns towards Jerusalem, toward the capital city of human achievement and glory, and goes there to die. To put to death all our best efforts and intentions open the doorway into God’s life and grace.
And God’s death and resurrection isn’t a prize to be won, achieved, or accomplished, only received. As gift. And we usually just call that gift “baptism”. That great gift from God that joins us, finally, fully, and completely, to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord. But baptism isn’t just a “once in your life and I’ve got the picture to prove it” thing. It’s a daily dying and rising. A daily remembrance that the problem is me, and that I can’t fix it. Only God can.
Only God can wash away what is dead and rotten to make room for what is life and light. Every day. Every day we die and rise again. We die under the burden and the power of sin are lifted back to life in the light of God’s love. Every. Day.
Holiness. Grace. Love. These are not human projects. Not things for us to achieve or accomplish. They are gift. Freely given.
Because, God knows, it’s the only thing that will save us from ourselves. The only thing that can save us.
And what you do with that gift? Well, that’s up to you.
Amen.
by Trinity Admin | Apr 9, 2020 | Mark, Sermons
Mark 6:1-13, 30-30
The reading today starts with Jesus going to his hometown synagogue to do some teaching and preaching, where he promptly gets rejected and even insulted. He then sends 12 of the disciples out as apostles, two by two. We then have a big group of verses that got cut, but what we’re missing is the story of the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod, the hands of the Roman government. Then, we come back to the disciple/apostles as they’re returning from their, apparently, very successful preaching and healing tour. That’s the rollercoaster ride these 30+ verses take us on in chapter 6.
Rejection and ridicule in the synagogue, sending disciples out to do some good work, John the Baptist (preacher, prophet, and messenger) dies a terrible death. The disciples come back, pumped and exhausted from all their good work! There’s a little bit of whiplash there! But I don’t think it’s an accident that Mark plops this story of Jesus sending out the disciples for the very first time right between these two stories of failure. Two stories of when things didn’t work out. When all was not right. When the good guy didn’t win.
It’s almost as if Jesus knows the disciples need to see him fail and face rejection before they’re ready to strike out on their own. Like, that’s the last piece of “beginner disciple training.” They need to know that, despite all the fanfare and crowds around Jesus, this disciple thing isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Rejection and failure is a part of the journey, too.
And Jesus is far from done teaching. And they still have plenty to learn. But for the first time, Jesus sends them out, away from him, to do the things that he is doing. But he doesn’t send them to synagogues, or to places of power, but to home. To families. To small groups of gathered people. He said, “When you come to a house, stay there until you leave that town.”
Don’t go to the synagogue. Don’t go to the town square or the market. Go to where the power is the least. Start there. And if you can’t find someone to take you in, just shake it off and keep going. Don’t carry that crap with you. Just leave it there!
Jesus sent the disciples out. But he didn’t send them with a “plan” or a “program”. He sent them out just to talk to people. Just conversation and hospitality and looking at one another eye to eye. And talk about Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven and God come so near we can see him and touch him.
—
Do you know I know about this congregation? And healthy, faithful congregations in general? We want to make a difference. We want to be a force for good in our neighborhood and in our community. And what a beautiful thing! Truly! But our reading today reminds us that bigger is not always better. Which is hard! Because “bigger” is more efficient. More impactful. More important, right?
And so we get in this mindset that if we can just find the right program or policy or plan, boy, what amazing things will happen! Or if we have the right music, or the right kind of worship service, or even the right church! Or sometimes, we go even bigger. If we could just get prayer back in schools. Or the 10 Commandments in every courtroom. Or if all our politicians were just good Christian men and women.
Boy, what a difference that would make, right?!
But Jesus didn’t send his apostles to preach in the churches, or in the halls of power. He sent them to homes. To ordinary, everyday people. And there was no plan or program. They couldn’t even take bread with them! He just sent them out to talk to people. Because that’s where the Kingdom of Heaven breaks in. In this small space between us. In relationship. In love, given and shared. In conversation and care. In knowing one another. That’s how lives change.
And it’s a ridiculously inefficient way of getting things done! It’s slow. And uncertain. And so beyond our control! But it’s also the only way.
The Kingdom is not birthed through programs or laws or even church policy, no matter how well intentioned. The Kingdom comes alive in relationship. And we can make plans and have big dreams, but if it doesn’t start from knowing one another, from loving one another, it’s not gonna work. Because that’s not how God works.
I mean, Jesus healed tons of people. But the only ones he charged to carry on his work of announcing the Kingdom, of proclaiming God’s love and grace, were the ones who knew him. The one that he knew. Those were the ones he sent out to share with others what they had learned from him.
The church turned their back on him. The religious authorities, despite their good intentions, just didn’t get it. What Jesus was about just threatened the bottom line and little too much. The government, twice, tried to wash their hands of all of it. But the pressure to please others was stronger than the pressure to do the right thing. Better that one man should die than I lose face, right? I mean, after all, it’s just one man.
Far too often, we look to the church, to the government, to our country to save us. To make things “right”. To have the “right” answers. But that’s not the place where God works. That’s not where the Kingdom breaks in. The place God works, the place where the Kingdom breaks in, is in this space between us. In knowing one another. In loving one another.
You want to grow the church? You want to make a bigger impact? To be a force for good?
Then talk to the person you don’t know. Learn from someone different than you. Love someone you don’t agree with.
You don’t need a lot for the journey. – A comfy pair of shoes. A sense of adventure. A willingness to fail and keep going anyway.
And on the way, and in that space between us, we meet our God together. We find the Kingdom, hidden right there in plain view.
It’s not magic. It’s just God at work. Doing what God does.
Loving broken, hurting people.
Forgiving screw-ups and failures.
Making space for all who are aching to belong.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like this! Right here between us! And it is both so much bigger and so much smaller than your wildest imagination.
Amen.
by Trinity Admin | Apr 9, 2020 | Mark, Sermons
Mark 5:21-43
Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Tell the truth. The whole truth. And nothing but the truth.
Do you realize how scary that is? I would say, most of the time, most of us are living lives of half-truths. And for good reason! To face the truth, and the whole truth, is overwhelming. And scary. And sometimes, we rather just not think about it. Half-truths are more comfortable. But half-truths are also – half-free, half-healed, half-alive.
The story today is really 2 stories. Mark does this sometimes. He’ll break one story in half and stick another one right in the middle. And this middle story is the story of a desperate woman. Desperate enough to break all kinds of rules, just for the chance to be healed. Like, it’s hard to fathom the number of rules she broke to be in that crowd, touching Jesus. But desperation will make you do the unfathomable.
And she got close enough that she was able to reach out and touch the edge of his cloak. And she knew, in her body, that she was healed. And even though Jesus was squeezed by the crowds that had gathered, he immediately knew that something had happened. And surrounded by hordes of people, crushing in around him on all sides, he asked anyway, “Who touched me?”
To which the disciples respond, “What are you talking about? How about who hasn’t touched you?”
At this point, the only two people who have any idea what Jesus is talking about are Jesus, and the woman. And she knows exactly what’s going on. And this woman has 2 options – slink away, or fess up. And if we’re telling the truth, if it were me, I’m not sure what I would do. But she takes the honest route.
And it says, “she came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told the whole truth.” The whole truth.
—
Do you promise to tell the truth? The whole truth? And nothing but the truth, so help you God?
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Because to tell the whole truth means leaving nothing out. Holding nothing back. It’s letting go of all those little lies and half-truths we tell ourselves, and sometimes others, about who we are. Because, you know, God’s not buying it.
We can fool most people. We can even fool ourselves. But God knows better. God knows just how dark those dark corners are. Telling the whole truth means being honest with ourselves about who we really are.
I know what rage feels like. I know what hate is. I have and do judge others. I hold stereotypes and make assumptions based solely on what people look like. And I’m not proud of any of that! But to tell the whole truth means leaving nothing out. Holding nothing back. It means being honest about sins, seen and unseen. Known and unknown.
Do you promise to tell the truth? The whole truth? And nothing but the truth, so help you God?
—
Of course, the whole truth is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. And frankly, sometimes I think it’s easier to admit to all the ways and places we fall short. But to tell the whole truth means the whole truth. It means also telling the truth of our worth and value.
I’ll tell you what. If you really want to make someone squirm, look them in the eye and tell them they are precious and loved beyond measure, and irreplaceable in this life. That their life was created with intention and love and that they have gifts the world needs. That we all would be less without them. Tell them they are worthy of love and kindness. And no matter what hard stuff life throws at them, no matter what anyone else says or thinks about them, no matter what they may even believe about themselves, they are worthy of love and life and goodness. That value does not need to be earned or deserved, that it just is. It just is because God is. And you are God’s.
If you want to make someone squirm, just tell them that.
It’s so much easier, I think, to face up to our own failures than our own value. But to tell the whole truth means to be honest about our whole lives. It means to read the whole story. To watch as this woman lays it all out and then to listen, as Jesus names her “daughter”. Which is sort of just the shorthand way of saying all of that.
The whole truth? – Yeah, we’ve got some pretty dark corners that we’re not proud of. That we’d rather not admit to. Yeah, that’s true. And what’s also true, is that God has named you “daughter”. Named you “son”. Named you “my beautiful, precious child”. And knowing the truth, the whole truth, sets us free.
It sets us free from unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. It sets us free from the lies we tell ourselves about who we are, and the lies others have told about us. The truth, the whole truth, sets us free from every voice, except that one true voice of God. That voice of God that proclaims love and mercy and freedom. That proclaims your worth, your value. That names you “child of God.”
Jesus said, “When you know the truth, it sets you free.” And then he named her “daughter”, and sent her home – healed, whole, and free.
Amen.
by Trinity Admin | Apr 9, 2020 | Mark, Sermons
Mark 4:21-41
Jesus said, “With what can we compare the Kingdom of God? Or what parable will we use for it?” And he goes on to use all sorts of parables to try and teach something of what the Kingdom of God is like.
It’s almost as if Jesus knows the Kingdom is too beyond our comprehension or understanding to just give it to us straight. And so he does his darndest to give us a glimpse of pieces of the Kingdom.
A parable here. A parable there. All offering another small chunk. And some of the parables are surprising. Some confusing. Some kind of funny.
But I think, for me, the one that most captures my own experience of the Kingdom of God is one of the ones we get today.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise, night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow. He does not know how.
The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head. Then the full grain in the head.”
The Kingdom of God is like a beautiful, happy accident…
It doesn’t happen because we’ve worked really hard for it. You can’t will the Kingdom of God to appear. And most of the time, when you do get a glimpse, it’s when you never saw it coming.
And you ask, “How did that happen?” And the most honest answer, most of the time, is, “I don’t have a clue.”
You know, if you pay attention to the parables, none of them are about the value of “working hard” and “making things happen.”
More so, they’re about this thing that just happens, whether we want it to or not. Whether we’re ready for it or not.
Last week, it was the parable of the sower. The farmer that just throws seeds everywhere. On the dirt. In the thorns. On the road. Places that don’t make sense at all! And yet, the Kingdom still shows up!
This week, the mustard seed. The Kingdom is like planting and invasive weed! Whoops! Didn’t mean for that to get so out of control! But the Kingdom is like that!
And this third parable, of the oblivious farmer. Who just throws seeds around, walks away, goes about his business, and come back to find, lo and behold!, full grown plants! How did that happen?!
But isn’t that so much of what the Kingdom is like?
We work so hard, sometimes, at things that amount to nothing. But sometimes, you get the right people in the right place at the right time, and “bam!”, the Kingdom of God is at hand! How did that happen?!
I don’t know…Someone planted a seed somewhere.
And it can be hard, sometimes, to realize we don’t have control over how that seed grows.
Do you know, out of all the parables that are about seeds and growing, Jesus never once tells a parable about someone who carefully tended and nurtured that tiny seed and helped it to grow into something mighty? Never once.
The parables of the Kingdom are all about how things grow with or without us. Or how things so quickly grow out of hand! Mustard seeds. Yeast in bread. A little bit ruins the whole lot!
But the Kingdom of God is like that!
Even a tiny encounter with God or with God’s Kingdom has the power to infect the rest of your life. But it won’t happen because you make it happen.
We do not have power over the Kingdom. We cannot make it happen.
In the Small Catechism, one of the things Martin Luther writes about is the Apostle’s Creed. And he breaks the Creed down into its 3 parts – parts about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And for each part, he writes a little something about what it means and what we learn about God from it.
And his explanations about the Father and the Son are lovely and good. But it’s what he says about the Holy Spirit where you’ll find some of his best theology.
He writes of the Holy Spirit, “I believe that by my own understanding or strength, I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him.
But instead, the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church.”
Did you hear that? By my own understanding or strength, I can’t make sense of any of this. Even faith itself is beyond me! Faith, Luther says, is not what we do, but what’s done in us, by the gift of God.
It’s as if a bunch of seeds have been thrown around and when they bloom within us, the best we can say is, “Huh. Look at that. How did that happen?”
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a guy who threw some seeds on the ground, when about his business, and was delighted to find those seeds had become grain. And isn’t that so much of what the Kingdom is like?
I mean, the only reason we are here, the only reason the Church exists at all is by this mysterious working of the Holy Spirit in us.
I know there’s plenty of talk and concern about, ‘how to grow the church.’ But perhaps the more faithful question is to flip the question around and ask,
“Why are we here in the first place? How is it that this community exists at all?”
I’ll tell you, it’s not because we’ve made it happen. It’s not because of all our hard work and effort.
Don’t get me wrong, I know this community works hard together to serve our community in so many ways. And that is a gift! But why do we exist at all? How did this community come to be at all? How did that happen?
Or, even more so, how does love happen? How does forgiveness happen? How does healing happen?
I don’t know! But here it is! What a gift!
These things, these gifts, they are in us. Taking root. Growing. Blooming. All while we go about our days, sleeping and rising, night and day. Oblivious to God’s work, oblivious to the Kingdom, growing right up in our own lives.
But the Kingdom of God is like this! It is beyond us. And among us. And within us.
And it’s not ours to control, only to receive. Only to celebrate the mystery of God at work. Even, and maybe especially, when we don’t understand.
Because this gift is not ours to own, but only ours to share. Those small seeds of the Kingdom become bread for the world. Not by our doing, but by God’s alone.
The kingdom of God has come near. And with what can we compare it?
Amen.
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