It is in the ordinary, tired, everyday life of this world – even this child we celebrate tonight – that God is truly found. And God’s transforming light and life finds room in everything ordinary, even us. Until all is made new.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord
Texts: Luke 2:1-20

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

“Let’s go to Bethlehem now and see this thing that’s happened, which the Lord told us about.”

This is pretty remarkable, actually. Whatever they saw and heard on that Bethlehem hillside, afterward the shepherds didn’t shrug it off as a dream. They didn’t stay frozen in fear. They looked at each other and said, “Let’s go see.”

But what did they see when they got there? We know what Christmas cards and movies and carols say. They found a barn or cave, a soft light rising up from a manger. Cow and donkey placidly lie on either side. A holy couple sits demurely beside the glow, and a silent, beatific God-child looks up in wisdom and peace. Soft heavenly background music completes the scene.

But that’s nothing like what greeted the shepherds when they got to town.

We tend to take this moment of God’s coming into the world and wash it in sentiment and light.

We clean the whole picture up so it looks like it’s supposed to. All is calm, all is bright round yon virgin. The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. Love’s pure light, radiant, beams from the child’s holy face. Beautiful.

Many of our carols go this way, and we’re good with that. We love this irenic picture to complete a night of perfection in a world of brokenness and pain. On my vicar year, the high school shop teacher helped me build a stable for our Nativity figures. It’s beautiful. Since then I’ve often dreamed about figuring out a way of installing a warm spotlight on the ceiling that would wash the manger in a glow, only the manger. Because no matter where we put candles, Jesus is always in the dark.

But that perfect scene isn’t what the shepherds saw. And as long as we insist on perfection tonight – in our Nativity scenes, in our carols, even in our families – as long as we insist on bathing everything in a warm glow, we miss what’s really important. What the shepherds actually saw is what gives us life. Gives us hope that cannot be quenched, even by imperfection, suffering, pain, loss, or whatever else we try to shoehorn out of this night.

Seeing Jesus in the dark, that’s what we need to see. That’s what the shepherds help us see.

Because what the shepherds saw was utterly ordinary.

They didn’t find a barn, or a cave. Luke says there was a manger. But Luke’s Greek is good, and he never says there was no room in the “inn.” He uses the Greek word for “inn” in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here he uses a word better translated “guest room.”

In a culture of hospitality, it’s unthinkable that this couple would have been turned away, especially by relatives. But if cousin Betty and her whole family were already in the one upper room on the roof, Joseph and Mary would have been welcomed into the main room where everyone else slept. Including one or two animals the house owned, brought inside for the evening for warmth and security. Put the baby in the manger so he doesn’t roll around on the floor with the others.

So in a dark house lighted by a couple oil lamps, the shepherds see an exhausted mother, without a chance to freshen up, a tiny baby wrapped in cloth, sometimes screaming like all babies do. An extended group of folks hovering around. A family probably short on patience, now greeting a bunch of rubes from the hills.

So how did these shepherds believe this was the Messiah the angels told them about? A newborn is beautiful, even miraculous. But also ordinary. Without the spotlight and background music and beatific mother and child, what did they see in this utterly ordinary scene?

When we start asking this, we realize it’s always the question with Jesus.

We imagine a practically perfect Jesus as a boy, but Mary must have had hundreds of ordinary moments with a boy who sometimes smelled bad, who skinned his knee, who had to learn to behave. How did she see God’s Son in this ordinary kid?

As an adult, Jesus was a gifted teacher, and attracted followers. But it’s pretty clear from the Gospels that they saw him in mostly human terms, until the end.

And the end: that’s the big question, isn’t it? How did they look at a man hanging on a cross, humiliated as a criminal, and say, “Yes, there’s God-with-us. That’s the one.”

We start asking the question tonight, with the shepherds, because this question’s never going away. How do we see God in this ordinary baby? In Jesus, who looks like us, talks like us, is like us?

Luke says we hear as well as see. That helps.

The shepherds left the family apparently satisfied they’d seen what was advertised. But what they went and proclaimed was “what had been told them about this child,” the same thing that led them to the baby.

Mary “treasured all these words” she heard from the shepherds, and “pondered them in her heart.”

The disciples heard Jesus speak about God’s reign, about God’s love, heard his invitation to follow in God’s way. Slowly they figured out who he was. The acts of power helped, but what they heard opened them to see what they needed to see.

And they probably didn’t see God on that cross. Only failure and disaster and the end of all their hopes. But then they saw Jesus alive on Sunday, and heard, heard, him say “Peace be with you,” and, “woman, why are you weeping?,” and they could see. When he broke the ordinary bread in that ordinary little house in Emmaus, and spoke, their eyes were opened.

When we strip away the sentimentality to see the ordinariness of this birth, we might be afraid we can’t see God on this night anymore.

But the opposite is true. Like the shepherds, and Mary, and the disciples, we, too, have heard. And we need to see what God’s doing as clearly as we can if we’re going to find God’s life in this child, whom we’ve been told is God’s Son.

When we look with clear and open eyes what we see is this wonder: God comes into human life in the most ordinary of ways. In a simple, ordinary birth of a child. In the growing life of a young boy. In the teaching life of an obscure rabbi. Isaiah says, “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2)

But in this ordinary life, in an ordinary world, God has come. Into an ordinary baby, born in difficult, harsh, threatening times. Just like every baby born tonight in hospitals or shacks all over this difficult, harsh, threatening planet. This we have heard, and this we now see. God has come to restore all the creation by imbuing God’s own self into the creation.

We’ve already known this, already heard this, if we’ve forgotten.

Tonight we will gather once again at the Table this ordinary rabbi sets before us, and eat a small piece of bread, sip a little wine. But in this ordinary bread, in this ordinary wine, grown from the earth itself, made into nourishment in the same way for thousands of years, we have heard, yes, we have even seen for ourselves, God is present. We taste the death and resurrection of this ordinary one, this Jesus, in this ordinary meal. And we know Christ has come to us.

And if Christ can inhabit ordinary bread and wine, can inhabit this ordinary baby born long ago, then here is our Christmas wonder:
Christ can inhabit us.

Because there’s nothing more ordinary than we who are gathered here. We know our failures and flaws, our weaknesses and doubts, our brokenness and pain. If God can only be seen in the perfection of a photo-shopped picture, there’s no room for us in God, and no room in us for God. If God can only come into a perfect family, perfect relationships, a Christmas out of the storybooks, then how could God come to us?

But the shepherds heard and saw and proclaimed God in the ordinary of this world, bringing healing and restoration from within. We might not be much to look at, either. But in us, as in the whole of this ordinary world, God is transforming the whole creation.

So let’s go to Bethlehem now and see this thing that’s happened, which God told us about.

There is no place in the whole creation where God is not, so all the creation will be healed. That’s what we see on this holy night.

There’s nothing so ordinary that God is not there, so everywhere God makes newness of life. That’s what we see on this holy night.

An ordinary baby. A tired set of parents. Strange shepherds. A humiliating death. See, God is there! And God’s life cannot be stopped.

A morsel of bread. A sip of wine. Ordinary people trying their best but feeling that’s not enough. See, God is here! And God’s life cannot be stopped.

It’s a lot to process. So let’s not only go see. Let’s also take a seat beside Mary and ponder in our heart these things we’ve seen and heard. Until we can see God and God’s healing in all things, making ordinary extraordinary, making wholeness out of brokenness, even life out of death.

Good news of great joy indeed!

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Joy to the world: we are anointed, Christ-ed, for grace to those in pain, we are light for those in darkness, and we get all this from God, so it’s not ours alone.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Third Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: John 1:6-8, 19-28; Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. They’re the title we give to Jesus, sent from God, who is God’s face for us, who died and rose from the dead. Our Savior. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed.

So we’re not surprised that at his first sermon in his hometown Jesus claimed Isaiah’s words for himself: “The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,” he said, “because the LORD has anointed me (“messiahed” me); God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” Today this is fulfilled in your hearing, Jesus said. (Luke 4:16-21) And it was.

Because of course the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One will do these things. It’s what we long for and expect, amidst all the pain in the world. “He comes the prisoners to release,” we sang today. “He comes the broken heart to bind, the bleeding soul to cure, the humble poor to enrich with treasures of grace.”

Now, John the Baptizer was sent to prepare the coming of this Christ.

To testify to the Light of the world that Jesus the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah, was. A light no darkness can overcome.

But we heard something interesting about John today: “He was not the light;” we heard, “he came to testify to the light.” John was asked directly: “Are you the Messiah?” (Are you the Christ? The Anointed of God?) “I am not the Messiah,” John said. John claimed his job was to make the way ready for the Anointed of God, to straighten Christ’s highway. To point to the Light that is come.

But John was clear: he didn’t consider himself worthy to untie Messiah’s sandals, let alone be called Christ.

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. But they never applied to only one person. To be anointed, or in Hebrew, to be “messiahed”, was to be set apart for God’s holy work in the world. So Israel’s kings were all anointed, messiahed, Christed, to be God’s holy workers.

But today we hear the prophet himself claim this anointing, just as Jesus did hundreds of years later. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, has anointed me, Isaiah says. To do all these wondrous things. In fact, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the whole nation of God’s chosen were called the anointed.

And this is true for we who are baptized into Christ. In Scripture and in liturgy we are called the anointed of God. We have anointing oil placed on our foreheads like rulers of old as we are set apart through the waters of Baptism to be God’s holy ones for the healing of the world.

John might have been clear about what he wasn’t. But let’s be just as clear about what we are.

In Hebrew, “Messiah.” In Greek, “Christ.” In English, “Anointed.”

They’re all the same thing. And, wonder of wonders, this is your title as a baptized child of God. You are Christ in the world. Messiah. The one God has anointed to bring healing and hope into the world.

You are also the light of the world. Jesus, the true Light, declared it: “You are the light of the world,” he said. “. . . let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14, 16) In our baptismal liturgy we both anoint God’s child and proclaim this one the light of the world. It’s our truth.

Like John, we testify to the true Light, we point to the Anointed One who died and rose and gives life to the world. But in the wonder and mystery of our baptism, we also are the Light. And the Christ. Or, the Messiah, the Anointed. The Spirit of God is upon us, and has anointed us.

It’s no mystery why Christ Jesus would make us this.

There is far too much darkness and pain in the world for one person to handle, even the Son of God. We know this so well in these days.

And don’t we sing with joy at the Great Vigil of Easter this wonder: that light, when it is divided and borrowed, only gets stronger? The light of Christ no darkness can overcome gets more powerful when it’s divided, when each child of God is light in the darkness, over the whole world, over centuries. With such light, what chance does darkness have?

God’s Spirit is upon us, and has anointed us, and made us light. So God’s healing could spread to all nations and peoples, in all times and places.

So what Jesus claimed from Isaiah is ours to claim, too, as God’s anointed.

And we need Isaiah’s words very much. The darkness that covers this world is manifested in so many difficult and complex and intractable ways. We’ve talked about this a lot. We know the list. We know the things that cause so much suffering, and make our hearts heavy. As we become more aware of our complicity, more aware of the depth of the darkness, the more daunting it is to consider what we can do. What can God’s Anointed, if that’s what we are, do to heal such systemic suffering? What can God’s Light, if that’s what we are, do to dispel such darkness? Haven’t we already shown we’re not up to this?

But a wise rabbi has said, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work. Neither are you free to abandon it.” ^[1] And that’s what Isaiah says, too.

Isaiah shows a path we can actually envision. Not to solve all things or complete the work. But not to abandon it in despair, either. Like Jesus, we can claim this as our calling:

To bring good news to the oppressed. To bind up the brokenhearted. To proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners.

There is no day where we lack this opportunity.

There’s no day when we don’t meet someone oppressed. By unjust systems, by other people, by depression, by the pain of the world, by many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Christ, God’s Light, be good news to them? You maybe aren’t able to remove all that oppresses them. But can you be God’s love for this child of God?

There’s no day when we don’t encounter someone brokenhearted. Over suffering, over loss, over grief, over fear, over betrayal, over many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Messiah, God’s Light, somehow bind them up? Be God’s bandage and wrap their pain? You aren’t always able to remove it. But can you be God’s healing for this child of God?

There’s no day when we don’t meet someone captive. To addiction, to fear, to mental illness, to many things. When you meet that one, can you, God’s Anointed, God’s Light, bring release to them? You aren’t able to fix it all, perhaps. But can you be God’s light for this child of God?

The bigger, deeper, intractable things, the structures and systems, those we work on together as God’s community of Christs. That’s how the greater darkness goes away.

But you, and I, we can be Christ and Light every day. The Spirit has anointed you for this. So, dear friends, you already are Christ. You already are Light. God has said so. God has made it so.

So rejoice always, Paul says. And by all means don’t quench the Spirit.

The Spirit of God is upon you and me, anoints us and makes us light. We can do this healing. This lighting. This work of the Anointed. Because God is faithful, Paul says, and will give us what we need to do it. And forgive and restore us when we fail, so we begin again.

Jesus said that first generation wouldn’t pass away without seeing the coming of Christ. Little did we realize he was talking about them. About us. We are the coming we’ve been waiting for.

Messiah, Christ, Anointed. Light. That is what we are, broken and flawed, graced and forgiven, constantly sent out as the coming of God’s Christ and God’s light in the world. And nothing will ever be the same, now that we know this.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

[1] Rabbi Rami Shapiro, paraphrase and trope on Rabbi Tarfon in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot (New York: Harmony/Bell Tower [div. of Crown/Random House], © 1993), p. 41

 

God’s plan of salvation and healing is working; we just need to go back to see what that plan really is, and how we are called to be a part of it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The First Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

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

1,700 years before Jesus was born, God started a plan of salvation.

Calling Abraham and Sarah, God began a path to bring this earth back into relationship with God. Three thousand, seven hundred years ago. That’s a long time.

Roughly 1,200 years later, the third prophet writing in the book of Isaiah impatiently cried, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” After the exile, in a destroyed homeland, the prophet wondered if God’s plan would ever happen. Two thousand, six hundred years ago. That’s a long time.

600 years later, a baby was born to a poor couple in Palestine. That baby grew up, gathered followers, taught of God’s love and God’s reign, was killed on a cross, and rose from the dead. His Church grew out of the sending of the Holy Spirit. God’s salvation spread. Two thousand years ago. That’s a long time.

But the world’s still a mess. Optimism about the planet’s future, let alone humanity, is dim. We’re destroying the climate, risking that this earth will be uninhabitable for our children; millions suffer from hunger and poverty; war rages endlessly; there is prejudice and abuse between genders and between races; our politics are toxic and impotent. Isaiah today speaks perfectly for today, and also for the seventeenth century, when a German used Isaiah’s cry in a great Advent hymn: “O Savior, rend the heavens wide; come down, come down with mighty stride.” (LBW no. 38)

It’s nearly 4,000 years since God began this, 2,000 since God came in person. How long will this take? When will we see signs of the world improving? Ors that hymn sings, “When will our hearts behold your dawn?”

Given the world’s situation, maybe we’ve misunderstood God’s plan. Or maybe God isn’t actually doing it.

But if God is who we believe God to be, the Triune God who made all things, who in Christ Jesus died and rose from the dead, whose love for the world is proven in that death and resurrection, whose Spirit moves and breathes and fills all people, if this God is true, then the second thing can’t be. God will keep all promises.

So that means we’ve misunderstood God’s plan.

This year, Advent could be a season to practice waiting for God on God’s terms, waiting for what God has actually promised to do, waiting for the healing that God’s Scriptures actually say God cares about. Rather than complaining that God isn’t doing anything, we could learn to watch and wait for what God is actually doing.

So what is God doing?

Sometimes our frustration at the world’s state leads us to assume God’s plan doesn’t involve anything more than rescuing us. Christians sometimes act as if God’s salvation is an evacuation plan from a condemned world, and the Church is a lifeboat off a sinking ship, and salvation is rescuing Christians from this life. The Church has taught that too long.

But that’s not what the Scriptures say. It’s not even what Jesus, God’s Son, says. But when he rose from the dead, the early believers saw a new thing. In Christ’s resurrection, they realized God’s healing extended after death. That was a great joy; for us, too. God promises in Christ that we will have life after we die. The problem is, for at least a millennium now the Church has too often acted as if that’s all God plans to do.

But the Bible is clear that God’s whole plan was restoring the creation, and all creatures, including human beings, back into relationship with God and each other. That’s what Jesus taught and lived. That’s what the prophets called for. That’s what God’s law revealed.

We know this, too. Our anxiety at a broken world wouldn’t exist if all we cared about was getting to heaven when we die. We care about so much more because we’ve read the Scriptures. We’ve heard God’s dreams. We’ve dreamed them ourselves. All the promises of restoring the creation, of all people living in peace and harmony, of all having enough, we’ve read and longed for.

But we need to learn how God will accomplish this plan. Because it’s not going to be by power and might.

The problem with crying out “tear open the heavens” is that it doesn’t take seriously how the Scriptures say God will accomplish this restoration and healing. That is, through us.

That’s the witness of Scripture over and over: we are called to learn love of God and neighbor. We are called to care for those who are poor so there are no more who are poor. We are given charge of this earth, to care for it, nurture it.

And at the height of God’s plan, coming among us as one of us, what did the Christ do? Say, “I’ve got this, I’ll fix everything”? No. He taught people about God’s love, about caring for this creation, about loving each other. He anointed followers, made us literally “Christ”, to keep this work going.

God’s vision of salvation can’t happen through God’s action alone or it’s not salvation as God desires. God’s way is the only way: through us.

You see, if God dreams of all creatures living together in a non-violent world, God can’t accomplish that with violence and rending the heavens.

How will God get the people of the world to live and embrace non-violence? By killing them? By urging them to kill each other? It’s utter nonsense.

God put this into the first declaration of the law: you shall not kill. Generations have ignored it, parsed it, pretended it wasn’t clear. But it’s core to God.

So Jesus let himself be killed rather than kill his enemies. The eternal Son of God, joining our human flesh, taught peacemaking and non-violence, and when we decided we wanted none of it and killed him, Jesus showed us God’s answer, and invited us to do the same.

There is no power that can force non-violence. Only God’s way will work. But it’s going to take a long time.

If God dreams of humanity living in love of God and neighbor, God can’t accomplish that with power and wrath.

The Bible’s consistent witness is that God’s entire expectation of us is summed up in loving God and loving our neighbor.

How will God’s coming in power and wrath make that happen? We look at how humans don’t love God or each other and despair. But what do we want God to do? Destroy the unloving? Force them – force us – to love?

So the Triune God faced the cross. The only way to show us what love really is is to love us with what love really is. Self-giving, vulnerable, letting go of everything. No other way could break our hearts so they’d also learn to love.

Only God’s way will work. But it’s going to take a long time.

If God dreams of a restored creation, God can’t accomplish that by destroying the world.

Christians who focus only on life after death don’t need to care about this planet, about this environment. It’s disposable.

But the Scriptures flow with God’s love for this creation, God’s sadness at our pollution and destruction. They burst with promises that God will restore all things.

How will God coming with fire and destruction do that? Hoping that God will break it all apart and take us to heaven makes no sense. God loves this creation, and desires only good for it. It can provide in abundance for all God’s creatures.

So God asks us to care for it, tend it, love it.

Only God’s way will work. But it, too, is going to take a long time.

Advent teaches us what we wait for, and what we do while we wait.

We do our jobs, Jesus says today. Follow Christ. Be Christ. Love God and love neighbor. Tend the garden, the earth. Feed those who are hungry. Shelter those who have none. Dismantle systems and structures that oppress. Tell the truth in love and seek the healing of our country, and of all nations. It’s all there. Jesus’ parable today just tells us to be at our work. The rest of the Scriptures tell us what that work is.

Through that work in us, God will keep doing this salvation. And today Paul promises Christ will give us the spiritual gifts and strength we need to do what we are asked to do.

We already knew this truth about God’s plan. In fact, we’ve sung it many times, in another Advent hymn we love.

Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the fourth century, wrote a plea for Christ to come, a hymn Martin Luther loved and translated. “Savior of the nations, come; virgin’s son, make here your home.”

But they sang of this different coming. They didn’t sing of God ripping open the skies or destroying or using power and might. The hymn’s climax reveals the paradox and hope at the center of God’s long-term plan:

Now your manger, shining bright
hallows night with newborn light.
Night cannot this light subdue;
let our faith shine ever new.    (ELW no. 263)

No sensible person could see a manger hold anything like an unquenchable light. Or the hope of the healing of the world. But in that manger is the heart of God’s plan. It’s still unfolding in us, and eventually, God’s light will break all darkness and death.

It’s going to take a long time. But Christ has shown us there’s no stopping a love like this, no quenching a light like this, no matter how long it takes.

So we wait, we work, we hope. Because God is already here, and everything already is being healed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God loves us beyond measure, beyond death: in that love we are free to live the abundant life of love in caring for what God cares for and healing the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Christ the King, the Last Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 34, year A
Texts: Matthew 25:31-46; Ezekiel 34:11-24

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

It was Christmas break in my first year of college, and, out with friends, I was anxious about the time.

It was nearly 11:00 p.m., so I hurried home.

Now, in high school the curfew dance with my mother was long-standing. The rules were clear, the expected times never in doubt. My arrival, well, was not always in keeping with expectations. My mother had all sorts of techniques in this dance. She was brilliant with sarcasm: “I didn’t realize your girlfriend moved to Sioux Falls.” Or, “I didn’t hear the storm, but it must have knocked down all the phone lines.” And then came the judgment.

But the pinnacle was one night when I was over two hours late and certain that this time I’d won. The house was dark, not a creature stirring. I didn’t realize my trial was scheduled for breakfast. My father was the attorney, but my mother mastered the legal principle that you never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to. “So, what time did you get home?” Confident, but offering humility, I said, “I think I was about ten minutes late, sorry.” “You sure you don’t want to rethink your answer?” Of course: she’d woken up, looked at the clock, and went back to sleep the sleep of the just.

But here’s what was strange about that December night I was home from college. I no longer had a curfew. I’d asked my mother and she said, “You’re an adult. You probably stay out late at college. But I worry about you lying in a ditch, so call if it’ll be after 1 or 2, so I can sleep.” At about ten I started thinking about getting home, so she wouldn’t worry. I had complete freedom to do what I wanted. But what I wanted was for her to not have to fret.

It’s all a question of motivation, isn’t it?

As parents, we learn that fear and threats don’t motivate good behavior.

Children don’t respond as well to threats as to love. Most of us don’t react well to anger and wrath and accusation. When I finally grasped that what I didn’t want was to hurt my parents, that it was their love for me that mattered, it was a revelation.

So why do we think threats are how God means to make us good? True, there’s a lot of wrath and anger in Scripture. Today we’ve got Jesus’ parable with a serious judgment at the end, and Ezekiel hurling God’s anger at selfish, greedy, polluting sheep who harm the other sheep. If you want to find anger from God in the Bible, you can.

But God’s a better parent than we ever could be. Anger’s never the last word.

God knows what will draw us into love of God and neighbor.

From Genesis to Revelation, anger, wrath, threats aren’t God’s last word. God cannot let go of us, because God loves us. So Ezekiel, after promising judgment between sheep and sheep, ends promising that a new David, a divine Shepherd, will feed and care for the whole flock. Even the ones who were judged. At the end of Jesus’ parable, remember it is the king himself who dies on the cross. God in Christ enters human suffering, with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. Where people are in pain, that’s where God will be. Even if it means going into hell for us.

This is the last word of the Scriptures, God’s love for us that reaches its height at the cross and resurrection. Yes, God gets angry at us. But God’s bottom line is always that we are beloved, cherished, worth dying for.

And God sees astonishing love in us, Christ in us. At the cross God means to love us into the people God already sees. To motivate us through undying love to become Christ ourselves, loving God and neighbor with everything we have.

When we persist in seeing God’s law as our enemy instead of as God’s promise of life, we reveal our immaturity.

When we insist on playing the judgment game, when we continue to resent being asked to do anything, we’re still children.

Martin Luther gave us a great gift: he saw God’s grace and mercy overriding all judgment. We are loved and healed by God without our earning it. But Luther only got us half-way there. We’re still stuck on seeing God’s law as harsh, and God as threatening judge.

We know we’re loved in Christ, forgiven. But we still believe the lie that God’s law is unattainable, an undoable thing, that we can’t live as God asks.

So we ignore Jesus’ obvious point in these parables and, instead of living in love as Christ taught, we worry about the parables’ judgment. It’s my old curfew game: fearing punishment, instead of living in love.

But when we realize that the Triune God’s love for us, completely unearned, is real and cannot be taken away from us, we grow up into the people God already sees in us. We see God’s law as gift, because it comes from the God who loves us. We see blessing and joy in God’s rules, because they mean safety for us and for others, abundance for us and for others, grace for us and for others.

When we quit playing judgment-avoidance, we see a simple truth: we see where we can serve the God who loves us and wants the best for all people.

There’s a huge gift in these three parables we’ve just heard: all the characters are at the end, and there’s no more time to act. But we are not at the end, we’re in the middle.

The bridegroom is still coming, the master and king haven’t returned. So we know exactly what we can do: the action of these parables. And we know exactly what the bridegroom, master, and king does: dies on the cross for us and for the world. There is literally no reason for us to be afraid of God. We know all we need to know about God. This is a gift!

Every one of these servants today wanted to serve their king; some didn’t have any more time. All the bridesmaids wanted to be in the wedding party; some didn’t have any more time. The only one in these parables who didn’t want to serve was the third slave last week. And notice: he plays the judgment game, acting in fear of his master.

Likewise, I don’t know a single person here who doesn’t desire to serve Christ faithfully, to be Christ. Well, we still have time. And we know what to do!

Keep our lamps lighted with God’s oil of love so people can see the coming of the Christ who loves them and brings justice and righteousness to the whole world. We can do this.

Use God’s wealth together, and serve God’s beloved, all who are in need. Transform the world with the abundance God has entrusted to us. We can do this.

And see Christ in people who are hungry, or thirsty, in strangers and aliens, in those with no clothes or homes, in those who are sick (especially those without insurance), and folks who imprisoned (especially those wrongfully or unfairly incarcerated in our unjust system). We can do this.

If we want, we can react to these parables with fear and guilt.

We can fear God’s wrath, get discouraged at how harsh Jesus sounds. But if we do, we’ve stepped away from Scripture. If you want to feel wretched about what a failure you are, you can. But God’s Word doesn’t agree with you.

Because you are beloved to the Triune God, beyond measure, beyond death. Nothing can separate you from God’s love, a love that goes into the outer darkness, the weeping and gnashing of teeth, even the fires of hell.

God sees in you an astonishing potential to heal this world, to bless others’ lives. God sees Christ in you, sees Christ in us together.

Together we can light our lamps so Christ is seen and justice flows, together we can learn to use God’s wealth for the sake of the world, together we can care for Christ in all who are in need.

There is no greater motivation than that we are loved, no greater joy than knowing what we can do, no greater hope than hearing that in our love in this world we are serving Christ.

Maybe it’s time we rejoiced in this and grew up into the people God already sees in us.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

There’s no need for fear: we belong to a loving God of abundance, and are entrusted with that abundance for the sake of the whole world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 33, year A
Texts: Matthew 25:14-30; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

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

The third slave was wrong about his master.

He believed his master was “harsh, reaping where [he] did not sow, gathering where [he] did not scatter.” So he buried a huge amount of money in the ground.

But he wasn’t worried about judgment, or getting thrown out. He resented that his master would profit from his work.

Do you see the problem? This wasn’t his money. Before the master gave it, the slave didn’t have it. The name on all the accounts was the owner’s, not his. It was his job to use it on behalf of the owner, until the owner returned. If he didn’t want to do it, he should’ve refused the job at the start.

And he was wrong about his master. The other two worked their master’s wealth until he returned, and did well. And yes, the owner benefited from their work. It was his money. But both were praised, given more trusted assignments, and were welcomed into their master’s joy. They shared in his joy, his trust, and his wealth. This isn’t a harsh master. But the third one was bound up in his own fear, and couldn’t see.

But we know even more about our Master.

If we assume we’re the ones in this story given charge of God’s wealth, we have even less reason for fear. We know from Scripture that God’s abundance is meant for the joy of all, to feed all God’s children, to care for this world. We know that none of our wealth is ours, that the name on our bank accounts is not ours but the name of God.

But we know this, too: the terrible judgment at the end of this parable doesn’t land on us. Remember, Matthew has said it is truly God’s Son who dies on the cross, who goes willingly into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. God’s Son weeps and gnashes his teeth, from Gethsemane to the cross.

As with last week, this parable falls apart at the point of judgment. Whatever else happens, in real life the master takes the judgment on himself, joins all those out in the darkness, to bring them back inside, into the light, into the joy of the master, the joy of God.

And best of all, we know this ahead of time, unlike these three. We don’t have to guess at God’s nature, or the depth of God’s love. We’ve been in the outer darkness ourselves, and have been found by God. We are free to hear Jesus and act in joy.

Because the parable is simple: all we have is God’s, all we’re asked to do is use it for God.

But too often we obsess with the judgment at the parable’s end rather than the main point. That ignores the truth of the cross, that judgment isn’t the end of the story, or even the story itself. But distracting ourselves with the ending also conveniently lets us avoid the clear teaching of Jesus.

Jesus speaks of wealth beyond anything his disciples could comprehend. A talent today, about $1.25 million, is beyond most of our comprehension, too. This is intentional.

First, Jesus insists that we have blessings and wealth from God far beyond what we imagine, far beyond our anxieties about wealth. We’re millionaires of God’s abundance and blessing, if not actual dollars.

Second, with these unimaginable amounts, Jesus frees us to remember it’s not ours. We can’t dream of holding that kind of wealth. So we’re entrusted with God’s abundance because God needs us to use it and care for this world. Feed our neighbor. Clothe and house those in need.

The only thing that can stop us is our fear.

And let’s be honest: our fear is not of God. We know God’s love for us is greater than death, it can’t be stopped. We know we are God’s beloved children.

Our fear is that we won’t get to keep what we do with God’s wealth. The third slave didn’t fear the owner. He resented that he couldn’t do what he wanted with the money, benefit himself, take care of his priorities. But he never would’ve had the money if the master hadn’t entrusted him with it.

Neither would we. Let’s break free forever, right now, of the myth that we deserve what we have by our hard work and effort. Billions of people on this planet give hard work and effort. Not all are born into the privilege of families that are doing well, not all have a culturally and economically protected skin color. Most don’t live with so much space and resources that their country believes there are no limits to wealth, that we never have enough, and that each generation needs to be wealthier than the previous.

That’s the garden you and I were born into. We got fifty talents right out of the gate, while others barely got a coin to work with. So let’s stop pretending there’s any question of whose wealth we have. It’s not ours, never has been. The only question is, are we going to start being faithful with God’s wealth or not?

Here’s our blessing: we are a “we.” We can learn faithfulness together.

What if these three had gotten together with the money and worked as one? Maybe the two could have broken through the third one’s fear and greed and self-deceit. Encouraging each other, unimagined blessings could have abounded. We are not destined for wrath, Paul says today, but are saved through the cross of Christ. So, Paul says, we encourage each other in this life of faith, build each other up, help each other.

That’s what stewardship is together as God’s people here. It’s nothing to do with meeting a budget or giving money “to” anyone. The giving we do is how we share this task of faithfully caring for God’s wealth. How we help each other be free of fear.

Because meeting our budget each year is a pretty low bar. It’s good things we do: taking care of this building, paying staff and giving generous benefits, running programs. We also give 12% above all that to others – to our global partners, to our neighbors, to our sisters and brothers across the ELCA – and that’s great.

But if we lived this parable, meeting that budget would be exceedingly easy. If we all were able to let go of only ten percent, for example, of what we have been given, we could double or triple our budget. Maybe more. We know what it costs for our usual work, so all the rest could be an astonishing blessing of abundance to share with God’s world.

What could our partners at Bethania in India, EPES in Chile, Common Hope in Guatemala, do with an extra $100,000 a year for their critical mission? What impact could we make in south Minneapolis by buying the four houses north of us and converting them to affordable rental housing for low income people, or a transitional shelter? What could our new loan program do funded at a level that truly made a dent in how many use payday lending? When we aim only for our minimum budget, we’re not quite burying God’s wealth in the ground. But we’re also not catching God’s vision for what God’s abundance can do.

So our stewardship is communal: we get together and pool God’s money, and dream what we can do. We elect leaders, a Vestry, to help guide us. We learn from each other. There are folks here who’ve understood proportional giving and tithing for decades and lived into it, and shaped this congregation. They can teach us what it is to live without fear and release what is God’s so the world is blessed.

It’s enough joy to make us giddy to contemplate what God could do among us if we really caught this parable’s vision.

The grace of this parable is in the master’s welcome: “Enter into my joy.”

Freely, fearlessly using what their master had entrusted, the first two found joy in serving and joy in living. They were entrusted with even more to care for. In their relationship with their master they found joy.

That’s our truth, always. Our relationship with the Triune God, grounded in God’s love, forgiveness and grace, is a blessing beyond our ability to describe. When we really live freed from fear because of that relationship, because nothing can separate us from God’s love, and we live into Jesus’ vision here of multiplied, shared abundance, we find the joy of our God.

We had no idea we could do so much with God’s abundance. Now we know. And we don’t need to be afraid. So what shall we do, together, as faithful stewards of God’s abundant blessings?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen