The worship the Triune God desires of us is one where our lives are centered on God, our rest, our care for others, our work for justice, and when all that happens, our lives will be a watered garden in the presence of God.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 21, year C; texts: Isaiah 58:(6-9a), 9b-14; Luke 13:10-17

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

We live in a broken world, a world where people suffer, where the creation itself suffers.  Where we suffer.  A world where evil seemingly thrives in more places than we can deal with, where we often feel powerless.  A world that we ourselves have divided into things sacred and things secular.  A world where we wonder where God is, and why God doesn’t do a better job.

We live in a world of our own making.  It is not the Eden of old, and that is certainly our fault; much as we would like to blame our forebears, we are thrown out of the garden by our own doing, our own actions, our own inaction.  We know this.

Yet when we come here in this place, on the Lord’s day, for a brief time we feel as if we are truly in a different world.  A world of beauty and grace.  A world where God’s word is “yes,” where healing truly is possible.  A world where we know that we are loved by God and that all are loved by God.  And we wonder: “why can’t this occur outside of here?”

We have a word of God from Isaiah that suggests God actually intends to make this world as it was meant to be, that what we experience here belongs out there, everywhere.  That what we see “out there” is not what is meant to be, that what we experience is not God’s will.

Because the LORD God, through Isaiah’s words, is telling us that part of our problem is that we have divided our world inappropriately.  That we call what we do in here on a Sunday worship, and what we do out there in the world something else.  That we seek God in this place but rarely expect God out there.  For God, according to this word of Isaiah, worship is far greater than we imagined.  And the way back to the created beauty of such a place as Eden is through true worship of God for whom there is no sacred or secular but only one existence in which the true God is moving and calling to us, and to all God’s children, who in turn live their lives in healing, restoring worship.

The people of Israel are sorely misled, Isaiah boldly shouts, if they believe that true worship of God is unrelated to their whole lives.

I asked the lector to start the reading from Isaiah a few verses before what was assigned so we could get a fuller context to our reading, but we could easily have gone back to the beginning of this chapter.  The LORD tells Isaiah to shout out the rebellion of the people, that they pretend to be a people who seek the ways of God, people who delight in the LORD, but God says they are not so.  They fast, they practice the proper religious rituals, but they don’t understand why God has seemingly abandoned them.  This is prophetic word from after the exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.

What is clear from the prophet in this chapter is that there is a disconnect between the worship of the people and their sense of God’s blessing on their lives and their world.  They complain, in verse 3, “Why do we fast but you do not see?  Why humble ourselves, and you do not notice?”  In other words, we’re worshipping faithfully here, and you don’t seem to care, God.  Life still has problems, pain, suffering.

What follows is the rebuke of the LORD toward these people.  In the verses preceding our reading this morning, God says that the people look to their own needs and interests on the LORD’s day.  Worse, they oppress their workers; they fast, but then go off and quarrel with each other.  They even fight and “strike with a wicked fist.”

Why on earth would God consider this worship and faithfulness? Isaiah asks.  What we heard this morning is God’s answer as to what true worship really is, what God is seeking from the people.  And, we must say, from us as well.

And it’s a lot more than we thought worship was.

“Is not this the fast that I choose,” says the LORD?  (It’s hard to be clearer than that.)  There are two elements to this “fast,” this true worship.  Both are non-negotiable.

The first element of the fast the LORD chooses, the true worship, is centered on our relationship with others.  Jesus would say, quoting the Old Testament, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  It’s a powerful vision that God’s sense of true worship begins with our care for others, in three specific areas.

First, true worship begins with the breaking of the yoke, the removing of the yoke.  Using an agricultural image, the prophet speaks of a tool placed on draft animals that draws on their energy to make work happen.  So we are told that when others’ lives and energy are used for our profit, our benefit, when others suffer so that we might enjoy what we have, we are using them as slaves, as pack animals, beasts of burden.

True worship of God begins with removing such injustice from our society, from our institutions, from our world.  We cannot pretend to be free, we cannot pretend to be delighting in God, when we participate in structures that bind, oppress, and harm others.  When we take advantage of other people.

Second, true worship begins with the ending of evil between us and other peoples, when we stop pointing the finger at each other, at friends, at enemies.  There is no way we can consider ourselves truly in line with God, truly worshipping, if in our lives we point blame at others instead of ourselves, speak evil of others, and act as if we are blameless.

It’s hard to find a more direct and appropriate prophetic word about our culture and our lives than these two, both the yoke of oppression and now this “pointing of the finger” Isaiah names.  So long as we refuse to consider our participation in the evil of this world, the evil of our lives, even the oppression of others, so long as we speak ill of others, we are not truly able to worship God.

Third, true worship begins when we “offer our food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted”.  When we bring the homeless poor into our homes, share the abundance of bread we have with those who cannot find food, and clothe the naked.  Little wonder Jesus told the parable of the sheep and the goats: it is in meeting such needs, even Isaiah says, that we truly worship God, truly see God.  Or as Jesus would say, “when you do this to one of these, you do it to me.”

The second element of the fast the LORD chooses, the true worship, is centered on our relationship with God.  Jesus would say, quoting the Old Testament, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”

This Sabbath worship Isaiah speaks of is not the same as the rule-loving Pharisees speak of in our story of Jesus today.  For them, keeping Sabbath is following the form, the rule, more than the spirit of Sabbath.

Isaiah, rather, speaks the word of the LORD that when we spend seven days a week year round on our own interests, our own needs, our own priorities, we leave little to no room for God.  It is remarkable that in this passage keeping a Sabbath rest, taking one day in seven to focus on God, on living in the love and grace of God’s priorities, is as important as caring for the neighbor.

Isaiah’s people are “trampling” on the Sabbath.  They’re not just ignoring it.  They’re willfully doing their own things, caring for their own needs, even on Sabbath.  But Isaiah says that cannot be worship.  Until they, until we, take time for Sabbath rest every week, time to focus on God and not ourselves, we cannot truly worship.

This is part of what we are all doing here this morning, to be sure.  But it is so much more.  There is a sense in these verses of a life that is shaped and fed and described by weekly rest with God.  When you call the Sabbath a delight, when you find the holy day honorable, then, then, Isaiah says, you shall truly take delight in the LORD.  It’s hard to love the LORD your God if we never take time away from our own interests, and nigh on to impossible to care for God’s concerns if we focus only on our own.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Isaiah’s order is different than we are used to hearing: here neighbor is first, then God.  But both are necessary for the promises to be revealed, fulfilled, lived, experienced.  Because that’s the real joy of this word of God in Isaiah today: if we do these things, then wonderful things will happen.

Now, let us say this clearly: “If and then” is not a question of conditional love of God; it is a statement by the Triune God that if certain things happen, there will be wonderful consequences.

The unconditional love of God for us and for all people is not at risk here by our self-centeredness and lack of love for our neighbor or for God.  Rather, what the LORD God is saying to us in these verses is simple cause and effect: if we live in such love of neighbor and love of God, we will see amazing things.

There will be a unity to our lives where we do not see part of our lives as “ours” and “secular” and part of our lives as “God’s” and “sacred.”  All things become holy, all our lives become God’s, and everything, everything becomes worship.

When we break the yoke, stop pointing the finger, stop speaking evil, and start sharing food and caring for the needs of others, the world becomes a beautiful place, the LORD says.  Light shines into our lives and into the world.  Our bones, and the bones of our neighbors, will become strong, God says.  Ancient ruins will be rebuilt, roads repaired, safe streets created.

It couldn’t be simpler: caring for others and dealing with all that entrenched evil is the pathway God says leads to a world as God intended it to be.

Likewise, when we take our Sabbath rest and focus weekly on our love of God, we not only are filled with that love.  We actually begin living in such a way that we are children of God, sharing all the delight that means.  We take our inheritance alongside Jacob and all the other ancestors of faith, Isaiah says.

Our lives become one with God and with each other.

When God’s people see their entire lives as worship, their entire lives as shaped by love of neighbor and love of God, things in God’s world will dramatically improve.  That’s the promise.  The world will become one with God’s will and intent.  And God’s healing will begin to flow everywhere.

The image that seems to come to my heart the most in these words is this line: “You shall be a watered garden.”

Our whole lives of faith begin with the sense of the loss of Eden, the loss of intimacy with God and with each other.  Ever since, humanity has fought with each other, fought with God, separated our lives from each other and from God, and lived as if we were in charge.

And we wonder why things are so horrible.

Now we know: if we find true worship in God’s answer, we will find our lives and this whole world becoming like a watered garden, and we will find God restoring the creation through us, through all, into the world God has intended from the beginning.

And all things will be full of the knowledge of God, all our lives, everything will be worship, and we will see things we only have dreamed until now, for “the mouth of the LORD has spoken this.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Following Jesus, according to Jesus himself, according to our forebears in faith, according to the reality of life in this world, is fraught with challenges, divisions, pain and suffering at times; yet we follow Jesus who walked it himself, and will bring all to completion and heal all the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Lectionary 20, year C; texts: Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2; Luke 12:49-56

Note to the reader: 
This sermon begins with a retelling of a story first told by Jack Hitt, on This American Life, National Public Radio.  I read it from a transcript of the 500th episode, which was a compendium of previous shows, and which aired July 12, 2013.  It is truly an oral story, and will likely have more impact if heard first and not read.  At the transcript on the show’s website, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/500/transcript, there is also a link to the audio of the whole show: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/500/500.  This segment begins at 35:35, a little over halfway through the show.
Listen to him tell it.  You’ll be glad you did. – Pr. Crippen

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

I heard a story on the National Public Radio program This American Life a month ago and I’d like to share it with you.  I’m going to read the actual transcript since it isn’t my story, and since I also couldn’t retell it any better than the speaker.  It’s a story by a man named Jack Hitt, and he tells it about his four year old daughter. [1]

“It all began at Christmas two years ago, when my daughter was four years old.  And it was the first time that she had ever asked about what did this holiday mean?  And so I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus.  And she wanted to know more about that.  And we went out and bought a kid’s Bible and had these readings at night.  She loved them.  Wanted to know everything about Jesus.  So we read a lot about his birth and about his teaching.

“And she would ask constantly what that phrase was.  And I would explain to her that it was ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  Then we would talk about those old words and what that all meant.

“And then one day, we were driving past a big church, and out front was an enormous crucifix.  She said, ‘Who is that?’  And I guess I’d never really told that part of the story.  So I had to sort of – ‘Yeah, oh, well, that’s Jesus.  And I forgot to tell you the ending, yeah.  Well, you know, he ran afoul of the Roman government.  This message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities of the time that they had to kill him.  They came to the conclusion that he would have to die.  That message was too troublesome.’

“It was about a month later after that Christmas we’d gone through the whole story of what Christmas meant.  And it was mid-January, and her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools.  So Martin Luther King Day was off.  And so I knocked off work that day and I decided we’d play, and I’d take her out to lunch.

“And we were sitting in there, and right on the table where we happened to plop down, was the Arts section of the local newspaper.  And there, big as life, was a huge drawing by, like, a 10-year-old kid from the local schools, of Martin Luther King.  And she said, ‘Who’s that?’  And I said, ‘Well, as it happens, that’s Martin Luther King.  And he’s why you’re not in school today, because we’re celebrating his birthday.  This is the day we celebrate his life.’

“And she said, ‘So who was he?’  I said, ‘Well, he was a preacher.’  And she looks up at me and goes, (excitedly) ‘For Jesus?’  And I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, actually he was.  But there was another thing that he was really famous for, which is that he had a message.’  And you’re trying to say this to a four-year-old.  It’s very – this is the first time they ever hear anything, so you’re just very careful about how you phrase everything.

“So I said, ‘Well, yeah, he was a preacher, and he had a message.’  And she said, ‘What was his message?’  And I said, ‘Well, he said that you should treat everybody the same, no matter what they look like.’  And she thought about that for a minute.  And she said, ‘Well, that’s what Jesus said.’  And I said, ‘Yeah, I guess it is.  I never thought of it that way, but yeah.  And that is sort of like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”’

And she thought for a minute and looked up at me and said, ‘Did they kill him too?’”

Jesus said, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!  From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided.”

We have so much difficulty hearing these words.  Too often we inwardly wish that we could skip them and read past them.  We’d like to dodge any suggestion that Jesus asks something of people that doesn’t unite but divides, that might even break up families.

Yet this little girl, who apparently from the story at any rate had little religious upbringing, this four year old child heard of Jesus and what he taught and what happened to him and knew two things intuitively and definitively about Martin Luther King, Jr.: One, what Dr. King said was the same as what Jesus said.  And two, it wouldn’t be surprising if he was killed for it just like Jesus was.

Why is it so hard for us to take Jesus seriously here?  Why do we pretend he was this innocuous, easy-going person?  He was killed for what he taught: does that tell us nothing?

Do we want to forget that the reason he’s so anxious and even angry in this story is that he knows he’s heading toward his death, something that will be brutal and horrifying, something that he wishes could be over and done with?

We are too often like Simon Peter, who prompted this whole little tirade by his oblivious and blind question a few verses earlier.  After the parable we heard last Sunday, about being good slaves who are always ready for the master to return, even as a thief in the night, Peter asks, “Are you telling this parable for us, or for everyone else?”

In other words, “you’re really worried about all those other people not being ready, right Lord, not your beloved inner circle of disciples?”  The verses between last week’s Gospel and today’s are Jesus’ blistering response to Peter.

He tells another parable about slaves being ready, but with a twist.  In this parable, there are some slaves who know their master is returning, but when he’s delayed they decide to party, eating and drinking until they’re drunk, beating their fellow slaves.  When the master returns, they are horribly punished.

But the punch line is that because they ought to have known better, they are worse off than those who ignorantly aren’t doing the work of the master.  “To whom much is given, much is required” comes at this point.  And what Jesus would have us and Peter know is this: for those who know what discipleship is, who know what the master would have us do, and choose not to do it, for those it will be far worse than for those who never heard.

It’s likely that if we do fail at our service, our discipleship, our faithfulness, it is because we’d rather avoid the consequences Jesus speaks of for those who follow, consequences even a four year old child can grasp.

The letter to the Hebrews is no less honest or difficult than Jesus today.  Same with Jeremiah.  In that amazing laundry list of heroes of the faith in Hebrews the terrible things that happened to those who were faithful is astonishing.  I’m no expert in advertising, but if you’re trying to attract believers, talking about tortures, being sawn in two, and living in holes in the ground is not likely to win converts any more than promises of division within families.

And the LORD says through Jeremiah that prophets who talk dreamily to people might win the favor of the people but not of God.  Yet speaking the word of God is always going to get the prophet in hot water with everyone else.

Gideon, on the Hebrews list, was a hero of mine as a child, but there’s a part of the story we often forget.  Right after he is called by God to lead the Israelites against the oppression of the Midianites, the first thing he is asked to do is tear down his father’s altar to Baal, and the sacred pole next to it, using his father’s second best ox.  Then he’s to chop up the altar and the pole, and burn that second best ox on the wood as a purifying sacrifice to the LORD.

It turns out his father defends his actions to the enraged townspeople, but how do you think Gideon initially felt about that request?  To follow the LORD is to potentially stand against even your closest family.

We cannot pretend either that these are ancient anomalies or that they are not so.  The history of the Church, the history of our own lives, is riddled with divisions and pain caused by people seeking faithfully to serve their Lord and Master Christ Jesus.

The whole church on earth is split into two parts, and a thousand years later we’re still divided.  The western part of that church is split into hundreds of pieces and five hundred years later we’re still divided.  Congregations kick people out for professing their understanding of the Gospel, congregations split, denominations sever ties with other denominations and self-implode over questions of true discipleship.

We don’t need Jeremiah, Hebrews, and Jesus to tell us this is so.  There is a harsh reality that following the way of Christ is not only hard, individually and collectively, but that it leads to divisions, pain, suffering and all sorts of difficulty.

So what are we supposed to do?  Three things seem to rise before us.

First, we might wish to learn that avoiding division is not a worthy goal as we seek to be faithful.  Jesus and the others aren’t being prescriptive here, saying that the hope of following Christ is that divisions occur.

At the same time, what is clear is that if we are making our decisions so that no one is offended, so that all are always unified, we’re probably not being faithful servants of Christ.  We may not want to disagree with each other, or other Christians, and we certainly don’t try to do things that cause division.

But if Jesus is describing reality here, which all evidence says he is, we also cannot let our fear of division or setback or suffering keep us from doing what we believe our Lord and Master is calling us to do.

Second, this means, obviously, that we are better off when we follow where our discernment tells us God is leading, regardless of consequences.  This means that we need to learn how to discern faithfully the calling of the Triune God.

We need to learn how to understand when we are at a crossroads, where to look for guidance and advice, how to listen to other believers and each other and to the Church, and how our Lord Christ speaks to us.

But when we have done that to the best of our ability, and when we feel we know where the Spirit is leading, we’d best do it, rather than play the part of Peter and say, “this is really for others to do, right?  We’ll play it safe, if you don’t mind.”

And this applies individually and collectively, to our own personal faith journeys and spiritual lives, to the life and journey of this and every congregation, and to the life and journey of all the ways we are joined to other believers in this world.

Third, when we look back at what Hebrews says, we find that division and pain are not the end, that there is something more.  “Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” Hebrews writes, “let us look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”.

Both words are critical.  Jesus is the pioneer, we see that in today’s Gospel.  He goes before us into the world, facing what is often a hard road, with people seeking to destroy him because he embodies the love and grace of God for all.  He is our pioneer, today rather frustratedly and urgently calling to us, but always calling us to follow, even though the road is likely to be hard.

This is a great promise: whatever we might face in being faithful, our Lord has faced worse, and so walks with us.  Even to death, so there is nothing anyone can do to us that is worse than what the One who leads us experienced.

But Jesus is also the “perfecter,” which literally means the “completer,” of our faith.  Hebrews says that the faith journey of those heroes listed was not perfected, that is, completed, without the current generation.  Therefore, says Hebrews, salvation is never completed until all are brought together as one by the Christ who on the cross draws all people to himself.

Whatever divisions we have, whatever pain we suffer, whatever problems come from our faithful discipleship, they are never the end, never the final word.  The final word is always that through the cross and resurrection Jesus has in fact brought peace, not division, and has perfected, completed the salvation God has begun in him.

Make no mistake, the life of discipleship Jesus envisions requires courage of us.

We know that we will receive that courage as a gift of the Spirit when we pray, and so it is meet and right that we so pray.  Let us do that.

But let us also resolve that we face Jesus and his call honestly and openly, without dodging or ignoring, without seeking an easy way around.  It will not be easy for us.  It never is.  Even a child can tell us that.

But we have our Pioneer who goes before us and who in his death and resurrection completes the plan of God which will bring all into the life and grace of the Triune God.

“Yes, Peter; yes, all of you at Mount Olive; yes, all my children,” Christ says, “this parable is for you, not just everyone else.  But be not afraid, for I have overcome the world.  Come, follow me.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/500/transcript

The titles the Church has given to St. Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, suggest not only who Mary is but speak a truth about who we are, and the honor given her by God is an honor we also share.

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

 “O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises: ‘Alleluia!’
Thou bearer of the eternal Word, most gracious, magnify the Lord: ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!’”

The English Hymnal of 1906, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Percy Dearmer, is a seminal and important work in the life of the Church at large, not just the English church, and has given us rich hymnody in our own Lutheran worship books.  These words, which we sang at the start of our liturgy, were first sung from this hymnal, and were composed by J. Athelstan Riley, who was the chair of the hymnal’s editorial board.  Riley, in turn, based this particular stanza on ancient Eastern Orthodox prayers to St. Mary, the mother of our Lord, prayers which are still sung in Orthodox churches today.

There is something subversive about these words when they are included in Lutheran books of worship, as they have been since 1958 in this country, and when they’re sung by Lutherans who are dismissive of giving any special honor to Jesus’ mother, who might consider it too Roman Catholic, whatever that means.  Because this entire second stanza is about Mary, calling her “higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim,” and inviting her, now, to lead the heavenly host in praise of the Triune God.  The hymn assumes she holds an elevated status, reminds us that she bore the eternal Word, and works on the premise that she now leads the praises of God in heaven.

That we sing such praise of a human being leads us to consider what we mean by it.  The Church, especially in the East, names Mary “Theotokos,” God-bearer, for she carried the very Son of God in her womb.  Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, when they pray to her, call her “Mary, full of grace,” and around the Church, save in most Protestant circles, she is thought of as “Regina Coeli,” the “Queen of Heaven.”  All of these names are referred to in our hymn stanza which perhaps many of us have sung without knowing what we were singing.

In our tradition we have only recently been coming back to an understanding of why the Church in so many places has honored Mary above all others, a sense which the Lutheran Reformers always had, but which subsequent generations of Lutherans in many places let fall to the side of the road.

Those same reformers suggested that the saints are a gift to us in at least three ways: they cause us to give thanks to God for showing us such examples of divine mercy; our faith is strengthened when we see the grace of God acting in their lives; and lastly, we learn to imitate their faith and any other of their virtues. [1]

In these three things, our question deepens.  What do we mean when we sing such praise of Mary?  And what does it mean for our lives, our faith, our discipleship?  The answer seems to be circular in nature: when we praise Mary thus, we eventually come to see ourselves in her, and our lives as hers.

We begin with Theotokos, God-bearer, “thou bearer of the eternal Word.”

There is a profound reality about Mary that is almost impossible for us to comprehend and that is utterly unique: she is the only human being to have been physically joined to the Triune God, carrying in her very womb the child who is fully human and fully divine.

Whatever we might think of her, this truth, that she is Theotokos, has to be central.  There is in Mary a human being like no other.  Little wonder that the Church saw in her a link, a connection with God: one of us, yet one with better inroads.

While her son, Christ Jesus our Lord, is the Incarnate Word in our midst, and the One who brings humanity into relationship with the Triune God, Mary is the first of us to experience this relationship, the first of us to know this, and the only one of us to physically live this.  And for that we rightly honor her and think well of her.

In her “let it be with me according to your will,” she welcomed God’s grace into her humanity and brought the possibility of life in Christ to us all.  This generosity of sharing, this gift to the world is forever to be praised.

And yet, as we look at her and consider what her son has taught us and brought to us, we realize this truth: she is not the only God-bearer.

The witness of Christ himself, the witness of the Scriptures, and the witness of the Church for 2,000 years is that we are baptized into Christ so that we in turn bear Christ in the world.  Not physically, growing a child inside our bodies through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  But physically, living with the Holy Spirit transforming us literally from within into people who in our bodies, words, hands, lives, love, grace are Christ, are divine children, are, like Mary, invited to generously share Christ with the world.

In Mary we see ourselves: we are God-bearers to the world, we bring the news of God’s love which death cannot destroy, God’s grace which is sufficient to cover all our brokenness, God’s life which is for the whole world.

And Mary is also “full of grace,” “most gracious” in our hymn.

There is an obvious reference here: in carrying Christ Jesus in her womb, she was literally full of God’s grace, God’s Incarnate Grace.

But in her person, her willingness to do this, her hymn of praise which not only magnified the Lord but the Lord’s gracious overturning of the world, she models for us a life of grace.

She feels the pain of a family who isn’t wealthy enough to have enough wine for their party and brings it to her son, that he might do something.

She feels the grace of God in coming to this world through her and sees the possibility of God graciously raising up the lowly, feeding the hungry, and bringing justice through her work.

And she lovingly brings this child to adulthood that he might be the Life of the world in his death and resurrection, facing that horror and subsequent joy alongside us and waiting with his disciples for the coming of the Spirit 50 days later.

But of course as we see all this grace in her, we are reminded that it is ours as well, that God has so filled us with grace.  Just as we are bearers of Christ, we are vessels of grace in this world.

Blessed by the presence of God, we become that presence in the world.  Overwhelmed by the forgiveness of God, we offer that forgiveness to the world.  Transformed by the grace of God, we are part of God’s continuing gracious transforming of the world.

In Mary we see ourselves, full of grace, given to the world.

And because she is who she is and did what she did, she is “higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim,” we sing.

We are not privy to the mysteries of God’s heavenly domain, though we live in the kingdom as it lives here with us on earth.  But we cannot help but think of Mary as this hymn does.

Is there any other human being or angel who did what she did, lived what she lived, gave what she gave?  If in fact there are people who are lifted up in praise around the throne of God, which we cannot know for certain, we likewise cannot think of another who would be higher.

And yet when we sing the words of Psalm 8 we are reminded that David saw all of humanity, all of us as a little lower than the angels.

So in one sense when we sing this of Mary we sing it with a little confusion.  It is truly a noble place to be just lower than the angels: who are we, we say with the psalmist, that God would so honor us?  Yet higher?  Can we say that?

Yet what Mary teaches us most of all is that we do not claim such honor, nor does she.  It may be well for the Church to sing it of Mary: it would be unseemly and ungallant not to honor her.  But her gracious “yes” to God, her hymn of praise, her life lived in service to her son, our Lord, was not a life of being above others.

Everything about her that we know from Scriptures is that she lived as she sang in those words which formed our Gospel tonight: she saw herself in this call of God not an exalted queen but a humble servant through whom she was blessed to bear God’s healing for the world.

And in Mary we see ourselves, not as exalted, but as lowly, not as higher, but as servant.

And so the mystery of Mary is the mystery of us.

In living as humble servants of Christ, bearing God’s love and presence into the world, we, like Mary, are privileged to see the wonders of God come to pass through us.  We are astonished to see that as flawed and broken as we are we are not only healed and loved, but through us God is reaching the world.

For us, on this day we honor Mary what we sing of her calls us to our true selves.  There is deep mystery here, much we cannot grasp.  Even as Mary needed to ponder things in her heart, so too do we.

Yet our sister Mary shows us a way to unutterable joy, that in us God is coming to this world, and through us, mystery of mysteries, wonder of wonders, God will continue to heal and save this world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1]  Article XXII, The Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), and parallel article in The Augsburg Confession (1530)

The world is surrounded in darkness; sadness, evil, and brokenness.  So how do we know that we can trust God?  How do we know that God really loves us?  In the midst of darkness in this world, God comes to us in the nighttime of our lives, shows us the stars, and reminds us of God’s faithfulness and love for us.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 19, year C; texts: Genesis 15:1-6; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16

I’ve always been a little bit creeped out by the dark, it makes me edgy.  During my summers in college I worked at a camp called Voyageurs Lutheran Ministry.  I almost always felt safe there, except when it got dark.

You see, my counselor cabin was at the bottom of a very steep hill.  Much of the hill was lit up, except when you turned onto the path towards my cabin.  On that path, there was only one light and for some reason there was a motion sensor on it, except sometimes it worked in reverse so when you walked by it would actually turn off.  And when it did, it would be pitch black, and I’d be in the middle of the woods, by myself.

And even though I knew that camp like the back of my hand, when the lights went out I immediately became a little bit nervous about my surroundings and my imagination would start to run wild.  Twigs breaking in the woods suddenly became wild animals watching me from a place I couldn’t see.  Footsteps in the distance were no longer perceived as a possible friend, but a possible enemy.

In all, I trusted the camp a lot less when it was dark.

Darkness gives us a lot of doubt.  It makes us doubt the things that we think we know.  It makes us look at the world suspiciously.

Of course, this is not just about daylight vs. nighttime.  Darkness is also a metaphor for evil, brokenness, and sadness in the world, and there is a lot of darkness.  World-wide statistics point that out.  For example, did you know that 21,000 children die every day.  Similarly on a daily basis 21,000 people will die from hunger today.  And what’s more, each year 677,000 children are abused in America, growing up in homes where they aren’t safe

When we hear about this kind of darkness that covers our world, it’s easy to become skeptical or cynical about those things that we thought we knew.  Growing up in America, many people went to Sunday School learning songs like, Jesus loves me, this I know, and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.

But if the whole world is in Jesus’ hands, why are so many people dying unnecessarily?

This kind of skepticism and cynicism is reflected in national studies that show an increasing trend in people who are claiming to be ‘agnostic’ or to have no affiliation with the church or ‘organized religion’.  Many of these people are disillusioned with religion, and are asking, if God really loves me then why is there so much darkness?

This is a valid question.  Wars, genocide, disease, corporate greed, individual greed, injustice of all kinds run rampant in our world.  You don’t need me to tell you this because this is not a problem that is far off.  It is a problem that is here, with us right now.  Many people here have endured life with depression, anxiety or illness.  Most of us, if not all of us, have dealt with an untimely or unexpected loss of a loved one.  Still others of us have painfully suffered from, or watched loved ones suffer from addiction or self-destructive behavior.

Now, everyone reacts to pain and suffering differently, especially when it comes to matters of faith.  While some people to reject the idea of a loving God, others, I’m sure many here, lean on God and their faith in order to weather turbulent times.  We come to church, we pray, and maybe even find a person of faith to give us comfort.  But at the same time even those who cling to faith in turbulent times can wonder how God could possibly be present, or even possibly be real in the face of extreme devastation.

That mix of devastation and doubt makes up the nighttime of our lives.

These are the times where we feel like darkness and evil surround us.  These are the times where our faith is tested in extreme measure.  These are times where we wonder if our prayers have gone unheard or if we can ever really proclaim again that, Jesus loves me, this I know.

We are not alone in feeling this way.  The Bible is full of people who, in their darkest hours, lament to God and wonder out loud where God is in the midst of great evil and suffering.

After losing his livelihood, his family, and his health, for example, Job demands that God take his life and complete his suffering.  “Oh that I might have my request, and that God would grant my desire; that it would please God to crush me, that he would let loose his hand and cut me off!”  The Psalms ask over and over, “Why do you hide your face from me, O God?”  We even hear this lament in the voice of Jesus on the cross as he cries, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

Yet, it’s in these moments of darkness, of utter bleakness and loss, that God comes to the world and says, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

And that is exactly what happens in our Genesis text today to Abram and Sarah.   Here are two people, who have been told by God that they are to be parents of many nations, but now Abram and Sarah are both too old to conceive and they think they’ve lost their chance.

Can you imagine how devastated they must feel?  During Biblical times, it was incredibly important to have children.  Having a family meant having workers in your fields and homes.  It meant having someone to pass your legacy down to.  Many even believed that having a large family meant that God blessed you, while those who weren’t able to conceive believed God cursed them.

Abram and Sarah might be thinking that they’ve let God and maybe even the nations down in some way.  Maybe they feel saddened by the belief that they will never get to raise their own children.  However they felt, they’re surely going through a period in their lives where they are questioning God’s promise.  They’re going through the darkness and they can’t possibly see the road ahead, where God is asking them to go.

“Do not be afraid, Abram,” says the LORD. “I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”  But Abram expresses his doubt with this answer.  “O LORD God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?  You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”

It must be nighttime when this interaction occurs, because God takes Abram outside and he says something really interesting.  God says, “Look towards heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.  So shall your descendants be.”

Go outside where it is dark and count the stars.  This is how God responds to Abram’s lament.  I find this fascinating because God doesn’t say “hope comes in the morning” or “wait till first light,” like Gandalf in “The Lord of the Rings”.  No, God comes to Abram in the darkness, and it’s in the darkness that God gives Abram an incredible sign of hope.  “Count the stars,” says God, “So shall your descendants be.”

In the face of Abram and Sarah’s struggle, to hear that God is still present, to know that God is still there and has a plan to bless them abundantly, must have been a comfort to them that night.  Though they didn’t know how or why, and though they had struggles and doubts, Abram and Sarah from then on knew that anytime stars were out, that it would be OK.

Hebrews tells us that faith is the “conviction of things not seen.”  The remarkable thing about this is that – if faith is the conviction of the unseen, then it takes place in the dark.  Faith happens in the midst of doubt and evil, not in the absence of those things.  And like Abram, it is in the dark that God comes to us with hope in a promise of God’s enduring faithfulness and love towards us.

Faith then is not something we can do ourselves.  Faith is given to us through a promise when God comes to us in the darkness and says, “Count the stars, if you are able.”  This kind of trust is not a belief in our faithfulness to God.  This trust is a belief in God’s faithfulness to us, especially when we are surrounded by darkness.

It is incredibly difficult to trust God in our darkest hour, when we cannot see the path ahead of us.  Like Abram and Sarah, often all that we have is a promise.  But how do we know that we can trust this promise?  Abram and Sarah were eventually given a miracle that proved God’s faithfulness, but how do we know that God will be faithful to us?

As Christians we see that God’s promise of faithfulness is fulfilled already, on the cross.   By giving his Son for the world God has already proven his faithfulness to us.  And what’s more, in the empty tomb we know that God has defeated darkness and will defeat darkness in our lives today.  Because if God can turn the cross into a symbol of great love and joy, then God can take this present evil and turn it into a blessing too.

Few will ever experience the kind of miracle that Abram and Sarah experienced, but through the cross we can proclaim together that, Jesus loves me, this I know.  And in the empty tomb we can proclaim that God does in fact have the whole world in his hands.

So remember, when it is dark out, God says do not be afraid.  When things get scary, and feel hopeless, God says “I am your shield.”  Then God takes us outside and asks us:
Do you know how faithful I am to you? Look up, count the stars.
Do you want to know how much I love you?  Look into the sky, count the stars.
Do you want to know the plans that I have for you?  Look towards heaven, count the stars.

All of a sudden the darkness isn’t so scary.