Sermon for May 3rd, 2020, the Fourth Sunday of Easter

Grace and Peace from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. 

This week, our texts have a theme, sheep and shepherds, probably the reason this Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Our Psalm reading today was Psalm 23, the lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. A few weeks ago, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, Psalm 23 was also read. I even wrote my sermon concerning that text.  

A quick recap: I spoke that Sunday of how the Psalm shows God not only as a shepherd doing the minimum to keep the sheep healthy but provides abundantly for the sheep. God brings us to green pastures, beside good clean water, and restores our souls. God makes a table even amid our enemies, anoints us with so much oil our entire head is covered, and our cups are filled to overflowing. Yet, even with God’s provision, still there is suffering, still there is doubt. Even though I walk in the darkest valley, your rod and your staff they comfort me. (also, the whole setting a table for us in the middle of our enemies alludes to the fact that suffering still exists). God remains with us even in the face of hardships, when it is difficult to see or to experience God. God still walks with us in the Holy Spirit and in the community of Faith that surrounds us. God is here, now, in the midst of physical distancing, in the midst of the economic hardships some of us might be facing, God is with us even as our very safety and livelihoods are placed in question as the coronavirus continues to affect our nation and the entire globe. Yes, even now we are hearing some good news. Vaccines are being tested, drugs are showing promise for use with COVID-19, others are being designed and might soon be available. In some places COVID-19 cases seem to have peaked and the numbers of infections and casualties are going down.  

Our gospel reading today leaves me scratching my head though. I think that I might be in a similar space as the pharisees. You see, this follows after Jesus has healed a man blind from birth. The pharisees ask about how this guy came to see, they ask his parents, they respond, he’s an adult, ask him how he was healed, they again ask the blind man, and he asks them if they ask because they want to follow Jesus too. At which point the once blind man is cast out of the temple and synagogue. Now the Pharisees come and can overhear Jesus talking to the man who was once blind,  

“I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. 

Our reading this week picks up right there. 

"Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. 

Yep, I am right there with the pharisees. How does this have anything to do with seeing or not seeing. Great image, Jesus, but what’s the point here. Now, surprisingly I am in a place much like the Pharisees, they were city folk. Sure the world around them is agricultural, they might have some basic ideas about these fluffy clouds on four legs, but further knowledge than they stink, seemingly some of the dumbest creatures on the planet, and that they are usually easy pickings for predators, is unlikely. What I know about sheep is limited to what I have heard other pastors say about these sheep texts and the occasional excited bursts from Kymberly as she extols the incredible nature of these critters and how we just must have some so that we have a ready supply of wool for yarn and knitting.  

I am also at a loss, because, I think that I know this text. Jesus is going to say he is the shepherd that the sheep follow because they know his voice. Jesus is the one leading the flock out of the relative safety of the enclosure, into the world. But who is the stranger, who is the gatekeeper? Huh?  

Then, Jesus realizing that they don’t get what he has said goes on: 

 7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. 

WHAT?!?!?!? Jesus is the gate (more literally the door). Okay, Jesus is mixing some metaphors. Through Jesus we will come and go to safety and nourishment. We are saved because of Jesus Christ. Jesus here is being a little cheeky, as one of my professors would say. Essentially Jesus is calling the pharisees thieves and bandits. Saying that the religious leaders are coming to care for the sheep only to have personal gains.  

What is really important in this text is the last verse, we, even those of us who are lost in the rest of the image can understand this, I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  

We are a lot like the pharisees, Jesus is talking about sheep, shepherds, and gates, but the pharisees only really know about rites, rituals, scripture, then socio-economic aspects of faith. They are there arguing about whether or not the blind man who is no longer blind was once faking being blind, and if Jesus really is someone to follow or if he is a danger to the system that benefits the Pharisees. We on the other hand are right now wrapped up in zoom meetings, social networks, facemasks, iv lines, ventilators, and attempts to avoid going crazy or hungry as we wait out the coronavirus.  

This whole time, I think it has been 6 weeks, since we last worshiped together in the church, has been odd. But this week, the, as my professors and fellow students have taken to calling it, COVID brain has set in for me. I have found it difficult to focus or find motivation to work, to read, and to write the 6 or so papers that remain in my classes. I find myself constantly questioning what day it is and rather quickly forgetting whatever list I had made for myself to accomplish.  

Wednesday, I think, I got a call from Porter’s asking if I would perform a funeral / burial for Jean Klemp, a 98 year old from Topeka, Kansas. She had been born up here and lived between Rock Valley and Doon from 1921-1948, she had been a teacher at the school in Doon after completing High School. Her only remaining connection to the area is that 27 years ago, her husband passed away and was buried in Valleyview Cemetery (he had never lived here, so I can only assume that Jean had purchased a plot in the 40’s or the family has had a plot here in town.) So, when after years of battling dementia, she returned home to Jesus, her family made the pilgrimage to have her buried here beside her husband. In different times, they would have asked her pastor back in Kansas to make the trip up, or one of her nephews who is a pastor in the St. Louis area to come over and officiate the services. Instead, they had to ask a stranger to memorialize and lead the services to honor their mother. The Children came from Kansas and Texas, to this little town, and relied on strangers, Sean Smith, Ric Porter, Rod De Kam and me, to see to their mother’s memory and to help them through this time of sorrow.  

COVID has been a very real test of my abilities, and my endurance, especially since we have been told by the governor that all is well and we can return to worship, when everything reasonable says no, things are not well, new cases continue to be found in our area, numbers continue to rise, and when the Bishops of the ELCA in Iowa and our ecumenical partners say no, we are not going to return to worship.  

Yet, COVID is also showing us the goodness of God and the provision of God as neighbors continue to find ways to meet and help each other and strangers step into our lives even at the darkest moments to lend a hand and insure that safety, security, nourishment, and care is offered. We are reminded of the final words of our reading from first Peter, Jesus “himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” 

God, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through faith by the power of the Holy Spirit, has done what we cannot, ransomed us from sin and death, defeated death and the devil, not in a show of great power or military might. Not by an executive order or royal decree, but through humility, weakness, and sacrifice, Jesus Christ has freed us from sin and the consequences of sin, so that we can lead lives of abundance. Abundant welcome, abundant love, abundant service to our neighbors and to strangers alike, showing through our actions big and small, that God is still here, God is good, and God has been victorious on the Cross and the empty tomb. 

May God’s love abound in your lives and fill your cups to overflowing, so that you might pour out God’s love and grace, which you have received as a free gift, freely to a world which sorely needs reminders that God is here, God is love, God is leading us home. 

Sermon for April 26th, 2020, the Third Sunday of Easter

Sermon was proclaimed on April 26th at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Rock Valley, IA

Grace and Peace to you from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  

Today’s gospel text speaks to us in this place we find ourselves. There is something incredible about the Bible, that we don’t often find in other texts written throughout history, this text written nearly 2000 years ago, still speaks volumes to us.  

Two of Jesus’ followers are on the road, they are getting out of town that first Easter morning. (They don’t even know yet what incredible thing has happened.) They had expected a messiah who would redeem Israel, a ruler and a leader who would cast Roman out of the Holy city. Instead this man who they believed to be the messiah, was broken and murdered by the very people they thought Jesus would cast down. 

Then, that morning, the women and later some of the men had gone to the tomb and found that Jesus’ body was missing. They were not expecting that Jesus would be risen from the dead. They probably thought that Jesus’ body had been stolen. 

They are walking away from Jerusalem, back out to their homes.  

Depression, disappointment, sorrow, fear, betrayal, anger, exhaustion.  

These are all emotions that the two men on the road are experiencing. 

I don’t know about you all, but each year at Easter, I expect a certain uplifting, exciting, celebratory mood. This year I knew would be different, my first-year leading worship on Easter morning, I expected to be both exciting and terrifying. Something new is happening. 

This Easter was not what I was expecting. Celebrating from a distance, my preaching mediated through digital means, no handshakes, hugs, or breakfast with the youth and members of the church. Instead, my words came out to you all and anyone who wanted to view the video via long strings of zeros and ones.  

I imagine that we are all feeling some of the same emotions that the followers of Jesus were feeling that first Easter. We all had plans this spring and early summer. But, this year is not at all what we expected. Birthdays, holiday, funerals, are all weird. Our work or school experiences are not only different, but difficult. Milestones are being missed, graduation ceremonies are pushed back, cancelled or digital. Proms are cancelled, concerts, plays, games. Vacations are being altered. I know that at least one member of the congregation had a vacation / reunion planned for next week, or the week after, but that has been cancelled.  

It is hard not to be sad, angry, frustrated and hurt by all the plans that we made being slowly and steadily undone.  

That is precisely where Cleopas and his travelling companion are as they walk the seven miles to Emmaus. It is also exactly where Jesus meets them. 

When Jesus meets them on the road, he could have immediately revealed who he was. Immediately he could have revealed that he had risen, that yes their expectations weren’t met, but something greater than their plans had happened. Not just the redeeming of Israel, but of all the world was accomplished on that cross. 

Instead, Jesus sees their sorrow and hurt, and asks them what has happened. Jesus gives them time and space to voice their fears and frustrations.  

Sometimes that is exactly what we need. We know that telling someone what is wrong will not fix the problem, but the sharing, the speaking out our emotions makes them real. We can own them, know them. I know that many times I really haven’t known what is bothering me, what the emotion that I am feeling, until I am given time and space to talk about it. We don’t always need someone to fix our problem or improve our mood, often times what we need is someone to hear us. To actually listen and hear our thoughts and feeling, someone who acknowledges that sometimes things just are not right. 

In my pastoral care class this week, some of the class was focused on strong negative emotions, particularly the text we read was about anger. We don’t often allow anger to be part of our religious experiences. We talk about a worship service being joyful or comforting, but we don’t oftentimes talk about worship in terms of anger. Sometimes though it might be appropriate. We come to worship with sorrow, why not bring our anger too that it might be transformed.  

We believe in a God who is able to take our anger. I know that I have said this before, but it bears repeating. The Bible is filled with times and prayers of people who are angry with God. Or at least angry with the situations that they find themselves in, and they blame God for where they find themselves.  

It seems reasonable that in this time and in this place that we find ourselves, we might be angry. God, why did you allow the coronavirus to spread. Why isn’t there enough medical supplies? Why is it that it is still the poor and the vulnerable who are paying the greatest price in this pandemic? Why is it that it is the lowest paid people who are forced to continue to work, to risk infection as “essential employees?” If they are so essential, shouldn’t they be paid more than the countless non-essential workers? Or, Why is it that what I do isn’t considered essential? 

After giving the men time to talk about what had happened and what is going on, Jesus speaks and explains to them all the scriptures, still the men do not recognize Jesus. I almost wonder if they were even able to hear Jesus as he explained and rationalized the emotions that they were experiencing.  

I have a really bad habit of doing that. Someone tells me what is bothering them, and then I try to explain to them why what they are feeling is justifiable, or try to redirect their emotions through explaining what happened in a different light. I am sorry, Kym. It doesn’t often work. When you are really in that space, no amount of explanation will change what you are feeling. It seems that Jesus is doing the same thing here when he goes through the scriptures explaining that what has happened is what needed to happen. Useful later, when the fear, depression, anger has passed, but in the moment, it often falls on deaf ears. 

Then, they invite Jesus to stay with them that night. They will host this stranger in their home, immediately Jesus takes the role of host from them, he blesses the bread breaks it, and gives it to them. This isn’t the second communion, Lord’s supper this isn’t them participating in the sacrament of communion, but it is sacramental, it reminds them of the sacrament, the very act reminds them of Jesus’ feeding the crowds, the meals that they ate with Jesus, and the last supper they had with Jesus. Jesus in the act of blessing and breaking the bread reminds them of the promise Jesus had made in the last supper.  

When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him. 15 He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16 for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 

Immediately they saw that it was Jesus, they remembered his words on the road, they understood that Jesus had been present with them the whole day through. Jesus disappeared, and they leapt up even though it was evening and returned to tell the disciples all that they had seen. 

This week in my systematic theology class, we were talking about the work of the Holy Spirit. Something Lutherans are not always all that good at talk about or understanding is the role and work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Triune God.  

 Specifically we talked about the fact that through the Holy Spirit, God continues to reveal God’s self in created things. Our words and selves are some of the created things that God choses to use to reveal God to other people. Think about those times when someone told you something they were going through. You might not have known what to say to comfort them, but you spoke anyhow, and they were comforted. That is the Spirit working through you to remind others of God’s promises of life, redemption, and healing. God’s promise to be with us, even in, or more specifically, especially in our moments when we feel furthest from God.  

 In the rite of Baptism, we light a candle and hand it to the sponsors or the person being baptized and say, let your light shine before others so that they might see your good deeds and Glorify your Father in heaven. Your light is the Spirit of God working in you to be a light to others. You might not be aware that what you have done or are doing is revealing God to others, but God has chosen not only to die for your sake, but also to use you to show God’s self, God’s love to all those who you have contact with. 

 Luther said that we should daily remember that we are baptized. Remember that God has promised you life eternal, the forgiveness of sins, and healing through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, through faith, with the power of the Holy Spirit. Despite what we see in our lived experiences, God makes this promise, and God is faithful to God’s promises. We can trust God will fulfill the promise in each of our lives.  

 Hear this, and let your hearts burn within you, knowing that Jesus walks with you even in difficult times. 

 Peace my siblings, Peace be with you. 

Second Sunday of Easter, April 19th

Sermon for Sunday April 19th, 2020

Christ Speaks to us, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” 

Today is the second Sunday of Easter. At some points of time in history, this Sunday has been called Low Sunday. The fanfare of Easter is gone, the Easter lilies have found new homes. The church that was full of family and friends, now feels empty as the more normal number of worshipers are in attendance. It used to be pretty common that after the busyness of Holy Week, the normal pastor will have taken the following Sunday off, so a supply preacher is leading worship. So, after the joy of Easter Morning, this Sunday feels back to normal, leaving us with the question of if anything really changed.  

 Interestingly enough, when people would be baptized or join Churches only on Easter Vigil or Easter Morning, the remainder of the worship services during the 50 days of Easter were used by the pastor to teach the new members (and remind the other members) the “Mysteries of the faith,” So there would be sermons about communion, baptism, the Creeds, prayer, and any other thing the pastor thought needed to be taught to new members in the faith. The fancy phrase for this was the Mystagogical catechesis, no real reason that you need to know this, I just like saying mystagogical catechesis.   

So, it makes sense that on this Sunday, we talk about Thomas. This whole text this week sometimes gets discussed as being about Doubting Thomas. I am going to be honest, until this past week, that was also the image that I had of this odd disciple who isn’t mentioned much except for in the gospel of John. I thought of him as this disciple who lacks faith and zeal, and need to be rather graphic in the gore to believe that Christ has risen.  

That doesn’t really do Thomas much justice. The more that I read this text and the other times in John that Thomas is mentioned, and also when I turned to the traditions concerning Thomas, I found a disciple not really all that different from us and in many ways a good model of the faith. In Thomas the Apostle, I could find a disciple enraptured by Christ, driven by the spirit, who just sometimes needs reassurance. Amazingly, when he demands reassurance, there is God, and Christ ready to give him what he needs. 

 In today’s text we hear that when Jesus appeared to the disciples for the first time, Thomas was not with them. Jesus shows his wounds to his disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit (by breathing on them) and tells them that just as the father has sent Jesus, so too, Jesus is sending the disciples. When Tomas joins his fellow disciples they tell him that Jesus appeared to them. They had to have told him what happened. Can you imagine a world in which a dead man appears in the middle of them in a room that is locked and them not telling Thomas, and he showed us the wounds from the crucifixion?  

 Thomas doesn’t really show doubt when he says that he needs to touch the wounds to know that it is truly Jesus that was crucified and now has risen, he is just asking for the same sign that the other disciples received.  

 So, a week later, the disciples are still in hiding and Jesus again appears. He tells Thomas, Peace be with you (the same thing as the others heard) then shows Thomas his wounds. Immediately Thomas gives one of the clearest testimonies about who Jesus is, “My Lord and my God!” 

 That doesn’t really sound like much doubt to me. Yes, he needed to see Christ risen from the dead to believe, but he also had seen Christ on the cross, dying. He had been mourning the death of his teacher and friend, and people are telling him, that no, he isn’t dead. Thomas needed the reassurance of seeing Jesus again.  

 Thomas appears in the gospel of John two other times by name. 

 After Jesus had heard that Lazarus had died and told his disciples that he was going to go back to Judea, right after the Jews in Galilee had tried to stone Jesus, Thomas said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” This Thomas that we read about today and who we often call doubting Thomas, just two weeks before, had been ready to go to Jerusalem to die alongside Jesus. That doesn’t seem like much doubt, on the contrary it sounds like someone who truly believes, who trusts Jesus. Seems like a pretty strong faith to me. 

 Then on the night that Jesus was betrayed, after Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet, Jesus told them, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas responds, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 

 Thomas is a complicated man it seems. He has an amazingly strong faith that allows him to say, let’s follow Jesus and die with him, and at other times he doesn’t understand what Jesus is telling him. He sometimes even needs reassurance in moments of doubt, fear, and chaos.  

 Thomas is a disciple that I can understand. He has a faith that I have experienced. Sometimes I can shout My Lord and My God! And be ready to march off following Jesus no matter where it might lead me. Other times, I am just confused and need to have things explained to me. There are sometimes that I just feel lost, hurt, and in a dark place and cry out for some reassurance or hope from God.   

 What the stories of the Apostle Thomas shows us, is that all of these things are acceptable they are all part of the process of faith. It also shows us that even in moments of confusion or doubt, Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit gives us what we need if we just ask. Like we hear in Matthew 7 verse 7, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” 

 In closing let us pray a prayer written by Martin Luther: 

Behold, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor. I do not have a strong and firm faith; at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. In you I have sealed the treasure of all I have. I am poor; you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor. I am a sinner; you are upright. With me, there is an abundance of sin; in you is the fullness of righteousness. Therefore I will remain with you, of whom I can receive, but to whom I may not give. 

Amen.