Biggest mystery of all?

     Nothing like a little dose of reality to stop your worrying about silly things, huh?  After the news from Oklahoma, coupled with significant damage to the home of some faith family members I am done worrying about the mystery of the Trinity.
     It is, after all, Holy Trinity Sunday coming up this week.  The Holy Trinity is always celebrated the week after Pentecost and when it comes to the mysteries of faith, I'd say the Trinity is up there among the most mysterious.  It is the three-in-one, one-in-three that do not function as complete individuals, but in total and perfect union, each living and dancing in the relationship that gives life to the world.  Yet it is not like each 'person' of the trinity has their own jobs, either, because that is not an accurate portrayal of the three-in-one and one-in-three.  But, since this is a mystery and life is happening, I think I'm going to focus on the second lesson for the week, which is from Romans 5.
     This text is chosen because it mentions God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and is one of the key scriptural texts that forms the foundation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.  And I have chosen to go with this one because it talks about peace, hope,  suffering, endurance, and character.  If there is anything that comes out of natural disasters and suffering, it is endurance, character, and hope. 

we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us

Boast is an interesting word here, especially as it falls upon these Mid-west, Norwegian/German-rooted ears.  Boast?  Even if it is about suffering, it is still boasting and as we who grew up with this heritage know, God will burn our souls if we even think about boasting, let alone actually do it.  Yet I think this is not a boasting in the typical way we think of the word, this boasting is a witness to our faith and our hope in Jesus Christ.
     This is a boasting spoken not with our words, but with our lives.  The type of boasting that gets up after a tree falls on your house and starts the clean-up and putting back together.  The type of boasting that hears the news of deadly tornadoes and prays and prays and sends relief.  The type of boasting that knows the important things in life aren't things, but the real treasures are the people of God in Christ Jesus.  And even if the suffering includes the loss of life, the witness is hope of one day being reunited with the whole people of God in life eternal.
     Suffering does indeed produce endurance and endurance character and character hope - because even in the face of the most painful suffering we know what comes next.  Joy comes with the morning, resurrection comes with the dawn.  In the darkness of storms, suffering, and despair, the light of Christ always shines brightly. 
     And because of the Holy Spirit, that light and love is poured into our hearts because of the unity we have with God in Jesus Christ.  His suffering, his own night of sorrow and despair, his own joy of rising with the resurrection dawn, has connected him with humanity forever.  Flesh and bone, every strand of muscle and DNA is connected to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
     Thus we have come full circle - the mystery of the Trinity is engrained in our DNA, and we live the mystery with each breath.  We may not always think about it, or for that matter even care about it.  But thankfully for us our interest or knowledge is irrelevant to God's grace poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  And so we continue to live the mystery of faith: the Holy Trinity, three-in-one and one-in-three creating, sustaining, and redeeming with each breath.

    

Living in to live out?

     We are coming up on perhaps the second most important celebration in the church, but one that is often overlooked and forgotten - PENTECOST!
     The coming of the Holy Spirit: the wind and fire the blew into the room of disciples, the continuing force the teaches, corrects, and renews in each of us.  We read the account of Pentecost in Acts 2 and from it gather that whenever the gospel is being proclaimed around the world it is because of the Spirit.  When it comes to proclaiming our faith, and even to faith itself, the Holy Spirit is the most important part (well, in addition to Jesus Christ and his life, death, and resurrection and God, who orchestrated the whole thing...) of coming to believe in the first place.  As Martin Luther wrote in the Small Catechism so many centuries ago:

From www.laboringinthelord.com

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him; but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me true in faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith.  Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins - mine and those of believers.  On the Last Day the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.*

     Faith is a gift - given by God through the Holy Spirit, who dwells in each of us.  Jesus makes this promise in John 14, and we read in Romans 8 that the Spirit bears witness with our own spirit.  And because we are unified, or in communion with, the Spirit, Jesus promises that we will do greater works even than he.  Greater even than Jesus.  Wow.
     Do you know what this means?  This means that the feeding of the 5,000 will look like child's play.  This means that the healing of the paralytic, the blind, the soul-starved will be so commonplace it won't seem like miracles.  This means that the world had better be prepared for the amazing miracles that will happen through the disciples of Christ who live in the Spirit. 
     Wait - am I describing sometime in the future or now?  We don't think anything of it when a country experiencing famine or the homeless population in our town gets a meal.  We don't think anything of it when an amputee regains use of the lost limb through the use of a prosthesis, or when the blind can see with laser surgery or corrective lenses.  We don't think anything of it when someone makes a great breakthrough with their therapist and lives a more whole life.
    Why not?  Because Jesus has done greater things than these through us.  So much so that we have gotten to a point where we forgot who it came from in the first place.  So what is the aid worker is an atheist?  So what if the doctors, engineers, and therapists don't claim to be working for Christ.  God's love and miracles continue to happen under our eyes.  My question in all of this comes from that last part - how come, if all of these awesome miracles are happening daily, people aren't more excited about Jesus and the life he offers?
      Perhaps it is because, as I said at the outset, that people don't celebrate the Holy Spirit anymore.  Perhaps it is because we, like the rest of the world, have become so used to stories of healing that we, too, have forgotten the true source of it all.  Or maybe we chalk it up to science, or modern medicine, or being nice. 
     Yet where does any of this come from but God?  How else would the engineer have come up with a prosthetic unless they saw a vision of a world where war veterans and accident survivors could return to some semblance of a normal life?  How else could the researchers have developed new vaccines and medications unless they dreamed of a cancer-free world?
     Each of us see visions and dream dreams of a world that looks a little more like God's kingdom, and each of us have gifts and treasures that, with the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, can change the world.  And the best part of all is that this vision and dream starts with God.  It is God's vision and God's dream of a kingdom where love and peace reign and where wholeness and justice are the reality for all.  Nowhere do we see this more clearly than gathered together in worship.  Each of us, differently gifted, gathers together to live out God's vision of a world where all are fed, where everyone can experience peace, unconditional welcome, forgiveness, and love.  And in this we are living in the Spirit so we can live out our mission.  It's all about living in to live out.
     I don't know about you, but just writing this makes me excited to go share with someone how awesome God is.  Wow!  What an amazing gift we have!  I have been the grateful and humble recipient of God's grace and love and now am called by the Holy Spirit to get it out of myself.  Living in to live out.  The mystery this makes me ponder is how others have experienced the living in of the Holy Spirit?  How has God in you made a difference in your own life?  How has the Spirit lived in you so you can live out your calling in the world?

*Martin Luther, The Small Catechism, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 355-6.

Worship - beyond speech?

     I must admit that sitting in my office this morning, with the window open, the birds singing, and the construction crews outside, it is difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.  It would be so much better to just leave now and go for a walk beside Lake McBride, or on the Hoover Nature Trail, or just go work in my yard.  In those places I can drink in the sun, witness the beauty of God's creation, and enjoy the many ways in which I can feel God's presence.
     Which, as a matter-of-fact, is the theme for Sunday!  In our penultimate week of the worship assessment, we are focusing on how worship is "Beyond Speech."  This seems obvious, that everything about the worship space involved worship - the sanctuary or place of worship itself, the artwork, the use of media, body language, and all other forms of non-verbal communication.
     In our scripture texts for Sunday there are two examples of how the use of things other than words convey the love and miraculous grace of God: one from a prison cell and one from a dining room.  Now, if there is one thing we have been saying throughout this whole series, it is that worship is not about us, but it is about God and God's faithfulness to us.  So, when it comes to talking about how worship goes beyond speech, the line gets a little blurry.
     Looking back into the history of the church, most people were aware of the biblical story and witness precisely because of these non-verbal worship accoutrements.  In a church where the spoken language was Latin and the vast majority of people couldn't understand, it was the stained glass, it was the incense, it was the awesome cathedrals that spoke about what God was all about. 
    In a world vastly changed since the time of Christendom, many traditions have forgotten about the many and various ways in which God's grace is present during worship.  In our Acts text for Sunday, Paul and Silas are worshiping God from a prison cell in Philippi, singing songs when an earthquake breaks the foundations of the prison and the fetters of the prisoners.  In our John text for Sunday, Jesus is gathered with his friends around the dinner table when Mary anoints Jesus' feet with fragrant nard and washes them with her hair. 
     If nothing else, these texts remind us that worship is a full-body, all-sensory act.  We hear the words, yes, but we see, we smell, we taste, we touch.  As God came to earth in Christ, to hear, see, smell, taste, and touch, so our worship encompasses all that it means to be human.  Think about those Sundays when the communion bread is especially tasty, or those spontaneous moments when children break into dance during a fun song, or those times when you have seen artwork that pulls you into worship and awe at God's gifts, or sharing the peace and greeting others with handshakes and hugs.
     Worship is a total-body experience in which every fiber of our being engages in love and praise of the God who created, renews, and brings us into life.  At the youth gathering in New Orleans this summer, we were able to experience this kind of worship each day, and it was amazing.  Lights, dancers, balloons, song...all used to draw us into a place of worship.  I have shared a clip with you, so that you can, at least in video, get a taste of what we experienced.

     The question and mystery I am pondering now, however, is how we experience God with our bodies.  How do we see, hear, taste, and smell God? 

Welcome as Christ welcomed?

     The farther removed we are from Easter Sunday, the easier it is to lose that excitement and anticipation of knowing that Christ is risen from the dead!  Yet we are still in Easter - for another two weeks!  We have the joy of celebrating this momentous and wild mystery that is the foundation of our faith for seven weeks - over 10% of the year. 
     These particular seven weeks are also being spent taking a closer look at our worship in general.  How and why we do what we do.  From God's purpose for us, to Word - in sermons and otherwise, to baptism and holy communion, and now this week to hospitality.   

How we practice hospitality during worship says a lot about what we believe about God, and who God is.  Because of the context of our scriptures - both the Old Testament and the New, hospitality has a different meaning. In the Middle-Eastern context, "to welcome someone to your table was to offer that person your friendship and trust. To share your table was to share your life," ( With the Whole Church, p. 53).
     "Christ Appears to the Disciples at the Table after the Resurrection" Christ Appears to the Disciples at the Table after the Resurrection" by Buoninsegna di Duccio shows what it is to be hospitable.  Opening our doors at worship, sharing our table and sharing our life are themes of ministry to which all the baptized are called - both the tables of our homes and the tables of our sanctuaries.  The texts for this week have a little something to say about hospitality and opening up your tables, homes, and hearts.
     In our reading from Acts 16,  Paul, Silas, and Timothy were the beneficiaries of the hospitality of a woman named Lydia, and because of this the gospel spread throughout the region of Macedonia.  It all began with hospitality at the "place of prayer."  Worshipers were gathered and generously and hospitably welcomed Paul and his friends into conversation. 
     Many of us are familiar with this practice: coming to worship on Sunday and catching up with friends and neighbors.  But are we familiar with engaging the person we don't know?  It is a two-edged sword, hospitality.  We want to welcome guests and help them feel at home, but we also want to catch up on the latest grandkid story, dog story, or serious talk of health and well-being.  In participating in community we want to be careful not to exclude the guest, but in welcoming the guest we want to be careful not to neglect our current relationships.
     And this is perhaps where the gospel lesson from John can shed some light on the issue of hospitality.  Jesus assures his disciples, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them...the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you."  The Triune God has chosen to take up residence in those who love Jesus and keep his words.  This seems like a tall order, and you may be asking yourself if this can truly be you?  (I know I ask this question often!)  Except Jesus comes to our rescue again. 
     It is not just Jesus and God who will make their homes in us, but it is also the Holy Spirit, who will teach you everything and remind you of all that Jesus said.  It is the Spirit working in us that gives us faith to love, to believe, to keep Christ's words.  It is God in us who welcomes all as honored and trusted children of God. 

Jesus shows how broad the welcome into God’s kingdom is through eating with tax collectors and sinners. He offers a feast for all who are hungry for God’s grace. Christ’s own welcome and invitation to find God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace in him reach out from the pages of the scriptures and extend to and through the church in the ministry of word and sacrament. In worship we, too, can know and trust that we are welcomed into life with God. Just as Christ gathered a needy world at his table, he invites us to the table of grace. ~ With the Whole Church, p. 53

      Hospitality - offered to the newcomer and to the established member - is the gift and ministry of simply being church together.  And how we do so shares the love and welcome of God.  So the mystery I have been pondering this week is how well do I welcome?  How does God welcome through me?  And, how do I follow the Spirit so that all people feel Christ's welcome?

How has Christ transformed?

     In our fifth Sunday of Easter we will hear from John 13, and as I hear these words I am transported back in time, to the not-too-distant past of Maundy Thursday.  The gospel we heard on the eve of Christ's crucifixion is ripe with foreshadowing of Christ's death and final words of a teacher to his students to carry on in love, showing they are disciples through their actions. 
     Except we aren't in Holy Week, anymore.  We have journeyed through the sorrow, pain, and the valley of the shadow of death and have arrived past Easter morning.  Christ is risen!  We now have the Easter lens through which to read our texts, casting a different view on Jesus' words with his disciples.  To help us cast this view, our other reading for Sunday is from Revelation 21.  It is often a text read at funerals because of the picture of God's kingdom - a place where God's home is among people, where death and crying will be no more, and where God is making all things new.
     And it is in these two complementary texts that we see the reality of God's kingdom.  Jesus calls his disciples to a life of love, the kind of love with which Jesus loves us.  This is a selfless love, a love which gives freely and generously, a love which welcomes and invites all, a love which knows forgiveness, holds no malice, and always sees the best in people.
     Can you imagine what a world like this would look like?  Can you imagine how God's home would be among us if people loved with this kind of love?  How tears would be wiped away and how death (not the physical, final kind of death - but the kinds of deaths we all die when harsh words are spoken, painful breaks in relationships, and inevitable disappointments of life - death and dying that are experienced as parts of living) would be no more?

     God's kingdom becomes reality through the lives of love lived by disciples of Christ.

Which is great, except that living a life with this kind of love is hard.  Some would say impossible.  And still others would ask why even try, when we live in a world where people are bent on hurting others on purpose and for the fun of it.  Admittedly, I am sometimes among those who scoff and become cynical about the world in which we live.  Especially after weeks like last week, and especially when I am going through a valley of my own.
     By the grace of God, however, it is in these moments that I most experience the love which Christ commanded of us.  Through a word, a prayer, a hug, or a nudge from the Holy Spirit, Christ comes to me in unexpected and mysterious ways.  Which leads us to the theme for our worship assessment.  So far we have looked at how God's mission and purpose comes to us through worship, how being part of worship is central to the life of the disciple, how Christ comes to us through Word (prayer, scripture, sermon, song, etc), and now we come to examine how Christ comes to us through the sacraments.
     In the Lutheran tradition, we celebrate two sacraments: baptism and holy communion.  Martin Luther teaches that a sacrament is a sacred act established by God; uses visible, tangible means like water, bread, and wine; is connected with God’s promise, the Word of God, which gives faith.  The resource With the Whole Church talks about the sacraments in the following way:

When God’s powerful Word is present in water, bread, and wine and when in faith Christians baptize, eat, and drink, God overwhelms us with grace. By water and the Word in baptism, God frees us from sin and death by joining us to Jesus’ death and resurrection. God seals us with the Holy Spirit and marks us with the cross of Christ forever, making us members of the church. God gives us power to live as Christ’s disciples by repenting and receiving forgiveness, loving our neighbors, suffering for the sake of the gospel, and witnessing to Christ in the world.

God’s gifts and promise are so dear that we celebrate them in worship. When we confess our sins and receive  forgiveness and as we begin and end our worship in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we make the sign of the cross. This same name with this same sign of promise was traced on our brow at baptism. Martin Luther taught that this simple act of tracing Christ’s cross over ourselves, as we begin and end each day in God’s name, can be a powerful celebration of the hope and comfort of our baptism.

By the Word in bread and wine, which are the body and blood of Christ, God nourishes our faith, forgives our sin, fills us with new life, and gives us power to witness to the gospel. As we receive Christ’s body and blood in the holy meal, Christ conforms our lives to his own. We participate in God’s new creation and are united with God’s people of every time and every place. The Lutheran confessions invite the church to celebrate communion every Sunday, because of Christ’s command “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19), in anticipation of meeting Christ, and because God wants to nourish us even when we cannot name or feel our hunger.

In these ways, through water, bread, and wine, God transforms us and makes us able to love others as Christ loved us.  Through our loving, then, God's home is more and more among us, God's kingdom prevailing over the reality of a broken world, giving witness to the hope of our Easter promise.  As I think about these commands, to love others, to eat and drink, to remember, I am left pondering the mystery of love.  How has Christ's love transformed me?  How has Christ's love transformed you?  And how has Christ worked through you to transform others?

How do we hear Jesus?

     For the third week in the worship assessment, the 4th Sunday in Easter, we are once again in John's gospel.  This particular Sunday, no matter the year in the lectionary, is known as 'Good Shepherd Sunday' because the text is from John 10 where Jesus is using the metaphor of him as the shepherd and we as the sheep.  This year, year C in our rotation, the text is John 10.22-30.  There is one reference to sheep, and it is at the point when Jesus is claiming his followers as his own.
     Jesus and his followers are in Jerusalem for the Festival of Dedication.  They come across some Jews who wish to know if Jesus is the messiah: Please, tell us plainly! is their cry.  Jesus' response is interesting because in his he reveals that he's already told them and they just don't believe.  And not only that, but they don't believe because they are not one of his sheep.

My sheep hear my voice.  I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹What my Father has given me is greater than all else...

     My sheep hear my voice.  This statement ties right in with our theme for worship this week, "Means of Grace - The Word Preached and Proclaimed."  Many faith traditions put much emphasis on the weekly sermon, and rightly so.  However, even with much emphasis sermons in different places look very different.  As Lutherans, we believe that  the purpose of a sermon is to proclaim Christ.  Not to teach Christ, not to talk about Christ, but to actually proclaim Christ.  In other words, we believe that Christ is transmuted from the mouth of the preacher into the ears, minds, and hearts of those who hear.  That through the Holy Spirit's work, the words of the sermon are means by which Jesus' sheep hear his voice, follow him, and come to believe that they have eternal life.
     This is quite the audacious claim, and I know of not one preacher who doesn't take seriously the task of preparing and delivering a sermon which will connect with the listeners, in order to share Christ with them.  As we said before, this takes on different characteristics in different places - some sermons are 40-50 minutes in length and take a look at a single subject in many places in scripture.  Some are much shorter and only look at a single verse in scripture. Others take into account a single story and flesh out meaning and  Christ's voice in that.  Whatever the sermon looks like, it is the means by which God's grace is given to the hearers.
     As we think about what this means for our worship, and for our worship assessment,  wonder about how you hear Christ in worship each week.  The sermon is not the only place where words are spoken.  We have prayers, songs, creeds, confession and forgiveness.  We have peace and greetings and blessings.  Words are plentiful in our worship.  And the promise we hear from  Christ in John 10 are all about the sheep hearing Jesus' voice.
     How do you hear Jesus' voice?  How do you come to believe?  And what comfort do we get when we know that Christ has claimed us and that no one can snatch us out of his hand! 

Some assembly required?

     This third Sunday in Easter we are once again in John's gospel, enjoying a lakeside picnic and barbecue with Jesus and the disciples.  With another familiar text, we will once again be challenged to read John 21.1-19 with a different lens than usual.  As part II of our worship series, we are focusing on worship as central.  Last week we took a look at how God's mission and purpose is revealed through Christ and through worship.  For Lutherans the church is defined by its worship, the church being “the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is purely preached and the holy sacraments are administered according to the gospel” (Augsburg Confession, Article VII).
     Our text from John sheds some interesting insight into this definition of church and worship.  It begins with a list of all the disciples who were together, 7 in total.  If the disciples hadn't been together to begin with, the whole story wouldn't have happened.  But because the disciples were together, they witnessed the power of the living Christ.
     Apparently trying to move on with life after the crucifixion and two appearances of the resurrected Christ, the disciples tried doing something 'normal.'  What is more normal for fishermen than fishing?  So Peter decides to go out and the whole group decides to go with him.  Again, if the disciples hadn't been together, the story wouldn't have happened.  But they stick together.
     And it's a terrible night of fishing.  They didn't even haul in one fish - and  then a stranger from the shore suggests they throw their net on the right side of the boat (right as in the relative direction, opposite of left, not the 'correct' side).  Can you imagine the conversation in the boat?  I wonder if they did it - figuring they had nothing to lose, or if they had an argument about whether to waste their time and should just head in.  If it had been me in the boat, I suspect I would have been reluctant to try something a total stranger suggested, and it would take six other people to convince me to try it. And when they do, they catch so many fish they can't pull in the net.
     At that point one of the disciples realizes the man is Jesus and Peter jumps in to greet him.  (Did you notice that Peter puts on his clothes in order to jump into the lake??)  So far everything has been dependent upon the fact that the disciples were gathered together.  And as they are gathered, Jesus appears, feeds them, and gives them a purpose and mission.
     Worship - the place where disciples gather, are fed, and given purpose and mission is central to the life of faith - both for the individuals and the community they form.  Again, as we heard yesterday, God meets us in worship just as in worship we meet God.  And the one thing that makes a community of faith is the people, gathered together.
     Isn't it always about the people?  Apart from a faith community even, the people can make or break anything.  Think about how people impact your working environment.  Think about people and personalities can impact any get together.  It is always about the people.  And yet in worship we are blessed because it is about the people but it is also about God.
     It is about the people of God, the grace of God revealed in Christ, it is about people who gather and 'pretend the kingdom' as a professor of mine is fond of saying.  So when we are gathered for worship, the personalities, the differences, the quirks and the charming qualities are all accepted.  Everyone.  As they are.  Because in God's kingdom, everyone is welcome, everyone has a place, everyone is loved.

     This is a picture of my ordination (right), a glorious and wonderful gathering of friends, families, and yes, even some complete strangers, who came to worship and celebrate God's grace, and God's mission and purpose for my life.   It is one of the worship services that I will always remember - because of the gathering, because of the tangible sense of the Holy Spirit, because everyone there had a place, no matter their views.  It was about the gathering, it was about God's presence in the gathering, it was about mission and purpose in the world.
     Thinking about our John text in this light, I am wondering about the assembly - the gathering.  The assembly is required for worship, and in the assembly God's mission and purpose is fulfilled.  I am left pondering how God is changing the assembly of which I am a part?  How is God's mission and purpose being lived out in our assembly?  In yours?