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.