Sunday, October 18, 2015

"Who are you?" - 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 lately - home visits, meetings, sermon-writing, keeping up with Spirit class homework, and a host of other duties. I had the chance to get away to Marcell for a few days, where I helped my grandpa take out the dock from the lake - another summer is wrapped up and finished. They came over to Pelican Rapids yesterday afternoon where I preached this morning, and then did ditch clean-up with a bunch of our youth - it's been fun to get to know them one-on-one.

Here's the sermon text from this morning, taken from the book of Ruth:


Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s Son Jesus the Christ. Amen. 

It was 5:30 in the morning at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, and the Saturday morning looked to be promising. Sun slow to rise streamed through the windows in the fellowship hall, reflecting off the pine trees in the distance, and the smell of coffee brewing wafted in from the kitchen. Suddenly, someone stirred and came out of their room. A young man, probably only a few years older than me, came to where I was sitting, and joined me in the early morning silence. For a long time, we both looked out the window. It was the oddest feeling, but I remember feeling the need to talk to this person, who I had never seen before. He soon struck up conversation, very openly and honestly – about his marital troubles, about wanting to be a good father, about living at the local homeless shelter, and he asked me how he could turn his life around. He invited me to share my story. He then told me that he had moved from Montana to Minnesota, chasing one job after another with no contentment. We shared things in common – a love of the Grand Rapids north woods, a desire to seek deeper faithfulness, and we wondered about these questions together. We talked for two and a half hours, about anything and everything. After getting a cup of coffee, we thanked each other for the conversation, and then the man, his name was Kenny, quietly got up and slipped out of the church where we were doing homeless shelter overflow. I never saw him again, yet in those early morning hours I had an experience I will never forget – of being in conversation, of being true with and for the sake of each other, and navigating times of difficulty. A man, who I had never met before then, showed up, embodied Christ in our midst, and modeled what compassion and relationship looks like. In those moments, who we were for each other and holding space for each other, mattered.

We arrive at this today in this beautiful little tale called the book of Ruth. We encounter a migrant, piecemealed family, who is in transition, who are in mourning at their loss of their husbands, who are calling into question their very futures. We encounter a mother-in-law encouraging her daughters-in-law to return to their homelands, we are meeting on the road women who are shedding tears at the prospect of leaving one another. One – Orpah, goes, while Ruth, the other, clings to Naomi. This scene is placed against the larger context of the time when the judges ruled Israel and famine in the country was commonplace.

These women, along their life’s journey, have been transient. Moving from Bethlehem to Moab and, now, alone, back to Bethlehem, to a country that is restless and an enemy to Ruth, a foreigner, a Moabite. Naomi, upon saying goodbye to Orpah, invites and encourages Ruth to do the same – to return to her people. Her life would be better that way. Ruth’s famous words show total devotion – not only to Naomi, but also to investing in the life that yet lay ahead of her: “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” In the face of transition, in the face of life’s changes, Ruth claims Naomi’s life now as her own – she will adopt Naomi’s people and her God. It would have been an option for Ruth to turn back and to leave her mother-in-law, but her sense of accompaniment in Naomi’s life, in her profound, direct bitterness, outweighs her own wants. The text, I think, begs the question to be asked as we see Ruth’s answer unfold – the question of who are we, especially in times of transition, in periods of discernment, or in seasons of disquiet? In a truthful, profound and relational ways, this text asks us who we are to be for each other – who is Ruth for Naomi, and who are we for our neighbor in the pew? This text invites a deeper look into how we are made known by God even when we struggle with knowing our very selves. At the end of this text, Ruth and Naomi are about to walk into Bethlehem; are just staring at the edges of the barley fields far in the distance, and a lot remains unseen. They could be rejected, forgotten. In the face of that, though, God, in this book, in indirect ways, lays claim upon them and calls them as God’s own. The claim of this text is that we can always rely on God to intersect our very own realities in ways that we never expect, and to realize that that is where life flourishes. We know the ending for Ruth – she is eventually married and a son is born to her and promises are made to Naomi – that “he shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age.” Because of who Ruth and Naomi are for each other, God meets them and brings life out of death. Mara, bitter, has been renamed Naomi, pleasantness.

So it is with us – I invite you to consider, deeply and profoundly, who are you? Who are you as a child of God, claimed and beloved even though in times of transition and despair it’s really hard to see? Who are you, in relation to your neighbor, both down the road, in town, and across the globe? Who are we, as the family of Zion Lutheran and as the body of Christ? I can imagine that there would be a myriad of answers to those questions, but it helps us to see just a little bit clearer God’s intentions for God’s world. No matter what the answers, each of us are called to be examples of faith, hope, and love not only to the world but also for each other. Just as Kenny lived that out in our conversation together, so I see it in each of us as we live life together.

Today, and every single day of our lives, each and every one of us gets to embrace this story of faith, this story of witnessing to each other in times of difficulty. We get the privilege in this community to be real and honest with each other, for the sake of engaging in and responding to some world-changing, life-changing work, called the Gospel. Ruth says to Naomi, “May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you.” In hearing those words, we have been given a strong commitment and responsibility to bear witness to each other. Hearing Ruth’s words gives us purpose and encouragement to continue living into God’s mission in the world knowing that the last thing we are is alone; we are very much working together. My friends, the barley fields are just down the road. Let’s walk into Bethlehem. For our life together, I say, thanks be to God. Amen.

Hope you all have a blessed Sunday!
Dean

Sunday, October 4, 2015

"You're Just Who I'm Looking For" - a sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church


Hello, friends - 

I hope you all have been having a great week! Life has been full at Pelican Rapids this past week - meetings, hospital visits, sermon preparation, confirmation, visiting Luther Crest Bible Camp, and more . This week my supervisor is going down to Luther Seminary for continuing education as he participates in the seminary's "Celebration of Biblical Preaching" event - he'll be coming back on Thursday, just as I'm headed down to Cannon Falls for a few days with family, and to drive to Iowa to participate in Waldorf College's 2015 Homecoming. Tomorrow through Thursday, I'll be in charge - but I'm looking forward to the experience of having everything on my plate. A foretaste of what is to come, no doubt! Here's my sermon manuscript from my sermon this morning, preaching on Exodus 1:8-14 and 3:1-15. I did weave in the Oregon community college shootings towards the end. 

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s Son Jesus the Christ. Amen.

A lot has happened since last week. Last week we found ourselves in Genesis 32, with the story of Jacob wrestling with God. Now today we find ourselves in Exodus 1, we have jumped several generations, descendants of Jacob are multiplying, and we are placed firmly in the story of Joseph’s people in Egypt. Joseph is Jacob’s son, the 11th born, who rose to power in Egypt after being sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. In Exodus, this story we are brought to today is based in fear. The king who has risen over Egypt does not know the people, and did not know Joseph nor his legacy, and is worried. He is worried because Israelite people living in Egypt were prospering. He said to the Egyptians, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase, and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”
To keep them under his command, the king orders brutal, hard, manual labor. Working with bricks and mortar, building whole cities for Pharoah. The Israelites lives, the text says, were made bitter. The king of Egypt is fearful, so he turns to and wields the instrument of oppression. The king is scared of the masses, so he attempts to silence their potential influence. He’s fearful something might be up, that there could possibly be something in the air.
This fear enacts an onslaught of killing to counteract the Israelite’s continued growth as a people – the Pharaoh commands that every boy born to the Hebrews be thrown into the Nile, but to keep the girls alive. This sets the stage for Moses, who escapes death in a papyrus basket. We meet him here in Exodus 3 after he has grown up, and is living as a shepherd in exile. God appears to him in a bush set ablaze, but not burning. Moses answers God’s call simply with a “Here I am” and listens to God tell the story of Israel’s suffering. God then calls him to a pretty simple task – going to Pharaoh and demanding the release of the Israelite people. The same man who ordered the deaths of babies, who is determined to keep the Israelite people underfoot. God tells Moses that he is to go to Pharaoh and order that slavery be ended. God has plans, and they don’t include servitude in Egypt. Not anymore. To God, this is all part of the grand scheme – to bring his people to a broad place, flowing with milk and honey. To Moses, it seems like an insurmountable, terrifying task. “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?” he asks.
God, in that moment, makes a promise – “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you; when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” This dialogue between God and Moses, of being called and not feeling adequate for this task – continues on for another 27 verses, but the premise is the same. God called Moses even though he didn’t feel up to the task. Leading a people out of an oppressive situation is really hard work, and Moses is just an exiled shepherd who is afraid to return to the Pharaoh. That doesn’t matter to God, though. Dale talked last week about how God calls those who are ordinary, dirty, scummy, exiled people, and the same rings true here. Moses has already killed an Egyptian. His sense of justice for the Israelite people is evident, and God uses him all the same.
God establishes Moses’ role in this story by reminding him that God is not only his God, but also the God of all ancestors – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They faithfully followed God’s calling in their lives, so now God asks the same of Moses. There is a rich lineage here of promises and callings and faithfulness that has been fulfilled, so God just asks for a bit of faith. Leaving Egypt and facing Pharaoh and his people might seem like a monstrous undertaking, but Moses’ action is essential to the completion of God’s promise.
By and large, these texts leave us with the feeling that something – an uprising, a release from servitude, and a turning over of power – is just a few moments away. The air in Pithom and Rameses is shimmering with discontent and the drowned baby boys flowing down the Nile is nothing short of a warning that God will act justly and God will act swiftly and God will do it through human hands, through those least expected. Out of Egypt an exiled shepherd man will lead them.
            This text leaves us with many things to consider. How often are we playing the role of Pharaoh – when do we oppress others, when do we manipulate and control or wish harm? Do you see Moses, who stands up and stares injustice in the face? How often do you feel inadequate when faced with a life situation that seems impossible to navigate? How often do we see the sinfulness of this world and wish to be delivered from it, to see it cease? Too many times we forget that we have a God who says “I am who I am”, who is more powerful than we expect or believe some days. Too often we forget that we have the same God who lived among Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and that God continues to work today as we see sin live among us – in racism, classism, in lies, in murder, in cheating, and in all other ways the brokenness of this world persists.
            Our answer, my friends, lies in Jesus. As God delivered Israel from Egypt through Moses, so God makes our world right through Christ. Moses was a shepherd, Jesus a carpenter’s son – nothing like the king or royal savior the people at large expected. We as ordinary people who feel like we only lead mediocre lives and don’t have it all together and feel that we might be a bit more sinner than saint live in a time where the kingdom of God is at hand, but it is not quite here in full. That is where we come in, as the Body of Christ. We’re an imperfect people gathered together by God through Christ to do his work – to see people brought out of their slavery to sin and into God’s new promised life. Like Moses, we’re called whether we want to be or not. We’re chosen by God to bring relief to this world by being the hands and feet of Christ. God comes to down to each of us and says, “Yes. You – broken and imperfect. You’re just who I’m looking for.” And to that I say, thanks be to God. Amen. 

Have a great week, friends! 
In God's Peace - 
Dean