Not for nothing

John 6:1-21

Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the sea of Galilee, that is the sea of Tiberius, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then, Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover festival was near, and when Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “It would take almost a year’s wages to buy enough bread for everyone to have a bite.” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here’s a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish! But how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down. About 5,000 men were there. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated, as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them, and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat, and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now, it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. Strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water, and they were frightened. But he said to them, “It is I, don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat. And immediately the boat reached the shore to which they were going.

********

When the Gospel writers set down stories with ink on parchment, not a word was wasted. So I have to wonder why John included the detail that the Passover of the Jews was near. John’s Gospel takes place over the course of three Passovers. The first time, Jesus is in the temple and knocks over the tables of those selling sacrificial animals, when he also says that thing about ‘destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again,’ meaning, of course, his body. Now, this second time, he is feeding no less than five thousand men (not counting women and children), and the third and final time is the Passover where he himself is the sacrifice which feeds the world.

It’s the identifying story of the Jewish people that is told year after year at the Passover. The story of God liberating God’s people from the slavery they suffered at the hands of Egypt. Slavery they ended up in because one of their own, Joseph, of the amazingly colorful coat, interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh and set aside enough food for seven years to survive the next seven, despite terrible famine. Joseph had been a national hero, but the memory of Pharaohs is short, and the next one to come forgot that he owed his life to the ingenuity of a Jewish man, so the Jews were put to harder labor, and Pharaoh attempted to have them killed off as they were born, until God saved them.

The problem with the power of Pharaoh was that he controlled the bread. That’s what most wars are about, anyway, who gets to control the food, which is the stuff that supports life. Joseph had helped them save up enough food to survive, but then they forgot where their food came from and despised the very people who required the same bread they did.

Which is why I find Jesus’ first question here a bit tricky: Where are we to buy bread enough for the people to eat? When have we ever heard Jesus worry about money? He sure talks a lot about the misuses and abuses of it, preaches about the dangers of loving money more than people, but he has never asked his disciples where they will buy medicine to heal the sick, so what about this question about buying enough bread?

He asks the question, but he knows already what he will do, right? So Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, pipes up with an idea: There is a boy here with some bread and fish. A kid. With a snack pack his mom sent him with for lunch. How far will that go among this crowd of thousands?

But no gift is too small for God to work with. One of the preachers at this past week’s worship jubilee reminded us that, really, the disciples had nothing to offer, and that since God created the world out of nothing, it was just right. God can work with nothing. All the people had was hunger. God can work with that.

And it’s true. God can and does work with our nothing, work with our hunger, work with and in and through us in all of our loss and lack, despite our best intentions. When we were slaves in Egypt, we had nothing, we could do nothing about our slavery, we were treated by Pharaoh as though we were worth nothing but cheap labor, and God brought us out of slavery into freedom. The abundance of Passover came out of nothing. We had been worked so hard by our taskmasters in Egypt we had not even the strength to stand up for ourselves, and God fed us and freed us and formed us in the wilderness.

And that’s not for nothing, either.

<this is a portion of the whole, since worship today is ecumenical and the preaching is shared between myself and the Methodist pastor.>

waiting in an airport

I'm en route to an Atlanta, GA worship gathering on behalf of my synod, and the pilot got sick, so we have an extra long layover before we've even begun. Figured that means it's as good a time as any to blog a bit of thoughts on this morning's readings, even though I won't be preaching (though if I'd known the pilot was going to be ill, I could have still made it work. Oh, well, y'all got to hear another preacher in the pulpit if you made it to worship this morning.)
So, here below is one of the three assigned texts, followed by some thoughts form my tired brain:

Ephesians 2:11-22 (ESV)

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands - remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, estranged from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near (made ready? check the Greek) by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

*******

Re-membering. It’s a common theme in Scripture. We ask God to remember us. We are commanded to ‘do this to remember me.’ In this Sunday’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians we are told to remember that we were once not part of this community of faith, that we once did not belong, that we once, like our Jewish ancestors, were a wandering people. Maybe not wandering in a physical wilderness, certainly we have been settled long enough to feel we belong to where we are, and where we are belongs to us, but wandering on a search for meaning and belonging and purpose and a reason greater than ourselves, no?

I have a friend who recently posted very publicly on Facebook that, having looked at the requirements and realities, she can no longer call herself a Christian because she can never live up to the example of Jesus. She knows that Jesus loves her and that God is great, and at the same time she knows she will never be good enough, will never stop making mistakes, will never live a life that follows the example of Jesus as she should. So she does not want to lie by calling herself a Christian if she will not be able to live up to the standards of Christ. (She makes a good Lutheran in that way.) A far better response, thoughtful and honest, than entitlement and hypocrisy, which tends to be the modus operandi of so many who call themselves Christian these days while ignoring or directly contradicting the teachings of Jesus entirely. 

I have an education because my parents worked hard and saved money and invested, and because they are white they got a home loan for a nicer neighborhood without any flack from the lenders. It’s a combination of luck, entitlement, history, effort, and debt, that landed me where I am. If I forget what it took to get me here, not only is that a slap in the face of my second-generation immigrant grandparents who left everything, including their homeland, home culture, and first language (speaking German during the war was such a shameful thing), but it denies me my own heritage and leaves me without roots. If I forget what it took to get me here, and assume life owes me something just for showing up, then I’ve sorely missed the point, painfully missed reality, and completely bought into the lie that I deserve what I have ‘just because.’ I was one of those smart kids in school for whom good grades were easy - when classes were challenging, I enjoyed them more, but then if I didn’t get an ‘A’ I felt like a failure, and it took a long time to get into my head the idea that school was supposed to take work, and that it was okay to try and fail and get up again.

How easily we forget where we came from when we don’t have to struggle so hard to get where we want to be! I don’t like to harp on the Law, on the ways we fall short of God’s ideals for this world, because I think we know well when we hurt others or are hurt ourselves, but I think we still forget how connected we are to one another, how reflexively we fall back on Cain’s question to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But if we don’t realize the Law, how can we know the sweetness of the Gospel? How can we understand how much has been given to us freely unless we remember how little we deserve it? I remember being on a traveling youth ministry music tour when I forgot at one of our sites to pick up all the prepaid phone cards which had been given to our team, so we got to the next location and none of us had the minutes we had waited and asked for, so nobody could call home (this was just a few years before everybody had cell phones - we had one phone for the six-person team). And yet, when it came time to hand out minutes at the next location after all was said and done, I was not punished as I thought I deserved, but we stayed on schedule for who got minutes next. It was pure grace, complete gift, undeserved. A minor thing, to be sure, but to be aware of it was pretty major, especially since I didn’t always get along well with everyone on that team.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Remember that you once wandered in the wilderness. Remember that you are not your own. Remember that you are not the center of the universe. Remember that you are loved in a way that you can never deserve, or earn, which means also you are loved in a way that you can never lose. Remember that this life is a gift. Remember that the life of the person next to you is also a gift. Remember and be re-membered, be put back together again, be restored to wholeness by being restored to community with your neighbors like grains of wheat scattered in a field, grown, and gathered up again to make the bread we share. Remember that it was life and blood and flesh and death and resurrection that made this all possible. Remember that it was for you, but not only you. Remember, and rejoice.

Power

Amos 7:7-15

This is what he showed me: the LORD was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the LORD said, “See, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass them by; the high places of Isaac chalk be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.” Then Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, sent to King Jeroboam of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the very center of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, ‘ Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the LORD took me from following the flock, and the LORD said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

Psalm 85:8-13

I will listen to what the LORD God is saying; for you speak peace to your faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to you. Truly, your salvation is very near to those who fear you, that your glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Faithfulness shall prong up from the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven. The LORD will indeed grant prosperity, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness shall go before the LORD and shall prepare for God a pathway.

Ephesians 1:3-14

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him ho accomplished all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

Mark 6:14-29

...King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” But others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and pout him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.  And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and  and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests and the king sad to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom. “ She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptizer on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

*******

Herod thought, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.” Then he thinks back to the last time he saw John alive. It was a party for his birthday, when he was manipulated into killing someone he considered more a curiosity than a threat. Or, at least, that’s the way he remembers it. John Baptizer had never been one to beat around the bush in matters of religious law, and even though Herod had the power to do whatever he wanted, to and with whomever he wanted, Herod’s sister-in-law-made-wife did not appreciate having her adultery pointed out so publicly, and you know how miserable life can be when someone is very determined to get their own way at any cost, so Herodias badgered Herod into arresting John. It was as close as she could come to getting him completely shut up. Herod knew there was something to John’s teaching, something of the prophetic, something which hearkened back to his own spiritual roots, though Herod had long since covered up those roots with bending to the political powers and authorities that occupied Israel in those day. After all, he had to save his own skin somehow, and he was probably at least not a completely bumbling idiot to be ruling as he was. Not completely, but, it seems, pretty near to that line of powerfully incompetent.

What a dangerous combination, power and fear. Herod, as one commentary puts it, would rather kill an innocent man than be embarrassed in front of his party guests. Who wants a leader who is so easily manipulated? And yet when it comes to the ways we come to power, who doesn’t have their attention pulled in a dozen different ways by financial and media backers these days? Can’t make everyone happy, and you can’t hold onto power if everyone is miserable. Or at least not if the really powerful people pulling the strings don’t like what you’re doing. Herod is just one example among many, ancient and contemporary, of someone who does not really understand their power.

So here we come again to the problem of the power of white supremacy. Or maybe we put it as the power of classism. Or sexism. Did you see the cover of the Chronicle? A guy asks a woman for a dollar and she gives him seventy-seven cents, because that’s ‘a woman’s dollar.’ Anyone who thinks Christians are being persecuted in this country needs only walk into Rite Aid and find all the Scripture references and Christian kitsch on plastic garden decor to know we are still the dominant power here. I’m pretty certain there isn’t a box store or major chain company selling mass quantities of Muslim or Hindu or atheist inspirational poetry in the same way we sell Christian-sounding paraphernalia. We have a LOT of power. Sure, there are ways we don’t have ALL the power, but even the comic books know that power carries responsibility, and far too often those with power would rather misuse it than lose it. How often, for example, are bullies just kids who are themselves bullied? How often do people work their way up the ladder only to squash everyone they left behind in the dust, even if they got where they are because of a family friend or because they were born into a higher economic class? Not saying that people don’t work hard to get where they are, but have you noticed how many people do the majority of the grunt work without a living wage?

Power. We don’t want to give it up when we have it, we want it used in our own self-interest, and we are so terrified that someone else might use their power against us, especially if we’ve ever ignored them or misused them.

Herod had power, but so did John. One was political and economic, the other was charismatic and focused. John stuck to his mission when his life was threatened, Herod caved to the pressure of his party guests and an outrageous promise he made to a little girl. Herod could have easily told her that her request was absurd and dismissed her as a foolish child. He could have easily reminded her who the king really was and yet he valued life so carelessly. John could have kept his head down and let Herod alone with his very public disregard for righteousness. John could have done a dozen other things that weren’t preaching repentance in a time and a place where people were being oppressed. Herod was a pawn, and John was a tool. But John was a tool in the hand of God, where Herod was a pawn in Rome’s game of world domination.

There’s something here about the first time we are introduced to John the Baptist. And the way Herod thinks the things Jesus and his disciples are up to must mean they are from John’s ministry - which, properly speaking, they are. The ongoing work of Jesus’ disciples flows from preaching repentance, turning around. Re-orienting to the ways of God and away from the ways of the world. It’s what the disciples did when they dropped everything to follow Jesus. Repentance is key to renewal and reconciliation. John’s baptism ministry, preparing the way of the coming Lord, centered on preaching repentance. If John was going to come back from the dead and haunt Herod, if would sure be with the same message he first preached while living.

The thing about Herod’s fear of being haunted, though, there’s something in that. It speaks to our misuse of power most clearly. Why would we be afraid of what the dead could do to us if we treated them right while they were alive? Why would it matter that we can’t kill ghosts if those ghosts had no reason to hold a grudge against us? I mean, speaking from a mythical standpoint here, everyone has their own opinions about ghosts and hauntings, but the concept, at least, has something to it, right? So what if John comes back to haunt Herod? Is Herod really going to change his ways?

So maybe the real question is, how is Jesus haunting us today? Take a minute to consider this: John’s being beheaded because of his religious threat to the political powers that be is a foreshadowing of the way Jesus will be killed by a sort of mob mentality, as though to silence his one single voice in death will completely silence all who have every learned from him or been transformed by him. Even if Jesus had stayed dead, his followers were as diverse then as they are now, with all sorts of interpretations about what he means for the state of things in this world and the next. Then you consider what it means that Jesus, in fact, did not stay dead, but rose from the grave and can now walk through walls, and blinded Saul on the road to Damascus, and bring about a miraculous catch of fish for professional fishermen who caught nothing all night long?

Power that trumps even death is pretty much the end-all, be-all, after all. And God uses power not to destroy forever, the way Herod might do without even thinking, but to raise up new life where none had been expected. The prophet Amos says clearly at the end of this morning’s reading: I am not a prophet, don’t even have family who are prophets, I’m just a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, yet God has given me words to prophesy to you. There goes God using power to bring a nobody from no place into a position of leadership and proclamation where he ought not have had a role otherwise. And for we ourselves: Adoption, Redemption, Forgiveness, Inheritance. God uses power not to exclude but to include. Not to threaten with death, but to destroy death itself. Not to throw life away but to lift it up until it sprouts forth from every dead crevice still considered long barren. Jesus is alive again, raised from the dead, and death no longer has the power it once had over us. Death can no longer ever again have the last word. Anything that leads to death can not any longer have the last word or threat of power held over us - addiction, violence, fear, hunger, divorce, poverty, sexism, racism, these painful realities, even pain itself, are not any more powerful over us, or in us, than they are permanent.  As the dancers at yesterday’s picnic danced to the gospel song: There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain, break every chain, break EVERY chain.

Herod may have been a pawn, but God did not let his fear have the last word for his people. John was gruesomely beheaded, as cheaply as anything, but God did not let the sword have the last say about John’s influence in the world. Jesus himself, God enfleshed, bore the weight of our fear and isolation and misused power and misdirected mob mentality, and he let it crush him to further the power of God’s incredible love across the whole wide earth. His single-hearted, focused and clear purpose to love was power enough, because Jesus was not John the Baptizer come back from the dead. Jesus was not Elijah the prophet coming as forerunner. Jesus was not a celebrity or only a great teacher, but God with skin on, God among us, God suffering alongside us and bleeding with us and reaching out wide to gather us in from all corners of the earth, that we, too, might live in that mighty power of reconciliation and love and gratitude and everlasting life.

Everlasting life! How about that? What kind of power do we have now that death has no more power over us? How are we living out of that power of the love which consumes and renews all other loves? Where will your power, your freedom, play out in the days and weeks to come, not only in this summer in Chatham, but across your vacation travels, in your workplace, where you take your rest? How does God living within you come across differently when you can act freely, without fear of judgment or of death, because of the love which carries all of our loves through death and on out the other side? Where will your power set someone else free this week, I wonder? In the way we welcomed so many to the tag sale this weekend, we shared our power. In the work of rebuilding our front steps so access here is safer for all who wish to find sanctuary, we share that power. In connecting with our ecumenical partners, other neighbor churches, through our village and across Columbia county, we are lifted up by the power above all, when love and truth are met, when righteousness and peace kiss each other.

The power of Jesus the Christ, alive again to die no more, dead once to bring us all through death and into new life, that power is new life for the world. All of it. The whole world. Love that knows not bounds or limits, that has been rejected but never rejects, that sings new life in the face of silent death and whispers peace in the heart of every fighter who serves in time of conflict. Herod only pretends at power, and makes a mess of it. John knew true power, and was not afraid to speak truth to earthly power. Jesus is the power of love and reconciliation and life, the power in which we live, and move, and have our being.

Reputations and Freedom

Ezekiel 2:1-5

God said to me: “O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, “Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.”

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes, to you enthroned in the heavens. As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to you, O Lord our God, until you show us your mercy. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy, for we have had more than enough of contempt, too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, and of the derision of the proud.

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

I know a man in Christ who was for ten years ago caught up to the third heaven -whether in the body or out of it I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise -whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows - and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Mark 6:1-13

He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the bother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching. And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff - no bread, no bag, no money in their belts - but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you, and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.

***

This past week I spent six days at Vanderkamp for the Hudson/Mohawk Conference's Annual Senior High summer camp. We got together the same time as the confirmation camp, which was a lot of high-energy fun, and while the junior high students spent the week with their leaders learning about the liturgical year, we spent our week with the high schoolers talking about hard conversations and how to handle a variety of expectations from family, friends, school, and self. We talked about big issues like racism, and about personal struggles like living with divorced parents. It was a heavy week, and full of fun and tears. 

I wonder what Jesus would have been like as a teen at this sort of camp week. Day after day sharing what it’s like to be Joseph’s step-son, Mary’s illegitimate kid. Was he teased for not knowing really who his father was? Had he been picked on for being non-violent while the other kids got into scuffles? Was he incredibly sensitive or one of a crowd of troublemakers? We don’t have those stories in our scriptures, but we do have the story today of what it was like when he went back home to those people who saw him grow up, when he tried to work with the people who had known him as a kid, when their limited imaginations about who he might grow up to be got in the way of their knowing him as he was. It’s a common thing, to think we know all there is to other people out of one or two experiences, or only a small handful of favorite stories. We do the same thing over and over when it comes to being in relationship with God, too.

But then he sends out his disciples, a relatively unknown bunch of folks who have no widely-known reputations to speak of, no credentials, no extra bags, or bread, or money, only the gift of each other and the authority to cast out unclean spirits. These wandering pairs - I imagine them looking a bit like Mormon door-to-door missionaries in dirty old tunics - “cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.” They were completely dependent on the hospitality of those whose towns they entered. For all appearances, they were powerless, yet they had been given the command to go, and so they went. They had walked with Jesus and saw what he did, they also saw him rejected in his own hometown, and Jesus passed the baton on to them for picking up the work he was doing. Because the work to be done was more important than his reputation.

What kind of reputation does the church have these days, I wonder? What sort of expectations? I met a woman a couple of weeks ago and in letting her know I’m part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, she got caught up on that first word: “Evangelical.” She saw my piercings and tattoos and heard me talk about Grace, and then was really confused that I consider myself to be evangelical, because there is a different sort of reputation that comes with that label now than when we first picked it up. It’s a sad day when we have to say ‘our church is different because it welcomes all sorts of people,’ because that implies there are churches that don’t do that. But what is the church if not sanctuary? What is the church if not hospitality and welcome? That was one of the constant themes of Senior High Camp this past week, that the kids from all over the map - kids into sports, kids into Dungeons and Dragons, kids into fashion, kids into music, kids into complicated mathematical equations and magic tricks… - kids from all sorts of groups were able to be themselves together and be celebrated for who they are. And we kept reminding them, that this is what camp is about. But it’s bigger than camp. Just like it’s bigger than our congregation here. Just like it’s bigger than this fourth of July holiday weekend.

We’ve got a great American dream to celebrate, a theme of freedom to embrace, but it’s far bigger than just what’s here on our shores. America has all sorts of reputations, depending on where you are and who you ask, but on the 4th of July we focus on that stand we took over two hundred years ago, that official document proclaiming “all men are created equal,” though it did not free the slaves. A document which in effect would have had all of us hanged for treason if our Revolution had not ended the way that it did. It was huge, it was risky, it was flawed because people built it. The Declaration of Independence still set forth a precedent for breaking away from abuses of power. 

To quote: “…all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”  

Then the Declaration goes on to list the grievances against King George, which are many, and some of which sound a lot like grievances minorities have voiced among us lately. We wrote a good document, we got off to a rocky start, we’re still struggling to live up to the ideals which led us to fight for a separation in the first place, but even this great experiment is too small.

“Liberty and Justice for all” is supposed to mean for all, but we get mixed up, we get scared, we get hurt and hurt others in return, both on a personal level and on a bigger scale. It’s a wonderful dream, this freedom, and a lot of people have sacrificed their lives for it, but it’s not going to be finally accomplished by our own power and reputation. We take steps, forward and back, to work for it the best we know how, and we are still learning, still moving, still working, to realize what freedom really can be when it is truly freedom for all. Some of us do that by serving in the military. Some of us do that by working in education or by volunteering at the food pantry. 

But here’s the tricky part: freedom for all means even freedom for our enemies. We cannot live in a free world if we continue to kill and oppress and fear one another. This is where God’s reputation hangs on the line. In God’s everlasting kingdom, the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. But death is the threat we hold over one another’s heads, isn’t it? Death is the thing that we use to finalize punishment on those we deem worst sinners of all. Death is the threat that pushes us to our limits when we get cornered. Death is common to all that lives, yet we do celebrate our national heroes in song when we claim that they “loved liberty more than life,” and that, my friends, that is the freedom of which we sing when we sing of Jesus. Liberty and Justice for each and every living being, freedom and life for every plant, tree, bird, and person who has ever lived. 

There has too long been this false reputation for God, that God is somehow always only angry and demanding and vengeful, and when it comes to injustice that is exactly the image the prophets conjure up. When it comes to seeing creation destroying itself over wealth and honor and consumerism, that is exactly the way we must learn to hear God railing against the powers of destruction and slavery. But when it comes to loving this world, in all of its shattered state, our God would rather die than kill. That is made most clear on the cross, where Jesus, who is our God in flesh, submits to our punishments, so that we can see what kind of world we are making. Once that door is open, once that death has dissolved into life, once we are honest about our failures, healing can begin, freedom can begin.

As the apostle Paul wrote in this morning’s reading: “God said to me “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” It is true for all of us. Every fear, every weakness, is what we celebrate when we celebrate true freedom. Because those things are no longer held over us, no longer threats to our well-bring, but embraced as places of grace, as the coming of God’s kingdom among us.

Our community, then, is made a place of honesty and healing. Our church, then, is a community of welcome and embrace. Our children are celebrated and encouraged as they explore and discover who God has created them to be. Our own struggles are caught up in the new covenant with a God who has broken our expectations and brought life out of death, wholeness out of pain, who is with us every step along the way, no matter where our lives may take us.