Sabbath is God’s gift to you and your neighbor: seek it, find it, live it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 9 B
Texts: Mark 2:23 – 3:6; Deuteronomy 5:12-15

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

The Sabbath is God’s gift to you and to your neighbor.

It is precious and life-giving. Little wonder Jesus chose to follow Jewish wisdom and heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. He offered him life, respite from the daily pain of his existence, just as God intended. Just as, Jesus points out elsewhere, the rabbis approved for a person whose child or ox fell into a well on the Sabbath, or whose donkey needed to drink on the Sabbath. Jesus’ opponents want a reason to criticize him, but in their tradition they’re on shaky ground.

But this argument is completely irrelevant to you and to me. We, and our culture and society, barely give the idea of Sabbath a second’s worth of time. Probably only for Christians when it comes up in a Gospel like this. But nitpicking over what’s permissible on the Sabbath? Nothing is further from our minds and hearts.

“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy,” as we heard this morning, is one of the Ten Commandments.

Yet we, who claim to follow Scripture and shape our lives by God’s Word, barely conceal our disinterest in following this commandment.

Lutherans could blame Luther himself. Luther swings and misses badly on Sabbath in the Small Catechism. He says it’s about going to church and hearing God’s Word. Now, our life-giving Sabbath practice is to gather here for worship, to be fed at Christ’s Table, to be shaped and led by God’s Word, to pray and share fellowship with each other.

But that’s a practice we do on Sabbath. It’s not Sabbath itself. And whether it’s Luther’s fault or ours, it’s where we are. When was the last time you consciously took time away from your life and called it Sabbath? Can you even imagine a day that was completely unproductive? Restoring?

And yet, Jesus says it’s God’s gift to you. To your neighbor.

The Sabbath was created for humanity, Jesus says, not humanity for the Sabbath. Yes, it’s a commandment, it’s in the top ten. But it’s the commandment solely intended for the grace and refreshment of all people.

And our Jewish siblings who keep Sabbath can testify to this gracious gift. No food is prepared, no cars driven, no phones or computers used, just to name a few among a number of restrictions. There is time for reading and conversation, for communal worship and prayer in the home. For those who live it, these restrictions open up a day of wholeness. Jews greet each other with “Shabbat shalom,” the “peace of Sabbath,” offering each other the hope that this will be a day of shalom.

Shalom means peace – peace from war, peace with God. But in Hebrew it means so much more: completeness, safety, health, welfare, friendship. Shalom is all these. Shabbat shalom wishes the fullness of human life in this time of Sabbath, complete wholeness as God’s children.

Sabbath is God’s gift of shalom to you and to your neighbor.

Look at Jesus’ healing of this man, and maybe you can see this. The Sabbath Jesus gave freed him to be fully what he hoped to be. Sabbath breaks whatever it is that binds you, restricts you, grinds you down, and leads you to wholeness. We are as fragile as clay jars, Paul says today, and we’re facing challenges that can crush us. All God’s children are, some have constant pain and affliction. We’re all people who need the shalom of Sabbath.

Whether you live under self-imposed rules or have the oppression of systems and structures laid upon you, you need a moment of respite. Sabbath. Whatever it is that traps you, binds you, weighs heavy on you, Sabbath is letting go of that for a time. To find shalom.

So what might Sabbath be for you?

Well, do you spend every waking hour always doing something, never feeling your work is done, even at home? What if one day a week you let go of all that and simply existed? Didn’t worry about being unproductive? Or took a nap and didn’t apologize to yourself or others?

Or, this: how much does technology bind you up and trap you? Could you go 24 hours without your phone? Without watching television or using your computer? What if you didn’t have to hear or see every bit of news or entertainment that’s pouring into the world, just for one day? What might that be like, to find that quiet?

And what if, one day a week, you consciously made shalom your priority over all things, looking for health, wholeness, peace, welfare, shalom mentally, physically, spiritually? And for your neighbor, too?

And what of your neighbors? If Sabbath is a gift to all God’s children, can we make this world pay fairly for work done, so our neighbors don’t need to work three jobs seven days a week to keep their home and put food on the table? Could we finally become passionate peacemakers so true shalom can exist in this world and war become obsolete? How might you be a part of giving Sabbath to your neighbor?

Maybe this sounds too complicated.

The world and all its problems are overwhelming. So is changing things in your life. We have limited time to get things done. But ask this: would a Sabbath respite be something you’d really love to have?

So start where Jesus starts: Sabbath is God’s gift to you and to your neighbor. God wants to open up a spaciousness in your life where you can simply be, exist, dream, live. Once a week. Where you step off the treadmill or pull your car off the interstate, or whatever metaphor works for you, and sit still. Where you let go of the things that bind and entrap your mind, your body, your heart.

Where you release yourself from whatever expectations you or others have imposed on you. And listen to God’s voice saying you are beloved, and so are all your neighbors. Where you seek shalom in all its fullness. And remember what it is to breathe. To smell. To see and taste and touch. To be refreshed and rested. To sleep.

Look, according to Scripture, even God needs a Sabbath. How about you? And how about your neighbor?

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

Christ promises the Spirit will lead us into all truth when we can bear it: let us pray that we say we’re always ready to bear whatever is needed for the life of the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year B
Texts: John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15; Acts 2:1-21, referencing vv. 41-47

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

“I still have many things to say to you, but you can’t bear them now.

“When the Spirit of truth comes, she will guide you into all the truth.”

What hope this promise gives us for the life of the Church, the life of the world! Jesus knows there are so many more things those who trust in him need to know if they’re going to follow the way of Christ. So many more challenges, so many more questions.

So he says, “there’s a lot you can’t bear right now, but the Spirit will lead you into all the truth.” And this promise has been fulfilled over and over again.

With the guidance of the Spirit’s wisdom, Christ’s Church has changed.

In our own recent history, the Church finally declared definitively that no human being could enslave another, that all God’s children were precious in God’s sight. Just fifty years ago many in Christ’s Church restored women to any and all leadership positions in the Church. And more recently, many Christian churches have been led by the Spirit to not only welcome LGBTQ+ siblings but embrace and cherish them as God’s beloved children.

The Spirit moves and shapes and teaches things now that at one time the Church wasn’t ready to bear.

But were we really not ready? Or just unwilling?

Did the Church, shaped by the sacrificial love of God at the cross for all humanity, really need over 18 centuries to recognize all humanity as equal and beloved in God’s eyes, and finally forbid human slavery? There were Spirit-led voices throughout those centuries who called for this. But the whole Church just wasn’t ready until the 19th century?

Jesus and Paul raised up women as leaders in the community. Paul had women colleagues who were heads of faith communities. By the end of the first century, the Church backed away from that, and became deeply patriarchal. Did we really need another 1,800 years to reverse that sellout? And even now, those Christian churches who have women as leaders are definitely the minority. Does the vast majority of the Church still get to say they’re not ready to bear women leaders?

And did the Church of Christ’s radical love need 2,000 years to recognize their LGBTQ+ siblings as beloved children of God? Such children have been a part of God’s rich diversity for as long as humans have existed. We weren’t ready to bear that until now? And again, Christian churches who do embrace these siblings are the small minority.

If Christ’s promise is that the Spirit will teach us new things when we’re ready to bear them, and the Spirit clearly taught people for 2,000 years things only recently accepted by larger groups, then are we hiding behind the wall of “we’re not ready to bear such things?” Maybe we just don’t want to do them.

Because if you look at that first Pentecost, the early Church seemed ready to bear some amazing things right away.

People were filled with awe at the signs and wonders the believers did. The community was transformed: they each sold everything they owned and shared all their wealth in common. Everyone had what they needed. And they worshipped together daily in the temple, and shared meals with each other. And every day more and more became a part of the community. Can you imagine us living that way as this faith community?

So they were ready to bear such a communal life, and now, 2,000 years later we’re not?

The truth is, we can actually see the seeds of this in the book of Acts itself. This new way started falling apart. Disputes started to happen, some people didn’t get enough food, some hid away their money.

So even the early Church struggled with bearing what the Spirit taught. They grasped it at first with joy. But it became more and more a burden to keep up this new way.

Clearly humans easily say “we’re not ready,” when the truth is more that we don’t want to.

So, on this day of Pentecost, what is the Spirit trying to lead us into, to teach us, that we’re dragging our heels on? There are lots of things to consider, but we could start with how we live in this world as a community of faith.

There’s a group here working on how Mount Olive can better know our indigenous neighbors and walk alongside them. If you’re interested in helping shape that conversation, there’s room at that table. But what are we willing to bear? Would we consider reparations as a regular part of our budget? If the Spirit raises challenging paths, would we be open to her guidance? Or are we not ready at this time?

Nearly every day during the week neighbors of all God’s diversity come through our doors for help: African Americans, African immigrants, Native Americans, new neighbors from all the countries south of our border, and we offer help. If you’re able to help during the week as we engage with these neighbors, we’re always in need of hands. But what are we willing to bear beyond that? What might the Spirit be calling Mount Olive to be and do as a community in this city to bear Christ’s love with all these neighbors? Are we willing to hear the Spirit’s call, wisdom, teaching, if it leads to new challenges, financial, physical, social? Or will we say once again, “maybe we’re not ready yet.”

Jesus’ promise is not an excuse to avoid growing, changing, becoming Christ.

Our task at Mount Olive is to keep listening to the Spirit together and then talking with each other, discerning what paths might be opening up in lots of areas. Because the Spirit will be inviting us to serve in our life in this world. To learn new things. Face new challenges. Be transformed into what God needs us to be.

So let’s commit on this Day of Pentecost to seek conversations amongst ourselves as much as we possibly can and listen to the Spirit together. And let’s also commit to helping each other listen to where the Spirit might be calling us each individually to take a different path, to be shaped by the Spirit’s wisdom, because that’s part of Jesus’ promise, too.

Most of all, on this day of Pentecost, let us pray.

Let us pray that we are always ready for the next thing the Spirit needs us to hear and learn. Let’s even boldly pray that the Spirit ignore whether she thinks we can bear something or not. That she let us stumble or fall rather than hold back guidance because we’re afraid or unwilling. Let’s ask the Spirit to remove the words “we’re not ready for that,” and teach us to say with joy, “ready or not, here we come.”

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

If you truly are made holy to love and live as Christ, you will be a threat to the world, like Jesus was; but you will also be a part of God’s healing of all things.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday of Easter, year B
Text: John 17:6-19

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

God came to us as a human and was unrecognizable.

Jesus is God’s creating Word in our human body, and we didn’t recognize or want him. John says, “The Word was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. The Word came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” (1:10-11)

And in this prayer on the night of his betrayal we heard today, Jesus names that. “I don’t belong to this world,” he says. And since God’s Word in our flesh was so unrecognizable to us, so problematic, so challenging, we had to get rid of him.

But the real problem is that in this prayer, Jesus trusts the same is true of us.

In this beautiful mystery of a conversation within the life of the Trinity, Jesus the Son says we also don’t belong to the world because we are Christ. We are shaped into God’s life and live as Christ’s love in the world. So the world won’t recognize or accept us either, Jesus assumes. That’s why Jesus asks that we be protected in this alien world.

I just wonder if Jesus is right about us.

Are we actually unrecognizable to the world?

Jesus absolutely was. His teaching, radical interpretation of Scripture, insistent boundary-breaking for the sake of God’s love, his welcome and inclusion of all, especially those on the margins, was so offensive to the authorities he had to be taken out.

But is there anything about our lives, about how we live in our neighborhood, or at work, or in relationships, that looks so much like Christ people just don’t know what to do with us? Does your love of God and love of neighbor so change you that people can’t relate, or are bothered or annoyed, or even angry at you? Does my life in Christ mean any risk for me at all?

We spend so much energy and attention on what others think of us, as if it would be horrifying if our life in Christ marked us as different, as if we fear that.

So the first question is, do we even want to be different like Christ?

It should be obvious, shouldn’t it? This community cares deeply about this world and the pain and suffering in it. We often wonder how we could help with any number of problems, from our racist systems to a societal structure that reinforces poverty and homelessness and inequality to our desperate helplessness in the face of war around the world.

Jesus says you and I can make a difference in our own places. That the more we look like Christ, love like Christ, the more we find the path Jesus first walked, we can heal what is wrong with our world.

And it sounds good until you have to make a stand. Or I have to talk to someone who disagrees with me. Or you have to reach out to your legislator. Or I need to actually love a neighbor I don’t even like. Or you have to recognize your own latent racism or sexism or classism, and actually try to change it, break it down. Or we have to make decisions that risk our wealth and security.

The cost of being Christ, the cost of loving, the cost of kindness, the cost of sacrificing some of our well-being, the cost of being seen by others as strange or naïve or just wrong, it’s a high cost.

But there’s good news. You have Christ’s grace in the Spirit to be changed, if you want it.

The Son speaks within God’s life and says, “I’m sending them out into the world, just as I was sent.” And Jesus adds, “so make them holy in the truth, in your Word.”

Remember, Jesus is the Word-made-flesh. And Jesus said, “I am the truth – it’s not abstract, truth is alive in my very being.” And, for Jesus, being holy is always love of God and love of neighbor. So here Christ says, “we’ll make that happen in you. You will become me. You won’t hold the truth as a weapon or fight over it, but you’ll embody it, live the truth of God’s love for all.”

If we want it, God will do it.

And when that starts to happen in you and me, the other part of this prayer helps deal with the cost.

Because when it starts to happen, you and I are going to start standing out in the world, looking different. We’re going to become more like Jesus and less recognizable as people who belong to this world. We’ll rub people the wrong way. We’ll risk our security and our ease of living. We’ll learn the feeling of going against the stream, we’ll increasingly realize we need to do something different, make new choices, live another way.

And when that happens, it will be hard. It will cost. But the joy is that Jesus asks here that you are always cared for in God’s arms. No matter what happens, even death, you don’t have to be afraid of becoming Christ, because God is with you.

And when it happens, when you and I become Christ as we were called to be in Baptism, we’ll become a real problem for this world. Like Jesus. And that’s the Triune God’s hope for the healing of all things.

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