sermon

But With the Holy Spirit

January 12, 2025 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

The Spirit of the Triune God is in you and giving you the gifts to be and do your mission as God’s Christ in your world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Baptism of Our Lord, First Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 1 C
Texts: Luke 3:15-22; Acts 8:14-17; Isaiah 43:1-7 (and referencing Isaiah 11 as well)

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

Pentecost changed everything for the Church. That’s obvious.

The Church came to birth that day. But what isn’t as obvious is how deeply those first believers expected Pentecost to be repeated for any who came to trust Christ for life.

So, when those who heard on that first day asked what they could do, Peter invited them to repent and be baptized, receiving forgiveness, but also promised they’d receive the Holy Spirit. As the book of Acts unfolds, the early Church watches for the coming of the Spirit, names where they see the Spirit moving, and lives with confident expectation that the Spirit would continue to bless the Church, and individual believers. What we heard in Acts 8 today became the pattern: baptize, then lay on hands and pray for the Holy Spirit.

From the beginning this was always the promise of our baptism.

John the Baptist was clear: His baptism was an act of repentance, a symbolic washing. But Christ would bring a baptism not only with water, but into the very Spirit of the Triune God.

So when the early Church read Isaiah 11, which promised how the Spirit of God would come upon the Christ, they said, “That’s what happened at the Jordan with Jesus. And that’s what happened to us at Pentecost. And that’s what we see happening with all who come to follow the way of Christ.”

So they prayed Isaiah 11 as a prayer, and so do we, at baptisms, at confirmation, and today when we affirm our own baptism once more: “Stir up in your people the gift of your Holy Spirit:” we pray. “The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of God, the Spirit of joy in your presence.”

What if this Spirit was and is your gift, your truth? What if you joined the early believers and expected, trusted that Pentecost was also your reality?

Somehow as the Church we lost our way with Baptism over the centuries.

Baptism became sometimes a talisman, sometimes a way to control whom God loved and chose, sometimes a way to guarantee a seat at the heavenly table after death. It caused fear if someone died without it, as if God was somehow bound by our inability to get the rite accomplished. It was often something to be done and then for the most part forgotten.

That meant the Spirit life expected by John and Jesus and the early believers as part of baptism, the mission that comes from baptism in water and the Spirit, was kind of dropped by the wayside. Many of us weren’t taught that our baptism was the beginning of our mission as God’s Anointed, just as with Jesus.

So what if we take the early Church seriously? They saw God’s Spirit active in Jesus, empowering and gracing. Everything he did, taught, shared, lived, came from the Spirit of God that was evident in in him.

Pentecost showed them that as with Jesus, so it would be with them, and even with those who were drawn to the community of Christ but weren’t at Pentecost. And the world was being changed.

The Spirit is frightening to contemplate, though.

It’s easier to believe in a God you can control. Get all your teaching straight, get the simple answers you want, and you’ve got God in hand. Once you introduce God’s Spirit blowing, moving, filling, fiery and changing, all bets are off.

You can’t control who thinks the right thoughts about God and what those right thoughts are when the way the Triune God lives and moves in the world is through the Holy Spirit, who can’t be controlled, or predicted, or stopped. The Spirit blows wherever she wills, Jesus promises in John 3. We can only see where the Spirit has been, we have no control. So to pray this prayer is to relinquish illusion of control. To trust that God will do what God will do and be open and willing to receive that movement from God. Willing to let go of our need to define God or the boundaries of God’s action in the world.

It’s scary. But it’s also the good news: if the Triune God is who Scripture says, who we claim God to be, God’s already doing everything without our say so. There’s nothing at stake in relinquishing except our stubborn clinging to an illusion that isn’t real anyway.

So what could your life be like if you expected these gifts of the Spirit?

Trusted the Holy Spirit is in you? Watched for signs of the Spirit’s moving in your life? What if you expected you’d be given wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of God, and joy in God’s presence? What would such gifts do in your life, your relationships, your service?

If you don’t think you’ve seen such gifts in you, ask someone who knows you well. We see things in others we often can’t see in ourselves. It may be that others might have seen gifts in you already.

But here’s your mission: expect the Spirit’s gifts and be ready to move.

Washed in God’s waters and given forgiveness and life, God has called you by name, and you are God’s beloved child; God is well pleased with you. And now God’s Spirit lives, and moves, and breathes, and loves in you. Name that. Watch for it, and expect to see great wonders.

Because Pentecost changes everything. And Pentecost is already your truth.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Wisdom finds her home

January 5, 2025 By Vicar at Mount Olive

Often we might feel hopeless when we look at the state of the world; but throughout time Wisdom has searched for her home and found it amidst similarly hopeful and bleak times. Wisdom has made her home in us and transforms our hearts and minds to see hope where it appears there is none.

Vicar Natalie Wussler
The Second Sunday of Christmas, years A, B, and C
Texts: Sirach 24:1-12; Wisdom 10:15-21; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:[1-9], 10-18

Beloved in Christ, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When we’re faced with hard times, conventional wisdom says to batten down the hatches. To disregard hope for restoration and goodness for all and to focus on what we had control over.

Right now, that kind of wisdom makes sense. it doesn’t feel like there’s much hope for restoration and goodness. There’s not a lot of faith in our country. And everyday, trust in our fellow humans degrades more and more. Just look at our first few days of 2025 and the war and terrorism, the increasing violence and discrimination we bear witness to. We’re still anxiously anticipating the kinds of terrors our country will endure in the next 4 years and beyond. And each of us are still going through our own pains–like grief, loss, insecurities. We each are constantly being faced with lofty problems with no easy solutions, and we can start to feel powerless. Like the Israelites standing at the banks of the Red Sea, we’re terrified of the roaring waves of chaos and brokenness and sometimes see no way forward. It’s paralyzing and isolating and sometimes we just want to throw in the towel and give up.

But that’s where God’s Wisdom comes in most powerfully. Because God’s Wisdom gives us the hope to take steps forward when the path is unclear. Wisdom helps us make sense of the world and how we play a role in its healing. Wisdom is a force that pushes us forward when it all feels like it’s too much, that makes a way where there appears to be no way. Wisdom gives us vision to see the world like God sees the world.

So it begs the question–how does God see the world? Going back in Sirach, Wisdom searched high and low to find a home, from the vaults of heaven to the depths of the abyss. No spot was a resting place until Wisdom found the Israelites in the wilderness, an underdog kind of people searching for their home, too, in a time where the threat of empires loomed large. These people were starting to understand who they were as God’s holy people, and getting it wrong more often than not. But Wisdom saw the Israelites as a worthy place to pitch a tent and the Spirit of God rested in the tabernacle, dwelt with the people, and poured out love.

And then, this Wisdom became flesh and dwelt as a person. God put on flesh. God dwelt, literally pitched a tent, amidst us. Tabernacling amongst the people in flesh as God once did in a tent in the wilderness. The Word and Wisdom of God, which existed with God at creation, became a human in a world that was broken, experiencing the crushing grip of the Roman empire, where the poor and vulnerable were marginalized. God saw this world for what it was–all its flaws and all its suffering, all its proclivities toward greed and violence, and still saw a world worth taking on flesh and all it means to be human; a world worth deep and personal love and sacrifice. And through living and dying as a human, Jesus made a way for the Holy Spirit to dwell within each of us. Out of God’s fullness and love for the us, we receive grace upon grace that is the Holy Spirit. Through our baptism, God freely gives us the Holy Spirit, who pitches her tent within us. And this same Wisdom that rested in the tabernacle and was enfleshed as Jesus now abides within each of us. In all our brokenness and suffering, in all the ways we believe we are unqualified bearers of God’s Spirit, in all the ways we believe we don’t measure up, God sees us as worthy homes for the Holy Spirit. We are each tabernacles of God’s Spirit and Wisdom, and everywhere we go, the Spirit and Wisdom of God also goes.

Instead of giving up hope, Wisdom gives us hope. Despite all the brokenness we witness, Wisdom still sees people who are worth loving and who are worth the risk of living. And Wisdom chooses each of us to do this work. And when we let Wisdom change our hearts and our minds, we see this world, yes, for all its pains and its bleakness, but we also see people worth loving, we see places worth healing, and good work worth doing. As mini tabernacles, we are bearers of healing and love to our weary world. And just as the Word became flesh, each time you act in love, compassion, justice, you are now making simple words flesh. You’re embodying the Wisdom of God in your life, in this community. Wherever you pitch your tent and dwell, you are enfleshing God’s Wisdom and you are bearers of self-sacrificial love. You bring the reign of God we all seek a little bit closer.

And there will still be days that feel hopeless, days where it feels like the powers of evil, greed, and destruction have the upper hand. Days where we believe we aren’t good enough to be bearers of God’s love and Wisdom and days where the love we bear hurts. And on those days, we can rely on the Wisdom that’s made its home in us to carry us, to catch glimpses of hope, promising that the painful things are not the last things.

And in those moments we’ve been given this Holy community. It’s not a coincidence that the writer of Sirach says Wisdom’s glory is found in the midst of her people. We need each other. We need each other’s stories and we need to hear about the wisdom each of us have learned through our individual journeys of faith. These stories are sacred and they are medicine to a tired and weary soul. Our shared wisdom creates resilience. It gives us the vision to see the roaring seas in our way, and the hope to believe that a path will be made and that God will meet us there. And when we as communities full of wisdom come together, share our stories, and spur each other toward love, we become the enfleshed hope we all crave. A hope that can heal a world worth loving.

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

God-Made-Human

December 25, 2024 By Vicar at Mount Olive

Jesus took on what it means to be human and all the beauty and pain associated with that. Jesus knows our pain and gives us permission to not hide from our humanity.

Vicar Natalie Wussler
Christmas Day
Texts: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-4; John 1:1-14

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Yesterday, we marveled at the baby born in the darkness of night. At the angels who sang songs of peace on earth. Of the shepherds who ran from their flocks to greet this infant, and the risky love that reverberates through this beloved Christmas story. And today, John gives something very different. “The word became flesh and lived among us” John says. These words aren’t just an interesting theological point that we can debate over. These words are world-altering reality. The Almighty and everliving God had spoken to people through angels, through kings, and prophets to connect with people. And now, God is getting personal. God didn’t send a messenger from afar to declare God’s word, nor did God show up as a transcendent spirit. The Word of God, who has had skin in this game since before time began, put on skin and reached out to us in a new way.

“And the Word became flesh,” John says. These four words are the wonder of Christmas. That Jesus, the very radiance and representation of God’s being, would put on flesh and become fully human. He was the visible expression of the invisible God, speaking to us in a language that we could understand, identifying with the frailties and tragedies of being human. God was getting up close by becoming a person. The omnipotent, in one instant, was breakable. God who was larger than the universe became an embryo that grew in a womb for 9ish months, amidst amniotic fluids, and was born as an infant. This word, the one who sustains the world, chose to be dependent on a young girl. And this holy and saving arm of God transformed into a baby’s grasping hand. Jesus took on everything that flesh entails, weariness, thirst, joy, and the full pallet of human emotions complete with laughter and tears.

“And the Word lived among us.” Jesus dwelt in the world, “moved into the neighborhood,” as Eugene Peterson of the Message Bible translation says. Jesus was not just an observer of this human story. He fully stepped into our world–in this messy, painful, and beautiful world. This world hurt Jesus as it hurts many of us. He felt the pain of rejection and abandonment. Jesus knows the sting of death and grief. Jesus has been there. And now, we know God through the way the person of Jesus lived in the world, the people he loved, the stories he told, the gruesome human death he suffered, and the resurrection of his human body.

God was not afraid to be a human. But the same can’t always be said for us. Because in so many ways, we hide our humanity. We hide the things that make us look weak. We cover our wrinkles with anti-aging cream. We deny ourselves rest in favor of pushing through and getting a job done. And sometimes we’re not honest with ourselves about how hard life can be. Especially around this time of year, when families gather, Christmas lights shine in shades of neon, when radios blare holiday music that commands us to “have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” being honest with ourselves, with our pains is just that much more difficult. We fear exposing our shortcomings, and hide them away for no one else to see. We build up these walls that separate us from each other, and we all end up feeling like no one else knows our pain.

But God-made-flesh and dwelling with us says that we worship a God who knows all that makes us feel weak and knows the pain we want to keep close to the vest. Jesus looks at you in everything you go through and whispers “me too.” Jesus, being part of the trinity, takes his experience as a person and brings it into the heart of the Triune God. We have an empathetic God who gets us and all of the tragic, weird, and beautiful parts of being human.

If you are approaching this afternoon or this week anxious that you will not be accepted as you are, Jesus gets it.
If you are looking forward to leaving this place and spending your day in the warm embrace of loved ones, Jesus gets it.
If you are feeling alone or rejected this Christmas season, Jesus gets it.
If you are despairing at the state of the world, Jesus gets it.
If you are doubting if God is even listening to you, Jesus gets it.
Jesus has been there.

This God-child we witnessed being born last night can relate to what we go through. We don’t have to hide ourselves. We can come out of the shadows and experience the light and healing that is found in the word-made-flesh. We can bring everything to God, Our pain, our brokenness, and our vulnerability., and trust that Jesus will meet us where we are, saying “me too” and walking with us all our days.

Last night, as the lights dimmed and the church was all shadows, one candle shined, and slowly, more candles lit and the room was brighter. We could see each other. And that’s what happens when we are honest with ourselves and each other. And as we are empowered by our vulnerable, empathetic God who weeps and laughs and is tangible, we can embrace the very human parts of ourselves and realize that the world needs those parts of us. This world needs our stories. So we can come out of hiding and live as our authentic selves. And we, too, can look through tears into the eyes of the other, be vulnerable, and whisper “me too,” and call each other out of hiding to assure each other that we are not alone. And no amount of secrecy, shame, or suppression can overcome the love that is shared when communities of people live in vulnerable authenticity and all are accepted with open arms. We can encourage each other and release God’s empathetic love for us into the world, one vulnerable moment at a time, following in the footsteps of the Word-Made-Flesh.

In the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Love Is Risk

December 24, 2024 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

God risks everything – being wounded, even killed – to be able to bring healing and life to you and the whole creation.

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

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

When you have been wounded, you can bring healing.

I’ve been in a spiritual direction group with three other pastors for 26 years now. We meet monthly with our spiritual director, have shared our lives with each other, helped each other heal.

Once I was sharing something painful that I was going through. I worried that maybe it was too much, even in that group. But I looked at my friend – one I admire and respect so much – and I saw tears in his eyes. And I knew without words that he absolutely had known the same pain, and I was going to be OK.

When you have been wounded, you can bring healing. This is the heart of love. And it’s the heart of God’s coming as one of us.

The beautiful writer and theologian Madeline L’Engle wrote a poem ^[1] wondering about risking bringing a child into this world.

“This is no time for a child to be born,” she writes, “With the earth betrayed by war & hate.” So many young people today ask that, if they should even consider children. And God faced the same question 2,000 years ago, L’Engle says in the second stanza: “That was no time for a child to be born, / In a land in the crushing grip of Rome; / Honor & truth were trampled by scorn.”

But her final stanza asks the true question: “When is the time for a child to be born?” There’s always hatred and oppression and violence and threat. But then there’s her final line: “Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.”

That’s God’s answer to the question. It’s never a good time. But God’s Love will risk birth anyway.

And that’s what brings us together tonight.

God risked being born as a helpless child in the midst of a violent, hateful world. God’s Love decided to risk birth, not in spite of the dangers and threats. But because of them. Because when you’ve been wounded, you can bring healing. God can’t stay distant if God is hoping to bring healing to you and me and all people, to this frightened and broken creation. God has to come here and risk.

God needs to experience human pain and suffering, know it intimately, be scarred by it, bleed of it. Even die for it. Because then we can look into God’s eyes in our pain and suffering and see tears that know what we’re facing. Tears that have already been shed before. Only by entering our pain can the God who made all and loves all, becoming vulnerable, able to be wounded, open a path to healing and hope.

And it’s how you and I will bring healing to others.

Once we’ve gone through pain and found God with us, now we can be healing hope to others. If we risk that. If we are willing to be vulnerable with each other and with those we meet. It’s a huge risk. But love risks, because it’s the only way to healing.

You have shed tears, you’ve bled, had a broken heart, you’ve known fear and grief and dread. When you fully embody that truth, your heart, your woundedness, your sadness, your fear, and risk sharing that with others, you are God’s healing.

You see, love risks on both sides. Even if you’re the Triune God.

God’s Love risked coming to us here. But God also trusted that our love would take risks for this child. Love goes both ways.

It’s time to let go of the legend of Mary and Joseph turned away at the door and wandering to find house room in a stable. It’s one we love, especially when remembering the many who are driven away from doors in our world, but it didn’t happen. Luke says there was no room for them in the “guest room.” “Inn” has never been a good translation. Luke knows the difference because in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, he takes the wounded man to an inn. It’s a different word.

And that matters, because God’s risk of love was greeted by a welcome of open arms, by people who were suffering themselves under oppression and poverty. No one would refuse hospitality then, let alone to a couple ready to bring a child into the world. Certainly relatives wouldn’t, which Joseph certainly would have come to.

No, Aunt Betty and her brood were already in the guest room, so Mary and Joseph were welcomed into the main room of the house where everyone slept, where the family’s few animals were brought in for the night. Jesus was in a manger off the floor so he wouldn’t be rolled on.

And Mary was surrounded by women who knew what to do, who made sure this child arrived safely and was washed and warm and welcome. They even had swaddling cloths ready, Luke says.

This is how God always hopes it will work – love risks in both directions, is wounded in both directions, and can heal in both directions.

So let’s risk love.

Let’s risk it all. Open up and trust that through our shared pain and joy and fear and hope we will find healing and life together.

When you’ve been wounded, you are able to bring healing. Even if you’re the Triune God. That’s God’s gift to you and the creation, and God’s invitation to all, so that in our shared risk, our shared love, our shared vulnerability, hope and healing might finally come to this world and bring life.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Blessed Ordinary

December 22, 2024 By Pr. Joseph Crippen

Incarnation is God in you and me, everyday human people whose only call is to be everyday human people who love and care for the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday of Advent, year C
Text: Luke 1:39-45

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

There was a knock at the door.

The elderly woman who looked like a grandmother, except for the very prominent bulge at her midsection pulled herself out of her seat and went to open it. She saw a young girl there, tired and dusty from a weeklong journey.

“Oh, honey,” Elizabeth said, drawing Mary into her arms, “I’m so glad you’re here. Come in and rest. I’ll get you something to eat.” And so began a long time of peace for both women, taking walks, resting, eating, talking, listening. Two women facing pregnancy and the mysteries of their changing bodies, one too old to be doing such a thing, one too young to know what it was going to be like.

At lunch one day, Elizabeth chuckled. “It’s funny how the minute I opened the door my baby jumped. I wonder if he knew who was there.” A little later she added, “I don’t get how its possible I’m sitting here with the mother of my Lord? Never expected that.”

With all due respect to Luke, this feels truer to what this visitation was. Two women, one too old to be doing such a thing, one too young to know what it was going to be like, sharing the experience together. But Luke is so focused on the divine beginnings of these two boys, he coats the story in a gloss of mystery and wonder, polishes up their plain words into lofty poetry. So we see these two women more for the boys growing inside than for what they’re actually doing.

The boys will have their day. But today let these women speak for themselves.

Because they show the heart of this visitation: ordinary human need.

When we think only of Mary’s child, we forget the ordinariness of it all. We get all theological and mystical and wonder, “what was it like to have God’s child growing in you?” For Mary, the identity of her baby is certainly a piece of the puzzle. But what she’s got to face first is simply human: pregnancy.

Her mother must have suggested she visit Elizabeth. She could have coached her daughter through the early days of pregnancy, as she did the last two thirds of it. But Mary goes on a 90 mile journey to Judea to Elizabeth almost as soon as she’s pregnant. Elizabeth must be something like Mary’s great-aunt, and likely the wise one Mary’s mother trusted most in the world. “Go see Aunty Elizabeth,” she must have said. “She’ll help you start sorting this, and then you can come back and face what’s ahead.”

Again, with all due respect to the writer of our Hymn of the Day today, I don’t think Mary ran “to greet the woman who would recognize her boy.” Mary ran to find the woman who would hold her and give her wisdom and space and guidance and love.

This is true incarnation: God is with us in each other in our ordinary lives.

These two spent three months together so they could do what was ahead of them. Mary left just before Elizabeth went into labor. She was ready to face what she needed to do back home. And Elizabeth was ready to face what was likely to be hard at her age.

God’s life is lived in and through you and me. But we need ordinary human care to help us live that life. People with experience who can walk with us and help us see the road ahead, people who can listen to our fears and concerns. Embrace us and invite us in for food and drink and peace.

That’s why so many of us need to be part of a community of faith. Like Mary, we need to be with people who understand, who help and support and love us, ordinary, regular people who know what it is to bear God in the world and to be human.

Today’s story’s not about the divine children. It’s about two human mothers.

Mary doesn’t need to learn to be the mother of the Messiah yet. She needs to learn to be a mother. She needs to learn to care for her body for nine months, to prepare for childbirth, to get ready for rearing an infant and then a toddler and then a child and then a teenager. She needs help with all that anxiety and fear. She’s got plenty of time to ponder the divine implications in her heart, and Luke says she takes that time. Certainly some of her conversations with Elizabeth were about God’s child. But mostly now she needs to face the very human things God needs her to do.

Like you. Whatever God needs of you, whatever love you are asked carry into your life, it’s not a mystery surrounded by angelic light and song. It will be normal, ordinary, human things you do. Loving, reaching out, being kind. Sharing your abundance with others, as Elizabeth’s boy will one day tell people by the banks of the river. Praying for those who do evil, loving even those who persecute and hate, as Mary’s boy will one day tell you.

Amidst all the pain and suffering of the world, the things none of us know how to fix, the oppression and evil that seems to be rising where more often than not we feel helpless, in all of that, God says “I just need you to be a loving human. And that will make a difference.” And so we help each other.

It starts with a knock at the door.

So let’s be good to each other and open up and help each other be loving humans.

God has chosen to work in you, in me, in all people for the life of the world. Just ordinary, living, breathing humans whose love and grace and generosity and courage and risk-taking and kindness can change the world.

Have a seat next to Elizabeth and Mary and they’ll help you figure why that’s such a joy.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen