Blog – Page 241

Altered Perception

April 7, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

God has done a new thing in Christ, is doing it: let us pray that the Spirit open our eyes and hearts to see and respond like Mary and Paul.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday in Lent, year C
Texts: John 12:1-8; Philippians 3:4b-14; Isaiah 43:16-21

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Judas actually has a point. Most people would agree with him.

Mary’s taken a $21,000 bottle of perfume and poured it all over the floor. Ten months’ wages for a day laborer. In her economy, there couldn’t have been many rich enough to waste so extravagantly. How much food, shelter, help for those in need could Mary have provided with this?

We know others were bothered. Matthew and Mark don’t single out Judas; they say the disciples were angry. Of course they were. How many in this room would agree with them, if we’re honest? Most of us.

So what on earth possessed Mary to do this? Surely making ends meet was as challenging for them in their little village as anyone. Lazarus, the only money-maker for the family, had been sick, eventually died. How much could they have?

Mary’s view of what is valuable is upside down from everyone else. What does she see that we don’t?

Paul’s upside-downness is harder to see, but no less remarkable.

This little section on how well he kept Jewish law isn’t intended as bragging, even if it comes off that way. Paul’s simply stating fact: he was really faithful in his Jewish life.

But now he says, that whole way of life is like trash to me. Whatever I thought I was gaining from it, whatever I thought was valuable, none of that has any worth, now that I know Christ Jesus as my Lord.

We might miss how upsetting this is. But the Jewish Christians in Philippi might have taken a gulp or two hearing this. It’s possible some of the baptized Christians who were Jewish kept some of their Jewish practices. The Christians in Jerusalem did. This brought them comfort and strength, as religious rituals can do.

Now Paul says that’s worth nothing compared to knowing Christ. Living in Christ, joining Christ in the resurrection, is the only value. What it would take for you to say everything about your life of faith that you’ve valued, means nothing now that you know Christ?

So what possessed Paul to believe this? What does he see that we don’t?

What happened to Mary and Paul is clear. They met Christ and their world changed.

Maybe Mary came to this recently. Her brother died and Jesus had just raised him to life. That could completely change her sense of what was valuable to her.

But Mary was a listener. She heard Jesus and he changed her life. When Jesus was in the house, she wanted to sit at his feet and listen. And she did listen: she seems to be the only one in Holy Week that remembers Jesus said he was going to die. She’s the only one preparing for Friday’s horror. Mary’s world is oriented to this Teacher who gave her purpose, whose words filled her soul. Nothing else matters.

But what happened to Paul? Zealous to persecute the young Church, on the road to Damascus he’s knocked down and speaks to Christ. But in neither Galatians nor Acts are we told that Christ specifically told Paul anything about his Jewish practices.

Yet somehow he realized his only need for life with God was found in this Christ who was speaking to him. Meeting Christ, learning in time that he was loved by God in Christ, Paul said, “That’s it. Nothing else matters.”

We’re seeing a complete alteration of perception of reality.

And that’s exactly what God asks you today in Isaiah: “Don’t remember the former things, what you’ve been. I’m about to do a new thing: can you perceive it?”

We who’ve been Christian since before we formed memories can struggle to imagine what it’s like to hear God’s new thing as a new thing. If you’ve been involved in congregational life your whole existence, how do you see this as new? Like Paul, you’ve acquired habits and practices that draw you closer to God. Like Mary, you know economy, and what things are worth.

But how in the world do lifelong Christians see God’s new thing in Christ as a new thing? Because it seems clear that when you do, you evaluate everything differently. You live differently.

This draws our Lenten Gospels together, along with Jesus’ call.

We heard of God’s embracing wings, of God’s gardening people to bear fruit, of God’s welcome of the lost. We heard some reject others from God’s love, some wish others to be punished by God, some resent that others got God’s love, others who really aren’t good enough.

Can you put yourself into these stories and make them not interesting curiosities about past times but real moments of truth?

Jesus calls you to take up your cross and follow. But he can’t make you live a cross-shaped life of sacrificial love. Jesus can’t make you see all creatures as loved by God infinitely, including yourself, or get you to open your arms to all in God’s love.

What it will take to live Christ’s cross-shaped life, to live this new thing, is to have your perception of what is real completely altered. To have an utterly different set of values, like Mary and Paul, and to live accordingly.

So go back through your life and ask: are there Mary places for you, Paul moments you’ve forgotten?

Are there times you’ve felt embraced under God’s wings of love and mercy? Times you’ve felt God’s Spirit garden you like a struggling tree, and you began to flourish? Times you’ve felt God welcome you home with forgiveness and love and a feast of life?

What of when you are here? You are fed at Christ’s table with forgiveness, life, and salvation. Does that change how you see the world? You meet Christ in these people – they are Christ’s love and welcome to you. Is that enough to open your eyes to God’s new thing? So you are changed and begin to live like Mary and Paul, pouring out this new thing?

The important thing is that you and I really seek this altered perception.

That you and I pray the Holy Spirit will take the scales off our eyes, like Paul, open our hearts to the astonishing love of God, like Mary, and help us reevaluate everything.

It’s how you can be free from the idolatry of your wealth. How you can join Christ in seeing the world with eyes of compassion and grace. How you can step out in the world with courage, bearing God’s sacrificial love in your love to all you meet.

We don’t want to live life as usual, with unchallenged assumptions and perceptions. To agree with the disciples, or the world. To live unchanged by our relationship with God in Christ.

We want to see Mary’s extravagance as the only response we can imagine making to the love of God we have seen in the face of Jesus. To share Paul’s confidence that he is happy having nothing as long as he knows he is in Christ’s love.

God is doing a new thing in Christ. Can you see it? When you do, your world will be utterly changed.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

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

April 3, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Week 4: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies . . . my cup overflows . . .

More Sheep, No Walls

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; John 10:14-16; Ephesians 2:13-22

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

It’s strange that they left Jerusalem then.

After seeing Jesus alive again in the Upper Room, some of his disciples went north to Galilee. They seem aimless; finally Peter decides to go fishing.

They’d failed Jesus in every imaginable way. Betrayal, running away, denying any ties with him. They cowardly abandoned him to his death. In the Upper Room they had very little time to talk with him. They must have dreaded the confrontation that they thought had to come, telling him why they’d left him in his deepest need. Maybe that’s why they ran away home.

As morning came with no fish caught, just as when they first began to follow Jesus, a stranger directs them to recast the nets and they catch a huge amount of fish. But that’s not the miracle here.

This is the miracle: as they came to shore, there was a charcoal fire burning with fish and bread on it. Jesus was making a meal for them.

In that culture, you don’t eat with your enemies. To eat with someone and then betray them was a despicable act. These disciples had done just that. They were clearly his enemies by any cultural standard.

But Jesus spread a meal out on the beach and said, “Come, and eat breakfast.”

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” David sings.

Do you see? David believes that the meal the true God spreads before him is a meal of reconciliation with his enemies.

How have we missed this? David knew how to sing of God’s protection from enemies. Psalm 27, Psalm 46, Psalm 91, all beloved, all speak of God’s protection from armies, earthquakes, poisonous enemies.

But when David sings to his Shepherd, he rejoices in the meal the Shepherd puts out in front of him and his enemies. This can only be a meal of life and forgiveness and welcome and healing. Because when you eat with your enemies, they are no longer your enemies.

Listen to your Shepherd:

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

There are other sheep. Sheep that don’t belong to our fold. That means sheep we don’t know, but Jesus does. It also means sheep that we don’t consider part of us. Enemies.

Sundays this Lent we’ve been hearing about not rejecting others from God’s love. But Jesus challenges you to go further. He wants all God’s sheep together, even enemies. Maybe you don’t think you have enemies. Jesus also means people who hurt you, treat you badly, hate you. People who make you sad.

They’re mine, too, Jesus says. I invite everyone to eat and be filled at the meal I prepare for you. Praying for your enemies, loving them, is just the beginning. Christ’s invited them to the dinner party, too.

Christ’s Supper feeds us for our journey. It also breaks down walls.

We gather for Eucharist every week because we want to eat at Jesus’ table. We want forgiveness and life and salvation, the gifts Christ offers in his body and blood. In this meal we are made one as a community and blessed with the life and love of God.

But when our Good Shepherd throws a feast it’s a feast of reconciliation for all. Enemies are brought to the table and cease being enemies. Those who hurt or hate us are part of our flock, too. All creatures are brought together.

In Christ’s flesh, Paul says, in this body and blood given at the cross and offered in this Lord’s Supper, all divisions are healed. All walls are broken down. The hostility we have with any of God’s children is ended.

What if we saw the Lord’s Supper not as a meal for insiders, but saw it as David saw the Shepherd’s feast, as Jesus saw it? What if we proclaimed the Eucharist as Christ’s gift to the world, offering bread and wine, the very life of God, as a way God breaks down walls and opens arms to embrace?

We don’t even eat it with all other Christians now. What a disgrace. We start there. And then follow where God’s Spirit leads us.

This is the abundant, overflowing cup David proclaims.

When all things, all creatures, all creation is restored, God’s abundance will pour out on all and all will be filled, satisfied, loved, blessed, and live in peace.

It sounds like a naïve dream to the world. But you and I belong to the Good Shepherd of the whole creation, who will have everyone at the dinner party, who spreads a table in the presence of everyone. God’s meal will do the healing and reconciling. It’s not naïve, it’s the very plan of God for the healing of the world.

Just invite as many as you can – even those who hurt or hate you – to come to dinner. Christ will take care of the rest. Because everyone is, after all, a sheep of this Good Shepherd.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 4/3/18

April 2, 2019 By office

Click here to read this week’s issue of The Olive Branch.

Mine

March 31, 2019 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

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

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

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a parable of two lost sons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the reconciliation Paul proclaims today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the name of Jesus. Amen

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