Beginning of the end of the world

Isaiah 64:1-9

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

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Wake up! Advent is a season of waiting, but sometimes it feels like we’ve forgotten what we’re waiting for. Or that we’ve settled for what we’ve got because what we’re waiting for is taking too long to get here. I wonder how many people have hollered at God to wake up?

This past Monday I felt like yelling at God to wake up. I know God doesn’t actually sleep, but I couldn’t either, after the news from Ferguson. The same day I saw that news, there was a twelve year old kid shot and killed on a playground in Cleveland, because somebody called 911 on him for playing with a toy gun in public. Kids see guns everywhere, turn sticks and even Barbie dolls into guns, they play cops and robbers all the time. But tensions are higher in some communities than others, and we stop seeing each other as people when we see only the weapons and threats we might be.

In Chatham this might not seem to be news we need to consider. One story is from Missouri. Another from Ohio. But the church of God is bigger than place, and in the Body of Christ, when one part of the body suffering, all suffer together, just like we celebrate together when new parishes open, and we send food and money to world hunger as much as we do to local pantries. It is because God has connected us all together. Because God has cared for us so much, we are drawn to care for each other, even when all we can do is pray.

But it is precisely the problem of being divided - and I don’t mean by opinions or politics, I mean set against one another, or over and beneath each other - which the prophets bemoan. We can look at national and global news as a way to see ourselves more clearly, to think about those stories like the parables we have, where we put ourselves in the shoes of a few of the character types and consider what we would do, what we would wish we could do, what we would like others to do concerning us. We are part of this history just by being alive now. My kid sister was born the year the Berlin Wall came down. I was a freshman in college when the World Trade Center fell. The world we live in is different after those events, in ways we are still coming to terms with. And if our faith, and our hope, don’t say something about how to live in the here and now, then what good is it?

Yet the world isn’t all that different. History keeps repeating itself. It’s like the Old Testament prophets have the best job security, because we are always getting stuck in these cycles of fear and broken behaviors, so the prophets’ words of hope and peace are always relevant. As people beg God to wake up, God also begs us to wake up. To recognize our interconnectedness and our mutual dependence on someone and something greater than ourselves. The Body of Christ is riddled with cancers and gangrene for all of the ways we cut one another off and only share with those with whom we agree. We need a good and capable surgeon, strong medicine, and the desire to live, in order to recover. We need resurrection.

Advent is a time of waiting, but it is not passive. Waiting, and working, like Gandhi has said, to be the change we wish to see in the world, is expectant and hopeful. I’m not talking about the waiting in line for Black Friday deals, hoping to get the best price on a new television. I’m talking about waking up to the presence of our loving, creative God, here among us and between us. I’m talking about the waiting to see how God will bring about reconciliation and new life, as God has a history of doing even when we turn the other way. I’m talking about the end of the world as we know it. The end of the fighting and the fear. The end that must come so that we can be reborn into newness of life.

This is what we are waiting for. What we are hoping for. O that You would tear open the heavens and come down! That your children would stop fighting! That the nations would stop warring. That the hungry would be fed, and the naked sheltered. That our hearts would know true peace and every man, woman, and child would be welcomed and embraced and safe, here, and in Ohio, and in Ferguson, and around the world! That every pain we know, and have known, and might yet know, would not be our ultimate end.

That is the promise of Advent, brothers and sisters. Even at the end of the world, God will be there with us. Even at the end of everything - at the end of our rope, at the end of our patience, at the end of our strength and our joy and our life - there will be the promised Messiah. For every beginning must follow an ending. And we are beginning a new year, looking for the beginning of new life. Keep awake, therefore. Resurrection has already begun.

Christ the Shepherd-King

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 25: 31-46

This may not seem like a very good story to us, in fact the Swedish church calls today the Sunday of Doom for all of its Day of Judgment language, but to those who first heard it, I wonder if it was not the best news. Matthew was written primarily to a Jewish audience, that’s why there are so many references to the prophets being fulfilled, it’s why the publishers put it first after the Old Testament. That word for ‘the nations,’ those people who are separated into sheep and goats, are the Gentiles, are those who are not part of the original tribes, are the neighbors who are not Israelites but who still interact with Jews day in and day out, and if you’re a Jew, this is a great story! The ones who heard it first were not the sheep or the goats, they were ‘the least of these my brothers.’ Think of it! The people who have bullied you for ages, ignored your needs, refused to offer shelter, will be punished for it, and those who showed you some kindness when you most needed it will not only not be punished, but will be able to spend eternal life with you! What a great way to offer reward to those who take care of God’s own chosen people!

And then we have the good news in the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel. God’s gonna get those fat sheep bullies who have pushed us around and pushed us out and made us suffer for so long. And God will finally feed the world with justice. Justice! I want to shout that like I’m in Bravehart. “FREEDOM! JUSTICE!” 

Because today is Christ the King Sunday. Which is a huge political statement. It’s only been the name of the last Sunday of Pentecost, the last Sunday of the church year, for a few decades, since 1969. With all of the terrible world leaders we have survived, all of the dictators and tyrants, all of the schoolyard bullies and workplace harassers, it’s a statement of faith that the ultimate authority rests not in those who misuse their power to serve only themselves, but that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to a God who has come to dwell with us in our pain and raise us up.

See, this Gospel is told among a people who have been shunned and shamed and cast out of their childhood churches, expelled from the family synagogue. It is told to those who are more than familiar with hunger, cold, prison, and the like. It is a Gospel of a God who lives among the poor and outcast. And if we cannot recognize God among the hungry, naked, thirsty stranger, then only a few days after Jesus tells this story he becomes all of these things on the cross. Betrayed by his friends, beaten, imprisoned, given a ‘trial’ that’s a joke, stripped of his clothing and hung out to dry, Jesus has experienced every kind of injustice and pain named in this story, and then some. 

And this hungry, thirsting, naked God is the one in whose hands are the caverns of the earth and the heights of the hills. The one who is the rock of our salvation, who made the sea and molded the dry land, is the one who has called us to a hope beyond the stretches of our imagination. He has endured the worst of our world and promised to remain in it with us, hidden in plain sight among the ones who are so often ignored. That kid without a friend at the high school lunch table? That kid bears the Image of Christ. Al, who collects cans and rides his bike around the village, drunk or sober? He bears the Image of Christ. The heroin addict, the jobless, the one who has never been able to make ends meet and works their fingers to the bone? They all bear the Image of Christ. In all of our brokenness, our hunger, our thirst, our need and our want, we, too, bear the Image of Christ, who was broken for us that we might be made whole.

And this One who remains hidden among us, this is the One who will always come to us, who has promised us salvation, who sees and feels and knows all of our hidden secrets? Indeed He lives there still. His death and resurrection are the hope and new life of all of us, the entire flock, every one of us both sheep and goat. For Christ is King. And the King is a Shepherd. And the Good Shepherd lays down his life for us all.

Amen.

The Door Isn't Shut, The Door Has Been Smashed

Amos 5:18-24
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

This is such a hard parable. All week long there was weeping and gnashing of teeth on the clergy Facebook group. Where is the good news that is actually good? Where is the Gospel? Where is Jesus in this parable?

Because at first, it seems straightforward, simple, clear and easy to untangle. End times are coming, the bridegroom is taking awhile longer than we expected, the girls who had been trained in scouting came prepared, and those foolish ones who expected the groom to be on time ran out of oil. Now, whoever has been to a wedding and expected the wedding party to make it to the reception in good time has probably never lived through the hours of professional photography after the ceremony, which inevitably delay bride and groom and party from showing up to the party in less than two hours’ time. But nevertheless, there was some unpreparedness on the part of those foolish bridesmaids which serves as a warning to the rest of us who are also waiting for the end of the age, the second coming, the final fulfillment of all things.

We can look to the Prophet Amos for a hint as to what oil those bridesmaids carried. The righteousness and justice God desires, the works of faith, hope, and charity, opening a community to the socially undesirable, these are the oils which keep those lamps burning through the night. Why hide under a bushel the hope that is in us? Why not burn brightly with works of love?

But that’s not what we’re getting at here. I mean, it is. But it also isn’t, because it’s more than that. Amos delivers a firey message from a jealous, angry, vengeful God, to a people who would rather make certain their worship is beautiful than take care of their neighbors. A people who have forgotten that worship is rehearsal for the rest of the week, that the passing of the peace is meant to extend outside of the walls of the sanctuary, and the Table at which we are fed means we go and feed others who are hungering for community. The people Amos speaks God’s words to have closed themselves off from their neighbors, have decided they will remain unsullied by the outside world, and have separated God’s community into those they themselves deem worthy or otherwise. A bit like those bridesmaids the Gospel calls ‘wise,’ who refuse to share their oil with the ones who did not bring enough. Now, yes, they had a point that they probably would not have had enough for their own lamps to be full - but what sort of bridegroom does not have light at his own party?

If Amos had met those characters in the Gospel story today, he would have had those same words for the ones called ‘wise’ that he had for the people of his day. Unless, of course, we read that the oil is works of charity, faith, and hope. In which case, the lesson to be had is that you can’t expect everyone else to do all of the loving so that you don’t have to. If the ‘foolish’ bridesmaids expected what Bonhoeffer calls ‘cheap grace,’ they would have been foolish to take their welcome for granted, to feel entitled to the party even though they had contributed nothing to the bridegroom. He did, after all, tell them he did not even know them. And crashing the wedding party of a stranger just isn’t kosher.

So there are a couple of ways this parable can be read. So far the possibilities have all pointed to the question of ‘what must I do to be saved?’ To make sure we’re not the ones left outside in the cold and the dark, on the other side of a door that’s never going to open to us, how do we make sure we’ve got enough oil?

Amos is clear that God cares about the whole community and gets angry when we leave people out. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is meant to comfort those who are afraid their loved ones who have died will miss out on the second coming, because God cares about everyone who has ever lived, not just those who are alive, awake, alert, and enthusiastic right now. Matthew’s parable in light of these other readings is, to put it lightly, problematic. Even without the other readings, it can raise one’s anxiety to unhealthy levels. Looking forward to the end of this present age is mostly hopeful for those whose current situation is one of powerlessness, despair, and dread, but this parable seems to just increase despair, rather than to relieve it.

That’s only if it’s read out of context. Like most end of the world stories, to take it out of context will muddle it nearly beyond recognition. We’ve got to know the audience this story is being told to if we’re going to make sense of it. Can’t read the book of Revelation and expect to make heads or tails of it without knowing what was going on in history. If I quote movies and news stories in my sermons that nobody here has seen or heard about, they’re not going to make sense, either. And please tell me if I start doing that so I can fix my preaching accordingly.

In the context of Matthew’s Gospel, this parable is not the whole story. It’s kind of a starting point for thinking about the world we’re looking forward to. Kind of a test of our expectations. It’s in the context of a longer story that began with ‘the beginning of the Good News’ and ends with Jesus telling the disciples ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ 

In Matthew’s Gospel, this parable ends with an exhortation to ‘keep awake!’ even though all ten bridesmaids fell asleep while waiting for the bridegroom. Who else fell asleep even though Jesus asked them to keep awake? The disciples in the garden. When all else fails in understanding a passage of Scripture, we Lutherans look to the cross of Jesus. As the scenario plays out, where the bridesmaids had fallen asleep, so did the disciples. They fell asleep, then they ran away, but they were gathered again after the resurrection.

Not only that, but there is an image in the parable of a door being shut, right? A door between God and people, presumably. We’ve got all sorts of places and ways that we put up this door. Either somebody needs to get sober and cleaned up before we welcome them to church, or they need to have complete and unquestioning faith before they are allowed to come to the Table, or something like that. Which is nonsense. But we do it all the time, even to ourselves. Are we faithful enough as a people of God for God to take care of us? How do we know? Where are the signs of success? Serious questions, but they put up a door.

Here, then, is the Good News. There was a sort of door in the temple, a fabric between the holy of holies and the people, a tapestry with the heavens embroidered upon it, and only the high priest could pass beyond that tapestry, once a year, to speak directly to God on behalf of the people, and then vice versa. They even tied a rope around his ankle that trailed out behind him, so that if he died on the other side of that door, they could pull him back out without passing through the door themselves. This door, this curtain, was destroyed at the crucifixion. When Jesus died on the cross, Matthew tells us that the curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom. That door between humanity and God was not just opened to all, it was shattered, rent, destroyed so that nothing could ever again come between us.

So no matter where you feel your oil levels are today - high from a beautiful fall day, low from seasonal sadness, or somewhere in between - no matter how brightly you feel your light is burning, or if it seems to be burning at all, Jesus has broken down the door and come to meet us. He knows each of our hearts and has promised to be with us even to the end of the age, even as we are waiting for him. It’s a weird thing that he can do with time, to be with us while we wait for him, but he has promised it. The Spirit gives us courage, and community, in the waiting time. So keep awake for all of the wonderful things God is doing in and around you in these days. Keep awake to be surprised by the Spirit’s work. Keep awake to find Jesus in the people and situations you will meet in the coming week. Because God is here, and God is there, and God has broken down the door to be with us all, always.

Neither Sin nor Time

Revelation 7:9-17

1 John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

Last night at Mass down the street, we sang one of my favorite hymns, “I am the Bread of Life.” For the last few years, that song has almost been impossible for me to get through. It was one of the keystones of our church drama group in college, which we sang together after our play about the raising of Lazarus. It was the hymn we sang in full-voiced chorus, with clapping and an extra refrain, at the funeral of the theater professor who had created and directed that drama group since the eighties. I still can not quite sing it through in full voice, not if I’m paying attention, because I want so desperately for the words to come true - right now. “And I will raise you up on the last day!” It is a hymn which brings back to me all of the deep love from that funeral, and not only our love and loss when our director died, but the love and passion he gave to us in service of making the Scriptures come alive among us.

I am tempted to make this worship today a tribute to all of those who have died, all who we miss terribly, all who have left their mark on us and are no longer physically among us to interact with. I am tempted to make it that and to leave it at that. We have this activity before us, this chain of saints to put together as a visual reminder of the great cloud of witnesses, an idea offered by the living witnesses of ELCA clergy on Facebook. But even as we celebrate the impact these saints have made on our lives and in the world, remembering how the world has changed since they’ve gone, or since we’ve moved and changed, it is only a small glance into the larger celebration to come.

When we gather around the Table, we pray “with the choirs of angels, with the church on earth and the hosts of heaven.” That means this little table here is connected by some Mystery to every other table where people gather for the Lord’s Supper, and when we gather at it for prayer and eating together, we are eating and praying with everyone who has ever eaten and prayed around this Meal. Which is pure gift. It is not something we can ever earn or understand, it is just given to us. This amazingly global community that God has brought together by his sacrifice for us. The same Body and Blood of Christ shared throughout the ages, where we may not see anymore at the table those who have died, but they are there gathered with us. It still is yet a foretaste of the feast to come, but God knows what and who we bring to this Table when we gather together, both the joy and the struggle.

If we were not moved by those who loved us, it would not ache so deep when they left us. And “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” is a word Jesus speaks for us, today. There is also the beatitude of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, being filled in that hunger. How many of our saints have lived with that sort of thirst, for a more just world? And the meek, the poor in spirit, the merciful, the pure of heart… Jesus holds up these types of people before the disciples as reminders to them of the diversity of people who make up the kingdom of God. The people they will meet in their journeys, whom the world will misunderstand and deride and shame and even throw away or ignore completely or downright persecute, these people, all appearances to the contrary, are blessed.

They are blessed, not because they have earned it, but because Jesus says so. Because Jesus welcomes them, embraces them, walks with them in their grief and their hunger and their mercy. Just as Jesus is the one who makes saints of our beloved dead, and of us even here and now, Jesus is the one who makes blessing root and grow in the most unexpected of places. 

Whomever you have named on your slip of paper, whomever you remember today in our prayers, know that they are with you at this Table, that all of us are united in the love and grace and mercy of a God who has done all that is necessary to bring us together into a single communion. Children of God, you have been claimed by Christ, our beloved dead have been claimed by Christ, we celebrate this day that the love, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, has destroyed this barrier of death which would keep us from God and from each other. Sin can no longer have the final word over us, and neither can time, no matter how it marches on. I wear the color of Easter today as a reminder to that promise of resurrection, which has been secured for us by the blood of his cross. For the saints gone before, for the saints of today, and for all who are yet to come.