Archives for April 2019
Now We Know
The self-giving love of God we see at the cross, the same kind of love that is asked of us, is the only thing that can heal this world.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Sunday of the Passion, year C
Texts Luke 22:14 – 23:56 (The Passion), but focusing especially on 23:33-34; Philippians 2:5-11
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
“They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Jesus spoke truth. The soldiers with hammer and nails, the religious leaders with righteous anger, the cowardly disciples fleeing the scene, the crowds seeking spectacle: none knew what they were doing that Friday.
Neither do we. Unlike most everyone there that day, we’ve come to believe Jesus is exactly who he claimed, the Son of God. But we still struggle to grasp what this cross tells us about the true nature and depth of the Triune God’s love and what it means for how we live.
Just look at this one moment. As God’s Son is nailed to a cross, brutally executed by a humanity whose love has gone dry, whose taste for violence and control and power cannot be sated, he prays for mercy. “Forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
We simply could not have expected a love like this. Not from us. Not from God.
We live lives with limits. We try to love others. But our selfishness, our carelessness, our fear of vulnerability, our limited willingness to forgive, all keep us from living in love. At our best, we strive for unconditional love at least for our family. We fail. We don’t even come close with those outside that circle.
So we can’t grasp how God could love in unlimited ways. Like humans always do, we want powerful gods whom we can blame if things go wrong, try to appease when we want something, and sic on those we don’t like. Even though the Scriptures repeatedly speak of God’s eternal love for the creation and for humanity, we put limits on whom we believe God can love.
So when we see the truth of God’s love today, it strains our poor ability to imagine.
The Son moves out of the grace of the divine dance of the Trinity, and joins humanity.
Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be exploited, Paul says. God’s power simply won’t work to love the creation back into God’s life. So the Christ of God emptied all divine right and power and took on our humanity. How could we have anticipated that?
God’s Son came in our flesh to teach us, face to face, to love as we were made to love. Set aside power and dominance, gave up control out of love for us. To ask us to turn around and live this same love. “Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.”1
And we don’t get it. We don’t know what we’re doing.
But today, looking at the cross, we begin to see the universe can only be healed by self-giving love, starting with God.
Power and might can’t stop human evil, oppression, violence, war, pollution, abuse, destruction, because they can’t force love. The only thing that can heal this world is God offering vulnerable love to the creation. A love that forgives the one trying to kill it. True unconditional love, and nothing can stop that, not fear, not doubt, not even death. There are God-sized cracks in this creation that need God-sized stitches. God offering God’s own life out of love will bring that healing.
But there are billions of human-sized cracks that need human-sized stitches, too – your self-giving, vulnerable love. Mine. That’s what Jesus is doing at the cross: not just revealing God’s love, but showing you and me what is needed of us. So all things might be healed and brought back to God.
Now that we know this, now that we’ve seen such unimaginable love, we know our path.
We can’t just stay here and sing about this love, as our hymn hopes2. We are sent out, knowing God’s true love, to bear this love in our own bodies, hearts, voices, lives, no matter the cost.
So, let’s go from here, filled with this vulnerable, unconditional love we never could have dreamed was possible, but now we know is ours, and in our every breath, pour this love into God’s world until all creation is healed.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
1 “My Song Is Love Unknown,” Samuel Crossman, 1624-1683, ELW 343, sung between the reading of the Passion and this sermon.
2 Again, from “My Song Is Love Unknown.”
Midweek Lent, 2019 + I AM WHO I AM Is My Shepherd
Week 5: Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life . . .
Abundance
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; John 10:7-10; Ephesians 4:1-3, 31-32, 5:1-2
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
What thief is trying to steal your life?
Who or what takes away the life God wants you to have?
Jesus came so that his sheep may have life and have it abundantly. The only Good Shepherd is the One who provides life and wholeness and healing and mercy and love.
But if Jesus, the face of the Good Shepherd the Triune God is for us, wants abundant life for you, and you don’t have it, maybe you’re facing thieves and bandits as Jesus warned.
We’ve spent five weeks singing to our Good Shepherd, who made and loved us.
But thieves and bandits are always around the edges of the sheepfold, trying to get in and destroy. Fear is a thief: it drains confidence and hope and leads into a life of despair. Anxiety and worry do the same. Loneliness is a bandit: it isolates and separates you from those who love you, even God. Boredom is a thief: it leads to distraction and offers empty, soulless things to fill up your days. Self-centeredness is a bandit: it turns you inward and draws you to actions that harm others and isolate you. Busyness is a thief: it fills your life with so much activity and doing you barely have time to breathe.
There are many more of these robbers hovering around our lives. But if we’ve learned anything from David’s 23rd Psalm, there’s one answer that drives away all who would steal your life and keep you from abundance: stay with your Shepherd. Keep close to the One who desires abundant life for you, and you’ll be safe.
Everything we’ve focused on these Wednesdays reveals the abundant life God desires for you.
Your anointing in baptism as God’s child; God’s guiding you on safe, nourishing paths, forgiving you and putting you back on the path when you fail; God’s feeding you with the Lord’s Supper as a meal of reconciliation with all; God’s loving hand supporting and strengthening you in the valleys of fear and darkness.
Living aware of all these ways God shepherds you brings abundance and joy. A life shaped in every way by David’s last line: “surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” When you’re in the care of your Shepherd God, your fellow-travelers are goodness and mercy.
Jesus says we find this abundant life filled with goodness and mercy when we go in and come out by his guidance.
Jesus is also the gate of the sheepfold. When our comings and goings in all our moments are through Christ’s life and grace, we find pasture. Abundance. Life.
Paul shows how that works. He invites you to be imitators of God, as beloved children. To go and come as God goes and comes. When the sheep imitate the Shepherd, walking in safe paths, drinking good water, staying away from evil and thieves, they live a rich, full life.
Imitators of God live with humility and gentleness. With patience. Bearing with one another in love. Making every effort in peace to keep the Spirit’s unity. Imitators of the Shepherd get rid of some things: bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, malice. They replace them with kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness like God’s forgiveness.
Mostly, they imitate their Shepherd’s love. Christ offered God’s very life on the cross in love. Share God’s beating heart of love for the whole creation, even for those who harm you, and you will know life, Paul says.
If your life is less than the abundance Jesus deeply desires for you, there’s probably a thief around.
Keep your eyes open for who or what is stealing life from you. With this community here, listen again for your Shepherd’s voice. Whatever the thief is, nothing can separate you from the love and care of your Shepherd. Even in the valley of the shadow of death you will find hope and mercy and life walking with your Shepherd.
And when you learn to imitate the life of the Shepherd, to shape your heart around the kindness, mercy, gentleness, patience, and above all, love of your Shepherd, you will learn what real abundant life is, no matter where your path winds.
And goodness and mercy will follow along at your heels, all the days of your life now and in the life to come.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
The Olive Branch, 4/10/19
Click here to read this week’s issue of The Olive Branch.
Altered Perception
God has done a new thing in Christ, is doing it: let us pray that the Spirit open our eyes and hearts to see and respond like Mary and Paul.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, year C
Texts: John 12:1-8; Philippians 3:4b-14; Isaiah 43:16-21
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Judas actually has a point. Most people would agree with him.
Mary’s taken a $21,000 bottle of perfume and poured it all over the floor. Ten months’ wages for a day laborer. In her economy, there couldn’t have been many rich enough to waste so extravagantly. How much food, shelter, help for those in need could Mary have provided with this?
We know others were bothered. Matthew and Mark don’t single out Judas; they say the disciples were angry. Of course they were. How many in this room would agree with them, if we’re honest? Most of us.
So what on earth possessed Mary to do this? Surely making ends meet was as challenging for them in their little village as anyone. Lazarus, the only money-maker for the family, had been sick, eventually died. How much could they have?
Mary’s view of what is valuable is upside down from everyone else. What does she see that we don’t?
Paul’s upside-downness is harder to see, but no less remarkable.
This little section on how well he kept Jewish law isn’t intended as bragging, even if it comes off that way. Paul’s simply stating fact: he was really faithful in his Jewish life.
But now he says, that whole way of life is like trash to me. Whatever I thought I was gaining from it, whatever I thought was valuable, none of that has any worth, now that I know Christ Jesus as my Lord.
We might miss how upsetting this is. But the Jewish Christians in Philippi might have taken a gulp or two hearing this. It’s possible some of the baptized Christians who were Jewish kept some of their Jewish practices. The Christians in Jerusalem did. This brought them comfort and strength, as religious rituals can do.
Now Paul says that’s worth nothing compared to knowing Christ. Living in Christ, joining Christ in the resurrection, is the only value. What it would take for you to say everything about your life of faith that you’ve valued, means nothing now that you know Christ?
So what possessed Paul to believe this? What does he see that we don’t?
What happened to Mary and Paul is clear. They met Christ and their world changed.
Maybe Mary came to this recently. Her brother died and Jesus had just raised him to life. That could completely change her sense of what was valuable to her.
But Mary was a listener. She heard Jesus and he changed her life. When Jesus was in the house, she wanted to sit at his feet and listen. And she did listen: she seems to be the only one in Holy Week that remembers Jesus said he was going to die. She’s the only one preparing for Friday’s horror. Mary’s world is oriented to this Teacher who gave her purpose, whose words filled her soul. Nothing else matters.
But what happened to Paul? Zealous to persecute the young Church, on the road to Damascus he’s knocked down and speaks to Christ. But in neither Galatians nor Acts are we told that Christ specifically told Paul anything about his Jewish practices.
Yet somehow he realized his only need for life with God was found in this Christ who was speaking to him. Meeting Christ, learning in time that he was loved by God in Christ, Paul said, “That’s it. Nothing else matters.”
We’re seeing a complete alteration of perception of reality.
And that’s exactly what God asks you today in Isaiah: “Don’t remember the former things, what you’ve been. I’m about to do a new thing: can you perceive it?”
We who’ve been Christian since before we formed memories can struggle to imagine what it’s like to hear God’s new thing as a new thing. If you’ve been involved in congregational life your whole existence, how do you see this as new? Like Paul, you’ve acquired habits and practices that draw you closer to God. Like Mary, you know economy, and what things are worth.
But how in the world do lifelong Christians see God’s new thing in Christ as a new thing? Because it seems clear that when you do, you evaluate everything differently. You live differently.
This draws our Lenten Gospels together, along with Jesus’ call.
We heard of God’s embracing wings, of God’s gardening people to bear fruit, of God’s welcome of the lost. We heard some reject others from God’s love, some wish others to be punished by God, some resent that others got God’s love, others who really aren’t good enough.
Can you put yourself into these stories and make them not interesting curiosities about past times but real moments of truth?
Jesus calls you to take up your cross and follow. But he can’t make you live a cross-shaped life of sacrificial love. Jesus can’t make you see all creatures as loved by God infinitely, including yourself, or get you to open your arms to all in God’s love.
What it will take to live Christ’s cross-shaped life, to live this new thing, is to have your perception of what is real completely altered. To have an utterly different set of values, like Mary and Paul, and to live accordingly.
So go back through your life and ask: are there Mary places for you, Paul moments you’ve forgotten?
Are there times you’ve felt embraced under God’s wings of love and mercy? Times you’ve felt God’s Spirit garden you like a struggling tree, and you began to flourish? Times you’ve felt God welcome you home with forgiveness and love and a feast of life?
What of when you are here? You are fed at Christ’s table with forgiveness, life, and salvation. Does that change how you see the world? You meet Christ in these people – they are Christ’s love and welcome to you. Is that enough to open your eyes to God’s new thing? So you are changed and begin to live like Mary and Paul, pouring out this new thing?
The important thing is that you and I really seek this altered perception.
That you and I pray the Holy Spirit will take the scales off our eyes, like Paul, open our hearts to the astonishing love of God, like Mary, and help us reevaluate everything.
It’s how you can be free from the idolatry of your wealth. How you can join Christ in seeing the world with eyes of compassion and grace. How you can step out in the world with courage, bearing God’s sacrificial love in your love to all you meet.
We don’t want to live life as usual, with unchallenged assumptions and perceptions. To agree with the disciples, or the world. To live unchanged by our relationship with God in Christ.
We want to see Mary’s extravagance as the only response we can imagine making to the love of God we have seen in the face of Jesus. To share Paul’s confidence that he is happy having nothing as long as he knows he is in Christ’s love.
God is doing a new thing in Christ. Can you see it? When you do, your world will be utterly changed.
In the name of Jesus. Amen