Jesus promised his followers, and promises us today, that we will know the truth, and the truth will make us free. When we embrace the truth of our human limitations, and recognize our dependence on God, the slavery of our fears, addictions, and sin will die and we can live in freedom as children of God.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   Reformation Sunday
   Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 46, Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I was sitting in a restaurant, eating dinner, when I heard several thunks. I turned and saw a bird flying around inside the restaurant, banging into windows in her frantic attempt to get outside. When she landed on the floor, exhausted, I laid my jacket gently over her and carried her through the door. I opened the jacket cautiously, expecting her to burst out, but she clung for dear life, her tiny talons hooked into the lining, afraid to let go and be free. As I held her, I wondered, how often do we do that? Struggle to be free from that which confines us, and then cling to our cage when we are freed? What does it really mean to be free, and why are we, when we are really honest with ourselves, terrified of it?

We in the United States pride ourselves on being a free country, and in many ways we are free, especially those of us with good health, steady income, solid education, and the privileges that come along with being white, middle-class, American-born. We can travel, study, walk our neighborhoods without fear, eat knowing we will have enough food for another meal, send ourselves and our loved ones off for the day with the belief that we will all come home safely. Most of the time, we have the luxury of living in the illusion that we are in control of our lives, even if it is only through the false security of believing we know what our future holds. Jesus in Matthew promises freedom, and his followers protest, saying they are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone, and we might well make the same claim. We live in a free country, slavery was abolished almost 150 years ago! What do you mean by saying “You will be made free?”

Jesus’ reply to his followers is for us, too: “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” 19th century Lutheran theologian Rudolph Bultmann defines sin as the brokenness that comes from dependence on worldly things instead of God. By relying on our own efforts or on what we can take from the world for our well-being, we forget our ultimate dependence on God; in other words, we forget what our true relationship with God is. Because of this we feel anger, jealousy, and judgment, and as Bultmann says, the “slavery of anxiety that oppresses all of us (Romans 8:15)—the anxiety in which we each seek to hold on to ourselves and what is ours in the secret feeling that everything, including our own life, is slipping away from us.”  [1]

We are free in one sense, but at a much deeper level, we are all slaves to our own brokenness. As a nation we spend a great deal of time obsessed with how to keep ourselves safe—closing our borders, taking off our shoes at the airport, debating who is to blame for Ebola coming to this country. We labor under the illusion that we can create perfect safety. If the danger is far enough away, and we can build a high enough wall, we feel separated, and protected. When the threat comes too close, we are afraid. Afraid of change, of those we don’t understand, of death. And when we depend on these actions to protect us, and ground our hope in our own efforts instead of trusting in God, we go beyond reasonable steps to take care of ourselves, and build walls that not only separate us from our neighbors, but from God.

On a personal level, we exercise and eat well expecting that this will guarantee our health, to the point where we feel surprised and angry when are sick. We are slaves to addictions that tell us the lie that everything will be OK if only we have enough alcohol, or sex, or food. We buy in, without even being aware, to the idea that growing old, rather than being a normal part of the cycle of life, is something that can and should be prevented, or at least slowed down, with the right lotions or vitamins or procedures. We act out of the illusion that life is a competition for success, love, and resources that only a few will win, and work furiously to be sure we will be one of them, secretly convinced that we are not good enough. We remain confident in the idea of our own power and ability to control our lives, until unexpected events wake us up, and we begin to understand the truth. We are slaves to our own brokenness, and we, like the bird, find ourselves trapped by our own fears, exhausted from our efforts to escape a prison we cannot even see.

We are slaves to our own brokenness, but Jesus made his followers a promise—makes us a promise today. “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” And the truth that Jesus talks about, the truth that will free us, is precisely why we are so afraid of freedom. The truth, as Paul proclaims it, is simply this: we have all sinned, and we all fall short of the glory of God. Every one of us, without exception. What terrifies us about this truth is that when we embrace it, it takes us completely out of the driver’s seat. We can no longer cling to an illusion of safety that is built on our own efforts or beliefs that we are in control. We are vulnerable, exposed for who we are, face-to-face with our own humanity. This is the truth that leads to freedom, the freedom to be exactly the people God created us to be.

We are freed by this truth, because grounded in our own humanity, we can understand Martin Luther’s claim that we are simultaneously sinner and saint. The very truth of our own weakness reveals our need for God, and our place as God’s children. The promise of the covenant Jeremiah talks about is our promise. God’s law has been written on our hearts, God is our God, and we are God’s people. In the core of who we are, God has written the law of love, faithfulness, forgiveness. And as our illusions, addictions, and sinfulness die in the light of this promise, we can see that we have been enslaved. And we can see that we are free.

Like the bird with its talons hooked into my jacket lining, we tend to cling to what we feel sure of, certain that there is nothing to catch us if we let go. The psalmist describes in vivid images the chaos we sometimes feel in this unpredictable world—earthquakes and roaring waters, nations at war. The chaos, as the psalmist sings it, does not go away. Illness, job loss, wars, death, are all a part of this life we live. Promise and hope and certainty come from the presence of a loving God who never abandons us, regardless of the circumstances. “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. . . . . The LORD of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. . . . Be still and know that I am God.”

By seeing clearly the truth of our own powerlessness, our own brokenness, our own humanity, we are freed from our illusions. We live as people of the covenant, knowing that we belong to God, and we can do that because God has written God’s promise on our hearts. We know the truth. God is our refuge, and will be with us, no matter what may come. Jesus calls us to embrace the truth, and by doing this, we can, like the bird, unhook our talons from the lining of the jacket, and live in freedom.

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, trans. Schubert Miles Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 17

Jesus promised his followers, and promises us today, that we will know the truth, and the truth will make us free. When we embrace the truth of our human limitations, and recognize our dependence on God, the slavery of our fears, addictions, and sin will die and we can live in freedom as children of God.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
   Reformation Sunday
   Texts: Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 46, Romans 3:19-28, John 8:31-36

Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I was sitting in a restaurant, eating dinner, when I heard several thunks. I turned and saw a bird flying around inside the restaurant, banging into windows in her frantic attempt to get outside. When she landed on the floor, exhausted, I laid my jacket gently over her and carried her through the door. I opened the jacket cautiously, expecting her to burst out, but she clung for dear life, her tiny talons hooked into the lining, afraid to let go and be free. As I held her, I wondered, how often do we do that? Struggle to be free from that which confines us, and then cling to our cage when we are freed? What does it really mean to be free, and why are we, when we are really honest with ourselves, terrified of it?

We in the United States pride ourselves on being a free country, and in many ways we are free, especially those of us with good health, steady income, solid education, and the privileges that come along with being white, middle-class, American-born. We can travel, study, walk our neighborhoods without fear, eat knowing we will have enough food for another meal, send ourselves and our loved ones off for the day with the belief that we will all come home safely. Most of the time, we have the luxury of living in the illusion that we are in control of our lives, even if it is only through the false security of believing we know what our future holds. Jesus in Matthew promises freedom, and his followers protest, saying they are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone, and we might well make the same claim. We live in a free country, slavery was abolished almost 150 years ago! What do you mean by saying “You will be made free?”

Jesus’ reply to his followers is for us, too: “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” 19th century Lutheran theologian Rudolph Bultmann defines sin as the brokenness that comes from dependence on worldly things instead of God. By relying on our own efforts or on what we can take from the world for our well-being, we forget our ultimate dependence on God; in other words, we forget what our true relationship with God is. Because of this we feel anger, jealousy, and judgment, and as Bultmann says, the “slavery of anxiety that oppresses all of us (Romans 8:15)—the anxiety in which we each seek to hold on to ourselves and what is ours in the secret feeling that everything, including our own life, is slipping away from us.”  [1]

We are free in one sense, but at a much deeper level, we are all slaves to our own brokenness. As a nation we spend a great deal of time obsessed with how to keep ourselves safe—closing our borders, taking off our shoes at the airport, debating who is to blame for Ebola coming to this country. We labor under the illusion that we can create perfect safety. If the danger is far enough away, and we can build a high enough wall, we feel separated, and protected. When the threat comes too close, we are afraid. Afraid of change, of those we don’t understand, of death. And when we depend on these actions to protect us, and ground our hope in our own efforts instead of trusting in God, we go beyond reasonable steps to take care of ourselves, and build walls that not only separate us from our neighbors, but from God.

On a personal level, we exercise and eat well expecting that this will guarantee our health, to the point where we feel surprised and angry when are sick. We are slaves to addictions that tell us the lie that everything will be OK if only we have enough alcohol, or sex, or food. We buy in, without even being aware, to the idea that growing old, rather than being a normal part of the cycle of life, is something that can and should be prevented, or at least slowed down, with the right lotions or vitamins or procedures. We act out of the illusion that life is a competition for success, love, and resources that only a few will win, and work furiously to be sure we will be one of them, secretly convinced that we are not good enough. We remain confident in the idea of our own power and ability to control our lives, until unexpected events wake us up, and we begin to understand the truth. We are slaves to our own brokenness, and we, like the bird, find ourselves trapped by our own fears, exhausted from our efforts to escape a prison we cannot even see.

We are slaves to our own brokenness, but Jesus made his followers a promise—makes us a promise today. “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” And the truth that Jesus talks about, the truth that will free us, is precisely why we are so afraid of freedom. The truth, as Paul proclaims it, is simply this: we have all sinned, and we all fall short of the glory of God. Every one of us, without exception. What terrifies us about this truth is that when we embrace it, it takes us completely out of the driver’s seat. We can no longer cling to an illusion of safety that is built on our own efforts or beliefs that we are in control. We are vulnerable, exposed for who we are, face-to-face with our own humanity. This is the truth that leads to freedom, the freedom to be exactly the people God created us to be.

We are freed by this truth, because grounded in our own humanity, we can understand Martin Luther’s claim that we are simultaneously sinner and saint. The very truth of our own weakness reveals our need for God, and our place as God’s children. The promise of the covenant Jeremiah talks about is our promise. God’s law has been written on our hearts, God is our God, and we are God’s people. In the core of who we are, God has written the law of love, faithfulness, forgiveness. And as our illusions, addictions, and sinfulness die in the light of this promise, we can see that we have been enslaved. And we can see that we are free.

Like the bird with its talons hooked into my jacket lining, we tend to cling to what we feel sure of, certain that there is nothing to catch us if we let go. The psalmist describes in vivid images the chaos we sometimes feel in this unpredictable world—earthquakes and roaring waters, nations at war. The chaos, as the psalmist sings it, does not go away. Illness, job loss, wars, death, are all a part of this life we live. Promise and hope and certainty come from the presence of a loving God who never abandons us, regardless of the circumstances. “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble. . . . . The LORD of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. . . . Be still and know that I am God.”

By seeing clearly the truth of our own powerlessness, our own brokenness, our own humanity, we are freed from our illusions. We live as people of the covenant, knowing that we belong to God, and we can do that because God has written God’s promise on our hearts. We know the truth. God is our refuge, and will be with us, no matter what may come. Jesus calls us to embrace the truth, and by doing this, we can, like the bird, unhook our talons from the lining of the jacket, and live in freedom.

[1] Rudolf Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings, trans. Schubert Miles Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 17

The God beyond all knowing, all human testing, has come into this world in Christ Jesus and called us to a way of life that is our worship; beyond that, there is much we cannot know about God and what God is doing, and that’s OK.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 29 A
   texts:  Isaiah 45:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

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

“Here be dragons.”

Supposedly when old mapmakers got to the end of what they knew to draw, that’s what they wrote on the edge of their maps.  Meaning: beyond here we don’t know, but it’s dangerous.  According to The Atlantic (Dec. 2012), however, no known ancient maps actually have that phrase, though one globe from the early sixteenth century does.  But such a warning is helpful.  It’s good to recall there are limits to our knowledge, edges to our certainty.  We know some things.  Much we do not.

We should keep this in mind when speaking of God.  There are definite limits to what we can know about God.  Beyond is real danger trying to speak definitively.  Plenty of people of faith are willing to fight, even to kill, to defend firm convictions about God.

Christian faith doesn’t let us do that.  It is central to our faith in Christ that we place serious boundaries around what we claim to know about God’s action and life in the world. Tom Wright has said, “Because of the cross, being a Christian, or being a church, does not mean claiming that we’ve got it all together.  It means claiming that God’s got it all together; and that we are merely, as Paul says, those who are overwhelmed by his love.” [1] 

Beyond that there be dragons.  But if we believe the Triune God is who Jesus revealed, and works as Jesus claims, that’s just fine.  God will handle the dragons, and we can focus on what we’re really called to be as followers of the crucified and risen One.

Our readings today ask what God is up to in the world.  There’s disagreement amongst them.

Israelites returning from exile saw God’s hand in a foreign general, Cyrus of Persia, who destroyed Babylon’s power and sent them home.  Isaiah claims the LORD God of Israel, the one, true God, anointed Cyrus to save Israel.  Anointed him, made him Messiah.

Cyrus doesn’t even know the God of Israel.  He was just taking down the current empire and setting up his own.  Yet Israel believed this was God’s doing.  Even if, as we heard today, it meant God having to do a meet and greet with this pagan emperor first.  These people of faith knew their theological limits and were willing to see God’s hand acting in a way outside their boundaries.

The Pharisees struggle with such limits.

To be fair, their job was to interpret God’s law, and they were good at it.  Israel had a core belief that the God of all time was also the LORD, the God of Israel, and had given them laws to live by to make this world a place of healing and life.  The Pharisees defended that law.

This rabbi from Nazareth played a little too fast and loose with it, they thought.  Had they the openness of their exilic ancestors, they might have seen Jesus as the true successor to the prophets of Israel.  Even his summing of all God’s law into love of God and love of neighbor was taken straight from the Torah.

But he did challenge their interpretation, question their authority.  So in these last weeks of his life, they tested him again and again.

It’s an odd switch.  Their ancestors, with little evidence other than their rescue and new life back home, called a foreigner the Messiah of God.  They, with all sorts of evidence, called the true Messiah of God a blasphemer.

Here be dragons indeed.  They, like us, wanted to draw to the edges of the map of reality and claim knowledge and certainty about it all.  The Triune God, though, seems to enjoy messing about the margins doing whatever pleases God, even if it doesn’t fit our boxes.

Paul wrote: “In every place your faith in God has become known, how you turned to God from Idols, to serve a living and true God.”

That’s what this is about, isn’t it?  Caesar or God, Cyrus as Messiah, Greek pantheon or the Triune God, it’s a question of who the true God is, what the true God is doing.

As followers of the crucified and risen Christ Jesus, we center our life and worship around serving this true and living God, just like Paul’s friends.  Because of the cross, our whole life is worship of God, as we offer ourselves in service to the world as embodiments of Christ’s love.

Beyond that, though, God will keep doing whatever God wants to do.  That’s OK for us, for because of the cross, we claim God’s got it all together, not us, and we’re only those who are overwhelmed by God’s love, who know we don’t control where and how God gives that love.

That’s the difference between the true God and idols: who’s in charge.

The one true God stands outside human endeavor and speaks into our lives.  We do not make a true God, nor can we tell God what to do.  Idols, set up by us, do what we want because we make them, we create them, we shape them.  In ancient times, idols were made in human images, animal images; today they are reflections of our wants, our desires.  Reflections of us.

The witness of the Scriptures is that the one true God isn’t made in our image, though, we are made in the image of God.  So our faith doesn’t create God, shape God; God shapes us, creates us through our faith.

It is the very existence of boundaries beyond which we cannot know that reveals our connection to the true God.  If we create our gods, there’s nothing we don’t know about them, nothing we can’t explain or control.  But the true God creates us, comes to us from the outside, and has much that is unknowable, uncontrollable.

That’s how we know God is true.

God is beyond us, except when God comes to us.  That’s what we cling to.

We have seen and believe for ourselves what others have witnessed to us, that God has entered our world.  We have encountered our Lord Jesus at the cross and have seen God there.  We have seen the shape of the true human life to which he calls us, have experienced his risen presence in this world, in our hearts, in our worship.  We trust in the Triune God he has revealed to us.  We live in God’s presence now; we await a life to come where we’re even more fully alive in that presence.  That’s what we know.

Now, like most people, we long for absolute certainty, argue for it with others.  We don’t wish to kill for it, but we recognize a similar discomfort when others describe God in ways we can’t explain or understand.  We convince ourselves we have a say in who God is, or if we think the right things we’ll be saved.

The truth is we are not saved by our thoughts anymore than by our works, we are saved by the cross-shaped love of the Triune God.  That’s our place of wonder and joy and faith, like Psalm 8, that a God who is so beyond us has come to this world to bring hope and life and grace.

We claim that in the cross and resurrection of Christ Jesus the true God is re-making the world and bringing life to all.

We claim that our life in Jesus’ resurrection is the cross-shaped life of Christ to which he calls us, so we live that for the sake of the world.  We love God and our neighbor with all we have, because that’s the life our Lord lived, that’s the gift his resurrection empowers in us.  We tell others about this God so they, too, can know and rejoice.

Beyond this, we don’t always know what else God is doing.

We might want to keep our eyes open, though.  God is almost certainly doing far more interesting things than dragons out there if we’re open to seeing it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The God beyond all knowing, all human testing, has come into this world in Christ Jesus and called us to a way of life that is our worship; beyond that, there is much we cannot know about God and what God is doing, and that’s OK.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 29 A
   texts:  Isaiah 45:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

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

“Here be dragons.”

Supposedly when old mapmakers got to the end of what they knew to draw, that’s what they wrote on the edge of their maps.  Meaning: beyond here we don’t know, but it’s dangerous.  According to The Atlantic (Dec. 2012), however, no known ancient maps actually have that phrase, though one globe from the early sixteenth century does.  But such a warning is helpful.  It’s good to recall there are limits to our knowledge, edges to our certainty.  We know some things.  Much we do not.

We should keep this in mind when speaking of God.  There are definite limits to what we can know about God.  Beyond is real danger trying to speak definitively.  Plenty of people of faith are willing to fight, even to kill, to defend firm convictions about God.

Christian faith doesn’t let us do that.  It is central to our faith in Christ that we place serious boundaries around what we claim to know about God’s action and life in the world. Tom Wright has said, “Because of the cross, being a Christian, or being a church, does not mean claiming that we’ve got it all together.  It means claiming that God’s got it all together; and that we are merely, as Paul says, those who are overwhelmed by his love.” [1] 

Beyond that there be dragons.  But if we believe the Triune God is who Jesus revealed, and works as Jesus claims, that’s just fine.  God will handle the dragons, and we can focus on what we’re really called to be as followers of the crucified and risen One.

Our readings today ask what God is up to in the world.  There’s disagreement amongst them.

Israelites returning from exile saw God’s hand in a foreign general, Cyrus of Persia, who destroyed Babylon’s power and sent them home.  Isaiah claims the LORD God of Israel, the one, true God, anointed Cyrus to save Israel.  Anointed him, made him Messiah.

Cyrus doesn’t even know the God of Israel.  He was just taking down the current empire and setting up his own.  Yet Israel believed this was God’s doing.  Even if, as we heard today, it meant God having to do a meet and greet with this pagan emperor first.  These people of faith knew their theological limits and were willing to see God’s hand acting in a way outside their boundaries.

The Pharisees struggle with such limits.

To be fair, their job was to interpret God’s law, and they were good at it.  Israel had a core belief that the God of all time was also the LORD, the God of Israel, and had given them laws to live by to make this world a place of healing and life.  The Pharisees defended that law.

This rabbi from Nazareth played a little too fast and loose with it, they thought.  Had they the openness of their exilic ancestors, they might have seen Jesus as the true successor to the prophets of Israel.  Even his summing of all God’s law into love of God and love of neighbor was taken straight from the Torah.

But he did challenge their interpretation, question their authority.  So in these last weeks of his life, they tested him again and again.

It’s an odd switch.  Their ancestors, with little evidence other than their rescue and new life back home, called a foreigner the Messiah of God.  They, with all sorts of evidence, called the true Messiah of God a blasphemer.

Here be dragons indeed.  They, like us, wanted to draw to the edges of the map of reality and claim knowledge and certainty about it all.  The Triune God, though, seems to enjoy messing about the margins doing whatever pleases God, even if it doesn’t fit our boxes.

Paul wrote: “In every place your faith in God has become known, how you turned to God from Idols, to serve a living and true God.”

That’s what this is about, isn’t it?  Caesar or God, Cyrus as Messiah, Greek pantheon or the Triune God, it’s a question of who the true God is, what the true God is doing.

As followers of the crucified and risen Christ Jesus, we center our life and worship around serving this true and living God, just like Paul’s friends.  Because of the cross, our whole life is worship of God, as we offer ourselves in service to the world as embodiments of Christ’s love.

Beyond that, though, God will keep doing whatever God wants to do.  That’s OK for us, for because of the cross, we claim God’s got it all together, not us, and we’re only those who are overwhelmed by God’s love, who know we don’t control where and how God gives that love.

That’s the difference between the true God and idols: who’s in charge.

The one true God stands outside human endeavor and speaks into our lives.  We do not make a true God, nor can we tell God what to do.  Idols, set up by us, do what we want because we make them, we create them, we shape them.  In ancient times, idols were made in human images, animal images; today they are reflections of our wants, our desires.  Reflections of us.

The witness of the Scriptures is that the one true God isn’t made in our image, though, we are made in the image of God.  So our faith doesn’t create God, shape God; God shapes us, creates us through our faith.

It is the very existence of boundaries beyond which we cannot know that reveals our connection to the true God.  If we create our gods, there’s nothing we don’t know about them, nothing we can’t explain or control.  But the true God creates us, comes to us from the outside, and has much that is unknowable, uncontrollable.

That’s how we know God is true.

God is beyond us, except when God comes to us.  That’s what we cling to.

We have seen and believe for ourselves what others have witnessed to us, that God has entered our world.  We have encountered our Lord Jesus at the cross and have seen God there.  We have seen the shape of the true human life to which he calls us, have experienced his risen presence in this world, in our hearts, in our worship.  We trust in the Triune God he has revealed to us.  We live in God’s presence now; we await a life to come where we’re even more fully alive in that presence.  That’s what we know.

Now, like most people, we long for absolute certainty, argue for it with others.  We don’t wish to kill for it, but we recognize a similar discomfort when others describe God in ways we can’t explain or understand.  We convince ourselves we have a say in who God is, or if we think the right things we’ll be saved.

The truth is we are not saved by our thoughts anymore than by our works, we are saved by the cross-shaped love of the Triune God.  That’s our place of wonder and joy and faith, like Psalm 8, that a God who is so beyond us has come to this world to bring hope and life and grace.

We claim that in the cross and resurrection of Christ Jesus the true God is re-making the world and bringing life to all.

We claim that our life in Jesus’ resurrection is the cross-shaped life of Christ to which he calls us, so we live that for the sake of the world.  We love God and our neighbor with all we have, because that’s the life our Lord lived, that’s the gift his resurrection empowers in us.  We tell others about this God so they, too, can know and rejoice.

Beyond this, we don’t always know what else God is doing.

We might want to keep our eyes open, though.  God is almost certainly doing far more interesting things than dragons out there if we’re open to seeing it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen