Love is a consuming fire

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21

And the LORD said to him, "go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damscus" and when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. And Jehu the son of Nishmi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and eLisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-me holly you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. ... So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, "let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." And he said to him, "go back again, for what have I done to you?" And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boils their flesh with the yokes of oxen and sacrificed them and boils their flesh with the yokes of oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arise and went after Elijah and assisted him.

Psalm 16

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, 'you are my lord; I have no good apart from you.' As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom I take my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the LORD who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the LORD also before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. For you were called to freedom, kindred. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Luke 9:51-62

When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

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Lord, how many times have I wished to be able to call down fire on somebody. One of my commenters on the Gospel this week said the disciples were trying to recreate the shock and awe of Soddom and Gomorrah, those cities burned for their inhospitality, no, their downright violence, toward strangers. Calling down fire is something we’ve got a history of, burning crosses in people’s yards, even as recently as three days ago burning the Pride flag outside of First Lutheran Church and the Damian Center in Albany. The church has often exercised control by threatening the fires of hell on anyone who does not adjust their lives to the dominant culture. Martin Luther had major issues with that one, by the way. 

I remember being in Confirmation class way way back and reading that small catechism and getting hung up on the constant use of the phrase ‘fear and love God.’ I couldn’t wrap my head around that use of the ward ‘fear,’ because I’d sung “Jesus Loves Me” so many times it didn’t make sense to me to be afraid of someone who loved me. Now that I’ve met my own fears of disappointing my parents, now that I’ve met people who lived through abusive relationships, now I know many ways we take that fear to be normal, even when it isn’t. We feed a culture of fear when we threaten others with fire, be it physical or verbal or emotional fire. We feed a culture of fear when people who look like Freddy Gray are physically thrown around and thrown away and no one is held accountable for it. We feed a culture of fear when we speak more about people who are different than with those people. 

It’s not the life we were meant for, this cycle of violence and threats and looking for excuses for violence against ourselves. But it is so easy to get trapped in that cycle, isn’t it? Answering threats with threats. Throwing jabs in self-defense until we have forgotten what we are fighting about and can’t even logically think about the issues at hand. 

Even our churches have gotten stuck in this cycle. These places which are supposed to be full of grace and sanctuary have become afraid of getting it ‘wrong,’ or afraid of dying, trying to be more relevant and trying to grow by reminding ourselves that we have it ‘right’ and the world has it ‘wrong’ and at least in here we know we’re saved and safe. Everywhere we look we are raising the anxiety levels. It is amazing we haven’t all died of stress-induced heart attacks.

But calling down fire is a distraction. Trolling is a distraction. Telling people to go home or learn English is a distraction. It gets in the way. Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, and calling down fire would have been a side project, not to mention completely contrary to his work and character up to this point in the story. Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. And when somebody sets their face toward something, there are no side trips, there is no distraction, and there is no secret about their ultimate goal and purpose. Everything he does serves this one purpose and goal of getting to Jerusalem, being there in time to die for the Passover festival, making clear his mission to be the final sacrifice for the sake of the world.

Along the way, he calls others to join this vision, to live this kingdom way, to follow and witness and serve. Many have come to expect that following a well-known Rabbi might mean being welcomed in every town with a hot meal and the best room at the inn. But we who have followed the story from the start know that even in his birth Jesus didn’t have a place to lay his head. If you’re looking for a nice hotel, this is the wrong guy to follow, because at best he sleeps on a pile of hay in the barn out back. It’s part of belonging to the whole world, that he can live anywhere in it, but as we draw our lines of who’s in and who’s out, we often put him on the ‘out.’ It’s like the Levites, the tribe that became priests for the nation of Israel, the one brother out of the original twelve who wasn’t afforded land of his own because he would learn to rely on the hospitality of his eleven brothers. Levi was one of two of Joseph’s brothers who did not receive a blessing from his father Israel because of his violence, yet he was also known for being very pious, and his descendants took care of the Torah and the temple. But they had no official place to call their own, only the promise of a tithe from each other brother to support them. The religious were not ‘entitled’ to special treatment because they were religious.

This is where we get the heart of the problem Paul is talking about in his letter to the Galatians today. We’ve been called to freedom. But we have couched that freedom in fear for so long that we don’t know the roots of it any longer, and we use that freedom to bite and devour one another instead of feeding each other. It is as antithetical as if Sojourner Truth had gotten to the north and decided to become a slaveowner herself. Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem for the sake of the whole world, for the work of liberating all who are oppressed, returning sight to the blind, releasing the captives, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor.

And for each and every time we get distracted, for each and every time we would rather call down fire, God sends down grace, God raises up compassion. Not only for those we would want to see burn, but for our own hearts, as well. In some cases, that feels an awful lot like fire. I know I don't like the feeling of being called out, but either God agape-loves the whole world, from Clinton to Trump to Sanders, from Russia to Mexico to the U.K. to Venezuela to Australia to… either God loves us all, or God isn’t God. And this isn’t Hallmark love, either, not even close to that simple sort of soft and fluffy feeling. This is love that reaches through the centuries in all directions, that creates and sustains life, that is wrenched when we tear at one another, that bleeds and sweats and weeps and works. If God insists on the life and death work of loving the whole spectrum and beyond, God isn’t going to turn away from that mission when we decide to take the easy road of making enemies and threats out of each other.

Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem, knowing he was going to be killed there, knowing what that city meant to his people and to outsiders, knowing that not everyone would be able to swallow what he was doing. And he didn’t die so that the sanctuary would be full every Sabbath, so that every priest could sleep on a feather bed, so that we could know with certainty who deserved to burn and who deserved heaven. He died to set us free from the fear of condemnation that haunts and shames us. He died as he lived, so that community could be expanded and restored, so that the hungry would be fed and the outcast welcomed. He set his face toward Jerusalem, and no distractions could turn him aside from his mission to restore a fearful world with passionate love.

We write the rest of the story

Isaiah 65:1-9
I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks; who sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret place; who eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels; who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day long. See, it is written before me: I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their laps their iniquities and their ancestors’ iniquities together, says the LORD; because they offered incense on the mountains and reviled me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their actions. Thus says the LORD: As the wine is found in the cluster, and they say, “Do not destroy it, for there is a blessing in it,” so I will do for my servants’ sake, and not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah inheritors of my mountains; my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall settle there.

Psalm 22:19-28
But you, O LORD, be not far away; O my help, hasten to my aid. Deliver me from the sword, my life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth! From the horns of wild bulls you have rescued me. I will declare your name to my people; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you. You who fear the LORD, give praise! All you of Jacob’s line, give glory. Stand in awe of the LORD, all you offspring of Israel. For the LORD does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty; neither is the LORD’s face hidden from them; but when they cry out, the LORD hears them. From you comes my praise in the great assembly; I will perform my vows in the sight of those who fear the LORD. The poor shall eat and be satisfied, Let those who seek the LORD give praise! May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; all the families of nations shall bow before God. For dominion belongs to the LORD, who rules over the nations.

Galatians 3:23-29
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Luke 8:26-39
Then Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me” - for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

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Wow. How much has Jesus done for this man? That takes some serious courage to tell the communities of people who hated and feared him what having his sanity back was worth. When Jesus tells this man to return to his home, what does the man think that even means? For years his home has been the graveyard, where he was chained up like a wild animal, I wonder if he ever considered even returning to where his life began before the demons swept in, snuck in, crawled, slithered, shouted in his brain and tore at his sleep. Had his community even kept a space for him to live in anymore, or was he now also homeless?

I consider this man’s story in my mind to be something like prison inmates released back into society after a long sentence, or soldiers returning from war with enough PTSD to make the people around them nervous and jumpy. For all of the violence he has inflicted, all of the violence that has been inflicted upon him, his mental clarity may have been restored quickly enough, but the community that had learned how to set him apart as dangerous now has their own discomfort to wrestle with. And Jesus throws him right back into that chaos, to be his own advocate in front of a people who may or may not have expected him to ever recover, but who definitely were fearful - it says so twice in the text. No wonder the man begged to get into that boat with Jesus, who wants to live in a place where everyone is afraid of you?

But that’s the world we live in now, isn’t it? I know we have a community here divided on the issues of gun control and human sexuality. I’m not here to argue whether hunters and law enforcement officers should be able to keep their guns, which isn’t even the question we’re asking. I’m here to ask about what we do when we are so afraid of each other, so afraid of our selves, that violence outright becomes the only solution we can see. It has been a year since a white supremacist - raised in our faith tradition - walked into a Bible study in Charleston and opened fire on a group of our peacefully gathered brothers and sisters in Christ, simply because he had been taught to hate and fear. Nobody had bothered to show him otherwise. It has been only a week since the sanctuary of our LGBTQ Latinx siblings was violated, when a man struggling with his own sexuality and the outright homophobia of his father came into our safe space and killed us.

Why do we meet violence and fear with more violence and fear?

So many of my friends this past week have been pouring their hearts into articles, letters, liturgies, trying to make sense of how a country which has for so long been legally and politically violent toward us can now claim to have compassion for our deaths. Thrivent Financial, of all groups, will support Focus on the Family, who work actively against recognizing my full humanity, and yet refuse to support those organizations which offer life-giving support networks for the LGBTQ community, because those issues are divisive. But they still sent out an email this week offering fundraising support for the families affected by last Sunday’s shooting. Our rhetoric has fed the fear that leads to this kind of violence, even when it seems words are only words. But words aren’t just words, are they? We begin by making another group of people ‘other,’ so we can justify killing them later. We tie each other up in chains, even tighter every time those chains get broken, just like the demon possessed man in the Scripture text today.

It’s no wonder that the man’s first reaction to Jesus was to beg him ‘do not torment me!’ His whole life was torment, that was all he could expect to come from anyone. Even inside his own head he was not safe, nor cared for. Picture the way we have been talking about addiction since the 1980s, with this whole ‘war on drugs.’ It’s no wonder we are having a hard time breaking the stigma and clearing out the shame, we don’t like dealing with suffering, so we find excuses to distance ourselves from it. The ‘war on drugs’ was started during a time when crime was going down, and it was started to target communities of color, portraying them in the news as dangerous drug addicts who needed to be put away, even though drug use is the same across the races. We set up a whole community to be the target of our fear, again, and now we have to face that fear in ourselves as addictions take deeper root among people who look more like us. Because once this man was set free of his demons, clothed and in his right mind, the rest of his community had to see him again as one of them, see the possibility that they might be more like him than they first wanted to admit. We don’t tend to like that feeling, putting ourselves in the same category as those we have ostracized, seeing our own humanity reflected in the lives of people who don’t seem like us at all.

This is the way the demons work. This is what I mean when I use the language of ‘sin.’ We are so set against one another that we have lost even the desire to find in each other those fragments of God’s image, that Image in which we are all created. All of us, each and every one. As Paul says in his letter to the Galatians this morning: Jew and Greek, Male and Female, Slave and Free, each and every one belonging to the whole. That destructive power breeds racism, classism, Islamaphobia, homophobia, sexism, addiction, but the work of Christ breaks down those barriers, destroys the dividing wall. The love of Christ stands on the outside with everyone who has been cast aside.

We need intervention, my friends. Our whole culture is growing more and more fearful, and reacting in violence is the opposite of building God’s beloved community. But Jesus comes to those barren, wilderness places, on purpose. Jesus crosses the borders and meets the ones who have been thrown away, and will not let the community’s fear have the last word. Jesus cuts through the voices of destruction to speak a word of wholeness, cuts through the voices of despair to build a new reality, cuts through the voices of fear with a perfect love that is unafraid of the ‘other,’ because God sets us free from the demons we have gotten comfortable with. God unsettles us with a new way of living just when we have figured out how to live in unbearable circumstances, or just when we have put our blinders on again so we can stay safe from the ‘other,’ so that the larger beloved community can become a lived, a holy, reality among us.

See how much Jesus has done for us, even before we could think to ask. Isaiah the prophet speaks to this beautifully: I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that did not call on my name. I held out my hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices; a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and offering incense on bricks; who sit inside tombs, and spend the night in secret place; who eat swine’s flesh, with broth of abominable things in their vessels; who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”

The Kin(g)dom of God levels the playing field. God comes to us while we are in the middle of the mess, while we are actively working against life and love, while we are chained up by our fears and chaining one another up by our fears. Jesus steps in and clears away the lies we tell to justify killing each other, however slowly or quickly we are doing that.

Jesus kind of left that man on his own to defend himself to the frightened crowds, and I’m not sure how well that worked out for the man, but maybe he was seen as a marvel, a miracle, someone touched by God, set apart in another way that made it easier for the community to distance themselves from him again. I would like to think the community wrestled with him one on one, the way old friends at a reunion get to know each other again after decades apart and a multitude of life changes. But honestly, I don’t know what his restoration to community, what that community’s own restoration with him, looked like. We don't have that part of the story. Maybe it's up to us to live it out. I do know that Jesus does not leave us unchanged, that the truth will set us free, even if it makes us weird and uncomfortable and miserable first. That the truth of the full humanity of all of humanity, regardless of religious background or class or race or sexuality or gender, is the root of our being from the outset of creation.

When Jesus walks with us, Jesus walks with all of us. When we say we are created in the Image of God, we are all created reflections of the Divine Image. I know that today is Father’s Day, but did you know that today is also Juneteenth? It’s the celebration of the day, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, that finally all slaveholders and slaves got the word of freedom. That we would have to pass a law recognizing all people as people might seem ridiculous now, as though such a thing were common sense, but we are still healing from that wound, trying to recover in ourselves the full humanity to recognize the full humanity of others. It is a day of celebration in many ways, a day to tell the demons of hate and fear and violence that they ultimately have no say over who we are and what we are worth. The legion will ultimately lose, because the Lord of Life, who had the first word on life, also has the last word on life, and every word in between is Life. So we continue to gather in our holy spaces, defiantly refusing to fear each other, refusing to let death have the final say, because it cannot, and it never will, save us. Life wins out, love wins out, hope and joy and peace and justice will win out as we are restored to one another in truth and in wholeness in the Kin(g)dom and the love of our God.

Do you see the woman?

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15

When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD, and the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.” Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.” Nathan said to David, “You are the man! Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I amounted you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul; I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if it had been too little, I would have added as much more. Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” Nathan said to David, “Now the LORD has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die.” Then Nathan went to his house. The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became very ill.

Psalm 32

Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away! Happy are they to whom ehe LORD imputes no guilt, and in whose spirit there is no guilt! While I held my tongue, my bones withered away, because of my groaning all day long. For your hand was heavy upon me day and night; my moisture was dried up as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not conceal my guilt. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the LORD.” Then you forgave me the guilt of my sin. Therefore all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble; when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them. You are my hiding place; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go; I will guide you with my eye. Do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding; who must be fitted with bit and bridle, or else they will not stay near you.” Great are the tribulations of the wicked; but mercy embraces those who trust in the LORD. Be glad, you righteous, and rejoice in the LORD; shout for joy, all who are true of heart.

Galatians 2:15-21

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified  not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves had been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I have died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

Luke 7:36-8:3

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him - that she is a sinner.” Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

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“Do you see the woman?”

It’s a very simple question that Jesus asks. There is a woman in the space where the men have gathered to talk about religion and philosophy, and she has made a public spectacle of herself by getting openly emotional, weeping at Jesus’ feet and anointing him with a perfume that would have made the house smell for days. The host of this particular party, a Pharisee named Simon, sneers in her direction, as well as sneering at Jesus for not living up to his reputation as a prophet. Holy men, after all, are supposed to keep only the ‘right’ kind of company, and sinful women are far from ‘right,’ right? Then again, we don’t know what was meant by calling her a sinner. Could be she fought against her abusive husband, or stood up for her child when he got bullied by the Romans, but in any case, she did not stay in her place, so she got her own reputation as a sinner.

So comes the question, do we see her? Simon thought he knew her, knew what kind of person she was, knew where she belonged and what she deserved, but this woman in the story doesn’t even have a name. How could she be known without knowing her name?

Stories do this thing sometimes, though, where they leave characters without stories so those types can be even more open for interpretation. The rich man who ignored Lazarus, for example, or the Beloved Disciple, unnamed so we could find ourselves in these situations and rewrite those stories. Much like Nathan gave David the chance to re-write his own story when he told him a tale of two shepherds, one rich and the other poor, to stir David’s heart of justice and give him another perspective on his own actions.

Because sometimes, as much as we have a hard time seeing beyond the labels and expectations on other people, sometimes we have an equally hard time looking at, and seeing, even ourselves. 

I woke up this morning to a post in the ELCA Facebook page about this early morning’s shooting at a gay bar in Orlando. At least 20 people killed and twice that many now in the hospital. And June is Pride month, where LGBTQ people across the country celebrate that we don’t have to hide who we are in order to be worth loving. But our denomination, and much of the wider church, has yet to claim that publicly, by our ‘bound conscience’ clause in the 2009 sexuality statement - we can’t decide if my sexuality and gender identity are inherently sinful. Just like we can’t decide if women really deserve equal pay or can be trusted to know what’s best for their own bodies. Just like we can’t decide as a denomination if we are being too political by saying that Black Lives Matter. Because we might offend someone, even though while we look away there are religiously-inspired hate crimes going on all around us, inspired by our Christianity, even though while we look away the sexual assault rates on college campuses remains far too high with far too little consequence for the assailants, even though black and brown bodies are being treated as threats to national security just for breathing out in the open.

What do we see when we look at this world, I wonder? When we look at the news and look at ourselves? When we look at a twelve year old kid playing cops and robbers, or a man wearing a feather boa, or a college student going to a party to meet friends? Do we ever see each other, or only types, only pieces in a game, only old stories playing themselves out again and again without any of our own control over their outcome?

Simon didn’t see the woman who came to Jesus with a heart overflowing with love. Simon saw a ‘sinner,’ and we have been perpetuating a story about her ever since that reeks of shame and guilt and sexual immorality as we choose to define it. David didn’t see Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, a woman with her own hopes and dreams, but a body that he had power over and wanted to own and use for his own pleasure. David was a rapist who got his own story and plenty of chances to redeem himself. The woman in Simon’s house is there to be known for her love but is instead remembered for a sin which isn’t even specified. History just keeps repeating itself, doesn’t it?

But it doesn’t have to. We still have power over our stories, about how we stand in relation to the world, about how we look at ourselves and the people around us. And we have that power because we have been forgiven. Now, a big part of that forgiveness is like the story Nathan told David, where we look at ourselves openly and honestly, like an addict admitting to having a problem in the first place. Knowing that we need help is the first, and in many ways the hardest, step. Admitting we can’t get it all right on our own, or that we don’t even want to try, can hurt very deeply. But we are only human, we can’t be expected to fulfill some ideal of perfection, especially as that ideal keeps changing.

This is what it means to be Lutheran, to look at the law and find we cannot fulfill all that it demands, to hope and dream for a life with God that is as God intended and know we cannot accomplish it by our own striving, to know that we will fail and fall and hurt one another and be hurt by each other. And yet, despite our best efforts, there is grace and forgiveness and hope and new life. Because even while we struggle to see ourselves and one another, Jesus sees us as naked as the day we were born, as completely ourselves as we were before we started to be afraid of being different. Jesus sees us and knows us, and weeps when we weep, and in forgiving us restores us and returns to us the work of repairing the world. Now, that doesn’t always mean putting things back to where they were before things got broken, because sometimes the healthiest and holiest act is to walk away and start over elsewhere. But it does mean that for all of the times when we are just finished with the whole mess, finished with each other, God isn’t finished with us. It does mean that for all the times when we would rather ignore or avoid all that needs healing, God still comes with the surgeon’s knife and the loving embrace and the promise of resurrection.

God sees us, God knows us, God calls us each and all by name. For some, that being seen and known is a comfort, for some it is a terror, but how do we then see the God who sees us? Look at the news, look at Jesus on the cross, look and decide for yourself how God walks among us today. Look for God and find Her behind all of those labels we paste onto each other, find Her under the gossip and stereotypes, find Her next to you on the bus, and in the line at the grocery store, and the next time you visit the hospital, and, yes, find Her even in those moments of discomfort when decisions have to be made and conflicts have to be engaged. Because God is so very present in all of our wrestling, so very present in all of our hurting, so very present when we live and when we die and when we live again. God sees us. God knows us. God loves us with a love we may spend a lifetime with yet never fully understand, fierce and passionate and pouring over us just like the love and tears of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet at Simon’s house. Because God has much love for us, loving us in all our fullness: male, female, black, white, rich, poor, gay, straight, old, young, single, married, geek, nerd, jock, musician, democrat, republican, pro-life, pro-choice. God knows our stories and sees our wholeness. May we come to trust that love and find it all around us.

Mary was a single mother

1 Kings 17:17-24

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill; his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. She then said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to cause the death of my son!” But he said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him from her bosom, carried him up into the upper chamber where he was lodging, and laid him on his own bed. He cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper chamber into the house, and gave him to his mother; then Elijah said, “See, your son is alive.” So the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

Psalm 30

I will exalt you, O LORD, because you have lifted me up and have not let my enemies triumph over me. O LORD my God, I cried out to you, and you restored me to health. You brought me up, O LORD, from the dead; you restored my life as I was going down to the grave. Sing praise to the LORD, all you faithful; give thanks in holy remembrance. God’s wrath is short; God’s favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping spends the night, but joy comes in the morning. While I felt secure, I said, “I shall never be disturbed. You, LORD, with your favor, made me as strong as the mountains.” Then you hid your face and I was filled with fear. I cried to you, O LORD; I pleaded with my Lord, saying, “What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness? Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me; I LORD, be my helper.” You have turned my wailing into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. Therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing; O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

Galatians 1:11-24

For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. You have heard no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus. Then after three years did I go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, “The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me.

Luke 7:11-17

Soon afterwards Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. Then the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

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By this point in the Gospel of Luke, I can just imagine Jesus’ followers singing the Mighty Mouse theme song for him. I mean, he has just healed the slave of a centurion simply by saying the word, and that’s some serious authority. So his roadies start talking him up, bringing new fans along to see what he’ll do next, and I can hear them singing, “Here he comes to save the daaaaaay! Jesus Christ is on the waaaaay!”

I jest. But only partially. This crowd is getting bigger everywhere he goes, and they’re probably not too quiet about their excitement, either. And you know how it can get in a crowd, at a party, when everybody is just riding the high energy and it’s easy to miss more serious things going on, especially because you want to keep feeling good. So they enter this town called Nain, Jesus and his fans and his disciples, and they meet this other crowd, this crowd that’s definitely not so happy. It’s like the Pride parade meets a funeral procession. Which it is. This widow, who has already buried her husband, is on her way, with her community, to bury her only son. She may have had daughters, we don’t know, but this only son business is serious business. Maybe he looked just like his father and that was a comfort to her, or maybe it was most certainly not a comfort. Maybe he was the son who could work hard and help her keep her property and a roof over their heads, or maybe he was a freeloader who expected everyone else to wait on him. We don’t know. 

But because the Gospel is storytelling, we hear the phrase ‘his only son’ and it means something else, too. Because whether or not it’s true, we call Jesus the only son of Mary. Certainly the only son of God in the particular way he was said to be conceived, right? And Jesus knows he’s going to be putting his mother in a very similar situation soon, when he will die before her and she will have to grieve and bury him. The young man on the bier, the burial pallet, is probably about the same age as Jesus, just about thirty or so, that’s what the phrase ‘young man’ in the Greek illustrates. So the foreshadowing Jesus might see here of his own mother’s impending grief, at least the foreshadowing we see, stirs some compassion. 

Jesus was basically raised by a single mother. We don’t hear much about Joseph after the return from Egypt, and chances are Joseph was much older than Mary when Jesus was born. We don’t know how long Joseph lived, but he disappears from the story pretty early on, leaving Mary to raise this budding Rabbi, and from the looks of it, well, since we know now who Jesus is and what he did, we can say Mary did a good job, but I’m sure at the time there were many who disapproved of the way she formed him and then let him wander village to village like that. Single mothers are always being given the side eye by somebody, even when they work so hard and love so fiercely and do so unsupported.

But that’s the narrative we’ve been telling for ages, isn’t it? That single mothers, widows, orphans, are unsupported, isolated, destitute. Which makes us the ones who have to save them. And don’t get me wrong, there are many ways in which we have built the system against women, some subtle, some overt. And the early church was known for the way we cared for widows and orphans without expectation of payment in return. That was our specialty, to take care of those people otherwise uncared for by the rest of society. But we paint far too bleak a picture of widows, as though they had no access to resources of their own, as though they didn’t have their own network of support, and single mothers don’t need our pity. Who wants pity?

Jesus doesn’t respond to the widow at Nain with pity. He responds with compassion. splagniztheis is the Greek word, it’s a gut-wrenching. Compassion is the suffering with, not the lording over of strength and power that comes with pity. Which is exactly who Jesus is, compassion, gut-deep, living with us.

What I think is happening is that Jesus hasn’t been home to see his own mother in ages, though for all I know she may have been traveling with them. I think he might see the relationship he and his own mother have, recognize the garbage she had to put up with for getting pregnant out of wedlock, and facing the ridicule with strength and keeping her heart open for her son, and I think Jesus’ compassion for this widow mirrors the compassion he had for his own mother. It’s just a theory, of course, just storytelling, only conjecture. But to be an only son and meet someone who has lost their only son, or to be a mother and meet someone who has lost their mother, there has to be some element of self-recognition there, some way to identify.

The thing about this particular healing, though, is that we don’t know the details about what comes after. First off, this mother in the middle of her grief may well have to grieve again if her son dies before she does, again. Secondly, we don’t know the relationship these two had, and maybe it was a relief, for her or for her son. She might have been "mommy dearest" for all we know, or he might have made her life miserable. But I’m not a mother, I don’t know firsthand the depth of love one has for their own child, I’ve only heard the stories of those who spare no expense caring for their children even when those kids are worse than awful to them. Kind of makes me wonder why we don't call God "Mother" more often. But the only thing the storyteller of Luke’s Gospel is concerned with here is that this sign points to who Jesus is, the authority Jesus has over death, and the compassion he carries for those who are on the margins. They meet, after all, on the literal margins of Nain.

I had a seminary professor from the Catholic Passionist tradition for a semester on God and the Mystery of Human Suffering who told us once that Jesus didn’t heal people for their own sake, as though they needed their sight restored or their hearing or to be able to walk and work again. He said that Jesus healed one person in a community for the sake of the community who could not recognize the work and miracle of God in those who were different. The man born blind did not need to see, he needed to be seen, for example. So I wonder how much of that is going on here in this story with the widow and her only son, too. We don’t need to be saved from our grief, certainly, and death is as much a part of life as breathing or photosynthesis. But I wonder how many of the men in Nain valued this woman’s contribution, or even just her own stories and her own strength, outside of the fact that she had a son. What if this was how Jesus honored his own mother, not that she was weak and needed him in order to be acceptable to society, but that he wanted her to be recognized for her own strength?

There’s another widow in our lectionary today. One who lived in Old Testament days, during a great drought and famine brought about because her puppet king and his very cruel queen were so awful that God’s prophet Elijah had to go tell them the rains were closed off to them until they got their act together. This widow also had a son. And when the prophet Elijah met her, though she is never given a name, she is working hard, breaking her back to feed herself and her son their last meal before the produce of the land runs out entirely. This widow is a strong and capable woman, and, even under all of the stress of impending starvation, she opens her home to a stranger, the very stranger whose word put her in this situation whether or not she knows it. She may or may not have much choice in the matter, not knowing what connections Elijah might have to call on if she refuses, but she also may not have the energy to make one more argument and maybe takes pity on this scraggly looking prophet. He promises that her food will not run out while she cares for him, which could just be selling snake oil, but his promise is true, and their food does not run out for the duration of the famine.

Of course, things turn bad when her son stops breathing. She has worked her tail off to take care of that boy, and here this man of God comes sauntering in during a time of crisis to call her to account for her sins and take her son’t life in payment? Oh, no, that is not okay. That’s probably also not what’s actually happening, but chances are she didn’t have the best relationship with the religious rulers of the day, church folks have a long and well-earned reputation for being judgmental, especially of women. And Elijah is pretty upset, too. You can hear it in the story. He doesn’t take offense at the woman’s accusations. He doesn’t try to explain that sometimes these things just happen. He doesn’t defend himself against her anger and grief, he cries out to God with his own anger and grief. He prays for her, for himself, for the child. He performs something that sounds like CPR, and the child is revived.

But, again, this story isn’t really about the widow. It’s not about the child, either. It’s about Elijah, the great prophet, keeping a woman on the margins alive, while thumbing his nose at the great and powerful queen and king who have all sorts of glitter and power about them but ultimately no authority over life and death. 

Jesus’ work is set today in light of the Elijah story, in line of the great prophets. Those who first heard about the widow at Nain would surely have remembered this widow from the Old Testament, would have remembered Elijah and made the connection with Jesus. He’s thumbing his nose at Roman authorities, at religious authorities, at any powers that be which would devalue life on the margins. He is showing no different treatment to a widow than to a centurion. Let me say that again: a military commander with authority over one hundred soldiers gets the same care as a widow whose only son has just died. Can you imagine what that would look like here, if we treated single mothers with the same respect we gave our active duty servicemen? If we paid people equally for their work and didn’t have this ridiculous gender pay gap? If we stopped making light of sexual assault on college campuses as though men couldn’t control themselves around women and that was somehow expected? Can you imagine if we who carry his name lived like Jesus in our day and age, how much would need to change, how much could really change?

And this is the abundant life Jesus brings to us, for us. It’s also the reason he gets killed. Anybody can kill. It’s bringing life that’s the hard thing. It’s bringing life that takes work, it’s healing that requires effort and difficulty, it’s resurrection that takes a miracle. These miracles are happening all around us every day. It’s not just the big processions and suddenly unexpected signs. It’s a change of heart, like Saul encountered when he turned from persecuting early followers of the Way of Christ and became Paul. It’s the moments of revelation when we come face to face with our own power and know how much we are capable of and live into that strength and that vulnerability, and trust that life will ultimately win, that love will have the final say.

Because it will, and it does. Life and love are our source and our destination. We receive this in the person of Jesus, when God comes and walks among us, in our Pride parades, and in our funeral processions, and in every moment in between.

'Worthiness' is irrelevant

1 Kings 8:22-23, 41-43
Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands to heaven. He said, “O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all their heart. Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a distant land because of your name - for they shall hear of your great name, your mighty hand, and your outstretched arm - when a foreigner comes and prays toward this house, then hear in heaven your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner calls to you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and so that they may know that your name has been invoked on this house that I have built.”

Psalm 96:1-9
Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless the name of the LORD; proclaim God’s salvation from day to day. Declare God’s glory among the nations and God’s wonders among all peoples. For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised, more to be feared than all gods. As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; but you, O LORD, have made the heavens. Majesty and magnificence are in your presence; power and splendor are in your sanctuary. Ascribe to the LORD, you families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD honor and power. Ascribe to the LORD the honor due the holy name; bring offerings and enter the courts of the LORD. Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness; tremble before the LORD, all the earth.

Galatians 1:1-12
Paul an apostle - sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead - and all the members of God’s family who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed! As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed! Am I now seeking human approval, or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Luke 7:1-10
After Jesus had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he enters Capernaum. A centurion there had a slave whom he valued highly, and who was ill and close to death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to him, asking him to come and heal his slave. When they came to Jesus, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” And Jesus went with them, but when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and the slave does it.” When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

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There are a lot of different ways to read this Gospel story. Mostly, on account of the slave in it. We’re not clear if the slave of the centurion is so dear to the man because of his value as a piece of property, or if he is so dear because he might be a younger lover, or if he is so dear because they have simply been through a lot together. Slavery in Jesus’ day was in many ways different than when we decided to steal people from other parts of the world and force them into increasing our wealth, but the power dynamic of ownership was still there. Granted, slavery early on was more easily escaped, once debts were repaid through indentured servitude, but that’s comparing one terribly abusive situation with another terribly abusive situation, so I point it out mostly to say there was a bit of a cultural difference. We are still wrestling with our baggage around slavery here, with incarceration rates the highest in the world, and most of those bodies in prison for our profit are black and brown. We can’t forget that racially charged violence is still a big part of our current events, that white folks can open carry with a lot less risk to their own lives in this country than if minorities exercise that same right, and that it was good church-going people who would make a party out of lynching, recently enough in our history that there are smiling group photographs we took, as souvenirs of a good old American pastime.

But what was meant by this soldier, one with power over a hundred other soldiers, a Gentile outsider to the Jewish faith, who sent to Jesus to ask for the healing of his slave? Perhaps it wasn’t what we think of when we think of slavery. Perhaps it was more like an unpaid internship, or a mentorship of one younger man without any other family to care for him. Because of the centurion’s assumed character traits, we can soften the relationship a bit, though they might be simply making the best of a rotten system. In any case, when we read this story, it’s the story of an outsider who has gotten wind of Jesus’ reputation as a healer. When we read this story, Jesus has just finished the sermon on the plain, with those Beatitudes, the teaching about loving our enemies, teaching about knowing a tree by its fruits. This was a hard teaching for many who were in positions of religious power, because there were strict rules about who was in and who was out, rules about how to believe and how to behave, rules about even who to love and who to hate. We know what that’s like, all of those rules to follow in order to be accepted and acceptable. Loving our enemies in a world that makes headlines teaching us how to hate our differences is an uphill battle in many ways. We can’t even love our veterans properly, leaving too many of them homeless when they return from war, leaving too many untreated for PTSD, leaving too many first responders to die without treatment from the fumes and dust inhaled when they ran into the crumbling World Trade Center - so how are we to learn to love our enemies if we can’t even properly love those whom we publicly call our heroes?

It seems we have a worthiness problem. Who is worthy of care? Who is really worth fighting for? Whose lives matter? Slaves? Veterans? Strangers? Enemies? Trans kids in school trying to use a bathroom without getting beaten up? Refugees escaping situations of extreme violence? Men? Women? Children? And who says we get to decide?

When the centurion sends to Jesus to ask healing for his dear slave, whatever that relationship really is, those who come on his behalf to the Rabbi insist that he is worth the trouble, that he deserves Jesus’ time. Why? Well, he’s a good man, with money, who uses his money to support the Jewish worshiping community. He even made a major donation for the building fund! Of course he’s good enough, worthy enough, of course he should be rewarded for his gift! Come on, Jesus, there’s the soldier’s name on a bronzed plaque, right under the stained glass window, or on the pulpit, or on the front door! We’ve got to do well by him, because he certainly deserves it, because one hand washes the other, because he scratched our back it’s time for us to scratch his. We know this well, too. So many churches with their own cemeteries have the argument time and again over who deserves to be buried in their sacred ground, as though a final resting place can be earned or deserved based on perfect attendance or major donations made or years served on council.

There’s a great film my mother showed many times for our Christian Education when I was growing up, called “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” with too many good quotes and powerful scenes to go through them all in a single sermon. But let me set up the plot for you before I tell you of the one which fits best here:

The movie was released in 1947, and Gregory Peck plays a journalist who moves to New York City and writes a six month piece about anti-semitism. He gets his material by pretending to be Jewish and watching what happens to the way people treat him, how suddenly housing becomes scarce, parties get awkward, his kid gets bullied at school. All he has to do to make his own life easier is to stop telling people he’s Jewish, but he continues for half a year to live under an assumed name so that he can have a small window into the experience of anti-Jewish prejudice. A childhood friend of his who has served in the military tries to move into the neighborhood but can’t find housing because nobody wants to rent to a Jew, and his fiancé has a cottage she could rent, except she doesn’t want to offend her Christian neighbors. So one day his kid comes home from school having had names and rocks thrown at him, and his fiancé tries to make it better for the kid by telling him ‘but you’re not a Jew,’ as though to be Jewish is more of a sin than to be the kid throwing rocks.  Who deserves what kind of treatment and why?

So this centurion hears that Jesus is coming to his house, a Gentile house, which will technically make Jesus unclean if he enters that space, not that he has ever seemed to care about being deemed unclean. But the soldier sends another group of friends to Jesus to tell him not to go out of his way, please don’t come by the house, he’s not as worthy as the first delegation said he was. He only wanted a word, just the barest of bare bones, simply the command for healing, not a big deal. You know, we’ve gotten too busy to clean the house and it’s too much a mess for company, please, we’re not ready for other people to visit just yet. While the first group of folks who came to Jesus tell him all about how much the centurion deserves what he asks for, the centurion himself denies he deserves anything. He only wants his slave whole and healthy again. He tells Jesus he isn’t worthy to have him under his roof. And that’s huge. Because legally he’s in a position of some power here, this soldier. Rome is the occupying power, Rome says jump and we ask only ‘how high’? Rome decides whose life is worth what, decided who gets nailed up to a cross as a piece of public shame and political bullying. This centurion, though, swimming in the system of oppression as they all are, understands authority and recognizes that power in Jesus to ‘say the word and my servant will be healed.’

Who else around him at the time even has the slightest idea about Jesus having that kind of position of authority? He’s just a carpenter’s kid, just a small town wandering teacher, just a regular guy, isn’t he? But he’s also the God by whose word the world first came into being, he’s also the one casting out demons and feeding the multitudes and crossing the borders between insider and outsider.

See, it isn’t about who deserves what kind of treatment. It isn’t about who is deemed worthy, or who has earned a place at the table. It never has been and it never will be. Jew or Gentile, rich or poor, black or white, veteran or civilian, slave or free, all belong to the kingdom of God simply by virtue of who God is. That’s what Paul is yelling at the Galatians about, because they’ve lost track of the good news of Jesus Christ and started preaching that Gentiles need to be circumcised before they’re welcome, just as the law holds for Jews. The Galatians have been trying to make everyone live by the same law before welcoming them into the fold, and that’s missing the point of Jesus! The point is that we don’t earn the welcome, we don’t keep score about who deserves to be loved, the point is that Jesus has leveled the playing field and replaced the game entirely by the power of his love, which cost him his life.

We know we have a lot of work to do to realize this reality in our here and now. We have a lot of reconciling, a lot of research and learning, a lot of stories to listen to and stories to share, to see one another as the Sacred sees us. But that does not change the fact that we, each and all, bear the divine image; that we, each and all, belong to a God of love and new life; that we, each and all, are welcome at God’s table of mercies. Always.

(some of) God's Ways of Loving Us Beyond Fears

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth - when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heaven, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

Psalm 8

O LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! - you whose glory is chanted above the heavens out of the mouths of infants and children; you have set up a fortress against your enemies, to silence the foe and avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you have made them little less than divine; with glory and honor you crown them. You have made them rule over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet: all flocks and cattle, even the wild beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatever passes along the paths of the sea. O LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

John 16:12-15

Jesus said, “I still have many thing to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

*******

Have you ever felt like you don’t believe enough, or don’t believe in the ‘right’ thing in the ‘right’ way? Either because somebody told you one way to do what you’re supposed to do, or because you’ve learned that to belong someplace you’ve got to buy into the wholesale everything about it, hook, line, and sinker? Ever been afraid that you’ve gotten it wrong, or that maybe you never had it to begin with? 

It’s Holy Trinity Sunday today, which some of us jokingly call ‘holy heresy Sunday.’ We make light of it now, that none of us can really understand or fully explain what we mean by describing our One God as a Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit, but for hundreds of years we killed one another over words about God. In many ways and places, if we are honest, we still do that today. The winners of an argument would of course slander the losers in the way history gets written, and heresy in many places is a serious enough charge for not only excommunication, being thrown out of a faith community, but for execution. We have always been quick to kill one another over fear, especially when we can name it as a killing to defend God’s honor and reputation. If that’s not irony, I’m not sure what is.

Way back at the beginning, the Creeds were a way of knowing who the insiders were, for our own protection, because many rumors going around about Christians put our lives at danger. So if you knew the Creed at the point in the worship service where it was proclaimed, you knew enough to understand that Christians aren’t incestuous cannibals, but if you didn’t know the Creed, that’s when you would be shown out and taught the basics while the rest of us continued with communion. But when the church fathers, of course only the educated men of privilege, put the creeds together, there was much name calling and fighting over getting this exactly right, lest we say something wrong about God that might steer someone in the wrong direction and lead to their destruction. We were so afraid of getting it wrong that we would not allow people to think differently… What kind of God were we really thinking of, to live in that kind of fear?

We in this time and place are far from that sort of persecution today, having become the dominant culture under Constantine back in the 300s, conquering and colonizing all over the world in the name of Jesus. It’s more than a little tragic, the way Christians have historically taken the name of God as a tool to abuse the world God created, to erase the cultures of the people Jesus came to save, and to attempt to put the Holy Spirit’s work into boxes we can control and measure.

And yet.

And yet God still wants to be known, for the sake of life and of love. God still shows up and creates and re-creates and renews and even through and in us and our fumblings offers hope and grace and peace to the world.

When we teach the Creed in confirmation, we take it one part at a time, Father/Mother Creator for an hour, Jesus and his saving work for an hour, the Holy Spirit for an hour. Of course each of these ways of encountering God show up in all of our other classes, too, from the commandments to the Lord’s prayer to the Eucharist. But the way I see it, the Trinity is a way of talking about God’s self-revelation to the world which is only sometimes tangible, only sometimes terrifying, only sometimes a comfort, only sometimes translatable into language. 

Because God is a mystery, but we lose track of mystery when we get comfortable in our language, we have this Trinity idea to remind us of how little we can actually put God in a box of our own definitions. Even in the historical attempts to do so, to define and control holiness, God wiggles around in our words and slips through the cracks into unconquerable spaces. 

We have an idea of God as Father, yet with many mothering attributes, the womb of creation, the one who knits us together, the one who brings up the mountains and scatters the stars and plays with sea monsters, who is revealed to us in the ongoing work of creation all around us. This is probably the most universally known face of God, considering how we cannot ever truly get away from our natural environment. We know that if we do not connect with the earth we get sick at heart and sick physically, we’ve even scientifically proven the value of taking a walk in the woods, as though we need an academic study to prove what children are born knowing innately. And the stories we tell of the beginning of creation place us firmly in the garden as ground keepers, as stewards of this creation while also deeply part of it, as connected to something which is ordered for thriving, which is at its core very good. This is one basic, major way that God is revealed to us.

As Christians, and as Lutheran Christians in particular, we focus a lot of our understanding of God in the person of Jesus Christ, and even more specifically, in his willing death on the cross. It’s a big sticking point, and that’s okay, to say that Jesus is not just a good man but also God enfleshed. There are so many fights, historically and currently, over whether God could so limit God’s Self as to wear skin and bone, to weep and to bleed and have indigestion. But even as we wrestle with what it means, we confess Jesus crucified as the clearest, most solid revelation of God’s will and love for the cosmos. - Not that God wills us to kill one another, but that God would rather die with us than live condemning us to perpetuate our violence. - When we look at Scripture for discernment on who God is and how to live these lives we have been given, we always go back to the way that Jesus lived and died and rose again as the lens by which to read the rest. We go back to the Beatitudes and the last words and the commissioning before his ascension. We don’t even get the same accounts of his life across the four Gospels in our canon, not exactly, but if ever we have questions about how to interpret the rest of the Bible, we start with Jesus. And when we suffer, because suffering is universal, and wonder where God is in our pain, we look to Jesus for comfort and strength.

Then comes the rest of stuff, the things we can not explain, the dark matter on which everything else hangs, the space between our cells and the gut feelings and the work of living together in community and the little reminders of the power of life over death. The Holy Spirit has been called many things by many people, and we tend to say we know Her by Her fruits. She has been called sneaky, disturbing, comforting, Advocate, catalyst, instigator, lover, fire, wind, Wisdom, breath, spark, and we still fight many fights over where She is supposed to show up and where we don’t think She is allowed. Can the Spirit work through women? Through gay people? Through refugees? Through drug addicts? Through people we disagree with? Through the poor? Through the dead? But that doesn’t stop Her from doing Her work in the world, stirring us to justice and mercy, connecting people across the various boundaries we erect between differences. We hope to understand and recognize Her work when and where it comes, but so often She surprises us, in hard conversations and difficult people no less than in those things we quickly and readily call miracles. 

So this Trinity Sunday, we have much to grieve in the ways we historically and currently appropriate God-talk to control others, the ways that God-talk has been used even against us when we could live more fully, and we also have much to celebrate in the ways God-talk has inspired hearts and minds and relationships of courage and love and renewal. This Trinity Sunday we gather together some small part of the complexity of what it means that we are part of a world with so much messiness and mystery and hope, and that we are not ever alone in that wondering. That when we confess that we believe, believing does not mean checking off a list, because the God of whom we seek to speak is continuously loving and challenging and confronting and healing and moving as we grow and fall and fail and are forgiven and are lifted up again and again. Sometimes when we confess, we confess mostly that we are still trying, still trying to let love win over fear in the natural world, in our relationships, in the way we build community and explore our creativity. And in the stories we tell, over and over again, we confess that God is still loving us stronger than our fears, in all of those places and all of those ways where we fear falling short, with a love that will surprise us, a love which will not ever let us go.