Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

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

In her novel, St. Maybe, Anne Tyler paints with words a tender scene between a brother and sister in which they long to hold, remember, hope.

The two are elementary school kids, being raised by their loving but unwilling grandparents after being orphaned by two separate tragedies that took first their father, and then their mother.  

Looking through their mother’s things, the sister finds a photograph.

Holding the picture by one corner, [she says]  “Don’t you dare get a speck of dirt on it,” she said. He took it very, very gently between the flat of his hands, the way you take an LP record. The crinkly edges felt like little teeth against his palms. 

It was a color photograph, with Jun 63 stamped on the border. A tin house trailer with cinder blocks for a doorstep, A pretty woman standing on the cinder blocks — black hair puffing to her shoulders, bright lipstick, ruffled pink dress —  holding a scowly baby (him!) in nothing but a diaper.

If only you could climb into photographs. [Little Thomas thought.] If only you could take a running jump and land there, deep inside.

If you could climb into a photograph and hold a moment, what moment would it be?

Seeing Moses and Elijah on either side of Jesus like two exclamation points framing him as they had never seen him before, Peter speaks for human longing to capture and save a moment. Climb into it, hold on to it forever. Lord, if you wish, I will make three dwellings here…

We, too, want to climb into the happy moments pictured in our heads and relive them, recall them, hold them. And why not?

In a world where the news is rarely good, can any of us be faulted for hoping to hold that which is lovely, if even for just a moment? We want to hold it by its crinkly edges, keep it from even a speck of dirt, and take a running jump and land there, deep inside.

As tempting as that sounds, it just isn’t the way life is though, is it? We don’t get to live only in the mountaintop moments. Like Jesus leading his threesome to the plain we are constantly reminded that life where we live it is life just one breath away from death. And if not the final death, then certainly all the little deaths that fill the moments, the hours, the months and years that cannot, will not be negated by in some random single triumphant moment. 

Do you remember the brilliant Steven Sondheim lyrics from A Little Night Music about all those little deaths?

         Every day a little death/in the parlor in the bed,

         In the curtains, in the silver/in the buttons, in the bread,

         In the murmurs in the pauses/in the gestures, in the sighs

         Every day a little sting/every day a little dies

         In the heart and in the head/in the looks and in the lies

That about covers it, doesn’t it? Try as we may to preserve those mountaintop moments, to take a running jump and land there, deep inside them, life happens. Death happens.

Far from the mountains’ bright resounding clouds where the voice of God seems so unmistakably near, most of our days are lived in the stifling valleys of dreaded diagnoses, unsettling scandals, endless, meaningless sound bites, threats of violence, unrelenting irrelevance, a planet we seem hell-bent to push to its peril. Is it any wonder we long to join Peter in enshrining the beautiful in a moment, a snapshot, a dwelling where we can hold it forever?

But Jesus is having none of it.  The transfigured one turns the tables and leaps instead into all the cherished and all the regrettable photos from the albums of our lives. There is no snapshot into which he will not go, even into the deepest darkest valley of the shadow of death. This story of the Transfiguration, is the mid-point mountain halfway between the celebrations of Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ death. Christ himself reminds the disciples that they are coming down the mountain to his death. This is no Kodak moment to which they descend with holding his dazzling presence in their minds’ eye. They are coming down the mountain where Jesus will leap into the deepest, most dreaded experience of human existence since Eden. They are descending to the grave. His grave. In Christ’s own death and resurrection we are pulled from the grave’s crinkly, jagged edges and into the transfiguring light of eternal hope. The wonder and resplendence of such hope no human eye has ever before seen or dared to imagine.

Christ promises the possibility of turning every day’s little deaths into brilliant, glowing life. Freed from any fear that might be holding us back, we are called to build booths of justice, mercy, and compassion for a world in need. We can only imagine taking care of ourselves. But Jesus brightens our imaginations to see the wonder of love extended to others, that the earth he loves might flourish as each and every life is filled with grace.

Picture this:  a world in which the murmurs and the sighs, the stings, the looks, the lies, are replaced forever with pure, bright, unmitigated compassion. That is the picture into which Christ leaps to join us with hope that will never die. That is the snapshot to sustain us as, in Jesus’ name, we work for a transfigured future of endless resurrection and life for all people everywhere.  Imagine it – as Jesus’ partners handing those in the  world a snapshot of justice where they’ve known none. Of mercy, where they’ve never been seen or heard. Of compassion where they’ve only ever been sidelined or disregarded. Imagine it, as Jesus’ partners. Then imagine watching those snapshots, by the power of the Risen Christ, being transfigured into scenes and movies, and eventually completely new and vibrant lives for all God’s people everywhere. To such sights as yet unseen in this self-absorbed and greedy world, Christ walks with us down the mountain. And in the valleys, Christ equip us to pour our lives into just such grateful service.

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

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

If you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.

Can you imagine how long that might take? Jesus says: First, be reconciled to your brother or sister…. Rather than the few minutes we set aside in the Eucharistic liturgy to share the peace with one another before we bring our gifts to the altar, can you imagine how long it might take for us to first be reconciled with one another, and then move on to the offering and what follows?

It’s a beautiful if somewhat impractical thought, isn’t it? This business of reconciliation is a rich and messy endeavor. And, granted, some of those with whom we need to be reconciled are here with us in the assembly, but certainly not all. How long would it take? How long would it take, do you suppose, to do what it takes to find those who we believe might have something against us – note that Jesus says those who have something against us, not those we have something against…  How long would it take do you suppose for us to track those people down, lay ourselves humbly at their feet, seek their forgiveness, and then return to the assembly to continue with our worship? I think that it could take a really long time.

This idea of being at peace with one another – whoever, wherever those one anothers might be – stands at the centerpiece of this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of his message, Jesus imagines, even if we cannot, a community of followers who live together in peace.

It would be easy to make this all very legalistic, to set up this varied and eclectic catalog of ethics from Jesus as a new form of righteous-ness, which, as you know, almost always turns south into self-righteousness. So far in the history of humanity, no one has been able to keep the Law. So it is a fool’s errand to believe that now Jesus is setting up a new even more rigorous system that will frustrate us with failure at best and shame at worst.  

No, Jesus sets this scene of reconciliation with one another as a prerequisite to bringing a sacrificial gift to the altar. He wants it to be clear: harmonious relationships are more important than ritual satisfaction. Holy living, à la Jesus, is more than checking a box.

First be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. First, be reconciled.

This new way of living together in justice and mercy is tucked into a list of ways that we manage to alienate and take advantage of one another. It was as true for the ancients as it is for us this very day.

Maybe we’ve never drawn a gun on anyone, but anger festers, insults, abound, the culture calls everyone with whom we disagree “a fool” in one way or another, but usually with much harsher words

Jesus paints a picture of a world in which women are not treated as property to be disposed of at the whim of a man’s desires.  He imagines a community where every person in valued, and believed worthy of reconciliation. He challenges us to imagine a world in which one’s word is honored and respected. A world where saying YES is the same as meaning YES. The same as DOING yes. No swearing necessary.

And if you think that these are standards of compassionate living that were only needed in his time, think again. We continue to live in a world where women and people of color are still forced to scratch and claw in a culture deaf to their quest for equality. Persons whose self-expression challenges the hetero-normative culture long to be seen, but too often are dismissed in ways that closely resemble handing them a certificate of dismissal, as men did with their wives in Jesus’ day, waving them off, putting them away. Out.

We dismiss people with modern day equivalents of ritual sacrifice by sending a dismissive email and washing our hands of them and their paltry opinions. We salve our souls with a perfunctory text but fail to get to the bottom of what others long for or need. We reconcile with non-apologies. You know the kind, “If something I did offended you, well, sorry.”

Jesus wants more for us. With eyes of love fashioned before the Creation was formed, he looks on us and longs for us to live a reconciled life with one another. A life where sin and guilt and injustice and dis-ease are crucified, dead and buried. And here in words meant to heal, not condemn, he raises up a new vision, the entrance ramp to his new creation. First, go and be reconciled… Christ wants us to be partners with him in that New Creation, living in the spirit of his love, his life, his endless possibilities for purpose and depth – in what we say and do in the community of Christ and in the world. Do you see that he wants that first? Jesus wants us to live together in harmony more than he wants an offering. Especially an offering that is less than genuine. Especially an offering that just checks off a box. Jesus wants us to share the peace. And yes, I think it could take a really long time if we do it with all our hearts. But then the table is waiting, spread with a taste of the New Creation. And whether we’ve succeeded or whether we’ve failed, we are still invited.

This new life to which Christ invites us begins with reconciling. It begins with sharing the peace. It begins with taking that peace beyond these doors and into a world that is longing for meaning and hope. It is our joyful task to seek that peace of Christ in every person, in every nation. It is our baptismal call to be partners with Christ in bringing the light of dignity to every living being.

It may take a very long time. But in his dying and in his rising, Christ promises a day when time will be no more and we will all live together in both his presence and his peace. But there is no need to wait. First be reconciled to your brother or your sister, right here, right now.  And Christ’s peace will come flooding back upon you.

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

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

Claudio was an anxious Eucharistic minister. And he wore his anxiety on his sleeve, so much so that one day I finally asked him about it.

“Such holy things, pastor. Such holy things. When I carry the chalice I’m carrying such holy things. In my head there is always a voice that is repeating, ‘don’t drop it, don’t spill it, just do what you’re called to do; don’t drop it, don’t spill it, just do what you’re called to do…’”

As we catch up with Jesus this morning, the Sermon on the Mount continues. Preaching to his disciples and the crowds, Jesus echoes what Claudio was feeling, “just do what you’re called to do.” In the case of equipping first-century witnesses Jesus gives guidance that is very clear and positive. He speaks to his beloveds of such holy things:

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Honestly, the power and the impact of Jesus declaration is lost on us. In our overstimulated culture, the metaphors of salt and light seem – well – a bit bland and dim. They are gifts we take for granted

But salt was essential to survival in Jesus’ day. It wasn’t just an optional ingredient that might be added to food to spice things up like cumin or cayenne. Salt was used to preserve food and blazed a trail for international trade. It functioned as an antiseptic, saving lives from infection and disease. As it became more and more valuable as a commodity, it stood at the center of economic and political power.

In a similar way, we who live in the bright glare of cities that never sleep have only the faintest idea of how light functioned before elec-tricity. News flash: the ancients didn’t have a beam of light from their smartphones to find whatever was lost under the car seat, or to blaze a pathway from the bed to the bathroom in the night.

Declaring his people to BE salt and light is a new wisdom that Christ preaches. It is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age. It is a new wisdom that Matthew proclaims along with the apostle Paul, the wisdom of Christ and him crucified. Those who are salt and light in the world not only bring this new wisdom into the world, Jesus proclaims that they actually ARE that wisdom in the world. YOU are that wisdom in the world. You, people of God, are salt and light.

Jesus pushes the envelope.  As Jesus often does. Listen: I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Say it like this: there is a difference between knowing about salt and light and being salt and light. A difference between knowing about our Lord Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead and being our Lord Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead.

Jesus invites us to let our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, and to let our light shine. To be his love in the world. This is what Christ means when he says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. I am not interested in followers who know about righteousness, or who know about salt, and light, and commandments and teachings. I am not interested in followers who are god-ish. I am interested in followers who are Godly.

Let’s be honest. For a guy like me, it is easy to be god-ish. A cradle Lutheran, I grew up in the 60’s in an area of the country that was deeply Christian. I thought everyone was. Honestly, it wasn’t until I moved to Seattle in 1996 that I met a bone fide pagan, someone who openly if not proudly chosen to practice no faith at all. For a guy like me, being god-ish was easy. Very little risk. I have spent my life being able to go along and get along, to be like salt and light in the world.

Jesus wants us to know a greater gift. Jesus wants more for us, because Jesus always longs for what is best for us. Jesus offers us a gift beyond measure.

On a particular Sunday, I noticed that Claudio was possessed of an uncharacteristic calm as an assisting minister. His hands did not shake. When he handed me the chalice and purificator after com-munion his palms were not sweaty. His face was relaxed and radiant, not furrowed and pinched. After worship, I asked him about it.

“Yep, pastor, there’s been a change. I’m no longer overcome with the mantra, “don’t drop it, don’t spill it, just do what you’re called to do.” God has given me a sense of peace. “What changed?” I asked him.

The last time I was Eucharistic minister, when I sat the chalice on the altar, I realized that Christ was not somehow magically in that chalice. I knew that if I spilled it or dropped it, God would understand. When I looked out across the congregation and saw all the people of God that I was privileged to serve, I realized that Christ was not in the chalice. At least not only in that chalice. Christ was now in all of them. In all of us.”

Claudio had come into a new righteousness that did not eliminate one letter, not one stroke of a letter of all that had gone before. He was able to see Christ fulfilling the Law in a way he’d never seen before. He saw God’s people as bearing the cross of Christ to the world. He saw them as salt and light. In short, he moved them in his mind from god-ish to Godly. He might spill some wine, but he also recognized in a truly sacramental way, that God’s love had spilled into the bodies, the hearts, the minds, of God’s people.

Beloved in Christ. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are not like a bit of seasoning to make bad things a little better. You are not just a sprinkling of light to make someone’s random hard day a little bit brighter. God has been and will once again today be spilled into you.

On our body and in our heart, through our words and by our actions, we ARE salt and light. It’s very sacramental. What once was in the loaf and chalice is now in us. We are bread for the hungry, drink for all who thirst. We are no longer god-ish. Baptized into Christ we are Godly. It is both joy and privilege, gift and task, and Jesus walks with us every step of the way. Because he lives, we shall live also, to bring Christ to the world for others. Light for the world to see.

Salt and light. Christ in the world. This is who we are. Rise and shine, people of God. Godly people. Bringing peace to the troubled. Food to the hungry. Shelter to the homeless. Such Godly people we are called to be.  Such Godly people we get to be. Godly salt. Godly light.

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

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

Before we go charging head-long into Matthew 5, let’s review. To this point in his Gospel, Matthew has told us, among other things, of

An inconvenient pregnancy
The threat of divorce – Joseph’s from Mary
A quirky set of visitors from the East, following a star
A maniacal, manipulative king
A dream-inspired flight to a foreign country, making the Holy
Family refugees
The slaughter of innocent children

We have heard about the cousin of Jesus and his eccentric preaching: winnowing forks, unquenchable fire, an ax lying at the root of the tree, that sort of thing…

We learn in early Matthew about:
A forty day fast in the wilderness ending with an encounter
between Jesus and the devil
Christ’s teaching and healing those afflicted with various
diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics

That’s what gets more-or-less covered in the first four chapters as Matthew sets out to tell the story of Jesus. And with that scene- setting backdrop, we turn the page to chapter 5, Jesus climbs a
mountain, has a seat, and begins to speak…

The poor in spirit are blessed, for the reign of heaven is theirs.
Those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted.
The gentle are blessed, for they will inherit the earth.

What are the first four chapters of your life? Frankly, I have no idea. I haven’t known you long enough. But, I know this after forty years of ministry. I know that the chapters of your life and my life are a
whole lot like the opening strains of the Gospel of Matthew.

They are life stories that contain
An inconvenient pregnancy somewhere in our family
The threat of divorce: our own, our friends’, a member of our
own family
We have quirky friends who may have followed a star or something a whole lot more bizarre in search of something meaningful or real
We are not strangers to maniacal, manipulative leaders
Is there a day that goes by that we don’t hear of siblings in
Christ fleeing for their lives to a foreign country?
We are, unfortunately, acquainted with the death of children;
painfully, some of them have been our own.

We know what it means to be tempted, and we ourselves or those we love with all our hearts are
afflicted with various diseases and pains…

So Jesus is not just whistling Dixie when he sits down here among us, today, in – of all places  Minneapolis, Minnesota – and says, says to us – in a way that the world around us would find foolish…. Jesus says, “I know. I get it. I see you.”

Jesus, who by God’s grace, came to live among us full of grace and truth knows first-hand how the crowded ways of human life get crossed up.
With wretchedness and need.
With human grief and burdened toil.
With famished souls from sorrow’s stress.
The world will never see us as Jesus does. The world in its wisdom wants us to move on, to get over it, to buck up and pull ourselves together.

But Jesus sees us with all the tempts us, with all our various diseases and pains, with our broken relationships, and grandiose ideas gone south. He knows how we are tempted to go chasing off after other gods, and how that never, ever satisfies. And so he sits among us today, right here, right now, and says, you who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. You are mine. You are beloved.
Loving us as he does, just as he loved those before us on the dusty roads of Galilee and the lush mountains where he sat to teach…

Knowing us as Jesus does, and loving us, is reckless in the eyes of world. Foolish. The world does not deal well when those who are low and despised get God’s attention. The world roils and fumes even
more when those who it deems losers are given the title “blessed.”

At its worst, the world will be so flummoxed by those who are called by his name, so undone by any who do justice, or love kindness, or walk humbly with our God that the world will revile us, and
persecute us, and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely.

And yet, and yet. This is what defines us. This is who we are. Blessed at the hand of the One whose own hands are pocked by nail prints, whose side was pierced with pain to heal the pain inside of us. This is
who we are – not perfect, but blessed. In all the messiness of whatever chapters of our lives have led us to this day. Gathered at Christ’s feet once again today we find ourselves: wounded, yet grounded. By mercy surrounded. Already and not yet. Always moving forward in the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Blessed. Blessed. Blessed.

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

Jesus calls the disciples, and us, to consider what vocation means for our lives and the ways that God calls us.

Vicar Mollie Hamre
3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Year A
Texts: Matthew 4:12-23

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

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You have probably been asked this question at some point when you were younger. You might have said that you want to be a doctor, a teacher, a professional athlete, or anything else you could have imagined. In the case of my four year old niece, she excitedly told us she was going to be a cooking game show host. But all of these answers have a commonality: you can only pick one thing. 

At such a young age we are put into a mindset of thinking we can only be one thing. That we can only do one thing. And what is even more strange is we stop asking that question after a certain age. For Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John this is a question they learn that we are to ask as we seek out where God continues to call us. 

Our Gospel starts with Jesus receiving news of John the Baptist being arrested.

In reaction, Jesus flees to Galilee and calls Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John to be his disciples. Jesus approaches them in their day to day work and calls them directly: “Follow me.” We do not find the group of four in the synagogue or somewhere one might expect Jesus to be recruiting, but instead appearing to them in their normal jobs–their normal lives. Jesus calls them to follow, carrying their experiences and knowledge with them in saying: “Come! I will make you fish for people.”

Fishing is a language they understand, it’s their background–but being disciples? Not so much. Yet, the scripture says that they immediately left their boats and followed him. Strangely enough, a question about this drastic life change they are about to experience, never seems to pass through their minds. 

Such a reaction can both leave one in awe as well as skeptical. 

What about their vocation as fishermen? What about all that they were leaving behind? Matthew’s version of calling the disciples feels sudden and there is a reason for it. Jesus’s call is direct, urgent, and encompassing. This is the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, we find him proclaiming that the reign of God has come near, there is no reason to beat around the bush: Jesus knows it is time to get to work. 

But also notice that in calling the four Jesus does not ask them to stop being fishermen or to boost their resumes. Instead Jesus calls them as they are. This call story is not just about dropping one’s nets to jump to another career, it is about exploration, growth, and examining one’s call. The disciples were not only fishermen, they were students, teachers, friends, community, and so much more. All of these aspects of their lives were within the call to discipleship and part of their vocation. We hear this as Jesus goes throughout Galilee doing multiple things: teaching, proclaiming, and healing everywhere. 

As the Gospel continues and Jesus moves between communities, we see that these fishermen disciples realize that their calling means one’s occupation as well as their relationships, their context, and the way that they experience the world. 

What would it mean for our own lives if we lived them out in the same way?

When we enter into the waters of Baptism we are told that we walk with one another holding the “spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy.” That is how each and every one of you are called. You would not only think about this while at your occupation, but in all aspects of your life. 

This is not me saying you need to take on more, but asking what if we thought about vocation and calls to discipleship in a way that was encompassing. That your vocation does not drop and picks up as something completely new, but shifts as we grow. That the way you earn money is a vocation as well as your vocation in parenting. Or the vocation of being a student, being a mentor, being a friend. 

Our Triune God calls out to you to follow.

To live out your vocational calling in your jobs, families, friendships, and everything in between. Teaching one another about love. Proclaiming where you see God within one another. Working as a community and individuals to bring healing and mending places within each other. Peace, justice, and caring for the neighbor are not calls that are saved for people who need to meet the discipleship benchmark. But one that we are all called to as Children of God. 

So I ask again, what do you want to be when you grow up?

What ways do you see God in your life? Where do you feel God calling, “come! Follow me!,” I will guide you in loving your neighbor, connecting with someone who needs a friend, or caring for one another. We know from the journeys and stories of the disciples that even when four of them were called in the same way, their call to discipleship took so many different forms that were all important as the reign of God comes near. And even when we do not know what that vocation looks like or struggle to hear God, we know that God calls us to life. Life in community, life that loves one another, and life even after our time is done here. 

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