Vicar Mollie Hamre

The Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Texts: Acts 2:42-47, Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:19-25, John 10:1-10

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

Do you feel safe in our world?

This question might leave an uneasy feeling among our readings today that we often relate with comfort and protection. We hear Psalm 23, a familiar Psalm, the reading from Acts describing a peaceful community, and the voice of Jesus calling to his sheep in the Gospel. Yet, amidst all this comfort, I cannot help but be skeptical of these words. The words telling us that Jesus, our gate and shepherd protects us, finds us green pastures, and gives life abundantly. 

Because the world we see is anything but that. It’s full of shootings, violence, hate, and destruction of our Earth. You name it. For my assumptions of what a world that is safe and protected looks like, this is not it. And while I do my best to trust in our Triune God, I am not sure how to connect these words with the world I see. 

We hear a metaphor from Jesus about a shepherd and his flock. 

About how the shepherd calls his sheep and opens the gate wide for them. How the sheep know the shepherd’s voice when the gate is opened and the shepherd walks ahead of them. And a warning about thieves and bandits that might try to enter elsewhere. Jesus then ends the Gospel saying: “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

Where does your focus go when reflecting on the Gospel?

Because mine goes to the gate. My focus was not on the role of the shepherd, but the wall that holds the image of safety. It was not the loving care of the Shepard’s voice. It was the fence that is supposed to keep out all those things that we deem to be thieves and bandits. The wall that leads us to believe that there is a way to determine who is in or out. Where safety is and where it is not. 

And even in what we perceive as a safety bubble is not always true because we still experience suffering. We experience illness that impacts ourselves and our loved ones. And we experience violence that enters our neighborhoods and the loss of lives.

This wall that gives us a feeling of safety is not the promise of our Triune God.

It is Jesus, the shepherd, the gate and guide of the flock. 

See, in ancient times the shepherd literally was the gate. 

The shepherd would lie down in front of the entrance and if anything wanted to harm the flock, it had to go through the shepherd first. This shepherd guarding the entrance is not a question about who is allowed to enter, it is more personal than that. We are talking about our relationship with our Triune God and what those promises are. We are talking about the love and community that takes place as our Shepherd embraces the flock. When Jesus tells us today that he is the shepherd, the gate, the one that saves and helps us find pasture, this is not for someone else that needs to hear it. It is for you. Jesus is calling to you. Calling you to abundance and life. 

Except it might not be the kind of abundance that our society values today.  

So much of the way we think about safety is from the idea of keeping others out. The thieves and bandits that climb over the wall are the ideas trying to convince us that greed, selfishness, and rejection are our only options. That the only way we can find safety is to close ourselves off and create walls. The ideas that try to convince us everything can be handled all by ourselves.

But our Triune God calls us to so much more.

Safety looks like community, vulnerability, and embracing one another. It means leaving the perceived safety of the walls to go out into the pasture and welcome people home. Where you are welcomed home. Safety means approaching all with open arms so that they may live abundantly, have their needs met, and live with dignity. A place where all people are a part of the flock, and come as they are. 

It is not the definition of safety we expect. It is not predictable, or controllable, or sometimes even all that comforting when we are asked to expose ourselves to care for one another. 

But it does give hope to us lost people. 

It gives a loving reminder that we are not alone. It gives us relationship with one another. This community, a part of the flock, gathers together for worship each week caring for each other and goes out to care for our neighbors in the pasture too. Listening to God’s voice that calls us to leave our bias, our assumptions, our judgment of others and asks us to see each other as we truly are: beloved. 

Safety is not found in the number of obstacles we build, but in the way we care for one another. The love that takes place as God’s reign and our reality combine. 

That’s God, our Shepherd’s promise. That each of God’s sheep are cared for, in community, and loved. 

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

 Jesus chooses us–even to enduring the pain of living and to the point of us crucifying him.

Vicar Mollie Hamre
Passion Sunday, Year A
Texts: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Matthew 26:14-27:66

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

Today Jesus chooses us. 

Jesus, God with us, does what he has always done: choosing to love his people and creation. Pouring himself out as a covenant. Showing compassion amidst rejection. Offering love to his disciples, and us. Telling us that we are beloved, important to this world, and receive this love freely–calling us back to look upon the cross.

And yet today, we also see our Triune God on the cross crucified by us. We are the ones betraying and ignoring Jesus. The ones choosing fear and power over love and compassion. And no matter how many times the Passion is read, it is still uncomfortable, still heavy, and sits on one’s chest as we look to the cross.

In hearing this, speaking it, feeling the weight of it, we see our fears and doubts on display asking questions about what is happening in our world and where God is. These cries intensify as we reflect on how they appear in our world. Lives that are lost in school shootings. Voices that are oppressed. Questions that are left unanswered. 

And Jesus, God with us, experiences it with us too. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In a time when we crave to hear words of comfort from Jesus that we have become so familiar with in the Gospels, his voice is filled with pain. He is forced into silence by injustice. Rejected by his friends. Left in grief, sadness, and affliction. But still Jesus reaches out. 

What does that mean for us? 

That our Triune God chooses us, to dwell with us, to experience fear and being human? That our Triune God experiences the violence and oppressive forces of the world? That amidst it all Jesus, God with us, chooses us. Even on the cross. 

When we betray Jesus, Jesus answers with love, forgiveness, and mercy. When we reject Jesus, Jesus answers by sharing a meal with us. When we place Jesus on the cross, Jesus answers with compassionate, outstretched arms. And when Jesus dies on the cross … we wait in hope to one day rise with him.  

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

Vicar Mollie Hamre

Midweek Lenten Service, Week 5 Year A
Texts: Amos 5:18-24, Psalm 15, Romans 12:1-13, Mark 12:28-34

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

Work for justice and peace.

That is the last statement of our Affirmation of Baptism liturgy that holds the promises we have with our Triune God, with one another, and with the world. Working for justice and peace are simple enough words, but words that also carry weight, responsibility, and an obligation to one another. As we know, describing justice and peace can range from reaching all corners of our world to the day-to-day relationships we have. So, if we want to work for justice and peace, what does that even mean?

Looking to the Gospel, Jesus gives us a starting point. 

He tells us that we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then, take that wholeness embodiment of love, and show that to your neighbor too. Jesus asks today we live that kind of life. The one that reminds us that we are dearly beloved and the one that reminds those around us that they are dearly beloved too. Although the statements appear as two commandments, they turn into one as we live our lives together. In order to love God, we must love the neighbor too. Working for justice and peace looks like emulating Christ and following the example of Christ.

To go further, the Psalm even gives us direction.

Psalm 15 was used as an entrance liturgy before going into the temple. These words describe the characteristics of people that were thought worthy to enter. The people who do what is right. Who speak truth from their hearts. Who do no evil and who do not reproach against each other. These were the people that are seen worthy enough to dwell, just for a short amount of time in God’s “holy hill.” Working for justice and peace looks like living among God’s faithful people and holding one another accountable.

And we hear Paul calling to us too. 

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” Paul is not asking about a change of thought in one’s mind, but a bodily renewing transformation. Note that I did not say a completely new transformation, but one that starts from where we are as our whole selves. One that embodies God’s call as the body of Christ with our gifts and our struggles. All called to the same table. Working for justice and peace looks like sharing an ever-growing table, gathering and being transformed.

Hearing all of this might feel like a big ask.

Because we are not perfect. We will not walk into worship each day with clean slates. And yet, in our baptismal promises, seeing our imperfections and struggles, our Triune God comes as Jesus, God with us, to be with us. To show us how to love God and one another in the Gospel. To dwell with us, not only for a short amount of time, but to walk with us in our daily lives. Be among us in community, that wherever we embody Jesus that is what makes places holy. To call us to be renewed and transformed.

Do you see the connections?

Jesus is telling us about proclaiming the good news of God in Christ to one another and serving one another. The Psalmist is talking about living together among God’s faithful people as we enter into our worship communities. Paul is talking about being renewed by hearing the word of God, sharing together in the Lord’s Supper and our own bodies being renewed. They all work together so that justice and peace may abide within us.

Working “for justice and peace” is at the end of promises in baptism because if we are up holding the responsibilities that we trust God and one another with, we will be working towards peace and justice. Growing together as a faith community, sharing in scripture, sacraments, proclaiming the Gospel, and following the example of Jesus. They all connect together. Work together. So that we are constantly called back to the waters of new life.  

Hear these words of your Affirmation of Baptism one more time.

As you receive the gift of baptism, you are entrusted with these responsibilities for yourselves and for one another:

☩ To live with God’s faithful people 
☩ To bring the word of God and the holy supper, teach the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments 
☩ To hold the holy scriptures and be nurtured in them in faith and prayer so that we may learn to trust God 
☩ To proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made
☩ To work for justice and peace 

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

Fifth Sunday in Lent A

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

“Take off your clothes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

Lenten Midweek, Fourth Lent A

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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