Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

Fifth Sunday in Lent A

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

“Take off your clothes.”

Sources as reliable as Hippolytus of Rome and Cyril of Jerusalem attest to this shocking rubric, with which the bishop opened the baptismal rituals of the ancient church. In places as beautiful as Florence’s baptistry or as ordinary as a French country church, the presider began the baptismal rite: “Take off your clothes.”

They got the language from Jesus himself. John’s Gospel prefigures the dying and rising about to take place in the life of Jesus. Standing by Lazarus, John’s risen Christ commands: “Unbind him, and let him go.” That’s a close first cousin to the ancient church’s invitation, “take off your clothes.” Lazarus is about to be born again. And so are we.

Jesus invites us daily to step into the New Creation that he is about to forge on the cross. He looks with compassion on the emptiness of our lives as one might gaze upon a valley of dry bones. He wrestles out of the depths of the grave to be the first to rise from that grave-turned-womb into new and everlasting life. Even Jesus left his old clothes behind there in the tomb. They are the vestiges of a soiled and sin-filled former world.

That former world is a world of “if onlies…” The If only…. If only, Lazarus’ sisters mutter in their pain. And so do we.  If only I were smarter, thinner, richer, sexier, more content. If only we could agree. If only the planet weren’t overheating. If only this unprovoked war would end.  If only spring would come. 

So here’s an “if only,” of a different stripe. If only we could see ourselves in Lazarus, if only we could see ourselves as Lazarus. If only we could put ourselves in his place in this story, then we will hear Jesus invite us to lay aside all that clothes us in pain and sorrow, sin and death. Then from our muttering and pain, we will hear: “Unbind them, and let them go.” That is Jesus, talking through the Scriptures, to us, his beloved Church, today. “Unbind them and let them go.”

If only we could see that Christ offers to wrap us in new life. It is a cloak he has been weaving for us since Lent began:

 +To walk away from all in the former life with which the devil tempts us…

+To be born again, has Jesus reminded Nicodemus he must be.

+To drink of living water, the kind that Jesus shared with the Samaritan woman at the well.

+To proclaim, along with the man born blind, that Jesus is Lord.

+To allow the gifts of the Church to empower us to freely live in God’s good and renewed world, in ungrudging service to others

Breathe in the Spirit’s breath of New Creation. I encourage you to hear with ears of the resurrection our Christ proclaimed today at the table of new life:

With this bread and cup, we remember your Son, the first born of the New Creation.

By his own baptism into death, Jesus left behind the lifeless, stench-ridden clothing the world. From the grave he rose to make all things new. Just as the prayer says, “the first born of the New Creation.”

Into the valley of this beloved sanctuary, across our weary bones, his resurrection breath blows once more this holy day. He invites us to leave the old worn and ratty clothing of the past behind.

Free from fear, free from selfishness, or shame, free from the empty idle promises of this deceptive world. Free from death, itself. Free to leave that all behind, so that with him, we might live each day charged with the breath of the Spirit. We no longer live by the breath of the flesh. We live by the breath of the Spirit.

There’s one more thing. And it’s a big thing. It’s about why Jesus raised up Lazarus, why he stripped him of the garments of the graveyard. It’s about why he said, “unbind him, let him go.”

Jesus did not do this so that from here on out Lazarus could live an endless string of chicken soup for the soul kind of days.

Jesus did not say, “I am the resurrection.” He said more. “I am the resurrection and the life.”  As Lazarus is given new breath, new life, so are we each day. Every day. And not for our own sake. Listen in again on the Eucharistic prayer about to be proclaimed:

With this bread and cup, we remember your Son, the first born of the New Creation. We remember his life lived for others, and his death and resurrection which renews the face of the earth.

There it is: his life lived for others. Life that really is life. Our baptism promises us that own future is held eternally in the nail-printed hands of Jesus Christ, the first born of the New Creation. He raises us up new each day not to live for ourselves, but to renew the face of the earth. Tenderness. Care. Acceptance. Healing. Hope. Welcome. These are the sinews that stitch together a life that is really is life. A life that really is life for all people.

As Lazarus was buried in the tomb, so were we buried in baptismal waters. And as with Lazarus, Christ will raise us up, daily unbind us, and let us go. He will reclothe us, that we may serve those in need and bring to the dry and lifeless bones of a world destined for death the breath of resurrection.

The Lord Christ did unbind us, and he has let us go. We are free. Free, that with each new day we might shed our old and worn-out clothes and be dressed in the dazzling robes of Easter life. A life lived for others. The only life that really is life.

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

Lenten Midweek, Fourth Lent A

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

It’s really the all in this baptismal promise that hangs us up, isn’t it?

Do you promise to serve all people, following the example of Jesus?

Let’s face it, we’re pretty okay with serving some people, or even most people, or we wouldn’t be here, would we? For most of us, the opportunity to serve is one of the things that draws us to the community of Christ, that keeps us here. We don’t have a problem with serving. It’s the all – serving all people – that trips us up.

Are you like me in this regard? Do you like serving people who you know will serve you back when you’re down and out? Do you find it easy to serve those who will lavish praise, who will go the extra mile to thank you and love you up when the shoe is on other foot? That kind of serving isn’t always easy, but it comes with at least some modicum of reward. Serving people you like, serving people who are like you, is almost infectious in its appeal. It feels good.

But. But following the example of Jesus, we are called in our baptism to serve all people. And all people includes those who are not like us, who cannot return the favor when the tables are turned. Serving all people, following the example of Jesus means reaching out in grace and mercy to those we don’t understand, those with whom we do not agree, even to those who might do us harm, or be our enemies. Serving in this way is both God’s way of seeing that all the families of the earth are blessed, the partnership with God first offered to Abraham. And serving all people is also a pathway to the steadfast love of God that celebrates one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all. Serving all people, following the example of Jesus is the vision of a God who enters our human story and, with grace unbounded, offers life and freedom to all people. All.

From the lofty reaches of heaven, this Samaritan Jesus come to men and women who are driven by guilt and fear and offers hope and opportunity. Here we lie in ditches of our own making. We are beaten and bloodied by the challenges of the world. We try to love as God would have us love, but fail, and in human weakness fall prey to those who beat us up or knock us down. Sometimes the forces that do that are from outside ourselves, and often, they are from within.

It makes no difference to this foreign God who comes among us, just as in Jesus’ parable the Samaritan comes upon the beaten, bloodied one. With the gifts of the church, wine and oil, our God stoops to heal our need. Our God understands our failure to embrace all people as fully as we are called to embrace them. Our God understands our failure to answer the call to love ourselves with confident eyes that see ourselves and every other living thing as beloved, created, cherished by the never-ending compassion of our God.  Our God understands that day in and day out, one way or another, we end up abandoned and alone on roadways far from home, where those we would most expect to bind us up pass by on the other side. And where, at the same time, we are often the ones passing by on the other side of those who need us most.

The One who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love comes for one, for all on life’s dangerous and threatening winding roads, and binds our wounds with wine and oil. To the inn of the Church, Christ takes us, providing for our care in the company of either stranger or friend, until he comes again. His promise to return, and to repay, is all we need.

Do you promise to serve all people, following the example of Jesus?

Some days in our lives we will be the caregiver, and some days we will be the cared-for. But all days, we will be found in the loving embrace of the one who carries us in love and provides for us in his own body, the Church.

So here in the Inn, until Christ comes again, we learn and grow. We are challenged by all our baptism calls us to, not the least of which is the promise to serve all people, following in the footsteps of the one who died and rose again to save us all.

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

How do we hear our call, recognize it, and live it out when we are not able to see past challenges ahead of us?

Vicar Mollie Hamre
4th Sunday in Lent, Year A
Texts: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41

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

The man’s “blindness” is not the headliner for the Gospel today.  

It’s not an ailment that needs to be fixed or even the focus of the story. Blindness is not a condemnation, something that even Jesus notes in the Gospel. The focus is the way this man’s story grows into a proclamation. This man lives and recounts his story of gaining sight five times. And each time, his awareness and conviction grows stronger. In verse 11 we hear him say “the man called Jesus” and this description of Jesus grows. It turns to calling Jesus a prophet, to stating Jesus is a man from God, and ends with declaring Jesus as Lord. This man from the Gospel does what many of us seek out: hearing one’s call, recognizing it, and proclaiming it. 

Hearing, seeing, and knowing Jesus is not something that is granted upon those who are chosen or just blessed enough. It is like anything else we do, when we compassionately seek and ask questions with open minds, God is there. 

The first time the man born blind interacts with Jesus, he can not see Jesus. 

He can only hear Jesus’ voice giving two small directions: go and wash. When the man returns, being able to see, Jesus is no longer there. Which leaves the man to describe his experience to those questioning around him where this person who helped him gain sight went. His reply is simple: I do not know. What he does know is that something has taken place and his life will never be the same. This man is someone who was looked down upon, who people accused of sinning, and yet, he is the one who teaches in the end. He is the one preaching that God listens and works through those we would least expect. 

So, when we hear this Gospel, we hope to be the man born blind.

The person who hears Jesus’ voice and follows it amidst the confusion. But sometimes we don’t and instead are left with the sinking question: “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Our biggest fear. What if the one’s blind to God’s call is actually us? That we could be the ones not doing enough, ignoring the voices of those that are oppressed, and missing the call to love one another. It is a scary thought that weighs a guilty conscience on us in a world full of turmoil. If only we could fix every problem, every lie in the media, and sweep away the oppression that is happening in our world. And when we ask where Jesus, God with us is, sometimes the answer is: I do not know. And that as a starting point, for all of these daunting questions, is okay. We will sometimes be the blind and yet, we are told that Jesus comes to us to open our eyes.

Notice the places our community is already doing this:

This past month of February 109 families with 163 babies total were assisted with receiving diapers through the diaper packing and delivery program. Partnerships with Align Minneapolis provided rental assistance for families that are at risk of being without homes. And we hear prayers each week for our global and neighborhood partners addressing food insecurity, mental health services, and relief to those around the world. There are many more ways our community impacts those around us that I have not mentioned, and these are wonderful ways God calls to this community. Do not ignore the power of that call. 

With all of these extraordinary things, we know there are places for growth too.

 In this past month alone, 72 people came through our doors seeking help. 13 families were added to the waiting list for diaper deliveries. People in our community here are without homes and affordable housing is hard to find. Our shelters are overwhelmed. Our community knows families seeking out safety and being faced with immigration policies are difficult to navigate. It’s a lot. 

So where do we start?

It makes me think about learning a new language. If I have never spoken a language before, I will not recognize it at first. I will not know how to speak it. But if I talk to those who speak the language. If I seek out understanding and lessons. If I seek out times of growth to be immersed in the language. If I try speaking the language and see how it feels coming from my own mouth, I will learn a new language. It takes time and persistence. These are all aspects of a long-term commitment to immersing oneself in the call that our Triune God has to each of us. By listening to one another. Holding one another’s burdens, vulnerabilities, and listening to each other stories of loss, questions, and worries. By looking to our community and listening to where the Spirit calls us. 

These words and this work are not a light load.

And not one that rests on a single individual’s shoulders either. Discerning where the Triune God calls us as individuals and as a community, all at once, working together. It asks that we recognize and seek Christ in one another. It asks that we listen to the ways God is calling us to love our neighbors, locally and globally. If we are to hear God’s call, in our community and life together, we must begin at listening for the voice of Jesus. To the voices of one another and our neighbors outside these walls. To trust that even if we are walking into challenges blind, that Jesus, God with us, meets us along the way. 

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

Third Sunday in Lent A

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

John sets this up as an engagement story. In Israel’s history, the well was the place where marriages were arranged. At this very well, two engagements took place that we know of. It’s where Rebekah’s marriage to Isaac was arranged. Not long after, Jacob finds his future wife Rachel by this well. John tells us that this well belonged to Jacob to remind us that it is a place of wrestling. John also tells us it once belonged to Joseph, reminding us that it is also a place of dreams.

Many engagement stories are like that, aren’t they?  They’re stories of wresting, and stories of dreams.

Here by the well today, John uses the marriage images of commitment, faith, intimacy to invite us to a deeper level of engagement with Jesus.

Our engagement with the Living Christ also begins at a well. In its most robust celebrations, at the baptismal well we are stripped naked and handed into the arms of the body of Christ, to be engaged for life. It is a life that can be lived in the deepest, most tender forgiving grace of God if we will stop wrestling and surrender to it. It is also a life in which the Risen Christ calls us to be deeply engaged in God’s dream of loving the world.

God longs to be known by us deeply and intimately. In Christ, God meets us at the well, inviting us to share all that we have ever done, to lay it all out, and by his grace have it washed away. It will take some wrestling for us to do that, but do not be afraid. This very well, connected as it is to Jacob, has seen wrestling before. It is here that Jacob wrestled with his deepest demons, and came out on the side of God. There’s some verbal wrestling here between Jesus and the woman. All of it meant to give us courage. We may be weary, worn, and sad, but the voice of Jesus says, day after day, “Don’t wrestle with the world alone. Come to me and rest.” Jesus has living water for those who wrestle, who thirst, who long to be seen and heard as this Samaritan woman longed to be.

The plot where Jesus and the woman stand is a place of wrestling. It is also a place of dreams. Remember: Joseph, the dreamer, was there.

God dreams that the well which set us free will also be a well where dreams of living water for all people begin to flow. As engaged as Christ is with us, just so Christ dreams of us engaged with the world. The needy word. The lonely world. The brutal, punishing world.  The world that surrounds us and longs for the sort of invitation to life-giving waters that Jesus offered the Samaritan woman at the well.  The sort of living water that Christ offers us with the dawn of each new day.

Just one example of how much the world needs our intimate engagement runs parallel to this story of the well. Every day, every single day, 263 million people walk to provide water for themselves or their families. Most of them are women. Their daily walk for water is often frustrated by long lines and polluted wells. When they carry their water home, they are carrying 40 pounds, about the weight of one of your tires on your car. The time and energy that it takes 263 million women to carry their daily water robs them of time with their children, takes them away from their homes, punishes their bodies, crushes their spirits. It seems like we who have so much could do something about that. It seems like one day Jesus might ask us who do not walk, “Did you know the joy of full engagement with the world’s crying need? Did you have the privilege of making someone’s life a little less soul-crushing?”

There are as many ways of engaging with the world as there are people of God and imaginations that inhabit them. Having been given so much, having trust that God will care for us, we can dream of extending ourselves in love to others. And not to only dream, but do. Being a child of God is always lived on a two-way street, is it not?  In the left lane, we’re so grateful for what we receive as a gift from the one who weds himself to us in love on the cross.  And in the right lane, we recognize our call comes with the privilege and opportunity of being the hands and feet, the lips and ears of Christ in the world for all those in need.

The Bible says of the Woman at the Well. “she left her water jar and went back to the city.” She left it because of the confident faith that Christ inspired. When she left that jar behind, she risked everything to answer Jesus’ call. That jar was her life. Without it, who knew what tomorrow would hold? It was a question she was willing to live into, by faith.

Will we leave our water jars? Can we leave our water jars, in trust, and dream with God into a better world for all people everywhere?

We might not be quite ready for such a bold dream just yet. We may still be wrestling, like Jacob: with God, with ourselves, with all our stuff that seems so dear to us and is so very hard to walk away from. Yet every day we hesitate to dream of a deeper engagement as God’s hands and lips and heart in the world, a woman makes another lonely trip to the well. She makes the back-breaking, barefoot journey home. And in our own way, we too grow wearier and more worn down by a call we can’t quite live into, that stymies us by its enormity, that baffles us by its complexity. A call to engage with a world so needy we’re often plagued with compassion fatigue.

To all this weary world, the same voice of the Risen Christ calls one, calls all, to the living water where our thirsts are quenched, our souls revived, and our lives forever live in him. We wrestle. And we dream. God joins us in both, with a hope that does not disappoint us, but allows us to drink deeply of the Living Water that is Christ himself, to have our souls revived, and to engage deeply, deeply, with all this weary world. It is a holy marriage.  And today, Jesus is proposing to us, one and all.

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

God calls us to share the word of God and the Lord’s Supper together to help one another grow–not just for when we start our baptismal journeys, but for our whole lives.

Vicar Mollie Hamre
Midweek Lent Service, Week 2, Year A
Texts: Isaiah 55:6-13, Psalm 121, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Matthew 15:29-39

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

There was a young girl in my home congregation who was fascinated by communion. The girl was preschool age or so, having long pigtails in her hair that would go over her shoulders. On Sundays her family would go to the front to kneel for communion, with her looking at them to watch. Watch as they would hold out their hands, watch the way they would receive communion, and then look at the way the Pastor would place the bread in their hands. 

And eventually, this preschooler started to do the same. Practiced quietly waiting her turn, figuring out the kneeling up at front, and holding out her hands. Once this had been all put together, she was ready. Except instead of looking to the Pastor… She turned to her mother with open hands. Surprised, her mother quietly turned to the daughter, broke her communion in half, and then shared communion with the preschooler. 

At last, finally holding the piece of communion in her hands, the daughter looked up and gave her mother an enormous smile. For the first time, this young girl got to be a part of what was happening. 

When thinking about our baptismal lives, I am constantly reminded that children are wonderful teachers. They have genuine curiosity as well as questions that make you stop and think. They are exciting to share and learn with. And I know from my two-year-old nephew, they have plenty to talk about. So, in the baptisms of each child we see, bringing the Word of God and the Holy Supper come naturally. We want to teach, see that development, and be a part of that hope. These are the baptismal promises we make as a community. 

But what about these promises in our lives when we become older? What about when that excitement and curiosity for the world turns into doubt? Into questions? Turns into seeing the parts of our world that have suffering. In baptism, we say the words in such a simple way: bringing one to the Word of God and the Holy Supper. But stating that and conceptualizing it are completely different. What about when we have read the Bible, take Communion together, and then are not sure what comes next?

Our text from Isaiah today reflects on a different angle to this question. The writer speaks about rain and snow as they fall to the ground, coming to Earth. Isaiah specifically notes that the snow and water do not return until it has watered the Earth making it “bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.” Bringing growth in the forms of food and nourishment for the creatures of the Earth. I could not help but be amazed because it sounds like the water cycle. We know that when rain and snow fall on our ground, it cycles backup to nourish our world once again. Continuously feeding one another so that the Earth and creation may flourish. 

Take that image and think about the Word of God and the meals we share. God comes to us, each of us, feeding us through community, literal meals, and hearing God’s words through those we do not know. And that community and Word grows in us. Telling us that we are loved, important to this world, and that the promises we make in our baptisms are held. Cycling back as we connect to our Triune God. 

This is not the type of cycle one might expect. 

So often we hear metaphors of faith lives being compared to pouring oneself dry and then having to go back to fill one’s self back up. Giving this image that in order to be filled, we must be empty. But what if we thought about our faith lives as a cycle? The cycle of each week when you enter into this space dipping your hands into the baptismal waters knowing that God moves throughout God’s creation, sending us “out in joy and [being] led back in peace.” Being sent out to live into the Word of God and share in the Lord’s Supper, then returning in peace to be part of those sacraments once again.

This sending out and being led back takes so many different forms today. It looks like telling LGBTQIA folks that in amidst injustice, they are loved, held, and supported. It looks like listening to our students in schools to ensure safe learning environments. It looks like aiding and standing with people in Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, and Afghanistan who are all suffering and in danger. It looks like calling for a greener world with less pollution and more hope for the future. These, and many more, are all ways the spirit moves within us, sending us out into the world and calling us back. Cycling within us the baptismal waters leading to growth and hope.

For the child in my home congregation, these cycles, these movements bring change. 

Change that needs community, nourishment and continued growth, even into adulthood and past that. These promises made in baptism are not just for the ones being baptized in order they know the Bible or consistently take Communion, but that they know our Triune God continues to be present. That they know the spirit continues to move through them as well as through each person in the community. God continues to work through us. God calls us to share the word of God and the Lord’s Supper together to help one another grow–not just for when we start our baptismal journeys, but for our whole lives. Calling us to the table, to the baptismal font, and to one another. 

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