"How Do You See?" - a sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church

Hello friends -

I hope this post finds you well! It's been a busy few weeks here in Pelican Rapids - this past weekend my aunt, mom, cousin, and grandmother made the trek to PR to spend a few days in town - and it was a blast! We got to get out on a hike at a nearby state park, look around Pelican Rapids, eat at our beloved local Cornfield Cafe, and attend church Sunday morning at Zion. Here's the manuscript from this Sunday's sermon:

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Son of David our Healer. Amen.

One summer day, after I had just finished my fifth grade year in elementary school, my dad decided that he wanted he, my brothers, and myself, to go to our local barber and get a flat top haircut – where the hair is simply buzzed flat at the top of your head. My dad thought it would be neat if we all looked the same.

Well, I tell you what. I came out of that barbershop that hot summer afternoon looking like a total fool. I had large glasses to boot and looked pretty ridiculous, while my dad stood beaming at his three sons whose haircuts all matched. “Isn’t this cool, guys?” he asked. “This is awesome.” Well, at least, he thought so. The way we saw things, the way we perceived things in this situation was a night and day difference.

We encounter this same dynamic in our gospel text for today – Jesus is working in a situation where different people have different opinions and they see things differently from person to person. Jesus is in his last days of public ministry, for soon he will be going to Jerusalem, participating in the Triumphal Entry into the city, and a week later be handed over to the Roman government at the call of the Jewish people to be flogged and hang on a cross and die. He has told his disciples two times already that this must come to pass, forewarning them of his death and resurrection. There’s an interesting response from the James and John, two of the disciples, here: “Teacher, we want for you to do for us whatever we ask of you” – and what they want is an increase in status, an increase in favor from the rest of his followers.

The disciples have a hard time understanding and seeing what Jesus has been trying to teach them – and this gets at the core of our text for today. While the disciples want to sit in glory and drink the same cup of suffering that Christ has been given, they don’t understand that Christ has a radically different message. The way of following Jesus is not looking for prestige or power, but rather living a life of servanthood, a life committed to mercy and grace. As Jesus instructs his disciples, “but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” – Jesus does this to remind his disciples, and even us today in the pews – that living a life of importance or status does not rest in claiming glory in religious terms or expectations, but in how you serve and live for others in a broken world yearning for wholeness.

This comes to fruition in the story at the end of our passage for today – the disciples perceptions of prestige and power are totally turned over by a blind man named Bartimaeus. This blind man, a beggar to boot, gets it. He understands, calling Jesus the Son of David and asks for mercy, for him to heal his blindness – “My teacher, let me see again.” The disciples – who want their status elevated, are face-to-face with Bartimaeus, who wants his status erased. There’s a disconnect here. The disciples cannot see in terms of faith, while Bartimaeus cannot physically see. Immediately Jesus heals him, and sends Bartimaeus into the world as a man who can see clearly.

In the story of Bartimaeus, we see the kingdom as it should be. The last, a blind man and a beggar, are made first. The disciples, who desire power, are left to question their motives and wants. This is just as true in our society today – different churches, class structures, and people of God have vastly different opinions on what it means to be a person of faith, and everyone interprets faith with a different understanding. Today, we baptize Lydia Andrienne Gilbert as a child of God, called by the Spirit, and welcomed into the faith journey that some days she will see clearly, while others there will be struggles and questions. It’s difficult wrestling, but extraordinarily meaningful, as we ponder what it means to see Jesus and his work among us.

This begs the question, then, my friends. Who are you? Do you see yourself in James or John, who desire power and glory for the sake of importance? Or are you more like a Bartimaeus, who sees clearly what a life of faith should be like? We are all disciples, yes, but the way that we look out into the world after hearing the Gospel is so incredibly important. How do you respond to what God is doing in your life? The Spirit is moving, each and every moment. How do you see? Amen. 

God's peace, friends - 

Dean

"What is the Price for Witnessing to the Reign of God?" - a sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church

Hello friends -

I hope this finds you well! My supervisor is on vacation to sunny, warm, Arizona - so I've been solo pastoring for the past week and a half - and all's gone well, so far! Dale will return February 8th - we're awaiting his arrival back to northwest Minnesota. Here's the sermon from this past Sunday - talking about following the reign of God amidst disbelief, rejection, and death:

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

            Friends, I’ll be honest with you. I struggle with this text. I struggle with what to say – both this time around and the first time I preached on this passage from Mark back in July at another congregation I served in. The 6^th chapter of Mark is not the promise-filled message of reconciliation that we are most often used to hearing. Instead, there’s this. There’s rejection in a small hometown village. There’s people being sent out two by two with almost nothing to their name and relying on total strangers to provide complete hospitality and there’s wiping dust off of feet if the message isn’t heard. There’s a beheading in a musty prison and conniving behavior in the royal palace. There’s a lot going on in this passage, and I struggle often with locating where the Gospel is found in the face of rejection. What do we do when the communities we spend time in spreading the Gospel don’t respond as we’d hoped? What is the price for witnessing to the reign of God? They pay the price like this: Jesus leaves his hometown. The disciples clean off their sandals and carry on. John the Baptist ends up dead.

            The characters in our story for today were really only being human, as best they know how. When Jesus pulls into his hometown of Nazarath with his disciples and begins to teach in the synagogue and is expecting belief and adherence and instead what he gets is “You’re just a simple carpenter”, “You’re just the son of plain Mary”, “Where did you get this wisdom and power, Jesus?” The people know him, you see – they’ve watched him grow up, advancing in both wisdom and years – and he went off for a while to begin his ministry, but now he’s returned and all the old perceptions and understandings of this once-child are back again. They can’t get past his family; his occupation. To expect full belief in the fact that Jesus was the Son of God would be too much right now – so Jesus heals a few people and leaves town. The price of witnessing to the reign of God is disbelief.

Jesus soon sends his disciples on the way ahead of him, giving them power to do his work of casting out demons and healing the sick. The way Jesus does this, though, is limiting – they are to travel lightly, with almost nothing on their person, which requires the disciples to depend fully on the hospitality of others. Their message may or may not be received. This is “How to Be like Jesus 101” – just as Jesus depends on his word being spread through the Spirit’s help in acceptance of teaching and genuine hospitality, so he requires the disciples to do the same. Jesus’ life and ministry was always risky – there is always a chance of being caught, always a chance of not being welcomed – and he wants the disciples to experience this. In case you aren’t received, wipe the dust off your feet and carry on. The price of witnessing to the reign of God is rejection.

Then we turn to John the Baptist in the prison cell. Faithfully proclaiming Christ’s coming and work for years, baptizing people into the promises of God, here he sits – soon to be beheaded due to a scheming palace royalty who wants nothing more than the forerunner of Christ dead. King Herod tries to defend John – he likes the man, you see, but is perplexed by all his talk about the law and Christ and the Gospel – but ultimately, after promising Herodias anything she desires, has to follow through with the execution orders. The head of John the Baptist arrives in the banquet hall on a platter, and the scene ends with the disciples taking John’s body away to a tomb. The price of witnessing to the reign of God is death.

            The price of witnessing to the reign of God, of proclaiming the way life should be here and now, is disbelief, rejection, and death. It’s powerful, scary stuff, for you in the pews and for this guy up here in the pulpit. Jesus knew this – he prayed that his cup might be taken from him if it be God’s will. Yet, Jesus proclaimed the Gospel all the way to the cross where he bore all the sins of humanity for our sake so that we might not only life in abundance here and now but also life eternal in the new heaven and new earth when all things are made new. If we have Jesus as our model, if we have Jesus who we profess to follow, then too many times over in our churches and communities we’ve been afraid of rejection because of our faith. Because in the face of the world telling us that disbelief, rejection, and death are normative and the order of the day, we have a God who is working for belief – whether it comes in the form of Christianity, whether it takes beyond this lifetime. We have a God who is working for acceptance – of all people from all nations and all creeds, and above all, a God who is working for resurrection and new life that will once and for all silence sin and death. And God’s not doing it alone – God is using us – every one of you – to participate in this world-changing revolution. The Spirit is moving. How will you respond? Amen. 

Dean

Living as Resurrection People

Hello friends - 

I hope this finds you well! I wanted to share with you what Zion's community will be doing for midweek Lenten services. If you find yourselves in the Pelican Rapids area from February 17th - March 23rd, here's a shameless plug to join in our journey to the cross! What follows is my February newsletter article: 

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

           

It’s difficult to believe that Christmas was just a short while ago and now we’re looking on to Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Easter – the cycle and seasons of the church life and calendar are continuing on! I wanted to use this space this month to take some time to share with you what I’m hoping for midweek Lenten services, as they are just a few weeks away – Ash Wednesday is February 10^th!

This year, for the six weeks in between Ash Wednesday and Easter, together we will journey to the cross. We will be having Wednesday night services of prayer and song, contemplation and silence. We will be hearing from members of our community who will be sharing pieces of their faith story. We will light candles and gather in the darkness of winter’s nights as we hear about Christ’s good news lived among us, his death suffered on the cross, and as we await the joyful good news of the resurrection of Christ, defeating sin and silencing death forever.

To do this, we will be using music from the Taize community, an ecumenical faith community who utilizes short chants for their services. We will gather in darkness and silence. There will be some readings from Scripture and other sources to invoke prayer. The music we will be singing is easily and quickly learned, and you will be invited to join in as you feel comfortable. You will be welcomed to the cross to pray and to light a candle as a sign of your prayer. If you wish to have others join you in prayer, you are welcome to do that, as well. If you would rather sit in the darkness and pray from the pew, please do so. After our time of prayer has come to its conclusion, the lights will be drawn just a bit, and we will hear a short message from our faith community members.

I invite you to join us for Lenten services. I invite you to take these next few weeks to consider the journey to the cross – as Christ was ministering among the people and traveling and healing, he knew that ultimately the cross awaited him – but what he finished upon the cross perfected salvation for each and every one of us. It is this that we remember, it for this that we pray and wait in silence.

Brothers and sisters, I can’t wait to celebrate Lent with you. With you, Dale and I anticipate the journey to the cross. We anticipate Christ’s death, and we live as resurrection people – today and always.

Welcome to Lent.

In the love of Christ and for God’s sake –

Intern Pastor Dean

"Sipping Diet Pepsi and Pondering Eternal Life" - a sermon for the community of Zion Lutheran Church

Hello everyone -

I hope this finds you well! Here's the text from my sermon two weekends ago (the 10th) at Zion.

Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and Jesus our Salvation. Amen.

It was early on in my chaplaincy experience at Unity Hospital in Fridley, Minnesota – I’d been there about a month, visiting with patients who had spiritual or religious concerns, or many times I went around doing cold-calls and knocking on doors. On the orthopedic/extra medical floor that took care of mostly knee replacements and other non-life-threatening concerns, the need for spiritual care wasn’t as prevalent as, say, the emergency room or the cardiovascular unit. That being said, many wonderful conversations about God and suffering and life were still to be had, there is no doubt about that. The people I talked to were curious; questioners.

I was still wet behind the ears as a chaplain when I met a woman named Bernice. She was in her mid-fifties, and had an evident Texan drawl. She was in for knee surgery, she said, but there was more going on with her. Cancer. She told me she had a year left to live, that the prognosis wasn’t good. She was a Minnesota transplant from Texas, with a son and a daughter of her own and two grandchildren, both boys, who were sometimes troublemakers she said but you know that really they love their parents. Bernice told me she would call her grandchildren often, and tell them to be good, “but it’s hard to be away from them. I try to teach them. Now I have to teach them how to be without me.”

She and her husband, who stopped in often, had just bought a farmhouse in the Texas countryside. She wanted to go to Texas this last year of her life and live in her farmhouse with her husband and be surrounded by her children and grandchildren. She wanted to plant a garden one last time and sip Diet Pepsi and watch one last summer’s sunsets. She wanted to cook some more and read some more all the while planning her funeral and thinking about eternal life. “I know God loves me,” she said, as tears formed around her eyes, “but sometimes it’s really difficult to see.”

We visited five more times together while she was at Unity. Bernice left the hospital after a week but three weeks later she came back, at the urging of the doctors, when managing pain became too much. “It was too much for my husband to take care of me”, she said, “So I’m back for a while. We’re still planning on Texas.”

This is, sadly, where our paths diverged. After she left for the second time, I don’t know what happened to Bernice. I pray she made it to Texas, and that she got to spend time with her family and plant her garden and teach her grandchildren a thing or two about kindness. Through Bernice, Christ was in our midst. A dying woman came into my life and taught me a thing or two about grace, about shattered expectations, about doing something new. A dying woman wanted to plant a garden and design her funeral, to love the people around her and also show them life without her. When I thought she would be so preoccupied with questions, with fear, with doubt – she shattered my expectations and proved the exact opposite. In the face of death, she was living.

This story illustrates today’s Gospel. Jesus comes to teach, heal, and eat – but to the Pharisees and scribes and people who think they know better, he’s doing these things with all of the wrong people. Jesus heals a paralytic, a man lowered through the roof, and shatters expectations. Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector and sinner in good company, and destroys convention. Jesus eats with sinners and is called out as going against the order of things. Jesus calls you and me and Bernice, and starts doing something new. Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, is calling each of us to defy the expectations of this world and to lean into our Christian life as we have been claimed children of God. I was taught this by Bernice, and I have been taught this by you all. We have a whole world out there to surprise. Let’s start by walking out the door. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dean

"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