"God Started Doing Something New" - a Christmas Eve sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church

Good morning, friends - 

I hope you all had fantastic Christmases and are looking forward to 2016 right around the corner! On internship I was able to preach Christmas Eve at all three of our candlelight services - it was a beautiful afternoon and evening. Here's the sermon! :) The text was Luke 1:1-20. 

Sisters and Brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Savior of the World Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Let me begin by saying that I absolutely love this story. The way that the Gospel of Luke records the birth story of the Christ child is probably among my favorite passages of Scripture. This account has so much to offer to us as hearers and listeners. We begin by meeting people on the road who are traveling back to their cities of origin to be registered and accounted for due to a decree from Emperor Augustus. On the scene are indeed Mary and Joseph, who are going back from Nazareth to Bethlehem. We have Mary, carrying the son of God, an impoverished young woman with a common name, and Joseph, a carpenter. Neither of them have much, and neither of them hail from the upper classes of Nazarene and Galilean society. They make the 90-some-mile trip into Bethlehem and upon arrival, are ultimately unable to find a place to stay – there are no relatives in town or Jewish families with an open room or home – so they seek refuge elsewhere. The story tells us in an inn. While there, during the time the couple was in Bethlehem being registered, Mary gives birth to her first born son, wraps him in bands of cloth, and lays him in an animal’s feeding trough.

When I read through the text, the only thing I can think of is, “Wow. What a beginning.” What a totally opposite experience from what was expected of the Savior of the world. The Jewish culture at the time was expecting a savior king coming in splendor with a mighty arm to save the world and redeem it to God’s reign. Someone that acted like and resembled a Messiah; a leader for their cause. Instead, a baby is born.

A baby is born to Mary, a poor teenaged mother. A baby is born to a couple who cannot find a place to stay, who seek refuge in an inn and lay their newborn in a manger. A baby is born to Joseph, who questioned whether or not to leave Mary after finding out she was with child. A baby was born in the darkness, in the still quiet of a Bethlehem night. At this moment, as his cry pierced through the silence, the world was all but turned over. God, who for thousands of years had been active in human history and narrative through chosen and individual prophets, who set the Spirit ablaze in called and claimed communities and cast judgments and fulfilled promises, has now come down from heaven to earth – when we hear the words, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”, and “a little child shall lead them”, it explicitly means Christ incarnate. In this baby, in the Christ child, we have God drawing near to us – God chooses to dwell among us, be with us, and be for us in the body and mission of Jesus Christ. The very magnitude of this event cannot be kept silent, and it isn’t kept silent.

The second part of this narrative continues – we look out beyond Mary and Joseph and travel to the fields where the shepherds, who were akin in that culture to prostitutes, tax collectors, and others as dirty and scummy and sinful, were watching their flocks. Angels appear before them and the shepherds are terrified. Who are these beings coming to speak with us? I can imagine them asking. The angels tell them of the birth of the baby boy, and give the shepherds signs of what to look for. The angels tell them that through this God is glorified and there will be peace bestowed upon the earth.

It’s no coincidence that the first people chosen to hear about this miraculous news are those on the outskirts of society, those who are marginalized, and those on the fringe. We have a baby born to take away the sins of the world, and the first to hear of it are those who God chooses to dwell among. God, in this story, doesn’t come to the rich and wealthy and powerful who were expecting a savior to be someone else. God tells shepherds who are keeping their sheep on the hills that to them this night a baby has been born for them who will be the cause of joy for all people – and what better news is there than this? The shepherds go, the wise men appear, and soon the world ‘round begins to hear of this miraculous event that has taken place. The Christ child has been born, God has become flesh, and the world is turned upside down. Here, we hear the story of a God who deliberately chooses to be with those who are ultimately other – with those who we so often regard as different or unworthy or bad. The same rings true today – we hear and see of God moving for the marginalized and outcast. We as hearers and listeners of this story now suddenly have a great responsibility. Because God has come to dwell with all of humanity beginning with the birth of Christ, we now need to go and proclaim it to the people who need to hear these words of hope and promise. We need to proclaim this to people who have lost hope, who doubt, who question, who wonder. How many of us in the pews tonight have had seasons in our lives where we have been lonely, felt oppressed, lost hope, and questioned the mystery of this faith we have been called to? I know I have!

This is why this story is so important. This is the turning moment when God breaks in to human history in the form of a little baby boy, who came to give faith and saving grace to you and to me and to your neighbor. Like the shepherds, we cannot keep silent, we cannot be still – we must go and see this for ourselves, and even today we have the responsibility of bearing this word to the whole of the cosmos. We, as participants in this community of faith where the ancient meets the future, have been brought into the everlasting love of God and into the communion of the saints in light. And to think – it all began with a baby boy born to the least expected people.

Friends, go this night in the hope, promise, and light of the Christ child. Many years ago, a newborn’s cry first pierced the darkness, and as Mary and Joseph gazed over their child God started doing something new for all people in all times and spaces. Go this night, knowing that Christ is for us, with us, and among us. There is no better news than this. Thanks be to God. Amen.

God's Peace -

Dean

"Histories and Futures" - a sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church

Hello friends -

I hope this post finds you well! Life has been full in Pelican Rapids as of late - duties as usual in the parish, continually baking bread, cooking up a storm in my free time, etc. I wanted to share with you my sermon from this past Sunday, where I talked about God's hope and grace found in times of transplant and transition.

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the One who is to come, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

            At Holden, I worked in the kitchen with one of the most ambitious, talented, and down-to-earth 74-year-old women I’d ever met. Her name is Nancy Raymond, and throughout our winter and spring sojourn together as kitchen staff in town, we got to know each other well. As the days got shorter and the mountains cast their shadows deeper through the valley, we talked about life in Grand Rapids, her family, and her story. She shared new beginnings – about how she moved to Grand Rapids for a job at age fifty-five, came alone and dared to find her way in a new community. She shared her love of traveling, hoping to see as much of this world as possible – trips to Italy, South America, and Scandinavia. She shared her thoughts on her spiritual practices, and what worship meant to her.

We talked bread and bakeries and dreams for ministry as we chopped five gallons of carrots, and she gave her quiet smile as I declared hands down that her garlic breadsticks were “world famous” as we served them up alongside lasagna. We shared together that year, very much so, an idea of what transformation was – coming from one place, home – Grand Rapids for her and Cannon Falls for me – to finding new community together in this remote mountain village. How we were being transplanted, and finding sorrows and joys within that. We talked about how God found us, came to us, and dwelled with us as we gathered for Vespers worship every evening. We missed what we knew, but loved in equal measure what we were finding in turn – chances for new relationships with new people and opportunities to learn their stories, histories, and futures.

            This tension between exile and promise, of casting-out and finding a future, of remembering what is forgotten and left behind and finding something new, is exactly what our text today from the book of Ezra pronounces. The book of Ezra talks about a promise fulfilled by God through the prophecy of Jeremiah in the words of King Cyrus of Persia: “Any of those among you who are of his people—may their God be with them!—are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.” This is one of God’s promises held up and against many judgments in the Old Testament. The people of God in this text were exiled because of sin, a definite judgment, and they are brought back to the land because of God’s promise – they can return to Jerusalem in Judah and build a temple. Like Nancy and I – we found new community out in the mountains as the people of God did in Jerusalem.

            This doesn’t mean that everything is going to be smooth sailing, however. The Israelites return and there are people there who have since inhabited the land. The text writes of “being in dread of neighboring peoples” – the Israelites can indeed worship, but the landscape has changed – there are new people there. A festival is put on as the builder’s lay the foundation for their space – priests wear their vestments and there are cymbals and praising but there is also lament. Specifically, there is lament from the people who remember the first temple. There is lament for what used to be, for what home and worship once was. The text says, “old people who had seen the first house on its foundations wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people's weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.”

            One of the takeaways here is that the community of people in Jerusalem allowed for that – they welcomed weeping alongside praise, to the point that they could not distinguish joyful shout from distressed cries – from those who had remembered the temple as it once was. This text ultimately proves the point that God’s people are attempting to live into what God has in store for them – returning to Jerusalem, building the foundations for a new temple, setting the stage for a life renewed out of exile, living into God’s promises – but all of that is proving to be messy and showing only mixed results so far.

            Just like our community here. Just like Nancy at Holden. We find ourselves in new situations, living out God’s intentions for our beings, but at the same time we remember how things once were – we remember where we come from, what we left behind, the brokenness and sin we have been delivered from. We feel both joy and sadness, grief and praise, but we know that God is always faithful. When we get things wrong, God points us towards new life and resurrection and brings us out of exile and our old ways.

            How applicable to today – we see fear and hatred in political spheres, we read and watch about concern and demands placed over people because of their religion. We as human beings like to divide and separate ourselves according to what makes us different from each other. We constantly exile ourselves from one another on the basis of our differences, not wondering what the world might be like if we worked for new life. This text shows us that, yes, striving to do that is messy – there is wailing and weeping over what was, but God always brings new life out of death. There is hope for resurrection in our world today, and it is here and it is now. Let us praise God for that. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Grace and peace, friends - 

Dean

             

"You Take God's Breath Away" - a sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church

Hello friends -

I hope you're having a great Tuesday morning! It's been a busy past few days, tracking all over the state in my '04 Oldsmobile Alero - first to Cannon Falls for Thanksgiving, then up to Grand Rapids for my cousin's wedding, then to Marcell for a day, and finally back to Pelican Rapids where I can stay for awhile. While away, I had the opportunity to worship again at my first year teaching parish, St. Andrew's Lutheran, and got to connect with a good friend from that community, who I had also served with at Holden Village. I had the privilege to preach at my community's Thanksgiving Eve service before taking off for home. This is my sermon from that service.

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Giver of Life, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

             This past weekend, three adult leaders had the chance to take five of our youth from Zion to a Northwestern Minnesota Synod youth gathering in Bemidji, Minnesota, where they joined in with 300 other middle schoolers and participated in worship, assemblies, and breakout sessions talking about homelessness, how God works in our lives, and other important pieces that matter to our lives of faith. It was an extraordinarily formative weekend, both for the kids, and, dare I say, the leaders, too. The theme of the gathering was “You Take God’s Breath Away”, and conversation centered around that – what does it look like, exactly, to make God stop and go, “Wow! I created him or her in my image, and that takes my breath away.”

            We talked about our gifts in one session – some identified gifts of kindness, others had gifts of listening, others gifts of curiosity, others were great athletes, musicians, and the list went on and on and on. We talked about how God gives us those gifts to lean in to the world. We shared devotionals together where we called each youth by name and reminded them of how they take God’s breath away. About, how, through simply believing in the faith that they have been called to, God is amazed by them. Through no work of their own.

            This seems odd, though, right? How, with all the stuff going on in the world today, with all of the sin and lawlessness and chaos, could God be amazed at who we are? In the midst of the stuff of our lives, in our brokenness, it can be hard to see how God could be well pleased with how we’re turned out. How could God give us such abundance freely? There’s so much law. Surely we need to do something, you may be thinking. This is the perfect time to ask – where is the Gospel?

            This is exactly what the disciples wanted to know from Jesus in our text from the Gospel of John. They wanted to know, exactly, what they needed to do – “What must we do to perform the works of God?” they asked. What do they need to do, in order to live as God commanded, to obtain eternal life? Jesus, as always, answers so simply, so succinctly, “This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.” – essentially, that you believe in Jesus as the One sent by God. This was really weird for the disciples to hear – they wanted signs from Jesus, they felt like they needed to do something, anything, to follow God. Jesus tells them to just believe? To eat of the true bread from heaven that sustains? What’s that? What does that mean, I’m sure they were thinking.

            Instead, friends, we remember that our faith is totally a gift. Something that is freely bestowed from the Spirit at our baptism. We take God’s breath away to the point that God gives us the true bread of life – faith and eternal life – so that we will never be spiritually hungry. We receive this through no work of our own. It’s hard to hear, especially looking at today’s earthly realities. That’s why it’s so amazing. Our kids took that away this weekend – that faith is a gift given to them – and it was such an inspiring, amazing thing to see.

            Sisters and brothers, Thanksgiving is tomorrow. We will gather around turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pie. We will gather with family, friends, and loved ones, and celebrate the abundance found in our lives. We will probably watch football and fall asleep in the sofa or armchair after our meals. I would ask, too, that you give thanks for the gifts found in your own life – for the gift of faith freely bestowed, and for the quiet gifts of your being – kindness, love, listening – whatever they may be. Give thanks for the promises of eternal life. Give thanks for each other, and notice how you take God’s breath away. At times it may not seem like we our worthy, but know that indeed, we are loved and cherished by God beyond our wildest imagining. God has already had God’s breath taken away by the person you were, the person you are, and the person that you will grow to become. God has given us the Bread of Life, Jesus the Christ. Let us celebrate. Amen. 

Dean