Jesus Saves (Reflections on the Holy Name of Jesus, 2023)

 

Greek letters iota, eta, sigma form a  classic abbreviation  for Jesus' name

I remember when I was a kid seeing graffiti some “Jesus Freak” had scrawled on a wall near my school:

Jesus Saves. 

Beneath this pronouncement some other clever wag had written: 

S & H Green Stamps.[i] 

January 1^st, New Year’s Day, isn’t just a day off to watch parades and football or recover from the effects of excessive merrymaking the night before. The Church celebrates this day as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. It commemorates the eighth day after Jesus was born, the day his parents would’ve observed Jewish tradition and had him circumcised—marking his flesh to proclaim him a child of Abraham and heir to God’s promise. This granted him identity. 

This is similar to the Christian tradition of giving a child a name at baptism. This also explains the seven day gap between the time the church celebrates Jesus’ birth and when the “Year of Our Lord” begins. If you consider the high infant mortality rate in the ancient world, you’d want to wait a week to make sure your little one was strong enough to survive before introducing him or her to the community. I guess it wasn’t enough just to be born. Back then things didn’t get started until your kid was officially received. 

On this eighth day, Jesus becomes a member of the family of Abraham, and gets named according to the instruction Joseph received from the angel in Matthew 1:21. “Jesus” is our English version of “Yehoshua,” a Hebrew name which we sometimes translate as “Joshua.” It’s a contraction of the phrase “Yahweh is Salvation” or “Yahweh Saves.” 

As we kick off this New Year, it might not be a bad idea to meditate just a bit on what that phrase means. I mean, what does “Jesus saves” mean for you? You personally. Ever think about it?

I was thinking I'd give a short excursus on how Christian theologians have historically understood our doctrine of salvation, but when I started to write it, I realized I was actually boring myself. No telling how dry and dull you might've found it. So, instead, I’m just going to ask if Jesus saves, what exactly is he saving us from? 

You see, I worry at times that we as the American church are getting just a little too complacent with our salvation doctrine. I’d bet if you asked the average pew-sitter what “Jesus saves” means he or she would tell you that it means Jesus died on the cross, made blood atonement for my sins, and as long as I confess this I’m set free from fretting about any torment in the afterlife. I have my fire insurance. 

Okay. That sounds like the right doctrine to me. But somehow it no longer sounds like enough. If we really embrace this wild preacher from the ancient world, we’ll see a guy who heals people because they need healing. He feeds people who need feeding. He includes people who need to be included. He shakes up people who need to be shaken up. He confronts a system which needs to be confronted and he gives his life doing it. If Jesus saves us from anything, he saves us from complacency. 

We should ask ourselves at times if our churches were founded as places of healing, helping, and advocating or merely as cultural clubs. Is the church a gathering place for the already “saved” or a mission for the needy? Do we go to church because it’s the “right thing to do” or because the words of the gospel excite and inspire us to reach out to others? 

If the words and actions of Jesus catch fire in our imaginations, we might also say that Jesus has saved us from despair. You don’t start out to save or rescue anyone or anything if you don’t first believe they can be saved. Jesus died, but he also rose. He taught us that on the other side of disaster is a new beginning. 

Perhaps the problem with the contemporary church is its mono-dimensional view of the word “salvation.” Maybe we can take some inspirations from those shepherds who made haste to see the baby in the manger. I think they might’ve missed God’s point just a bit, probably believing that this little tyke was meant to save their country from foreign occupation. Still, you’ve got to hand it to them. They went away glorifying and praising God. Even though it would be years before this child could do anything, they knew what he’d do would be spectacular. Even as an infant, he saved them from feeling hopeless. 

We have a pretty good guess about what we’ve been saved from, but do we know what we are saved for?

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[i] It is a sad commentary on the state of American Lutheranism and its ability to reach a contemporary audience that everyone to whom I shall preach this sermon is probably old enough to get this joke! If you’re not, just google it.

 

A New Legend of the Mari Lwyd (Reflections on the Nativity of Our Lord, 2022)

 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.” (Luke 2:14) 

I guess every family has a Christmas tradition or two, and lots of these traditions may go back to the Old Country. My late dad was—as I am—very proud of the Griffiths family’s Welsh heritage. Every Advent, usually beginning with the day after Thanksgiving, the Old Man would put his Christmas music on the stereo and take over the kitchen to make Welsh cakes. If you’ve never eaten a Welsh cake, it’s kind of hard for me to describe them. They’re somewhere between a pancake and a scone. People in Wales eat them all year round, but my dad only made them at Christmas. He’d make them by the gross, give them away to neighbors and folks at church, and usually consume a large number of them himself. It was our family tradition, and, to me, whenever I eat a Welsh cake, it tastes like Christmas. 

The Welsh have another tradition which is celebrated during the twelve days of Christmas. It’s the procession of the Mari Lwyd. Of all European Christmas traditions, I have to confess that this is one of the silliest. It involves putting the skull of a horse on a long stick (like a broom stick). The skull is then decorated with ribbons for a mane and colorful buttons or stones for eyes. The one who carries the Mari Lwyd is wrapped in a white sheet, and the whole thing takes on a weird—and rather grotesque—ghostly appearance. Revelers dress in fancy dress and process from house to house with the Mari Lwyd rather like the wassail tradition in next-door England. They knock on neighbor’s doors and request to be let in. The request is supposed to be made in verse or song. The neighbor always responds in the negative, traditionally with a rejoinder similar to, “Bugger off, you drunk fools, and take that bloody thing with you! You’re scaring the kiddies!” At which reply the revelers challenge the householder to a rhyming or musical contest, which the host always loses and must then invite the Mari Lwyd and its attendant buffoons into his or her house for food and drink. Hey. It’s Christmas, right? 

This festive tradition is so bizarrely whimsical that only my ancestral people would’ve thought it up. The Mari Lwyd is first mentioned around 1800, but nobody seems to know how the tradition began and can’t even take a vague stab at why it did. Personally, I think two 18^th century Welshman got drunk one night and one said, “Hey, Owen! Why don’t we put a horse skull on a pole and annoy our neighbors with it?” His boyo replied, “Brilliant, Ivor! Let’s do it!” That makes about as much sense as any other explanation, don’t you think? All I can say is every silly thing any of us has ever done must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time. 

There’s a folk legend that says the Mari Lwyd (which translates as Grey Mare) was in foal in the stable in Bethlehem and was forced out of her comfortable straw-filled stall to make room for Mary and Joseph. She then had to wander around looking for a safe, welcome place to have her baby. The story is said to represent the forcing out of ancient pagan or Druid beliefs by Christianity. 

I’m skeptical about such an explanation. Luckily, this is a folk ritual. As such, it can be modified, embellished, amended, and altered in any way a talented bard might wish to tell it. I therefore offer my own version of the Legend of the Mari Lwyd. 

Once upon a time in the little town of Bethlehem Mari, a beautiful grey mare belonging to an innkeeper, was resting in the warm straw of her stall in a stable just outside the inn. She was carrying her third foal and was expectantly waiting to give birth. She looked forward to licking the wet off her baby and watching him—or maybe her—take those first tentative steps on spindly legs. It was night now and very quiet. All day the stable had been annoyingly alive with the comings and goings and noisy talking of the two-legged ones. So many travelers were coming to the inn, each looking to stable their donkey, horse, or ox. Some brought animals with which they would pay their taxes, and these sheep and goats were also crowded into the stable, bleating and braying and making no end of fuss which Mari, being an expectant mother, was not in any mood to hear. 

But now it was night. A peaceful silence fell over the stable. A slice of moonshine shown in through the open door, and Mari could see it was a calm, cool evening. From where she lay, she could even make out a few stars shining through the opening. This would be a splendid night for her newest little one to be born. But I must wait, she thought. I don’t feel the little one is coming just yet. Perhaps I shall go to sleep. 

But just as she was closing her eyes, she heard again the loud voices of the two-legged ones and saw the unnatural gleam of a lamplight heading into the stable. What now? Mari thought. Two two-legs were coming into the stable. They looked cold and tired. The male held the lantern and was shining it every which way as if searching for something. The other animals were soon awake and took to making all manner of disagreeable noises. The female seemed frightened. 

Mari sensed something about the female—she was also in foal, and it seemed her birthing time would be very soon. It occurred to her that the male was searching for a place where his female might lie down and give birth. But there was no room. Every stall was filled. 

Mari thought to herself, I’m certainly not going to give up my nice straw bed. This is MY stall and MY manger. But as she looked again at the frightened female, her heart began to soften. Poor two-leg, she thought. She’s so small and so weak. I’m much stronger than she is. When MY foal is born, he’ll be standing and walking and nuzzling me for milk that very hour. Her baby will be hairless and helpless. It will be cold, and she will need to wrap it in bands of cloth to keep it warm and keep its legs straight. It won’t be able to walk or even stand and will need all her attention. 

So Mari made a decision. With great effort—for she had grown very large with this new foal—she hoisted herself up on her four hooves. She snorted and shook her grey head as she did so, which seemed to frighten the female two-leg even more. But Mari moved ever so slowly toward her, lowered her head, and nuzzled the female’s cheek as if to say, “I understand. Mother-to-mother.” Then Mari slowly made her way out of the stable and found a cool patch of grass by the side of the inn. She chewed a few blades before lying down. Later that night she heard the cries of the new little two-leg. She felt happy she’d been able to offer the baby a welcome. 

We are all called to offer this baby a welcome—this baby who would grow up to remind us, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” 

Perhaps at this time of the year when we think of Christ coming to us in such a helpless form, we are moved to inconvenience ourselves just a little more, and to remember that it is the place of the strong to protect and care for the weak. Christians have done so for centuries, and we do so still. It’s cold in Poland tonight, but the Polish people have decided to go without the Russian coal they’ve used to heat their homes in order that doing so might shorten the war and end the suffering of their Ukrainian neighbors. 

On this night of all nights, we're asked to make room in our hearts and welcome this child—and all the children who are weak, cold, lonely, hungry, or afraid. And we can rejoice remembering that, as we welcome him, he also welcomes us. His home is always open to us, and we will always share something to eat and drink at his table. 

O, Holy Child of Bethlehem,

Descend to us, we pray;

Cast out our sin and enter in,

Be born in us today.

We hear the Christmas angels their great glad tidings tell.

O come to us, abide with us,

Our Lord, Emanuel.

 

Merry Christmas

Nadolig Llawen.

 

 

Holy Families (Reflections on Advent 4, Year A 2022)

 

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:20b) 

I have a funeral director friend who says there are lots of different ways to be a family. You don’t necessarily have to be swimming in the same gene pool, do you? In the gospel lesson for Advent 4, Year A (Matthew 1:18-25) God again shows off the divine penchant for the unconventional. I always liked this story because it highlights Joseph, a really good guy, who bucks the convention and becomes Jesus’ step-dad. 

As a step-dad myself, I’ve had a pretty easy time of it. The woman I call my daughter was already a grown woman by the time I started dating her mom, so I’ve been more “step” than “dad.” But this isn’t always the case, and taking on a ready-made family takes a lot of courage for lots of guys. No wonder the angel tells Joseph, “Do not be afraid.” 

In the world of the text, of course, when your girlfriend turns up pregnant and not by you, you’ve got a real problem. By law she could be stoned to death.[i] Joseph isn’t a vindictive fellow, so he just plans to break the engagement, making him both law-abiding and merciful. But God is about to take this awkward situation and turn it into the vehicle for the salvation of the world. 

The whole first chapter of Matthew’s gospel—this whole whacky family history—is a testament to God’s ability to take unlikely people and unlikely situations and use them to produce something wonderful. We can’t expect God to operate by our rules. Luther always liked to point out that Jesus’ pedigree wasn’t composed of all sticky-sweet perfect people. Besides the Virgin Mary, Matthew only lists four other women as leaves on Jesus' family tree—and they’re some pretty loose chicks. Their stories are the kind of Bible tales we don’t teach the kids in Sunday school. 

Take a look at Tamar[ii]. She’s something else. She married one of the sons of Jacob’s son, Judah, but her husband died before they had any kids. This was a pretty big issue in the ancient world as it left Tamar with no husband and no son to care for her in her old age. Under the levirate law of the day, she married her husband’s brother, but that guy bit the dust in an untimely manner too. She then asked Judah if she could marry his third son, but Judah figured this chick must be the kiss of death, so he denied her request. So what does poor Tamar do? When she learns her father-in-law is going off on a business trip, she sneaks off to the same place and disguises herself as a harlot (I like that word “harlot,” don’t you? It seems so less vulgar than some of its synonyms.). Judah, feeling frisky while on the road, figures he’ll hook up with a little female companionship and, not recognizing his daughter-in-law, sleeps with Tamar. She conceives, and her son is one of the direct ancestors of King David and Jesus—and the Bible takes her side. 

Matthew also mentions Rahab.[iii] She doesn’t disguise herself as a harlot. She is a harlot. That’s her job. But she worships the God of the Hebrews and hides Joshua’s spies inside the walls of Jericho, thereby assisting in Joshua’s capture of the city and the return of God’s people to the land God promised to their ancestor Abraham. Matthew also highlights Ruth, who could be considered a foreign gold-digger, and, of course, Bathsheba, who cheats on her husband with King David but becomes the mother of Solomon, and part of the family of Jesus. The Bible is full of unconventional relationships, but God always makes it work. 

There have been so many times over the years when couples who are virtually married except for the legal paperwork have asked me to baptize their babies because Catholic priests[iv] won’t baptize a baby born out of wedlock. I’m thinking, “Give me a break! Really, Father? You’re going to deny grace to a baby because you don’t like the way the parents did things?” 

Let’s face it—young people today do things differently. I’ve married several ready-made families, couples who chose to have children and purchase a home before splurging on the cost of a wedding. Some years ago one of my former Confirmands—whom I love like a son or at least a favorite nephew—asked me to baptize his son about a year before he asked me to marry him to the boy’s mom. That’s not the order in which I’d prefer to administer the Church’s rites, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his little boy with all his soul, or that he isn’t raising his son with integrity, affection, and faith. I know he is. 

Unmarried moms and dads might’ve made our parents uncomfortable. Same gender couples would’ve horrified them, and inter-racial couples would’ve put them into a coma. But our kids’ standards aren’t our standards, nor should they be. And maybe our standards aren’t always God’s standards. There are lots of different ways to be a family, and maybe a good take-away form today’s lesson is Joseph’s willingness to see beyond the convention and believe that God can use any situation to God’s purpose and glory. 

There are lots of ways to be a family. It’s a blessing to remember that in Christ we’re all family, all of us children of the same Holy Spirit.

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[i] See Deuteronomy 22:23-24

[ii] See Matt. 1:3. Her story is in Genesis 38.

[iii] Matt. 1:5. Her story is in Joshua 2ff.

[iv] I swear the ultra-conservative Philadelphia Archdiocese is the Archdiocese that Time Forgot. They’d push the altars back up against the walls and go back to the Latin mass if they thought they could get away with it.

Gaudete in Domino Semper! (Reflections on Advent 3, Year A 2022)

 

“Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see.’” (Matthew 11:4) 

Many years ago I attended a Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogue when the subject was “Ministry to the Dying.” As I talked with the priests I realized that our respective denominations don’t really have any differences in the way we approach this. Maybe my Catholic brothers lean a little more heavily on the sacramental aspects of this ministry, but, basically, we’re all just trying to provide some kind of comfort to the dying and their loved ones. We’ve all been trained in the Kubler-Ross five stages: shock, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, but the reality is most folks who are dying are in some kind of a coma and don’t even know they’re about to check out. Most of our ministry is to the bereaved. 

No disrespect to Dr. Kubler-Ross, but in recent years an alternative to her five-stages therapy has been suggested: the life narrative. That is, if somebody knows there’s not a whole lot of life’s road left ahead of them, you ask them to look backwards down the trail and recognize how important and impacting their life has been. You know. It’s kind of what Clarence the angel does for George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. You ask them to consider how their work benefited society, how they raised their kids, how much fun they gave their grandchildren, and what a good time they had doing all of it. The idea is they can then say, “Hey! I did a pretty good job in my life and, on balance, I don’t have anything to regret.” That is, after all, what we all want to be able to say, isn’t it? 

In our gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Advent in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary (Matthew 11:2-11) we find John the Baptist nearing the end of his earthly journey—an end that’s coming uncomfortably early. John’s gone and pissed off King Herod’s missus, and that’s landed him in jail. And, if you’re in the lock-up in the ancient Mediterranean world, the chances of your getting out with all your body parts intact is speculative at best! 

You have to wonder what’s going through John’s mind. I’m sure he knows his hour glass is running out of sand. Can’t you just picture him sitting in that dark dungeon asking himself if it’s all been worth it? “Did I do right?’ he asks. “Is this Jesus dude really the guy we’ve been waiting for?” He’s noticed how Jesus’ message seems different from his own. He’s been telling people to shape up and get their act together, but Jesus is telling them they’re loved by God and included in God’s kingdom. Some of his disciples come to comfort him, and he asks them for some assurance that he’s got the right guy. 

So what does Jesus do? Have you noticed that Jesus very rarely gives a straight answer? He’s always asking us to figure stuff out on our own. Instead of just saying, “Yeah, tell John I’m the hoped-for Messiah,” he tells them to present their prophet the evidence. “Tell John what you hear and see.” That’s probably a much more comforting response. John won’t have only Jesus’ word, he’ll have the deeds of power that are overwhelmingly convincing. And, if he’s got a date with the guy with the ax (which he does), he can go content and at peace. 

I’ll admit this doesn’t sound like something you’d want to start dancing the twist over—a martyr in a dungeon questioning his own ministry while awaiting decapitation. But the focus for this Sunday isn’t on John’s dilemma. It’s on the powerful works of God done through Jesus. That’s why we light the pink (or “rose”) candle on Advent 3. This Sunday is historically known as Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday[i]. If Advent 1 tells us to stay awake and Advent 2 tells us to repent, Advent 3 tells us to rejoice and look at all the blessings God has done for us and all the ways God has used us. We may feel like we’re sitting in a dungeon like John the Baptist, but we’re still God’s people, still heirs to God’s promise, still loved, and still blessed with the Holy Spirit to see God’s goodness at work. 

So what do you hear and see? 

When I look at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia, I can see God at work. I can see the literal tons of produce and non-perishable food items which have been—and continue to be—donated by God’s people to God’s needy people. I can hear one of my former confirmands tell me how she’s organized a food and personal care drive at her school. I can hear senior citizens playing bingo on Wednesday afternoons in our lower fellowship hall and know that we’ve created a place for companionship and fun for our retired neighbors. I can see the shopping cart full of Christmas gifts you saints have donated for needy, traumatized children. I can hear the AA meetings conclude with the words of the Lord’s Prayer and know that God has used this building as a place of healing. I can hear and see all these things and so many others because God’s people are here, and they have heard God’s word. 

We may feel that we are least in the Kingdom of Heaven, but we have cause to rejoice over what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will continue to do in our lives.

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[i] The word is pronounced gow-DET-eh (I’ve mispronounced it for years. If you’re reading this, Fr. Jack, I apologize). It comes from the first line of the Gregorian chant which is used in some Roman Catholic churches as an introit: Gaudete in Domino semper—Rejoice in God always.

Come Back! (Reflections on Advent 2, Year A 2022)

 

"John Preaching" Mattia Preti (17th Cent.)

This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.’” (Matthew 3:3) 

It’s hard for me to believe, but I’m currently celebrating my twenty-fifth Advent season as pastor of Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia. (Where the heck does the time go?) One of the things I recall about those first Advents was the great Christmas-Versus-Advent-Hymn Debate. Liturgical wonk that I am, I maintain that it isn’t actually Christmas until it’s Christmas. Advent is a time of preparation, so let’s not jump the liturgical gun by singing Christmas songs when we’re not there yet. But, no! Some of the old-timers in the parish balked at the unfamiliar tunes to be appropriately crooned during the season of blue paraments, and insisted that God would not smite us with a bolt of lightning if we sang a chorus of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” or “The First Noel” before the evening of the 24^th of December. An argument used in opposition to their pastor’s insistence on seasonal purity was, “Pastor, we always used to sing Christmas songs in Advent, and they always made us feel good.” 

Ah. So that’s it. You want to feel good. 

That’s not always easy this time of year, is it? You can turn on the radio and hear Burl Ives telling you to have a holly-jolly Christmas, but you may not feel like getting your jingle on. And you may also feel guilty about not “getting into the spirit of the season” like the culture says you’re supposed to. Everything is expensive this year and we’re still smarting from the effects of COVID. Maybe your kids are grown, or you’ve lost a loved one, or you’re dealing with an illness. Maybe stuff just isn’t like it used to be in the good ol’ days. 

So you come to church, and the first two gospel lesson for this season turn out to be total bummers. On Advent 1 we’re told that we should keep alert because tribulation is unpredictable. Well, that’s cheery, isn’t it?[i] And on Advent 2 we have that whacky prophet, John the Baptist, telling us to repent, and talking about chaff being burned with unquenchable fire. This may not be the stuff you want to hear right now. 

So who is John talking to in our gospel for Advent 2 (Matthew 3:1-12)? He’s got two distinct audiences. He’s ranting at Pharisees and Sadducees whom he likens to poisonous reptiles. These smug, holier-than-thou guys probably came out to the wilderness so they could look down their stuck-up noses at John and declare him to be an outlaw preacher with no credentials. John reams them out for their self-satisfied hypocrisy. 

All these centuries later there are still plenty of reasons to call out the folks in power, and plenty of modern-day prophets willing to do it. Al Gore can warn about climate change. Bernie Sanders can declaim the dangers of income inequality. All the Black Lives Matter folks can instruct us on the sin of systemic racism. And the Christian Church as an institution has a responsibility to speak these truths to power. 

But… 

There’s a second group to whom John preached. They weren’t the rich and the powerful. Some were city folk, but some were just rural peasants. They were just the poor, work-a-day slobs who came out to the wilderness hungering for a word from God in this crazy and painful world. I don’t think John was calling them out. 

He was calling them back. 

John’s cry to repent was a cry to God’s people to get back to the promise God intended for them. John preached from the wilderness, the place where God’s people were formed after they’d been freed from bondage in Egypt. Matthew characterizes him as the one predicted by Isaiah who will cry, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight.” This is a reminder of God’s people returning to the Promised Land after 70 years of exile in Babylon. Even John’s whimsical apparel and diet harken back to the prophet Elijah, another pretty crazy dude who tried to keep the nation on the straight and narrow during a time of corruption and apostasy a few centuries earlier. 

We’re told that people came to be baptized, confessing their sins. Yet the word the Bible uses for “sins” in the Greek isn’t anomia (anomia) which means “wickedness” or “lawlessness.” Matthew says the people were confessing their hamartias (‘amartias), which might be translated as “imperfection,” or just not feeling whole or right. I think John is trying to call these people back to a place of hope and a place where they recall the promise God made to Abraham to bless them so they might be a blessing to others. John awakens in them a longing to be the people they were meant to be, people who could receive and love and follow Jesus as their Messiah. 

On this Second Sunday of Advent, let’s let John call us back to our purpose. When I first started seminary, I’d hoped to be a city pastor, one who ministered to an underserved community. Perhaps we are now that community, feeling forgotten or overlooked by the culture. If so, I have good news to tell you: God has not forgotten us. God is still ready to call us back to our purpose of regular prayer, regular worship, care for one another, and purposeful generosity to this neighborhood in which we find ourselves. We have done so much good in the past, but we still have more good to do, more possibilities, more ways to be God’s hands. 

God is not finished with us. Knowing that should make us all feel pretty good.

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[i] You know I’m being sarcastic here, right?

Be On Alert! (Reflections on Advent One, Year A 2022)

 

“Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42) 

I always find the First Sunday in Advent a tad vexatious. I’m just not comfortable with this Second Coming stuff, and I don’t imagine many people are. The texts are always so confusing. For several years I’d find a guest preacher to give the Advent One message so I wouldn’t have to deal with all this disagreeable “The-End-Is-Coming-And-It’s-Going-To-Suck!” stuff.[i] 

If we read a little further back from where our gospel pericope (Matthew 24:36-44) starts, we’ll hear Jesus making some really frightening predictions about what’s about to hit the fan. This will include warfare, famine, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, natural disasters, persecution of the faithful, mass apostasy, the increase of lawlessness, and a huge desire among the faithful to get the hell out of Dodge before stuff gets any worse. The result of all this, besides some terrible suffering inflicted on just about everybody, will be a bunch of idiots claiming they know what this is all about. Jesus warns the apostles—and us—not to listen to any of these false messiahs or false prophets. 

The problem we have with all this tribulation described in Matthew Chapter 24 is all the aforementioned awfulness is always happening, and some idiot is always trying to tell you they know why God’s allowing it to take place. “We are in the End Times,” they’ll tell you. Well, maybe we are and maybe we’re not. 

What we do know is that something really terrible did take place in Judea from 66 to 72 CE. It involved the destruction of the Temple and a war with the Roman occupiers which ended really badly for the Jews. I can only imagine what these folks suffered. We don’t think Christians—being Christians and committed to non-violence—participated as belligerents in the Jewish uprising, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t suffer. Anytime you get caught living in a war zone, things are going to be really, really bad. The Romans didn’t have the sort of awful weapons the Russians are currently using on Ukraine, but they were just as merciless. They didn’t give a rip if someone was a pacifist Christian or a Jewish revolutionary. They destroyed infrastructure and cut off food supplies and killed indiscriminately. When it was all over, there was nothing left but wreckage and rubble and hunger. The way it is with all wars. 

Jesus may have seen this coming, or Matthew might be attributing the prophecy to him in hindsight. In any event, the message is this: tribulation will be unpredictable, and the ones who tell you they have it all figured out are feeding you nonsense. We all need to keep our hearts alert for the things of God, because we cannot control what will happen. 

This is the great paradox of Advent. We’re supposed to prepare, but how do you prepare for that which you can’t control? And how do you keep alert when you’ve got so much preparation to do? I’ve already strung up my Christmas lights and done a little shopping, but I still have Christmas Eve sermons to write, music to select, visits to make to shut-ins, and a bunch of other things to do to get ready for Christmas. I’m one of those dudes who actually likes going to the mall at the last minute. I kind of thrive off of the chaos of this season. But with so much busy-ness, how do we stay alert? 

Have you ever found yourself so involved in the preparation for an event that you don’t actually experience the event when it arrives? I’m always amused when I see concerts on TV and people are holding up their phones to record the moment, but they don’t seem to be living in the moment they’re recording. 

Our time of preparation needs to have some time to be alert to the things of God. It’s time to find the quiet moment to ask yourself what this season truly means to you. Don’t just give the catechism, doctrinal answer. Who is Jesus to you? What difference does it make that God became flesh and entered this world? Why does it matter that you are a Christian? You’ve heard the Christmas story a million times, so what is it about this story that makes you want to hear it again? If we’re going to spend the next 29 days going crazy, is it just so we can have a winter party? 

There’s a popular term I’ve heard in the last few years: mindfulness. I think it just means keep alert. Keep alert to how you’re feeling. Keep alert to the feelings of the people around you. Keep alert to the world, to the color of the sky, the breeze, the naked trees, the smells of the season. Keep alert to what God has already done in your life. 

Slow down. Be aware. Because God has a way of showing up unexpectedly.

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[i] I thought this year I’d just fob this off on Pastor Natt, my distinguished Liberian colleague who has been serving as our Assisting Minister, but since I’ve been out two Sundays on vacation and then missed two more because I got COVID, I figured I’d better Pastor-Up and preach on this one before the congregation forgets what I look like!

No Worries (Reflections on Thanksgiving 2022)

 

Text: Matthew 6:25-33

“…and can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” (Matthew 6:27) 

What do you do when you’re isolating with COVID-19? Watch old movies on Youtube, of course. During my recent quarantine I found this old rom-com from the ‘90’s called It Could Happen to You. The plot is about this NYC cop who splits a lottery ticket with a coffee shop waitress as a tip, and they end up winning millions of dollars. Silly, I know, but there’s this one scene in the coffee shop where the officer watches the waitress being particularly kind to a sickly looking young man. He whispers to her, “He’s got it, hasn’t he?” She nods in assent. 

He’s got it? It took me a second or two to remember. “It” was HIV/AIDS, the pandemic which ravaged entire neighborhoods back in the mid1980’s. After two and a half years of COVID, George Floyd’s death and Black Lives Matter, an attempted coup and attack on American democracy, innumerable climate disasters, an immigration nightmare, a war in Eastern Europe, and gargantuan inflation I’d almost forgotten about that diabolical virus which killed so many and had us so worried back in the day. 

Funny, isn’t it, how one disaster or crisis can make us forget the disasters and crises which came before it? It also makes us forget that we somehow manage to survive each of these existential threats as they come along. Martin Luther reminds us the very confession of God as Father Almighty and Creator is a declaration that “God protects me against all danger and shields and preserves me from all evil.” Which is not to say that bad things won’t happen to us. They certainly will, but we are shielded from despair and eternal destruction. Knowing this and trusting in this gives us the courage to go on even in the face of disease, violence, and the spookiness of inevitable change. 

Why a national holiday just for giving thanks? Why not? I’ve often called Thanksgiving the “forgotten holiday.” It gets squished between the over-the-top gaudiness of Halloween and the over-the-top commercialism of Christmas. That’s a shame, because, if we look at how this holiday came to be, we will certainly find some really inspiring stuff. Yeah, we all know about the First Thanksgiving back in 1621. School kids see their classrooms decorated with pictures of those Pilgrims in their tall hats, feasting on turkey, and showing remarkable neighborliness with the Native Americans whose land their descendants are about to steal. But that first feast—which may or may not have involved turkey—came after a brutal year in the wilderness when the Massachusetts Bay Colony lost one half of its members. Think about that: one in every two of those brave seekers of religious freedom was dead before the first year was over. 

Now, I’m thinking there must’ve been a pretty strong desire among those folks to turn the Mayflower around and decide the Church of England wasn’t so bad after all. But instead of mourning their tragedy, they decided to stick it out and offer thanks to God that they were still there, still alive, still provided with food, and still able to worship as they chose. 

So the harvest feast of gratitude became an American tradition. It didn’t become a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln signed it into law in 1863—right in the middle of the Civil War. Lincoln gave in to a lady named Sarah Josepha Hale who had been lobbying for 17 years to make a day of Thanksgiving an official, national observance. If we consider the soul-crushing violence of those days, we couldn’t imagine a crappier time to say, “Thanks, God. Everything’s swell.” But Lincoln had a little more vision and insight. I guess he knew that, as bad as things were, they could’ve been a lot worse. He figured that, if God was inclined to punish America for slavery and bloodshed, this would certainly be the time. But God was still good. There could’ve been a famine, but there wasn’t. European powers could’ve taken this opportunity to attack and claim territory (which really kept old Abe up at night), but they didn’t. All northern industry could’ve collapsed, and the Union could’ve been destroyed, but it wasn’t. So Lincoln told the nation: 

“I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.” 

Such a prayer would not be amiss today. 

I can't say that things haven't been tough here at Faith these last few years. We’ve had to make due with a lot less than we’ve had in the past. Since the start of the pandemic in 2020 twelve of our members have passed away, some have moved away, and some have gone to nursing facilities. Things change, but God doesn’t. 

We give thanks tonight for our friendship with the Beersheba Seventh Day Adventist congregation, the Auctus AA group, the Golden Age Seniors, our Girl Scouts, the Never Surrender Hope support group, our Sunday School and VBS, our partnership with our Synod, the 355 pounds of food and personal supplies we just sent to Feast of Justice, and the abundant produce from our vegetable garden which feeds the hungry in our neighborhood. And we can be thankful for our new friendship with the Grace and Truth Bible Church whose members will begin worshiping here starting next month. God has used and continues to use this facility to God’s purpose and to God’s glory as a place of compassion here in Northeast Philadelphia. 

We can’t see what lies before us, but we can look back and see what’s behind us. As Americans and as members of this congregation we have been through so much in the past. Surely, there will be hard times ahead. But we will endure. God is good. ALL the time. 

No worries. Only thanks.

God Save the King! (Reflections on Christ the King, 2022)

 

“Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’” (Luke 23:34) 

Several times in my theatrical past I had the bizarre pleasure of working with a brilliant but totally eccentric lunatic named David Perry. David was one of the senior tutors of the British Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and a wonderful—if completely unpredictable and quixotic—director of classical theatre. He frequently flitted back and forth between America and the UK.  Don’t get me started on David Perry stories—the man was nuttier than squirrel poop—but I must say I learned a lot from him. 

I recall taking one of David’s classical acting courses and watching him demonstrate to a timid student how to play a Shakespearean king. Nobody was as grand, elegant, or flamboyant as David, and I doubt he’d have any trouble passing for royalty. He even boasted (I suspect after he’d made a careful perusal of Burke’s Peerage) that he was, himself, something like seventy-fifth in line to the throne of England. I entertained myself with the notion that, should seventy-four British aristocrats meet an untimely demise, the British public would be in for one wild ride with David as their king. 

One of the students asked David if the British monarch had any actual governing authority. He informed us the monarch still possessed two sovereign powers—the power to grant pardon and the power to bestow honors. 

In the gospel lesson appointed for Christ the King, Year C (Luke 23:33-43) Jesus appears at his least regal if judged by the standards of this sinful world. Here is the Lamb of God hanging helpless, impaled on a piece of wood to be scorned and ridiculed and left to die as an outcast and a criminal. Crucifixion was the punishment for those the Romans didn’t view as being quite human enough to deserve a more dignified or humane form of execution. A Roman citizen like Saint Paul, if found guilty of a crime (as Paul was), could be swiftly beheaded. Disgraced aristocrats even had the option of committing suicide. There was nothing so swift or painless for foreigners and peasants. The criminal justice system, then as now, was always more lenient for the wealthy and well-connected. A pesky Galilean like Jesus was not only put to a gruesome death, but one which involved the utmost shame. The sign reading “This is the King of the Jews” is meant as a disdainful mockery of both the condemned and those who called him Lord. 

And yet, it is here in this moment of weakness, pity, and horror that Jesus’ royal authority is most on display. The King has the power to grant pardon, which Jesus does, not only for the penitent thief, but for all of those who have participated in his execution. “Father, forgive them,” he says. Additionally, it is the King’s prerogative to bestow honor. Jesus does not offer the un-named thief a knighthood, but he promises this dying man that he will soon have his portion in Paradise. The King remembers the sinner and grants him full citizenship in the Eternal Kingdom. 

Even one who is a king in name only has the power of presence. During the London blitz in World War II King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were sequestered away from London each night for their protection. Every day, however, they returned to their bomb-damaged residence and made frequent personal tours of the devastation caused by the bombing raids on the city. The king believed it was important for the people to see the monarch was with them, that he cared about them, and that he was enduring some of the same hardships. The king had to show up. From the cross Jesus shows up for us. Here Jesus shares all of our hardships—betrayal, abandonment, failure, physical pain and weakness, humiliation, helplessness, and impending death. This is where Jesus meets us. This is where the royal presence is felt. 

As loyal subjects of the King, we possess the royal authority and can exercise the King’s power in the King’s name. We each have the power to grant pardon to those who have sinned against us. We can forgive. We can let go. We can decide to be reconcilers and not blamers or grudge-holders. We also have the power to bestow honor. Whenever we decide to look at another human being and see Christ in them—the loving and the suffering Christ—we honor them. We honor them when we care for their needs, when we work to insure they are treated with justice, when we are willing to say to another, “You matter to me because you matter to Jesus.” 

Finally, we have the authority to show up as the King’s representative. We can be with one another in sickness, death, divorce, depression, job loss, or everyday confusion. We can do some grocery shopping, give a ride to the doctor or to the airport. We can help paint a house or move a houseful of furniture. We can make a meal, watch some kids for a few hours, shovel a walk, or rake a lawn. In all of these tiny ways we exercise a royal ministry of presence. We show up. It’s what our King does, and what He models for us. 

Jesus passes royal power to the Church. We have his power to forgive and pardon, to bestow honor, and to see even in our weakest moments—and, perhaps, only in such moments—where our real strength lies. 

A blessed Thanksgiving to you, dear friend, and an inspiring Advent season! 

Do We Need a Different House of God?

I smile when I think of the handful of times—over two decades ago—when I had the honor of preaching at the Cowboy Church at Woodstown, New Jersey’s Cowtown Rodeo. Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a church. It was a lean-to tent propped against the rodeo office. A congregation of ropers, rough stock riders, and barrel racers sat on bales of straw. Two 1” X 6” planks were nailed together to form a cross, and a karaoke machine served as the sound system. But it was still church. 

I’ve never seen the great cathedrals of Europe, but I’d willingly donate a kidney and possibly a portion of my liver for the opportunity to worship God in the majesty of Chartres Cathedral or Saint Paul’s in London or—dare I say it being a Lutheran?—even Saint Peter’s in Rome. These glorious houses of worship reflect a passion for the divine, an attempt, however inadequate, to reflect in art and opulence the wonder and mystery of God. I imagine I’d stand in these great monuments to faith with a really stupid look on my face whispering, “Dang! This is really church!” 

Alas, I don’t get quite that thrill in many of our American mid-century worship spaces. They have neither the homely simplicity of the little country clapboard church nor the powerful and exquisite inspiration of the cathedral. They seem to be stuck someplace in the middle. They strike me as big barns, simple, yet profoundly uninteresting. I have to wonder what we were thinking when we built these churches. We made them huge but totally lacking in aesthetic expression. It’s as if our post-war American hubris was at odds with our introverted Lutheran nature (Or maybe we were afraid too much artistic beauty might make us look like we were copying the Roman church—Haven forbid!). 

I’d be willing to bet many of these worship spaces—which make up the lion’s share of the footprint on any church property—stand empty Monday through Saturday and fill to only about 25% capacity on Sunday. We all know the crowds these halls were built to hold just don’t turn out like they used to. What’s more, the upkeep on such gargantuans is mind-blowing. The cost to heat and cool and insure and keep in repair must leave the congregants gaping in terror as they watch the bequests of previous generations of Lutherans get sucked away inch by inch, year by year. 

And yet, the parts of these facilities not consecrated for worship—the Sunday School classrooms, the fellowship spaces, the kitchens—may be anthills of activity on weekdays. They’re jammed with 12-step groups, childcare or adult daycare centers, food cupboards, or any number of local programs serving folks who will never venture into the cavernous worship spaces on Sunday morning.

It seems to me that many of our congregations, either from financial necessity or out of a sense of mission, have opened their doors to their neighborhoods and turned our churches into community centers. And that’s not such a bad thing, is it? If the church has now become the community center, why don’t we decide to build intentional community centers? 

So much usable area on church property is taken up by worship spaces which are both obsolete and intimidating. Many were constructed with the idea that they would always seat well over a hundred worshipers on a Sunday who would sing traditional Euro-centric hymnody with a 30-voice choir accompanied by a monstrous pipe organ. But current worship numbers have declined, and musical preferences have changed. Even some of our old liturgical practices have evolved. I think of the custom of having two reading desks in the chancel, a lectern for laity and a pulpit for the clergy. This once had a symbolic meaning but now has become just an idolatry (and one at odds with our Lutheran confessional understanding of the Priesthood of all Believers). Yet many of our churches have this architectural anachronism built in to their worship spaces.

There’s also an intimidation factor inherent in our vaulted-ceilinged giants. I ask myself if a huge, pitched roof building with a cross and steeple might say “You’re not welcome here if you’re not a Christian” to the roughly 33% of our fellow Americans who identify with no religious affiliation[i]. I would hope that the House of God would be open to everyone and anyone who could benefit from the services provided within. 

Here's what I propose: Let’s build new structures specifically designed to house community services such as childcare centers, preschools, AA meetings, food cupboards, after school drop-in centers and the like. Let’s openly invite NGOs to share these spaces and contribute to their upkeep. Let’s involve our ecumenical partners, too. Centrally located within each facility—possibly opposite the restrooms for maximum visibility and foot traffic—would be a small chapel seating 50 to 70 worshipers at most. I imagine the altar being placed in the center of the room like the table in the old Roman house churches, “democratizing the space” as Nadia Bolz-Weber has said[ii]. The chapel could be shared by different religious communities, and there could be a wide number of worship times to accommodate the schedules of worshipers. 

The chapel would not require a massive pipe organ or a choir stall. Its doors would be open when the building was in use so anyone passing could take a moment to step inside and have quiet time with God. Activities and worship times would be posted outside the door to be easily accessible—and much easier to read than a church signboard one passes while driving thirty miles per hour down a busy street. 

An assessment of specific community needs would have to precede the creation of one of these community center/churches. Instead of being constructed new, such a church might be planted by repurposing an existing structure such as a closed store. Synods could fund these new centers from the sale of closed churches. 

I’ll grant that it will be tough for us to watch some of our old buildings go the way of all flesh. Nevertheless, maintaining our current facilities is like dragging a dead camel across the desert. If our buildings aren’t serving our mission, it’s time to get rid of them. Can we create something new which can be used by anyone regardless of religion or lack of same, is designed to provide the sort of services our neighbors need, and yet still can house a comfortable and comforting worship space appropriate to the size and styles of our 21^st century congregations? 

 

 [i] See Pew Research Organization’s article here: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-religious-composition-has-changed-in-recent-decades/

[ii] https://onbeing.org/programs/nadia-bolz-weber-seeing-the-underside-and-seeing-god-tattoos-tradition-and-grace/