There is only one way to take up our cross and follow: it is to do just that, to follow Jesus’ example and offer our lives to others, to the world, as Paul describes, so that God’s love and grace can continue to transform and renew the whole creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 22 A
   texts:  Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

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 appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  (Romans 12:1-2)

So Paul begins Romans 12, a claim for which our reading today provides the real-life example.  Be transformed, not conformed.  Present your body as a living sacrifice.

In Romans, we prefer other words of Paul: chapter 3, about God’s righteousness draped over us; chapter 5, saying that while we were still sinners, God loved us; chapter 8, promising that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Paul preaches God’s grace that is unearned and freely given in Christ’s death and resurrection.

If that’s all we need, then why chapter 12?

Peter is thrilled that Jesus is God’s Messiah, but when he hears that will lead to Jesus’ death, Peter tries to turn him in a different direction.  He is rebuked as “the opponent”, told to get out of the way.  We’re so similar to Peter: after the resurrection, we incorporated the cross and empty tomb into Peter’s hope for a life of victory and success following Christ.  Don’t talk about crosses, Jesus, unless it’s your cross; that means we get to live eternally.  Don’t talk about sacrifice, Paul, unless it’s Jesus’ sacrifice; then, praise God, we’re saved.

Jesus and Paul say, however, that our life in this world matters to God, because this world matters to God.  Following Christ is not about getting heaven, though we believe we have eternal life with him.  Following him is as Paul says, seeking to be transformed into new minds, new hearts, by the Spirit.  Becoming like Christ.

That’s going to be a sacrifice.  There’s no way to avoid it.

“Take up your cross,” Jesus says to all who wish to be his disciple.

He is not saying, “life will have difficulties you can’t control.  That’s your cross.”  The cross is not disease, or misfortune, or things that make us different from others, or troublesome people who get in our way.  Let’s put aside that piety once and for all.  Taking up one’s cross has nothing to do with the difficulties of life we may face.

For Jesus, taking up the cross meant this: set aside use of your divine power in order to love people, even if they kill you for it.  Taking up the cross meant this: let people kill you, and love them enough to ask God to forgive them, while they’re nailing you to a cross.

Taking up the cross is the only way to begin our discipleship, to live our discipleship, Jesus says.  It means willingly entering into a way of life that costs us, that’s sacrificial.  It means not only facing all life’s difficulties with patience, but also choosing a way of love and grace with people that will inevitably hurt us.  Maybe not kill us, but who knows.

Taking up the cross means never saying “that’s not fair,” at least when it applies to us.  Of course it isn’t fair that we lose while others win.  How is choosing a life of sacrifice ever going to be “fair”?

Taking up the cross looks like . . . well, it looks a lot like Romans 12.

This transformed life Paul talks about costs, even if we aren’t killed.

If you want to understand this in your guts, take Paul’s words and hang them in your home where you see them every day.  In every situation, from your relationships with those you love most to your encounters with strangers, from your personal decisions to your political views, start using these words as your template, your answer.  Seek every day to live by them, instead of whatever rules you normally have.

It will certainly be a transformed life.  It will also be a radically sacrificial life; you might not like it at first.  So far as it depends on you, Paul says, live peaceably with others.  So whenever the other person is angry, hurtful, you respond in kindness and grace.  You act peaceably.

Do you have enemies?  Fine.  If your enemies are hungry, feed them.  If they’re thirsty, give them a drink.  Repay evil with good, not with evil.  What will that mean?  That person who doesn’t like you, you love them.  That bad thing that happened to you, you answer with good.

If you don’t think you have enemies, fine.  But what about when someone you love hurts you, neglects you, is hard on you?  Can you return that with grace and love instead of your usual response?

There’s so much more here, but that’s enough to start.  These words are a powerful vision of what taking up the cross means to the disciple of Jesus, of what Jesus means by “losing one’s life”.  If our walk of faith doesn’t cause us to sacrifice, if only to those in our families, to say nothing of the rest of the world, Jesus and Paul would say it’s not much of a walk of faith.

We need to change our language.

Too often we’ve said the Christian life could be a challenge, might cause us to have to give up things, possibly could lead to sacrifice.  Jesus and Paul leave no such openings, no “coulds” or “mights” or “possiblies”.  Sacrifice and loss in our journey of faith are expected.

The Son of God came to show us the way of loving God and loving neighbor that leads to life for the whole world.  Because the world is what it is, caused by human beings, we ourselves included, doing things our own way for our own benefit, following the way of Christ will be uphill, against the grain, upstream, whatever metaphor you like.

It won’t be easy.  Try Romans 12 for one day and see for yourself.

Here’s a fair question: Why would we want to follow, then?

Many Christians teach discipleship that involves no sacrifice, only speaking of the success and winning God wants you to have.  If Paul’s right, why would we want to follow?  The Church has used threats of eternal hell to keep people in line, radically unlike Paul or Jesus.  Is our only incentive so that we aren’t punished forever?  Since we’re forgiven fully by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, that no longer works.

What is our motive, if threats or fear aren’t valid, to choose a life that costs us everything?

Apart from simply to obey God, which would be best, the only way a sacrificial life is something we’d be willing to do is if it led to a way of life that is richer, fuller, more joyful, even amidst the sacrifice.  If the Son of God came to restore us to a way of being with each other that, while it means we put others before us, is a path to a world of hope and grace and love among all people.  That’s exactly what believers have claimed for two millennia.

Consider this: the life of Christian love, sacrificial and self-giving as it is, has inspired billions to change the world, even in their homes; has led millions to be willing to die to love others in Christ; has changed whole societies; has been an abundant and real way of life for billions.  The way of this world, self-centered, get-my-own, do what I want to others, retaliate for wrongs done, offer no peace unless the other offers first, has led to Ferguson, the Middle East, ISIL and government beheadings, centuries of war; has led to uncountable tragedies in families, abuse, abandonment, death, hatreds that last entire lifetimes, broken relationships; has led to rampant economic selfishness where those who have keep, and those who haven’t go without; has nearly destroyed this world.  You want to conform to that?  Or do you want to be transformed to the other?

It’s no exaggeration to say that God’s new creation can only begin with each of our lives as we begin to learn to take up the cross, to offer ourselves first to those closest to us, and then beyond, to seek the Spirit’s transformation that we might begin to be Christ.  This is a life or death question, not just for the world, for each of us.

“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, this is your spiritual worship.”

That’s the mystery, that as we learn this life of Christ, this is our worship: our lives of service and sacrifice.  As we are transformed, we offer ourselves as a sacrifice to others, that the world might be healed, and we worship the God in whose love we are bound forever.  The cross and resurrection of Christ Jesus brought life to the whole world; our own dying to self and living for others will do the same.  So that this becomes a world of love and grace as God has always intended.

If we know and live this, Paul says, we know the will of God, what is good, and acceptable, and perfect.  Now we know.  So let’s ask the Spirit to make it so among us, for our own sakes, and for the sake of the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

There is only one way to take up our cross and follow: it is to do just that, to follow Jesus’ example and offer our lives to others, to the world, as Paul describes, so that God’s love and grace can continue to transform and renew the whole creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 22 A
   texts:  Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

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 appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  (Romans 12:1-2)

So Paul begins Romans 12, a claim for which our reading today provides the real-life example.  Be transformed, not conformed.  Present your body as a living sacrifice.

In Romans, we prefer other words of Paul: chapter 3, about God’s righteousness draped over us; chapter 5, saying that while we were still sinners, God loved us; chapter 8, promising that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Paul preaches God’s grace that is unearned and freely given in Christ’s death and resurrection.

If that’s all we need, then why chapter 12?

Peter is thrilled that Jesus is God’s Messiah, but when he hears that will lead to Jesus’ death, Peter tries to turn him in a different direction.  He is rebuked as “the opponent”, told to get out of the way.  We’re so similar to Peter: after the resurrection, we incorporated the cross and empty tomb into Peter’s hope for a life of victory and success following Christ.  Don’t talk about crosses, Jesus, unless it’s your cross; that means we get to live eternally.  Don’t talk about sacrifice, Paul, unless it’s Jesus’ sacrifice; then, praise God, we’re saved.

Jesus and Paul say, however, that our life in this world matters to God, because this world matters to God.  Following Christ is not about getting heaven, though we believe we have eternal life with him.  Following him is as Paul says, seeking to be transformed into new minds, new hearts, by the Spirit.  Becoming like Christ.

That’s going to be a sacrifice.  There’s no way to avoid it.

“Take up your cross,” Jesus says to all who wish to be his disciple.

He is not saying, “life will have difficulties you can’t control.  That’s your cross.”  The cross is not disease, or misfortune, or things that make us different from others, or troublesome people who get in our way.  Let’s put aside that piety once and for all.  Taking up one’s cross has nothing to do with the difficulties of life we may face.

For Jesus, taking up the cross meant this: set aside use of your divine power in order to love people, even if they kill you for it.  Taking up the cross meant this: let people kill you, and love them enough to ask God to forgive them, while they’re nailing you to a cross.

Taking up the cross is the only way to begin our discipleship, to live our discipleship, Jesus says.  It means willingly entering into a way of life that costs us, that’s sacrificial.  It means not only facing all life’s difficulties with patience, but also choosing a way of love and grace with people that will inevitably hurt us.  Maybe not kill us, but who knows.

Taking up the cross means never saying “that’s not fair,” at least when it applies to us.  Of course it isn’t fair that we lose while others win.  How is choosing a life of sacrifice ever going to be “fair”?

Taking up the cross looks like . . . well, it looks a lot like Romans 12.

This transformed life Paul talks about costs, even if we aren’t killed.

If you want to understand this in your guts, take Paul’s words and hang them in your home where you see them every day.  In every situation, from your relationships with those you love most to your encounters with strangers, from your personal decisions to your political views, start using these words as your template, your answer.  Seek every day to live by them, instead of whatever rules you normally have.

It will certainly be a transformed life.  It will also be a radically sacrificial life; you might not like it at first.  So far as it depends on you, Paul says, live peaceably with others.  So whenever the other person is angry, hurtful, you respond in kindness and grace.  You act peaceably.

Do you have enemies?  Fine.  If your enemies are hungry, feed them.  If they’re thirsty, give them a drink.  Repay evil with good, not with evil.  What will that mean?  That person who doesn’t like you, you love them.  That bad thing that happened to you, you answer with good.

If you don’t think you have enemies, fine.  But what about when someone you love hurts you, neglects you, is hard on you?  Can you return that with grace and love instead of your usual response?

There’s so much more here, but that’s enough to start.  These words are a powerful vision of what taking up the cross means to the disciple of Jesus, of what Jesus means by “losing one’s life”.  If our walk of faith doesn’t cause us to sacrifice, if only to those in our families, to say nothing of the rest of the world, Jesus and Paul would say it’s not much of a walk of faith.

We need to change our language.

Too often we’ve said the Christian life could be a challenge, might cause us to have to give up things, possibly could lead to sacrifice.  Jesus and Paul leave no such openings, no “coulds” or “mights” or “possiblies”.  Sacrifice and loss in our journey of faith are expected.

The Son of God came to show us the way of loving God and loving neighbor that leads to life for the whole world.  Because the world is what it is, caused by human beings, we ourselves included, doing things our own way for our own benefit, following the way of Christ will be uphill, against the grain, upstream, whatever metaphor you like.

It won’t be easy.  Try Romans 12 for one day and see for yourself.

Here’s a fair question: Why would we want to follow, then?

Many Christians teach discipleship that involves no sacrifice, only speaking of the success and winning God wants you to have.  If Paul’s right, why would we want to follow?  The Church has used threats of eternal hell to keep people in line, radically unlike Paul or Jesus.  Is our only incentive so that we aren’t punished forever?  Since we’re forgiven fully by the grace of God in Christ Jesus, that no longer works.

What is our motive, if threats or fear aren’t valid, to choose a life that costs us everything?

Apart from simply to obey God, which would be best, the only way a sacrificial life is something we’d be willing to do is if it led to a way of life that is richer, fuller, more joyful, even amidst the sacrifice.  If the Son of God came to restore us to a way of being with each other that, while it means we put others before us, is a path to a world of hope and grace and love among all people.  That’s exactly what believers have claimed for two millennia.

Consider this: the life of Christian love, sacrificial and self-giving as it is, has inspired billions to change the world, even in their homes; has led millions to be willing to die to love others in Christ; has changed whole societies; has been an abundant and real way of life for billions.  The way of this world, self-centered, get-my-own, do what I want to others, retaliate for wrongs done, offer no peace unless the other offers first, has led to Ferguson, the Middle East, ISIL and government beheadings, centuries of war; has led to uncountable tragedies in families, abuse, abandonment, death, hatreds that last entire lifetimes, broken relationships; has led to rampant economic selfishness where those who have keep, and those who haven’t go without; has nearly destroyed this world.  You want to conform to that?  Or do you want to be transformed to the other?

It’s no exaggeration to say that God’s new creation can only begin with each of our lives as we begin to learn to take up the cross, to offer ourselves first to those closest to us, and then beyond, to seek the Spirit’s transformation that we might begin to be Christ.  This is a life or death question, not just for the world, for each of us.

“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, this is your spiritual worship.”

That’s the mystery, that as we learn this life of Christ, this is our worship: our lives of service and sacrifice.  As we are transformed, we offer ourselves as a sacrifice to others, that the world might be healed, and we worship the God in whose love we are bound forever.  The cross and resurrection of Christ Jesus brought life to the whole world; our own dying to self and living for others will do the same.  So that this becomes a world of love and grace as God has always intended.

If we know and live this, Paul says, we know the will of God, what is good, and acceptable, and perfect.  Now we know.  So let’s ask the Spirit to make it so among us, for our own sakes, and for the sake of the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We cannot defend Christianity or Christians, or even God, with words; only by lives transformed by the Holy Spirit into Christly, self-giving love, can we truly witness to the grace of God made known to the world in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Festival of St. Bartholomew, Apostle
   texts:  John 1:43-51; Psalm 12

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 read a book by an atheist last week.  It was witty, hilarious, really.  Also very profane and vulgar, shocking, even.  I found myself liking and respecting the author from the very beginning, as different from me as he is.  He seems like a good person who loves his wife and children and friends, who tries to live as a good person.

He also makes deeply pointed and painful observations about Christians that are impossible for me to brush away.  There is far too much truth behind them, truth I’ve seen myself.  What surprised me was the growing sense as I read that while I grew to respect and like him, I wondered if he would respect and like me.  From this reading, I think he probably wouldn’t pre-judge me.  He’d give me a chance to be a jerk first.  But there is this truth, that I am a Christian, a person of faith, not something he’s had good experiences with.

It’s strange to realize that our very identity as baptized children of God in Christ could be what drives people away.  Simply because we are who we are.

This isn’t new for us, it’s something many have experienced from society and others, over many things more than just one’s faith.  It’s sometimes even true for me.  I am a white, straight American male from European ancestors.  I have lived a life of privilege, privilege that includes a good education, ample resources, ability to get and keep jobs, and respect of others.  In most of my encounters, these attributes have given me a leg up, an insider’s path.  Not because of anything I did, simply because of who I am, most of which is not of my doing.

There have been places, however, where these attributes have inspired a Nathanael-like comment or thought from others.

Nathanael Bartholomew says of Jesus, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

It’s hard to know what he meant, but clearly he had ideas.  In the greater church these days white, straight, European-American males are sometimes treated as if we cannot know or speak truth about issues such as race in the church or society because we are part of the problem.  “Can anything good come from such people?”  I’ve run into that since seminary.  I say this not to complain; how can I complain given my privilege?  I say it as truth: in a diverse church there are places where people like me are not trusted.  That’s certainly fair.

There were likely some of these attributes that might have caused some of you to wonder about me when I came here.  What overrode all was that you called me as your pastor.  From the first day I came you have received me as that, whatever doubts you may or may not have had.  But for this atheist author, adding “pastor” to my attributes is adding more gasoline to the fire.  How many people trust a Christian pastor these days, except people in the pews?  (And there are plenty of them who have come to not trust the clergy, for good reason.)  If there’s any characteristic that might inspire “can anything good come from him,” it might be that I am a pastor.  That which leads you to trust me can lead others to write me off.

So it is with our Christian identity.

Nathanael raises a question we must take seriously.

“Can anything good come from a Christian?”  “A Lutheran?”  “Someone from Mount Olive?”  There is another direction to this, our own prejudices.  Who are the people, what are the places where we’re tempted to say, “Can anything good come from them?”  We need to be aware of those and address those.

However, we first need to ask this today: what does it mean that we bear the label “Christian” in a world where so many Christians have done horrible things?  What does it mean that we sit in privilege and wealth, bearing Christ’s name, and by our very lifestyles and attitudes prove that people shouldn’t trust good to come from us?

The last thing we want to do, the last thing we should do, is spend time saying, “We’re not like those other Christians.”  “We believe something different.”  It’s tempting; I’ve said it myself.  I no longer think we can do that, not with integrity and honesty.

Because in this case, words mean nothing.  If people can’t tell by who we are that we belong to Christ and who Christ truly is, any protestations or proclamations we make have no meaning, no value.

But Jesus’ way of handling Nathanael’s critique might be worth examining.

Jesus answers his prejudice with this: “I admire your honesty.”

The way John tells it, Jesus didn’t hear Nathanael’s dismissal.  Somehow he had a vision of him under the tree, but his opening statement clearly implies he knew something of Nathanael’s attitude, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Jesus says, “Here’s someone who doesn’t lie.”

Interesting.  Jesus doesn’t try to convince Nathanael he’s wrong about Nazareth.  Jesus simply is himself.  Since he likes honesty, he praises Nathanael for not holding back on his views.

What is impressive is that Jesus lets Nathanael come to know him as he really is, leaving his own actions to be what Nathanael learns to trust and see.  “You will see greater things than these,” he says, and it’s true.  Visions are nothing compared to the grace of God Jesus reveals to Nathanael and the rest of the twelve in the years ahead.

Jesus is our model.  Actions, not words, are the only thing we can bring into the world.

We simply can’t say, “That’s not us.” We must earn respect and trust by how we embody Christ.  As the psalmist said today, lots of people lie about who they are, and the needy go hungry.  In fact, Jesus suggests that we start by acknowledging the honesty and mistrust of people who have good reason to think we’re not worthy of trust.

We’re in the middle of our interview process for our new staff person to lead us in our outreach and ministry in this neighborhood.  We’ve had very good interviews, and I’m hopeful that God is leading us to find the right person God needs here.  But this encounter with Nathanael only underscores that we need to take seriously what we said throughout the visioning process about our presence in the world as the people of God.

What we heard from each other was a real hunger to understand how meeting God in this room each week, worshipping and being blessed by the grace and love of God, connects with our meeting God out in our lives, in the world.  How the life we cherish here of being blessed by God in our worship might become a life we cherish in our daily lives, of also being blessed by God.

We need to realize that whomever we ask to do this job among us, we are telling him or her to help us get to work, to embody Christ.  To help us listen to the movement of the Holy Spirit who would transform us into people whose lives are deeply rooted not just in here, but in our neighborhood, and the neighborhoods we live in.  We’re not hiring someone to do our Christly work for us, but to walk with us and help us into our ministry and mission in this world.  Into becoming people who expect to meet God not just here in Eucharist but in the streets where our Lord Christ has said he will be.

I am convinced the Holy Spirit has led us to this point, to where we discover in new and powerful ways who we can be in this city, what it means to be Christ.  We’ve done much over the years.  Now we are feeling a call to find deeper integration between our worship and our service, deeper awareness of how we are shaped to be Christ.  And to act on that shape, that reality.

This is tremendously exciting.  And it is our answer to our Nathanaels.

We have no right to tell others to trust us.  We only can ask the Spirit to make us trustworthy.

That’s a really good thing.  The death and resurrection of Christ Jesus began the overturning of this world, began God’s new resurrection life poured into believers.  For all the evil spoken by Christians, hateful actions done, countless reasons the world has not to trust us, there have also always been faithful followers of this Lord who lived embodied as Christ in the world, living sacrificial lives of love, quietly offering a witness of the One who has ended the power of death and brought God’s love to the whole world.

This, then, will be our answer: our lives lived as Christ, bearing the love of God in the world. Since Jesus has said he is in our neighbor, we will also find our lives blessed in receiving the love of God from our neighbors as we walk with them.

It would be wise for us to keep our mouths closed for a while.  Those who don’t trust us have legitimate reasons.  Like Nathanael, they’re only being honest.  Let us rather pray that the Holy Spirit so transform us that at least when people meet us, they begin to see the love of God for this world, and we begin to see it in them.  Then God’s healing can truly begin.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We cannot defend Christianity or Christians, or even God, with words; only by lives transformed by the Holy Spirit into Christly, self-giving love, can we truly witness to the grace of God made known to the world in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Festival of St. Bartholomew, Apostle
   texts:  John 1:43-51; Psalm 12

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 read a book by an atheist last week.  It was witty, hilarious, really.  Also very profane and vulgar, shocking, even.  I found myself liking and respecting the author from the very beginning, as different from me as he is.  He seems like a good person who loves his wife and children and friends, who tries to live as a good person.

He also makes deeply pointed and painful observations about Christians that are impossible for me to brush away.  There is far too much truth behind them, truth I’ve seen myself.  What surprised me was the growing sense as I read that while I grew to respect and like him, I wondered if he would respect and like me.  From this reading, I think he probably wouldn’t pre-judge me.  He’d give me a chance to be a jerk first.  But there is this truth, that I am a Christian, a person of faith, not something he’s had good experiences with.

It’s strange to realize that our very identity as baptized children of God in Christ could be what drives people away.  Simply because we are who we are.

This isn’t new for us, it’s something many have experienced from society and others, over many things more than just one’s faith.  It’s sometimes even true for me.  I am a white, straight American male from European ancestors.  I have lived a life of privilege, privilege that includes a good education, ample resources, ability to get and keep jobs, and respect of others.  In most of my encounters, these attributes have given me a leg up, an insider’s path.  Not because of anything I did, simply because of who I am, most of which is not of my doing.

There have been places, however, where these attributes have inspired a Nathanael-like comment or thought from others.

Nathanael Bartholomew says of Jesus, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

It’s hard to know what he meant, but clearly he had ideas.  In the greater church these days white, straight, European-American males are sometimes treated as if we cannot know or speak truth about issues such as race in the church or society because we are part of the problem.  “Can anything good come from such people?”  I’ve run into that since seminary.  I say this not to complain; how can I complain given my privilege?  I say it as truth: in a diverse church there are places where people like me are not trusted.  That’s certainly fair.

There were likely some of these attributes that might have caused some of you to wonder about me when I came here.  What overrode all was that you called me as your pastor.  From the first day I came you have received me as that, whatever doubts you may or may not have had.  But for this atheist author, adding “pastor” to my attributes is adding more gasoline to the fire.  How many people trust a Christian pastor these days, except people in the pews?  (And there are plenty of them who have come to not trust the clergy, for good reason.)  If there’s any characteristic that might inspire “can anything good come from him,” it might be that I am a pastor.  That which leads you to trust me can lead others to write me off.

So it is with our Christian identity.

Nathanael raises a question we must take seriously.

“Can anything good come from a Christian?”  “A Lutheran?”  “Someone from Mount Olive?”  There is another direction to this, our own prejudices.  Who are the people, what are the places where we’re tempted to say, “Can anything good come from them?”  We need to be aware of those and address those.

However, we first need to ask this today: what does it mean that we bear the label “Christian” in a world where so many Christians have done horrible things?  What does it mean that we sit in privilege and wealth, bearing Christ’s name, and by our very lifestyles and attitudes prove that people shouldn’t trust good to come from us?

The last thing we want to do, the last thing we should do, is spend time saying, “We’re not like those other Christians.”  “We believe something different.”  It’s tempting; I’ve said it myself.  I no longer think we can do that, not with integrity and honesty.

Because in this case, words mean nothing.  If people can’t tell by who we are that we belong to Christ and who Christ truly is, any protestations or proclamations we make have no meaning, no value.

But Jesus’ way of handling Nathanael’s critique might be worth examining.

Jesus answers his prejudice with this: “I admire your honesty.”

The way John tells it, Jesus didn’t hear Nathanael’s dismissal.  Somehow he had a vision of him under the tree, but his opening statement clearly implies he knew something of Nathanael’s attitude, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Jesus says, “Here’s someone who doesn’t lie.”

Interesting.  Jesus doesn’t try to convince Nathanael he’s wrong about Nazareth.  Jesus simply is himself.  Since he likes honesty, he praises Nathanael for not holding back on his views.

What is impressive is that Jesus lets Nathanael come to know him as he really is, leaving his own actions to be what Nathanael learns to trust and see.  “You will see greater things than these,” he says, and it’s true.  Visions are nothing compared to the grace of God Jesus reveals to Nathanael and the rest of the twelve in the years ahead.

Jesus is our model.  Actions, not words, are the only thing we can bring into the world.

We simply can’t say, “That’s not us.” We must earn respect and trust by how we embody Christ.  As the psalmist said today, lots of people lie about who they are, and the needy go hungry.  In fact, Jesus suggests that we start by acknowledging the honesty and mistrust of people who have good reason to think we’re not worthy of trust.

We’re in the middle of our interview process for our new staff person to lead us in our outreach and ministry in this neighborhood.  We’ve had very good interviews, and I’m hopeful that God is leading us to find the right person God needs here.  But this encounter with Nathanael only underscores that we need to take seriously what we said throughout the visioning process about our presence in the world as the people of God.

What we heard from each other was a real hunger to understand how meeting God in this room each week, worshipping and being blessed by the grace and love of God, connects with our meeting God out in our lives, in the world.  How the life we cherish here of being blessed by God in our worship might become a life we cherish in our daily lives, of also being blessed by God.

We need to realize that whomever we ask to do this job among us, we are telling him or her to help us get to work, to embody Christ.  To help us listen to the movement of the Holy Spirit who would transform us into people whose lives are deeply rooted not just in here, but in our neighborhood, and the neighborhoods we live in.  We’re not hiring someone to do our Christly work for us, but to walk with us and help us into our ministry and mission in this world.  Into becoming people who expect to meet God not just here in Eucharist but in the streets where our Lord Christ has said he will be.

I am convinced the Holy Spirit has led us to this point, to where we discover in new and powerful ways who we can be in this city, what it means to be Christ.  We’ve done much over the years.  Now we are feeling a call to find deeper integration between our worship and our service, deeper awareness of how we are shaped to be Christ.  And to act on that shape, that reality.

This is tremendously exciting.  And it is our answer to our Nathanaels.

We have no right to tell others to trust us.  We only can ask the Spirit to make us trustworthy.

That’s a really good thing.  The death and resurrection of Christ Jesus began the overturning of this world, began God’s new resurrection life poured into believers.  For all the evil spoken by Christians, hateful actions done, countless reasons the world has not to trust us, there have also always been faithful followers of this Lord who lived embodied as Christ in the world, living sacrificial lives of love, quietly offering a witness of the One who has ended the power of death and brought God’s love to the whole world.

This, then, will be our answer: our lives lived as Christ, bearing the love of God in the world. Since Jesus has said he is in our neighbor, we will also find our lives blessed in receiving the love of God from our neighbors as we walk with them.

It would be wise for us to keep our mouths closed for a while.  Those who don’t trust us have legitimate reasons.  Like Nathanael, they’re only being honest.  Let us rather pray that the Holy Spirit so transform us that at least when people meet us, they begin to see the love of God for this world, and we begin to see it in them.  Then God’s healing can truly begin.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Even in the most difficult times and unexpected places, Christ’s mercy is enough for us all.

Vicar Emily Beckering
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 18 A     
   Text: Matthew 15:10-28 

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

After hearing that gospel, we may be left wondering where in that there was good news. It can be shocking to hear Jesus speak this way. Can this really be our Lord who seemingly so reluctantly offers his compassion to this woman who only asks for her daughter to be healed?

We are not the only ones to have been shocked by Jesus’ behavior or his teachings. The disciples, the Pharisees, or anyone else in that crowd would have been equally as surprised to watch this interaction between Jesus and the Canaanite woman.  Racial stereotypes and mutual disdain characterized the relations between Jews and Gentiles, and “dog” was a familiar derogatory term. Whereas it would have made perfect sense to the crowds for Jesus to say that he was only sent to the Jews, and that it wasn’t fair to give this woman what God had promised to Israel, the crowds would not have expected Jesus to engage the woman or to praise her faith. By the end of this encounter, however, Jesus turns expectations on their head.

In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges the Pharisees’ and the disciples’ notions of who God is for them and for all people. Today, our Lord Jesus does the same for us. He meets us in this gospel in order to challenge our beliefs and to quiet our fears about the limits of God’s mercy. God’s mercy is wide enough, God’s love broad enough, for us and for all.

We cannot separate this story from the rest of Matthew’s gospel or from whom Jesus has revealed himself to be on the cross. 

Mercy is central to the gospel of Matthew and core to Jesus’ proclamation and teaching. The same Jesus who speaks so harshly to the Canaanite woman is the One who told a parable of the unforgiving servant who when rebuked, was asked, “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?” (Mt. 18:33). This is the Jesus who taught Peter to forgive not seven, but seventy-seven times (Mt. 18:22). This is the Jesus who, when he heard the Pharisees ask why he was eating with tax collectors and sinners replied, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ for I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” (Mt. 9:12-13). And in the end, Jesus gives the commission to baptize people of every nation (Mt. 28:19).

Jesus doesn’t restrict his mercy; he doesn’t reduce people to judgment. Instead, as we have heard throughout this summer, Jesus scatters seeds with abandon, lets the weeds grow with the wheat, gives rain to the righteous and the unrighteous, and catches people of every kind, welcoming them to live in the kingdom of God.

In this encounter with the Canaanite woman, Jesus enacts his parables. He offers mercy rather than demands sacrifice. He illustrates what he just taught the crowd in the first 10 verses of today’s gospel: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth—that which comes from the heart—that defiles. The Canaanite woman is the embodiment of this teaching. Where she comes from, what she eats, and her ethnicity ultimately do not matter. What counts is her heart, which Jesus can see. In that heart, she holds an unwavering faith in Jesus’ mercy. She knows who he is, what he is all about, and by persisting until her daughter is healed, she holds him accountable to be who he has revealed himself to be, not only for Israel, but for all people.

The woman is like Moses who reminded God to be faithful to Israel by forgiving, rather than punishing them for the golden calf (Ex. 32:7-14). She is like Abraham who petitioned until God agreed to be merciful to Sodom if 50, then 40, then 30, or only 10 righteous people remained in the city (Gen. 18:16-33). She is prophetic in that her faith reveals that God is a God of mercy. She didn’t have to deny the place of the chosen people in God’s story in order to claim her own. Instead, she honors it and uses it as the basis of her faith. She understands that although mercy starts with Israel, it cannot end there because of the very nature of God. The woman knows that the foundation of Israel’s relationship with God is God’s decision to be merciful, which is what Moses learned when God told him: “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Ex. 33:19; Rom. 9:15).

This is who the Triune God has decided to be and how the Trinity has chosen to relate to us—through mercy: by responding to our brokenness with forgiveness, our hatred with love, our rejection with acceptance.  God will be merciful because God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

God will show mercy! We can’t control it, we can’t contain it!

This story exposes the ways in which we behave as if there are some people who are beyond the scope of God’s love, Christ’s forgiveness, or the power of the Holy Spirit. 

We do not harbor animosity for an entire ethnic group; our ways of limiting God’s mercy are much more nuanced than that. It happens when we withhold love and forgiveness, when we judge others as unworthy of representing Christ, or when we assume that there are some people through whom God can’t possibly work.

Who might our Canaanite woman be? The serial rapist? The fundamentalist? The bigot? Through this woman, God confronts us with anyone and everyone whom we have excluded, criticized, or condemned. Everyone who offends us. The people who we don’t have time for because they rub us the wrong way. The people who we refuse to forgive because they have hurt us or those whom we love and they don’t deserve it.

But to withhold our love or forgiveness, to refuse relationship, and to define ourselves against others is to live in opposition to who Christ has called us to be. These old ways of defining ourselves and others are dead. We don’t get to choose who is in and who is out. We don’t get to choose whom we love or whom we forgive. As Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died” (2 Cor. 5:14).

Today, Christ offers us a new way to live and his love urges us on. 

We are not to be the church of our own whims and preferences, but rather the church of Jesus Christ. We are to scatter seeds, offer forgiveness, and give grace even when—and perhaps especially when—it doesn’t make sense or it isn’t deserved.

We can’t restrict God’s mercy. We can’t control it. We can’t contain it. But we can cling to it.

We can cling to it just like the Canaanite woman who was convinced that God’s mercy was enough for Israel and for her daughter and herself. Because Christ has died, all have died, and so we trust that God’s mercy is for everyone and that Christ is enough to redeem every situation.

Clinging to Christ’s mercy might mean that when we are tempted to write that person off at the office or the one who lives down the block, as completely ignorant and unworthy of our time, that this time, we make time, and make an effort not only to better understand that individual, but to open ourselves to the possibility that God might have something for us to learn from that person.

Clinging to Christ’s mercy might mean that rather than giving up and cutting ourselves off from that family member who always makes us feel foolish, unappreciated, or like we are less than, that we reach out to that person instead and try once again to build a relationship.

Clinging to Christ’s mercy might mean that when we are confronted with that Christian who, according to our standards, could not be further from the truth or represent our Lord any less accurately, that we trust that God can work in them, too, and that that person is Christ for the world, in ways that we can’t or won’t be.

Trusting in Christ’s mercy means that whenever we feel like holding back, we risk forgiving anyway, making room in our hearts anyway, and giving ourselves a chance to see how God is at work.

But when we fail to do this, as we have and will, Christ’s mercy is for us, too. 

No one is outside God’s love—not even us—broken as we are. Others’ judgments or criticisms of us—no matter how valid—don’t have the last word.

Of this we can be certain: God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. We can cling to this when we fear for our loved ones who don’t believe or when we fear for ourselves because we know how far we stray. We can pray with complete confidence, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and trust that he will, that we are forgiven, just as he promised.

We can trust that Christ will heal us and keep changing us, making us new, until we do reflect him—the One who gave his life for all and the One who now invites us here to this table, where no one is a dog and there are no crumbs because his mercy is enough for us all.

Amen.