Reign

This is my 8th sermon preached at Faith Lutheran in Bagley, MN, preached on 11/24/19.

Gospel: Luke 23:33-43

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and Jesus the Reigning Christ, Amen

The End. Not many stories begin with those two words, but this one does. Jesus washed the disciples feet, ate dinner with them, was handed over to be judged, carried a cross across town, and was nailed to that cross to die. The End. Oh yeah, and Jesus offers forgiveness to the criminal. The End.

Advent is the mirror of Lent, and one could argue, in fact I did last year up here, but Advent could last six weeks instead of four. With Advent’s Gospel texts about the ending of the world, we have a text about the end of Jesus’ mortal world. Or very close to it. And at the end of this text that we just read, there, Jesus gives his final forgiveness to a condemned and guilty criminal. In the Gospel of Luke, we’re not told what these criminals were guilty of, but clearly a crime that deserved a Roman death sentence.

In this Gospel, the author points out Jesus’ innocence a few times, once the innocence of Jesus is confirmed by a Roman soldier himself. The Romans knowingly put an innocent man to death to appease the people, broken humanity. What does Jesus do before offering God their spirit? Forgives the guilty criminal. Divine forgiveness. Divine forgiveness that only comes from divine love for humanity. However broken we are, wherever we are in life, there was the final example that Jesus gave us before death. “Surely, you will be with me in Paradise.”

This is Jesus at the penultimate end of the story. In a month, we’ll listen to the beginning. Eleven months ago, you listened to the beginning of the Lukan story. What’s happened in those eleven months around here? What was the life of this congregation like in those eleven months? I know that I was up here a little over a year ago, preaching a sermon about the end of the world. (Welcome to Advent).

In a month, it’ll be the end of the year, and the end of the decade. Those of you on social media might have participated in or seen the posts of people posting pictures of what they looked like at the beginning of the decade vs the end of it. What would the pictures of this congregation look like? Of Bagley? Of Northern Minnesota? Of this country?

With Thanksgiving in a few days, what kinds of things are you grateful for in this congregation? I apologize for all the questions, but in the words of my rabbi, my religious studies professor in undergrad, “Questions are good. Questions are what keep the conversation open. If we had all the answers, the conversation ends.”

Without conversation, Thanksgiving dinner might get a bit dry, and I don’t mean the food. With Thursday’s conversation comes gratitude. With gratitude… comes forgiveness? There’s something about forgiveness and gratitude, right? Think about it… Can you be grateful for someone, or something, without forgiving them of their wrongdoing?

The tradition of gathering around a table and offering gratitude for those gathered, could have been the root of today’s Gospel lesson. In Luke, before we get to Jesus on the cross forgiving the criminal beside them, we have Jesus gathered with friends around a table sharing a meal and offering forgiveness and gratitude with the washing of feet. Even for Judas. There’s that divine forgiveness again.

I don’t know what Jesus forgiving a betrayer before eating dinner or forgiving a criminal before death means for you, but I know for me, it’s something to live into, and hope to achieve one day. I’m probably like most of our fellow broken humanity, and find it difficult to forgive people who I vehemently disagree with. Usually it’s because their views directly contradict my very existence, so forgiving them is dependent on them seeing my humanity first. I’m not saying that’s where you’re at, where anybody else has to be, or has to feel, but that’s where I’m at.

Earlier this week, I saw a portrayal of the Christmas Armistice in a science fiction show I was watching. If you don’t know the story, the short version is that Allied soldiers and German soldiers on Christmas of 1914 came together for a night and stopped shooting at each other to share a meal, songs and even sports, in the name of celebrating Christmas. Enemies trying to kill each other one minute, and sharing a meal the next. The greatest example of forgiveness I know.

That’s the reign of Christ. The reign of Christ that calls humanity to seeing Christ in one another. Forgiving one another, loving one another, giving thanks for one another. The Reign of Christ is recognizing that the Christ who was born of humble beginnings, lived a life of teachingpreachinglovingserving, and died on a cross, and did it all for us - to save us all from ourselves. Through the Love, Grace and Mercy of God, the reign of Christ is knowing that we are saved so that we can live out our days proclaiming and bettering the world for those around us.

What does the reign of Christ look like in the next year for you? For this congregation? I personally love Advent, with the themes of Peace, Hope, Love and Joy all intermingled with Christmas shopping and end of the calendar year madness. Up here it means winter and early sunsets and hopefully warm beds with plenty of covers and sweaters to keep us warm. Hopefully plenty of great food and celebrations and Christmas carolers and music recitals. Above all, love and gratitude for your friends and neighbors in this holiday season.

One story before I end. Last week, I helped lead this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance service at First Lutheran in Bemidji. The names of twenty-two people who were killed because of their gender identity were read, along with a corresponding ringing of the church’s bell. Most people in town probably didn’t know why the bell rang that much. But I wanted the bell to ring purely for that question to be asked, and for the bell to be heard by the people of Bemidji. The bell’s vibrations could likely be felt in the nearby Mississippi River, and then sent onward, connecting the rest of the country in those ringing bells.

The reign of Christ is knowing that Christ forgave the criminal before death, and died shortly thereafter - and also knowing - that the death of Christ is not the end of Christ. That the actions put in place on Friday would have ramifications on Sunday, with the resurrection of Christ and the beginning of Christ’s reigning in the world, for the rest of the world, until the end of the world. Reading the names, re-membering the twenty-two trans people into the world around us, sending vibrations down the Mississippi... What we do in the world matters. Our lives matter to one another. I encourage you, when hopefully gathered around the table with friends and family this week, think about what impact that meal will have on you and everyone around you. Your kindness, your love, your gratitude, will send vibrations out in uncountable and unforeseen ways, but know in your heart that - that is the Reign of Christ in the world.

Amen.

TDoR Homily 2019

This is the homily I prepared and preached at First Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on 11/17/19.

Grace and Peace to you from God, the Creator, Savior and Breath that holds us all together in love, Amen.

“...for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples…” Thus says God in the words of Isaiah. Here we are, in a church, where people are gathered to remember the names of 22 transgender folks who were killed for who they were as people. Year after year, the names of people killed for being transgender are read in community centers, parks, bars, houses of prayer, and places of worship. Year after year, the faces behind those names are similar in nature, because year after year, most of the names being read belong to specifically black trans women.

There are of course, people who are from every other nationality and gender identity that have been killed for who they are as transgender folks, but I want to be sure to name and make clear that the systems behind the crimes stem from the evils of racism, sexism, and classism. Who we are as transgender people is a threat to the capitalist patriarchy that we exist in, surely. But for those whose claims to privilege in this country are few and far between - when the evils of racism, sexism and classism are weighing down heavily on our rights to be authentic people in the face of God and society, then the likelihood of those evils fighting back increase.

Vicar Daphne read a poem from a transgender poet, Griffin Rae. On another poem, there was commentary added from Griffin and I wanted to share that with you. She writes,

“Thinking a lot today about how transmisogyny is not just about denying that trans women are women, but also an internalized belief that trans women are a lesser class of woman. The patriarchy always treats trans women as women by default, and are only treated as men when they must be demoralized or otherwise discredited. The patriarchy treats trans women like sex objects, same as cis women. The patriarchy wants to strip trans women of their bodily autonomy, same as cis women. The patriarchy is threatened by trans women, same as cis women. The only real difference is that trans women are subjected to a unique double standard: that a trans woman is a woman when she conforms to patriarchal norms, and that she is a man when her existence challenges those norms. Ex: manhood often presents itself as this mystical conception of power that must be attained through ritual, strength, and adherence to an unspoken code of conduct. However, only in the case of trans women is this title unscrupulously given out regardless of if they fit into the given parameters. The rules change, and then they change back; but only cis men get to say when or why. A trans woman is a woman when you're fucking (I said "with") her, and a deeply confused man when you want her to shut up.” https://www.instagram.com/

Bricks were thrown at Stonewall Inn in 1969, 50 years ago, so that people like the more than 22 people we remember today, like some people in this room, like me… could live an authentic life. People die, just to have a chance at living an authentic life.

The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

People have been wanting to live authentic lives since the dawn of humanity. One could read in the book of Genesis, that Joseph was almost killed because of Joseph’s desire to be authentic in the beloved dress that was given to them by their father. That the sexual and gender minoritized eunuchs who were taken out of God’s houses of prayer in Deuteronomy, were welcomed back in Isaiah and one became the earliest foreign convert to Christianity in the book of Acts. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus describes that however someone was labeled a eunuch, that they were loved by God. That who they were, as authentic as they were, that God welcomed them into their favor.

We gather today to remember the list of names of violently killed transgender people, but also to acknowledge that this list is incomplete, that there are people who were murdered because of their gender identity, but not reported by the police. People who died from suicide because of their feelings of gender. That there are over 300 people worldwide that shared the fate of the 22 remembered today. Trans people that die in other ways because of the evils of racism, sexism, ableism, and classism. But I don’t want you to leave here today thinking that trans people are only remembered when they die. I don’t want you turning away from the realities facing the ones alive to live and tell their stories.

Whatever the reason that compelled you to come today, to help or to attend, to listen and remember - I ask that you not turn away from the justice at hand. Maybe your mind is opened just a bit more. Maybe your willingness to help combat transphobia strengthens a bit more. Whether you are trans, bi, lesbian, gay, asexual, two-spirit, agender, nonbinary, queer, genderqueer, questioning, female, male, pansexual, polysexual, polyamorous, hetero or homosexual or any combination or none of the above - Whatever your race, ability, culture, religiosity, faith, creed or nationality - know that your life matters. Black Trans Lives Matter. You are loved.

Those of us who are gathered here today are encouraged and called to go out into the world to fight the evils that allow the list of names read today to exist. We are encouraged and called to not turn away from those who call out into the wilderness asking for help, asking to live authentic lives. Asking who they are, and what they mean to you and the world.

In a little while, the names will be read, and the bell will ring. The sound of the bells will travel the length of the Mississippi, connecting from Bemidji to New Orleans, the West to the East. We will not turn away. We remember.

Amen.

Persist

This is my seventh sermon preached at Faith Lutheran in Bagley.

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8

Art by Karen Hallion
https://thewookieegunner.com/2018/06/16/star-wars-rebels-ahsoka-tano-enamel-pin-karen-hallion-illustration/

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, Amen.

Persistence. It's this strength within us that keeps us coming back for more. That sense of... "keep on keepin' on!" But why do we persist? Is it our stubbornness? Our deep calling within us that if we persist, something better will turn up?

When I drive somewhere new, most times I use my phone's navigation to help me figure out where to go. Google knows everything. But, when I choose not to use my phone, because I like to live dangerously... I try using my intuition. And when that doesn't work, I keep driving. And driving. And I know that all roads lead home, eventually. But it's that sense of persistence that keeps driving me. That sense that the thing I want will hopefully, eventually, appear. I do this every time I visit the photographer. I know she's just right out of town. I know where her shop is. And yet, I stubbornly ignore my phone, and every single time, I drive and drive and I get about 5 miles out and then I realize... I already drove past it... So I turn around and persist knowing that eventually, I'll get there. I persist in this practice because I know eventually I'll remember the location of the photographer.

We push on in life, when we all face adversity. When the wind is in our face and we press on knowing that the goal will be in sight... That God will be with us on our journey, and with our persistence.

In our Gospel for today, Jesus throws around a parable about a woman who sought justice, for whatever reason, from a judge who neither respected God nor people. He didn't give her a decision for the longest time, but she kept on bugging him about it. As she persisted in her quest for justice, the unjust judge finally decided to rule in her favor. She received the justice that she desired. Through her persistence, justice was found. Her fight was for justice. In Greek, justice and righteousness come from the same root of dikaios. To fight for justice is to fight for righteousness. To be right with God.

For those that persist in fighting for justice and resistance against oppression, persistence is only one element that keeps them going. People from around the world cling to what they hold dear and fight for their very own survival in the name of justice. In some cases, there are heroes of a generation that come to the aid of people looking for someone to lead them to justice. This woman in our Gospel was likely not a hero for anyone but herself, but throughout history, people like Joan of Arc and Harriet Tubman and Greta Thunberg have risen up and taken the mantle of leadership to pursue a quest for a common cause.

Suppose there was a leader who was the ire of others, and a naysayer of all forms of justice. A leader who had children but was only aware of one of them. He did terrible things to other children and wouldn’t believe that he was wrong in any course of action he had. Merely a pawn in a larger scheme, controlled by an outside source, and persistent in his quest to make a name for himself in the world he inhabited. A news source devoted to spreading the message of his actions and the actions of his followers, while ignoring the pain happening around them. And yet, with a rapidly growing contingent of people fighting for justice and resistance against his rule. That’s right… I’m talking about D……. arth Vader.

In the world of Star Wars, the realm in which I inhabit most of my freetime in absorbing books, movies, shows, and video games… Such a reality that I just described, exists. Hard to fathom, I know. This is my seventh sermon with you folks, and I figured it was about time that I shared with you another one my interests. Specifically, Star Wars.

When I first started mentioning Star Wars in sermons, Star Wars was a six-movie epic with a TV show, and whispers of a third trilogy. Now, nearing the end of 2019, Star Wars spans eleven movies, three animated and one live-action TV shows, and plenty of books, toys, and video games to spread around, with talks of many more shows and movies to come in the future. For someone who even has a Star Wars tattoo, this is everything.

Both in-universe and out, Star Wars is a story about good and evil, but also about persistence. In the basic outline of the original 1977 movie Star Wars, it’s a movie about a farm kid that learns he’s part of a larger story, and he gets thrown into this larger story to rescue a princess with the help of a pirate, only to destroy the castle that held the princess and defeat the bad guy that held her. That’s Star Wars in a sentence.

But for a more detailed story and the point of what I was trying to get at with the reason for putting it into this sermon… This farm kid Luke lives at home helping his aunt and uncle carve out a piece of honest living, until a couple droids land in his lap and throw him into the larger story of the fight of the Galactic Empire vs the Rebellion. Luke has a mentor in a Jedi named Ben Kenobi, and together with Ben they hire Han Solo and his pal Chewbacca to take them to fit into the fight against the Empire, but end up rescuing Princess Leia and destroying the Death Star in the process. The next couple movies follow Luke and his compatriots in persisting the fight against the Empire in different parts of the galaxy. In the larger story, it’s good vs evil. In the grand scheme of the 11 movies and TV shows, they are classic stories of good vs evil with the protagonists persisting in the face of overwhelming odds, with the help of a divine presence and a little luck.

When we’re faced with overwhelming odds ourselves, it’s stories like today’s Gospel, knowing that God hears our persistent prayers and knows that justice is achievable. It’s stories like the Star Wars universe, or the Star Trek universe, where the underdog protagonists are faced with overwhelming odds and yet, with persistence and tenacity and a little bit of luck, they pull justice out of the hands of the opposition. It’s stories like these that help us to hold on, to keep going, to keep on keeping on. To quote yet another movie franchise, JRR Tolkein’s The Two Towers - Samwise says to his friend Frodo at the end of the movie,

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something.” 

Frodo asks his friend what they’re holding onto - Samwise replies,

“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”

Looking around, some days it may seem that life cannot return to what it was.
When farmers are looking at losing crops and money because of a wet couple months, it's hard to see past that. After a loss of a job, a friend, a family member, it’s hard to see how life can continue afterward. When I was stopped in my process of becoming a pastor and told I had to restart if I wanted to go on, it was hard to imagine what life would be like after that moment. All that I had worked at for years seemed to be up in smoke.

But my family and I moved up here and I found a new normal. I found pastors and congregations like yours that welcomed me and my family with open arms. It’s taken me nearly two years to get to this point, but I know that through persistence both ways, God has shown me what ministry looks like outside of a congregational call. I’m only beginning to see what that looks like in a practical sense, but with God’s help and guidance, I can see the fruits of labor in the congregations that I have been blessed to accompany the last couple years. I can see their impacts on me, your impacts on me. God is doing beautiful work in Northwestern Minnesota and I love seeing it right in front of me.

Through persistence and prayer, hopefully farmers will be able to harvest their crops.  This congregation will continue to keep on keeping on. You will keep on keeping on. In the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous paraphrase, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In the parable that Jesus threw around, justice has the final word.

Christ lived for justice of the people. Christ died for the justice of all people. Christ rose again for the redemption of all people. Through God’s persistent Love, Grace and Mercy we are justified and saved from ourselves, so that we may go out into the world and seek justice for our neighbors.

There’s plenty of justice in this world, Faith Lutheran, and it’s worth fighting for.

Amen.

Found

This is my second sermon preached at Hope Lutheran in Saint Paul. Pastor Andrew Tengwall was gracious to invite me to preach again. I was glad for the opportunity once again.

Gospel: Luke 15:1-10

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator and Jesus the Shepherd of us all, Amen

I said this a couple weeks ago, and I’m gonna say it again. Happy Palindrome Sunday! Yep. It happened two weeks ago when it was 9-1-19, and it happens again today on 9-15-19. Here’s to all the racecars and radars out there. Do geese see God? Was it a rat I saw?

Okay, now that I’ve got you lost in your own heads for a bit, we can talk about lost sheep and coins. Which one of you, having lost a remote in the couch, doesn’t dig and dig and dig for the thing, only to discover that it was on the table next to you the whole time? And then upon finding remote, rejoice with a renewed sense of security. For a little bit at least. Or maybe you’ve lost your keys, and discover them in your pocket after all. Or your wallet, or any other number of things that we frequently lose track of… How much relief and security is felt when we discover that lost item. How much joy… Don’t even get me started with phones… at least we can call those… as long as they’re on, and not on silent…

I lose things constantly. Mostly because I have ADD and when I happen to just haplessly put something down for no apparent reason, my mind decides to remember whatever I was thinking about at the time, rather than the actual placing of the object. My house is filled with half-done projects and “I’ll do that laters” and “Sometime soons”. As they say, I would lose my own head if it weren’t attached to my neck.

Even God seemingly forgets people and things now and again. Okay, so in the Bible it occasionally says, “And God remembered…” whatever, and you kinda just have to wonder…. Does God forget? Does God lose things? People?

If God is all knowing and all powerful and all, well, everything… then how does God lose people? If Jesus is throwing around today’s parable about God and people, and God represents the shepherd and we the sheep, or God the woman and we the coin… does God lose people?

Have you ever felt lost? Out of place, out of sorts with God? Lost in your own muck and mire of life, and seemingly detached from God? Or lost in reality, in your own world, in your own mind? In order to be lost, you had to have been found at some point in your life.

In order for an object to be lost, it had to have had some sort of function at some point. What if people decided that people from one area, didn’t belong in another, and asked them if they too were lost? When I lived here in Saint Paul for two years, I felt lost. Out of sorts with the world around me. I would drive by the U of M Saint Paul Campus, next to the fairgrounds on Larpenter, just to look at the empty farm field to the north. Pretend that there was nothing beyond it. For a few seconds of my drive, I felt like I was home.

But I grew up in rural western Minnesota, where the farm fields roam free. So free, they’re free range! The rolling prairies are dotted with small country churches with long Scandinavian and German names, like Kongsvinger and Sverdrup. These congregations at one point were full of people, with giant families that filled the Sunday School rooms and Confirmation classes. In the height of the American Lutheran Churches in the 50s and 60s, the giant families of the 30s and 40s had children and these children then attended Luther League and Confirmation and everything was peachy keen. But over the years, these small country churches that at one time were the centers of community went the way of the family farms. Smaller and smaller, and slowly closed their doors. Luther Seminary has an archive of many of these closed churches, and keeps relics and records from them when they close. Of the nine regions of the ELCA, Luther holds the most records and archives for these midwestern regions. When these congregations start to look at dwindling membership, less money in the offering and no longer enough money to pay a pastor, they might feel lost as to what to do. So much history and so many memories are built into the walls of these churches. And some do eventually close after looking at these decisions for a long time.

But just as Jesus reassures us that the sheep and coin are not lost, so also the congregations of these closed churches are not lost. In some cases, it makes financial and ethical sense to close. In other cases, congregations could look at altering their ministry. For instance, in recent conversations around immigration, rural communities that have been struggling beyond church membership but in community resources as well… might look into being more open and welcoming to recent immigrants to Minnesota. This conversation was even mentioned by one of the presidential candidates the other night in hopes to revitalize rural communities.

Sometimes when we’re feeling lost, God finds us, but maybe places us where we don’t necessarily expect. Smaller congregations in these communities with changing cultural demographics could do well to modify their outreach, and some have. They may feel lost in their problems of membership, but find new life in welcoming people they wouldn’t have originally expected into their worship spaces.

This reality in rural communities is of course not limited to rural communities, as you very well know and live yourselves. When I was in seminary, it was intriguing to me for me to be from these rural areas with shrinking congregations, and then witness a similar story play out in urban congregations. I studied Christ Lutheran on Capitol Hill when I was in my first year. Blocks from the capitol. Shrinking membership.

People can say that we are lost, that other people are lost, without God. Some Christians claim that people who identify a certain way, interact with the world in a certain way, live their lives in a certain way - may be lost and need to be found by God.

In these parables that Jesus throws around, we are told that God will find us when we’re lost. But what happens then? What do we do once we’ve been found? What does God call us to do? What do these congregations do that are found by God and God’s people?

God calls us to act on that finding. Congregations live into the welcoming of the stranger, and as people of the ELCA, we have been called to live into being a sanctuary denomination. God calls us to love our neighbor. To hold onto the freely-bestowed Grace that has been given and in turn share that Grace with our neighbors. We become proactive, and engage the world around us in continuing to find the lost and broken with God’s help.

When the shepherd finds the lost sheep, when the woman finds the lost coin, they react with such overwhelming joy at the finding of their lost ones. What immense joy there must be for these congregations that are struggling to be found again, to know that God’s Grace comes in all sorts of forms, but that God will see us through.

As was, is and always shall be - God’s got this. God’s got you.

Amen.

Flip

This is my fifth sermon preached for Bemidji United Methodist, preached on 9/1/19. Posting a day late because of Labor Day.

Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14

An intriguing origin story for this image
https://medium.com/@CRA1G/the-evolution-of-an-accidental-meme-ddc4e139e0e4

Grace and Peace to you, from God our Loving Creator, and Jesus the Teacher and Messiah, Amen

Happy Palindrome Sunday, all the Annas, Bobs, Hannahs, Elles, Eves and Ottos out there. It’s 9-1-19. In two weeks, it’ll happen again on 9-15-19, because the date is still the same backwards and forwards.

But most elements of our world don’t work the same backwards and forwards. You can point a remote at a TV or stereo backwards and it still works. A video game controller can be played backwards, but you may not go the way you’re thinking. Playing a record in reverse might not warrant secrets from the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. However, if you sync Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon somewhere in the opening of the MGM Lion in the Wizard of Oz, for whatever reason, the movie matches eerily well with the songs of the album.
(Below is a beautiful example of the combination)

Some foods match up weirdly well, like french fries and chocolate milkshakes, or Doritos and cottage cheese. Or, if you’ve ever been to the Red River Valley, cinnamon swirl bread with cheese spread. Other tastes definitely shouldn’t go together, like brushing your teeth and drinking orange juice right afterward… Never a great taste together. Until they had orange-flavored toothpaste for a while. Needless to say, you don’t really see that much anymore.

And sometimes, you feel called to just throw things together, and it ends up working out. When I cook, I don’t measure seasonings too often… a shake here, a couple there… Seems to have worked out so far. Sometimes we do the unconventional things, because there’s something in our inner being that compels us.

Or maybe we’re called to do the unconventional thing because God is calling us to do so. To flip the script of what we would normally do. Take a left turn instead of the right. Go down a road that you think will end up where you think it might, all for the sense of adventure. And yet, it’s more than just making a different turn for the sense of adventure. What Jesus is calling us to do in our Gospel text for today is to humble ourselves of our own feelings and misgivings, and lift another above ourselves.

There’s a picture that has been floating around the internet for a few years of a baseball game and three spectators watching from the fenceline. One side shows the three people of differing heights standing behind the fence, with only one person being able to see the game. That side is called “Equality” because they are all on the ground. The other image is one with the three people behind the fence, but the middle person has a box to stand on to see over the fence, and the third person has two boxes to see over the fence. Now all can see the baseball game. That side is called “Equity”. An added box to the right of that “Equity” box is the image of the same three people with the same baseball game, but the fence has been removed. That image is called “Liberation” or “Justice”.

I believe that progression of images is very indicative of American politics, and frankly, American Christianity these days. When it comes to conversations of race, gender identity, sexual orientation or ability… I believe tolerance is the first stopping point for people to grasp these realities. If tolerance is the stopping point where people are comfortable, then progress can no longer proceed. We tolerate colds. We tolerate subzero temps in the winter. Tolerance is the end of the conversation.

Equality is the next stopping point. If we believe that individuals of different races, gender identities, sexual orientations or abilities have equal societal barriers, then we miss the point of the conversation. That’s the inability to see the realities affecting the individual, in an effort to equal the playing field. So that we can be comfortable with each other without getting too involved. If I know you have the same troubles as I do, and the same societal issues that I do, then we can stand together on the same footing. And maybe that’s enough for some people, as a step above tolerance.

When equity is involved, then you have the added benefits of assistance. Programs like Affirmative Action, Medicare, Social Security, SNAP and WIC benefits, Temporary Aid for Needy Families, and the Affordable Care Act - help people access benefits and services that would otherwise be unavailable to them. When organizations that promote equality in the workplace or an open welcoming environment actually put societally marginalized people in leadership roles, in an effort to move past the conversation of equality, this is where equity comes in.

Lastly, liberation is the removal of those societal barriers. Liberation or Justice is the radical upheaval of the social norms. Standing in the face of, “we’ve always done it this way”. It’s taking issues like insurance and medical bills and removing the need for them. Seeing an issue like student loan debt and removing the debt and the reason for the debt completely. It’s putting the common good above the individual. It’s Spock’s “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. It’s putting everybody else’s needs above your own.

It’s Jesus throwing around the idea that we should not only sit at the lowest seat at the dinner table, but when we invite people over for dinner, we invite the people who can never repay us the favor. It’s Jesus alluding to the Last Supper, where the Savior of the World was humbled to the point of washing the feet of friends, literally sinking below all the others, raising the needs of everybody else. It’s Jesus dying next to a thief and murderer in a public, humiliating and painful way. It’s Jesus living a life full of teaching, service, and salvation, so that all of us can in turn share in that teaching, service and salvation.

This is more radical than adding two unrelated foods together, or unrelated pieces of art, or people of different origins together. This is more radical than reading the same dates and words forwards and backwards. This is Jesus throwing the table of the status quo in the face of society and calling us to live beyond the societal norms to serve below them. To wade in the muck and messiness of life alongside our neighbors and serve them without any hope of repayment. So that they may be lifted up above what people expect.

There’s a concept in midwestern Scandinavian Lutheranism known as the ‘Good Lutheran’. The ‘Good Lutheran’ sits in the back. Why? Maybe it’s a keen understanding of giving other people the better seats because of the added concept of ‘Minnesota Nice’. Maybe it’s the ability to be quicker out the door. Or farther from the pulpit so the preacher can’t see you close your eyes. Or the ability to see everybody else in the sanctuary and make sure certain people are there. Whatever the reason, the ‘Good Lutheran’ sits in the back.

I don’t know if there’s a similar concept in Methodism, but I think this congregation is doing it’s best in not sitting in the back. I think you folks are amazing in community engagement, leading the way in so many directions. Serving the community meal week after week is definitely placing the community’s needs above your own. It’s my hope that the continued conversation about welcome and inclusivity is a fruitful one, not only for the congregation but the wider community of Bemidji. For a rural small city to have one inclusive congregation is extraordinary on its own. Having two already in a town of this size is beyond extraordinary. Three would be a radical step in moving the dialogue from rural death and stagnation to continued growth and progress. It’s moving the conversation of radical acceptance to a community-sized conversation. It’s moving beyond the decisions of national bodies to a localized community that looks to welcoming in the face of fear.

I was reminded yesterday that things happen in God’s time. That God’s got this. We don’t know why things happen the way they do, when they do. Why a hurricane suddenly changes directions to hit another state that wasn’t expecting it. But we know that God’s gonna see us through it. That God’s gonna be there alongside us in that storm. That God sent a child into the world to guide us through whatever storms we face in life.

And God calls us to face the storms of life so that we can be there for our neighbors. To serve them in spite of ourselves. To lift them up despite our limited will or strength. To live not for ourselves but for God and God’s creation. So that when we encounter ourselves in a situation with someone totally unlike ourselves, that we might remember that God gave us Judy Garland and Pink Floyd, but it took something beyond the norm to discover their beautiful combination. Tip the scales, flip the script, disturb the status quo. Be who God is calling you to be. God’s got this because God’s got you.

Amen.

Prepare

This is my sixth sermon preached at Faith Lutheran in Bagley, Minnesota on August 7, 2019.

Hebrew Scripture: Genesis 15:1-6
Gospel: Luke 12:32-40

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and Jesus the Christ, Amen


A couple weeks ago, our Gospel was Jesus throwing around the idea of God providing our daily bread. Last week, Jesus threw around the story about the rich fool who stored up everything for himself, and nothing for anybody else. This week, Jesus tells us all- that while God provides and oh by the way, we should go ahead and provide for everybody else too… we should go ahead and prepare for the inevitable as well.

But have no fear, because God will be with you. God provides, go ahead and provide for other people, and yes, keep enough around to live the rest of your days so that when the time comes, you’ll be ready. Whatever you’re waiting for. Whatever reality of life or death that you are waiting for, do not fear the morrow, for God will be with you through it.

That’s it. Sermon over. Let’s go ahead and get on with the service... No? You weren’t ready… for that? You wanted more out of this sermon? But what if I told you that I wasn’t ready? That I didn’t prepare, because I’m terrible at preparing. I procrastinate to the point of forgetting to procrastinate until the very end. Then the ADHD has to go away because I have to hyperfocus the rest of whatever task I’m supposed to be working on. And that’s how I earned most of my college degrees…

But life doesn’t work like that. As much as I can joke about my own misgivings and faults in the art of preparation… I love the seasons of Advent and Lent because they’re intentional times of the year where we as a Church are focused on the idea… of being prepared.

I would say most people aren’t like me, and most people are much better at preparing than I am. But I wonder if Abram in today’s first lesson prepared like me. Abram and Sarai had been childless for so many years. An entire lifetime and then some. And then God tells Abram that he’s gonna have a kid, at like 90-some years old? And not only that he’s gonna have a kid, but that his descendants will number the stars in the sky.

I’m not so sure anybody could have prepared for that. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God has a tendency to spring things on people, without warning. Later on, Abram will be called Abraham, and God springs upon Abraham the task of killing this son that he’s waited for his whole life. A sacrifice to God, and Abraham gets right up to the point of almost going through with it, and then God tells him to stop. What amount of preparation would Abraham have had to have gone through to be able to come to a place of mind… what kind of faith in God would Abraham would have had to had…

But that’s another sermon for another time. Back to this sermon… There are things in life that we can prepare for. That we probably should prepare for. A job interview, or a job in general… writing papers or sermons… playing music for church… even farmers in the winter time prepare for spring planting…

Preparing for such things allows us to have a predetermined idea as to how we believe things will play out. Scientifically figuring out that if I do this, then this will happen. If this happens, then I will be prepared for this reality and so on and so forth and on and on it goes. Without preparing, there’s a certain amount of luck or skill that’s involved in being able to do things on the fly.

I never prepared for tests. Rarely studied. I called it ‘winging it’. After a professor called me out on it… I may have studied a little bit more. But this is why I write down my sermons. If I prepare for anything, it’s these sermons. I have awe and respect for preachers that are able to preach a sermon off the cuff, or with notes. I know myself that I wouldn’t have the state of mind to be able to preach like that, but I can see why preachers do it.

There’s also a certain amount of fear in not preparing. Because there are times when life happens and out of the blue, we’re thrown into a situation where we need to give an impromptu speech or talk or sermon or explanation of what we do. Or someone gets sick or has an emergency that no one expected or some random happenstance where life and death are thrown out of whack. Where your whole world gets thrown upside down and it takes you a long time to recover.

Because life just happens that way sometimes. There’s a substantial list of people this congregation is praying for on the back of your bulletin. I don’t know many of them, but I know you probably know most of them, and maybe some of them are on that list that you might not have been prepared for, to be on that list. I do know that God knows them, and that God will watch over them, and hold onto our prayers.

We had two national tragedies back to back last week, and as often as these mass shootings happen, and how sad that phrase really is… No one can ever prepare for something as horrific as that. From schools to malls to churches to mosques to concerts to garlic festivals… Even literal sanctuaries… have been destroyed by such evil. This past week, the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, where Pastor Mark and several others from this synod have been, passed resolutions that have wide ramifications across the ELCA, and I’ll highlight a couple for you in this thought - First of all, one resolution was passed that enacted a commemoration for the nine people that were killed in their sanctuary at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, four years ago. This commemoration makes June 17th a day of remembrance, a feast day to remember the nine people who were killed by a boy raised in an ELCA congregation - and our continued work in repenting from the sin of racism.

“Have no fear, little flock”, our Christ reminds us. The other resolution passed will hopefully help other people to hear those words of our Savior. The other resolution labels the ELCA as a sanctuary denomination, the first one to make this distinction. I hope, along with other leaders, that this is a step in the direction of pushing congregations to becoming sanctuary congregations themselves. So that people fleeing persecution will always have a home and safety in an ELCA congregation. So that they too, can ‘have no fear’ from agencies that intend to harm them.

While these resolutions offer hope for a changing and growing denomination, there was also the reality that the ELCA still has much to grow on issues pertaining to income inequality, discipline for candidates and rostered leaders; and to still learn from their racist tendencies.

As much as we can prepare for the realities of today, sin gets in the way. Human brokenness gets in the way. Realities of life and death get in the way. All through the grey, through the messiness of life, Jesus our Savior is telling us to not be afraid. To have no fear. Because in all of the chaos that is modern life, God is right there beside us to guide us and be there for us, right in the thick of it.

When God bestowed their child into this broken world, to live among us and teach us, God was right there. God present in Jesus, walked in this broken world, and fed, clothed, healed those who were unprepared to be fed, clothed and healed. They were unprepared to learn from this teacher of humankind, this lover of sinners and saints. Jesus the Christ came into this world to live and be, and then die and live again, to love and bestow the Grace that we all share. This Grace that is bestowed on us all, so that we may go out into the world to better ourselves and one another.

From God telling Abram to prepare for descendants, to Jesus telling us not to fear what comes next, we live our lives being prepared or unprepared. I think we all live in that balance. Some of us more prepared than others. Ready yourselves for the world, so that together we may ready the world for what comes next. God will be with us in the preparation, and the action that follows.

Have no fear, little flock. God is with you through it all.

Amen.

Daily Bread

This is my fifth sermon preaching at Faith Lutheran in Bagley, MN, preached 7/28/19

Gospel: Luke 11:1-13

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and Jesus the Christ, the Teacher of Humanity, Amen

My earliest memory of learning the Lord’s Prayer is being 3 or 4, laying on top of my bunk bed. With my older brother on the bunk below, and my younger brother on the floor - my mother would read to us every night. Usually both a kids book and out of the old 50’s style children’s bible. With epic renaissance pictures on nearly every page, and probably the classic King James text alongside them, we’d read the bible and after we were done reading, we’d say the Lord’s Prayer.

My brothers and I had it down by the time Sunday School started. As I’m sure many of you have similar stories of learning this prayer that has been passed down through the disciples and then on to us and our children. Your grandchildren.

Along with knowing the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer is one of the tenets of most cradle Christians. Something we hold onto. Even when visiting folks in memory care units, even as heartbreaking as dementia and Alzheimer's are, there’s something to be said for the way the mind retains things like old hymns and the Lord’s Prayer.

Then you throw in the ‘other’ version, whichever version that means to you - and we know it so well we stumble over the other version out of habit. When I was on internship in rural Otter Tail County, the congregation would say one version during traditional worship, the other during contemporary. If you only went to one style of service, you only said one style of prayer.

But I would help lead both. And my supervisor and I would have a way of leading right into, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be…" and finish with whatever version we were doing.

Jesus was gathered with the disciples, in a certain place, and Jesus taught them how to pray. In this prayer, Jesus lays out the basics of God, life itself, our interactions in the world, and what could happen after our life. Jesus mentions asking God for our daily bread, and then proceeds to throw around a parable about asking for daily bread. A friend waking up their neighbor in the middle of the night, only to ask for bread. To be given back at some point, because the friend asks to be lent them. But Jesus plays with the narrative a little bit, because the neighbor refuses, but then relents after the friend’s persistence.

Then Jesus drives it home with the traditional, ‘ask and you will receive, search and you will find, knock and the door shall be opened unto you… Allelu, Alleluia’, as the old hymn goes. What this could mean for us, is that God only does, when we ask. Only if we're persistent. Then maybe God could be bothered to get up and do something about our daily bread.

But I don't think that's what this parable is about. Because God already provides. God provided when God created and said that it was good. God provides when God created you and me and the evergreen trees. God will always provide.

And yet, there are times when we ask for bread, and Jesus offers the crumbs off the master's table.

Because life isn't as simple as asking and receiving. As much as God does provide, broken humanity gets in the way.  Even in the parable, the neighbor refuses the friend. It wasn't until some other force propelled the neighbor to give the friend the daily bread.

Martin Luther talks about our daily bread in both the Small and Large Catechisms, but he lays it out better in the Large Catechism. "For when you mention and pray for daily bread, you pray for everything that is necessary in order to have and enjoy daily bread and, on the other hand, against everything which interferes with it."

God provides, we receive. But sometimes there are forces that prevent that daily bread from reaching its intended recipient. According to multiple studies, the world produces more than enough food to sustain all of us. Yet millions go hungry. There are plenty of empty houses in this country alone, yet millions live on the street. Schools with education and knowledge, but high tuition rates that prevent enrollment. World class healthcare, with exorbitant costs preventing access. The list goes on.
Luther continues, "Therefore you must open wide and extend your thoughts not only to the oven or the flour-bin but to the distant field and the entire land, which bears and brings to us daily bread and every sort of sustenance."

Luther invites us to look beyond the idea of literal bread, and as he continues in the explanation of the Lord's Supper, he describes how we could further look into the systems that prevent distribution of our daily bread. How things like distribution of power and wealth prevent people from accessing their daily needs.

We could add race, class, gender and sexual identity, ability and legal status to those realities that add barriers to our receiving of our daily bread.

In any town like Bagley, big enough to have it's own school but not large enough to support a large retail or grocery store, such as Morris, where I grew up… the barrier of distance and transportation prevents access to the bigger selection offered by large retail stores. My mom grew up in Morris, and she said you could buy almost anything essential in Morris except neckties or belts. And to this day, that's pretty much the same story.

God provides, and will continue to provide. God provided humanity with a child that knew humanity firsthand. A child that lived a life of teaching, healing, and providing the very things that were asked for in the prayer. Jesus asked the disciples to give up all that they had, and promised that God would provide for them the rest of their journey. Breaking down the barriers, the societal norms, the lines between clean and unclean, righteous and unrighteous - Jesus walked among humanity, and showed humanity what daily bread meant. Through Jesus' life, death and resurrection, God saves and provides for us all.  It's up to us to follow in Christ's way of breaking down barriers that keep us from each other, and our daily bread.

As I would sit on top of my bunk bed, with my two brothers below and my mother reading and praying with us, I had no idea what would become of us. How the realities of poverty and small town opportunities would impact our lives from there on out. How the fact of living almost an hour from the nearest Target, or 10 miles from school and work would be our barriers.
God provided, and I'm up here able to talk about it. But too many families go without food for more than one meal. Too many children go hungry in this state. Too many children are on the street, or live within literal barriers.
God provides, and invites us to be persistent in breaking down the barriers between each other and our daily bread. Thinking of not only ourselves, but each other in our request for daily bread.

From our very beginnings of learning our faith in the words of the Lord's Prayer - to actively engaging that faith in our world by living out our calling to serve one another… God provides and will guide us through. Thanks be to God.

Amen

Peace

This is my fourth sermon preached at Bemidji United Methodist Church.

Gospel: John 14:23-29

Bulletin Cover by me :)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and the risen Messiah, Jesus the Christ, Amen.

Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! Happy Easter! (See? I told you I’d tell you that again.)

It’s Memorial Day weekend. It’s the (un)official start of Summer, the weekend to break out the grill if you haven’t yet, and the weekend to remember people you’ve lost, and as a country, the people who have served the country in the military. For small towns like Bemidji, it’s a time for the community to come together at the cemetery or community center for a service of remembering.

Remembering is a fickle thing, after all. You see, I wrote my senior undergrad thesis on the concept of remembering, and what it means to re-member, and while I was searching for the paper in the deep recesses of old computer files moved from one computer to another… I got lost in those memories. Because even when I wrote that paper about remembering? Sam was just a wee one, and we had just moved to seminary.

Cuz the funny thing about my seminary story… is that I hadn’t technically graduated from Saint Cloud State before I started seminary. I had a few classes left, one that Tiffany had to finish for me while I was in Canada on a mission trip, and my senior capstone project that involved writing this paper that I was searching for…

But anyway, I kept on getting lost in these memories. Memories of summer Greek… of living in the cities for the first time… of knowing we hadn’t a dime to our name, because living off of student loans only gets you so far… Maybe it’s my Millennial brain yearning for less threatening times, or just a reality for all human beings that yarn about “back in the day…” but remembering helps us to maintain our humanity. When we re-member, we make the past, present in our mind, and make that member of our past, re-membered in our present.

As Christians, we use certain symbols to remember aspects of our faith. Beyond the Cross remembering Jesus’ death,  there are the symbols that are on the pews that have been used as Confirmation tools in this congregation. They help us remember how our faith is important to us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus starts giving his farewells. He tells the disciples that he won’t be in their presence for long. This is Jesus telling his disciples that the Advocate will be with them, even after Jesus leaves this world. Peace is what he leaves with them, and in doing so, gives them peace, but not peace like the world offers. Because the idea of world peace is always the beauty pageant answer, but never the goal of any elected official these days…

Divine peace is nothing that the world can offer, but Jesus offers it to the disciples freely, in order that the disciples in turn could offer that peace to each other. But what does the absence of divine peace look like? A pastor studying at the Lutheran School of Theology Chicago originally from Colombia being deported is a start. Being under the constant threat of war with any country that fits the fancy of the powers that be… A country willing to hang rights of human beings in the balance of outdated rhetoric and thoughts of religious superiority. Flint, Michigan still living without clean water. Threats of oil spilling in our backyards.

I think this idea of divine peace has a lot to do with divine love. For if we love one another, in the manner that God intended, seeing God in one another’s eyes… Then I think we can re-member one another and in that re-membering, have peace. Seeing one another in the light of God, in the wholeness of ourselves, in the wholeness of creation…

This is the last Sunday of Easter before the celebration of Jesus’ ascension. In two weeks is the celebration of Pentecost. The celebration of the Advocate in our daily lives.

Because just when you’re lost, when the disciples just lost their friend, got their friend back and their friend and Messiah said to them a farewell… The Advocate, or the Holy Spirit shows up in the cracks. In the spaces between the keys. In the spaces between friends and enemies. Between you, me, the trees, the rocks, everywhere, yes. Even between this church and the other churches. Peace was given to the disciples, and the Advocate guides us in that peace.

And yet, there’s also the reminder that peace is also eternal peace. Tomorrow is Memorial Day after all, and even if you don’t join in the community program in the cemetery tomorrow, perhaps it’s a day to visit a cemetery anyway.

When I was on my internship in rural Otter Tail County, my supervisor would point out all the little cemeteries on our journeys across the county. A Catholic cemetery here, a Missouri Synod cemetery there, and of course, the church I served had a cemetery down the road, where many of the former members were buried. One of the last pastoral acts I performed at my internship was a burial and committal in that cemetery. I'd take walks around the town, which included walking through the cemetery. My supervisor would talk about how there were some burial sites that were lost to history, stuck in a swamp or under farmland. And then there’s the reality that there are some churches in the county, and across the country, that serve to keep the cemetery marked. Churches that remain open, probably past when they should close their doors, in part to maintain the cemetery.

The reality of maintaining a functioning cemetery is something people don’t often think about, but recently, it made the Bemidji Pioneer. If and when you attend tomorrow’s service, or visit the cemetery, keep in mind that the cemetery is in need of financial help.

The modern realities of cheaper burials, more options, less people in the town, or previous deals going south… Greenwood cemetery and many cemeteries across the country are in similar states of financial need. I don’t know what solution there is to that problem, but I think it has something to do with the community taking care of the community. When the community comes together, the Advocate is there also. When community comes together to solve a communal problem, I believe that God compels us to act for the common good.

Because the people that we remember tomorrow, died protecting an ideal of peace, even if the means to the end weren’t exactly peaceful. This ideal of peace, for the common good, so we can come together and share God’s love and peace with one another.

This peace that was given to the disciples, and through them it flows to us, from a Messiah that lived advocating for the people. The same Messiah that fed, clothed, healed and blessed the outcasts. The Messiah that had dinner with his friends, washed their feet and blessed them with a meal, and died the next day, only to be raised again on that Sunday. This Messiah who blesses all of us with the undeniable and unwinnable Grace of God, that through his life and death and resurrection we can go out into the world and spread God’s divine peace and love in the name of Christ, the risen Messiah.
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you,” says Jesus. Peace be with you. My friends.
Amen.

P.S - BUMC was kind to record the service again.
https://soundcloud.com/user-590479312/worship-05-26-19

Sermon begins at 21:40

Possibilities

This is the third sermon that I have preached for Bemidji United Methodist, preached 4/28/19. It was also about the third time I've preached on this text.

Gospel- John 20:19-31

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and from Jesus the Risen Christ, Amen.

Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed! Happy Easter everybody.

That’s right, Easter is here for the next 40 some days and if I were your pastor I would be telling you Happy Easter all the way until Pentecost. Not sure if Pastor Rob will do that, but you can tell him that the practice comes highly recommended by a certain liturgical Lutheran.

It’s Easter, a time of celebration of new life, and of new possibilities. And, oh the possibilities that were in front of the disciples after that Easter morning. Their Messiah had just died, with strange news of a resurrection, and with unfounded fears of the people around them. With locked doors, a sense of fear and doubt, the resurrected Savior appeared before them. Jesus tells the disciples, “Peace be with you”. Except Thomas. Poor Thomas. Jesus leaves before Thomas arrives.

Thomas at this moment will forever get the metaphorical ‘short end of the stick’. Always discounted for being ‘Doubtful’. Forever known as ‘Doubting Thomas’. But confirming one’s belief is not a bad thing. Looking for proof in any belief is a natural human reaction. Thomas just watched his friend die a couple days earlier. This friend who performed miracles, healed and fed those outside the margins. To watch his Messiah die at the hands of the Romans? Like everyone else who died at the hands of the Romans at the end of a spear or cross… Dead was dead. So, Thomas probably had every right to question what the disciples saw.

So, a week later, Jesus came to the disciples again, complete with Thomas. Jesus comes in and gives all of them the same greeting he did before. “Peace be with you”. Jesus gives Thomas a chance to confirm his belief. He blesses them, and the author says one of my favorite phrases in the bible. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-1 NRSV)

This phrase is very similar to the author’s last words in the Gospel, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25 NRSV)

I told Ben that I would make a Star Wars reference just for him. And I may yet, Mr. Frodo. I may yet. But at the moment, I’d like to interject that one cannot be a fan of Star Trek, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings without the possibility of noticing the Messianic Easter themes throughout.

At the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Capt. Kirk is lamenting the loss of his best friend, Spock. As the camera pans across the sun rising over the new Genesis planet, Kirk’s voiceover is heard saying, “All is well. And yet I can't help wondering about the friend I leave behind. There are always… possibilities, Spock said. And if Genesis is, indeed, life from death, I must return to this place again."

It’s not spoiling anything for a more than 30 year old movie, but one of the possibilities that comes out of launching Spock’s dead body to a regenerating planet is the resurrection of Spock in Star Trek III. Which leads Spock to appear in six more adventures with the crew of the USS Enterprise. There are always possibilities.

As Christians, we believe in the empty tomb, the risen Christ with holes in his hands and side. As the Gospel writer wrote, there are many more things that Jesus did in the presence of his disciples, and many more things for humanity after his ascension. But that’s a sermon for later.

What do we do when a friend of ours dies? Or a job ends, or our community is lost, or on the verge of something new… What do we do? Where does our hope lie?

As a Lutheran, the storied history of the modern Lutheran Church in the United States is one of disparate groups of ethnic churches originating from their home churches in Europe. In time, these smaller denominations united and divided over one thing or another, and with every combining, another denomination broke off. To the point that there are many Lutheran denominations across the country that exist solely because the originators of the denomination opposed one agreement or another.

Most recently, one of the denominations that make up the Lutheran CORE started because they opposed the mainline Lutheran body, the ELCA, and their decision to be in full communion with the Episcopalians. The other started because they opposed the agreement to allow queer folks like me the (limited) *possibility* of being ordained.

Division and unity is the story of the Lutheran church in the United States. It’s what you get when a rowdy monk gets angry at the pope and accidentally starts a war and accidentally a church and a help motivate a movement that would spread across Europe, and eventually across the English Channel and Scandinavia and eventually across the Atlantic to form the many Protestant churches including the Lutheran and Methodist Churches… in a very synthesized shrunken version of the last 500 years of Protestant Church History…

Death and resurrection is the reality of Easter. They are the truth that Thomas was seeking. They are recurring themes in Church histories and realities. Death and resurrection find themselves embedded in modern stories of galaxies far far away, or in space - that final frontier, or even in Middle-Earth. This reality of Easter that Thomas was seeking, is the truth we profess every time we gather for worship.

This truth that we profess, is of a risen Messiah that said “Peace, be with you” to his disciples a few days after he just died. The risen Messiah who spent his life preaching, teaching, feeding, and healing the people on the margins of society. The risen Messiah who gathered people together, had a dozen close friends who had simple trades, and he asked them to give it all up for him.

It’s a risk that we all take when we proclaim this truth. But everyone, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, whatever… everyone should have the sacred right to proclaim their truth in their place of worship without fear of violence. Our Christian truth of a radical Messiah that lived, died and rose again has spread throughout the world, because of the possibilities that were laid out for the disciples in that locked room. For after appearing to his disciples, the disciples went out into the world proclaiming their truth together.

Christ dying and rising again proves that death presents possibilities for the living. That even in death, there is new life.

My older brother is a pastor in southern Minnesota. Last weekend, on Easter Vigil, celebrating one of the oldest Christian traditions of baptizing on Easter Vigil, my niece was baptized. In water from a white, wooden coffin.

I was utterly shocked when he did this. I was blown away by the depth of the imagery inherent in using a coffin for a baptismal font. The traditional manner of burial being used for our traditional manner of welcoming new life into the family of God… There was the image of death and resurrection right there. Life from death. “There are always… possibilities, Spock said.”

All of that, is to say this: I don’t know what the future will bring for this congregation. I know that Lutherans have seen this before, as have the Methodists. I know that this congregation has been a bedrock of the community for a very long time, and taking the history of Bemidji United Methodist with the recent decisions of the General Conference, I have hope in what comes from the death of bad decisions. As a transgender pastor-to-be, I have hope and confidence that this congregation will weather this storm in the name of justice. Allow this time of new life, to maybe poke the holes of what has occured. Live in this time of grief, of wondering what is, and what will be. How you want to continue and who you want to be known as - all of these things are up to you.

Throughout my struggles with my path to being pastor the last few years, in the death of a dream that was ordination after graduation, I’ve had this final Star Wars quote running in my head ever since Rogue One came out. “Rebellions are built on hope”.

Going against the grain, declaring yourself a welcoming congregation in the face of continued denial of basic human rights from the General Conference? That’s nothing short of rebellion, in my eyes.

Poke the holes of your suspicions. Hold onto the truth of life after death. Together, I have confidence that Bemidji will be better for it.

Amen.

Bonus!
Audio clip of the sermon - https://soundcloud.com/user-590479312/worship-01-28-19#t=24:24

Fig Tree

This is my first sermon preached at Hope Lutheran in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Pastor Andrew Tengwall invited me to preach for his pulpit one day, and this was the day.

Gospel: Luke 13:1-9

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, Amen

Fifty Muslim folks were killed in their houses of worship last week in New Zealand by a white supremacist. Do you think they committed sins worse than all other Muslims? Eleven Jewish folks in Pittsburgh were killed in their house of worship in October by another white supremacist. Do you think they committed sins worse than all other Jewish folks? Nine black folks in South Carolina were killed in their house of worship a few years ago by a third white supremacist. Do you think they committed sins worse than all other black folks?

Last week, Pastor Andrew lamented with you about this latest attack in New Zealand, and somehow, in the midst of all of this hatred, God’s promise to steward all God’s people through it, in the name of love for our neighbors. Because the people I mentioned just now, were all worshipping the same God of Abraham. All of these people were senselessly taken while they were in their respective houses of worship, the places of peace, solace, and they should quite honestly, be true sanctuaries.

My allusion to the Gospel lesson comes on the heels of horrific news. Pastor Andrew had to change his sermon at the last minute to bring some sense to senselessness. I preached on Reformation Sunday at the local Methodist Church, and had to change my sermon at the last minute due to a white supremacist. When I preached at my home church in Morris a few years back, I had to change my sermon at the last minute because of a white supremacist. News like these horrific examples disrupts life as we know it. Of course these events disrupt life as they know it for the victims and their families, and for preachers to not respond to these events would be a misuse of their office.

The allusion to today’s Gospel lesson is a way to bring home that the events that Jesus references to the crowd, would be events that they would have had on their mind. Jesus asks them if these victims committed sins more than every other person like them, and then tells the people to repent or they will suffer like they did.

I didn’t take it that far. But I think if we as (mostly) white people don’t actively fight against racism in our own lives, if we don’t actively condemn and enact measures that protect against such injustices, that we may foster such ideas in our own communities.

Now, I’m not from this community. I was born in Saint Cloud, where the town is occasionally known as “White Cloud”, where the state’s second largest Muslim population resides, and has recently seen an uptick of trucks driving around with Confederate flags waving in the back. Where a retired Jewish rabbi was called in by the state to teach at my alma mater, Saint Cloud State University, and to influence a community away from antisemitism. Where this retired Jewish rabbi convinced the local Catholic diocese to finally remove swastikas around the Cathedral that had been there for over 70 years. I was born there and attended undergrad there, but I grew up on the western prairies of Donnelly, about 30 miles from where your own pastor grew up.

I grew up in Donnelly, but went to school in Morris. Morris is a small college town with a long history of agriculture. The University of Minnesota Morris was founded on the foundation of the West Central School of Agriculture, which in turn was founded on the campus of an American Indian boarding school. Native American students to this day can attend UMM tuition-free because of this history. Because of Minnesota’s own history of white supremacy. Because of Minnesota’s own claim to white supremacy history with the largest mass execution in American history of 38 Dakota men in 1862.

The western prairies of Minnesota are home to mostly descendants of Scandinavian and German immigrants, with a more recent influx of Latina, Hmong and Somali immigrants to larger towns with industry. These more recent immigrants are, more often than not, met with fear and misunderstanding, as if the white folks forget that their ancestors were once immigrants as well. In the last few years, there have been helpful resources given out to some rural communities, like Lutheran Social Services’ “My Neighbor is Muslim” to help the local populations learn about their new neighbors. Of the recent immigrants to Minnesota, as in the last hundred years, immigrants from Mexico and Central America have been here the longest, since the 1940s when the young Scandi-Germanic men of Minnesota were drafted and farm help was still needed on the farms.

In the last 20 years or so, industrial farms have grown exponentially due to technological improvements and smaller family farm populations, so likewise family farms are less and less numerous these days, while huge corporate farms are importing laborers from Mexico and Central America, and in some cases, overworking and housing them in less-than-desirable living conditions.

Practices like these are more common than people know, across the country. Whether it’s livestock mega farms in the midwest or berry farms in California, or other produce across the south… Modern industrial farming is not as traditional as we think it should be, and racist and inhumane practices are prevalent around the country. And yet, how most of the country survives is based on such an economy.

All that is to say, is racism is prevalent throughout our daily lives, even if we may only interact in a homogenous culture most of our days. This is not to excuse it, but to remind ourselves, because in order to actively fight against an injustice, we must first know and acknowledge that it exists.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus ‘throws around’ a story about a fig tree and how it hasn’t bore fruit in a couple years. The gardener tells the landowner that they should give it one more year to see if it bears fruit. If it bears fruit, then they have fruit. If it does not bear fruit, then the gardener gives the landowner permission to cut the tree down.

How long do we let the tree of our racism sit idly by, waiting for the fruit of repentance, before another tragedy cuts down the tree and another grows in its place? Because without talking about repentance, heck, even reparations, how long do we let the tree not give life to more seeds of justice? When we repent of our sins, when we acknowledge what we have done and work to repair the damage, new life can begin again, especially when we use our own metaphorical ‘manure’ as fertilizer to splay our own sins in repentance.

The stories of where I come from based on the racism and justice that proceeded me, is part of my own repentance in saying none of us are innocent in this fight. My family and I currently live in Bemidji, one of the homes of Paul and Babe, the first city on the mighty Mississippi, and the hub of three prominent Reservations of the Ojibwe people. Red Lake, Leech Lake and White Earth Indian Reservations are all within 60 miles of Bemidji. Besides the rampant poverty and racist policies that moved them there in the first place, one of the more recent issues plaguing the North Woods is the threat of more oil being moved through northern Minnesota. Home to abundant wildlife, wild rice, forest land and plenty of lakes and rivers - this land is under threat by an effort to replace an aging pipeline to export more oil through our state. Without listening to the voices that have lived in these lands for centuries, the North Woods could be under threat from this and also mining efforts in the Iron Range as well.

Without knowing our own history, our own engagement with injustices in our communities, we allow that fig tree to stay barren. Without repenting for our own participation in racism in our communities, new life cannot spring forth.

Because when communities acknowledge and work to bring voices together and build vibrant diverse communities, beautiful realities can happen. Bemidji still has rampant poverty and homelessness, but efforts for more affordable housing and available resources are being implemented. Community conversations about the pipeline projects are ongoing. Since I graduated high school, Morris has begun giving community and school resources in both English and Spanish, and the Catholic and Evangelical Free churches have Spanish-language worship services. Saint Cloud has developed an organization, UniteCloud to help bridge the divide of race and religion in the community.

None of these efforts are monolithic nor are they a cure-all, but every bit helps. The tragedies in New Zealand, Pittsburgh, and Charleston are examples of what happens when white supremacy breaks through our bonds of community. When the deranged idea of the superiority of whiteness gets weaponized.

We are called as Christians in this majority-white state to love our neighbors and go above and beyond to show our love to our neighbors of color, our neighbors of different faiths and backgrounds. We are called to love by a Savior that broke down barriers to preach, teach, love, serve, feed, clothe those for whom society cast out. We are called to extend out of our comfortability, to reach and listen to our neighbors. Last week, Pastor Andrew offered ideas and events to engage in this conversation, and I am sure there will continue to be further efforts to help in this community.

Jesus told the crowd that events have happened where if people don’t repent, bad things will continue to happen. He then threw around a story about how life will cease to exist if repentance and work on that repentance ceases as well. During this beautiful season of Lent, through this time of dark and shadow, we have been offered this time to reflect on whose we are and who we are called to be in this world. Stories of repentance and forgiveness are prevalent, and it all leads up to the cross.

Journey well, my friends.

Amen.

Children

This is the sermon I preached on December 30, 2018 at Faith Lutheran in Bagley. This was the fourth time preaching there.

(I forgot to upload it last week)

Gospel: Luke 2:41-52

Grace and Peace to you from God our Loving Creator, and from the Savior born in a manger, Jesus the Christ, Amen

Merry Christmas!

Yep. Of the 12 days of Christmas, we are currently on the day that involves geese laying eggs, or just laying around, I never can tell. How was your Christmas? Lots of food? Merriment? Presents? Christmas movies galore?

For the first year in a while, I didn’t have to travel very far. My in-laws’ place is just down the road, and the traffic was pretty easy on Christmas Eve in Bemidji. We had a lovely night at the in-laws with plenty of food to go around, my wife Tiffany made tons of cookies, and presents for all the grandkids were handed out to the awaiting eyes. Then we got home, went to bed, and waited for ol Saint Nick. Only to be spurred awake by a sick kid and then said sick kid had all the attention for the night. Until the other one woke up and we saw what Santa had brought and all was better in the Rundquist household.

Ah, kids. Love knows no bounds, even as they share their sickness with you throughout the night. And yet, all those sick sharing memories go out the window when you lose them, even momentarily. On Monday, Christians around the world gathered to hear the birth narrative of their Savior. How a young mother gave birth to the Savior of the World, in the humblest of places. Then we know the young family left their home for refuge in a foreign country. Twelve years later, the young family had been in the temple of Jerusalem for Passover. Mary and Joseph had left the temple at the end of the festival, but Jesus stayed behind, without his parents noticing.

A whole day had passed, and his parents could not find Jesus. A whole day, a few minutes, or a few hours… That love that you share for your sick kid is the same love that holds the bond between you and them when they’re missing. I’ve only misplaced either of my children for a few minutes at a time, I cannot imagine the heartbreak of a whole day or even much longer. I cannot imagine the heartbreak of a parent that loses their child forever.

Jesus was not where Mary and Joseph had thought he was. Where was Jesus? When they finally retraced their steps and three days later, found Jesus in the temple. Upon finally seeing her son, she asks him why he would just hang out there and not follow them. And twelve-year-old Jesus just plainly says to Mary and Joseph, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

But his parents did not understand. And he traveled to Nazareth with his parents and was obedient to them and he went on to grow in years and that is the only passage of Jesus we have in the bible between his infancy and his baptism by John. His parents misplace him for three days and Jesus shows little empathy for the pain of his parents by asking them why they would be worried about him in the first place. Of course he would be in his Father’s house. Of course they should have known that. Why would they worry?

Why would they worry? Because Mary knew exactly how important Jesus was. Mary knew exactly how much Jesus’s birth and life and future ministry meant to the entire world. She followed him the rest of his days, even through his death and resurrection. Mary knew Jesus. Of course she was worried for him. But what was he doing? Exactly what he would be doing the rest of his life. Learning and teaching. Spending time with the people. Because maybe somewhere deep inside, Jesus knew how important Jesus was.

“Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?”

When I was first on my pastoral internship in rural Otter Tail County, Tiffany was pregnant with Bridget, and Samuel was a bold three-year-old who was experienced with adults. Zion Lutheran of Amor is a church about this size, with a bunch of doors to the outside, but surrounded by farm fields. We were used to small communities, and Sam was comfortable in the church, so as long as he stayed in the church and didn’t go outside, we weren’t too concerned about where he went. Beyond the nursery and my office, where else would a three year old want to go?

Where else indeed. One Sunday after church, Tiffany and I were talking with folks at coffee time, and noticed Sam hadn’t checked-in in a while. Looking around, we couldn’t find him. Again, a church about this size with a bunch of doors, surrounded by farm fields, he could be anywhere and nowhere at the same time. Not in the nursery, or my office, or any of the bathrooms or Sunday School rooms. Nowhere to be found. On a third or fourth walk-through of the church, we happened to walk through the kitchen, where it would be too busy and loud for a three-year-old to be… to find Sam, washing the dishes right next to the old folks. Tiffany asked him where he’d been the whole time we were looking for him. Sam said that he was of course helping out, in the best way he knew how.

Samuel isn’t Jesus. But I’m sure many of you can relate to misplacing a child at least once. The blood rushes to your head, you enter fight or flight mode, but it’s mostly fight AND flight mode. Flight to your child, fight for whoever took them from you. So when Mary showed up and Jesus was not the least bit concerned for any feelings of his mother, and Mary was very worried and mostly confused why Jesus was not… but… what if I’ve been looking at this from my own parenting view for too long…

What if we dared look at it from the 12-yr-old’s point of view. Jesus was living his own truth, doing what he felt called to do. From a parent’s point of view, yeah, he’s twelve and certainly not able to make the kinds of decisions like staying with a bunch of people away from his parents for days at a time without his parents knowing. Surely. But in his mind, perhaps he knew what he was doing, because that’s what he was called to do in that moment in time, as much as it would be the rest of his life, as we know it in the biblical narrative. Perhaps he knew that these people were wise and so he listened to them, but also taught them as well. A 12-yr-old. How bold and daring to knowingly teach these wise teachers, staying in his heavenly father’s house, because this was his calling. How strong a call that call must have been.

How strong a call that would take him through the rest of his life, teaching and preaching and healing and feeding when and where he wasn’t supposed to, for the good of the people. Jesus the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, born where a king wasn’t supposed to be born, brought to a country he wasn’t supposed to be raised in, raised by a young mother, who probably wasn’t supposed to be a mother yet.

Jesus the 12-yr-old who wasn’t supposed to be at the temple without his parents. Jesus the man who wasn’t supposed to be preaching and teaching and feeding and healing those that society deemed unworthy of attention, on days he wasn’t supposed to, in places he probably shouldn’t have been. To save humanity from ourselves. Because that is what our Savior was called to do. Through the unwinnable unshakable Loving Grace of God, we are saved from ourselves by the birth, life, death and resurrection of a Savior born in a manger to the unlikeliest parents in the most unlikeliest of places.

In this snowy Christmastide, with six more days to go, I invite you to think on the children of the world, especially those born in the most unwelcome places, and the parents that go to terrific lengths to keep them safe. One of the promises of Christmas is that such great potential lies in these children who wake us up with their sick, get lost in church, or stay away too long. Such great potential lies in children who deserve a better life than to be lost, thrown in cages or killed because of government mismanagement, racism, or classism. Remember the thousands of children in this state alone, or the hundreds in this area, who live without enough food on their plate, or clothes on their backs.

Mary knew how important Jesus was to the rest of the world. Jesus knew how important Jesus was to the rest of the world. We know how important our children are to the rest of the world. Remember that every child is important to the rest of the world. In them, we see the face of God.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Amen