What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, November 29th, 2009

1st Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33:14-16 • Psalm 25:1-10 • 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 • Luke 21:25-36

"[Jesus said:] 'There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see 'the Son of Man coming in a cloud' with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.' Then he told them a parable: 'Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.'"

Do you know what time it is? What time is it?

One of the things I remember loving most about the Chicago Bulls during their more glorious years in the 1990’s was what they did just prior to the game in the hallway leading out to the stadium. They would all gather around, and put their hands into the middle of the huddle, and one of them would shout, “What time is it?” And the rest would shout, “Game time! Huh!” Everyone watching knew they meant serious business after that point. There was no more preparation to do, it was time to put it all out on the floor…it was the appointed time.

Now is an appointed time, a time to “put it all out on the floor.” It is a time of in-between, a time of already and not yet. It is the advent of Christ who is with us. Advent is a hopeful time of celebrating what we know awaits at its end…isn’t it? So, why is it today that the lectionary gives us gloom and doom—visions of the end-times? Jesus gives us a vision in Luke’s Gospel that jolts us as we begin the season of Advent. Today we come already looking ahead, expecting this present time not to be an end-time but a beginning-time, of a new church year, of new birth, of new life, of new expectation… But we hear Jesus say, “People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken…Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place…” (Lk 21:26,36) It is Advent, but we’re confused—what time is it? “Do you know what time it is?” We may not seem to have an answer at first.

It turns out that Advent is not just about God breaking in upon us in four weeks—in the birth of Christ—but it’s about all the ways that God comes to us—even right now, and even at the end of all time. God’s advent comes now, comes to us today in Christ…and it comes in this season…and it comes at the end. Today we begin the church year at that end, at the last page of God’s relational covenant with us. In this ending we know where our ultimate hope is, and it lies with God.

There are many, many messages out there that seek to put certainty on what will happen to us at the end times. Does everyone remember 1999, when so many were wondering, “was this the end? Would the apocalypse come? Would computers crash, would planes fall out of the sky…would the world end?” And even today, movies like 2012 seek to give us images of the world ending at times and in ways that are alarming and that we least expect.

We are confronted today with this end, but this end is not an end for God the way we may see it as an end. Today God proclaims that hope in the last things does not come from us…but from God, who will fulfill the promise of eternal life, of renewing a right-relationship with us, of Christ who will stand resurrected and alive with us. Today we renew our trust that we have good reason for hope…and that reason is not us…it’s God.

And so the question today as we begin Advent has become, “not what time is it?”, but whose time is it? And it is God’s time. And God’s time to come—whether it is Christ’s birth, whether it is Christ’s coming again—is not up to us. God in Christ grounds us as we live in an in-between time this Advent season—in both the already, and in the not yet. As we await God’s expected future, the promised return of Christ to “make all things new”, we do not get ahead of ourselves, we do not go ahead to meet Christ…Christ promises to come to us…even in the midst of uncertainty and confusion of what that end will be like. Christ has come…Christ will come again…God has and will take the initative! God is on the move….for it is indeed an appointed apocalypse time—an apocalypse not of fear or worry, but an appearing, a dawning, an advent..of hope in what God is up to.

Today’s warning of the end-times, of the apocalyptic return of Jesus invites us to examine where does our hope lie? We so want to insist on God’s timing to be our timing…for the fullness of God to be now. We find so many forces around us desiring to tell us December 25^th is already here, which we see as we walk around shopping malls, and hear radio stations that already have 24/7 Christmas music… Today the promise of Christ to stand with us in the end changes us, and wakes us up to see advent today. We can live out of a future not that we determine, but out of a future grounded in God …through God’s hopes, and God’s vision of God’s promised relationship with us in Christ, all the way to the end of our story.

This week in particular, we pause on December 1^st for World AIDS Day, to remember God’s hope that we will live in a world where this disease that affects more than 34 million people no longer reaps such devastation. We do not have control over exactly when that day may be, but we will keep hope alive, because God does not sit by and watch this devastation happen. But quickly, quickly the advent of Christ comes now to stand with the afflicted, to bathe our present-time of suffering in the future-time hope that this is not all there is, this is not how it has to be… Our denomination, the E.L.C.A., even in this time of such disease, has said we are not on AIDS’ time….we are on God’s time…and God’s time has time for hope, for healing, for prevention and for solidarity with all who carry this disease. This past summer our denomination committed to funding a three-year $10 million dollar strategy towards global AIDS and malaria relief, as a way of saying we want to witness to God’s advent-time, where “hearts are not weighed down...” (21:34); where God strengthens our hearts in holiness and blamelessness (1Th 3:13) as we walk with our stigmatized and sick brothers and sisters.

“What time is it?” It is a time when we look to the apocalypses happening all around us—the visions of God in action in the world. It is a time to watch for God moving to bring healing and reconciliation to all things. It is time to hope in God who is Emmanuel, Christ with us, with us whatever may come. It is time to watch, to “stand up and raise [our] heads, for [our] redemption is drawing near.” (Lk 21:28)

And it is a time not to forget whose time it is. It is God’s time. In God’s time, God will initiate, God will speak to us who are expecting God to speak—to us who every Sunday practice speaking the hope we have, when in worship we say in the creed, “Christ will come again” and when we say in the Eucharistic prayer, ”Amen, come Lord Jesus”, and when we say in the Lord’s Prayer, “your kingdom come”. We expect God to come in Christ, to speak, to dwell in us. As we live in God’s time and God is alive in us, we live grounded in God, whose future Advent in Christ reminds us we are not bound to the present age, but free to hope in the age God is now preparing through us. Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, November 22, 2009

Christ the King
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 • Psalm 93 • Revelation 1:4b-8 • John 18:33-37

"Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, 'Are you the King of the Jews?' Jesus answered, 'Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?' Pilate replied, 'I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?' Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.' Pilate asked him, 'So you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.'"

Has the world as you know it ever completely fallen apart, crumbled before your eyes and been turned upside down? For certain people on this particular day, their source of life was literally being separated before their very eyes. Worlds were colliding, and creating uncertainty. The disciples’ close, close partnership that they had shared with Jesus in his ministry was crumbling. None of them wanted to be persecuted for admitting they followed Jesus. But Jesus had been the very one holding their group together, not to mention the lives of so many others…. He was now under direct threat, taken away by the Roman authorities and put on trial. If he were gone forever, would there be any meaning to their lives at all? What would hold them together, and keep them from disillusionment?

We all face this same dilemma: What holds our lives together? What keeps the world from falling apart, from dissolving into meaninglessness? We come today asking that very question as we look at our lives, our communities, our world around us and we see the fabric of what we hold dear being torn apart: with violence dividing those who have different beliefs; with poverty separating the rich and poor into different neighborhoods; with self-maximized individualism driving the separation of our faith from the home, work, political and leisure realms of our lives. What gives us hope and trust in our future can seem so far out of reach…we can seem so helpless in living lives divided from one another….

Pilate tries to keep the world together with absolute control….the way the world so often tries to handle things falling apart. Pilate grabs full and absolute control of the threat Jesus poses to keeping his rule secure. As a representative of the world’s most dominant political power in Jesus’ day, Pilate’s approach as he interrogates Jesus in John’s is to perpetuate the laws of the empire as the means to control the chaos Jesus stirs up. Pilate is so concerned with maintaining his role and perpetuating the rule of law, he focuses only on the legal matter at hand with Jesus. Pilate wants to know if Jesus says he is a king—that’s it. Pilate believes in holding the world together by his own authority….a power that will not last….

In this scene, a scene where the two greatest powers in the world confront one another….Jesus shows why it is he….it is he who is the one…who holds it all together…who keeps the world from falling apart in a way that is bigger than we can begin to imagine. Jesus’ power to diminish and subdue even the mightiest of Earthly authorities comes from his reign that he says “is not from this world.” (18:36) Jesus can reign because he’s the one who is both one of us, and yet who also is not from us, but comes from beyond this world—from God. Jesus names for Pilate what his life, what his person, what his being means: to be born human, to reveal the love of God in the world through himself and to testify to this truth for all who would hear and listen (18:37).

In this encounter with Pilate, Jesus’ testimony reaches the highest level of authority; Jesus’ testimony reaches not only the sick, the poor and the sinners, but to the world’s most influential. Jesus’ testimony is not bound by any Earthly status or level—he shares it with all. His influence goes beyond the weak and the mighty, beyond any category we may try to fit Jesus into or compare his Lordship to. Jesus’ hold on the world—and on the whole universe—is cosmic in its reach and scope.

After Pilate dismisses him, Jesus rule culminates not on a throne, but on a cross, which is his seat of glory. In Christ a tool for torture becomes a needle that knits together a broken world crying out for mending. On this cross Jesus unites himself to all things; and all things become redeemed through his conquering of death’s power forever. Jesus creates a tapestry of fabric through the cross that wraps and tethers and makes visible the meaning of God’s intention for the world. This doesn’t happen through chaos, not through stubborn resistance, not through complete control…but through love and mercy. Is it not good, brothers and sisters, to worship and to be ruled by mercy….to be ruled by love and mercy?!

It is not us who have to put the world back together when things fall apart. It’s not we who must regain control of the forces challenging our sanity and fracturing our lives apart. It’s Jesus’ rule that keeps the world together. God weaves the threads of Jesus’ truthful love beneath what we can see, and gives underlying meaning to the universe. It is altogether fitting and proper that we close out the church year today, as we close before it begins anew in Advent. We can look back today and see the reign of Christ who is the tether who has strung us together and bound all of the past year together in himself. This is the same tether we see as we look back at the handiwork of God in Christ making all things new in our lives.

As disciples of Christ, the one who reigns in and through all things…God has made us a part of this rule as subjects to Christ. We as disciples take into ourselves today, in body and blood, that ruler, that one who lays claim on us and we on him. As disciples of this Jesus we belong to the truth and listen to him who gives our lives meaning, who connects us to something so much bigger than our lives, and our universe. One very concrete way we as disciples can listen to and receive this gentle rule of Christ is to listen to the testimony of his life and words as they are told in scripture. This is an opportunity all are invited to on Sunday mornings in December during Adult Education Hour from 9:15-10:15am in the Lounge. For the first three Sundays in December, we will be hearing the Gospel of Luke read aloud in its entirety over the course of the three Sundays. What a unique opportunity to live in and grow in relationship with this Christ who upholds and mends us with us own life.

As we are sent today, we are sent not into a world where we have to make it on our own, but where Jesus holds us and the whole world by his love and mercy. May we seek to make visible that underlying hold that Christ has in our whole lives. We can reveal his gentle reign within the world that he mends…a world that he makes whole and that he truly brings to new life as he shapes us into his own people. Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, November 15, 2009

34th Sunday after Pentecost
Daniel 12:1-3 • Psalm 16 • Hebrews 10:11-25 • Mark 13:1-8

"As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, 'Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!' ²Then Jesus asked him, 'Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.' When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴'Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?' ⁵Then Jesus began to say to them, 'Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.'"

“Look, Rabbi! What large stones and what large buildings!” (13:1) Is it just me or do the disciples remind you of the three little pigs talking to the wolf who is about to devour them?! “Oooh! Temple! What large stones you have!” To which I can hear the religious elite replying inside, just like the big bad wolf, “All the more to crush and put down Jesus and your silly little band of followers…ah ah ah ah ahhh!” It’s so painfully evident that the disciples do not see the Jerusalem Temple for what it is—an enormous center for Israel’s political and religious life that abused and dismissed the poor and the weak, the majority of the population. Jesus quickly makes it plan for the disciples, however, saying, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” (13:2)

Today, these words could not come at a m ore co-incidental time for us. Today at our church’s annual meeting, after the 10:30am worship in Fellowship Hall, we will be learning about how parts of this temple to God are crumbling. The most urgent need is to repair the leaking belltower which needs significant exterior mortar repair.

Like the disciples, is can be so easy for us to look up at this grand space and say: “What large stones! What a large building!” And now easy it is for us to hear Jesus’ words and remember just how fragile this 1927 facility is. Unlike the disciples, however, we do not need Jesus to give us a sign to know when this church will crumble. It is happening! In light of the weakening stone of this building however, and in light of any loss, or of crumbling that we experience in our lives…the question we have for Jesus is, “How do we respond in such times—times when the world weighs us down, when loss exposes cracks and weaknesses all around us?”

We prefer to deny loss we see right in front of us. We avoid it…and try to hold on to our deceased loved ones…we try and hold on to a nostalgic time in our life that is gone. How much easier it would be to not have to deal with loss, or with change! But then the truth would not be in us…

Jesus, though, he has the guts to confess the hard stuff, to name the truth for the disciples that Earthly temples, Earthly kingdoms will be thrown down. Jesus does not deceive us! He does not force us to see something other than what’s plain in front of us; he does not hypocritically deny the truth to serve himself. Jesus gives an answer we can trust—he says, “I see your loss, I see your pain, I see the destruction around you. But…that is not the end. That doesn’t get the last word.”

Today is the last time we will get to hear from Mark’s Gospel until Advent 2012. We’ve been journeying with Mark’s Gospel for this past year, and I know I am going to miss it. Throughout this Gospel, Jesus is traveling on this road of truth, a road where his truth is in direct conflict with all who try to cover up the realities he sees. As he speaks these words of truth to the disciples about the Jerusalem Temple falling, he is speaking to them just a few days before his death. He knows it is eminent. He is about to reach the climax of his conflict with the authorities, the moment where he completely and utterly embraces the truth of our lives where he will in fact become the truth that will set us free—on the cross. The cross in Mark becomes the ultimate twist in God’s mission to mend our brokenness. The cross becomes that destroyed Temple, the place where “no stone [is] left upon another”, where all the veils we want to sugar-coat reality with come down. Today the destruction Jesus foretells leads us to the cross where God plays the joke no one expected—a joke that silences the power of death and loss on our lives. The cross becomes God’s final twist…that sets us free.

United Lutheran Church is crumbling. But, these are the pangs of new birth. The cracks of this place expose realities we can now face in hope, in faith and in love so that we may truly, truly live. We have some wrestling to do, but we do so because Jesus embraces us amidst our struggles and does not deny what we face.

As we move forward, we will do so following Jesus by his way of the cross. This is not a way to bring ourselves glory, but a way that seeks to bring God’s embrace of love and of justice to the world God loves so much.

The way of the cross does not make us cheery, but it does make us real and relevant. You may have heard of a song, “Our God is an Awesome God”, a song many of us may have learned at camp or at another church. The words go, “Our God is an awesome God, God reigns from heaven above, with wisdom power and love our God is an awesome God.” Now, this song might sound fun and great. We could call it the “cheery Christian anthem.” But if God is so awesome, why are our lives so imperfect, so messed up, so fragile? The truth…is that God is awesome, but God is awesome precisely because Jesus meets us in our loss and in our messed-up-ness. Jesus knows the truth: we don’t live in a black and white world, but a world where we mostly see grey, and it’s there where he brings his love and sets us free to live in giving the real and relevant Christ to all. We can admit we have faults; we can cry out against pain, violence, injustice, and the feeling of impotence in the face of what is happening around us…and Christ will continue to share that truth, and draw near to us in our truth…for his truth is love made known through our weakness.

May we have the courage to pick up our cross, the cross of Jesus’ loving embrace, the cross of Jesus’ joke that trumps loss. May we have the courage to be the church, to be a people who don’t just build temples and watch them fall, but who see loss and then build Jesus’ love and faith in the truth of God’s love. May we build a kingdom that is not bound by walls; where the streets have no name; where it’s all we can do. Christ promises to sustain such a kingdom forever. Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, November 1, 2009

All Saints Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9 • Psalm 24 • Revelation 21:1-6a • John 11:32-44

"When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.' When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, 'Where have you laid him?' They said to him, 'Lord, come and see.' Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him!' But some of them said, 'Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?' Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.' Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, 'Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.' Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?' So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, 'Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.' When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus come out!' The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, "'Unbind him and let him go.'"

When was the last time you cried? When was the last time you saw someone cry? Perhaps not that long ago. But here’s something that may go back even further: when was the last time you saw a man cry?

Brad had never seen his dad cry before. There were times he wondered if he ever would—if it was humanly possible for him. In everything that had happened to them in the last year, his dad hadn’t shed anything….even with mom’s death, and with moving and a new school and getting used to just the two of them… But one night at dinner Brad and his dad were eating, just talking about their day…and then…during a brief moment of silence…Brad…farted! And they both laughed! But his dad kept laughing...and laughing… And soon Brad couldn’t believe what he saw—his dad was crying, really really crying! And it was not just that a trickle had been turned on his dad’s eyes…but Niagra Falls was literally flowing down his cheeks! Brad said, “What’s wrong dad?” “Do you really want to know?” “Yes!” “Well, your mom was an amazing woman. But she did have her little quirks. When you just….did that…you reminded me of this time when…at night, we were asleep…and…she farted….she it was so loud she woke us both up! We laughed so hard! Wow…do I miss her…”

Tears indeed, for women and men, are a natural part of grief for us all. And Jesus is no exception. He doesn’t avoid holding back what triggers his floodgates. But up until his friend Lazarus died, his followers hadn’t seen him show that emomtion before. In fact, Jesus is so much in control I bet his followers were like Brad, wondering if this was some man of steel, or someone who truly felt what they felt. As he comes to Lazarus’ grave, Mary and Martha tell him Lazarus is dead—this is for real. And Jesus weeps. He wails. He lets it all hang out in front of everyone. For Jesus these tears mean that there was something he cared about…deeply. Jesus weeps and enters in to what he has lost—a friend. He enters into the grief of all who had cared deeply for Lazarus too. Jesus’ tears are not a pity-party, they are not wishing this hadn’t happened. Jesus’ tears feel the pain of loss, the pain of a world where we all shed tears when we lose someone we care deeply about.

But Jesus’ tears don’t just bathe his own face in water, Jesus’ doesn’t let his weeping stop there. Jesus tears go on to become the waters through which he passes to raise Lazarus to new life. At the beginning of John’s Gospel Jesus invites James and John to be his first disciples, to “come and see” (Jn 1:39), to follow him. Now, 10 chapters later, the tables are turned. Mary and Martha invite Jesus to “come and see” the reality they see, the reality of death. Jesus wades through his tears to go and see what no one else wants to see, what is stuck behind that stone in the cave, so he can bring new life. Out of tears, tears born from his love for the world, Jesus pours out waters that bring about resurrection life upon Lazarus, who comes out from the tomb, who was once dead, but because of Christ, he lives!

Jesus pours out those waters for us in our baptism—waters that peel away the strips of cloth that clothe us with death. Jesus sheds waters that place on us instead the white robes of righteousness through baptism. Jesus’ tears turn that death of Lazarus, and the death we all face, into a passage into God’s resurrection mercy.

Today on All Saints Sunday, we remember our loved ones and all our brothers and sisters in Christ whom we shed tears for…whom Jesus sheds tears for. Waters flow from us today for those who have died—for all who share our hope of God’s gift of eternal life in Christ. Here at United Lutheran, it has been a particularly painful year. Death has claimed many of our beloved—some very suddenly. I have heard people saying that we have shed a lot of tears, more than usual. Our hearts are heavy. But we do shed tears for the ones no longer with us. And those tears do surround those who have died—to bathe them and wash them and make them whole in God’s mercy. Even though we have cried many tears, Jesus cries these tears with us, and turns those waters coming out of us into baptismal waters that flow as freely as God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. We look back today and weep. And as we look around we see our tears flowing with others’…creating a pool of grace. And we look forward today, and see a pool of baptismal water joining us together, for there this is a well that continues to make us wet with God’s grace.

And so the waters that come from us do not just express sadness, or anger, or whatever feelings we have for died loved ones, water we shed unites us all to the body of Christ. Jesus’ tears unite us to the body of Christ. This is a body washed in baptism, and clothed in the promise of God’s grace. Today Jesus becomes the window through which we see that we live not in a world without death, but where death gives way to Jesus’ new life. We see today that we are a people Jesus cares about deeply. Jesus’ tears, the tears that wash us in baptism, call us to care for that which we will lose. Even as we see this week loss and death all around—with many troops and civilian casualties in Afghanistan, with the streets of Chicago still getting covered with young victims of violence, with an 18-month old baby found dead in an Oak Park house this past week—with all this as what we see, we also can see Jesus weeping, weeping tears for all of them. Jesus’ weeping births a different reality, a renewing compassion that creates “a new heaven and a new earth.”

Today we are sent as a people who have nothing to lose in comforting those who grieve—in reaching out to all who mourn…and making them visible. God sends us out as witnesses to Jesus, who is the most unexpected source of tears. When we see loss, Jesus’ tears send us to bear witness to his deep, deep well of abiding love for our hurts. It is in his tears, in his waters, that he makes the world new. Amen.