When the angel calls Mary God’s favored one, she’s rightfully confused and afraid about what this greeting will mean for the life she has known. With Mary, we must decide: will we throw up our defenses when we feel uncertain, or will we stay open to God?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Second Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:46b-55

She had a plan for her life. Whether or not Mary was excited about her path, she knew what it was going to be. She was about to be married, with children soon to follow, just like generations of mothers before her, and generations of mothers to come. It wasn’t going to be anything special – she calls herself lowly, this world rarely lets lowly people live extraordinary lives – but at least it was a familiar story.

But then the angel tells this ordinary woman that she is God’s favored one, and her familiar world spins off its axis. Is there anything so terrifying as hearing that you have found God’s favor? God’s favor might sound nice in theory, but most of us just want to live in quiet control of our lives, making our humble contributions to our world. How many of us want to be swept up in something greater than ourselves, something vast and wild and overwhelming? Because that’s what God’s favor really is. As Mary’s people had long known, God’s favor isn’t innocuous. You can’t passively receive it, then go on your way. God’s favor makes terrible and wonderful demands of God’s chosen servants. God’s favor kept Noah and his family safe in the ark while the world flooded around them. God’s favor carried Joseph from his home to a prison cell to a king’s right hand. God’s favor raised up Moses to lead his people out of Egypt and into a new land, a new law, a new way of being. God’s favor never lets people stay put.

And so when Mary hears the angel call her favored, we read that she is much perplexed. That’s the nice way of putting it. We could also translate that word, “perplexed,” as troubled, agitated, distressed. She’s worried, deeply worried about what this greeting is going to do to her life. She’s conflicted about what it means to hear God calling her. And it’s not because she’s a coward, or weak in faith. It’s because she knows her people’s story, and she knows her God. She knows that God’s favor means that nothing is ever going to be the same. What is God’s favor going to demand of her? Where is it going to take her, and how is it going to change her? Gabriel’s encouragement not to be afraid isn’t coming out of nowhere – the angel knows that he bears unsettling news. God wants to overturn everything that Mary has ever expected from the world. Her entire story could be rewritten. That would be enough to worry anyone.

When we have our understanding of our place in the world challenged, our instinct is to defend ourselves. We naturally pull back and close ourselves off to the threat. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to talk meaningfully with people who hold opposing views, why it’s so much easier for us to shout at each other than it is to listen. It’s hard for us to take in information that challenges our worldview, and so easy to discount different perspectives as falsehoods. We don’t want to consider the possibility that we could be wrong. We don’t like to change our minds, and we definitely don’t like to change our plans. When we’re unsure and nervous, we often just want to retreat to a place of certainty and safety. We throw up our walls to protect what we know and love.

And that’s just the effect that other people have on us. If we seek safety and certainty in our human relationships, then how much more do we long for those things from God! We want to be certain about how God is acting in our lives, to point to the clear and confident movement of the spirit through history. We want God’s plan to be transparent. But that’s not how God works. God’s story brings us down long and dangerous paths through the wilderness before we see the Promised Land. We encounter God’s grace in turmoil and overturning, in difficult transformations and times of trial. In the Magnificat, Mary sings that God’s promises are kept when God upends the world, casting down the proud and mighty and lifting up the weak. When the spirit collides with history, it shakes things up. It shakes us up. Salvation is not serene, and it’s not safe. We say we want God in our lives, but we can be quick to shut ourselves off to the work of the spirit, because God wants to change us, and we rarely want to be changed.

I confess I have felt this in my own life in recent weeks. I know what it means to celebrate the movement of the Magnificat – to rejoice at the casting down of the mighty – until it suddenly hits too close to home. When the comic Louis CK was taken down by allegations of sexual misconduct, I cheered. I’d seen the rumors online for years, so when all those whispers grew into a shout that could topple a giant, it felt like such a victory. I thought of all those stories in scripture that tell of God rising up to create justice where it looked like justice was impossible, and it felt like I was watching one of those amazing moments where God was breaking into history to set things right. When the same thing happened to Al Franken, I cried. It was so confusing, and so sad, to watch this movement I believed in turn its wrath on a person I admired. And as I watched other people on the political left also go through this confusion, I saw their defenses fly up. People who had days before proclaimed, “believe women,” were now calling Franken’s accusers lying right-wing operatives…and other, far worse insults. They were happy to see powerful men being taken down, so long as it didn’t make them lose anyone they cherished. When I read and heard these kinds of comments, I was sickened their hypocrisy – but there was a part of me that also found them satisfying. I wanted to believe that they were right. They opened the tempting possibility that nothing about my world would have to change, that God’s unsettling of history would only touch other people. When the world felt fearful and perplexing, there was something in me that just wanted to retreat to the safety of the way things used to be.

But Mary, she stays open. When the angel greets her and calls her favored, she’s confused. She’s scared. She’s not sure she’s ready for whatever God is going to ask of her. But she keeps listening. She pushes back, asks questions, but she doesn’t close herself off to God’s possibilities. She doesn’t retreat, and she doesn’t shut down. And in the end, in spite of her perplexity and fear, Mary says yes. She wants to be a part of God’s plan because she knows that, whatever turmoil she is going to experience, whatever pain and loss and fear, whatever uncertainty about what God is doing – God has something better in store on the other side. God’s favor is going to take her from her ordinary life to the foot of the cross where she will watch her son die in agony, but that same favor will bring her to the empty tomb, and to a place of glory among the saints. God’s path for her and her son leads through fear and hurt and despair, but in the end, it saves us all. Mary doesn’t know what’s in store for her, but she is certain in the faith that God is transforming the world, and her, for the better.

What awaits us on the other side of our fears is better than anything we could build on our own. The world that God wants for us is more wonderful than the world we have, more wonderful than even the world we could imagine. Life in the resurrection is fuller than the life we could make for ourselves. God peace is more complete than the peace this world offers – but the uneasy compromises that we call peace must be shaken up for the peace of Christ to break through. It’s hard to let go of the things we know, so that we might live into the things that God has planned for us. Until our new world takes shape, we will be perplexed, much perplexed about where God is. We’ll question if and how God plans are possible. We will fearfully wonder at our place in God’s work. But with Mary, we can hold all these things in our heart, and still say, “Here am I, a servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” And in that moment, Christ will grow within us, and nothing will ever be the same.

Amen.

 

Like the prophet Isaiah, we proclaim that God is coming to change our world, but all manner of valleys and mountains block our vision of God’s glory. How can we be certain that God really is near? And how do we prepare for something we cannot see?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Second Sunday of Advent, year B
Texts: Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8

The year was 539 BCE, and the story should have been over. The nation of Judah had been conquered by the mighty Babylonian empire. The holy city of Jerusalem was destroyed, its temple lay in ruins, and its exiled leaders wept tears of helpless despair by the waters of Babylon. Like the lost tribes of Israel before them, the people of Judah and Benjamin had every reason to expect that violence, displacement, and forced assimilation were about to erase them from history. But then, history miraculously shifted around them. That mighty, brutal empire collapsed, and the exiles suddenly had hope that they could return home. And so an exiled prophet heard the voice of God saying, “Comfort, O comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term.” Isaiah learned that God was approaching through the wilderness to bring the chosen people home. The story wasn’t over after all.

But even though the prophet knows that God is coming near, not everyone can see that. He hears the promise: “Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, and then the glory of the Lord will be revealed.” Even at this amazing moment in history, there are hills and valleys that stand between the people and God, blocking their vision of God’s glory. So Isaiah is telling them to prepare for something they can’t fully see, and don’t yet understand. They have to take his word that God really is coming to meet them in a new way. God’s presence still isn’t clear.

That feels very true for us today, as we prepare once again to greet God’s arrival. 2500 years later, there are many things that still block our view of God. Valleys trap us, and mountains limit our line of sight. Many of those barriers are external to us. The world erects all sorts of obstacles that can get in the way of encountering God. For some people, like Isaiah’s own community, those obstacles can be painfully obvious. Violence, displacement, and injustice all make it hard to see that God is near. Too many of God’s children are still hemmed in by poverty, persecution, and war.

But there are more subtle barriers that also limit our vision. Our world puts up all manner of obstacles, idols, and distractions that get between us and God. For instance, as this congregation has been exploring in recent weeks, our economy is very good at setting itself up as a false God. It’s hard for us to search out God’s will when our minds and bodies are so subject to the idols of the market. We might say we worship the Triune God, but when push comes to shove, our decisions are usually dictated not by God, but by what makes good economic sense according to the rules of the system. It’s very hard for us to look over this barrier and even imagine that the world could be governed by a different set of rules, or set afire by a different set of dreams.

Or there are the sinful hierarchies that teach us that some humans are valuable, while others are disposable. Structures of inequality make us believe that certain people are less deserving of belonging, love, or even life itself, and so keep us from seeing the fullness of the body of Christ. We can keep looking for God as much as we want, but we can’t hope to see God when we refuse to see and love each other. But the world makes it hard for us to embrace all our neighbors as the image of God, so we keep on searching.

Or, in these past months, the news cycle has grown into quite the mountain range. It’s important to keep on top of what’s happening around us, but the obsessive onslaught of this past year has been something different. I can’t speak for you, but I know I’ve become fretful and distracted. I’m constantly checking the headlines, needing to know what disaster or humiliation or tragedy we’re going to be talking about this week. I can’t look away, and it drains me. And I wonder how much closer to God I’d feel if I spent half as much time praying as I spend refreshing my phone. But the distractions are everywhere, and it’s so easy to give in to them – and so God feels far away.

And then, in addition to all those external barriers, there are the internal barriers that make it hard for us to see God. Each of us must struggle through our own inner mountain ranges, where sin and anxiety cloud our vision. Ego tells us that we don’t need God, even as sin and self-doubt tell us that we’re not worthy of God’s love. Illness and addiction drag us down into valleys of despair. Impatience festers into resentment when God doesn’t show up on our terms, and our lack of faith whispers that we’re wasting our time waiting for God to arrive at all. It takes time and energy to find our way through this rocky terrain, but at this hectic time of year, it’s hard to even give ourselves space to breathe, and look around us, and see what God is doing in our lives. We can get so wrapped up in all that we need to do that we start to see each day as an obstacle to be overcome, not as a gift to be lived in the presence of God and one another. All our worries and commitments take God’s place at the center of our lives – and so our mountains grow taller, and our valleys deeper.

All of these barriers are real. Whether they’re mental or physical, whether they’re internal or external, whether they’re walls or chasms, there are serious obstacles that separate us from God and from each other. There are problems that are too big for us to overcome on our own – but these problems aren’t bigger than God. In the face of all these overwhelming peaks and valleys that fill our landscape, Isaiah says, Comfort, comfort my people. Comfort one another with the knowledge that God’s power is greater than any mountain, and God’s love runs deeper than any valley. Comfort each other with the sacred story that teaches us that there is no obstacle, no distance, no army, and no sin that can keep God away from us. Comfort each other with the proclamation that God is close at hand. “The uneven ground shall become level,” Isaiah proclaims, “The rough places shall become a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.” Those seemingly insurmountable mountains and valleys that stood between us and God will vanish into nothing, and God’s awesome presence will be revealed. The prophet says that one day, all our barriers to God will melt away, and all humanity will see God together. Notice – God’s work does not end when just we catch a glimpse of God among us – God will keep coming again and again until every single person is united in the vision of glory. Isaiah claims it and we dare to believe him, because we believe that God’s love is greater than human ignorance, fear, and pride.

So how do we prepare for God’s approach? How do we help one another see God’s glory, when we haven’t fully seen it ourselves? We step out into the wilderness of this hurting world to chip away at those mountains of injustice that block our vision of God’s reign. We extend a hand to pull each other out of our valleys of despair. We comfort each other with the knowledge that our barriers to seeing God will not stand forever, and, secure in that knowledge, we get to work tearing them down. It’s what John the Baptist did. He went out into the desert and told his people that it was time for the world to change, and for them to change with it. He listened to their sins, he met them in their deepest inner valleys, then dared to tell them that they were forgiven, because God was near. And when he did that, the people who came to him got to see God in a new way. When he proclaimed God’s love and forgiveness, he brought God closer to his people.

John the Baptist did this work, and Isaiah before him, and now it’s our turn to look down that road in the wilderness and say that God is coming. And here’s the good news: we don’t do this alone. We don’t yet see the fullness of God’s reign, but in Christ, we know its presence. Yes, we are working and waiting and hoping for God’s glory to be revealed, but that very word, “revealed,” tells us that God is already here, just waiting to shine forth among us. God who makes a way in the wilderness is here. God who melts mountains is here. That will always be true, no matter what. But when we proclaim that truth, when we strive to reveal it to each other, then we see past our valleys and mountains, and touch that glory that will one day unite us all.

Amen.

 

Paul tells us that “God loves a cheerful giver.” Are we going to hear those words as a burdensome requirement that adds to our anxieties about giving – or can we find in them freedom from our fears?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Day of Thanksgiving, year A
Texts: Deuteronomy 8:7-18; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

We have so much guilt about giving. What we do or don’t decide to share with those in need has seemingly endless power to trouble our conscience. In our unjust, broken world, it’s hard to know the best way to use the resources that God has entrusted to us. We worry if we’re sharing enough, when we have been blessed with so much and the world’s need is so great. Or we might worry that we’re giving too much away, when we’re not sure how we’re going to make ends meet for ourselves. We fret about giving to the right people and causes, not wanting to be unwise about how we allocate our money, time, and talents. And we’re anxious if we’re giving for the right reasons, if we’re truly acting out of love or if we’re motivated by social pressure, or self-interest, or remorse. We all want to do the right thing with our resources, but that’s a tall order in our world, so many of us live with the guilty suspicion – or perhaps the guilty certainty – that we’re somehow falling short. That’s why stewardship conversations are always so awkward. It’s hard for us to even talk to each other about our giving habits, and that very discomfort reveals our fear that we’re not getting it right.

And then, just add to that stack of anxieties, Paul says that giving is supposed to be cheerful. He’s trying to collect money for the poor of Jerusalem, and he tells the church in Corinth that God loves a cheerful giver. It’s one of those verses that sometimes sticks in my throat, because it feels like it’s asking so much of us. Not only do we need to be generous, responsible, informed, and altruistic with our resources – on top of everything, we’re supposed to be happy about it all. And as every person knows, being told that we should cheer up does nothing to alleviate our stress; often, it just makes us feel more overwhelmed. The weight of our responsibility to the world is so heavy. And it’s hard to hear that we should be happy to carry that weight. God loves a cheerful giver? Why can’t God just love that we’re trying to figure it out?

But there is grace in these words, once we stop listening to our anxieties and start listening to the Spirit. This verse about cheerful giving can be misread as pure law, but what Paul is giving us is gospel. When he says that God loves a cheerful giver, he’s not talking about requirements, or what we need to do to deserve God’s love. He’s reminding us of our freedom in Christ. He says, “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” We might instead translate that word “cheerful” as “joyful” or “free.” Paul tells the people of Corinth: listen, only you know what God is asking of your life. Only you know your full situation. Only you know your heart. And so, he says, be free. Be free to respond as the spirit moves you, and don’t let me, or anyone else, guilt you into pretending to be someone you are not. God isn’t looking for our guilt. God is looking to rejoice with us, and to bless us, and to free us from all that troubles our hearts.

So Paul gives us a vision of how far that freedom can take us. He says that we can use our liberty to find far greater riches and far greater joy than what the systems of our world can offer us. He promises that those who are moved to give will discover far more abundance than they had to begin with: “The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, but the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” Once again, this is not an order or a threat, but an invitation to participate in God’s reign. The kingdom of God is already here, transforming our world now, but we can only see that when we choose to be a part of it. When we freely plant whatever gifts God has entrusted to us, we harvest clearer vision about how the Spirit is moving in the world. We harvest deeper relationships with God and with our neighbors. We harvest freedom from our anxieties. We harvest the joy of taking part of part of something eternal, and life-giving, and good. We harvest hope. This is the purpose for which God has made such abundance possible in our lives. We are given our blessings so we might give them away. God has made enough for everyone; no one needs to be hungry, homeless, or lonely. Paul writes, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” God’s abundance is for abundant sharing, abundant community, abundant life. God loves our cheerful giving because it means that we have discovered the joy of living in the promises of God’s reign.

That’s all good for Paul to say, but it’s hard for us to believe in the power of this abundance when we are so conditioned to believe in scarcity. We instinctively hold tight to the things that we deem “ours.” Our natural pose is defensiveness. But Moses tells us we can be free of all that fear because nothing that we have is truly ours. In the book of Deuteronomy, the people of Israel are on the eve of crossing over into the Promised Land after a generation of wandering in the wilderness. Moses describes the land that they’re about to enter with that beautiful list of the earth’s bounty: grains and fruits, abundant fresh water, and even the minerals that God placed in the Earth. With all these marvels at their fingertips, life is at last going to be good. They’re going to live in freedom, and eat their fill, and praise God for their many blessings. But then Moses gives them a warning: when they get comfortable, they’re going to be tempted to forget how they got here. So he tells them, Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God. When your have food, and homes, and riches, be careful that you do not forget God and exalt yourself. Do not say, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth,” but remember the Lord your God, for it is God who gives you the power to get wealth.

Those are tough words for us. We live in a culture that teaches us to proudly proclaim, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” Our nation loves to believe that whatever we have is ours, and ours alone, because are the ones who earned it. It is deeply instilled in us from childhood that a fundamental goal of life is to work hard to build up the pile of what is ours. All of us know what it means to work hard for what we have, and there is nothing wrong with being proud of what our labor has accomplished. But we lose sight of God when we think that we are in any way self-sufficient. We did not make our bodies, we did not choose the circumstances of our birth, and we certainly did not create the riches of this planet. It is hard for us to confess our lack of independence, but once we embrace how deeply we rely on God, we realize that we don’t need to cling so tightly to what we have won in this life. We can begin to let God transform our reluctant, fearful hearts into something freer and more loving. We can stop building higher walls to protect what is ours, and start building longer tables to share it with our neighbors. Paul writes that giving our resources away “not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.” Free and joyful giving is an act of thanks-giving, and it opens us to the fullness of God’s sustaining love.

After worship, many of us will go to our homes to share a meal with loved ones. At its best, the joy of the meal is not in the excess of food, but in the chance to gather together, serving one another and being served in our turn. It’s a celebration of our ability to care for each other using the gifts that God has given us. Our vision of God’s reign is like that festive meal, but with a table at which everyone is welcome, and a feast that never ends. It’s a feast where grace triumphs over guilt, love triumphs over need, and abundance triumphs over fear. There is such abundance in this world, and whenever we share it abundantly, we are sharing the loving reign of God.

Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift!

Amen.

“What we will be has not yet been revealed.” On this All Saints Sunday, how do we live in the mysterious “not yet” of our life together with God? And what do we know about God’s presence with us now?

Vicar Jessica Christy
All Saints Sunday, year A
Texts: Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12

Let us pray.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of every one of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer.  In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Beloved, what we will be has not yet been revealed. But what we do know is this: when God is revealed, we will be like God.

That seems like a strange sort of promise for us to hear, on today of all days. On this festival when we celebrate the communion of all saints, it would make sense for us to proclaim with as much as much certainty as we are able what it will be like for us to experience full union with God. Mystery is unsettling, especially in the face of eternity. We long for certainty about what awaits us after death. We want a clear picture of what has happened to our departed loved ones. And yet we read 1 John and are confronted with a great mystery of faith. We know what we will become, but the fullness of that has not yet been revealed. Our faith promises the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, but scripture gives us precious few details about how we will experience that fulfillment. In hope, we await perfect peace and joy and praise in God’s presence, but the rest is hidden from our gaze.

For centuries, much of the church has acted as though the purpose of the gospel were to teach us the right way to get into heaven, and what to expect once we make it there. But if that was really meant to be the center of Jesus’ teachings, he didn’t do a great job of communicating that. He seemed a lot more interested in how we live with each other here, how we participate in God’s reign on earth. When Jesus died, he broke open the jaws of Hell, ascended to heaven, and returned to Earth, but he didn’t then grab his disciples to tell them the essential facts they needed to know about the afterlife. Instead, he forgave them, and fed them, and told them to go forth and do likewise. The work of faith is to love God, love each other, and trust that God will take care of the rest. Christ’s promises of heaven light our way, but they do not shine so bright as to blind us to the world around us. It might not always seem that way, but the mystery of heaven is truly a gift. We have been given the gift of mystery so that we can live together more fully on Earth. And we have been given the gift of mystery because we know that what awaits us is more wonderful than we could ever comprehend.

So what we will be has not yet been revealed – but we know what we are now, and that knowledge is amazing. As 1 John tells us, we are God’s beloved children, now. The great God of the universe, the God who lights the spark of distant galaxies and who breathes life into all the secret places of the earth, that source of all being knows me, and knows you, and calls us child. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.” See what love, that in this vast cosmos we should be made in God’s own image and loved as God’s dearest creation. And also we know that, when God carefully created each and every one of us, God placed something of Christ within us, something shining and eternal that flashes forth whenever we encounter the living Trinity. John says that when God is fully revealed to us, we will discover that we are like God, for God has been alive within us all along. We can’t begin to imagine what that will be like, but we know that it is already true, just waiting to be unveiled. And because we know these things, we know that nothing – not sin, not sadness, not even the grave, can separate us from the love of God. We are God’s children now, and we will be God’s children forever.

What we will be has not yet been revealed, but we know that we are embraced by God’s blessings. When Jesus pronounces the beatitudes, it’s the first time in the book of Matthew that we see him really speaking to his disciples. He has called them, and performed miracles in their presence, but these verses are his very first teachings. They eagerly follow this new wonder-worker to a mountaintop to hear what he will tell them, and he says: blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek, the merciful, the persecuted, and all those who hunger for a better world.

In the places of weakness, dissatisfaction, and despair where the world sees only curses, Jesus proclaims blessings. He says that the kingdom of heaven is found in the lives of those who live in the service of others. Not “theirs will be the kingdom of heaven” but “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” When we see peacemaking and justice-seeking, we know that God is with us. When we see gentleness and mercy, we know that God is with us. And when it feels like all is lost, Christ comforts us with the promise that our places of helplessness and sorrow and fear are the places that God attends to with the greatest care of all. When it’s joyful and when it’s painful, we know that our life together is blessed.

What we will be has not yet been revealed, but we know that we are members of the risen body of Christ. Not only do we know this, but we experience it every week when we gather around the table for communion. The shared body and blood of Christ knit us together, all of our different lives and bodies into marvelous, divine union. In Christ, all the walls that separate us from each other are breached, and we become one. Here, we find wholeness in each other.

But it’s more than that. It’s not just the people we see here and now around us. The body of Christ transcends all space. At the table we are part of the same body and blood as believers around the world. People we have known for our whole lives and people we will never meet. People who sit beside us and friends who are far away. People we love with all our hearts and people we’d honestly rather have nothing to do with. All of us are part of one another. John’s vision of the faithful gathered before God’s throne gives us a glimpse of the glory of this universal communion, when Christ joins us to every nation and language on earth.

And the body of Christ transcends all time. That same body and blood that Jesus shared on the night he was betrayed is shared here today, just as it is shared each time Christians gather for the meal. In Christ, we are joined to every saint who ever has been and ever will be. The disciples who heard Jesus first say the words, “This is my body, given for you” – they are here around the table. Every martyr, missionary, and mystic enters into our midst through the Eucharist. People of ages past, popes and reformers, farmers and kings, all share the Lord’s Supper with us. Our loved ones who have gone before us are also members of the living body of Christ. Bob, Donna, Ed, Catherine, and all the other beloved saints we remember today – they are truly present whenever we break the bread and pass the cup. And unknown generations to come, they too are here in the mystery of this meal. Across every age, all of us are members of the same body, sharing the same communion. Death is no barrier. We do not yet know the fullness of eternal life, but eternal life is already here. It always has been here for us to taste and see.

What we will be has not yet been revealed. We do not know what we will be, but we know what we are now, and for now, that is enough. We are the beloved, blessed body of Christ. In Christ, nothing can separate us from God, and nothing can separate us from each other. We are one people, knit together in one communion, in the mystical body of Jesus Christ. So come to the table. Everyone is invited – and everyone is here.

Amen.

Our texts today give us the comforting picture of God as a farmer tending to a vineyard, but they also contain ominous words about God breaking things down. What does it really mean for us to be broken by God?

Vicar Jessica Christy
The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 27, year A
Mount Olive Lutheran Church
Texts: Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:7-15; Matthew 21:33-46

Loving and living God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of every one of our hearts be acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

It’s hard to find the good news on a week like this.

This is one of those weeks when we share stories that confront us with judgment and violence. In both Isaiah and the psalm, we read about the Assyrian invasion of the Promised Land. The psalmist cries out for help, begging God to save Israel from a terrible foreign power: “Turn now, O God of hosts, look down from heaven; preserve what your right hand has planted!” But we know from history that God didn’t show up to save Israel. The northern kingdom was conquered. Its tribes were lost forever – and many of the people of Judah were also killed or enslaved. So we look to the Gospel reading for some comfort, but in Jesus’ parable, we encounter a tale of greed, betrayal, and murder. And just to make matters worse, Jesus’ explanation of the parable has been misused for centuries to hurt our Jewish brothers and sisters. There isn’t a lot of hope shining out of texts like these.

And this is also one of those weeks where it’s hard to see the good news at work in the world. Our nation has been hit with a series of heartbreaking disasters, but it’s not just the human suffering that’s hard to bear. It’s the fact that none of this is inevitable. We don’t have to live in a world with so much injustice and violence, but it’s the world we keep choosing for ourselves. From where we stand this week, it looks like storms are going to keep getting worse, and our responses are going to be insufficient to meet the needs of those most vulnerable to a changing planet. It looks like guns are going to maintain their chokehold on the spirit of our nation, and they’re going to be used to end human lives. It’s hard to find healing when we have every reason to believe that we’re going to let all of this happen again. It’s one of those times when it rings a little too true when we read that God “expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry.” It’s hard to find the good news on this kind of week.

But there is good news here. There is always good news here, and we see that in the faith of Isaiah, because as disaster looms, Isaiah tells us that God is a gardener. The prophet is staring down the world’s most fearsome army, and even though he believes that the coming invasion is a sign of God’s anger, he describes God not as a judge, nor a warrior, nor a king, but a humble tiller of the earth. And he calls this gardener his beloved, and sings about God’s marvelous works. Isaiah is sad and scared and full of fury about how things have gone wrong in his nation, but even then, he addresses God with a love song. He tells us that God looks like a farmer who sweats and toils in the hope that life will emerge from the promise of the fertile soil.

And the psalmist goes even further than Isaiah. The author of Psalm 80 doesn’t just talk about God preparing and tending a vineyard; he remembers how God once brought the vine of Israel out of Egypt. It’s this beautiful, intimate image of God’s hands gently holding the beloved community. God, the creator of the universe, personally carried them out of slavery so they might flourish in peace and freedom. Even on the brink of losing everything, the psalmist reminds the people of the promise that they are carried in love.

We too are like that little vine. We are so fragile, so very vulnerable to the elements and to those who would harm us. The good things we create together are so easily destroyed. All too often we don’t produce the good fruits that we hoped to make for the world. But God holds us in love, and cares for us, and gives us all a chance to grow. We feel our gardener’s love in the richness of the soil. We feel our gardener’s love in the unfurling of tender leaves. We feel our gardener’s love in the sun and the turning seasons, in the world’s abundant beauty that surrounds us and sustains us and brings peace to our troubled spirits. Because we have a God who gardens, we know that we are never alone.

Now, that promise doesn’t magically erase the fear that these stories carry for us. We can’t escape the fact that Isaiah, the psalmist, and even Jesus all use some violent words to describe God’s work. Today, we hear of God tearing down the wall around the vineyard, leaving it vulnerable to the world outside. We hear of God’s cornerstone breaking those who stumble on it, crushing anyone who gets in its way. Those are hard words. It’s much easier to sing about a God who heals than a God who breaks.

But what does it really mean to be broken by God? To answer that question in faith, we must look to the cornerstone, to Christ. When Jesus broke those around him, did he bring justice down on the heads of his opponents? Did he kill, or injure, or seek revenge? No! He broke down the self-righteousness of those who thought they were without sin. He broke open the lonely, corrupt lives of tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus. He shattered the worldview of the Roman centurion, who could look at a criminal hanging dead on a cross and proclaim, “truly, this was the Son of God.” He broke down the divisions between male and female, Jew and Greek, slave and free. He gave up his own body to be broken, and in the end, he broke open the tomb, freeing us all from the jaws of death, forever.

In Christ, we see that even the boundary between God and humanity was forever destroyed, for when God became human in Christ, we learned that God is not just the gardener, but also the true vine that abides in us every day. Christ is with us and in us, teaching us that brokenness is how God brings life. The spirit breathes hope into the world’s most broken places, and breaks apart its callous triumphs. Like a farmer tilling the unyielding earth, God is at work in us, turning over our hard, unforgiving places until they are transformed into gentleness and possibility. When we try to close ourselves off, to harden our hearts, God is cracking us open to new realities, new relationships, new ways to live.

None of us want to be broken. In a world that demands success and strength, we hate the idea of letting ourselves be torn down. We are taught to hate the way of the cross. We might say we love the cross, but our world tells us to despise it, and we are very good at listening to the world. We want to keep our walls high and strong. We greedily hold on to the parts of ourselves that we know need to be pruned. Even when we can barely live with ourselves, we are afraid of letting go of what we have and living into what we could be. Change is a fearful thing, so when we hear that God is transforming us, we’re tempted to hear that as a threat and not as the promise that it is. We think that, in changing us, God is going to take things away from us, but that’s not right at all. The Gospel tells us that God is giving us the chance to give ourselves away. We want to flee the cross, to flee weakness and loss, but it is only in losing ourselves that we will find Christ growing in us. God is inviting us to see that the cross is the tree of life.

When we feel God tilling our hearts, we are being given a chance to let go of our defensiveness, to be free of our fear. We can hold tight to our hardness, we can choose to produce bitter fruit, or we can become the garden we were meant to be. We can delight in this beautiful vineyard Earth that God has planted for us. We can rejoice in the abundant mercies that sustain our every breath. In the living vine of Christ, we can grow fruit to feed the world, and in giving ourselves away, we can be fed with all our souls desire. We can let the good news burst through the life we have known, and nurture us into something more wonderful than we could ever imagine.

Sometimes it is hard to find that good news, but we know that, no matter what, we have a gardener who is making all things new. Out of our brokenness, God will let us grow. Out of our brokenness, God is already growing.

Amen.