Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Hebrews 1:1-4
Think of all the ways that you communicate in just one day: phone calls, texting, FaceTime or Skype, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, MarcoPolo, Snapchat, TV, websites, newspapers, letters and the good old fashioned face-to-face conversation are some that come to my mind immediately. Living in the “information age,” we have so many opportunities to give and receive information. When you think about it, we are using words all of the time. Sometimes it becomes overwhelming, too much to absorb. Especially with a barrier of a screen in front of our face or with profiles of people unknown to us, it becomes easier to use words to tear down or say things we would never say to someone personally. This morning we are diving into the book of Hebrews, which starts with an emphasis on God’s Word for us, which is a lifegiving Word. It’s a comforting message to hear among all the noise and bombardment of information that God is still speaking, and that God’s Word is more important than any other message out there. How do we listen? How do we keep the faith that God is still speaking?
The author of Hebrews begins, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son.” God has always spoken to his people, and God will continue to speak to us, in many and various ways. As Christians, when we talk about God’s Word we first think of the Bible, of course. As an English major in college, the Bible amazes me even if you just look at it as a work of literature. These are not just ordinary words! The book of Hebrews, in particular, is masterfully written. We lose some of the artistry of the language in English. For example, the passage that we are looking at today is called a “period” in Greek – it is just one sentence that makes a complete circle around the Greek alphabet. The author uses alliteration with the letter “pi” and sets up this past-future continuum that is just beautiful if you look at it this way:
Spoke has spoken
In the past in these last days
To our ancestors to us
By the prophets by a Son
We don’t know who the author of Hebrews was, but from the context we know he was a leader of a Christian community, likely in Rome, of second-generation Christians, some Jewish and some Gentile, and highly educated. The author refers often to the Hebrew Scriptures, especially to the Psalms. We call Hebrews a letter, but it is written more like a long sermon, and some parts may have been used as pieces of liturgy for early worship, like this first part of the book we’re looking at today. All of this is to say that some people really like this book because there is so much to unpack in its language and references to other parts of Scripture, and others find it difficult to understand, rightfully so. In its precise and beautiful language, we see how this book in addition to other books of the Bible are inspired by God – this is a way God still speaks to us in these last days just as God spoke to our ancestors. All of scripture is so important to us, beyond its literary value as a life-giving word of God to us.
It’s important to remember also, however, that for John, for the author of Hebrews, and for us as Lutheran Christians, God’s Word is first and foremost not a book, but is Jesus the Christ. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” John reminds us. Before there were books, before there were human beings to speak, God spoke everything into being. That is the sustaining power of God’s powerful word beyond words on a page. For many of our ancestors in the faith, these stories of the prophets, of Sarah and Abraham, Moses and the Israelites, Ruth and Naomi and so on were passed on orally because they could not read or write or because paper and papyrus was so expensive a community might just have one copy. These stories were spoken over and over again before they were written down. And the stories themselves tell of ways God has spoken to us in many and various ways: to Joseph and the pharaoh in dreams that Joseph could interpret. To Moses in a burning bush. To Jonah in a belly of a whale. To Hagar in the wilderness. To Nathan, who was bold enough to confront King David for his sins. The author of Hebrews reminds us today to hear these words of scripture not just as interesting historical facts, but that these same words have the power to inspire us, convict us of our sin, lead us to repentance, drive us to our knees in awe, give us comfort and peace in the midst of difficult times, and shower us with words of love from the One who has always been and always will be. God’s Word is living and active – sharper than a two-edged sword, Hebrews 4:12 says. God speaks to us still today to our present reality. These are not just dusty words on a page reserved for someone else a long time ago. These are words of life for us.
This is where the author of Hebrews really drives it home by saying that God has always spoken to us in many and various ways through these Old Testament stories we know well, through the prophets, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.” Christ the Word made flesh is the most important Word. We can think of the red letter Bible where in the gospels all of Jesus’ words are printed in red. Martin Luther said that the Bible is the cradle that holds the Christ child. Wherever the written word reveals who Christ is for us, Luther said, those words are more important than any other words for our lives. But again, beyond written words, we confess that Christ in the flesh speaks most powerfully to us, still today. Christ, truly present in the bread and wine we will receive at communion today, speaking words of forgiveness and abundant life. Christ, on the cross, making purification for sins and sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high, calling us to look forward to the kingdom of heaven and work for God’s kingdom here on Earth. Christ in the hungry, thirsty, naked, prisoner, stranger speaking to us in pictures through our daily newsfeeds that make us a little less comfortable with our middle-class status quo and a little more generous in our giving to the least of these.
Pastor Rich and I have talked a lot about how we listen to God through scripture reading, prayer, silence, and through each other. We have encouraged you all to share our God sightings with each other by talking about them and writing them down. Today’s scripture makes me wonder if we should also share our “God hearings.” Where has God spoken to you through all those forms of communication we use today? Through dreams, visions, modern-day prophets, family members, teachers, strangers and Holy Scripture; in many and various ways God has spoken and continues to speak to us through Christ, the Word made flesh, the Son. Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
June 30, 2019
Psalm 27
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Just that first verse of Psalm 27 basically sums up the gospel – God is our light, our salvation, and our stronghold, therefore, we have no one and nothing to fear. Jesus echoes this psalm in Matthew when he asks us over and over again to not worry but to trust God. Let’s be real, here. Having faith instead of and in spite of fear, is tough. Putting away our anxiety and worries to trust God, especially in those things we can’t control, is much easier said than done. I’m sure I’m not the only one that was up at least one night this week at three in the morning, worrying about things that in the daylight weren’t so important or worth keeping me up at night. In Psalm 27, we hear God calling us back and back again to trusting God, to remembering who God is for us, and that ultimately, we have nothing to fear.
This past week we wrapped up summer swimming lessons with our girls, which was us as parents and our children together in the water guided by an instructor. It’s funny as a parent how those memories that you thought you’d forgotten come back sometimes of your own childhood. I love to swim – I would swim every day if I could and growing up they called me a fish. I am drawn to the water. I could say I barely remember being afraid of the water. But when the lifeguard asked us to flip our girls from a front to a back float and try to get them to put their heads back so that their ears touched the water, they freaked out. I remembered that same sensation of the cold water on the back of my head and having a similar reaction of wanting to sit up so that my head would not be in the water. I remembered what it was like to be afraid of floating on my back. Of course, if you sit up or become rigid on your back in the water, you start to sink…you can’t float! Being afraid is actually counter-productive to floating. So for two weeks, Monday through Thursday night, Rich and I would say “I’ve got you. I won’t let you go. It’s OK, just trust me. Relax.” And I would say that our girls are getting there, but there not there yet in trusting us to help them back float!
Doesn’t our faith in God sometimes feel like learning to back float? This is how God asks us to put our trust in him, over and over again, and so often how we respond – relax, put your head back, enjoy the water! And we’re rigidly trying to sit up, turn over, arms and legs flailing as we feel like we’re drowning. Yet the Lord, our loving parent, is holding us the whole time. Verse ten in today’s Psalm even says “Though my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me in.” That is a powerful reassurance…even when our human parents fail, the people perhaps we have the most trust in, God will not leave us and will be there all the time, no matter what. For those of you who have experienced the loss of one or both of your parents, or for those of you who have an estranged relationship, this verse is particularly meaningful. When our parents are no longer with us or are untrustworthy, God is still our light, our stronghold, and our salvation, never letting us go.
It may be evident at this point for me to tell you that Psalm 27 is a trust psalm. As we reflect on several psalms this summer in our short series on the psalms, it’s important to know that the psalms are there for us when we’re feeling a range of emotions – 150 Psalms to speak to us where we’re at for any situation. There are royal psalms likely first written for Israel’s monarchy, liturgical psalms used for worship, psalms of thanksgiving and praise, psalms written for a group of people and psalms written for individuals. Next week we’ll look specifically at a psalm of praise, last week we reflected on a psalm of lament or a psalm asking for help. While it’s helpful for us to know the original context of what might be going on for the writer of a psalm, just like for any part of scripture, the psalms are my go-to for pastoral care and for suggesting to people who want to grow closer to God through scripture. It’s amazing how many times I can read a psalm and say, “Wow, it’s like this passage is speaking directly to me and to my situation.” In that sense, all of the psalms help build up our faith and trust in God by allowing us to express a full range of emotions to God.
What’s important to know about this being a trust psalm specifically, is that while the psalmist is so clear that we can trust God from beginning to end, he is also clear that faith is about trusting in God when life is not a bed of roses. Trust psalms are for people who are in real trouble: “When evildoers close in against me to devour my flesh…”though war rise up against me,” “though an army encamp against me.” This psalmist, likely King David, has a few more serious troubles than I have! David’s answers to his troubles come from his faith in God…”my heart will not fear, my trust will not be shaken…”For in the day of trouble God will give me shelter.” This psalm of trust is a reminder for all of us who are trying to keep our head above water and calm our anxieties by putting our trust in God. Our faith is not shaken when life gets tough. It does not mean that our faith or trust in God is weak when bad things are happening to us. Trusting in God also means giving up some control, relaxing, laying our head back into the water to enjoy the ride, letting God lead us on the lazy river of life, rather than fighting against the current. David asks God to “teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path.” David does not ask God for everything to go his way – rather, he asks God for the courage to live by God’s way.
We live in a fear-full world. We face nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea. Climate change threatens our species’ future. We can’t leave our children alone even to play in our own backyards, and many of us wonder how we’ll ever get out of debt or pay the bills. There are plenty of things we can be legitimately afraid of, and I don’t mean to minimize our real fears. It is true, though, that our human tendency seems to be to dwell on our problems, imagine worst-case scenarios, exaggerate the bad and minimize the good. Scripture is pretty clear from the Old Testament to the new, from David’s lips and Jesus’, that we as believers live by faith in the face of fear. We seek God’s guidance and way to not be completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by our fears and anxieties. We place our trust in God because we know there are many people and situations we simply cannot trust, including ourselves. Simply put, we do not serve and worship our fears, we serve and worship God who is more powerful and loving than any situation life can throw at us, including death itself. The Lord is my light and salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, June 2, 2019
Romans 6:1-14
I should warn you, this sermon is going to be controversial. I’m going to ask for a show of hands on a topic which many people feel strongly about one way or the other…who likes beets? I love beets. They are probably my favorite vegetable, especially when pickled. My kids, surprisingly, also like beets. Beets are very good for you. But many people don’t like them. They’re kind of like lima beans and Brussel sprouts…either you like them, or you REALLY don’t. A while ago, I met a woman who was doing PhD-level research on beets…can you believe it? She had devoted her career to getting beets into the mainstream food market in a way that more people would like them and eat them, because beets are that good for you. Powdered beets that you could add to food, beet juice supplements, you name it – any way she could find to get people to eat beets, she was going to try it. It wasn’t an easy job, because as she noted, a lot of people don’t like beets.
For a lot of people, chapter 6 is of Romans is the “eat your beets” message from Paul. You may not like giving up sinning, but being a good Christian is the right thing to do…that’s a bit how this passage has been interpreted, at least. This morning, Paul tries to tackle a question that has been asked by many people up to the present day about living a Christian life. If Jesus died to save us from our sins, and we know we are going to heaven because of God’s grace, not because of what we do, can’t we just do whatever we want whenever we want, because God will forgive us anyway? Or as Paul puts it, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?” “By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?” is Paul’s answer. “Aww, man!” we might respond. You mean I have to try to be a good person anyway, even if I know God forgives me and has saved me eternally?! Paul’s attempt here at first may seem like someone trying to convince a whole population to like beets – to like something that’s good for them. Paul isn’t just focused on behavior, thankfully. This is not a chapter trying to convince those of us who admittedly like doing things that aren’t good for us, those of us who do still sin (all of us), that we just need to try harder to not sin. Paul is actually trying to tell us some very good news, not about what we need to do, but about who we are. Because, that’s what Paul is really trying to say here…we are in Christ, not in sin. We are not in a perpetual state of sin, Paul is arguing, because we are in Christ…that is who we are!
Maybe another example will help understand what I think Paul is trying to tell us here. As some of you know, my brother Josh is getting married here in Omaha in just two weeks, which has caused me to reflect back on my wedding day. Pastor Rich and I will have been married nine years this July. In this day and age, it takes a lot of planning and preparation for a wedding, and our wedding was a wonderful day. A wedding is often the end-scene of a good romantic comedy movie, right? There’s a reason movies stop at the wedding day and don’t continue into the marriage…marriage is kind of boring, and not always idyllic. When I speak with couples preparing to be married, I always remind them that marriage is for life…it’s a life change, not just one day of celebration. Similarly, when we welcome a new baby into our lives as parents or grandparents, it’s a life-altering reality for our lives. It is an amazing, good change – much more palatable and desirable than trying to convince you to eat your least favorite vegetable. But these life changes and transitions are still difficult. As a parent and as a spouse, we still sin, and behave badly towards our loved ones, but our identity as a parent or as a spouse doesn’t change, and in a healthy marriage or family, we still love each other. What about you? What are some of those big events in life that have changed you forever, so that you wouldn’t be “you” if that change hadn’t happened?
There is one life change we share as Christians that we often overlook. Our baptism, even though most of us don’t remember it, was not just a one-time event, but like a wedding, like adding a new family member, it was a life-changing reality so that we would never be the same. At our baptism, God defined who we are, once and for all. We are “in Christ.” At our baptism, we died the death Christ died to sin. We can’t go on living in sin because that’s not who we are – we belong to Christ, we are in Christ. We may still sin, but sin, death, and the devil have no hold on us. We are forever changed. The life we live, we live to God, then, as Paul says. This is different than expecting perfection – when we’re married we don’t expect perfection to stay married, or when we become parents, we quickly learn we are not perfect parents. As Christians we sin, but that doesn’t change our identity as being “in Christ.” That doesn’t change the fact that we are living under grace!
Today is a hard day for us. There’s no denying it. Bethel has had to deal with a lot of change. We’ve been talking about these changes for awhile, and these discussions are not always pleasant. As Pastor Rich and I have shared with you, we have resigned our call to serve as your pastors and to serve the Nebraska Synod, and we will be moving our family to New York in August. This is a big change for us – it will change who we are, too…the least of which being that instead of Nebraskans we will learn to be New Yorkers. I have received great comfort and courage during this time by reading the book of Romans. Paul’s reassurance to all of us today is that many things change – our jobs and our work status, our marital status, or where we live. The church, too, is changing. As Christians, God assures us that one thing will not change, and that is the identity you were given at your baptism. We, all of us, are in Christ. We are living under grace. Bethel Lutheran Church is a part of a much bigger picture of God’s grace in action, helping people live their lives differently because of faith in Jesus Christ, regardless of what they’ve done and left undone as we sometimes say in our confession and forgiveness.
There are so many life-giving words of hope in this message from Paul for us this morning, but my favorite is Paul’s call for those of us who are “in Christ” to walk in newness of life. Baptism changes us. Baptism in Christ unites us as a faith community to each other and to people we have never met yet – people not yet born and saints who have gone way before us, people who speak different languages than we do and have many different customs and tradition. We share this one unity in Christ with the eternal promise that we can walk together in newness of life. For those of us who were baptized a long time ago and don’t even remember when the date was much less what happened because we were infants, we need to be reminded that God still, today calls us to walk in newness of life: to see our primary identity as being in Christ, proudly wearing and walking around in Christ’s confidence, instead of being paralyzed by sin, fear, loss, and death.
We have a God who meets us at our lowest to remind us again and again and again we belong to Christ, we are on the side of life, not death, and sin has no power over us. Not because we are great people, or because we deserve it, but because of Christ who died with us to be raised with us. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Romans 5:1-11
Faith, peace, grace, love, hope…Paul offers so many positive words of encouragement for us as Christians in this passage from Romans. I love the book of Romans – it is my favorite book! I have to be careful not to “geek out” and get way over your heads with interesting commentary notes and linguistic details when I preach on this book. This book was monumental for Martin Luther, and it is important to many of us as Christians as it includes some of the most foundational passages for our beliefs. Yet…there are also words that challenge us in this passage from Romans today: suffering, boasting, endurance, death, wrath, enemies of God. These difficult words, too, are contained in Paul’s letter to the Romans. These, too, are a part of our experience of faith.
More than ever, I am aware of our tendency as American Christians to trivialize beautiful words like faith, hope, peace, and love and dismiss more difficult words like death, suffering, and endurance. We like easy solutions and quick fixes. We like happy endings and feeling good. We strive for success and perfection, and we don’t like being reminded that those things are impossible to attain. Even as Christians – we don’t want to hear that we can’t have our cake and eat it, too. Yet Paul gives us these powerful words, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us.” Let’s pause, for a minute, to reflect on that power of that statement…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That’s how God loves us.
The thing is, as much as we like happy endings and quick fixes, a lot of us are walking around trying to numb ourselves from the pain of reality, the reality that we and the world are not perfect. We can easily come up with all the ways we do not deserve to be loved by God…we are destroying the planet, we have people being killed across the world and across the street, opioid and other addictions are on the rise, our church’s finances are a mess and Christian churches all over our country are experiencing dramatic decline in membership and attendance. Some would say we are crazy to have hope. We are crazy to talk about faith. And, how can God possibly love us since we are a part (usually) of causing all of these problems in the first place? How can God love a world as messed up as it is?
Here’s where Paul’s words take root in the lives of Christians who are trying to live out a genuine faith in the midst of the world going to hell in a handbasket…”We know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” We as Christians sometimes buy in too easily to the American lie that an abundant and fulfilling grace-filled God-given life is free of pain, suffering, and death. Somehow, the world tries to convince us that our lives ought to be perfect as Christians, otherwise something must be wrong with our God and with our faith. Yet, at the center of our faith is a Christ who is willing to suffer and die for us while we were still sinners. Throughout scripture, we have stories of people, including Paul, who endured suffering in spite of great faith, and often because of their faith. We are given the difficult task of having faith, hoping, working for peace, and accepting God’s grace even when we experience suffering, and have to endure, have to admit we are weak, have to acknowledge we are still sinners.
Let me give you an example. Recently, I was talking with someone who was talking to me about being a parent of an adult child who struggles with serious anxiety and depression. “At first,” he said, “I thought, it’s just a phase adjusting to the stress and social pressures of college. And then I thought, we’ll get her on the right medications and connected to a good psychologist, and she’ll get over it. That was eight years ago, and some days are still really, really tough. I used to not want to talk about it, but now I do, because I find other people are going through the same kind of thing, and we can share what we’re going through, and I can share how God is helping me deal with it.” Suffering. Endurance. Character. Hope. We can’t explain why God allows mental illness to exist, or diabetes, or cancer, or any number of chronic illnesses we and our loved ones are dealing with. But we can say with great hope and faith that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. While we were addicted, divorced, mentally ill, verbally or physically abusive, overconsumers,– you put your label, your deepest confession of your worst to God and your quiet, personal suffering there, and know that in that mess, God loved you right there. Nothing you did to deserve it, or earn it. Maybe you are enduring, just like that father is enduring. It is God’s peace, God’s love, God’s grace that allows us to endure and to have hope. Let’s not kid ourselves, God is our only hope, if we’re truly honest about ourselves and about the state of this world.
And so, in the midst of our anxieties about the future of our church, and perhaps our personal anxieties about our silent sufferings, flaws, and hang-ups, God gives us hope. We put these God sightings you share in the newsletter, and I know some of you read them, but some of you don’t, and if you do, there are some really exceptional ways God gives us hope and shows, still today, how much God loves us when it is simply not logical to do so. I just looked back at the last few months and was blown away by God at work in the midst of our mess. Let me share some of these with you: people helping their neighbors dig out after a blizzard. A grandson getting his Eagle Scout. Beautiful spring blooming after a long winter. Farmers helping other farmers through the flood. Several of you actually boasted of yourselves in a really good way – helping a customer find a significant sum of lost money, helping someone get their car started. Todd Davis’s brother had very successful liver transplant surgery! Vinne Chonis, Mary Kay’s friend who is just 18 miraculously came out of a life-threatening coma. Ethan Newell, who we were praying for awhile miraculously started walking after a spinal cord injury. Steve Kraft’s friend Teresa lost her house to the floods but has gotten through just fine by the grace of God, Crossroads prison ministry for all of you able to experience that May 5 you know what an amazing sign of hope and grace that was. And someone wrote just last week that my brother – who I haven’t heard from in four years – called me this week and started the conversation with “I’m sorry.” These aren’t stories of quick fixes and artificial happy endings. These are stories of suffering, endurance, character, and hope. These are stories that know the mess that we’re in and yet these are our stories of God’s love poured out for us, not with our deserving, but because of God’s grace.
We have hope in a God who does not disappoint us, “because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” There will be trials and temptations. Certainly our church’s situation alone will continue to require suffering, endurance, character, and hope. We place our hope ultimately not in a quick fix or a temporary building or people that will pass away, but we place our hope in Christ who promises to endure with us, put up with us, here and now and evermore. Thanks be to God. Amen!
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Matthew 28:11-20
“All for one and one for all!” Many of you are familiar with the motto of the Three Musketeers from Alexander Dumas’ novel and subsequent movie adaptations. But this could also be a motto for Christians who have received Jesus’ Great Commission to “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Jesus calls all of us, all of us who call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ as Christians, to be committed to the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and make more disciples, baptizing and teaching them: all for one. And Jesus the Christ, given authority by God the Father, has died and risen from the grave for us all, for all nations: everyone you meet, far and near, as the Message version puts it. Jesus is One for all.
We began this journey through the book of Matthew with the birth of Jesus at the beginning of the year, and today, we see how it ends – Jesus is risen and greets his disciples with these encouraging words to continue doing God’s work until the end of the age. All for one and one for all! In fact, in our Lutheran understanding, we reverse the order, putting God’s action first. We could read the gospel of Matthew backwards, starting with the last verse: “I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age,” Jesus says. We start with the end, which is also the beginning – Christ’s incarnation in the birth of Jesus (Immanuel, God-with-us) and his resurrected presence both point to the truth that Jesus is always with us. This knowledge gives us the courage to have faith even when we have doubts, and to take risks sake of God’s mission in the world. Jesus promises to walk with us every day, helping us do the work he’s instructed us to do. The women and the disciples do not just find an empty tomb, they encounter the risen Jesus in the flesh following his resurrection, present with them! As Jesus’ modern-day disciples, we don’t just talk about an empty tomb, we share our experiences, our “God sightings,” of how Jesus is with us every day – always!
We start with the end – the reminder that Jesus is our One for us all, because all of us know at times we have striven to give our all for God (all for One) and failed. For example, when I meet with a new couple for premarital counseling, one of the things we talk about is the idea of “idealistic distortion” in a relationship. To put it more simply, all couples go through a “honeymoon,” period where they see each other with rose-colored glasses. They might say things like, “Every new thing I have learned about my partner has pleased me.” “My partner has all the qualities I’ve always wanted in a mate.” “My partner always gives me the love and affection I need.” Now, those of us who have been married awhile may laugh a little bit at some of these statements or look back fondly at our honeymoon period with our spouse. My goal in talking with couples about our tendency to be idealistic early on in a relationship is not to burst their romantic bubble of feelings about each other, but to teach them that marriage is hard work, and none of us are perfect – part of being in a relationship is loving someone in spite of their flaws and learning to forgive and build a deeper relationship.
By the end of the gospel of Matthew, the disciples are at the point with Jesus where the honeymoon is over. They are trying to figure out how they can follow the risen Christ and make disciples of all nations flawed as they are. They have sought to follow him faithfully and give God their “all,” but even still Matthew notes that some doubt, some struggle to “risk themselves totally.” Peter denied Jesus, Judas betrayed him, Thomas doubted. Our absolute commitment to God often falls short – this is part of the truth that we see in Christ’s crucifixion – we try to give our lives fully to God, but sometimes we fail. We get distracted, we have doubts, we don’t know what God’s will is, we make up excuses. We do not love God as fully as we ought. Matthew’s gospel points us to Jesus who is the only one who truly can confidently say, “All authority, on heaven and on earth, has been given to me.” And then Jesus says, “I am with you always.” We can trust in Jesus’ absolutes – that his unwavering commitment and love for us will never end, that his presence will never leave us even when we don’t give our all like we’ve intended, or make disciples of ALL nations like we had striven to do.
There’s a second piece to Jesus’ reassurance that he is with us always: his job description of a disciple, which is to follow his lead, putting Christ first. Basically, Jesus is telling us to do what he does, teach what he has taught us, just as he has been given authority from God the Father, and we strive to give God our all with the humility that we don’t always get it right. We refer to this passage as “The Great Commission,” and “command” is almost a synonym. It is true that in Matthew we also find “The Great Commandment:” “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” Sometimes we separate the Great Commission and the Great Commandment between evangelism and service – the Great Commission is about going and telling others the good news, bringing people to baptism, and the Great Commandment is about loving your neighbors as you love yourself generally by doing good things for them. But we also love God and our neighbors when we share good news that God loves them, too, that Jesus is with us always; and certainly in teaching others what Jesus has taught us, we include providing acts of healing and service as a part of the Great Commission.
The word “commission” is significant in another way. While “command” has a connotation of “do this, or else,” even if the command is about loving, those of us with authority issues may have some resistance to being told what to do. If you break down the word “commission,” it is simply a co-mission. We are in mission with God to heal a broken world, to proclaim good news to ALL nations in word and in deed. Jesus is in co-mission with us always, to the end of the age. Jesus in his death, burial, and resurrection makes us one body in him, one for all and all for one. This is what makes this particular commission so great – Jesus doesn’t ask us to do anything that he hasn’t already done. Jesus promises to teach the disciples and to never leave them, “right up to the end of the age.” We are not just called to obedience, although obeying a law of love is the best command I could ask God to give us; we are called to be partners, co-workers with God in a common mission for the sake of the WHOLE WORLD, no exceptions.
In this partnership, this co-mission, the resurrected Jesus encourages his disciples to train everyone they meet, near and far, in this way of life – or in another version, to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them. There are no exceptions to whom we are supposed to be in mission with and for – everyone you meet, Jesus says. So, you could think about or even write down everyone you meet in a day, and think about how God’s mission could include them: your next-door neighbor, your coffee buddies, co-workers, your doctor, friends or your kids’ friends and their parents, grocery store and gas station attendants…everyone you meet. As we strive to give Christ our all in following him, we pray for the humility to admit when we fall short of our “all for God,” and we come before God today and every day, thanking God that through his son Jesus, we have One who died and was raised for us all. Now, go make disciples, teaching them that good news. Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Matthew 21:1-17
Have you ever been driving somewhere and realized you ended up at your destination with no recollection of how you got there? Or have you read a chapter of a book, only to realize you don’t remember anything of what you read? When Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he shakes things up, waking the people out of their autopilot religion. Matthew says, “Unnerved, people were asking, “What’s going on here? Who is this?” This familiar story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey this Palm Sunday is highly dramatic, because it confronts us with our capability of being just like that crowd – they are there, but they aren’t really there. The crowds praise Jesus and are so excited to see him coming into Jerusalem, the son of David, but in just a few days, they will be shouting much different words: “Crucify him, Crucify him.” From the palm-strewn road, Jesus rides on right up into the temple, where he keeps shaking things up. He confronts the traditional religious practices of his day – the moneychangers and selling of animals for sacrifices in the temple. Many people, Jesus asserts, have been striving to be faithful but have not taken time in a LONG time to think about what God’s intent for worship really is: a house of prayer. Jesus comes to wake us up out of our complacency, out of our mechanical “through the motions” faith to discover what it truly means to follow him, and to admit what’s often most difficult to admit – we need help. We need a Savior.
Matthew points out how much Jesus is making people uncomfortable with this entrance into Jerusalem even in his noting what the people are shouting: “Hosanna to David’s son!” Even for us today, we might sing or say “Hosanna” without knowing what we really are saying. The people of Matthew’s time have also forgotten. At our Wednesday midweek worship, I talked about how we as Americans treat the phrase, “How are you?” not as a serious question, but as a greeting that we automatically say, “fine” in response to. We say “God bless you,” when someone sneezes, not necessarily because we really want God to bless that person. And “Good-bye,” also in its root means “God be with you,” but we have lost the power of that blessing when we say “Bye!” “Hosanna,” is a general exclamation of praise, as you might guess, but in Hebrew it means something like, “Save us.” The Palm Sunday crowd is greeting Jesus with words from Psalm 118, the traditional Psalm passage recited at the Passover, but it’s unclear if they realize what they are actually saying.
Ironically, the people who greet Jesus so enthusiastically are very quickly turned off by this Jesus who actually plans to do just that – save them. They don’t want Jesus to REALLY change things – the political system, the hierarchies of power that keep the poor poor and devalue children as some of the least of these, the traditional sacrificial worship system that many people make money from. They are shouting “Save us!” but they don’t know what they need saving from, and they certainly don’t want the kind of salvation that Jesus promises. Of course, Jesus’ name in this story is also significant – Jesus means, “God saves.” Even though most of the crowd and even Jesus’ closest disciples will abandon him on the way from the Temple to the cross, God will save us through Jesus the Christ, David’s son. God will save us when we don’t want him to. This is the hard good news we get to hear this Holy Week as we journey with Jesus to the cross and the empty tomb.
Matthew doesn’t paint humanity very positively in this passage – at least, the adults. Like other passages in Matthew, it’s the children who get it. Did you catch the description of the religious leaders freaking out when the children are running up and down in the temple? Sadly, in some of our churches still today young families and children are shushed or turned away because we think you need to be perfectly still and quiet in church. The children don’t seem to bother Jesus one bit, though. Jesus quotes from the prophets, “From the mouths of children and babies I’ll furnish a place of praise.” The children understand who Jesus is – they get it. They take seriously the words, “Hosanna, David’s son. Save us!” They seem to know what they mean in a way that the adults have forgotten.
It’s fun having two little people in the house who are fascinated by the English language and still learning it. Recently, Erin asked me why she only has a nightstand by her bed. “I need a morning stand for my things that I use in the morning, mommy!” I have a friend whose daughter started kindergarten recently, and she came home from school with a list of “mommy’s favorite things.” Under “favorite drink,” my friend’s daughter had drawn a glass of wine. My friend realized it was time for her to scale back her wine-drinking habit. Children, Jesus points out, remind us of what we’re really saying. Children aren’t afraid to wake us up out of our unconscious bad habits. Children can bring us back to faith, back to what it really means when we say, “Hosanna, Save us.” As we continue this week’s journey with the Last Supper and the story of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, pay attention to how the ones who seem to “get it,” the ones who stick by Jesus when everyone else abandons him or condemns him are the ones who have the least earthly power – the children, women, foreigners and outcasts, the nonreligious, lower-ranking soldiers and guards. It’s a valuable lesson we receive today that when we’re tempted to go along with the crowds or finding ourselves in habitual spiritual “ruts,” listening to those we might not naturally listen to, those who would have a different perspective, is one way to correct our “hive mind” thinking.
While we with the rest of the crowds may be confused or even distrustful at times about who Jesus is and what he is doing, Jesus is clear-headed and resolute in who he is and where he is going. Our celebrations and “Hosannas” this morning and every Palm Sunday are always muted with the background knowledge of what will happen in the coming days – that our precious Savior, Lord, Messiah, and King will be handed over into the hands of sinners, betrayed and abandoned by his closest followers, and put to death by the political and religious authorities. It is not a stretch to confess that we are complicit in Jesus’ death with our hollow “Hosannas.” The grace that we receive from Jesus each and every week is that even when we don’t know what we’re doing or what we are saying, Jesus does save. God saves through Jesus Christ. God gives us what we are asking for – Hosanna, save us. God saves us from all that we cannot overcome ourselves – from sin, death, and the devil. Maybe most powerfully, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God saves us from ourselves. May we like those children running through the temple grow to know more deeply what we are saying when we shout Hosanna – Praise the Lord, God HAS saved us! Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Matthew 28:1-10
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Are your feet Easter-ready? With spring weather finally here, some of you may be thinking about getting your body swimsuit-ready for the summer, but have you thought about whether your feet are Easter-ready?! When the Marys see the risen Jesus for the first time that Easter morning, Matthew tells us they fall to their knees and embrace his feet. Throughout the gospels people are kind of obsessed with Jesus’ feet. Falling down at someone’s feet was an act of worship, usually reserved for the Roman emperor, at the time. Before the resurrection, Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with perfume and wipes them with her hair. Another woman washes Jesus’ feet with her tears. People sit at Jesus’ feet to listen to his teaching or to receive healing. Jesus’ washes the disciples’ feet and asks them to wash one another’s feet. Jesus also instructs the disciples to shake the dust from their feet if a town does not receive his message. Jesus’ feet and hands are nailed to the cross, and the earth reels and rocks under the Marys’ feet at the empty tomb.
All this talk about feet is not for us to get too squeamish about how our toes will look in sandals in a few weeks, but causes us to ask how God wants us to use our feet after worship is over, to leave the empty tomb along with the women that first Easter morning to share the message about Christ’s resurrection. Jesus tells the women not to hold on to him too tightly, not to stay at his feet in worship, but for them to go use their feet to tell others the good news that he is risen. The angel instructs the women: “Get on your way quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He is risen from the dead. He is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there.’ That’s the message.” That’s the message we have to share, too! He is risen from the dead, and you will see him, you will see Christ resurrected! Are your feet Easter ready to share that good news with someone who needs to hear it?!
Your immediate answer to that question may be…no! “Did you hear the good news? He is risen!” This would be the text message my atheist friend in college would send me every Easter – it was an irreverent joke between us as we would argue about Jesus’ existence and my own faith that “yes, I actually believe all this stuff,” and my friend’s doubt. Maybe it is jarring to hear a pastor share on Easter morning that she has joked about Jesus’ resurrection with an atheist, but I share this partly to shake US up with the realization that we are all, those of us who are believers, a bit weird! I appreciate my friend helping me realize that saying “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” is actually a very difficult thing to believe and make sense of today. The Easter message we have to share is the same as the women’s message at the empty tomb, but the women saw the risen Jesus with their own eyes, and we haven’t. Especially in Matthew’s telling of the resurrection of Jesus, it sounds so fantastic to our modern ears, doesn’t it? An earthquake occurs as an angel comes down from heaven with shafts of lightning blazing and his garments shimmering snow-white! This account almost makes the Easter bunny more believable, if we look at it with post-Enlightenment skepticism. This is the way more and more people today look at Easter – a nice holiday spent with family and Easter egg hunts and maybe dressing up and going to church to make mom happy, but a guy being raised from the dead, escaping from a sealed tomb and an angel to tell about it? Kind of hard to believe. Are our feet Easter-ready to share this counter-cultural, unbelievable message?
So, how do we make our feet a little more Easter-ready? How do we let go of clinging to Jesus’ feet with joy and a little bit of fear of what we might say, or who we might talk to, and venture out to share this strange good news that Jesus STILL lives, lives in us and through us and with us and promises us life abundant, life eternal for all who believe?! Can we talk about resurrection in a way that might actually make sense to some skeptics who have a hard time getting past the scientific impossibility of a man rising from the dead? I will confess that I believe the historical Jesus rose from the dead just as the gospels tell us, because God can defy natural law. I also believe, however, we can’t fully explain this mystery of faith, and resurrection is a present reality for us all as Christians, not just a historical fact that we can never really prove or disprove. That is what faith is – trusting in what can’t be proven or seen. Easter reminds us that Christ’s crucified and resurrected presence is all around us, all the time, and we miss it because we are thinking it only took place 2000 years ago in a quite spectacular way. If Christ’s resurrection was only a one-time historical event, though, he might as well have stayed dead, because we worship a living God with a living faith that proclaims resurrection every single day! We God bringing new life out of death all around us, all the time.
Christians have used “ordinary,” or “natural” symbols for years to explain the mystery of the resurrection, which is truly miraculous in God’s order of creation. A caterpillar is “buried” in a chrysalis for several weeks and is transformed into a beautiful butterfly. Jesus himself described resurrection as a seed dying in the ground to become a new plant bearing fruit or grain that feeds us, sustaining life. And some of us have had the holy privilege of witnessing someone else’s death, not seeing the full transformation of the soul after death but having a glimpse of the peace, comfort, and hope amidst the grief that comes with letting a loved one leave this life for the next.
Getting our feet “Easter-ready,” to share the good news of resurrection, in the end, is less about rationalizing or explaining away the miraculous Easter event, and more about sharing how we have experienced God’s gift of new life after death. My atheist friend from college, who facetiously texted me “good news” every Easter, is now married to a Methodist pastor and goes to church almost weekly. I can’t explain that, and I definitely don’t attribute that transformation to me, but something about that Easter message got to my friend and made sense, despite the odds. I can only thank God for that. In my own life, as I reflect on my own experience of going through times of sadness, loss, death, and difficulty, I can always find those resurrection moments of feeling and seeing Christ’s crucified and risen presence right there, in the midst of the mess, with joy and hope ALWAYS on the other side! Today, we Christians dare to believe and share that message in spite of the skeptics and in our own skepticism. Even when others think we’re a bit crazy, or pretty intelligent “but I don’t know about that Jesus stuff she believes in.” We say joyfully today, “Did you hear the good news? Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” Some of us may make sense of Easter’s resurrection differently than others of us to come to a place of belief – but together we say, “we believe!” My Easter prayer for you ALL, which is really a prayer every Sunday because every Sunday is a little Easter, is that God leads your feet to the feet of Jesus, and then sends you out with a good news resurrection experience to share. That’s the message! Christ is risen! He has risen indeed Alleluia! Amen
Rebecca Sheridan
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Galatians 6:1-10
Christians worship God in community. As I serve our synod in the capacity of a Synod Evangelist, this is one of the phrases I repeat over and over as one of the top reasons I feel it is important to go to church and belong to a church. Not only is this honoring the third commandment to honor the Sabbath day and keep it holy, being a part of a church community is practicing being the body of Christ in the world, as our readings urge us to do this evening. As we worship together this Lent, I am grateful that we are able to focus on this topic of being Church Together and grateful for the reminder that we at Bethel are not alone in enduring the grim trends in our society away from being Church Together…low worship attendance, aging membership, and society’s overall distrust of institutions like any club, organization, church or government. In my work as a pastor trying to connect and connect others to the unchurched and dechurched, I’ve had to rethink why I am a part of a church, too. Because for a lot of us, we just grew up going to church, it was what you did – like going to school and to work. “I go to church just because I always have,” is not really a way to explain or convince non-churchgoers why it’s important.
Sharing joys and burdens, however, I think is a better way to talk about why we’re a part of a church family, and why that is important to us. The author of our Synod materials for tonight quoted a Swedish proverb that I’d never heard before, which says, “A joy shared is a double joy. A sorrow shared is half a sorrow.” Why are we Church Together? Because you can read the Bible alone, pray alone, worship God on a hike in the woods or on a boat on a lake, but your joy won’t be doubled, and your sorrow won’t be halved like it is when we worship God in community –when you are a part of a family of faith.
Sometimes sharing our joys and sorrows isn’t easy, even with our church family. It can be easy to sit in your favorite pew, be inspired by the music and the message, maybe shake a few hands, even stay for coffee and fellowship to catch up on March Madness or talk about how terrible this winter was…and slip out without sharing how you’re really doing; what God has placed on your heart that you might want other Christians to know about and pray about with you. We’re trying to be better about this at Bethel to create spaces for people to share meaningfully about what’s going on in their lives through discipleship groups, sharing God sightings, and a long prayer request/prayer chain list to take praying for one another seriously. As a pastor in my first congregation, I tried to have it all together most of the time. I had learned from a mentor that it’s OK to show our scars but not our wounds to our congregation – we are supposed to be pastoring the people, not having people pastor us. But then I suffered a miscarriage, and I felt that it was too big of a thing to happen to me to not tell people what I was going through. It was one of the most horrible losses of my life, and I would be OK, but I needed my sorrow to be halved. Growing up in the church I had experienced the church community being there for me in so many ways through ups and downs – my grandpa and grandma’s deaths, my moves to college and seminary and my year abroad in Slovakia, being there at my wedding and at my ordination. And after my miscarriage, people pastored me by showing up with hot food, lots of desserts, lots of cards, flowers, and prayer. It was a humbling time for me to let the church really be the church for me, to share my burden as much as I was striving to share theirs. It was a relief to discover I didn’t break them by sharing this burden, and I didn’t stop being their pastor. In fact, I think this vulnerability helped us trust each other more to really be church together. I was human after all, just like them. I needed daily reminders of Jesus’ love, forgiveness, and presence, just like them.
After this experience, when people at church ask me how I’m doing, I try to respond honestly. As Americans, this is often an automatic “fine” response because the question is more of a greeting than one that is waiting for an honest answer, but if you asked it…I’m going to tell you! For me in my journey, I’ve found that sharing joys and burdens as a church family is a way for us to authentically be the body of Christ, the church, in the world. It’s something we can do as a community of faith that other relationships and friendships can also provide, but we as the church do it in a unique way – through confession of our sins, through forgiving one another, through praying for one another and sharing the peace of Christ, through the intergenerational coming together of all kinds of people I honestly would not otherwise be friends with.
When we talk about why we are a part of a church, hopefully it’s not just about preserving a beautiful building, or “because that’s what I’ve always done,” but we can share how God has been there for us through other people truly being Christ for us – rejoicing with us at the births and baptisms of our children and grandchildren, celebrating an anniversary or birthday, being there for us at family funerals, when we’ve lost a job or gone through a divorce or struggled with addiction and mental illness, you name it. It’s so important that when we talk about church we don’t just talk about a place or a time on Sunday morning, but a way of life that is tied to community. This being together in community you ALL know is not always easy, just like being a part of a family. There are people who really get on our nerves sometimes as we get to know them, people we disagree with politically or disagree with in terms of church politics. But there are also people who truly love us with a love that can only come from God, because at church there are people who love us in spite of ourselves and just because we’re ourselves. Here in this place with these people, we are held together by a common love for and by One who took all our burdens to the cross, was buried with them, and then rose victorious over all our shame and pain to give us true joy and hope, as we work together for God’s kingdom that has no end. When we gather together with other Christians, it doesn’t take long, no matter where you are, to know that common bond of faith that unites us and allows us to share in our own joys and burdens. The love of Christ holds us together in a bond that is deeper than anything else I know or can describe. As Paul reminds us in the letter of Galatians, we remember tonight, “So then (since we are the church together), whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Matthew 25:1-30
Have you ever asked a question and gotten a much longer response back than you wanted? Well, the disciples are in this position with Jesus. This passage we heard this morning is part of a much longer “judgment discourse” that is taking place on the Tuesday of Holy Week, which is all of Matthew chapters 23 through 25, before we get to Maundy Thursday with chapter 26. Let’s keep in mind that this sermon from Jesus (it’s not really a conversation, Jesus is the only one doing the talking) is happening in Jerusalem, on his way to the cross. Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples to continue to follow him in faith after his death and resurrection, and the disciples are wondering what they will do while they wait, and when and how they will know that he’s returned. Jesus is at the Mount of Olives, actually, when his disciples ask him way back in Matthew 24:3, “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” The disciples are wondering when this will all happen so that they can be prepared. A chapter later, In THAT context, then, Jesus is still talking! He tells a story about ten bridesmaids who are getting ready for a wedding, but five don’t have enough oil for their lamps when the bridegroom arrives. Jesus is answering the question about what will happen at the end of the age where Jesus tells the parable of the servants who invest their talents in different ways, and the one who doesn’t do anything but bury it.
Jesus keeps describing in these two parables what God’s kingdom is like, and it’s hard to find good news in these stories. These are not easy texts to preach, especially for us as Lutherans who always are emphasizing that it isn’t about what we DO, that our works can’t save us! It’s hard to make that argument when you read these chapters of Matthew. One of the characteristics of the gospel writer Matthew is his focus on what we as Christians do. Faith and works can’t be separated. If we’re going to call ourselves Christian, we ought to act like Christians, is Matthew’s general argument. And Matthew’s Jesus is harsh in his judgment of people who claim to follow Christ and do otherwise. There’s really no whitewashing or overlooking Jesus as a righteous judge in these gospel passages. BUT in the parable of the talents today Matthew also emphasizes that we are not to let our fear of God hold us back from living a Christian life as best we can, so it is my challenge this morning to help us move beyond fear of God’s judgment to listening for what might be good news for us from Jesus today.
SO…the good news I’ve found in these parables as we’ve been reading through Matthew is that what we do MATTERS to God. God wants our lives to matter. God has given us the gift of this life on Earth to make a difference for God’s kingdom. Sometimes when we only talk about being saved by grace apart from works of the law, it can sound like Lutherans don’t care about works at all, or that God doesn’t care about what we do. But God does. And the questions the disciples ask Jesus about what will happen at his second coming are questions we might ask a little differently, but they’re still relevant today: “What would I want to be up to when Jesus returns?” and similarly, “When I come to the end of my life and look back at how I’ve lived my life, will I be proud of what I’ve done? Will God be proud of what I’ve done?”
So first, let’s turn to the example of bridesmaids waiting for a wedding. This story sounds very strange – wouldn’t you just call a wedding off if the groom was so late it was midnight? You bet I’d be sleeping at this point. Well, maybe this isn’t so strange in another culture, on African time, for example. A few years ago, Pastor Rich got to be a groomsman in our friend John Badeng’s Sudanese wedding. It was an interesting collision of cultures as the Sudanese celebrated this wedding and worked with the Omaha Marriott to do the catering. The wedding invitation first came with a date, but no time. When we asked when we should come, John told us “about noon.” I’m somewhat familiar with African time, so I showed up at 1pm. Only the white guests were in the church. About 1:30, the choir showed up and started a worship and praise time. About 2:30, the wedding party arrived and we started the wedding ceremony in the church. We got to the Marriott for dinner about 5pm, the food had been out and waiting for us since 3. So maybe weddings in Jesus’ day were more like a Sudanese wedding, where no one was exactly sure when the bridegroom was coming, they just knew to be ready. But when the five bridesmaids go out to buy oil because they didn’t have enough, they miss the actual wedding. In focusing on the details like having a lamp trimmed and burning, in their last-minute preparations, they miss the most important event – the arrival of the bridegroom and the wedding itself.
How many of us end up in situations like those bridesmaids, distracted by “important” details so that we miss out on what’s most important to us in life – our family time, time with God, time tackling our bucket list and time spent serving others? For me, the recent Nebraska floods have helped prioritize my time in a different way. When my friends and neighbors are suffering, my worries and to-dos seem less important. The purpose of the church is more clear during these times – we are there to help those who need help, to serve as Jesus served. This parable is not kind to procrastinators. Jesus seems to be asking us to plan ahead, to think well before our time on Earth ends about what’s most important to us, and to spend our time as best we can living out our Christian faith in word and in deed.
Then we turn to the parable of the talents, where a man going on an extended trip gives sizable sums of money to three of his servants. It’s important to know that one talent was worth fifteen years of wages, so the servant given five talents was basically given a lifetime of wages to invest (75 years’ worth!) But the last servant buries his master’s money – why? Because he is afraid. Our fear, even our fear of God, can keep us from living the life God has given us to the fullest. God instead asks us to trust him and take risks for the sake of the gospel. Remember, Jesus is telling his disciples this on the way to his own death on a cross. He doesn’t expect the disciples to be completely without fear, or that their journey in following him will always be easy. But all of us who have sought to follow Jesus and live life as a Christian also know the great reward we receive in following him, in living a life of abundance because of our life in Christ. It’s worth the risk of investment, and our fear of God should be nothing compared to what we’ve known and experienced through God’s grace and love in Jesus Christ.
So, what “oil” might you need to keep on hand that will keep your lamp lit and burning until Jesus comes again? In other words, what daily or weekly or monthly practices help you stay focused on what is most important in life, focused on God’s will for your life? What might be holding you back from prioritizing your life in an intentional way so your life is an investment in living for God and for others? What are you afraid of? How can you give that over to God, knowing that your life matters, more than anything else, so much so that Jesus is willing to die so that you might live? These are the holy questions of Lent as we journey with Jesus to the cross. As you strive to stay focused on what matters most, take courage, and don’t be afraid, because you matter most to God. Amen.
Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Matthew 22:1-14
My first year of high school, I tried out for the girls’ soccer team. Soccer is the one sport I truly enjoy both watching and playing. I had played soccer since I was four years old. I never got into club-level sports, but in junior high I was captain of the team, and a pretty decent middle-fielder. Defensively, my team called me “the wall,” because no ball could get past me. So, it was a bit of a shock when after the tryouts, I looked at the list of who made the team, and I was at the bottom – just made the cut, for the junior varsity, not varsity team. Suddenly, when I thought I was one of the best, I was pretty much one of the weakest members of the team. I still had a great time playing, but I didn’t make varsity until my junior year. It was a humbling experience to think I was good at something, only to realize I had a lot of room for improvement.
When we look back to those formative years of our life in junior high and high school, it’s probably easy to think of a time when we felt included, or even at the top of the pack in one social group, and then just as easily, we can probably think of times when we didn’t fit in, were at the bottom, or worse, left out of the “in crowd.” Maybe there was a time you didn’t make the team, period, there were certain parties you just weren’t invited to, or were teased or even bullied because of who you were or what you were interested in.
Jesus helps us move beyond a high school dog-eat-dog mentality in thinking about who’s an insider and who’s an outsider this morning. He tells a parable about a wedding banquet where the first guests are invited, but don’t show up. They’re too busy, they’re too cool, whatever their reason, they don’t come. They’re the insiders, the people of Israel that Jesus is criticizing for saying they believe in God, but not living their faith. They think they’re at the top in being “in” with God, so much so, that they think it’s not so important for them to show up to this party. So the king expands the invitation to anyone, good or bad. In the parable, God the king invites anyone regardless of talent, ability, economic status, you name it. And all kinds of people show up to the party. It’s another of Jesus’ many stories of reversal where the first are last and the last are first.
This parable is a difficult one. There’s the guy at the end who isn’t wearing the right clothes and gets thrown into hell. The king gets so mad he levels the cities of the guests who don’t show up to the banquet. It’s easy to focus on the violence and angry God of this passage. Matthew is definitely trying to tell us that we ought to be wary of dismissing God’s invitation or taking our membership in God’s kingdom lightly. I think it’s also important, however, not to forget God’s invitation in the midst of the weeping and gnashing of teeth. If we put our fear aside, what is God inviting us to, and why should we show up?
God invites everybody to participate in God’s wedding banquet – the feast that has no end in God’s kingdom work. Like so many things in life, there is no prerequisite, no try-out period, no mandatory interview or background check. All are welcome, and all are invited. The good AND the bad! God’s invitation to join God’s kingdom work is radically inclusive – no one is left out. When we focus too much on God’s severe judgment of those who refuse the invitation, we forget about where God starts – with an invitation more wide open than most of us are capable of. We forget our own exclusive nature to deny people even an invitation or access to God’s kingdom because they are not good enough – they don’t wear the right clothes, they don’t come from the right countries, they don’t have the right sexual orientation, they aren’t the right age group, they don’t know enough about the Bible, they don’t have enough money and the list could go on and on. Jesus’ parable this morning is a mirror for us to look at how we participate in God’s banquet invitation, or not. When have we thought we had more important things to do than to worship the God of the universe who created us and everything else in it? When have we thought that we knew better than God who would be the right kind of people to hang around and invite to church or into a life of faith, or not? When have we actually stood in the way of God’s kingdom work, preventing others from hearing God’s message of good news for all –ALL people?
And most condemning in Jesus’ parable, is for us to ask the question about when have I (not someone else) shown up to church, but just went through the motions, in that sense not wearing the “right clothes” for a wedding banquet? Let me just dispel something for a minute: this parable is not about whether one should wear jeans or a hat to church. Early Christians received a white baptismal robe as a symbol of their new identity in Christ. Even though all of these other people were invited on the street last-minute and managed to put on the right clothes for the party, this guy shows up in apparently flagrant disregard for the dress code. Jesus uses this metaphor not to criticize this guest’s clothes, but his mindset. This guy has not had a change of heart – he’s there at God’s wedding banquet physically, but his mind is somewhere else, serving and worshipping someone else. Participating in the kingdom of God is both responding to the invitation by showing up, and then working actively in God’s kingdom for the benefit of all God’s people. Your heart, your mind, your soul AND your body have to be about God’s kingdom work, not just the shell. That’s the only way that an insider becomes an outsider for God. To look at how God operates otherwise, the outsiders become insiders, the outsiders are all mixed up with the insiders, so that eventually no one knows but God who was who to start with. Everybody at that banquet is focused on God and doing God’s kingdom work, regardless of where they came from at the beginning when they received the invitation.
As many of you know, I got to spend the last two weeks in Wittenberg, home of the reformation, with 21 other pastors from 19 different country churches, all members of the Lutheran World Federation. One of Luther’s works that I got to re-read was On the Freedom of a Christian, which remains one of my favorites. In this treatise, Luther writes that “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” A Christian becomes a Christian because of faith in Christ, no other requirement. He or she is completely free from any obligation, entrance requirement, etc. to be a part of God’s kingdom. At the same time, becoming a Christian means you are bound by God to love and serve all people – love for all flows from our faith. You can’t help but love others because that’s what faith in Christ causes us to do! I think this short statement of Luther summarizes Jesus’ parable and the guy who isn’t properly dressed. Christian faith in God is both a completely free invitation, no strings attached, and a lifelong commitment to living differently because of the difference your faith in God has made in your life! In God’s kingdom, you are welcomed into a community that truly is a welcome place for all with a standing open invitation; and then God invites you to respond through the love of Christ to serve the neighbor. God doesn’t give us cheap grace, but invites us to a banquet where insiders might become outsiders, outsiders insiders, where God knows us as we truly are and calls us to serve and love as deeply as God’s very own heart. Amen.
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