Author: Linda Rozumalski

Audio Recording

Ruth 1:1-22

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. ³But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. ⁴They each took Moabite wives; the name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there for about ten years, ⁵both Naomi’s sons also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons or her husband.

6 Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had had consideration for his people in Bethlehem and given them food. ⁷So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. ⁸But Naomi said, ‘Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. ⁹The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.’ Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. ¹⁰They said to her, ‘No, we will return with you to your people.’ ¹¹But Naomi said, ‘Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? ¹²Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, ¹³would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.’ ¹⁴Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15 Naomi said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ ¹⁶But Ruth said,  ‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die, I will die — there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!’
¹⁸When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

19 So the two of them went on. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’ ²⁰She said to them,  ‘Call me no longer Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.  ²¹ I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty; why call me Naomi when the Lord has dealt harshly with me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?’

22 So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. 

The word of the Lord………….thanks be to God

Today’s sermon topic question is the final one of this series: “Where do we go from here?” 

It’s a question we probably ask fairly often in our own lives in various ways. It’s the question of new graduates, and of their empty-nest parents.  It’s the question of couples who have survived the wedding and now begin the marriage. It’s the question of those who retire. It’s the question of damaged relationships, and of new grief.  It’s the question of disappointment.  It’s the question of relief after a summer of big church events.  It’s the question of getting to the mountaintop and looking around and wondering what could possibly be this good again.   It’s the question of those who meander and end up off the map and not where you expected to be.  What now? What’s next? Where do we go from here?

It is a perfect question for us to be asking after our 150th anniversary celebration, while still marking the accomplishment, and honoring the heritage, and recognizing the challenge of being a church in rural Polk County in this age of church disaffiliation and Christian White Nationalism that makes us want to become Druids who follow Jesus the Christ.

It’s been framed a bit differently, but has been the question of the synod leadership in our conferences for over a year:  “What are the next best faithful steps?” Where do we go from here?

The Lord of the Rings, by Tolkien, is quoted in some form whenever Jan and Marnie are together  in our house. My favorite of the quotes includes this insight:  “Not all those who wander are lost”.  Asking what’s next doesn’t mean you are floundering or clueless. It’s not that we need to reinvent ourselves, but we do need to always reimagine the path, refocus the goal, re-rouse ourselves for the purpose of our being as individuals and as the church. It is, at its base, a hopeful, curious question and a challenge. It implies change and change is both a sign of hope and new life and often is difficult because we like the stasis of what is known and familiar.

Naomi had a choice. She could have stayed in Moab in her grief. Her daughter-in-laws could have remarried and brought her into their circle of provision is some way. But she heard that the Lord had taken pity on the chosen people in Judah in the form of a bounteous barley crop. Even though she believed she was cut off personally from God’s love, she trusted in the community of faith among her people. A kernel of hope led her to undertake a long trudge into the unknown. Not all who wander are lost. 

Ruth and Naomi create a new covenant with each other, choosing to be in a relationship across their religious, cultural, and generational divides. As women, they built power together in a system where they had very little power or agency. In many ways, the first chapter of Ruth encompasses all of the themes in this series: 1) Where are you from? (Bethlehem/Moab);          2) Where does it hurt? (Naomi want to be renamed Mara: “it hurts everywhere;”   3) What do you need? (Naomi needs Ruth – and to be known, acknowledged among her kin);   4) Where do we go from here? (Ruth promises to go wherever Naomi leads her and together they leave the famine to arrive in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest, a nurturing new beginning). 

Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson, writes the commentary for this week’s question in A Sanctified Art, and noted that we have experienced death, grief, dislocation and loss in the midst of a global pandemic; racial brokenness, economic disparity, and political division. She asks if we can imagine a world in which we took spiritual oaths like the one found in the book of Ruth. What if, like Ruth, we resisted the temptation to fight or flee in the face of grief, pain, and oppression? What if we took these vows with members of our human family?  By the mercy of God and because of God’s grace, we are bound to one another. Your pain is not your own, but is now my pain. The plight of your people is held in my hands and my heart as if they were my own. Where you journey and work, I too, will journey and work alongside you, with God’s help. Where your bones are buried, may I too, find a resting place and declare every earthly resting place sacred in the eyes of God. 

In the changes, dislocations, disappointments, of your personal life — in the long trudge into the unknown — What is your kernel of hope? What is still missing? What motivates you? What do you need? Who do you long to be? Where do we go from here?

The spiritual life is, by nature, nebulous, ephemeral — but it’s not flimsy. It is real, and I bet you have experienced its power from time to time. This is the harder side of the question to respond to.  It’s easier to get on with the business of things, to come up with bullet point plans and to-do lists rather than to imagine the next steps of faith, to conceive a greening of growth and grace in our congregational or personal spirituality. But we are gathered to worship and pray and praise God for the love and connections, for the ephemeral joys of the spiritual life we share. 

The business and busyness of the church is vital and interesting and engaging. I want to take nothing away from that. At the same time, I want to ask how we might put similar energy and engagement into the more mystical dimension of our purpose? What are you needing or looking for? What do you need to ask or hear?  Where do we go from here to get there?

These are real questions – this month of questions – that I want to not forget about as we move on to the next thing. There’s always a next thing. Where does it hurt? What do you need? Where do we go from here to engage and respond to the answers you might give?

What does it mean to come to church at West Denmark? And what does it mean to you to be the church at West Denmark, in Luck, or Frederic or Siren or Edina, in your neighborhood, among your other sets of people?

What comes next for this worship- service- fellowship of care?

Rev. Sarah Are  from A Sanctified Art  wrote this prayer to close the series:

Holy God, 

We are naturals when it comes to stalling out. We reach a certain point in the relationship, in the conversation, in our faith, and then we stall. We buy property on the top of the plateau and build a house there, destined to never dig deeper or climb higher.
Forgive us for giving up on the things that matter.
Forgive us for confusing the plateau with the mountain top. Forgive us for taking the easy way out instead of doing the hard work of curiosity, relationship-building, vulnerability, and connection.
Inspire us to see new paths for where we can go from here.  With hope and honesty we pray,
Amen. 

Audio Recording

The first reading comes from the book of Job, after he has lost everything and sits alone in his affliction.       Job, chapter 2                                              

“Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. ¹²When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. ¹³They sat with him on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.” 

The second reading is from the second letter to Timothy. Purportedly, Paul is writing from prison in Rome. 2 Timothy 4:9-18, 21-22

9 Do your best to come to me soon, ¹⁰for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. ¹¹Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. ¹²I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. ¹³When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. ²¹Do your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers and sisters.²²The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you.

The word of the Lord…… thanks be to God 

This week’s topic question recognizes that we all have needs and that we need each other. And, while our basic needs are universal – the need for acceptance, affection, food, shelter, meaning – each need is weighted, experienced and interpreted by each one of us uniquely.  So, we can’t assume to know what is best for others. We can’t assume that we understand what someone is feeling based on our own similar situation. We can’t know the backstory that is triggering their response or attitudes.  We can’t – unless we ask.

And, chances are, if pushed to reflect on your own needs, priorities, and desires, you might find that it is not as straightforward as you thought. We are not consistent or logical creatures. Things process in our thoughts, our intentions, one way and quite often come out of our bodies and behavior as something altogether different.  This is because we may not really know what it is we ourselves need – unless we ask. 

When our son, Jan, was little – just out of toddlerhood – he would be playing outside or we’d be on a walk and he’d say he couldn’t go on because his feet were tired. “Your feet are tired?” “Yes.” “Do they hurt? Do you have a pebble in your shoe?” “No. They are tired.”

I’d carry him home, or take off his shoes and socks and rub his little feet, checking for red spots to see if his shoes were fitting okay. At his wellness checkups I asked about his arches and stance. Everything seemed okay, but he would still complain that his feet were tired.  I finally figured out that he was hungry, but he couldn’t distinguish hunger. To him, the need for food settled into his feet, and he couldn’t go on. 

I think we are all like little Jan in our own ways. It might be that we are ashamed of our needs, or that we were ridiculed for something as a child, or that we’re too busy or distracted to give our bodies and spirit’s the time they need to flourish, and so the original need gets buried and covered up until some other part of us is enlisted to get our attention. The more basic the need that was once thwarted, the more expansive its later efforts for fulfillment. 

So, if you find yourself trying to track down what it is you need, your list might start with something that seems a bit trivial. “I need to go through and clean every room and corner of my house,” you might say. “If I just had a clean, neat, orderly space, where everything is where it belongs and I can find what I’m looking for, my life would be 100% better. Then I could be happy, then I could get things done, I could invite friends over, I could feel proud of myself, I could……. I could prove to myself that I am a capable and worthwhile person. Because, how hard can it be to clean your house?”

Do you see what happened? It started out as a simple, clearly stated need. “I need to clean my house.” But as the self-talk progressed, deeper needs came to the surface. A need for companionship and fun, a need to be justified or prove yourself (to whom, I wonder). Most likely to someone like a critical or distracted parent who is not in your house to judge it or you. The need to feel worthwhile and valuable and capable is a deep, old, primal need. Right there next to the need to be cherished, treasured in your being, not for your doing.

Needs can be difficult to parse out. So, if you ask someone, “What do you need?”, be prepared to sit down, it might take a while. Be prepared to ask for the second edition, to stay connected and ask again.   In the meantime, you might volunteer to help them clean.

In the midst of Job’s afflictions, three of his friends promptly leave their homes and come to him. They tear their garments, weep loudly, and sit with him for seven days, saying nothing.  Can you imagine that? Their response is the ministry of presence, of true solidarity, of seeing his excruciating pain and joining him there in the midst of it. This is good.   

Later on in the story, they try to speed up the process and help him come to his senses. They tell him to give up his stalemate with God and admit that his sufferings were his own fault in some inscrutable way – and to repent. But Job refuses, maintaining his innocence and demanding God’s accountability. His friends want him to cave in to conventional wisdom that bad things do not happen to good people without just cause. Job won’t have it. But even in their arguing, the friends stay with him in his suffering, unable to draw it to a settled rest, yet not willing to leave. 

This is a ministry beyond most of us. We can’t tolerate being helpless in the indeterminable time it takes God to respond. We want to offer help that has an effect, and that has a terminus – like bringing a casserole, or helping sort through the garage. And there’s nothing wrong with that – because caregivers have needs, too.

Beaten and imprisoned, Paul writes to Timothy with a straightforward request: “Come quickly.” He lists those who have abandoned him, but says, “I hope that God doesn’t hold it against them!” In the clarity of confinement and being stripped of every distraction, Paul gets to his basic needs. He doesn’t need revenge. Instead, he asks for companionship, and his cloak, his books and his papers. You’ve got to love how human the scriptures are some times! Paul asks for what we all need—for someone to come quickly, to gather the items we want, and to show up. 

What do you need? It’s a simple question, but a daunting one. When we ask it of ourselves, it means some change is being called for. “I need to earn more money.” “I need to change my lifestyle and diet.” “I need a friend.” “I need more time.”  In each of these needs, something’s got to change, something’s got to be reconfigured, reprioritized. Life changes are hard, and come with risks, and might involve or upset other people we care about. Simple questions don’t always have simple solutions. But the need remains until it is satisfied.

When we ask the question of someone else, we need to know our boundaries, what we can offer, what we have to give. I think that’s why we hesitate to ask, because we fear we will be overwhelmed with the reply, sucked in over our heads. Chances are that won’t happen. Chances are your listening, open heart is all that is required of you.  

“Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.” I love this line. It makes a good mantra. It recognizes that the need isn’t ours to sort out on our own, or to bear with someone else alone. We have a companion who is unseen, but not unknown. Help comes in all forms – from nature’s healing balm, to a random act of kindness, to a persistent friend, to an insight that pops suddenly to mind. God’s Spirit is subtle. 

What do you need? Ask the question, and give God space. Bring your presence into the presence of prayer, and be kind to yourself as you feel your way forward through the tangle of distractions to what it is you really need in your life to thrive. That is what God wants for each of us, for all of creation: life abundant, the fulfillment of our communal and unique needs so that we each can be the child of God.

“Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.”

What do you need?

Today’s first reading comes from the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, chapter 1:     (1:1-18)

There was a certain man of Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham son of Elihu son of Tohu son of Zuph, an Ephraimite. ²He had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.

3 Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh, where the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord. ⁴On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; ⁵but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. ⁶Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because she had no child. 

⁷So it went on year after year; as often as she went up to the house of the Lord. Therefore Hannah wept and would not eat. ⁸Her husband Elkanah said to her, ‘Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?’

9 After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose and presented herself before the Lord. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. ¹⁰She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. ¹¹She made this vow: ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.’

12 As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. ¹³Hannah was praying silently; only moving her lips, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. ¹⁴So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.’ ¹⁵But Hannah answered, ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. ¹⁶Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.’ ¹⁷Then Eli answered, ‘Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.’ ¹⁸And she said, ‘Let your servant find favour in your sight.’ Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.”

The second reading is from the gospel of Mark, the 5th chapter:

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. ²²Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet ²³and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ ²⁴So Jesus went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. ²⁶She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. ²⁷She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ ²⁹Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ ³¹And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ ³²He looked all round to see who had done it. ³³But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ ³⁶But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ ³⁷He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. ³⁸When they came to the house, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ ⁴⁰And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cüm’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ ⁴²And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. ⁴³He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

This is the gospel of our Lord……thanks be to God.

The bible is full of pain – individual, communal, national. I think every story tells of brokenness and distress. At the moment, I can’t think of a single happy or neutral story in the whole two volume book! The endings are often happy, but they go through the valley of the shadow of death to get there. The authors of these varied books and poems did not shy away from expressing their outrage, their grief, their laments, their tears. They blamed God and wondered what they had done to deserve it. They repented of their errors and sought God’s guidance for a better future. Sometimes their woes are healed. Sometimes they were not. At times we hear God’s side of things spoken through the prophets – the rationale, the promises – we even hear of God’s pain in shepherding these stiff necked creatures. And we hear Jesus’ forsaken cries from the cross. If God’s beloved son endured pain and death, we know our lot is not privileged, but blessed, just the same. “Blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger,” blessed are you even in your pain.

Pain is a universal leveler – everyone will experience it. No amount of wealth can prevent it. No amount of education or finesse or daring can evade it. If you are alive, you will feel pain. If you love – you will suffer doubly, because you will feel the pain of those you love as if it were your own.

And yet, pain is not something we are very good at admitting to, or talking about, or listening to. We think we’re supposed to be strong and above average. We are uncomfortable with being vulnerable, embarrassed about being or appearing flawed – as though we had a choice! We are all flawed, all imperfect, all human. But, we want to fix that. Most of us want to hide our own pain until we can’t any longer. We expect our bodies to be perfect, to function properly, to remain whole and healthy. We know that won’t happen, but we expect it just the same, and are embarrassed and feel betrayed by nature when something goes wrong. When we listen or sit with someone in their pain, we want to have the right words that will convey our acceptance and sympathy and shared human experience, we want to be able to erase what’s hurting, find the right combination of words, kiss the owie and make it better. And truthfully, there’s nothing you can say or do to make it better. But your presence might. Pain is a process. And so you suffer together.

I have a high school classmate who has a now adult child with Down’s Syndrome. Full disclosure, I learned most of this through Facebook. Missy was the third of their four children. Cassy, her mom, now says that Missy is the biggest gift their family could have received. She taught them how to slow down, how to more fully appreciate each other and the marvelous ways our bodies work, how to really see each child as an individual with unique qualities and strengths, ‘dips and peaks’, as she puts it, and not gloss over the reality in favor of what you might want or expect to see there. Her other children grew up with empathy and wisdom. “But,” Cassy said, “you couldn’t have told me that when she was diagnosed. I couldn’t have heard it. I was in such pain, wallowing in the swamp of ‘what will happen to her’, ‘what did I do’, ‘what will become of our plans, my career, our retirement?’ It was all going through my head for a very long time.” 

That is the shape of the lament psalms, the shape of the gospel, the course of recovery – it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We fall into grief and only after a long time, find our way to praise. By rights, we should all be walking around with Kleenex, crying on each other’s shoulders, and popping antidepressants. Right?

But we don’t. The pain of the world surrounds us, and somehow, we still find reasons to laugh, to play, to create beauty, to come back to life again. Mostly, that’s true. It’s remarkable, really. I wonder if the bit of God we have within us, is whatever it is that creates resilience, that turns gradually from grief to hope like the seasons turn, from despair to peace. And if, by accompanying that process with others, we become more fully human, more attune with the truth of life instead of caught in the myth of perfect normalcy.

I was reading some accounts of things in Ukraine as they pass the 500th day after Russia’s invasion. One was an article about the wounded soldiers, particularly those who experienced amputations. There is a rehab hospital they are sent to, where they are called ‘superhuman’ as they heal and learn to use prosthetics. Most of them – including a man who lost both legs and an arm, intend to reenter the war as soon as they can. He wants to train medics, or counsel soldiers. Another is 21 year old Bohdan Petrenko, who was interviewed when he was practicing walking with his artificial leg. He, too is planning to rejoin his military unit as soon as he fully recovers from the mortar injuries that took his leg and mangled his arms. Petrenko said he would return to the front as a radio man or drone operator. The war amputees are stoical about their challenges, because they’ve lost friends and, by that standard, feel fortunate. “After the amputation, I didn’t feel so bad,” mused Yevhen Tiurin, 30, with a grin. “The problems in my leg were now over.” His amputation was imperfect, so he had to undergo another surgery to reshape the stump, and now he’s waiting for the wound to heal so that he can get a prosthetic limb — and then he’ll be back to war.  “Amputation is a temporary difficulty,” he explained. “These are just new conditions in our lives that we must adjust to.”

Temporary difficulties. That is resiliency. 

The point of this topic isn’t to wallow in pain, or to encourage us to pry into each others’ tender spots – or even to push Kleenex and antidepressants. It is, rather, to recognize that pain in normal, and that a beloved community is capable and willing to bear one another’s suffering and become stronger and more resilient in the effort, in the sharing. Scandinavians are noted for their personal reserve and stoic approach, for the protective force field of saying “Everything is fine, I’m fine. Really, fine.” And turning the focus quickly, “How are you?” And if you ask a follow up question, “Is it really, are you really?” It comes out, “Well no, but it will be.” It is perhaps a combination of resiliency and embarrassment. My favorite line in the movie, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” – aside from the recognition that Westerners want to outsource getting old, is Sonny’s assertion, “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it is not yet the end.” The quote is not original to the movie – it sounds biblical. 

The point of this topic is to encourage safe space for sharing who we are with one another – our dreams, our fears, our worries, our hurts. That the whole of us is required and requested to be present if we are to be an authentic community of care and not simply a surface rendition of something that looks shiny and lovely, but in which there is little room for not being okay, for admitting that things are not good, that the lab results were not good, that your mental health is not healthy, but is in fact in tatters, that you worry about a child and can’t really do anything to help, that your loved one’s memory is becoming noticeably disjointed, that chronic pain is changing relationships. If you feel have to stay home from church when you’re falling apart because you won’t fit in, or are embarrassed to have your raw edges sticking out, then something is wrong — with the church.

Later this summer or fall, Shawn and I will be working on a spiritual care givers class/group/training to teach the fine art of non-anxious listening and caring response. There aren’t magic words to learn. There is only yourself, your body to bring to another body, and simple ways of letting them know you are listening, that you are present. We leave the heavy lifting to God’s holy and compassionate and ever-creating spirit.

Audio Recording

https://youtu.be/AVFxk3t1jS0

Audio Recording

Romans 7

Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime? ²Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.… ⁴In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God…. ⁶Now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

⁷What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” ⁸But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead….  ¹²So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. ¹³Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into sin. ¹⁵I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… ^18… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. ¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. ²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, ²³but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive … ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! …   8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: … ⁴so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 

¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ….

So far in this study of Romans, we have looked at God’s righteousness that has claimed us despite God knowing we are incapable of following in that right pathway. God has a long history with humans, and even the Israelite people chosen for special attention, to live into his love and guidance couldn’t stop being human and living according to human nature. It is from the faithfulness and mercy of God we receive peace with God. That was week two. Week three was about being instruments of righteousness. By opening ourselves to God’s goodness, we not only experience forgiveness and hope, but we begin a journey where that love produces love in us, and through us for others. As instruments of grace we live into the world of God’s power over Death so that every tool is re-calibrated, put to its good and proper and valued work. Last week touched on the idea of the in-between. The Messianic age has begun, but it has not yet come. Paul and the gospel writers thought it would, that it was just around the corner. 2000 years later, we are still living in the in-between, in the Age of the Spirit who was sent to guide and encourage us.

Paul’s letters are all about how to live. He’s working out the answers to his own questions in this letter to the Romans. What does it mean to believe in God who raised Jesus, but has not yet fulfilled the promises? What difference did / does Jesus’ resurrection make to daily life? This is an ongoing, difficult question. 

Chapter 7 of Romans picks up one significant question to chew on. What about the Law, what about Torah? Paul was a Pharisee. That’s important to remember. He loved and trusted in the Law. He and Peter, particularly, had different understandings and agendas since they came from such different backgrounds. But the Holy Spirit worked on each of them and they came to agree that gentiles did not have to first become Torah observant in order to be followers of the Way. Circumcision – that marker of Jewish identity – was not necessary. That was a huge accommodation. Food laws were relaxed. The law was not given up, but stretched, maybe, to allow a new inclusion in the community of belief. Not because the law wasn’t good, but because it became a stumbling block for non-Jews. This shift in emphasis was a new way to love the neighbor.

Paul, in good rhetorical style is arguing multiple sides of the question in these chapters.  Are we to sin more so that grace abounds? Not at all! Is the Law sin? Of course not, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good,” he writes. Jesus himself said he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. But what do we do about the Law in light of Christ’s resurrection? What has changed? 

What changed is that Paul came to the startling realization that Sin had worked its way into the Law; Sin had corrupted what God intended to bring life. That while the Law was still a gift of God, in the way of the world it had become an agent of Sin and Death, incapable of saving. As Sin, with a capital S is more than the things we do, but is a pervasive, corrosive power, so Law in Paul’s use is more than Torah. Law refers to the structures of reality. Law refers to our human condition in which we cannot seem to do or be the good we choose.

1500 years after Paul wrestled with this, Martin Luther felt the same struggle, condemned by the law. He couldn’t find a way to free himself from the dilemma Paul describes of willing one thing and doing another. Luther writes about this a lot, but one insight came from these chapters in defining the uses of the Law. He felt there were two, possibly three.

The Law’s first function is physical – to promote safety and health and beneficial, peaceful relationships of trust with your neighbor. It works through our actions and communal, societal mores. 

The second use works on our conscience showing us our inability to disentangle ourselves from Sin –“If it had not been for the law,” Paul says, “I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”   We know how this works, how sneaky our minds can be. “You can have anything to eat except the brownies on top of the refrigerator – or the fruit from the tree in the center of the garden.” And suddenly, an intense craving for gooey chocolate brownies slips into your thoughts. You can have anything else to eat – but that’s the only thing you want to eat. And you want it a lot.

The law reveals the failure of our will and a battle begins. “¹⁵I do not understand my own actions,” Paul complains. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. The brownie just found it’s way into my mouth!”

This second use of the Law is supposed to send us running to God for forgiveness, consolation, and repentance. But, chances are the brownies aren’t going to last until morning.

That is obviously a silly example, but you know what I mean. The same internal dynamic works at all depths of significance. Our will, our conscience, our lusts, our needs, our values, our better selves are always taking sides against one another. Who can authentically say, “No, the law (whatever the law may be) says I shall not, and so I shall not.” I mean, ‘you shall not kill’ seems like something we can manage, but our actions, our inactions, our co-opted agency go out like ripples from a stone thrown into the lake and make it impossible to know the ways and times we have killed. We are complicit in harm we never intend.

So, we confess each week before we worship. And perhaps you, too, have an on-going conversation with God about the things we do and don’t do and want to do and feel compelled to do and are complicit in doing. That prayer conversation is the second use of the law. We turn to God hoping for help and comfort.

The third use of the Law is the Holy Spirit’s use in teaching us how to live according to the law and will of God. How to live into the grace and freedom we have received through Jesus’ resurrection as the Christ, the anointed one of God.

This is where today’s reading began. “⁴In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, you may belong to the one who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God…. ⁶Now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” 

The law still functions. The law is still good and useful and necessary. The law still constricts and convicts, and we have an advocate in God’s Spirit to help us live within the law, and to live in freedom from the law in this in-between time.

Stop signs are still important. Gravity and other natural laws are still in force. Loving your neighbor as yourself is still commanded. Looking for God in the face of your enemy, or of one you would dismiss, or of another species – is still praise and worship of God. The Law of God is good and holy. The laws of society are mostly good, yet always in need of critique according to our best understanding of God’s will for all life to flourish. The thing about law, in civic or society terms, is that what benefits one may very well cause harm to another. Earthly systems are so entwined. 

Paul’s discussion acknowledges that, and is also moving beyond that system hooking into the divine realm where the only law is love. Because of the once and for all nature of Christ, we have somehow made a transfer of existence and identity, from one “Lord” over us to another, from one mode of existence to another, still accountable to the law but transferred into the greater law of pure love by the Spirit where God has repaired the breach that Sin had opened up.

How then are we to live? As best as you can, trusting that being in the Spirit brings you, truly, into the love and mercy of God. What about all the fear and guilt and tortured consciences? 

We are not free of sin, this is it’s realm – but, at the very same time, we have the love of God proven through Christ and gifted to all people which cannot be taken from us. We live as citizens of two realms in the in-between. Do not neglect the beauty of this realm, nor fear condemnation in the next. Live at peace. 

Audio Recording

From the book of Acts, the second chapter: 

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

And from Paul’s letter to the Roman church, the 8th chapter:

¹⁸I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; ²⁰for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; ²³and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

³¹What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The word of God, the word of life……thanks be to God

Ruach Elohim, Spiritus Sanctus, Pneuma, Paraclete.

Today is the Holy Spirit’s day, sort of. God’s Spirit shows up many times in scripture and takes many forms – in Genesis it broods over the waters of creation, it comes as a whirlwind to Elijah, something like a dove at Jesus’ baptism. It is variously referred to as a wind, flame, breath, advocate – it quickens, fills, comes upon, comforts, hovers, burns, blows, enlightens, impregnates (once), speaks and gives speech.

The trinitarian formula of Christianity – one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – grew out of years of discussion and argument and heresies in the centuries after Jesus’ death. But the component parts and hints are in scripture – especially in Paul’s writing and in the gospel of John. 

Church history is a disheartening class in seminary. We learn how human it all is, how political. I mention this because the way we have been taught to think about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was decided, wrangled over in similar fashion to how congress works. Loud voices, extreme positions, black and white thinking, minutia and shades of meaning taking on life or death significance — we’d like to believe that the Holy Spirit could mind meld like Spock, or peacefully, wisely manipulate the outcome. Perhaps the outcome was pleasing to God even if the process was not. We can’t know. But the thing we do know is that somewhere along the line, the Greek belief that matter and spirit live in two different realms, and that matter or flesh, is evil, created a problem from which the church has never recovered.

In ancient Hebrew thought, this distinction did not exist. The Spirit of God brooded over creation, Wisdom was imagined as a woman, the dove-like Spirit fluttered onto Jesus in his baptism and shooed him off into the wilderness afterwards. The psalms and prophets give a wide variety of physical, bodily images for God and the Spirit. The Israelites’ first exposure to dualistic thinking was among the Persians in exile, followed by the influential Hellenistic philosophy and language of Alexander the Great’s realm. This dualism compounded in the Age of Reason and Industrialization of our modern world.

The problem I’m complaining about is twofold. 

One: We have taught ourselves not to perceive the nuance and subtlety of the spiritual world we live in, believing that it exists somewhere else.

And Two: We have assigned heaven to the spiritual world. Assigned God’s ultimate care and concern and presence to that place that exists somewhere else. It’s not real. It’s not here.

That way of thinking is a problem. It has resulted in devaluing bodies, in not being attuned to the urgings of God, and in trashing the earth. 

In my unqualified opinion, this topic is the primary insight of Grundtvig’s theology. The Inner Mission Pietists of his day felt that life in this world was a trial, a test, that suffering created character which qualified one for a joyous afterlife. Suffering was a sign that you were fit for heaven. Therefore, this world was a throwaway. 

The Grundtvigians argued that this world is all we know of God, all we can experience of love and joy, so we should try. We should pay attention to the beauty and splendor and richness of this created world and relationships – treat them with generosity and grace. Not praise God for the suffering, but praise God even in suffering and look for the things of God where we might find them – modeled in nature, specifically.

Sadly, at least in this country, the Pietists and Puritans won. Black and white thinking, predetermined salvation, separation of body and spirit… for some reason it’s easier to believe in a God of the straight and narrow, the list keeper of whether you’ve been naughty or nice. The natural world has suffered as a consequence, and our attention to the Holy Spirit’s grace and goodness in daily life has taken a backseat to focusing on eventual inclusion and exclusion in the kingdom that exists somewhere else. 

Paul wrote that the creation was subjected to futility, is waiting with eager longing for the redemption of humanity. Isn’t it just?

But, that very redemption began, we believe, with Jesus. So why assign it to eternity, to the ever-after? The Christian church was very late to take up the cause of our creaturely world. Earth Day should have had a religious impetus, because this earth is where God meets us, where God joined us, formed us and became us. What more proof do we need that this earth, this life, this place matters?

I had a conversation along these lines with a preacher from Nashville at the Festival of Homiletics, and, at one point, he scratched his head and said, “Oh! You’re a secularist!”, as though that explained everything. And he kind of grinned and gave me the patronizing look you’d give a small child who doesn’t quite understand. I’ve also been labeled a humanist. I guess I must be both of these things, but I don’t see why they are not compatible with the Christian faith. Earth is the setting for everything we can know of God.

In Acts, the Holy Spirit enflamed the disciples and filled them up to bursting. Not with church, but with love for Christ and for their neighbors. Paul kept finding that God’s Spirit had preceded him and his co-workers to the communities of faith he intended to evangelize and instruct. These are all clues that the Spirit of God is here, moving around, looking for volunteers.

I’ve been reading a book very slowly for at least a year. It’s called, On becoming an Alchemist – a guide for the modern magician, by Catherine MacCoun. One of her themes is cultivating the ability to perceive subtle bodies, spirits, essences, in the world around us. 

She writes this: “My first impression of God came from the Baltimore Catechism, a series of questions and answers that Catholic children used to have to recite from memory: 

Q: Why did God make me?

A: God made me to know him, love him, and serve him.

“I memorized that at the age of five and have yet to discover a more cogent answer. If God made us to know him, then the human organism must be some sort of God-knowing apparatus.” 

She talks about the in-between, perceiving the space between God and not-God and recognizing there is a presence that unites the two. This is the world of the Spirit.

I like that idea of the in-between. The Messianic age has begun, but not come. Paul and the gospel writers thought it was imminent, just around the corner. They were wrong about that. We are still living in the in-between, in the Age of the Spirit sent to guide and encourage us.

The first disciples and apostles were sent out to tell of Christ, to share the good news that gentiles had access to the God of Israel, could be grafted into the people of God as full siblings, our backgrounds different, our futures the same.

Perhaps this new age of the church is to bring the gospel to the earth itself, to ease her groaning, to work for the earth’s redemption, to recognize and claim our connections and mutual need as creatures, to pray for the Spirit’s intercession and peace between people for the sake of nature, bringing some form of balance to what feels like a return to chaos.

Christians have a long-standing tendency to think of salvation as something that only comes into play after death, with no immediate and present effect. Nothing could be further from the mind of scripture, which is fundamentally concerned with a new kind of life that can be experienced here and now, even though its telos, its completion, lies beyond our experience of this world. The horizon of God’s creative, redeeming work is broad and real. Redemption is the re-knitting of the very fabric of the world. Our own relationship with God will not be whole until we understand this, and understand our connection to the eagerly waiting rest of creation. To be reconciled with God is to be in communion with God in all things.

In these beautiful days of early summer with everything sparkling high and low – Paul is singing to the choir.

But he challenges us not only to see the trees clapping their hands and the gushing springs and the bright Whitsunday lilies, but to add the suffering of nature, the loss of habitat, the conflicted needs of water and resources to our prayers of confession and intercession, to see our part in the harm – and in the redemption.  It is not only some future divine salvation that the rest of creation longs for, but the here and now and very earthly renewal possible by human lives converted through the Spirit’s will – and our own will – to meaningful, authentic change. The world at large needs our conversion as much as we do.

As Spirit inspired children of God, we do not powerlessly accept whatever will come; we hope (as Paul says, a sure and certain hope) for the Spirit to draw us into the will of God and the work of God, to urge and to carry us and empower us and sustain us in that uphill work.

We long for nothing less than the fullness of life for all creation. And we hope not because only good things happen and it will all go according to our plan, but because goodness endures in the face of all that happens. Hope points us beyond our limitations to the God who creates and claims us, the Christ who saves and remains with us, and the Spirit who – in whatever form – doesn’t fail to move us. Now we begin.

Audio Recording

Romans 6:1-14

1 What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 

4 Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8 But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 

11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. 

13 No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

A word of life  …   thanks be to God              

I have to say, I get lost in this. It becomes a wash of words. However, it’s a familiar wash of words – it’s a commonly used funeral passage – being baptized into Christ’s death, buried by baptism into death, we live a new life in Christ. The death Christ died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. That sounds familiar and kind of comforting. But, the thing I’ve noticed this time around – when it’s not for a funeral, is that Paul isn’t talking about the afterlife. Not ours, anyway. He’s talking about how we are to live now, on this side of Jesus’ resurrection. His point isn’t to assure us of a happy ending so much as it is to argue us into a changed life.

“…present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.“

That’s the line that found a landing for me— instruments of righteousness. What would you say is the difference between an instrument and a tool? I would have expected Paul to use the word tool.

Most of us are well acquainted with the tools in our possession – snow shovels have finally been replaced with garden spades. Rakes, manure forks, hoes, rototillers, trowels – these are the tools of the season. 

Or maybe your tools are whisks and blenders and wooden spoons and spatulas.

We have tool drawers and tool boxes and tool bags – I believe that Carl has more than one 3-story rolling tool cart. I have a tool box – but my brother was a dentist. He used instruments. So, what’s the difference? Is it the level of sophistication? Is it precision? 

I was looking around the house for instruments – aside from a piano with a warped sound board and a cello with a broken string. I found various probes – meat thermometers, soil testers for moisture and pH, an old calculator that says Texas Instruments. I still have the slide rule of my high school physics days, and a thermometer with the colored glass bubbles that rise in a tube. Maybe instruments have elegance, a note of mystery, imagination. 

Barometers and wind-up clocks are instruments loaded with imagination, and so are telescopes and microscopes and brass balances with their boxed sets of incremental weights. Even tuning forks – as simple as they appear to be, are finely calibrated, elegant instruments, not tools.

There are surgical instruments, of course, and odometers, pedometers, speedometers, altimeters … 

… and musical instruments of all kinds – well maybe not all kinds. I’ve heard Chris refer to electronic pianos as fancy toaster ovens – so perhaps some instruments leave too much to the imagination and become lowly tools plinking out a tune. But consider the intricacy and precision of the pipe organ…

Does a tool in the hand of an artist become an instrument, I wonder?, or is there some distinction in the nature of the implement itself? 

Paul says, “No longer present yourselves to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life… present yourselves to God as instruments of righteousness.”

Present yourself to God as an instrument ……. carefully crafted, finely tuned, exquisite, elegant, useful, imaginative, a precision instrument of grace…

Notice that Paul does not say, “Shape up and mold yourselves into this instrument! Work day and night to calibrate your spiritual gearbox to God’s acceptable, exacting specifications. Memorize the schematics, transform yourself from a lowly tool into an instrument of beauty and sophistication…”

Rather, Paul says, “Present yourselves to God as an instrument of righteousness.” Show up. Say, “Here I am, Lord. I am handiwork of the Most High, an instrument of your own design and your own choosing.” Already an instrument of righteousness because of Christ, the thrust of the sentence is to present yourself to God for the work at hand.

What work, then, is this instrument fit to do, I wonder.

In the prayer attributed to Francis of Assisi, we hear, “Lord make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, let me sow pardon; where there is doubt, let me sow faith; where there is despair, let me sow hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, let me sow joy.

“Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.” 

This seems like a good beginning – a good way of envisioning the instrumentation of righteousness.  This chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans depicts the power we have in our everyday lives to live in ways that are faithful to God.

As an instrument of grace we allow ourselves to be taken up into the dynamic goodness and generosity of God. That is what resurrection life is about, after all … dynamic goodness and generosity, transformed ways of living. We lean into that – even when it runs counter to our daily reality. Daily life can seem like a tool of Sin and Death and Darkness.

We can’t change the suffering in Gaza or Sudan, Ukraine or Malawi, but we can care enough to offer aid through our church agencies already on the ground there. We can’t end the suffering and mistrust in forever ongoing, systemic racial and political tensions of this country – but we can teach our children to see beyond the color of skin or the clothing of culture. Perhaps we can’t fix the gun culture of this country, or end the opioid deaths, but we can listen to and support with prayer, and join with those voices in the wilderness working to solve problems of hunger and lack of clean water and medical equity, offering a life of dignity. We can stand with those who offer hope. 

We can’t, on our own, produce works of righteousness in the world around us. Often, we can’t synchronize them in our own homes — but instruments, with practice, create beauty and order and understanding. And so, without setting down our tools, we practice being instruments.

What we might, in time, accomplish through outer action first begins with our inner workings, our own mechanization, our orientation. “How can we continue living in Sin and Death as though we are still bound by them?” Paul asks. We have been set free. We can no longer be dominated by, or dialed into, the forces of darkness and death.  New life draws us out, gives us new vision like the gizmo on the cover of the bulletin. As instruments of righteousness we seek peace, we offer balm to old wounds. As Trekkies know, instruments allow us to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where Christ has gone before!

Just as being enslaved to sin is an embodied existence, so is being alive to God.

Members of the body of Christ offer living, holy and spiritual worship. We worship by practicing this embodied community in which the gifts of others are valued; in which the instruments of our lives are played or used or practiced on behalf of the body as a whole; in which we show up and say, “Here I am, Lord, what would you have me do? Use me, as an instrument of your peace.”

By opening ourselves to God’s goodness, we not only experience forgiveness and hope, but we begin a journey where that love produces love in us, and through us, for others.

As gadgets of grace we live into the world of what God has done in Christ so that every tool is re-calibrated, every string is tuned, every spring re-wound, every life renewed, every instrument put to its good and proper and valued work. Every one. Every gadget of grace encouraged in your unique capacities. Mary said her soul magnifies the Lord, prophets amplified the Word, Paul, with his fierce passions fortified the fledgling faith – each of us with our tools and skills and passions and perspectives has something to do, something to play, something to create that will reveal God’s loving kindness to us and for others. 

Grant us, O Lord, to be instruments of your righteousness, implements of your peace, gadgets of your love, contraptions and gizmos and widgets of your living word. Instruments for the world. 

Amen

Audio Recording

Romans 5:1-11

1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 

3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing 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. 

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.  Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 

8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.  Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.  For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.  

     But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

The word of life….thanks be to God

When someone begins a paragraph with, “Therefore…”  we know something has preceded this new thought. We might wonder what the ‘therefore’ is there for…

So, a brief summary of what we’ve missed. Up to this point in his letter to the Christian community in Rome, Paul has been talking about our human condition – that we all – Jews, Greeks, barbarians, gentiles, Romans, Danes – all are bound by Sin and Death with a capital S and a capital D – think cosmic forces, think Roman and Greek and Nordic mythology.   We are all subject to the power of Sin and Death and cannot free ourselves.    

God, meanwhile, longs for faithfulness and righteousness and goodness from us. God desires our trust and love above all things, love shown toward our neighbors as well as toward ourselves — and we want to, we try to, we mean to….. and then we are distracted by some irritating human, some personal foible, or by greed, or the allure of false loves (of which there are many) and we lose our focus and stumble off the path and wander around lost and fall back under the power of Sin and Death with a capital S and a capital D. And then pick ourselves up, shake off the dust and ashes, and try again.

We know this cycle – it is the storyline of the Old Testament; it is the storyline of human history; and it is the storyline of our lives. Paul himself describes it: ^7:15I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”    I bet we could compile a fantastic list of good intentions. See the bulletin cover.

But, also, according to Paul, something has changed. Something has broken into that tragic narrative, something has challenged the power of Sin and Death – some Righteousness with a capital R has come to our side and rescued us, ransomed us from the evil overlord, redeemed us for love and life. And that something is someone – Jesus Christ. Jesus’ faithfulness to God and God’s faithfulness to Jesus through resurrection from death broke the dismal monotony of our human predicament. The Risen One became the means by which we are set free. Through Jesus, we participate in God’s faithfulness and love, no longer subject to “the wrath of God,” (as Paul puts it), but inheritors, sons and daughters of God in good standing.    

Therefore, (finally we come back to it), therefore, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peace with God, and full and free access to this amazing grace in which we stand. Fantastic!

Last week’s sermon was about the righteousness of God. This week’s is about the ‘Therefore‘.

Therefore, we have peace with God.

But, wait a minute. Paul wrote this to the Romans nearly 2000 years ago. In a letter to the Philippians he wrote:^4:4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. ⁵Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not worry about anything,… ⁷And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  

In John’s gospel, Jesus says ^14:27“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not let them be afraid. My peace be with you.”  

‘Peace’ is used 92 times in the New Testament; the phrase, ‘peace with God’, 32 times – most of them in Paul’s letters. But, where is this peace? 

Maybe it’s just me. Are you feeling swaddled in the peace of God? If someone asks how you’re doing, do you say, “I’m good. Leaning back on the everlasting arms”?

I mean, that would be good, I just don’t think many of us feel that kind of spiritual calm. In fact, I think anxiety is taking a greater toll than we probably realize.

There’s so much that is not peace in our personal and communal lives, so much busyness, so many distractions and worries large and small. Three young police officers have been shot dead in our rural area in just a few weeks, mass shootings are reported every week in our nation; there is so much anger, so little regard for the sanctity of life, such existential dread layering in as the world turns. We’ve got too much to do and too much to think about before we can experience any peace with God. It sounds unattainable – although we might at least offer a prayer for it… a quick one.

Yesterday’s event at the hall, supporting Mom’s in Recovery, got me thinking about this in a bit of a different way. Jay said that addiction is a spiritual wound, and that when you stop using, the the wound gapes open with nothing big enough to fill it. Without the alcohol or drugs there’s a big empty. And then shame and self-denigration and panic and feeling lost in our own bodies and souls crowds in, and the desire to go back to drinking or using in order to stop the pain overwhelms our intentions and wills and pulls back us into the evil we do not want. Addiction isn’t a habit to break – it’s a broken spirit in need of a new self, in need of peace. It takes something as big as peace with God to bridge the wound, to draw the selvages together, and allow healing.

We don’t need to suffer from an addiction to understand that dynamic. Grief, loneliness, anxiety and depression, retirement, family trauma, chronic overwork – we can probably all find a wound in our lives that is too big for ‘staying calm and carrying on’. A wound in need of redemption, of rest, of nurture, of peace that passes understanding. 

I’m attending the Festival of Homiletics everyday this coming week in Minneapolis. The conference’s topic is ‘Preaching hope in a weary world’ – with speakers and famous preachers from all over the country and many denominations — so, it’s a problem recognized throughout the church. We’ll see what they come up with. 

But how about you? What does Peace with God look like, or feel like inside of you? Do you have an idea, some wisp of a feeling? Can you remember or imagine a time of deep comfort, of feeling like finally you are fitting the groove, of a big, contented, Ahhh?  I hope it won’t increase your anxiety, but ||: I’m going to give us about one minute of silence to try to let some image or memory of profound, deep, abiding peace float to the surface of your awareness. I’ll repeat that so those you who were elsewhere can catch up. Here we go:

What are you picturing, remembering? What images bring you to a truly happy place in your mind’s eye, in your past?

I’m pretty sure I’ve talked about Friendly Valley beach before, it’s where I take myself when I need calm, when I can’t sleep, when I need to picture peace. It’s a sandy reef in Lake Superior between Washburn and Bayfield where the water is so clear you can see the golden rippled sand glinting even when the water is too deep to touch it. The water is pale, the softest of blues, as it meets the horizon beyond the islands.   Even on a hot day, the temperature is just survivable, and so you need to acclimate until your blood has retreated to protect vital organs and then softly swush into the water and float, surrendering to the rush of sensations. Looking up into blue dome of the sky and tingling in the effervescence of cold water and cool skin and warm sunshine, every cell of your body is alive and gasping and wondering about this excitement…. and you float on the gentle rhythm of long-travelled waves… and feel the weight of your body dissipate, held aloft in the rising and falling buoyant communion of your own breath and this big water in a balance of body and spirit and trust. 

That’s the peace of God to me.

But… if one were to stay there floating in the deep blue peace of Friendly Valley Beach Bay… one would surely die. It is frigid. 

And so it is, I imagine, with the images you formed. We can’t live in them. The embrace must at some point end, the chocolate will be consumed, the nursing babe snuggled in your arms will cry and grow and leave home; the amazingly cozy bed will become less comfortable, the golden sun will set, dawn will come … the moment will pass. I would actually love to hear what you have come up with…. Would anyone be willing to share what peace with God feels like, seems like to you?

Peace with God is permanent, forever, theologically speaking – but our experience of it, our participation in it is spotty, temporal. Why do we find peace so oddly absent from our world, from our communities, and, not least, from ourselves?   If we know what it is and what it feels like, why is peace the scarcest of commodities? 

That is an honest question – I don’t know the answer. Perhaps because it’s too individualistic? Or too fleeting, too unsustainable. It is exhausting to care for all of the people in our realm as we would care for ourselves, to treat all persons with the honor and value they deserve rather than the value we want to assign them, to let God actually direct our lives into fullness and wholeness.

Perhaps also, because this conversation assumes that we love and value ourselves, that we can see ourselves honestly, the way we really are, and can still live with, and love that view. 

I would guess that it’s a rare person who can say they are truly at peace with themselves. Most of us prefer to see in a mirror dimly rather than face ourselves eye to eye, to be fully known.

Or perhaps it’s because we confuse God’s love for us with the absence of suffering. I bet none of the images that played in our minds involved times of suffering. And yet, in hindsight, many could point to a time of pain or loss or fear when we felt most convincingly the presence and peace of God, at peace with God.

Our troubles are not a contrary witness to God’s promises. That is the theology of the cross. Even the worst of times may lead us around again to hope. The message is not that Paul and his readers rejoice because they are suffering but rather that they rejoice even in the midst of their suffering. Suffering itself isn’t a cause for rejoicing; but neither is it the opposite of peace.

Later in his letter, Paul writes that ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God.’

“Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Paul isn’t spiritualizing this, making it about death. Suffering doesn’t separate us from God, because the glory of God is revealed in the cross. 

That’s an odd thing when you stop and sit with the words….

The suffering of the cross is the way God has chosen to be present to us in this world. Which is a good thing because there is nothing about life or love that is not suffering – suffering is the norm. Somehow we have developed this idealized image of a pain free life, insulated from the trials and temptations and tedium and rancor of real life. We are not perfect, the world is not perfect, the church is not perfect, so this is the way God has formed us – imperfectly, but growing, resilient, hopeful – characters – one and all. 

I read an article on developing resiliency, and it gave the example of growing a flat of seeds. If you start two flats of – tomatoes, let’s say, and put them both in good light, water them adequately, but turn an oscillating fan onto one flat and let the other grow in hothouse peace… The seedlings that were buffeted by the fan will be the stronger, stockier and better rooted plants. They will be the ones capable of bearing the weight of the fruit they produce. Something about the disturbance stimulates a different chemical to be released that strengthens the developing plant.

In humans, too, suffering can lead to resilience and resilience to character and character to hope and hope is good for us – even though suffering is not. I remember a conversation years ago, with Sami Rasouli at Barb and Mike’s. I might have remembered it wrong, but I believe Sami said that in Arabic, the word for suffering is the same word as for journey – that suffering is seen as a journey leading us to a new place and new reality, a new understanding of ourselves and God and the world – and that this suffering / journey word is one of the 99 beautiful names for God, for Allah. The one who suffers, the one who journeys, the one who loves and in love, suffers for us poor earthlings, stuck in the mud and longing for freedom, yearning for love… is God. That is a beautiful name.

The good news is that God doesn’t wait for us. Even before we had faith, while we were yet sinners, while we were still under the thumb of Sin and Death with a capital S and a capital D, God loved us and chose us as inheritors with Christ for all the good, for all the grace, for all the hope in glory.

May the peace of God be with you and abide with you, just as you imagined, now and always, Amen.

Audio Recording

“Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears”… We could have wished that the apostle Paul had William Shakespeare for a speechwriter. Instead, his letter to the Romans begins with a sentence employing eleven commas, a handful of parenthetical phases, and a colon. Although in Greek, it has no punctuation at all! Here we go:

Romans 1:1-17

 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,  which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures,  the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh  and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name,  including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world.  For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers,  asking that by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you.  For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you —  or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.  I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the rest of the Gentiles. 

I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish — hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you also who are in Rome.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”

A word of God, the word of life….thanks be to God.

In case you got lost, this is the introduction of Paul’s letter to the community of Christians in Rome about 25 years after Jesus’ death. It is likely the last letter of record written by Paul. It follows two decades of teaching, preaching and writing letters to the early churches as they separated from their Jewish roots, gained non-Jewish members, and forged a unique self-understanding as followers of Jesus Christ, the Son of God — followers of The Way. 

Paul never made it to Rome – well, he did get there, but as a prisoner. A few years after this letter was written, history loses track of him and it is thought that Paul was killed in Rome after a lengthy imprisonment there. In this letter – although he is free, he identifies himself as a slave – a slave to Christ. As such, he is not bound to any other obligation, nor is he subject to the interests of patronage. As a slave to Christ he is free to speak under the authority of the One who claimed him on the road to Damascus. And through Christ, Paul connects the dots or weaves a web tying people together with each other and with God. 

So,  “descended from David according to the flesh,” as Paul says,  is a statement about Jesus’ humanity, but it’s also a description of his Jewish identity. Paul’s primary “targets” are Greek and Roman – not Jewish, but he can’t explain who Jesus is without naming him as a Jew. Jesus was a real, distinct, certain person. However, Jesus is also for “all the nations” – for ‘Greeks and barbarians’, as he writes here. God’s choice of Israel was always meant to have a ripple effect out into the neighborhood. The chosen people were chosen to be a model of life with God. We remember Abraham’s call in Genesis – he was blessed to be a blessing, or the Hebrew people’s covenant to be a light to the nations. In the Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth, God is calling and claiming all people, whatever their nationality, regardless of their culture or creed.

But this human Jesus is also, somehow, the “Son of God.” It would take centuries for the formulations and creeds describing the church’s understanding of Jesus’ humanity and divinity to be worked out. But Jesus — as human, descended from David, and divine, declared Son of God, the messiah risen from the dead — manages to bridge the divide between death and life, between mortality and immortality, between sin and righteousness. All of this in faith through faith for faith. It’s the only way we can get there.

Paul is difficult to read.  He uses too many prepositions modifying the same noun – and too many big words – and too many comas. So sermons on Paul tend to create a congregation of zombies – glazed eyes, the living dead.

I probably don’t need help in boring you. Lectures on systematic theology appeal to a very thin slice. I do like quirky points and rough edges, though. And sometimes a line or two catches my imagination. Like this one,  

“I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish — hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you…”  First, is that meant to be a compliment, do you suppose? He’s putting the Romans in strange company.

Anyway, why is he a debtor to barbarians? The commentaries I read don’t play with this one at all. Maybe the barbarians helped him escape or hide out, or maybe they bought his tents, or served him Æbleskiver and medisterpølse. Maybe it was a common turn of phrase, but I have an idea. 

He writes:  “[the gospel] is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek... because in it, the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith.”

I think that somewhere along the line, in and among the barbarians, Paul realized that God was already in residence. I think he was indebted to them for that life changing insight. Paul was a Jew, a former Pharisee. And he came to realize that he wasn’t bringing the God of Israel to these gentiles, he was recognizing God already at work among them. I can only begin to imagine what a shock that must have been. It would be like discovering that æbleskiver are a Sri Lankan specialty. How can this be?

Paul also realized that neither wisdom nor foolishness were impediments to God’s salvation – that salvation, healing, redemption (meaning the gospel) is really out there for all people who are interested, attentive, or searching. Human righteousness comes after the presence of God, not as a prerequisite to it. The one who is righteous lives through faith, by faith, in faith, for faith – somehow faith is part of the picture, but God is the one who manages it – it’s God’s faithfulness to the human creature that shows itself in right-ordered living as a by-product. Faith, morality, the heart to seek forgiveness and return when we fall, all of that comes as the consequence, and based on God’s righteousness and faithfulness, not the person’s effort or desire or understanding or good deeds. And certainly, it’s not the church that bestows it. 

That last is an interesting point because for thousands of years the church has been heavily invested in claiming, mandating and managing righteousness, worthiness, and the means of grace. Righteousness and faith are their claimed realms of jurisdiction. But Paul wasn’t part of that church – he was a radical thinker, who, blinded by Christ to every other reality, truly believed in the freedom of God’s love, lavishly, outlandishly given. Not doled out or regulated.

Which, obviously, brings me back to the topic of Æbleskiver.

All I’ve ever done during the annual dinner is serve tables or wash dishes. But this year, I came down with a bad cold and no one wanted my help. I was told more than once to stay home, so I attended briefly and watched from home as an observer.

It’s like the gathering of the clans— red shirts streaming up the hill to the Hall from the church, or downhill from the north. It really is quite a sight. We must have one of the most intergenerational, labor intensive church dinners in the area. It wasn’t our best organized year, perhaps, but it was a terrific output of effort. And we have loyal guests who have been waiting for the return. Gloria comes from somewhere east of Dresser, Carleen calls me every year looking for this and the Cookie 

Walk, there were Minnesota license plates, of course, and Dave comes from California (to work!). I got calls from eight different groups wanting to be sure of the time, two asking if we are wheelchair accessible. There are people who come alone, those who come in tribal units; those who only want the sausage, or who eat 12 skivers; some who love fruit soup, some who are kind of appalled by the concept. We serve babes in arm, toddlers, teenagers, and their great-grandparents. We serve non-denominationally, a-politically, lavishly and repeatedly. We don’t dole them out in fair and equal and prudent portions (well, except the Pølse). We don’t care what people are wearing or driving or going home to. We don’t care if they grumble a bit about having to wait. We bring them plates and bowls and refills and more butter and a less sticky syrup pitcher and finish them off with the fluff of their choice.

And when all of that is done, and the Guests and Greeks and Barbarians have stopped coming through the door, we come from the four corners of the Hall and sit down to the same, much anticipated fare that we’ve served our guests. And it is delicious.

Righteousness isn’t about rules. Righteousness is about love. Righteousness is about generosity of spirit. Righteousness is God’s. And it is out of our realm — except that we can practice it. 

Righteousness is a plate of æbleskivers and medistepølse with refills at the ready until you are filled to the brim and bursting. Righteousness is a gift that we recognize – if we do at all – with the eyes of faith, because they are the eyes that teach us to anticipate and hope for it.

[The gospel] is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek... For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. God’s faithfulness to us is revealed in the gospel.

We can’t be good enough to merit salvation. We can’t force ourselves to believe. 

Our role then is……. to live. The church is how and where we practice looking for God by hearing about where and how God has shown up in people’s lives in the long distant past and today.  That was one of Claire Scriba’s questions – do you remember? “Where did you find God this week?” 

The church gives us an imagination for God, tunes our attention to a different frequency, gives us a community to work with. The church doesn’t save us.  That might seem to deflate Christianity, to take the specialness or power out of being religious… anyone can “just live” after all.  

Yes, exactly! Greeks, barbarians, Romans, Jews, wise, foolish, male, female, slave, free…Paul suddenly saw that it didn’t make any difference who we are, because what made the difference is who God is. God is righteous, God is faithful, God is merciful, God is creative, creating love……….so that we can just live and live justly, practicing the gospel. 

And communal, all out events like our Æbleskiver Dinner provide pretty good practice.

Thanks for yesterday.