Sermon Lent 4 A - "That's All I Know!"

Here is the text of the Sermon for March 30, the story of the Man Born Blind - John 9:1 ff.

Peace and joy...

Steve

+I+N+I+

This story is mainly about what it means to be blind. 

There are at least two kinds of blindness.

• Physical blindness, which can be overcome by personal courage, adaptation and energy.
• And spiritual blindness, which can only be overcome from the outside.

Here is a blind man, blind from birth, utterly without sight. Quickly, tragedy turns to theology.

Here the question is “who sinned? This man or his parents?” You have seen that happen in your own life, something bad happens, and the question is “why, God?”

• “Did I do something so that my baby was born so sick?”
• “If you have enough faith, pray real hard, she will get better.”
• I need to keep a positive attitude or the cancer will win!

Once in a church we worshiped a teenage boy – Tommy - in the congregation was pickup by the cops on Friday night. I had been involved with Tommy and his family in counseling.

Walking down the hallways on Sunday this is what I heard.

“Well, John and Mary are wonderful people, but you can be too wonderful, too easy on kids. That is why the boy did wrong.”

And not 20 feet down the hall: “John and Mary are good people, but they probably set their standards two high, put too much pressure on the boy, which led to this…”

A little further. “Poor John & Mary, how can such good people have a son like that.”

We are desperate to theologize, to make sense, to get God or ourselves off the hook. “Jesus, who sinned first, this blind man or his parents.” Who is at fault, for someone must certainly be!

Jesus will have none of it!

None of this church basement gossip, cool, abstract theologizing for Jesus. No sitting around talking about another person’s pain. Rather, Jesus declares this is a chance to see a glimpse of God’s Glory!

With a bit of spit and dirt, a loving touch, he heals the man.

The mud is wiped off, the man squints and blinks in the light and – praise God – he sees! Now they’ll all rejoice, throw a party, right?

Oh, how little you know the church if you think that!

A fresh theological debate begins. “Who did this, and how? And most importantly, with whose authority? And why on the Sabbath? He should have waited until sundown!”

The healing is done in a couple of verses, and that should be the end of the man’s problems. But it is just the beginning. More verses are expended in the argument that ensues because of the healing then in the healing itself!

“Who did this?” the Authorities ask him.

“Well, I don’t know for sure. I didn’t actually see it when it hit me. I just know I was blind; now I can see! That’s all I know!

The authorities grab his parents. “Is this your son, lady? This your kid running around healed, trying to make something big out of this Jesus?”

“Er, he kind of looks like him, though I can’t be sure.”

“Well, we are going to kick him out of the congregation for participating in an unapproved, illegal healing.”

“Now that you mention it,” says Dad, “No that isn’t our son. Our son is blind.”

{Your father was expected to stand up for you – no matter what! They disown him.}

They go after the man again.

“Look, I never once saw a flower until today and I’d like to go see another. You want to know who healed me? It was Jesus! Now will you leave me alone?”

And they kick the once blind, now visionary man out of church, out on the curb.

Our Story

I ask you, who is this story about? You think this is about someone else? How little you know of church!

Light of the world? Fine, as long as it shines through acceptable channels. “The light shines in the darkness” it says in John 1. But light is hard to contain. Ask my bedroom curtains tomorrow morning! Light is powerful, uncontrollable. And there is something about us, says John, that loves darkness rather then light.

Don’t get hung up on the hows and the whys of this story about a man born blind, because after a few verses it’s not about him anymore. It is our story. We are like Nicodemus a couple of weeks ago. We, too, are in the dark. “How can this be? How can this be?”

There are ways to go about these things, approved channels to follow. This unlicensed stuff can be irresponsible. Our world may be relentlessly, unrelievedly tragic, but it is our world – predictable and patterned and reliable.

“True enough” he said. “All I know is that I was blind. Now I see.”

Remember Tommy?

I kind of lost track of him for a while. Then one day I was in the store when I heard someone say, “Hello Steve.” It was Tommy, though it took me a few minutes to recognize him. He looked great; his eyes clear his hair neat. His nametag said that he worked in the store. “What happened?” I asked.

“I’ve been saved,” he said. “Saved? From what”

“From sin; from the hell I was living.” And then he mentioned the church, one of those edge-of-town nondenominational steel shed holy-roller places.

“I’m glad! I’m just sorry that we Lutherans did not help.”

”Don’t feel bad, Pastor. You Lutherans offered me aspirin. I needed massive chemotherapy.”

TRANSLATION: All I know is that I was blind, but now I see!

Let me be clear.

I think clear thinking about God is important, and our theological heritage, and our main-line way of doing things.

But I also know this. There are two kinds of blindness.

Physical blindness. That kind can be overcome with struggle and effort.

Spiritual blindness. And that can only be overcome when the gracious presence of Jesus breaks in and blinds us with the light of Glory of the Father.

With the light of Christ breaking in among us we can see God at work in all sorts of un-expected places – all around us.

That’s all I know!

+AMEN+

Tonight at Our Savior's - The Psalms: I lamp to my feet

Tonight at Our Savior's in Albany we will continue our midweek Lenten series on the Psalms with "Psalms about TORAH - the Word"

Soup, sandwiches and fellowship begins at 5:45 p.m.

Evening Prayer at 7 p.m.

Psalm 1 is the focus -

Happy are those
    who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
    or sit in the seat of scoffers;
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.

4 The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish. (NRSV)

Blog pick of the day

"Why I Would Never Force My Kids to go to Church" from truthnotes.net

http://truthnotes.net/2014/03/24/why-i-would-never-force-my-kids-to-go-to-church/

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sermon for March 23 - Lent 3A - "What's your story?"

Here is the sermon form Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Albany, MN for March 23, 2014. Text is John 4:5-42, Jesus encounter with the Samariatain Woman at the well.

As always the sermon as written is not exactly the same as the sermon as preached.

Join the conversation!

Pastor Steve

+INI+

Verse 1-4 of this chapter of John tells us of growing conflict around Jesus. Verse 4 says that Jesus “had to go – was required to go – through Samaria.”

Why did Jesus have to go to Samaria? It was not to get to the other side. A look a map will tell you that he had to go out of his way. Why did Jesus have to go Samaria?

·      Long before the Samaritans had been good Jews, but they had been forcibly interbred with pagans and had begun to worship pagan Gods.

·      They didn’t accept the full Hebrew Scriptures – only the first 5 books, the 5 books of Moses.

·      They insisted that they could offer the Passover sacrifice in their way on their holy mountain – no need to go to Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

Nothing new here! Religion and race can be a powerful separator of peoples.

Why did Jesus have to go to Samaria?

“God so loved the world that he gave his only son.” Samaria is “the world” or at least the start of the world.

+++

I have a friend – a really big guy – he looks like a football ball player, which he was at SJU. If you were to meet him most likely he’d take your hand, look down at you (he’s a BIG guy) and boom out, “It is nice to meet you. What’s your story?”

This Samaritan woman has a story. What it is we don’t know exactly.

·      To be widowed 5 times would have been tragic but not impossible.

·      She could have been abandoned by a man who had promised to love and honor her.

·      If she couldn’t have children a women would frequently be put aside.

·      Her current relationship could have been what was called a “levirate marriage.”

If a man died without children his widow would live in his brother’s household. If she had a child it would be considered to be the child of her dead husband. She would have a place in the community but she would NOT be considered a wife.

We don’t know the details, but her story tells us she had a lot stacked against her.

Imagine yourself into this woman’s story.

You are just walking along, doing your job, living your life – it might not be the best life or the most important life ever lived, but it is yours. Then something extraordinary happens – something you never expected, something that you NEVER CONSIDERED EVEN A POSSIBILITY!

You are face to face with the Messiah of God

Jesus talks longer to this woman than he does to anyone else in all the Gospels--longer than he talks to any of his disciples, his accusers, his own family.

·      This nameless woman, of the wrong race and religion is  the first person to see the Messiah.

·      He is the first to hear Jesus claim the Name of God for himself – “I am.”

·      She is the first evangelist and her testimony brings many to faith.

 “I’ve met a man who knows everything about me and still accepts me. He knows my story and still loves me. Could this be the Messiah?”

Her neighbors check it out and they believe, too. “This is the savor of the world.” Savior = healer.

Jesus redirects her life, moves it off the rails. He grabs the wheel and gives it a sharp left turn.

+++

So, what is your story? We all have a story, a faith story.

I can hear you thinking – “I don’t have a faith story! Nothing has ever dramatic happened to me. I’ve not been healed. I’ve never seen an angel.”

What is your Story?

Lutheran’s do not grow up with personal testimony as part of our regular religious practices. Is that because we are afraid that our stories are somehow not going to be accepted by God and our neighbors. To tell our story would open us up to criticism and examination.

Jesus is the one who knows it all already. Whatever your story contains Jesus knows it already – and still accepts you and loves you.

The most liberating moment this nameless, tragic women ever had was that minute when she left her water jug – which I take to symbolize the routine of her life as she it had been up to that moment – and runs to her neighbors with the news.

But I say again to you again, “What is your faith story?” Because you have one.

·      You have met the Divine Stranger who goes out of the way to find us. Jesus, who gives us the Living Water that will not end.

·      You’ve met him in you baptism. You’ve met him in the Meal. You’ve met him in the eyes of the people you have met along the way – people who love God and love you.

In Jesus we are accepted and love no matter what story is. The one who knows you best is the one who loves you most.

+AMEN+

Video Pick of the Week

From Soulpancake.com

So, what does love look like to you?

Lent 3 A - First thoughts on The Samaritan Woman at the well

The text is John 4:5-42, but go back and take a look at verse 1-4. Jesus & John the Baptist have been getting noticed for baptisms although John the Gospel Writer - who is NOT John the Baptist - makes a point of saying that it was Jesus’ disciples, not Jesus himself, who was baptizing.

"Jesus had to - was required to - go through Samaria." Well, no he didn't. Take a look at a map. He had to go out of his way to go to Samaria. So something more than geography is going on here. 

Why does he have to go to Samaria? John 3:16 & 17. "God so loved THE WORLD..." Samaria is "the world." the land outside of home. 

So there is a thread that connects Nicodemus and this woman.

• He is a man. She is a woman.
• He comes by night. She meets Jesus at high noon.
• He is a Jew, she is a gentile - a "not one of our kind."
• He is a part of the power structure - he has a seat at the table. She has none of these things.

When you read the bit about "you have had five husbands..." don't assume things are not in the story. There are many reasons why she could have this relationship history. Was she married and widowed or abandoned? Neither was uncommon then or now.  The most likely reason she would have been divorced would have been if she were unable to have children. If so, she had no one. The man she is with now might have been the one that stuck with her.

Either way this is a woman with a story. She is on her own. And Jesus restores her to community. She is the first one to hear Jesus say "I am" - to claim for himself the sacred name of God. She is the first to proclaim Jesus to her neighbors. The Samaritans go, see and hear for themselves and are the first to proclaim that Jesus "is the savior of the world," another reference to John 3:16. 

Some questions...

Where do you go to get your cup filled?

Where can you tell others about your relationship with Jesus?

How has your story been changed by Jesus?

Your turn...

Steve

"The Wind Blows Where it Will" - Sermon for Lent 2 A - March 16, 2014

Here is the text of my sermon for today. Please know that the sermon "as preached" is never exactly like text I write.

As always, all comments are welcome.

Steve

Text: John 3:1-17

+INI+

Nicodemus came to see Jesus “by night.” John has a gift for this. He takes ordinary words and give them layers of meaning.

"By night” is not simply a time of day but a comment on the state of Nicodemus’s understanding. He is in the dark – clueless, we might say – about Jesus, but he is still drawn to Jesus. (Jesus can work with that!)

We are told that Nicodemus is a Pharisee. They get a bad rap. Nicodemus is an expert in the traditions of the faith.

He is a teacher, leader, mature man, a good guy – You’d be honored to call him a friend.

Nicodemus flatters Jesus, and Jesus responses politely – but the further in they go the MORE PERPLEXED Nicodemus becomes.

You can almost hear Nicodemus’s brain misfiring the further this conversation goes on.

"Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again from above."

“What in the WORLD are you talking about?”

“Don’t be astonished! “The Spirit blows where it will…”

“How can this be?”

“If I told you normal earthly stuff and you don’t trust me how will you understand this New Good News”?

If we had extended the reading to verse 21 we’d have seen Nicodemus walking away – still in the dark – maybe muttering, “Well, that’s 30 minutes of my life I’m not get back.”

Anybody who tells you that the New Reality that Jesus brings is easy or self-evident is either kidding herself or kidding you.

+++

I have a lot of sympathy for Nicodemus. He has spent his life from boyhood studying the Torah, and the traditions of his people and their religious practices. He was no doubt the star student in confirmation and did well in seminary.

And now this! This teacher from Nazareth – from the back of beyond – is doing stuff in God’s name that to Nicodemus’s eyes MUST mean that he is connected to God in a powerful way. He seeks him out to learn more. But Jesus starts talking this mind blowing – Nonsense? And Jesus THEN tells him that “You’re a Teacher of Israel – an expert on what God is up to. This should be easy!”

I feel sympathy for Nicodemus. I feel the same way sometimes. I was raised in Lutheran Church basements. I have a fine seminary education and graduate degrees and a lot of experience in ministry. And I love the traditions and the church.

And it often seems to me that all the patterns of church life and the place of religion in general and the Christian Institutional Church that I grew up knowing has just – changed! The comforting familiar patterns of life – the churches and Sunday schools full, the world stopping on Sunday and all normal people going to church, all of that – has simple changed.

Maybe it is just me, but does it seem to you – if you’ve been around the church for a while – that the culture has decided it doesn’t need us and our traditions and our ways of being so much as it once did? And we didn’t get a vote.

Of course, this is just the rambling of a 60 year old. For anyone under say 35 you really don’t have much a recollection of the world I’m talking about.

+++

If it were up to me – up to us – and our comfort level all would be lost. But it is not up to us.

God is doing a new things in Jesus – and we have no more control over it then we do over being born!

Consider 2 things that Jesus says…

“Do not be astonished … The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

 The Spirit of the risen Jesus is blowing all over the place. New forms of Church life and mission are sprouting up and blossoming and bearing fruit. The Word of God is still at work doing what God’s Word always does – calling people to leave old ways and find new ones.

And 2 – “John 3:16 & 17” – There is NO condemnation.

We can move into God’s new future without fear. God is in charge of this. The wind that is blowing through the world and the church is none other then God’s spirit. There is no condemnation.

God has said, “I would rather day then count sins.”

Which is just what God does on the cross.

+++

We will meet Nicodemus again. He appears about midway through the story. When the religious authorities – the Pharisees and others - The Jerusalem Committee on Unjewish Activities - begin to plot against Jesus he challenges them to at least give Jesus a fair hearing. And he gets ridiculed for his trouble.

And he is there on Good Friday, taking down Jesus body off the cross. He makes sure this troublesome, challenging and provocative teacher at least got a decent burial.

Was Nicodemus a believer? 

He is the example of what real faith looks like. It is not a binary thing – but a living process, an ambiguous thing. Just as the True God lived in the flesh of Jesus, so the spirit works faith in our ambivalent hearts.

+AMEN+

Nicodemus

Tomorrow, March 16, 2014,  the Gospel reading (Lent 2A)  focuses on Jesus's encounter with Nicodemus. It is John 3:1-16, if you are interested and consider reading to verse 21.

I've always have had a certain ambivalence about this text. I think I may have realized why.

Nicodemus is Pharisee which means he is well schooled in the scriptures and practices of his religion.  Their concern was with preserving the traditions of their people for future generations.

This is where I come in. Nicodemus and I have a lot in common. I attended Lutheran Day Schools K-8. I was raised in Lutheran Church basements and went to Valparaiso University, a school in the Lutheran tradition, where I studied church history and theology. I then went to Christ Seminary - SEMINEX in St Louis, MO where I got a superb grounding in pastoral ministry.

For Nicodemus in has day and me in mine the world has shifted. The world we were trained for looks less and less like the world around us.

So Nicodemus goes to Jesus - as I do - to ask for some clarity. "What's up?" And what we both hear is a bit unsettling. "The wind blows where it will blow. You see, hear and feel it all around you but you can't tell where it comes from or where goes. That is how it will be..."

So I think I see too much of myself in Nicodemus for my own comfort. I identify with his increasing confusion as the conversation goes on. Does he walk away shaking his head muttering. "That's 30 minutes I'm never getting back"? Maybe, but if so that can be only part of the story. Because this is not the last time we find Nicodemus in John's Gospel.

He's with the Council as they begin to get worried about the things Jesus is saying and doing. There he reminds the group to at least follow their own rules of due process.

And he's at the cross, helping to take down Jesus dead body and seeing that it gets a decent burial.

I've been thinking about a song we use to sing in one of those Lutheran Church basements long ago. The chorus went this...

For Christ is changing
Everything,
Everything,
Everything.

Where do you see sings of the Spirit of the risen Jesus changing things in the world today?