Our faith’s value and truth is seen in the life it creates, the servant love we live in the world; God’s grace shapes our heart to show such visible grace in our lives.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 22, year B
   texts:  James 1:17-27; Mark 7:1-23 (several verses added into the middle of the lection); Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9

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

Our faith is worthless if it doesn’t result in actions of love.

Our faith has no value for us or for God if it doesn’t shape our lives into servant lives.

These are hard words to hear. But they’re James’ trumpet call over the confusing din of Jesus’ argument with the Pharisees. James brings clarity to what we often make a distracting sideshow. How do we know if our heart is right with God? When we live God’s love for those in need.

Pure religion, James says, is caring for the widows and orphans, for all who are on the edge, all who hover at the fringes of the world, all who struggle to make it through a day. That’s it, James says. That’s how you know your faith is real.

James makes Deuteronomy simple for us: don’t just hear God’s Word, do it. Do God’s Word, keep yourself unstained by the world, and take care of people.

Otherwise, our faith isn’t genuine.

Hard as that sounds, we might be surprised at how much sense James makes if we actually read him.

We’re going to hear from James in the next weeks, and we’ll learn he gives a helpful corrective to Lutherans. We value good thinking, proper doctrine, orthodoxy. James, a letter we don’t pay enough attention to, reminds us that how we act and live is a truer measure of our closeness to Christ than whether we get our theology right.

This little letter barely mentions Christ Jesus in the way of proclaiming the Good News of Christ’s death and resurrection for our salvation and life.

But this little letter is full of the way of Jesus, full of what Jesus actually lived and taught and urged and called to those who would listen. James never denies we are forgiven freely by God’s grace. He simply, urgently, asks: does that come out in how you live in the world?

In fact, James helps us understand God’s grace in the right way.

As long as we limit our view of the forgiveness of sins we receive in Christ to our not being punished, we limit our serving as disciples. As long as we keep a childish view of confession, that we’ll do it only so we don’t get in trouble, we miss the true depth of what God’s grace and forgiveness is meant to do.

The forgiveness and grace we receive in Christ is God’s way to reshape and heal our hearts for visible love. There’s nothing about Christ’s death and resurrection that forces the Triune God to forgive us. God could do that without the Incarnation, without the cross, without the empty tomb. God can, and does, simply forgive people and refrain from punishing them. It happened all the time in the Old Testament.

But if God really wanted humanity to return to a place of loving God and loving each other that was intended in creation, something more drastic was needed.

God needed to become one of us, teach us, show us how to live and love. God would have to take all of human hate and evil and be killed by it to show us that is the path to end human hate and evil. Not by overpowering it, but by absorbing it and transforming it with love. Changing death into life.

The forgiveness we receive in Christ’s death and resurrection is our path to a healed and new heart, our path to a life of costly love for the world and all in need.

As for God’s law, rather than arguing over which are still valid, or other points of theology, James says: act like Jesus. That’ll do.

Imitate our Lord in his love and grace, compassion and healing. Act like we care for the widow and orphan, the poor and outcast, the sick and needy, the oppressed and hated.

We have been forgiven of all we are and have done in order that we will live this very life. When we act like we’re gracious, loving, compassionate people of God, we become gracious, loving, compassionate people of God.

That’s James’ gift. Don’t talk so much theology, he says, revel in the new birth you have as first fruits of God’s creatures for the healing of this world. Act like you’re Christ – because you are – and you’ll start looking like you’re Christ.

And people will get helped. People will get well. People will get fed. People will find life. People will find hope. Which is what God really needs.

It turns out the Pharisees might have a point, though.

There are habits we have, rituals we do, that can shape our lives. Maybe not a ritual handwashing. But we are shaped by what we do.

Part is what James already has said: doing God’s Word, practicing being Christ, these are habits we need to learn. We become what we imitate and practice.

And there are habits of worship and life that make a difference in our lives acted in the world. Our worship here shapes our sense of both belonging to God and being called to be God’s presence in the world.

The rituals we do here are not important in their own right. But when they help us worship God, when they shape our hearts toward love of God and neighbor, when they help us come before God and seek forgiveness for healed and new hearts, when they help us hear God’s Word in such a way that we start doing it, they’ve done their jobs.

If they don’t, we need to re-think our habits and life, in worship, at home, at work.

Sometimes the best way is the simplest way, even if it’s hard to hear.

James shocks us when he speaks of worthless religion, of faith that has no value. But he shows a clear path to walk, where we can tell as we go whether or not it’s the right path.

Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ, we know this. James helps us with what’s next: how we will know that love is embedded in our hearts and lives. Do God’s Word. Keep unstained by the world. Take care of people.

It’s the way of Jesus. It’s our way to life, too.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

What Christ asks of us terrifies us, but so does not being in God’s love; so we trust that our transformation is in the hands of the One who died and rose for us, the One who loves us forever.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 21, year B
   texts:  John 6:56-69; Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18

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 praise Peter for once.

As always, he speaks for us, looks like us. He’s often our bumbling foil; laughing at him helps us laugh at ourselves. Today he is a gift. Today Peter names our deep, abiding fear so we can look at it ourselves.

So far, religious leaders have rejected Jesus. Many of the crowds he fed have left him, with no repeat performance coming. Today actual disciples leave him. These are people who “went about with him.” Who’d left family and home and followed him as master. That’s who’s leaving now.

Peter’s scared. You don’t want to be the last one on a sinking ship, and now friends are sneaking off. He’s scared of what Jesus is teaching, as they are. They left because Jesus’ teaching got difficult, unacceptable. Peter and the twelve had to have thought the same.

But Peter knows Jesus. He knows, somehow, he is God’s Holy One. And, thank God, he says, “where else can we go? You’ve got the words of eternal life.”

We can’t dodge this crisis. Jesus won’t let us.

Today we have to give up the sugary-sweet picture of Jesus the good teacher, who says nice things we can memorize or put on pillows, who has some good ideas. Today he crosses a line.

It was bound to happen, given that he will end up at the cross, condemned. It begins here. Jesus puts before his disciples two paths.

On one path we believe Jesus is the Son of God, who, in dying and rising, gives his flesh and blood for the world, gives eternal, transforming life. On the other, we think Jesus is out of his mind, believing himself to be something he cannot be.

There’s no middle path to take.

We can’t separate Jesus the teacher from Jesus the Savior, he’s one Christ, one Lord.

For the Hebrews, body and blood together meant the totality of the person. Jesus says he must be completely taken in, believed, swallowed. We can’t take him apart into believable pieces and hard parts we’re going to ignore.

Jesus makes it very hard for some to keep following him when he forces us to face that he is offering himself, completely, for our transformation. Because that will mean changes we might be unwilling to accept.

That’s what’s so difficult. We’d like to stay the same, to keep all we are.

But it doesn’t appear that’s an option.

When I led youth groups at Christikon, the Lutheran mountain camp in Montana, the first night the guides would put the trail packs out for each group and have them put all of the things they’d brought onto the packs. Then they’d shock the kids by tossing aside everything that wasn’t coming. Deodorant, shampoo, extra shirts and extra underwear, flip-flops, hair dryers. The kids were stunned at what they couldn’t take along for this journey into the wilderness.

That’s a tiny bit of the fear we have when we realize what following Jesus means we’re letting go of.

Our self-centeredness will have to be left at the side of the road. Our easy irritation at some people has to go. Our low self-esteem and sense of worthlessness can’t stay in our bags. Our prejudices and biases can’t be kept, even in the smallest amount. Our desire for material things at the expense of others has no place. Our need to have things our own way, or our fearful inability to ask for what we need from others, will be set aside. When we take Christ into us for our life journey with him, we let go of a lot.

And that’s difficult to accept. We’re like Joshua’s people, swearing to serve God and keeping our idols packed in our suitcases. Just in case.

So Jesus’ question to the twelve has to be ours: will we stay? Or will we go?

If only we could come to Jesus, get a promise of life in heaven after we die, feel encouraged for the next week, and that would be it, we’d be fine. If we could keep him at arm’s length from the rest, that would be good.

But Jesus insists on offering us eternal life, the very life of the Triune God. There’s no way that won’t change us. We are not who we were made to be; we will be changed fully into the image of God that was ours at the creation.

We don’t have an option of Jesus Lite. Only the life of God poured into our hearts and lives, filling us with the Spirit and transforming us into Christ for the world.

If that’s so, we have to be with Peter. If this is what Jesus can do, where else can we go?

We’ve lived enough to know that what the world offers doesn’t satisfy us. Being allowed to be ou selfish and self-centered, getting whatever we want, seeking things that promise to change our lives for the better, none of this really fills us. Advertisers can sell all they want, the culture can tell us all it can, but in the quiet of our hearts and the dark of the night we know we need more. No product or service or lifestyle or chemical or self-help or anything else answers our need.

But we do know Christ Jesus is the Holy One of God. We know that in his death and resurrection all things are being made new, and even death is powerless. We know he makes it possible for us to be with God. He embodies God’s love for us.

We might not be ready for the changes the Spirit is going to make. We might be frightened that we’re called out of our comfort zones and habits and ruts into new paths with scary challenges.

But we know no one else we can trust like our Lord Jesus. We’ve never heard anything close to the promise of life he gives us and the world. So where else can we go?

Christ Jesus is where we find life. That’s all we know. But it’s enough.

Today Peter still has no answers to his fears. No idea what his life will look like if he continues to follow. He’s still very afraid.

But he knows this is God’s Holy One, and this is where he has to be. This is where we have to be.

Having no answers, we turn to the One we know is God’s answer to this world’s pain. Having nowhere else that offers us real life, we turn to the One who will fill us with God’s life, and give us purpose and joy in our journey. Fearing change, we turn to the One who is life and love, and trust that changing into Christ, into that One, will be grace, even if it’s not easy.

Lord, you have the words of eternal life. There’s nowhere else we can go. Nowhere else we want to go.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

When we listen to each other’s stories, and sing, and praise God, and share the Eucharist, we come together at Lady Wisdom’s feet. The wisdom of God is revealed, and we are united in the spirit of God. Ordinary places are transformed into sacred places.

Vicar Meagan McLaughlin
     Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 20, year B
     texts: Proverbs 9:1-6, Psalm 34:9-14, Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:51-58

Wisdom and Life to you, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Shortly after I started my year here, one of you said to me, “We LOVE our interns! And then their year ends, and they leave. And then we get a new one! We LOVE our interns!” I knew then, if not before, that being a teaching congregation is an integral part of who Mount Olive is. There is a rhythm to the process of internship that is lived out not just by Intern and Supervisor and Committee, but by all of you, in different ways. It is not easy or comfortable, to live in that rhythm, but for all of its challenges, you embrace it, and for that I am very grateful.

A Lakota elder shared with a group of United Theological seminarians recently that Lakota tradition tells us that our stories are rooted in place, not time. And according to that tradition, the valley below Fort Snelling is the birthplace of creation, a sort of Garden of Eden, and it is also the birthplace of many Lakota people whose mothers travelled days and weeks to get to that place so their children could be born there. No matter how much time passes, their stories and the story of creation itself are alive there in that sacred place.

A part of Mount Olive’s story is that it is a place that gives birth to interns. And in this sacred place, for a century, we—you—have broken bread, shared the Eucharist together. Through the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus, we live in Jesus, and Jesus lives in us, and because of that, we all live forever. This is sacred space. The stories of 46 vicars are rooted in this place, now. No matter how much time passes, their stories are alive here.

As I leave Mount Olive, to return to seminary and then seek a call in a different place, through the mystery of the Eucharist that establishes a communion among us and Jesus our God, a part of my story stays here with you. A part of my story is mingled with the stories of all who have been a part of this community for over 100 years, and in a special way with the 45 vicars who have come before me, with all of you who have listened to my story, and all of you who have shared your stories with me.

And in a week, your new Vicar Anna Helgen will join you here, and her story, too, will become woven into the sacred place that is Mount Olive. It will be up to all of you to figure out how you will distinguish Anna Helgen from Anna Kingman!

It is fitting that the readings for today speak to us of insight, maturity, trust in God. Internship is an intentional time of learning and growth, being called to the house of Lady Wisdom, to sit at her feet and listen for the will of God. Paul enjoins the Ephesians, and us, to live wisely, understand the will of the Lord, and sing praises. In your company, I have certainly had a chance to gain wisdom, experience the work of the Spirit, and sing praises to God!

As I prepared to preach today, my last time at Mount Olive, and as I move on from this place, these scriptures are a reminder to me that, as much as you all have taught me, I am not done yet. None of us are done yet. Regardless of our age, or our experience, or our education, we all have a lot to learn. We all need God’s guidance.

“Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil.” Living wisely is not passive, and it is not easy. Living wisely requires first of all that we see the world and ourselves as it is. There is great beauty and love and goodness here, in the world our God has made, and there is beauty, love, and goodness within each one of us. There is also brokenness—as Paul says, “the days are evil,” both in us and in our world. Wisdom sees the full truth, the beauty and the brokenness, and pursues the will of God in light of that truth.

Living wisely is not a one-time action, like a class we can take and graduate from, or an internship we complete, and we are done and wise and know the will of God forever more. We are called to live wisely. All of us are perpetually called to spend time at Lady Wisdom’s feet, listening to her stories. We are called to come together, again and again, to share in the Eucharist. We come to be closer to God, to allow the spirit of God to enter into our very being, and to grow in wisdom and understanding. We come together, knowing that we are hungry, to be fed the body and blood that make us whole, and one, in Jesus.

One of the biggest challenges to this is that, if we are wise, we will respond to Lady Wisdom’s call to “the simple!” Before we can enter into full communion with God and each other, before we can gain wisdom, we have to understand that we need God, and that we have things to learn from God and one another.

In other words, we need to be humble. My favorite definition of humility is “being right-sized.” That means that we resist the temptation to either make ourselves out to be bigger or smarter or wiser than we are, or to write ourselves off as not having anything to contribute to the kingdom of God in this world. In humility, we see ourselves as we are, in all our humanity, knowing we are no better or worse than anyone else. For those of us who like to know where we stand in the rankings, who prefer certainty to uncertainty, this is a challenge, one that seems to go against everything we have been taught. But it is the way of wisdom.

Wisdom sees the full truth, beauty and brokenness, and pursues the will of God in light of that truth. When we show up as we are, in all our beauty and brokenness, we are open to learn, and can be fully present to one another. When we show up as we are, and invite others to show up as they are, and we listen to each other’s stories, and sing, and praise God, and share the Eucharist, we come together at Lady Wisdom’s feet. The wisdom of God is revealed, and we are united in the spirit of God. Ordinary places are transformed into sacred places.

We enter into sacred places, and are moved to action. Living wisely is not passive! Wisdom sees the full truth, and pursues the will of God in light of that truth. We understand something of God’s will for us in that moment, and then . . . . . we pursue it. We pursue peace. We pursue justice. We do what we are called to do to contribute to the kingdom of God in our communities.

We will not do it alone, and we will make mistakes, because we are human, and it’s not about being perfect, after all. It’s about creating places where stories can be shared, and songs can be sung, and the will of God can be revealed. Sacred places, that honor and give birth to life. Lady Wisdom is calling us to learn and grow and change, and none of us are done yet.

Thanks be to God!

The mystery of the Incarnation begins with this young woman, Mary, who was able to see the eternal God coming to her and working within her own abilities, her ordinary gifts, her humanity, to save the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The feast of St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord
   text:  Luke 1:46-55

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

“My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, who has looked on the humiliation of his slave.”

We heard “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant,” which is good, and interprets the context. But the harsher reading gets us deeper into Mary’s truth.

Mary recognized that the one, true God was identifying with her. This magnificent song is a praise of what happens when God does that. It begins with God looking on our humiliation. Looking with favor on our lowliness. This young woman grasped what it takes many of us a lifetime to comprehend: if God was going to be born in her, then God was going to be working in person in humiliation and weakness to save the world.

Maybe she didn’t grasp it fully at first. But she said yes to the one thing that was asked of her, the one thing: she agreed to be a mother.

She agreed to do what women before her and after have done so often.

As a man, I can’t claim that bearing a child is easy. But Mary said yes to what was a normal thing, something she had already anticipated, hoped for, as her future, something many women had done, including her mother, grandmother, and relatives like Elizabeth.

There was little else given to her. God gave no particular parenting instructions for this child. There was no provision for the child’s food and clothing. No inheritance set aside, no housing, no special gifts.

Mary said, “let it be as God says,” with little guidance for what came next.

But she realized this: what God needed from her was something she could do.

Mary’s call was to be herself. Through that, God would save.

She would bear this child as women do, with the help of women around her, at home, and in Bethlehem. She would do what her body was designed to do.

She would parent this child, as parents always do, with little to go on but her own love, wisdom, common sense, and the advice, wisdom, and love of her family.

She would travel to see relatives, as people often do. She would make a pilgrimage with her son and husband to Jerusalem, as people did. She would deal with life and being the mother of this child to the best of her ability, as mothers do everywhere.

And she understood that this was all God needed. She wasn’t asked to do anything beyond her normal, human capabilities. She was asked to be Mary, mother of Jesus, wife of Joseph, child of Nazareth, herself.

And that would be the way God would begin the salvation of the world.

That’s the grace that surrounds us on Mary’s feast day: the Triune God saves through the ordinary lives of human beings.

Now we celebrate Mary as Theotokos, as Queen of Heaven, as the Mother of Our Lord, lots of capital letters, much praise and glory. In truth, the glory of Mary is found in God’s full identification with the humiliation of our humanity.

What she sings, of God lifting up the poor, casting down the proud, feeding the hungry, sending the rich away, could sound like a revolution of violence and power. In fact, it is a revolution of humiliation of the One who made all things.

God my Savior has looked upon my humiliation, Mary sang, looked with favor on my lowliness. God has decided to enter the humiliation, the lowliness of human life, in all our fragility and brokenness, to bring human life back into the life of God.

If we want to see where God is working, it’s no consolation prize to say, “look at what God’s people are up to.” It’s the place God will surely be seen. It’s the grand prize truth of what the birth of the Son of God to Mary means for the world.

This means we also are not asked to do what we cannot do.

That’s the gift Mary gives us with her “yes.” She reveals how utterly basic it will be for us to be a part of God’s salvation of the world.

We are not called to be someone else, with someone else’s gifts. We are not called to have great worldly power, unless we have it. (And if we do, God will use that, too.) We are, like Mary, simply asked to be ourselves.

To see ourselves as part of God’s great overturning of the ways of this world, and keep that awareness in our hearts and minds as we act, decide, live, love. Mary parented Jesus to the best of her ability, but with that one addition, that she understood her involvement in a greater plan of God. She still had to change his diapers, feed him, teach him, maybe even scold him. She likely parented with similar skills and attitudes as her parents had, as we all do. But with one difference, she knew God was working through her to love the world.

We have the same gift. We live, love, decide, act, work, play in this world as we are able, with the gifts we’ve been given, but now we know something else. Now we know the Triune God is working through us to bring life and love to this world.

God looked on our humiliation, our human-ness, and said, “That’s where I will work.”

It’s terrific news. It’s enough to give each one of us purpose and meaning to every moment of our lives, to give import and grace to every interaction we have with another child of God.

It’s also alarming news. To think that what we are doing in this moment, or the next, is something God is working in to make life happen can be intimidating, even frightening.

So we remember Mary. She smiles at us in love and says, “it’s not as scary as you think, and the joy of knowing God believes you are necessary, of feeling at God work in you, is immeasurable. So all will be well. Go ahead and say yes.”

God give us the courage and spirit to do just that.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen