Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Ruth 1:1-22

You may not be familiar with the details of story of Ruth, but many of us have heard those verses from the first chapter of Ruth before: “Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live. Your people are my people – your God is my god; where you die, I’ll die, and that is where I’ll be buried, so help me God.” What a powerful statement of loyalty, for a widow to her mother-in-law, for a foreigner, a Moabite, to profess her faith in the living God of the Hebrews, Naomi’s God. Now, think about your relationship with your in-laws, whether it be siblings-in-law or a mother or father-in-law. Mothers-in-law in particular have a bad reputation, don’t they? When we get married, when someone in our family gets married, we try to receive that person and treat them as our own family, but not all of us can say that we embrace our in-laws with the love and loyalty that Ruth sticks with Naomi, through thick and thin. Ruth is a book that helps us think about what loyalty actually means, in the context of our faith. How are we loyal to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, how are we loyal to God, and most importantly, how is God loyal to us?
So, if you struggle with your in-laws, you’re not alone, but who or what are you loyal to? Do you have a tight family, a loyal spouse? Perhaps you have good friends who are like family? What else are you loyal to, and why? Some of us have our certain favorite brands of food, cars, yes, we may even be loyal to a particular brand of toilet paper. Of course, we have our favorite sports teams, politicians or candidates. You may prefer Channel 7 over Channel 3 or 6 for the local news. And many of us have strong feelings of loyalty toward our country, the United States, and to our church, whether it’s to the ELCA nationally or to our beloved congregation of Bethel Lutheran Church.
When I step back and think about my loyalty to certain things, some of them are quite silly, in the grand scheme of things. For example, I think a Toyota Prius is the best car ever. I love my little hybrid. There are many reasons I am loyal to my car and to the larger Toyota brand (and no, I did not get paid for saying this). In its four years and 50+ thousand miles of life it has averaged 50 mpg. I have loaded up a treadmill and 20 bags of mulch from Home Depot in its spacious hatchback trunk. It isn’t the zippy-est car on the block, but it has gotten me reliably from point a to point b with only oil changes and new tires for maintenance. I love my car, I tell everyone about how much I love my car, and yes, while it is no longer new, I have a hard time seeing any of its flaws. I lovingly take care of it, vaccuming and dusting its interior and making sure the exterior is washed regularly, in the summer, by hand.
When I was reflecting on the things I am particularly loyal to, I was a little ashamed to admit how easy it is for me to be loyal to stuff, rather than people, or to God. When I think about the amount of care and maintenance I dedicate to my car and how much I talk about my car with others, how much more ought I to be talking with people about God? How much more could I be tending to my relationship with God with such dedication and devotion?
This is where the story of Ruth and Naomi can really hit home for us. Ruth can teach us a thing or two about what it really means to be loyal to someone for the right reasons, and what it means to be loyal to God. At the beginning of the story of Ruth, these three women, Ruth, Naomi, and Orpah, are experiencing much loss – Naomi in particular. Naomi has just lost her husband and her sons. She has no blood-relation to take care of her, and she knows she is vulnerable as an older single woman, so she decides to return home to Bethlehem where she might find someone to take care of her. She has no expectation that either of her daughters-in-law will come with her on this arduous journey. At least for Ruth and Orpah, they are young, and they are at home in Moab. They can create a new life for themselves, Naomi reminds them. Even so, Ruth remains loyal to her mother-in-law and to this new God of Israel that she has been introduced to through her husband’s family. She doesn’t want Naomi to travel alone, and she knows she can help care for Naomi.
In this first chapter of the story, we learn that Naomi is depressed. Just listen to how she speaks about God: “Don’t call me Naomi, call me Bitter. The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow. I left here full of life, and God has brought me back with nothing but the clothes on my back. Why would you call me Naomi? God certainly doesn’t. The Strong One ruined me.” How many of you in times of loss and heartache yourselves have spoken about God like this? God can take it – Naomi teaches us it’s OK to be angry with God. But it’s the foreigner, Ruth, the Moabite, traditional enemies of Israel, who restores Naomi’s faith and trust in God again. Ruth gives Naomi hope that God will take care of them both after this time of great loss, and God will care for them as they return to Bethlehem, which is ready to reap a plentiful harvest of barley after a time of famine. As we turn to chapter two of the book of Ruth next week, we hear this promise at the end of chapter one that God is loyal to us. God doesn’t forget us even when it feels like it sometimes. God never forsakes or abandons us. God provides: feast after famine, new love after loss, a chosen family beyond our flesh and blood relationships.
Ruth teaches us that true loyalty is not simply blind allegiance, or preference of a commercial brand. Loyalty requires sacrifice, perseverance, and dedication. Ruth takes an optimistic risk that she and Naomi travelling together and living in Bethlehem together will be better off than if they tried to move on from their losses alone. In Ruth’s persistent insistence to stay with Naomi, she reminds Naomi of her own faith and trust in God’s provision. God will provide. God will show them a way to live moving forward. God does have a bigger picture in mind for them, and for the whole world through them! In fact, as we know from the gospel of Matthew, through God’s providence, Ruth will be in the line of King David and therefore an ancestor of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ. In striving to love others as we love God, to expand our definition of what it means to be family because we’re united as the body of Christ, we discover just as Naomi and Ruth do, that God is faithful, loyal, to us. God never gives up on us. In Jesus Christ, God makes sacrifices and takes risks for our behalf. And God often works through other people to remind us of God’s great and persistent love for us. Amen.

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, July 1, 2018
1 John 1:1-4

When you open up your Bible to the small book known as 1 John, you might first ask yourself, “Who is John, anyway? Which John are we talking about?” And those are very good questions to ask, because the short answer is, “We don’t know!” Since John the Baptist died before Jesus was crucified and risen, we can pretty confidently take his name off of the list of possible Johns. That’s about all we know, though. The three letters of John were written by an unknown author, but likely by the same person. He never introduces himself in 1 John and in the second and third letters, he refers to himself only as the “elder.” This guy who calls himself the “elder” could be the same author as the gospel of John. He could be John of Patmos who wrote Revelation. He could be John the beloved disciple, or a different author writing within the “Johannine tradition.” For ease, most Christians say that the author of these letters is John, but it’s important to know that just because we don’t know who exactly wrote these letters doesn’t make them any less valid as scripture. It’s similar to the writings of Martin Luther and the Lutheran confessions that we confess to adhere to as Lutherans – not all of the confessions were written by Martin Luther, and some were written after he died, but the Lutheran Confessions were written in that same spirit, and we believe them to be just as valid and God-inspired.
What is interesting about the books named John in the New Testament is that whether you’re reading the gospel of John, the letters of John, the words of John the Baptist in the other gospels, or the letter of Revelation written by John of Patmos, you can identify common themes. We heard some of those themes in 1 John and the gospel of John reading for today. The Johannine authors urge believers to know or walk in the truth, to love one another as the greatest commandment, to have joy among believers. They describe believers as little children, the Holy Spirit as our advocate, and write about the importance of abiding in Christ. These themes are central for us as Christians, and I think we can agree that the content, the message, is much more important than the who, what, where and when of this particular letter. As Martin Luther put it, “This is an outstanding epistle…so beautifully and gently does it picture Christ to us.” For those of us who struggle to think about the cosmic God of the universe, for John, God is not an abstract concept but the person of Christ Jesus whom we can see, hear, and touch.
One of the central themes of 1 John and the gospel of John is emphasizing both Jesus’ divinity and his humanity. In the first century, there were certain factions of Christians arguing that the son of God wasn’t actually human, but only appeared to be human. Others claimed that Jesus was a wise and good man, but only a man, not truly God. Eventually this led to the development of the Nicene Creed in the 300s where Christians agreed that Jesus was fully God and fully human, begotten of the Father, if you can recall those words! And so in the opening of John’s gospel we hear, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” And in 1 John, “The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen!” Over and over again, these Johns in the Bible testify that what believers had previously only read about or heard about as words or thoughts about God is a person, God embodied in human form, in Jesus the Christ. What I find even more powerful is that the John writing this may not have seen Jesus in person. He may have lived after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to heaven, yet he can share a powerful experience of God in the flesh that has engaged all of his senses. This means that we can, too. We can have a powerful God-encounter still today. God is not just somewhere up there like the Deism of the Enlightenment, watching us passively and uncaringly from up in heaven, God is here, among us, in flesh and blood as Christ to us, STILL.
This is how 1 John puts it: “We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!” We saw the Word of Life, we heard the Word of Life, we experienced the Word of Life, and that experience gave us joy, John is basically saying. That same joy is for us as believers. When have you seen God? When have you heard God? When have you experienced God, right there, in another person? When has God given you joy? This is why we ask you to share God sightings with us, because it’s so easy to overlook or forget that God is at work in us and through us in flesh and blood, tangible ways still today. This is why we celebrate communion regularly with physical things like bread and wine to remind us of Jesus’ presence with us NOW, the body and blood of Jesus given for us. Jesus is the tangible Word of Life for us, as real as the person sitting next to you in the pew.
It’s easy to learn about God, to study facts about the Bible as I shared with you this morning, to find things about Jesus’ life and ministry that are interesting. Our faith in Jesus Christ is more than abstract thoughts or ideas about God. Our faith is sharing with one another the encounters we’ve had with Jesus incarnate, the flesh and blood Son of God. Just as you may have encountered Christ in the face of a neighbor, a loved one, or a strange, John reminds us that we also could be Christ to someone else. We witness to Christ’s love with our whole selves, just as Christ first loved us. Just last Sunday, I had the opportunity to visit three congregations in Clay Center, Edgar, and Superior, Nebraska to install their new pastor whom they are sharing together as a parish. It has taken years for this parish to form because there is one Presbyterian church, one United Church of Christ church, and one Lutheran church in this parish. It was quite powerful for me to experience the love of Christ in these congregations’ welcome of me, in their love for one another as they’ve gotten to know one another over the years, and in their willingness to be the body of Christ in that part of Nebraska across denominational lines. And by the way, I think I may have tasted Christ in one of the best potlucks I have ever been to, three LONGGG tables full of food brought by the different congregations celebrating their partnership. I have pretty high standards knowing how awesome our potlucks from Bethel are. That’s just my most recent experience of seeing Jesus in the faces of people I get to meet and in the words I hear from people who are just as excited as I am about their encounters with the Word of Life made flesh. I’m sure you all can think of many more. If you think of one in particular – it doesn’t have to be just this week – write it down on that God sighting line in your communication card and share it with us! I don’t think we can be reminded enough of how great God’s love is for us, that he is willing to take on flesh, to walk among us, to experience what we experience, to die and be raised for us, and to encounter us even now. Thank you God for Jesus, our tangible Word of Life. Amen.