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.”

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

 

God has come out of the house to bring you back into the party of God’s love; and now sends you out to find others to bring home.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday in Lent, year C
Texts: Luke 15:1-3; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

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

Now we finally see openly what’s been hinted all Lent.

Since Jesus’ temptation, our Gospel readings have shown God’s people rejecting God’s people one way or another. Whether resisting having “those others” under God’s wings with us, or secretly thinking that some people whom we could name deserve God’s punishment, we’ve been hearing rumblings for two weeks.

It all comes to a head today, because now people in the story actually name their rejection. The Pharisees and scribes simply cannot accept Jesus because he, in their words, “welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Whatever bad behavior these people have done, their religious teachers don’t even call them by their names, or see them as valuable. No, they’re just “sinners.” And Jesus welcomes them. Eats with them. Therefore, he’s to be rejected.

It’s about as clear as it can be. And this clarity produces a breathtaking response from Jesus. Three parables about lost things being found: one lost sheep among 100, one lost coin among 10, and the one we heard today, the parable of the son who was lost.

This parable breaks everything open for those who have ears to hear. It opens up the image of the hen and her welcoming wings, of the gardener and the careful nourishing of the tree, and says, in case you missed it, this is the true nature of the God Who Is.

And this parable does this because it’s not just about one lost son.

This is a parable of two lost sons.

Both boys are deeply in the dark. Neither believes in their father’s love. The younger would prefer his father dead, and receive right now what he’ll get in the will. His brother is just as lost. He has everything now, the estate has been split. All the work he’s done since profits him and his future, but he sees it as slaving away for his father.

One son finds himself starving in a pigsty, and wakes up to his lostness. The other son is starving in the midst of wealth, and . . . well, Jesus leaves the door open. We don’t know if he wakes up.

But the father knows both his boys are lost. The astonishing love of this father leads him to cross his doorstep twice to find his boys. Two times he leaves the house looking for a lost son. Two times he embraces a lost son and welcomes him into the party, into the love, into the life of the family.

Imagine: Jesus is saying God wants to cross the doorstep to find the Pharisees and scribes, and bring them into the party, too. Welcome them. Eat with them. If only they could hear that.

This parable is about what’s “mine” and what’s “yours.”

The younger wants “what’s mine.” He believes money will fill the hole in his heart. “Give me my share. You’re not mine and I’m not yours anymore,” he says to his father. The older wants “what’s mine,” too. He has everything, but believes he has nothing. “Give me my feast, my party. You’re not mine, and I’ve never been yours,” he says to his father.

But for this father, “what’s mine” is both of his boys. “I’m not worthy to be called your son,” the younger says. But the father says, “this son of mine – my son – was dead and is alive again.”

The elder says, “this son of yours” wasted your property. Not my brother. Your son. And the radiance of the father’s love explodes over this beloved, lost son: “Everything I have is yours, not mine. You are always with me, you have my love, you have my property, you have my everything.”

And here’s what takes our breath away, what Jesus wants you to see: If everything the father has belongs to the eldest, and the younger son belongs to the father, then he also belongs to his elder brother. “Everything I have is yours,” the father says, including “this brother of yours.”

This is the reconciliation Paul proclaims today.

All old things have passed away, the old order of “mine” and “yours,” of limited love and limited resources. God in Christ has made a new creation in you, a new being. You are reconciled to God, welcomed into the party, embraced with tears and love by the God who died and rose from the dead to prove how loved you are.

And God in Christ has reconciled the whole world back to God, everything, the entire cosmos, Paul says. God’s crossed the doorstep billions of times to find all who are lost, to show them the love revealed on the cross, an endless, vulnerable, suffering, death-breaking love, to bring everyone home.

Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. You don’t have to sit in the dark, starving for God’s affection. Be like the younger brother and wake up, Paul says. Believe that God has reconciled you back into God’s own life.

But then you face the elder brother’s dilemma: if, in God’s reconciliation, all are made a new creation, and if all things belong to God, and if everything God has is yours as Jesus says, then all things belong to you. There is no one who doesn’t matter to you, no creature you can exclude from God’s love.

We’re way past the question of rejecting others now.

Now you know you’re in God’s party, under God’s wings, nurtured and gardened to bear fruit, now you know that nothing can separate you from God’s love, it isn’t about not rejecting others anymore.

God needs you out there proclaiming reconciliation, opening God’s wings for others, providing nourishing fruit so others can live. God needs you as an ambassador, needs you to leave the house to look for more lost children. “Everything I have is yours, and you are always with me in my love,” God says to you. “Go, find the others who are lost and love them home. They’re yours, too. Welcome them. Eat with them. I want everyone at my party.”

God needs you out there proclaiming reconciliation, opening God’s wings for others, providing nourishing fruit so others can live. God needs you as an ambassador, needs you to leave the house to look for more lost children. “Everything I have is yours, and you are always with me in my love,” God says to you. “Find the others who are lost and love them home. They’re your children, too. And I want everyone at my party.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen