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