Parables Then & Now

Pep Talks

Matthew 10:24-39

Pentecost Then & Now

John 20:19-23

But We Had Hoped

Luke 24:13-35

Curses and Blessings

Matthew 28:1-10

Can you recall a moment in life that you would label a curse?  Maybe it is a day where nothing went right.  Maybe it is a sports season that ended the wrong way.  Maybe it is a job relocation that moved you away from your family.  Maybe it is a solo where the note came out wrong.  Maybe it is a day someone you love was diagnosed with a severe illness.  Maybe it is the day you were served divorce papers.  Maybe it is a day someone you love was involved in a bad car accident.  Those moments that we label curses are also moments that often stay at the front of our memories.  We struggle to let go of them, because they are too hard to forget.

            Sometimes, let me emphasize “sometimes,” those curses have the potential to turn into blessings.  I know that doesn’t happen with every curse that ever happens, but sometimes our curses do turn into blessings.  Bad sports seasons and wrong notes can still land talented students with scholarships and professional opportunities.  Some severe illnesses can lead to long and well-lived lives of sharing about the illness and walking with others through the same battle.  Some divorces can lead to even happier and healthier lives.  Some car accidents can lead to families speaking publicly about the risks of drinking and driving or texting and driving.  Shauna Niequist, in her book Cold Tangerines, puts it this way, “There are things that explode into our lives and we call them curses, and then one day, a year later or ten years later, we realize that they are actually something else.  They are the very most precious kinds of blessings.”  Some curses can turn into blessings.

            God’s story, the Bible, is filled with moments where curses turn into blessings.  When Moses and the people are starving in the wilderness the curse was met with a blessing when God sends manna.  When the chosen people are enslaved to Pharaoh, the Red Sea was parted blessing them with survival.  A baby born of a virgin, who didn’t know how she would ever explain to Joseph that this child was from God, so God sends a blessing and tells Joseph directly.  Wine that runs out at a wedding party was met with the blessing of Jesus, who turns water into wine.  Jesus was constantly turning curses into blessings.  People born blind who suddenly had sight restored to them by Jesus.  The lame walked and the lepers were cleansed.  Lazarus who had been dead for three days was raised to new life by his friend, Jesus.  There are plenty of Biblical curses that were turned into blessings.

Ultimately, what we celebrate this Easter started out as a curse.  Jesus was handed over to the authorities, because of who he was, the Son of God.  The authorities wanted to release him, but the crowd asked for Barabbas to be released.  The crowd shouted for Jesus to be crucified.  And so it happened.  Jesus was beaten, mocked, taunted, and then crucified.  His blood was poured out for us, for the very people who tried to crucify him.  To his followers and family his crucifixion was a curse.  It was the worst possible thing that could happen to them.  The Son of God had been killed.  His body was put into a sealed tomb and guarded.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb and suddenly things started changing.  There was an earthquake and an angel appeared to them.  The angel proclaimed to them that Jesus was no longer in the tomb, Jesus had been raised.  The angel rolled the stone away from the tomb and invited the women to come and see the place where he lay.  The tomb couldn’t contain him.  Not even death could keep him.  God had done the incomprehensible.  God had brought Jesus back to life and had removed him from the sealed and guarded tomb.  As the women left to tell the disciples the good news suddenly they encountered Jesus on the way.  The angel was right.  Jesus had been raised from the dead and now he was standing with them.  The curse of Jesus’ death had become a blessing.

            The risen Jesus then sent Mary Magdalene and the other Mary on to tell the disciples.  Jesus reinforced the commission that the angel gave – others needed to know about the resurrection.  From the angel’s message to come and see, Jesus sent the women to run and tell.  The message they were to proclaim was that Jesus would meet the disciples in Galilee.  There the curse of the crucifixion would turn into a blessing for the disciples, too.  They would see the crucified and risen Lord.

Curses and blessings could also be identified as fears and joys.  In this moment the women were filled with fear and joy.  We also live lives marked by both fear and joy.  The resurrection doesn't take away all of the women’s fears and replace them with joy.  Rather, the resurrection enables them to keep faith amid their fears, to do their duty and share their good news in spite of their anxiety.  This is courage.  The resurrection gives them courage amid their fears and joys, amid the curses and blessings.  

            We know the whole story, so we never had to live with the deep, dark cursed feeling of the crucifixion that the first followers of Jesus felt.  But in this moment, on this Easter, we meet in the risen Jesus, a God who cannot be contained, confined, or even described.  As we meet Jesus in this moment, suddenly there is among us an earthquake, an earthquake of new life.  Amidst this shaking of the ground we meet a curse turned to a blessing, we meet death turned to life.  We meet the crucified Jesus turned to the risen Lord. 

Courage is what we are given this Easter, too, through the good news of the Easter gospel. This courage gives us the ability to live in the midst of curses and fears knowing the promise of God's blessings and joys.  The resurrection changes everything. Through the resurrection, we are given God's promise that life is stronger than death and that the curses in this life do not have the final word, but that the blessings will ultimately prevail. 

The funeral service of Winston Churchill took the curse of death and made it into a blessing of new life.  At the close of the service that Churchill planned himself, a single trumpeter stood at the west end of St. Paul’s Abby and sounded “Taps,” the song that signals dusk and the close of another day and is frequently played at the end of a military funeral. But after a moment of stillness that followed the last note of that song, another trumpeter stood at the east end of St. Paul’s, the end that faced the rising sun, and played “Reveille,” the song of the morning and the call to a new day. 

Churchill knew that Christ’s resurrection went above and beyond everything else.  He knew that God promised new life and everlasting life.  So, in a moment that could have been seen as the end, he planned for a song of new beginning to be included.  That new beginning was because of all that God has done through the cross and the empty tomb.  In and through Jesus’ resurrection we recognize that Jesus has proven that there is triumph and victory over the grave. 

In the curse of Jesus’ death we meet the blessing of Jesus’ resurrection.  In that curse turned to a blessing we recognize that God’s power has overturned all expectation in our world.  God’s power can and will bring about new life, everlasting life.  Jesus’ resurrection also gives us hope that in the curses of our lives, Jesus has given us the ultimate blessing of life and life everlasting.  From this day of Easter we are sent, sent with courage to proclaim and share the good news of Jesus’ resurrection.  The risen one will meet us and journey with us as we, the present day disciples of Jesus, share the incomprehensible, but not impossible, news that Jesus is indeed risen from the dead.  God will have the final word and that final word will not be death.  The final word will be life.  The final word will be a blessing.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

Horribly Mistaken

John 9:1-41

            A young woman came to her pastor to talk about her sin of pride.  The woman said, “Pastor, every Sunday I come to church and look around and think to myself that I am the prettiest girl in the church.  I try to stop but I just can’t.  Am I horribly sinful?”  The Pastor looked at her and said, “No dear not sinful; just horribly mistaken.”

            In our text for today and in our everyday lives there are moments when we too are horribly mistaken.  Those moments when we think we know the right answer.  Those moments when we think we know the reason something is happening.  Those moments when we want answers and when we don’t get any, we make up our own reasons.

After the diagnosis of a life altering illness, like cancer, the question is often asked “what did I do to deserve this.”  When someone dies to early often people wonder “what did this person do to receive this.”  Time and time again people wonder in the midst of tragedy “why does God let bad things happen to good people.”  We want reasons.  So sometimes people try to relate someone’s personal sin or the sins of their family to the reason why they are suffering now.

            When natural disasters happen you can often find some report citing a person of faith who believes that sin is the reason for the disaster.  The one I remember hearing a lot about was that the sin that existed in the city of New Orleans is what caused Hurricane Katrina to hit.  The same has been said about other hurricanes, tsunamis, tornados, and more.

            Our text today begins with the disciples asking these same questions.  They are wondering who has sinned – the man born blind or his parents.  They want reasons for the blindness.  It’s as if they believed in first century karma.  They believed that if you did something wrong it would come back to you.  They thought that someone had to have done something wrong in order for this man to have been born blind. 

To this question of the disciples and to our present day wonderings about sin as the cause of suffering, Jesus would say, “We are horribly mistaken.” Jesus sets the disciples right, by telling them that it was not the sin of this man or the sins of his parents that made him blind.  The god that is often cited as causing these things to happen us and those we love is not the God that I believe in.  And I hope it is not the God you believe in either.

The God we believe in is the one who, through Jesus, meets this man who was born blind and heals him.  Our God heals him, even though it is the Sabbath.  Our God makes it clear that it was not sin that caused this man to be born blind.  Our God combines mud and spit and puts it on the man’s eyes.  Then he sends him to the pool of Siloam to wash.  The man who once was blind could now see.

And no one could believe it.  The neighbors were baffled.  The parents of the man were confused.  The Pharisees thought this was finally their chance to prove that Jesus wasn’t really who he said he was.  Everyone was coming up with their own story for the situation at hand.  The man who could now see knew the true story, but no one wanted to believe his testimony.  He knew that they were all horribly mistaken.  He knew that he was blind, but now could see.

When we give all our attention to watching others, judging their decisions, and writing our own story about what is happening in their life, we lose sight of our own relationship with God.  By focusing on the sinfulness of others we often focus less on our own sin.  Martin Luther used the term simul justus et peccator to describe the human condition.  We are simultaneously sinner and saint.  When we focus on the sinner and saint in our neighbor we forget that we are just like them.  It is like we see the speck of dust in their eye, but cannot tell that we have a log in our own eye.  In those moments we are horribly mistaken about our own human nature.  We have moments of sinfulness and moments of saintliness.  The disciples were simultaneously sinners and saints.  The man born blind was simultaneously sinner and saint.  His parents were simultaneously sinners and saints.  The Pharisees were simultaneously sinners and saints.  We are simultaneously sinners and saints. 

It is in those moments when we are so focused on our saintliness and the sinner in everyone else around us, that we lose sight of the one who bore our sins in his sinless body on the tree for our forgiveness.  Our salvation was won by the one who opened the door for us to be both sinner and saint all at the same time.  Life eternal is granted to us by the one who conquered death and the grave when we sent him to Calvary with the words, “crucify him.”  At that moment we were so horribly mistaken because we thought he would stay dead, but he rose from the dead, showing us the ultimate power that God has.  We were once in the darkness, but now we are surrounded by light.  For we once were blind, but now we see.

So in those moments when we look at our neighbors with judgment and count their sins for them and forget about our own sinful nature, may we call on Jesus to combine spit and mud and send us to the pool of Siloam to wash.  When we are horribly mistaken, may we call on the one who gives sight to the blind, to give us sight.  When we feel like we have no words to proclaim our faith, may we be sent from the pool with a message to share with the world that we once were blind but now we see, that Jesus has touched us and we are changed because of his presence in our lives.  For that light, the light of Jesus Christ, which dispels the darkness, we give thanks and praise to God.  Amen.

Love from Above

John 3:1-17

What is love?  Who or what do you love?  I can say, “I love my mother.”  I can say, “I love pasta.”  I can also say, “God loves me.”  That being said, it is clear that the word, “love,” has many meanings.  As we become accustomed to using the word “love” we sometimes fail to appreciate what it means.  I do not love pasta the same way I love my mother.  On the other hand, God does not love me in the same manner that I love my mother.  God love me more than I can ever love anything.

Today we encounter the often overused and misused word “love” in a passage which includes the most well-known verse of the whole Bible.  The beginning of this familiar verse does not read, “God loved the world SO much,” it reads, “God so loved the world.”  It is not about how much God loved.  It is about the way in which God loved.  Today’s Gospel lesson from John is about the way God loves.

God’s love is really great.  While it is true that God’s love is pretty awesome, what I mean by the word great is that God’s love is big.  God is the greatest lover.  God loved to the greatest degree.  God loved the world, which is the greatest number.  God loved in a way that God gave, which is the greatest act.  God gave the greatest gift, God’s only son.  God gave this gift not to condemn, but to save, which is the greatest destiny.   This gives us a whole different meaning of the word love.  This love is God’s love. 

            In order to more fully understand this passage on God’s love, we first must encounter Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews.  And on one particular night, in order that his colleagues might not see him, he came to Jesus with a few questions.  Jesus tells him that “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”  This gets Nicodemus thinking.  Nicodemus misinterprets what Jesus means by being “born from above.”  Nicodemus thought he would literally need to be born again.  He thought he either needed to put his finger on the exact time, date, and place when he was born again or that he would need to literally be born a second time from his mother’s womb.  This is where Nicodemus made the wrong turn.  He misunderstood Jesus. 

Jesus was not talking about a literal rebirth.  He was not talking about a physical rebirth.  Jesus was talking about being born from above.  He was talking about a spiritual rebirth.  Being born from above is not about what individuals do.  It is not about what we can do or what Nicodemus could do.  Nicodemus could not give birth to himself.  Being born from above is about what God does.  God breathes life into us and gives birth to us from above through water and the Spirit.  That is exactly what happens in the sacrament of baptism.  We are born from above.  Through God’s action we are born into eternal life.  God’s action of birth through water and the Spirit is an action of love.  This birth from above is offered to us and in our text today it is also offered to Nicodemus.  Birth through water and the Spirit is offered to everyone.

God’s love is so great that God sent Jesus, God’s only son to show us that love.  As Christians, as people born from above, we are called to love others as God has first loved us.  Jesus gives that commandment right before his crucifixion – “Love one another as I have loved you.”  This way of loving can be difficult because of the way God loves the whole world.  I am sure we can each think of people in this world that we find difficult to love.  But, God does not just love you.  God does not just love me.  God even loves the people that we find difficult to love like strangers, criminals, and outcasts.  God loves the entire world.  God does not just love the people in the world, but the world in its entirety. 

The cross can be a model for this love.  I have often heard of the cross being divided into the vertical beam and horizontal beam.  The vertical beam is how God loves the world.  God’s love comes from God down to us.  The horizontal beam is how we are to love each other.  We love our neighbors with outstretched arms.  We are called to love others with God’s love.  We love because God first loved us. 

God loves in a way that God sent God’s ONLY Son into the world to live the life of a human and to die on a cross for OUR salvation.  “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Jesus died for YOUR salvation.  Jesus died for MY salvation.  Jesus died for the salvation of the WORLD.

So if Jesus died for our salvation, why did Jesus need to suffer through death on a cross?  In our Gospel text for today we hear “and just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”  Moses lifts ups the bronze serpent to give life to God’s people in the wilderness.  In a similar way Jesus must be “lifted up.”  Jesus gave his life in place of ours.  He took on the death that we deserve.  In order for the world to be saved Jesus NEEDED to be “lifted up” on the cross, “lifted up” to resurrected life from the tomb, and “lifted up” at the ascension when Jesus returns to God. 

This was all done out of God’s love for the world.  God so loved the world.  In this manner God loved the world.  God loved the WHOLE world.  God loved in a way that God gave.  God did not give to condemn, but to save.  And ultimately, God’s love wins.  Throughout the Lenten journey much emphasis is often placed on the sinfulness of humanity and the need for repentance.  However, that is not the only reason we are on this journey.  We are journeying to the cross.  This journey is not just about what we have done or left undone, but about what God has done.  This message of love is not an if/then message.  It is not about how many good works we must do in order to inherit eternal life.  It is a because/therefore message.  Because of the love God has for us we love others in response.  It was out of love that Jesus came among us, stood beside us, died with us, for us, saved us, and gave us life through water and the Spirit.  It was out of love.  May we be bold enough to share that love with others.  Amen.