These stories of temptation show us a way to engage such temptation in our daily lives; our gift is that we walk this journey of faith together, and can help each other even as the Spirit is working within us.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, First Sunday in Lent, year A; texts:  Matthew 4:1-11; Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

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

We have such compelling contrasts in these two stories that frame our readings from God’s Word for us this morning.  A lush garden, paradise really, and an arid, hot desert, a wilderness.  Two people standing in for all of humanity in that garden, and the divine Son of God who is also fully human, in that desert.  A tempter in both places.  In the garden, the human beings succumb to the temptation.  In the desert, the truly Human One resists the temptation.  It’s easy to see why the Genesis reading was chosen in this year to pair with the story of Jesus’ temptation.

The crux of these two stories is how we as human beings handle temptation to disobey God, to walk away from God’s path, to go our own way.  This Lenten journey we do together each year is, as we said last Wednesday, a practicing, a rehearsing of the greater journey of faith each of our lives are, and the of shared road we all are walking together as disciples of Jesus.

If we are walking this road of life in faith together, seeking the faithful paths together, the godly directions, helping each other as we aspire to live as our Lord has called us to live, then learning what’s at stake in these two crossroad moments is important.

And what we learn is that neither of these stories describe a once-and-for-all moment, a fixed point in time, a story in the past for us to consider.  As we consider both stories and think of our journey of faith, we recognize that these events, these temptations, these issues, come before us again and again.

In other words, both the temptation in the garden and the temptation in the wilderness stand before us as examples of the decisions we make every day.

This isn’t how we’ve tended to read the Genesis story, which has been as simple history: Adam and Eve did a bad thing, and ruined it for everyone.  We even call this “the Fall,” as if it were a once and for all kind of thing.  I remember as a child regretting that they had sinned, because that permanently made a mess of things, as if no one since had ever contributed to the mess, as if I myself was not contributing to the mess.  So the point of this story has been for many that we look at the one moment when humanity destroyed everything, ruined the creation.  And ever since then, we’ve been tainted by this.

Of course, a problem with that is that then we can also compartmentalize this story as not about us.  If they hadn’t done this, we’d be fine.  If we weren’t guilty of original sin – which we don’t have to take credit for since it really wasn’t our fault, it was theirs – then we wouldn’t be sinful today.

In fact, I think the authors of Genesis understood the problem with this, and in fact told this story to move us to the opposite reaction.  This story is not intended to be an explanation of a single past event as much as a description of the situation which stands before every human being at multiple levels on every day of our lives: are we or are we not going to obey God?  Do we live for ourselves, by our way, or live as children of God, by God’s way?

And in the same way, telling the story of the temptation of Jesus isn’t intended as a history lesson but as the same kind of template for our daily lives: what will we do when confronted with choices that are not easily understood as simply right or wrong, good or bad, but complicated, difficult choices?  How will we deal with temptation in whatever way it confronts us?

These temptations are ongoing for us: to disobey God, to take God’s authority, to test God, to use our gifts for ourselves.

Will we let God decide what is good and evil, and follow that decision, or will we try to be God ourselves and claim we know better?  Will we obey God, even if we don’t always understand why God is asking something of us?

This is the question of Adam and Eve.

And if you don’t think that ever happens for us, let me ask you this: how are you doing on loving your enemies?  Following that command of Jesus requires obedience often without explanation or understanding, because it seems counter to everything we know about ourselves and the world.  We know what is right and what is wrong, and loving our enemies doesn’t seem to fit that.  So, like Adam and Eve, we’re asked to obey without fully understanding why our Lord would ask this of us.

And then: will we test God’s grace and love for us and not trust it?  Will we seek to be in charge, to use power and control over others in our lives so we can get what we want, or recognize we are not in control of our lives, God is?

These are the questions Jesus faced.

And if you don’t think that ever happens for us, let me ask you this: how often in your life have you justified something you’ve done that harmed another, or let you get your way, or made something happen, justified it on the basis that the ends justified the means, that you knew what needed to be done and they didn’t?

These questions Jesus faces in the wilderness on use of power and gifts for ourselves, on giving authority to the powers of this world, on trusting God’s care and trust above our own manipulations, these are not unknown questions to us.

Every day, in little ways and sometimes in large ways, we are faced with the same questions of obedience and direction as Adam and Eve, as Jesus.

But here’s a piece of good news: just as these stories are not given as past history, once for all decisions but as models for us, so, too, we are not simply good or bad, either/or.  We are on the road, on the journey.  Sometimes we walk God’s ways, sometimes we fail.  It’s not a once-for-all kind of thing, but a daily process.

The quote from Martin Luther on our service folder cover today reminds us of this. [1] Luther was responding to a criticism that he believed that after baptism we still had growth to do, changing to do.  That even though we were washed in the waters of baptism the Spirit still had work to do on us.

So he contrasts words that spoke of absolute, final status, for words of process and development:  We are not necessarily living in godliness yet, but we are becoming more godly.  We are not healthy, but we are getting well.  We are not what we will be, but we are on the way; we are not at the goal, but we are on the right road.

This is good news.  We can sometimes despair that we aren’t what God wants us to be.  Today we learn that is only part of the question.

But it does matter that we know the difference.  That we understand the choices of these stories and the importance of what they say.  Every day we have to figure out not only which path is God’s path, but whether or not we want to go in that way.

You want to walk the right path but if you can’t tell the difference, how will you choose?  And you can know the right path from the wrong path, but if you don’t want to listen to God, will you choose the one you know is best?

You see, if this is a process, a direction, not the final goal yet, then our direction is of critical importance.

What these stories raise for us is warning.  Are we on the right road?  On the way to godliness, health, becoming like Christ?

Both stories have a confidence that the paths we choose matter.  It is true that when we fail we are forgiven and picked up again by God.  But that assumes that there is a path of life onto which we desire to be placed, and a path of death that we want to avoid.  It assumes our decisions at crossroads of life matter.  Not because we risk God not loving us, but because we risk going where there is no life.

When we set out on our own way, doing our thing, not God’s, we move further and further away from the life God gives and desires for us.  All the decisions shown in these two stories imply that the decisions matter.

So, simply, to use some examples we already have: if we do not love our enemies, there is a cost to us, to our hearts, to our souls, to our lives.  We are less than we could be.  We are diminished.   And if we control others to get what we want, there is a cost to us, to our souls, to our lives.  We are less than we could be.  We are diminished.

And in all such decisions we face, in all kinds of ways (because those are only two examples of countless such decisions and crossroads), if we persist in these paths that lead away from God instead of the paths of life, we end up dying more and more inside.

So, these stories tell us that at the crossroads it matters which way we go.  It matters that we know there is a right road, even if it’s hard to discern at times.  This is why we need each other on our journey so badly, so that we can ask each other: is this the right road?  Is this the way God is calling us to go?  Are we moving toward healing, toward growth in godliness?

Are we on the way?

Imagine how different it would look if we lived into the Genesis story not in the way we usually do – which is like Adam and Eve, blaming others for our sin, denying our part, not talking to each other about it – and instead used each other as guides, as help?

What if Adam and Eve would have talked to each other during the temptation, and encouraged each other?  How might that have changed things?  What if we, who are Adam and Eve, would do the same when struggling: ask for help, wisdom, encouragement, guidance on the road?  What difference would that make in our lives?

Together we can help each other be faithful in our journey.

We not only help each other find the right paths, our encouragement to each other to want the paths of life is vital to our faithful walk.

Because we begin all this where we always begin, in the certain knowledge of our Lord’s love and forgiveness for us, we have this hope and promise: in the grace of God we can always trust God will pick us back up and get on the right road again when we fail.

While we are still living, there is time to be corrected, and to move toward God’s life of grace.  But together, we will be much more faithful in all our listening, all our journeying.

We’re not where we will be, but the Spirit is moving us there.

We rejoice that we are given each other on this journey, so that we can help each other listen, and see.  As each of us stand at crossroads in our lives, we stand with each other, as God’s grace to each other, in choosing which way to go.  As our community, as even the Church stands at crossroads, too, we listen together for God.

It matters which way we choose, which direction we go.  That we learn from the garden and the wilderness today.  Let us walk together, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we might listen to our God, find the paths of life, and walk them.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

[1]  “This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise.  We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way.  The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on.  This is not the goal but it is the right road.  At present everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.”

Martin Luther, “Defense and Explanation of All the Articles,” a response of Martin Luther, March 1521, to Exsurge Domine, the papal bull of condemnation of his writings issued by Pope Leo X in July, 1520.  Luther’s Works, vol. 32, The Career of the Reformer II, p. 24.

This is the deeper maturity to which our Lord call us: that together as a community we grow into the kind of people who can face our sinfulness and brokenness honestly and truthfully, and confess it to God, seeking a new life in the Spirit.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Ash Wednesday; texts:  Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21; Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 51; Psalm 103:8-14

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

In the waning weeks of the Epiphany season we have just concluded together, we heard a persistent call from our Lord Jesus to grow up into a maturity of faith and discipleship.  Today we face perhaps the most difficult challenge to such maturing and deepening: the question of how we do or do not face our own sin and brokenness.

Finding some of the joy and hope Jesus intends in his description of the way of God we’ve been hearing in these past weeks at least opens the possibility that we might also become people who can honestly and openly look at our failures to live in that way.  If God’s law is intended for our life and joy and fullness, then confession of our failure to live in God’s law need not be a fearful thing; it could be a life-giving thing to recognize and admit when we do not live abundantly and graciously as God made us to live.  Such recognition and confession, in this mature view, would be the only logical thing to do, that we might be forgiven and given the strength to once more walk in the way of God.

Today the Church gathers to confess our sins to Almighty God as we begin an intentional 40 day journey together; today we remind each other of our mortality and fragility.  Today, as much as any day we have, we openly say we are not God – all our foolishness and posturing notwithstanding – and we don’t live individually or collectively as the true God would have us live.  Today, then, we face the hard question of whether we want what we do today or fear it, whether this is a day of hope for us or one which we sometimes wish the Church would not do.

This is no small question, either, because the tendency to avoid such honesty and truthfulness is a very human tendency.

From when we were children we knew that it was an attractive option to dodge any honest assessment of our faults, certainly internally, but equally when confronted by a parent or another in authority.  When we did wrong, even if we knew it, it didn’t take a lot of thought to find some way to divert it.

We would divert by ignoring it and hoping nobody noticed.  Maybe if I just lean the lamp against the wall and walk away, no one will know it’s broken.  Or we would dodge it by blaming someone else, either for the thing itself, or even the person who had the temerity to point it out to us.

This tendency as children often isn’t outgrown in adulthood.  There are many adults who still live by ignoring, constantly saying, “Who, me?  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  There are many adults who still live as if the only way something is wrong is if you get caught at it, and even then it’s in dispute.  There are many adults who still angrily resent it when their wrongdoing is pointed out.

We’ve become a society and a culture that has elevated individual rights and autonomy so high we have brought along a sense that each of us is entitled to act however and whenever we choose, and no one can tell us otherwise.

So when someone talks about sin, about the possibility of a standard of living beyond our own inner decisions, it’s seen as intrusive, outdated, offensive, oppressive.

Even in the Church this can be true: I once had a pastor of a large Lutheran church tell me that they didn’t do confession there because it was too depressing.  That’s not what people wanted to come and hear about or do.  And that is not an isolated view in the Lutheran church, or even beyond Lutheran boundaries.

It’s a logical next step to our avoidance tendency: If sin is not a reality to be faced but an arbitrary category we can avoid, why get everybody down and talk about it, even in church? some would say.  No one wants to do that.  Lift people’s spirits, make them feel good about themselves, that’s how to build a congregation.

When we persist in such immaturity we also mistake the conversation about sin to be strictly about avoiding punishment.  Most of the avoidance techniques we have are designed to keep us from being punished, from dealing with consequences.

In this immature view, sin is irrelevant, but if punishment is in the offing, that we wish to avoid, by denying, ignoring, or deflecting our sin onto another.  Confession is seen as a way to get out of being in trouble, not as an honest asking for forgiveness so that a relationship can be restored.

Within the Church this can be seen both in the need for some to rail against the sins of others and threaten eternal punishment on them if they don’t change, and the need for some to see confession and forgiveness as only a convenient get out of jail free card, with no impact on the rest of one’s life.

In this view, resentment extends even to spiritual disciplines which others have found helpful in maturing and growing in faith.  The disciplines of Lent we name, fasting, sacrificial giving, prayer, self-examination, works of love – which are actually disciplines of life in the Spirit, we only are invited to begin to learn and practice them during this season – these are great gifts believers have found deeply helpful in their growth in faith.

When we’re immature, however, we treat them as “have to” things.  Do I have to fast?  Do I have to give up something for Lent?  Do I have to put ashes on my head on this day?  Do I have to pray daily, read the Scriptures daily?  Do I have to . . .?

Asking “do I have to” is a sure sign that we haven’t quite grown up to the place we could be.

Growing up into an understanding of the gift of God’s way leads to a very different perspective on all of this.

If God’s way is seen as a way of life for us and for our community and even the world, then sin – going off of that path – is dangerous and needs correction, not a topic for avoidance.

Think of it this way: if you’ve fallen out of the lifeboat, it’s not something to fear to shout for help, so that you can be brought back into the lifeboat.  Even if it’s your fault you fell.  If you’re walking the only safe path in a dangerous place and you step off to the side, denying it, resenting someone for pointing it out, or pretending you didn’t notice is only going to get you hurt.

This is the attitude toward sin that is going to be life-giving for us.

We begin to recognize God’s way as a way of life, and so any time we get off we want to get back on.  We confess our sin not to avoid punishment, but to be put back by God into a relationship of life and love with God and each other, to be put back on the safe road, into the lifeboat, on the way of love and grace.

This mature attitude helps us understand what Isaiah says today.  The people are angry because they’re doing all these things that they think are going to keep them from being punished by God, or to make God like them, and the LORD God tells Isaiah to tell them they’re missing the point entirely.

Living in God’s ways of justice and life – sharing bread with the hungry, ending oppression for those in bondage, clothing the naked – this is the way for the healing of the world, for the community and the world to have life.  That’s the way, God says, that is like light breaking forth in the dawn of morning, the way of a watered garden, of rebuilt ruins.

In this attitude, confession becomes a gift, a hope, a joy.  So David, even in the throes of confession, is seeking a return to the joy of relationship with God, not seeking to avoid punishment.  “Let me hear joy and gladness,” he sang, “restore to me the joy of your salvation . . . and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.”

Confession, what we do today, becomes a mature hope in our restoration and in God’s great forgiveness, just as we sang together in Psalm 103 today.

And Jesus’ invitation to spiritual discipline isn’t “have to,” but a possible way of life.  He’s rejecting spiritual disciplines as show-off things, but he assumes they are all part of our practice.  And in that spirit we can take on such disciplines, not just for Lent, but for life, in hopes that they help us continue to grow, to walk this path, to find life in Christ.

There’s a key element left to consider, though: the community of faith.

We have gathered together today, and that’s significant.  We do not walk this road alone.

We often speak of Lent as a journey, which it is, but it is best understood as a model for the journey of life.  This is a helpful metaphor for us to carry, that we are walking our lives on a journey, sometimes through lush, beautiful places, sometimes through rough wilderness.  The Scriptures are full of references to this metaphor, so it comes before us a lot.

Now, if we each are on this journey alone, that’s a very difficult thought.  If you’re driving or walking all by yourself, it’s easy to get lost, frustrated, resentful of wrong paths, confused.  Alone, we can even be completely unaware we’re on the wrong path.

In community, it’s a very different feeling.  Think of what it’s like with two in a car instead of one, two on a wilderness path instead of one.  There are lots of advantages: shared wisdom as to direction, comfort in difficulty, correction of each other when going astray, companionship and joy in the journey.  That’s the gift Christ gives us in the Church, the Body of Christ.  We are journeying through life on the same road, together, and that makes all the difference.

Together, then, we can encourage each other to this maturity and life.  We name truths that need confession to each other, not to beat each other up but for good and growth.  David needed the prophet Nathan to help him recognize his great sin with Bathsheba and Uriah before he could confess as he did in Psalm 51.

We need each other to tell us the truth, individually and collectively.  When the group is straying, someone needs to speak up.  When individuals start getting lost, the loving companions reach out a hand and help them back to the path.

In the community, then, we strengthen one another to have the courage to approach God with confession, trusting that forgiveness will restore us all to new life, to the path of life.  There are times for individual confession, and in fact I will be offering some times for that this Lent.  But today we come together, to encourage each other to be bold before God, honest about ourselves, truthful about our sin.

Together we can approach the throne of God and remind each other that our Lord Jesus has promised forgiveness and grace when we come.  Alone, we might fear even facing this.

And together we can support each other in our spiritual disciplines.  As we all come to the Lord’s Supper in a little bit, we will be a sea of ashen crosses flowing up to the meal and back to the pews.  We wear the mark of our mortality together, because we share it.  And fasting, prayer, alms-giving, and other spiritual disciplines become things we teach each other, the wise ones among us sharing how these things have helped to deepened connection with the Triune God, to deepened maturity.

We need each other.  That’s the great gift of Christian community.

So, sisters and brothers, I am glad you are here with me today.

Let us stand together, and approach the throne of grace, holding each other by the hand, strengthening the weak knees, as the Scriptures say, encouraging each other as we all honestly make confession, and eagerly seek the Spirit’s grace in our growing up into the people we are meant to be.

It is good we are called here together today.  We need each other.  Together we come before God’s throne, together we open our hearts in confession, together we stand, expecting to receive God’s grace.  God be with us now in our confession, and in the new life God will give us as we go from here.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

As we listen to the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, the Triune God is gathering us together, transforming us, and accompanying us so that we can be strengthened for the journey upon which we are sent: following our Lord Jesus into the pain and suffering of our neighbors. 

Vicar Emily Beckering; Transfiguration Sunday, year A; texts: Matthew 17:1-9; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 2:12

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

Remember the last time that you took a trip?

Perhaps you just returned from one, or perhaps you are getting ready for one right now. If you are, then the rest of us are all envious that you get to escape the tundra. And if you are, then you know all the preparations that have to be made before you leave.

There’s transportation and lodging plans, arranging for things to be taken care of back home while you’re gone, and securing all of the proper documents and vaccinations necessary to travel. We make lists, pack—some of us unpack, repack—all in order to ensure that we will have everything that we need to handle the weather, get business done, enjoy the trip, or face the possible difficulties that we might encounter along the way.

We prepare ourselves for the journey ahead.

That is exactly what is happening at the Transfiguration. On that mountain, God was preparing the disciples for the journey ahead.

Here, today, now, God is also at work to strengthen us. As we listen to this story of the Transfiguration, we hear three things that the Triune God is doing in our lives to prepare us for the journey ahead so that we may live as Jesus’ disciples.

First, to strengthen us for the journey, the Triune God calls and gathers us together.

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain.”

Jesus calls these disciples together—draws them close to himself—so that they might believe and have something to hold to for what is yet to come: his crucifixion and death—events that will cause them to doubt. This moment is meant to be a light when it seems that all other lights have gone out.

There, on the mountain, God the Father confirms the disciples’ faith: Jesus really is the Messiah promised to them through the prophets to fulfill the law. Jesus is the Beloved, the Son of God. They can trust Jesus, and they can entrust themselves to him.

Some of us may feel that we have never had a mountain-top experience like the disciples. How we long for an experience of revelation, of beholding the glory of God! This is important to name because it is true that we will not always “feel” or recognize God’s presence.

It is evident to me, however, that here at Mount Olive, we do trust the promise that God is present with us. We come to worship, expecting to encounter God.

The Holy Spirit has gathered us together in worship today so that we might be enfolded by God’s love, shielded against any doubt that we have struggled with, and drawn in to God’s bosom in order to trust and believe. Jesus really is our Savior, God with us and for us. And we are the Beloved.

In our baptisms, we are given the same promise that God the Father speaks on the mountain to Jesus, the Son. God the Father proclaims to us, “You are mine, beloved. I am pleased with you.” When God the Father looks at us, we are already seen as Christ, but we are being formed so that when the world looks at us, they also see Christ.

This is the second word for us today: the Triune God is transforming us in order to prepare us for the journey.

“Jesus was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes become dazzling white.”

The word, “transfigured,” is only used four times in all of scripture. Twice for Jesus and twice for us. Matthew and Mark use “transfigured” in their gospels to describe this exact moment on the mountain top. Paul also uses this word—“transfigured” or “transformed”—to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

As we will hear in today’s anthem, Paul writes to the Romans: “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

And he writes this in the second letter to the Corinthians:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Transfiguration does not belong to Jesus alone; it is the pattern of our daily lives because of the Spirit work. We are being transformed by the Holy Spirit to bear Christ’s image, to be Christ in the world. We are transformed to glow and to reflect Christ’s light to all still trapped in darkness.

Certainly, we know from our daily lives that we continue to turn away from this promise, that we still hurt ourselves and one another, that we still seek our own interests at the expense of others—even those whom we love the most. For the past three weeks, we have heard of the joy and life meant for us in God’s gift of the law, but we continually resist and reject it. We hear again today that this transforming work of the Holy Spirit is how we will be made new, fulfill the law, love our enemies, be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and live as Christ.

God is not finished with us yet. We may not always feel it, or see evidence of it, and so we trust instead Christ’s promise: we are being transfigured, transformed by the Holy Spirit into Christ’s image.

We are not being transformed into Christ for our own sakes, but for the sake of the world, which is why the third word for us today is one of sending.

Jesus and the disciples come down the mountain.

Departing the mountain begins Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. From this moment on, Jesus makes his way to the cross. They cannot stay on the mountain because of the brokenness that lies below: a world that yearns for this light of Christ. Because of that brokenness, those who yearn for the light will also reject it, and so the way of this Son of God is the way of the cross.

The way of discipleship is also the way of the cross. They are to follow Jesus on the path to Jerusalem, to his rejection, and to his crucifixion.

They cannot stay on the mountain, but they do not go down into the valley below alone.

“Get up,” Jesus says, touching them, “Do not be afraid.” With this, he calls them back from fear, for he is with them.

Here in worship, God draws us up to the mountain so that we can follow into the valley. We are being prepared to enter into the suffering and pain of others, to give of ourselves, to lose. When we hear this story, Christ is coming to us here and now, touching us on the shoulder and saying, “Get up, do not be afraid,” for he is with us on the journey. We do not leave him here in worship, but are promised that we will meet him again and again in the people to whom we are sent.

What might it look like to trust God’s love for us, Christ’s presence, and the Spirit’s work of transformation in us so that we can follow Jesus down into the valley?

I have seen it. For me, it looks like the life of David Selvaraaj.

David was the director of the social justice, peace, and development study-abroad program that I did during college in Bangalore, India. He is also the co-founder of a school for girls between the ages of 6 and 15 who are at risk of being dedicated as devadasis. A devadasi is a woman or a girl who has reached puberty, who, on the basis of family tradition, economic need, or abuse of the caste system which still holds power in small villages, is dedicated in a ritual at a Hindu temple and is then sold to the highest bidder, or given to a powerful man in the village. She is then used as a sex slave and is supposed to support her parents, relatives, and children through the money given to her by the man or men who use her. Without intervention, the children have no choice and are bound to a life of poverty and abuse.

The school founded by David and his colleagues, however, offers a different life: a real childhood where they can play and make friends. A place to learn academics so that they can go to college, career skills so that they can work, and street theater, visual art, and music, which they use in public demonstrations to work for justice on behalf of other marginalized children.

Upon our arrival on campus, the other college students and I noticed that the perimeter was completely surrounded by 15-foot high fences topped with barbed-wire. We asked David about the fences, and he explained that they were necessary to protect the children.

When they first began the school, men from their villages came to take the girls back by force so that they could still have devadasis. The men threatened David and the employees. They did not manage to scale the fences, but they did not leave without terrifying the children or the staff.

When asked how he and the staff were able to keep going in such conditions, how they were able to face the threat that these men posed, or how they could tirelessly resist the opposition of their neighbors or other people in the city who did not want a school that brought such dangers with it in their neighborhood, David responded, “Much of what we do here is risky, but we do it to affirm life. My Lord, Jesus, suffers with and among people, and so will I.”

If we are truly to follow Jesus down the mountain and into the valley where the cross is, then we will enter into the suffering and pain of others, and it will involve risk.

We may never bear the kind of risk that David does, nor will we likely be stoned to death or crucified like the disciples, but make no mistake: if we enter into the suffering of others, if we dwell with them, listen to them rather than try to fix them our way, if we open ourselves to feeling their pain, then it will be difficult. We will not be left unscathed.

We are not strangers to suffering or injustice.

We know that there is poverty, abuse, and discrimination in our own society; it is not unique to India. We know the stories of loss in our own lives—the suffering friends, the chronic illness, the change from the way that life used to be,  the death of a loved one, the job that has ended, the relationship that seems beyond the point of healing.

The question before us is this: will we risk the price of going down into these valleys with Jesus, of following him into this suffering? Will we hold onto our fear, or will we trust that the Triune God has something to say and something to do in the valley? Will we avoid these places of pain in our lives and the lives of those around us, or will we go where we have been sent?

David was sent to the children trapped in the devadasi system, but if you ask him, he will tell you that they were sent to him, for they have taught him to forgive and to love like Christ. It has not been without costs, but now there is freedom where there was slavery, joy where there was fear, healing where there was pain, and hope and a future where there was only death.

Will the journey ahead of us be easy? No.

Safe? Probably not.

But will we encounter the Triune God bringing healing, transformation, and life? Most definitely.

God the Father has claimed you. Christ is with you. The Holy Spirit is transforming you. So get up, Beloved, go, and do not be afraid.

We are the image of God.  It’s time to start living that way, time for us to seek the Spirit’s grace in maturing and growing up in faith that we might see God’s way as our way of life and the way of life for the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Seventh Sunday after Epiphany, year A; texts:  Matthew 5:38-48; Leviticus 19:1-2, 19-18; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Psalm 119:33-40

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 wonder what would happen if the Church started to take seriously the Biblical claim that we, that humanity, are created in the image of God.  What it would look like if we – you, I, this congregation, the Church – if we actually expected that to be true, and lived into that truth.  If we let that reality shape our teaching, direct our decisions, even make a claim on our individual lives and presence in the world.

We certainly don’t seem to show much desire to do this yet.  While I doubt you would find any Christian who would deny that we are made in God’s image, the depths of what such a truth actually means seem far beyond our willingness to dig or dive or probe.

What would it mean for this world if that were not our way?  If we acted as if we believe that the Triune God was serious about this, and about what it means for us?  We hear this from God’s Word today: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”  And from Jesus, the Son of God himself, today: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  What would it mean if we embraced these commands instead of wincing at them, hiding from them?  What would it mean if we took God’s Word seriously – as, by the way, we claim to do – and saw such claims on our identity as our hope and our future, not as something from which we run?  If we found joy in such commands, as our psalmist does today, not seeing them as something we need to parse and dissect until they don’t mean for our lives what they clearly seem to mean?

These weeks with the teachings of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, alongside various similar teachings from the Torah and the prophets, have been calling us to find a greater growth in our faith and lives, to recognize that we can often persist in an immaturity when it comes to the way of life God has set before us, and so we miss the fullness of life God intends for us.  Today we face the full scope of that call to “grow up”: that we learn to find joy in this promise of our identity as the image of the living God, and learn to eagerly seek the Spirit’s strength in living into that identity, for the sake of the world.

Today we see a powerful glimpse of what this image of God looks like across the Scriptures.

We begin with the words of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who describes a way that is God’s, but that is laid out as our path as well.

The path Jesus describes is one where we resist evil and violence not with more violence and evil, but with the strength of standing in the face of it non-violently, peacefully, strongly.  A way where we never retaliate when wronged.  Where if someone wants to deprive us of something, even by taking us to court, we get ahead of them and give freely.  A way where if someone needs something, we give it to them.  And a way where we stand against the way of the world and treat our enemies with love, where we lift them up in our prayer as much as we lift up those who are dearest to our hearts.

Now you can see what I mean about our problem as the Church.  Does this look at all like the public face of the Church in the world?  The center, driving force behind our teaching, our life, our work, individually and collectively?

But Jesus, the Son of God, only continues in the great tradition of God’s people Israel, for we hear much the same from the LORD God in Leviticus today.  To be holy as the LORD God is holy looks like this:

It is to live with wealth in such a way that we do not consume all, but share with those in need: here it’s sharing the edges of fields, the grapes of the vine we do not need, but we can supply the metaphors that work for our way of life.  That we do not rapaciously consume what we have and what resources the world provides as if it is our right and ours alone, but see ourselves as one with all and the resources we have as shared, communal.  This is the way of the LORD God.

And God’s way also looks like this: that we do not cheat or steal or lie to one another.  That we live justly, giving laborers a fair wage and not keeping it ourselves, that we do not profit from the blood of another.  That we do not take vengeance, or even bear a grudge against anyone, but love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Not surprisingly, Jesus sounds very much like this, and not surprisingly, this is also not the way, the image, we see in ourselves and in the Church.

Let’s keep this very simple today: clearly we fail to live as the image of God shown here.  But there are different ways to fail, and that difference is critical.

One way to fail to live in this way is simply to fail to live in this way.  That is, to live in such a way that the fullness of this graciousness isn’t always how we act and react, how we present ourselves.

And if there is anything in what we heard from Leviticus and Jesus that you realized you didn’t live into fully, you know what I mean.  We call this sin; we could call it failure.  It’s a truth about our human nature that we do not always live in the way we are called to live, the way we were created to live.  We know this, and when we are honest, we confess such failings, such sin, and seek God’s grace and forgiveness.

Another way to fail is a truly problematic one, though, because it is a failure of intent and desire and design.  This is the way that fears the law of God, that seeks to mitigate it, reduce it, explain it away.

To say, “Jesus might have preached non-violent resistance to the evil of the world, but we live in a real world where sometimes you just have to fight back and harm.  Where war can be justified.”  (As if Jesus, the Son of God who was present at creation, doesn’t know about the “real” world.)

Or to say, “realistically, you can’t run an economy where people share equally and there is no profit incentive, where people aren’t allowed to accumulate capital; in fact, that way, we say, will eventually lift all to a better standard of living.”  (As if the God who created all things doesn’t know what to do with the gift of creation, doesn’t know what’s best for the creatures so lovingly made and planted on this earth.)

We do this kind of thing all the time with the teachings of Jesus, the way of God.  We cut them, shape them, cleverly explain why they can’t work fully, why the Bible really didn’t mean that anyway.

Do you see why this way of failing to reflect God’s image is the dangerous one?  In the first way we fail, but we know it.  We seek forgiveness that we might continue to learn the better way, God’s way.  In the second, we don’t even have it as a goal.  We find any number of ways to avoid facing the truth that the Triune God lays before us about what we actually look like in the world and what God would have us look like.

And for we who are Lutheran, there is an especially potent temptation to this second path, ironically.  We proclaim so loudly that we are saved by God’s grace, forgiven of our sins, but we can easily let that become for us only the thought that we are out of trouble, we’re not punished.  When in fact the Biblical model of forgiveness is restoration to relationship with God so that we might once again live as people of God, become the image of God in the world.  Sometimes we forget that, and rejoice in forgiveness as if it’s the end goal, crisis averted, punishment set aside.

But it’s not the end goal.  It’s the beginning of new life.

The Good News for us today is that God’s Word tells us that not only are we created in God’s image.  God will also continue to shape us to be so.

This is the promise our Lord gives through the working of the Spirit: we will be made new, changed into people who look like our God once again.  We don’t have to do this alone.

And so we gather weekly to hear God’s Word because that’s how we are shaped and made new.  By hearing it again and again and finally having it sink in, “this is God’s way”.  By speaking it to each other, teaching each other, listening together, discerning together, so that we never forget these words, this call, this claim God has on us, and so that we continue to understand better and better what it might mean.

And we gather, we gather: we come together in community because we need each other and God works through the community to shape us into the image of God.  We need each other because we pray for each other, encourage each other, support each other as we all seek to reflect this image in the world.  We especially need the community because we each need people who are truth-tellers to us, who can name the behavior of the community, or our behavior as individuals, or the direction of the Church, when any stray from God’s image, move into ways that are not of God.

But the truly deep mystery is that we are shaped as we gather to worship through the very grace of God we come to find, and are made into the image of God.  It is no coincidence that we see the community of the Church as the Body of Christ and we gather to be fed by the Body of Christ, because the latter creates the former.

As we are fed and nourished by these gifts of grace, and by God’s Word, we become what we are given.  We become the grace of God, the body of Christ, the image of the Triune God in the world.  So we leave here and our Lord says to the world about us: Take these, they are my body broken for you.
And we will be broken, let’s not pretend otherwise.

One of the reasons we sometimes run from the command to be like God is that to be like God is to lose, to give away, to let go, to love even when no one thinks we should.  You know this, if you’ve ever forgiven someone who truly hurt you, forgiven and loved them.  That costs, that hurts.  It’s what happens when we are like God.

You know this if you’ve ever stood with love and grace in the face of evil and been run over by it, hurt by it.  That costs, that hurts.  It’s what happens when we are like God.

Make no mistake, there’s plenty of reason for us not to seek this.  If we are called by God to be like God, we will find great cost in many ways.  But what we need to hold before us this: where else do we ever want to be but with God?  What life could we ever imagine being real without God?

A life lived fully as Leviticus and Jesus speak today, a community, a world, shaped like this would be astonishing to see.  Life-giving, rich, abundant.  Living with the Spirit of God inside us, as if we were a temple of God, as Paul describes today, is not just the way we are given the power to be new people, it is a place of joy and hope and grace for us, because God is with us and in us, and that is life.

This is where we want to be, even if it costs us everything.

It did, after all, cost the Son of God his life, too.  And it is in his resurrection life we most dearly wish to live, even now.  It’s tempting to run from this, because it can seem hard, too much.  Because we realize how much we fail at this.

But we can grow up, mature, with God’s help.  As we do, as the Spirit lives in us and moves in us, more and more we see this light as the way we need to go, the way we want to go.  More and more we learn that the cost is negligible compared to the alternative, not being with the God whose love for us and for the world is overwhelming and is life.

We are the image of God.  That’s the truth.  God give us the grace and strength, and forgiveness, and courage, to actually start looking like it.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

The way of life is the way of God; following in the way set before is grace and gift, though we too often see it as the opposite.  The grace of Christ invites us to know this way as the way we want to walk, the way we want the Spirit’s help to live.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, year A; texts:  Matthew 5:21-37; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Psalm 119:1-8; Deuteronomy 30:15-20

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

“Brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.  I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food.  Even now you are still not ready.” (1 Corinthians 3:1-2)

Paul, we just heard you say this in your letter to our sisters and brothers in Christ who once lived in Corinth, and it troubles us.  So we have a question for you:  What about us, Paul?  Are we ready for solid food?  Or are we still only able to take in milk?

Sometimes it seems as if we have grown, matured in faith.  But then we come upon a proper meal, filling, fiber-laden food for our hearts and our minds, rich, tasty food that requires some chewing, and serious digestion, and we back away.  We hear Moses today, and Jesus today, and we flinch, even grumble.  Why is that, Paul?  Are we only still infants?

You said to the same Corinthians a little later in this letter, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”  (1 Corinthians 13:11)  Is that our hope as well?  And if so, Paul, how will we know when we have grown?  How will we know when we can handle solid food, not just thin gruel and milk?

Moses and Jesus, we need to ask the same of you, too.  How can we be certain that the choice you set before is life and death, Moses?  Can’t we just go on as we are, not choosing God’s way or our way, but muddling somewhere in between?  And Jesus, this way you describe seems so daunting, so over the top, making the commandments so complete, so full, that we cannot begin to see how we could live by them.  Is this really necessary?

Or is this what solid food looks like?

My friends, what we have before us today is witness from Moses, the psalmist, Paul, and our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, that holds out a sophisticated, deep, completed way of living in the world according to the way of the Triune God.  It is not easy to digest.  It is not sweetened with extra sugar.  But Moses has said, and the others agree wholeheartedly, that this is the way of life.  That any other way is a way of death.

So I ask you: is it possible that we might find a way to grow up and see such food for the life-giving grace it is proclaimed to be?  Must we remain as children in our continued resentment of the law of God, not wanting anyone to be the boss of us, or is it possible that we might seek the Spirit’s help in growing up enough that we can take the solid food of life our gracious God is giving, and see it for the grace and hope it truly is?  So that we can look even at Jesus’ words in our Gospel today and see them for what they are: life, and grace, and gift?

When we only want milk, the idea of loving God’s law seems absurd.

God’s law, we think, is to be feared, because we can’t do it, we fail at it.  So we resent it.  We don’t want to face that it might actually speak truth about our lives.  We find ourselves arguing like children with God, and with the law: why do you tell me to do that?  It’s too hard.  I don’t want to.  It’s too confusing.  I’m not able to.

Love your enemies?  That’s ridiculous.  Who loves an enemy?  Give of our hard-earned money to the poor, to others?  Who can afford that?  We can take any law of God and find any number of reasons why we don’t think it’s worth our time.  It’s unrealistic.  Impossible to achieve.  Unfair.  Nobody’s perfect, so why should we try?

When we are ready for solid food, however, we begin to appreciate the grace – the grace – God’s law really is.  Moses makes sense to us, this is a choice of life over death.  The psalmist’s joy in keeping God’s laws actually sings in our hearts.

We know we are ready for solid food when we look at God’s law and see it as a way of life which would make life worth living, rich, full, abundant.

Just as with any command our parents gave us when we were little that we resented or feared then, but now do of our own free will because we know it is good for us, life for us, so growing into taking God’s solid food can become a joy and a gift.

We could play in traffic still, but fortunately we grew up and realized how dangerous that is.  We could never wash our hands or our faces, but fortunately we grew up and realized how good and healthy it is to be clean.

We likewise could hate our enemies, and ignore the poor, and not do anything of what God asks of us, but fortunately we can grow up with the Spirit’s help and see that a world where there are no enemies, and no poor, and no selfishness would be nothing short of paradise.

There is life in the way of God that is given us.  When we’re ready for solid food, we’ll see that.

When we only want milk, we think that only actions matter, and only some actions: that as long as we don’t do the really bad things, then the lesser things, and the things that we only think in our minds really aren’t a big deal.

We categorize sins, the breaking of God’s law, making some worse than others so that we might pretend that we’re just fine.

So when Jesus claims that hating, being angry, calling others names are a violation of the Fifth Commandment and as serious as murder, we find that ridiculous.  As ridiculous as claiming that thinking about adultery is breaking the Sixth Commandment.

Everybody knows killing is worse, we say.  Actually committing adultery, cheating on your spouse, that’s far worse than just thinking it, we say.  Who can control their thoughts? we say.

This is because we’re still thinking like children.  When we are children, no matter what we do that is wrong, as long as there is someone else who’s done worse, we loudly proclaim that.  When we are children, no matter what we do that is wrong, as long as there is some extenuating circumstance that explains it to our minds, we loudly proclaim that.

How is it fair to judge thoughts, if we hate someone, or lust after someone?  How is that right? we say.  I can’t help getting angry: you should see what he did to me, we say.

But when we’re ready for solid food, we begin to understand the depth of the problem of our sin, that it runs to our core, and that all things are related.

We understand that anger, left to fester, makes ever-widening cracks in relationships, in community.  That hatred for another must be fed, nurtured, sustained to stay alive, and that drains energy and joy from our lives.

We learn that if we indulge our thoughts toward things that lead away from life, even if we don’t do them, we incur a cost to our well-being, to our sense of feeling good about the kind of person we are, and the vibrations of our hearts actually get picked up even by others.

That is, we learn that if, for example, we hold someone in disdain and hide it as best we can, it’s not only that our heart begins to wither under that emotional drain.  But that sense inside also never really remains within us, and the other begins to feel it, even if it’s unspoken.  And the relationship suffers.  This is true of all our thoughts, they can never stay hidden.

When we’re ready for solid food, we realize that Jesus here is giving us a great gift of grace to speak the truth about how our lives are affected by even our thoughts and attitudes.

We realize that all he’s doing is exactly what we already heard in the Ninth and Tenth Commandments, commandments that have nothing to do with action, only intention: coveting is an internal sin, a sin of the heart, that leads us to dissatisfaction, broken relationships, a dismal sense of what good we have.  Jesus here is only saying the same thing.

When we’re ready for solid food, we see that were we to live by such a way as Jesus describes, our lives in community would be enriched, the world would be beautiful, as God intended.

When we only want milk, we think that there’s only black and white, right or wrong, Godly or ungodly.

Our objection to any law of God is that we can’t do it perfectly, so we want nothing to do with it at all.

We want to hear only of God’s forgiveness, not realizing how ridiculous that is if there is nothing to forgive.  If we haven’t done anything wrong, why do we need forgiveness?

But we do this because, as drinkers of milk, we can’t get our minds around the idea that it’s not either/or, this living in God’s way.  We think too often that if we can’t live up to it at all times, we will have nothing to do with it.

So we justify why we get are who we are, saying God can’t expect us to be perfect.  We justify whenever we go against what it’s pretty clear God wants, because no one could live like that, we say.

But when we’re ready for solid food, we hear these words of Jesus, Paul, and Moses for the good news they are, in every respect.  Good news, because they are the way of life, as we’ve said already.

But good news, because we are talking about growing up, not being grown up.  One does not become mature in an instant.  It takes time, a lifetime.  It takes patience, and the long view.

So, just to take anger as one example, if this is our particular sin, we don’t get rid of that in one moment, but by regularly attending to our anger, regularly asking God’s help to move us past it, regularly reminding ourselves that it is not the path of life.

And many years later, we might have the joy of looking back on the road we’ve walked and realizing that in fact we are different now.  That for all that prayer and work of the Spirit, we are less angry, more like Christ.  With much more growth to go, yes, but we can see that we’ve come a ways.  This is true of anything we need to remove in order to walk God’s ways.

And of course we hear these words as good news in light of Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection.  None of this law of God comes to us apart from the reality of our being forgiven and loved completely by God in Christ Jesus.

When we fail, when we struggle to walk this path of life, we are forgiven and blessed to be put back on it.  But that’s the point, isn’t it, that everyone’s trying to tell us today: even forgiveness is ours so that we can once more get back on the path to life, not the path to death.

The grace and forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus that we are so overjoyed to know and have only makes sense in seeing God’s law as a path to life as well.  Then, when we fall and are picked up by our Lord again, we know exactly the direction we want to take, the road that leads to life.

So Paul, we have to say this to you: we think we might be ready for solid food.

And so we pray:

Gracious and holy God, so deepen our hearts and lives into the mature faith you wish to see in us, that we see your path as the path of life.  By the love of your Son, forgive us when we stray.  And with the strength of your Spirit, shape our lives into this way of life until that day when we start a new journey with you in the world that is to come, through the same Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

Amen