Pr. Joseph Crippen

Midweek Lent, 2019 + I AM WHO I AM Is My Shepherd

March 27, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Week 3: Even though I walk through the valley . . . I fear no evil, for you are with me

Even Though

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; Romans 8:31-39; John 10:27-30

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

Why is this so hard to remember?

Paul says nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Absolutely nothing. Jesus himself claims that he holds all his sheep in his hands and nothing, absolutely nothing, can snatch them out.

We know our Isaiah, too. In chapter 43, God promises that no matter what happens to us, fire or flood, God knows us by name, loves us, and God will be with us always.

We know this. The Scriptures are full of this witness.

So why do we fall apart when bad things happen? Why do we try to come up with rationales for God’s involvement? Like telling someone who suffers that God has a plan and that explains it. Or panicking that God must be punishing us. Why can’t we remember what God keeps promising?

We know suffering and death are a reality of life. It’s just that somewhere we got the idea that a respectable God would prevent them.

For the last six or seven millennia since humanity started getting together in civilizations, suffering and death have been a pretty highly discussed topic. As humans wondered about why things happened, from storms to plagues, they imagined that gods of some kind were responsible.

We still play that game. Idiots claim that a hurricane’s devastation is God’s punishment on that city. Or tell someone that their disease must have a divine reason. But even without those blowhards, people of many faiths easily fall into the “God is responsible” talk when tragedy strikes. Or they go the other way, saying, “Why would God allow this?”

Human beings seem to want God-sized fixes and answers to pain and suffering. But that leads to a theology of reward and protection, where your safety depends on picking the right god, or doing the right religious actions. That’s pretty dangerous if you’re someone who makes mistakes. What if your house was destroyed in a tornado and your neighbor’s wasn’t? Is that your fault? Ask Job how well this theology works in real life.

The good news is, that’s not how the God we worship operates.

The God whom we name as Triune, the God who first spoke to the Hebrew people, is a God we have met through revelation.

We belong to a nearly 4,000-year line of believers in a God who reached out to humanity to have a relationship with us. A relationship that helps us understand God’s place in our suffering, among many other things.

I AM WHO I AM took pains to teach Israel not to expect to avoid evil, but to trust that God would be with them. We see this throughout the Hebrew Scripture. Even when God in anger threatens destruction we repeatedly see God pull back out of love.

Jesus reveals God’s deepest truth to us and throughout his teachings he repeatedly declares God’s love for all people. But he never promises an absence of pain or suffering or even death. Yet today he claims that none of his sheep, not one, can be snatched from him. Not even by death.

Paul’s magnificent hymn to God’s love in Romans 8 just deepens that. There’s nothing Paul can think of or name, from life to death, from past to future, nothing that can separate us from God’s love in Christ.

In all of these witnesses, there is honesty: bad things will happen to God’s people. And there is promise: God will always be with you.

David’s psalm beautifully sings the same song.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” David sang, “I fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” David, the shepherd, knows a shepherd can’t keep all the sheep from harm all the time. Storms come with lightning and floods, predators lurk in the shadows on the edges, sheep are harmed. Some will die.

But a good shepherd stays with the sheep. Calms them in the storms. Holds them when they fear. Risks his life. Uses the staff to guide, pull out of cracks, keep off predators. That staff is a comfort if you’re a frightened sheep.

The God David sings to in Psalm 23 is the same God whose face Jesus reveals to us, the same God who first called to Abraham in the wilderness.

And this God walks with you in all things, whatever valleys or scary woods you’re walking in as you live your journey of life. Nothing can snatch you out of God’s hand. Because God, in Christ Jesus, didn’t avoid suffering and death to reveal how loved you are, how loved the creation is. The true God entered suffering and death to hold on to you and to me, and broke through death into life. How will anyone ever tear you out of the hands of such a God?

Still: we wonder just how is God with us.

If you’re facing suffering or tragedy, or nearing death, just having someone say, “God is with you” might feel a little thin on sustenance.

But this is something we also sometimes forget: Jesus created the Church to be Christ in the world. We are God’s grace to each other. Don’t undervalue this. God’s hands are the hands of your neighbor who holds yours in your pain. God’s arms are the arms of your friend who hugs you in your grief. God’s ears are the ears of your loved one who listens to your sorrow.

God isn’t limited by people, either. Jesus proclaims the Triune God desires a deep relationship of love and care with you. “Abide in me,” Jesus said, be connected to me like a branch to a vine, and you’ll know life. This happens when prayer ceases to be about asking for things and becomes a life lived listening for God in every moment and every breath. The God you meet in worship, who feeds you with Word and Sacrament, this God longs to spend your days with you, live in your heart and mind. The more you are open to being in God’s presence at all times, the more you realize God is also with you in suffering and grief and death. To give you inner strength and hope and courage. To hold you at your deepest core, so you know you are not alone.

“Even though” . . . those are David’s words of life.

Even though I walk in death’s valley, I’m not afraid, David teaches you to sing today.

Because if Christ is risen from the dead, then Paul’s right, not even death can separate you from God’s love. And that means nothing can ultimately ever harm you.

That’s why David reminds you you don’t have to limit it to death. Whatever valley or thorny woods you find yourself in, just listen, and you will hear God’s measured steps at your side. You’ll hear God’s breath saying “I am here, and I love you.” You’ll know that you are safe, no matter what happens.

Even though bad things will happen, I will not fear. Not even death. Because you are with me, my God.

You can trust that forever.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Nourishing Food

March 24, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Repentance is a complete turning around of your whole being, a turning to God who longs to freely fill you with nourishment and life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday in Lent, year C
Texts: Luke 13:1-9; Isaiah 55:1-9

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

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”

Isaiah’s question is powerful. It can’t be ignored. Because if Isaiah’s right, we’re spending our mental, spiritual, and physical energy and time on things that won’t replenish us, feed us. If Isaiah’s right, we’re in danger of starving to death inside, not from lack of physical food or drink, but because we are filling ourselves with emptiness.

Instead, Isaiah says, know this: God offers you all the spiritual food and drink you need or want, endless mercy and love, at no cost. God wants to freely fill up your heart and soul with life and love.

So seek God, Isaiah says. Stop wasting your time and energy on whatever it is you think fills you. Turn to God for mercy and pardon, for steadfast, sure love.

And, strange as it might seem, today Jesus sounds a lot like Isaiah.

Unless you repent, Jesus says, you will perish.

If that sounds terrifyingly harsh, you’re missing Jesus’ point.

Jesus isn’t saying repent or God will have a wicked ruler kill you, because he says the Galileans Pilate murdered weren’t punished by God, either, and they weren’t any worse than you. Jesus isn’t saying repent or God will kill you in a construction accident, like the workers at Siloam, because he says those who died weren’t punished by God, either, and they weren’t any worse than you.

Jesus utterly rejects the idea that people suffer because God targets them for their sins. So, there must be another thing he means by “you will perish as they did.” And there is. Jesus is talking exactly like Isaiah. If you were sitting at a table in a restaurant eating sand and drinking lye, I hope someone would come up and say, “you’re going to die if you keep feeding yourself with that!” They’re not threatening punishment. They’re stating fact. So is Isaiah. So is Jesus.

Jesus says, if you keep going in the direction you’re going, if you keep living and thinking and doing as you do, you’ll dry up and die. Just like Isaiah says. We know this is what Jesus means thanks to Luke.

Only Luke tells of these tragic deaths, and only Luke tells Jesus’ parable about the fig tree. And he puts them together.

That’s significant. It’s how we know what “repent or perish” means. Luke follows Jesus’ frightening words with an absolutely clear parable. There’s a fruitless tree, and the owner wants to clear the land for something more profitable. The current way the tree is living won’t end well. But the gardener talks him out of it. He says, “The problem is, it needs nourishment. Let me see what I can do, feed it for a year, see if I can encourage it to bear fruit.”

That’s the powerful gift of Isaiah and Jesus. In warning that your path won’t lead to nourishment, and will ultimately kill you, they’re giving you hope: God’s life awaits you in the other direction.

We miss this because we’ve made repentance into a puny, weak shadow of what Jesus actually calls for.

When we hear “repent,” we think of individual sins we do, individual thoughts we think, then say, “Yes, I suppose I need to repent of them.” But that’s more like confession: name your sins and ask forgiveness.

Repentance is far deeper. The individual things we think or do that harm others, harm the creation, and cause God grief aren’t the problem. They’re the symptom of the problem. The things I think I need to repent of are the sign that there’s a deeper illness in me. A sign you’re going in a direction away from God’s life, toward death.

As long as we focus on the symptoms rather than the underlying disease, we’re still going in a way that misses God’s nourishment. Thankfully, Jesus means a whole lot more when he says, “repent.”

Jesus’ word is “metanoia.” It means a complete change of mind.

Repentance is a 180-degree shift in how you think, how you reason, in how you live your life. A full stop and reversal. Which makes sense if you’re going away from food and life and hope.

Isaiah and Jesus invite you to ask: What am I wasting my life on? Does my current way of thinking and being actually satisfy me, fill me, heal me, lead me to God’s nourishment?

For example: does dwelling on grudges against some people really feed me? Does having my own list of people I wish God would punish really satisfy me? Does trying to get my way all the time really make me happy? Does distracting myself with entertainment and noise instead of hearing God’s voice really give me purpose? Does getting whatever I want while others suffer and struggle really make me feel good?

You might have many more, but these are the kind of questions to ask. Jesus is asking us to consider exactly how we face the world, how honest we are with our motives, our actions, our behaviors, and then to ask ourselves: is this a direction toward life?

I can’t answer for you, but what I know, what millions of believers have come to know, is the more you turn toward God the more you find life and hope and healing. It’s hard to face the ugly truths of how you think or imagine or live and see whether they’re healthy for you or for others. But wasting time and energy on things that can’t fill you up inside is death. And it’s unnecessary. Because you could seek God, and live.

The Triune God is offering all you need for life now and forever.

It might mean a complete turn-around from how you currently think and live. But it’s a turning into the only path that will give you true life, a turning toward the undying mercy and love of God that fills you up.

There’s one more truth to hear, and it’s about that fig tree. Fruit trees don’t bear fruit to help themselves. If their fruit is eaten, others are nourished. If it falls to the ground, it grows a new tree, it doesn’t nourish the original tree.

That’s how God’s plan works, too. When you turn your whole life and intellect and being toward God you are fed, nourished, manured, satisfied, and you bear fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The fruit of the Spirit.

And that fruit fills others up with God’s nourishment. So they turn from death to life. Then they bear fruit for others. And on and on until God in Christ heals all things.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Midweek Lent, 2019 + I AM WHO I AM Is My Shepherd

March 20, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Week 2: You restore my soul . . . you lead me in right paths for your name’s sake . . .

Course Correction

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; Romans 12:1-2, 9-18; John 10:4, 11-13

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

We might do well to listen to David and re-think our view of sin and forgiveness.

We’re used to thinking of our sin and God’s forgiveness in legal terms. We do wrong, and deserve punishment. God, in mercy, forgives, and takes away our punishment. This legal transaction idea has ancient roots and is one of our first, instinctive thoughts when we think of sin.

But it’s not the dominant biblical view of sin and forgiveness. It’s there in the Bible, it’s just not primary. It also doesn’t translate into human relationships, and Jesus consistently referred to our relationships as ways to understand how God is in relationship with us. Jesus said, imagine God as a father. Think of how humans parent, and know God is far above that in love and wisdom and care.

But a legal view of sin and forgiveness makes no sense in our relationships. If I do something wrong to you and ask your forgiveness, I’m not doing it to avoid punishment. You can’t send me to jail, or to hell, or even force me to take a time-out. I ask forgiveness because I’ve damaged our relationship and I’d like it to be healed. I’d like us to start on a new path together, and my sin needs to be forgiven for that to happen. And that’s actually the prominent biblical way of understanding God’s forgiveness, and it’s certainly Jesus’ way.

And, a legal view of sin and forgiveness doesn’t account for God’s pre-existing, continuous love for humanity. The love the Bible says God has is foolish, breaks all rules, and bursts the seams of any container that tries to hold it back. God’s love as we see in the Bible doesn’t care about accounting and paying debt. God’s love for humanity and the whole creation is an unstoppable force of grace for all.

Psalm 23 gives us a truer way to talk about sin and forgiveness.

David sings that the true God restores our souls and leads us on right paths for the sake of God’s name. David may not call this confession and absolution, but that’s exactly what it is.

Forgiveness for David is having your soul restored. It’s having what is broken inside you healed. “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” we sing today in his confessional Psalm 51. “You restore my soul,” we sing in Psalm 23. Forgiveness as God’s healing of our very inner heart is not only consistent with the biblical witness of God’s love, it’s also consistent with the biblical witness of God’s plan for all humanity.

God created us to be loving creatures who cared for the creation, who loved God with all our heart and strength, and who loved each other fully. If forgiveness is just avoiding punishment, love of God and neighbor won’t result. What we need is a healed, restored heart and soul.

And then we get set back on the right path, the path of life. The path that leads to green pastures and still waters. The path of abundance. “You lead me in right paths for your name’s sake,” David sang. That’s the goal of forgiveness: with hearts restored, we now follow Christ on new paths that lead to hope and healing and life, not despair and brokenness and death. Paths of a transformed heart, like Paul talks about: paths of love, kindness, hope, patience, generosity, and peacemaking with all.

David’s wisdom in this psalm also is to make us the sheep of a shepherd.

A shepherd doesn’t beat her sheep if they stray, or kill them because they went the wrong way. Obviously, a shepherd doesn’t want his sheep to go places where they can be harmed, or harm others. But a good shepherd heals the sheep when they get stuck in the thorns, or willfully get into a rocky place where they’re hurt, then sets them back on the path, and leads them to pasture and water and life. David says, “that’s what God does for us.”

And if the sheep really get into trouble, the shepherd might even risk his life. Jesus says that a good shepherd is willing to lay down his life for the sheep. How different that is than thinking of our sin in crime and punishment terms! This is the only way of thinking of sin and forgiveness that makes sense of the cross and what the Bible really says God does there.

God’s goal is exactly that of a good shepherd: that you love God and love neighbor and find abundant life. Why would killing you or punishing you help with that? How could making you feel horrible with shame or terrified of judgment ever lead you to love God or neighbor? No, God wants to protect you, and when you stray, when you do wrong, heal you and set you back on a good path, and lead you to life.

And if you resist that love, fight it, God will show you at the cross just how far God is willing to go to love you back home.

The Holy and Triune God is your Good Shepherd, and longs for you to find abundant life.

That’s the hope to hold when you face your sin and brokenness. When you struggle with guilt and shame. You belong to the Good Shepherd who knows you and loves you. Who wants to restore your soul, take away your shame and guilt, and lead you on the paths of life.

And all this, David says, is for the sake of God’s name. You are joined to God’s name in baptism, and that means you belong to God. God’s got a stake in you. For the sake of God’s good name, God will never let you go.

And that’s a promise worth clinging to for the rest of your life.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Under the Wings

March 17, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

God will draw all creation under wings of death-defeating love. There’s no point in fighting it or rejecting others from it. So live in God’s embrace!

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday in Lent, year C
Texts: Luke 13:31-35; Philippians 3:17 – 4:1

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

Something doesn’t add up here.

Jesus’ grief that God’s people have rejected him is heartbreaking. But Jesus doesn’t say that the people rejected his teachings. Or his miracles. Or who he said he was. He says: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing!” Jesus mourns that Jerusalem – standing for all of Israel – has rejected Jesus’ maternal love, and therefore rejected God’s maternal love.

And that doesn’t make any sense. Who doesn’t want to be gathered under God’s wings, safe, beloved?

If we start by asking that of Jesus’ time, we see that it was for reasons he doesn’t mention here.

Jesus attracted lots of those he longed to draw under his wings. The crowds that followed him loved him. He had less success with the leaders of his people.

And they did reject his teachings. Like teaching that living in God’s love was more important than keeping one of God’s laws, if the two were in conflict. Or teaching that God was more interested in sinners who repented than folks who thought they were good enough they didn’t need repentance.

They rejected his behavior, especially his spending time with “sinful” people. Prostitutes. Tax collectors. Poor, uneducated people. Lepers. He even spoke with women publicly. These weren’t the “right” people.

They rejected his embrace because they rejected everything he stood for. If people followed his teachings, lived as he lived, believed what he believed, all their authority and power would be gone.

So even when they saw miracles right before their eyes, they opposed Jesus. He was too much of a threat for them to see clearly.

Now, this is becoming a nice little morality tale, and that’s exceedingly dangerous.

We comfortably talk about how bad the authorities were in Jesus’ time. Thinking, “what’s wrong with them,” happy that we’re different. End of story, end of sermon. Be wary of that conclusion.

Today, Paul cuts far too close to this line, too. There are “those people” whom Paul confidently says live as enemies of the cross, whose “god is the belly,” whose minds are set on earthly things. As we just did with the authorities, Paul has fallen into “we” and “they” language. He would have done better to include himself and the Philippians amongst those who sometimes get focused on earthly things over heavenly. So would we.

Such “we” and “they” language overpowers honesty about yourself and your life with lies. It keeps the truth at arm’s length, applied only to others, which might feel safe, but it’s a false security. Because we miss the truth about our own path, our own prejudice, our own reality. We miss the probability that we might be among those who reject the wings of Jesus’ embrace. And if we miss that, we miss everything.

Our problem is the same as these religious leaders. Notice the pattern in what they rejected:

It was the people Jesus embraced, more than anything else, that turned them away. Jesus’ proclamation of God’s love was unabashedly for all. Sinners. Broken people. People who didn’t darken the door of a synagogue. People who were unacceptable from birth: women; non-Jews; even the hated Romans. Jesus welcomed and embraced them all.

Jesus’ actions, his teachings, and most deeply, his death and resurrection, were his embrace, his enfolding of God’s wings around God’s people. And it’s pretty clear that some couldn’t handle just how broad the category “God’s people” really was.

Jesus would say to Paul here, “I know you think these others are wrong, that they’re focused on worldly things, that they even seem to be my enemies. But know this: I love them enough to die for them, too.”

And this exposes a sensitive nerve in us: how very anxious we are about who else is invited into the enfolding wings of God’s love, the embrace God the mother hen so longs to place around the world. We don’t want to share space under the wings with certain people any more than these authorities did.

Christians have always struggled with this.

The history of Jesus’ followers is littered with the bodies and lives of people Christians have deemed “those people,” people who don’t belong in God’s embrace. From the Crusades to the Inquistion, to Christian support of racism and slavery that still exists, Christians regularly oppose Christ and put people into groups, labelling them.

And once you do that, as Hitler taught us well, you can reject without much effort. If you think God hates Muslims, you can easily conclude that you don’t have to worry much about how they’re treated. If you think God can’t welcome people who do or think certain things that offend you, you can easily believe that you don’t have to have any compassion for them.

If Jesus were doing public ministry here in person, as he did 2,000 years ago, he’d welcome folks that some of us would be very uncomfortable with, maybe even people we know well. But when you close your heart to anyone, you close your heart to God. When you reject anyone God loves, you reject God.

Here’s an interesting truth about chickens.

Someone whose family had a farm once told me about how they’d use brood hens to nurture and care for baby chicks that arrived from the hatchery. But sometimes the hens wouldn’t accept the unknown chicks. They’d ignore them. Her father then would take the handle end of a hammer, and gently tap the hens on the head, stunning them. When they woke up, they’d see the same baby chicks and think they were their own. They’d bring them under their wings.

This flips the image from Jesus as hen to us as hen, but there’s an important truth here. Maybe the love and grace of Jesus is your tap on the head. Paul says people often have their minds on earthly things, worldly issues. Rejecting certain people because of who they are or what they do is certainly an earthly thing. The heavenly thing is to realize God’s love is so astonishingly broad it covers all creatures in an embrace. But something has to wake you up to see differently.

We often deny God’s love for others when we have difficulty believing we ourselves can be loved by God.

If you’ve faced the darkness of fear that you aren’t loved, if you don’t feel certain God really loves you, it’s hard to extend a love you don’t feel you have to people you don’t like or trust.

Well, God loves you infinitely. With a love that destroys death. A love that looks at all your failure and pain, all your sin and bad thoughts, all your things you wish no one knew about, and sees a beloved child of God who needs to be brought into God’s embrace.

Now, isn’t that a tap on the head? Does it change what you see in others?

Enjoy your place under God’s wings. They’re there to surround you and strengthen you for this hard world, and prepare you for the joy of the next. They’re a shelter in your storms, a comfort in your pain, a warmth when you’re cold.

But look around: sure enough, there are others under those wings you don’t like. Maybe they don’t like you, either. But the wings are for them as well as you. Can you see that? It’s part of the deal with God’s love.

And for that you can give eternal thanks.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Midweek Lent, 2019 + I AM WHO I AM Is My Shepherd

March 13, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Week 1: You lead me beside still waters . . . you anoint my head with oil . . .

Belonging

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; John 10:1-5

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

Who are you? Where do you come from? Where do you belong?

People all over the world are sending their DNA to a number of companies, hoping to find out who they really are. Your DNA can tell you the percentages of your ethnic roots, say where your earliest ancestors lived, even follow the movement of your family around the world. There are rich and diverse cultures and languages, a tapestry of racial and ethnic identities among the humans that God has made and placed here. People seem to want to know where they fit in, that they belong to a family.

But in the 23rd Psalm, which we’ll be focusing on all Lent, we have a promise of belonging that’s made to all the people of the earth. Whatever your DNA tells you about where you’ve been and who your ancestors are, you – and all creatures – belong to the God who made all things.

When Moses heard a voice in a burning bush, that voice identified itself as the God of Moses’ ancestors.

Moses belonged to the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of those ancestors spoke, calling him to go to Egypt and free God’s people. But when Moses asked for a name, so he could tell the people who sent him, God moved beyond a family god. God said, “I AM WHO I AM.”

This name, which sounds like breathing in and out when spoken, became known to Israel as the name of the one true God who made all things. The God who spoke to their ancestors actually was the God of all nations. Throughout their Scriptures God made this claim. In an age where most gods were seen as tribal, national, belonging to one people, one ancestry line, remarkably the God of Israel said, “I AM WHO I AM,” I am existence, and all creation belongs to me.

Israel was God’s chosen people, not for their own sake, but to witness of this true God to all peoples.

David, the Shepherd King, begins Psalm 23 with this true name of God.

Singing of belonging to God as a sheep belongs to a shepherd, David named the name of the God Who Is. We sing “the LORD is my shepherd,” because in English we follow the Jewish practice of not naming God’s true name aloud. We substitute “LORD,” in small capital letters, to remind us of the name behind the word.

But it is the God whose name means existence, being, “I AM WHO I AM,” whom David called Shepherd. Not a tribal god, not a god that belonged to one country or people. In naming “I AM” as Shepherd, David did a profound thing. He offered to the whole creation this God as Shepherd.

When you pray Psalm 23, sing it, you claim this Shepherd for yourself.

So when you trace your DNA, when you remember your great-great-great-grandmother and where she came from, remember this: even before the earliest of your ancestors walked on earth they, and you, were in the mind and heart of God.

In our world that is fraught with racial prejudice, nationalism and hatred of people who look or speak or dress or behave differently, this is a powerful truth to remember. We can’t and shouldn’t avoid the hard conversations, the careful listening to those who have been oppressed and still are harmed because of their race or culture. We rejoice in the diversity of cultures and languages and races that God delighted to create on this planet.

But our best hope for going forward is also remembering that the true God, “I AM WHO I AM,” is God of all peoples, all creatures, all creation. The God who led David to green pastures beside still waters, providing all David wanted or needed, this God desires green pastures and still waters, abundance, for all creation.

In these still waters, we are reminded of our baptism.

Obviously David didn’t know baptism. But we can’t help but be drawn to that image and remember the waters that claimed us as God’s own. But do we claim in our Baptism that we are somehow God’s special ones, we alone are loved by God? We can’t. It goes against everything Scripture says about how the God named I AM loves and cares for the whole creation.

Now, David didn’t know our baptism, but he did know about anointing. Samuel poured oil over his head, anointing him king. He was set apart as God’s anointed, which in Hebrew is “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” And there we find our answer.

3,000 years later we still anoint heads with oil, setting people apart as God’s anointed ones.

After the washing of baptism, oil is placed on the head, claiming this person as God’s Christ for the sake of the world, just like David. Just like Jesus himself. And in this psalm, David remembers that gift: “you anoint my head with oil,” he says. This isn’t a random line. This is David’s recalling of his being sent as God’s witness in the world.

And that’s our truth. Baptism is our anointing for service in this world, not a sign of our special favor with God. In baptism you are made God’s Christ and sent out to proclaim God’s good news.

I AM WHO I AM is your shepherd, and now sends you out to witness to all.

That’s the grace of your calling. You belong to the one, true God, who provides you green pastures and still waters. But that same true God longs for all the creation to find green pastures and still waters. Hope and life. Food and shelter. Love and welcome.

Your Shepherd has anointed you and called you to tell the whole world in all its diversity that they belong. That whatever their DNA might say about their past, their deepest DNA is that of the God who made all things. That God, their Shepherd is, as Jesus claimed, no stranger, but the One who knows their name and loves them forever.

Let us go forth, wet once again with the water of the font, and living in our anointing as Christ for the world. It’s time to tell the creation the good news of their Shepherd God.

In the name of Jesus. Amen