What Pastor Jon Preached on April 24, 2011

Resurrection of Our Lord: Easter Day
Acts 10:34-43 • Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 • Colossians 3:1-4 • Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you." So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Chris is risen! Alleluia!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Last Easter, I preached about hope amidst the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti. Sadly we are still dealing this Easter with yet another major earthquake, in Japan. Earquakes are a frequent occurrence in east Asia. Dana didn't expect this one to be that big. But it kept getting bigger. And bigger. Soon she started to hear things fall from the second floor of her home. She rushed to brace herself in a doorway on the first level of her house. Her home and her life which had once seemed so safe and secure were crumbling around her. Thankfully, she managed to escape catastrophe. But others were not as fortunate, as March 11 doled out death in Japan with aftershocks, a tsunami, and radiation. An enormous amount of buildings’ stone piled on top of thousands of the deceased—many of whom are still not accounted for. Dana is one of 22 missionaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving in Japan when the devastating March 11 earthquake hit. "This was truly horrible, and I pray that Japan can recover soon," Dana said. (http://www.livinglutheran.com/stories/holding-steady-in-japan.html)

The weight of those collapsed buildings on the deceased was the weight felt by Mary Magdalene and the other Mary as they went to Jesus' tomb. It was a weight of powerlessness and oppression, of dread and despair, and of loss and sadness. But suddenly...there was an earthquake--the same kind of eathquake that had just happened as Jesus breathed his last on the cross. (Mt. 27:51) Only this time, these women disciples were not witnesses to another tragic earthquake. In the midst of this shaking, rattling and quaking, these women now had their breath taken away because they were witnessing a teutonic, plate-shifting event that broke death down to pieces.

To the disciples, Jesus’ death had seemed so finite, so conclusive, so certain. Jesus' tomb had been made so secure after all, so no one would steal him. (Mt. 27:64) But God would not let that be the final word. God would not let the powers that be squelch the Godly love that Jesus lived with his life.

In looking at this story closely, we can even see the sarcasm in the Gospel writer Matthew's unique account of the resurrection. In the midst of this earthquake, he has an angel come and roll away the stone to Jesus' tomb...and that's not all. The angel sits on it. This rock, this physical barrier that was the key that kept those women disciples locked in fear...this rock, which had defined them as followers of a victim…this rock, which until then had kept them from God's presence…this rock, was no longer in control. And now, just to show how much God had turned Jesus' death on its head...God had the angel heralding the resurrection come...and sit on that very stone that had once seemed so final. God laughs in the face of Jesus’ death, and makes it into a throne—for the one who is the Lord of both life and death.

Not only did God do all this! God even brought those soldiers at the tomb to a literal stand-still. Matthew says: "For fear of [the angel] the guards shook and became like dead men." (Mt. 28:4) The resurrection earthquake even stilled death’s most rigorous enforcers.

It is the wonder of resurrection that god rolls away whatever weight causes us to believe…that our lives have as little significance as pieces of rock. God resurrects Jesus to shake us free into trusting that the things that what we did not think counted--faith, love and hope--does indeed count infinitely, in God's eyes.

What are the "stones" that are weighing down our dreams, hopes and embrace of God’s dreams and hopes for our world, our communities, and our lives? Grief about what loss? Estrangement from what relationship? Distraction from what that we truly value? Feeling lost from searching for what that can give our lives meaning? No matter what our answers are, the truth of this day, the absurd but trustworthy promise that is given in God's messenger angel, is that God sits and has the last laugh in the face of what weighs us down, so we can embrace God’s hope and dreams for us.

For one well-known celebrity, such a moment came in a stadium full of rock fans. Many years ago, Bono, the lead singer from the Irish band U2, was singing a concert in Arizona, and had received death threats from someone who didn't like that the band was publicly asking states to ratify bills that would create a national holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. A death-threat letter said that if they sang their song "Pride (In the Name of Love)", a tribute song to Martin Luther King Jr.’s passion for social justice, the band would not make it out the concert alive. As the band was in the middle of singing that song, Bono writes that:

"I do remember...thinking, for a second: ‘Gosh! What if somebody...had a handgun?' I just closed my eyes and I sang this middle verse with my eyes closed, trying to concentrate and forget about this ugliness...I looked up...and Adam [the bass player] was standing in front of me. It was one of those moments where you know what it means to be in a band." (Scharen, One Step Closer)

Whatever kind of music God sings with our lives, whether it’s singing a song about social justice in front of thousands, or a Bach cello suite at the foot of the fallen Berlin Wall, as the great cellist Mistlav Rostropovich did in 1989…today Jesus’ resurrection makes harmony out of lives. Today God says a bigger yes to life than to death, and empties us of our despair, so we can once again trust…that forgiveness, not might, makes right…that compassion is superior to power…that hope is stronger than despair…that there is more to this world than what we can see, hold and buy…that the sacred is indeed present in ordinary things and ordinary people.

In the days following the Japan earthquake, Tim McKenzie, an American history teacher at a Lutheran seminary in Tokyo, attended a graduation worship service for one of his seminarians. In spite of the earthquake, worship was not canceled, and during the service this was spoken during the Prayers of Intercession for the seminary graduate: "O God, we thank you for giving us this joy today." Tim said, “For me this is a sign of hope that the Japanese Lutheran [congregations] see God incarnate in their midst, as they seek to respond to the needs of Japan at this time." (Livinglutheran.com)

As the women disciples saw the risen Christ in their midst and grabbed hold of him, as Lutherans of Japan embrace the risen Christ in their midst, we too can embrace new life…starting with the most seemingly insignificant rituals of worship today: praying for the world, sharing Jesus’ body and blood, making music and waving our Alleluia banners. We can sit on the stone that God has rolled away—a stone that would otherwise lock us in fear. From that perch, we can believe once again that even the smallest acts of compassion and justice do matter to God. As Easter-ed people, we join the throngs no longer sitting on the sidelines, but who are getting in the game, and doing something a courageous as joining that angel, and climbing to the top of the rock that has been rolled away from Jesus’ tomb. Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, April 10, 2011

Fifth Sunday in Lent
Ezekiel 37:1-14 • Psalm 130 • Romans 8:6-11 • John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." But when Jesus heard it, he said, "This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God's glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. ... When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ... 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." Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. (John 11:1-6, 17, 32-45)


When I was on internship, I was part of a conference one day where a nursing professor was talking about death and dying. She said a line that I will never forget: “Last time I checked, we are all 100% terminal.”

With our Scripture readings for today we are presented with a rare opportunity to talk about life and death—not when there is a crisis, not when there’s an emergency. But about what God does for us despite the fact that we are all terminal. Last time I checked, that is.

There are a lot of ways that we try to deny that we are going to die. We don’t like to talk about it. There was a great story in the NY Times last summer called “The Pacemaker that Killed My Father”, about a man who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, and then had another doctor put a pacemaker in him who didn’t know he had Alzheimer’s. He was given life that tried to defy death. This man will now live longer with a de-habilitating illness than he could have. We live in a death-denying culture. We want to be cured more than we want to be healed.

All that Ezekiel and the Israelites saw around them was death. They didn’t have a choice to deny it. They were in exile, in captivity, under persecution in the area now known as Iraq. But the Lord gave Ezekiel a vision of resurrection—a vision of hope—a

vision of God taking dry, dead bones, and connecting one bone to another, giving them flesh, and giving them the animated Spirit breath of life! You remember the spiritual “Dem bones, dem bones, dem…dry bones.” There’s a reason African-Americans created this spiritual: it gave them hope in the midst of slavery.

It at that moment when Ezekiel prophesied that vision, it wasn’t about whether it was true, or whether it would happen. It was about God giving the Israelites hope. The Israelites had gone through a time when they only saw God as being alive in their Temple in Jerusalem. Now they were gone from that. Where was God?

Ezekiel prophesied: God was still with them. Dry bones and death could not keep keep God from breathing new life into this exiled place they thought God had given up on. What’s so amazing about Ezekiel’s vision is that it wasn’t the beauty or the awesomeness or the sacredness of the vision itself. It was what the gift of this future image of dry bones did for the Israelites in the present moment: it resurrected their present reality.

It’s funny, isn’t it? When we talk about death—we actually end up talking about our present lives. In one of his books (Will the Circle Be Unbroken) Studs Terkel interviews people about death no matter who the person is, when they start talking about death, they end up talking about the dreams they want to fulfill before they die, and stories about the deceased whose lives have influenced them, and stories of what they experienced at someone’s death. When we deal with death—we end up dealing with life.

Jesus sees death for all its ugliness. He weeps with all his heart at Lazarus’ tomb. It’s one of the rare times in the Bible when he truly lets all his sadness for the

human condition really hang out there. Jesus raises Lazarus not as a cure-all, not as something to have him live forever. Lazarus will die again. But Jesus raises him as a witness to the glory of God, for the sake of us who are witnesses to Jesus’ mercy even in the face of death.

We can be a part of giving that hope of Jesus in the face of death. Today United Lutheran is a part of over 1,000 faith communities across the country that are honoring “Lazarus Effect Sunday”, sponsored by the ONE Campaign. The “Lazarus Effect”, is the effect that Jesus has on Lazarus and on us by his rolling away the stones that keep us in the tomb of the stigma of death—an effect that doesn’t deny we will die, but that invites us to live our lives in relationship with the ONE, Jesus, who is our life and our resurrection. He is the ONE who is our “Lazarus Effect.”

What the ONE Campaign wants to remind us as congregations, is that the promise of new life in the face of hopelessness, is the same power he gives us to support those with the least amount of hope in our world—including the millions upon millions affected by the HIV/AIDS disease in Africa. Even though the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS is still 100% terminal, 40 days on Anti-Retro Viral drug therapies, costing 40 cents/day, sees an amazing improvement in the quality of life of someone who is living with HIV/AIDS.

In a short HBO documentary called “The Lazarus Effect” (which anyone can watch on You-Tube), we see the stories of HIV/AIDS patients Constance, Bwalya and Concilia who used to be skinny, frail, weak and hopeless. After taking their medicine, we see them gaining weight, strength and most importantly, hope. We see them rejoining their communities, and reconnecting with their friends and family again.

All this happens because they were given a dream, a vision of how they could live their lives differently—even in the face of death. We can support that dream given to Constance, Bwalya and Concilia by telling our government to continue funding the AIDS Global Fund which supplies these life-giving drugs by signing the ONE Declaration after church today or at www.one.org.

During Lent, we’ve been given a dream, vision, a hope. The “40 Days of Purpose” theme has included us reading Living Lutheran by David Daubert. In it he talks about ELCA congregations that are growing even in the face of what seems to be like a wider denominational dying process. A study in the late 1990’s showed that in growing congregations, it wasn’t about how many programs or activities a church had—it was about 1) how clearly they articulate their mission, and their purpose and 2) how open are they are to change for the sake of “being effective for God.” The urgency for catching this dream at United Lutheran is real!

God gives us dreams of a future to dream about our church’s future and to open us to embrace change for the sake God’s mission. God breathes this vision into our dry bones, the same breath where the dead are called to face life with hope. We as the church are here to live, not to count down to death, but to dream, to have a united vision of hope, even in the face of death.

What are the dreams, the visions, the hopes that sustain us in our lives—and as the church? Where are the valleys of dry bones or dark tombs in our lives that need to receive the breath of God today, or that need to receive Jesus hands reaching out to roll away the stones where we have given up?

As we head into the Holiest Week of the church year starting next Sunday, we will go into it walking with "40 Days of Purpose" under our belt. With God's help we have accomplished a lot this Lenten season! Today, we walk forwards to face Good Friday with visions of resurrection in our mind’s eye of dry bones coming to life, and of Jesus Lazarus out of his tomb. These dreams and visions will sustain us to face death, and live in hope of resurrection. Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, April 3, 2011

Fourth Sunday in Lent

I’d like to try something a little unique today.

Someone commented to me before Lent this year, “I hope we can discuss these 40 Days of Purpose questions, and not just be told about them!”

And we haven’t had a lot of time to discuss them together.

So I’d like us to look at the questions of ‘who we are as the church’ and ‘why are we here’ from the perspective of the man born blind in today’s gospel reading, and talk about that with one another.

To really get into this story it’s very important that we experience it, and not just hear it as an ancient story but experience our part in it.

But before we get to this incredible reading about Jesus healing a man born blind, I’d like to make a few introductory remarks about the story that you can keep in mind as you hear it.

1) Marginalization of John’s community. The man born blind is kicked out of the temple = John’s community being sent out? When do we feel marginalized, and when does faith in Jesus make us marginalized?

2) A story about sin. Disciples say sin = an effect, an action. Jesus = it’s the cause. It’s a sickness we are all born with. In this story, sin is broadened to mean more than just doing something bad—or worse, being ‘burdened’ with a disability like blindness. Sin is an illness we are all stricken with. Realizing the depths of how deep our sin goes gives us perspective in this story to see how deep Jesus’ love is for the man born blind.

3) Many of us may say we abide by the phrase, “seeing is believing.” I’ll believe it when I see it! For the man born blind, when Jesus heals him, the opposite is true. “Believing is seeing.” The man is given sight because of his faith that he trusts God is present in the person of Jesus Christ—not because he can see, but because he experiences God in this man.

Let’s number off by 3:

#1’s will have their eyes closed during the whole reading

#2’s will close their eyes at the beginning, but regain sight when the

man born blind does

#3’s will have their eyes open the whole time.

After the reading we will talk with each other about what we experienced.

As [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God's works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man's eyes, saying to him, "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam" (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, "Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?" Some were saying, "It is he." Others were saying, "No, but it is someone like him." He kept saying, "I am the man." But they kept asking him, "Then how were your eyes opened?" He answered, "The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, 'Go to Siloam and wash.' Then I went and washed and received my sight." They said to him, "Where is he?" He said, "I do not know."

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, "He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." Some of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath." But others said, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, "What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened." He said, "He is a prophet."

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, "Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?" His parents answered, "We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself." His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, "He is of age; ask him."

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, "Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner." He answered, "I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see." They said to him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" He answered them, "I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?" Then they reviled him, saying, "You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from." The man answered, "Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." They answered him, "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?" He answered, "And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him." Jesus said to him, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." He said, "Lord, I believe." And he worshiped him. Jesus said, "I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, "Surely we are not blind, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, 'We see,' your sin remains." (John 9:1-41)

Discuss the following questions on your quarter-sheet:

1) When have you felt isolated or abandoned? How do you think this passage addressed those feelings in John’s community? How might this story address United Lutherans when we feel left out, alone or marginalized?

2) How do we define “sin”? Is it a cause, an effect, or both? How does this story broaden our understanding of both sin and grace?

3) Where do we feel blind in our lives? Where has United Lutheran experienced a sense of new sight, new life, a new chance to be the persons we have been called to be?

I hope you have found this story as enriching as I have.

Story of my preaching professor at seminary, one of the best preachers I have ever heard, who is legally blind.

He says this story helps teach us that those whom we label disabled are not necessarily “those whom receive our ministry.”

The man born blind is our teacher, teaching us about the power that faith in the healing presence of Jesus can give us.

Importance of calling him “the man born blind.” Not “the blind man”.

Jesus calls him a human first. A child of God—first.

Reminds me of pictures in the civil rights era when African-Americans marched in segregated communities with placards on them saying: “I am a man.”

We as the church can feel like that. We can feel like we are disabled, compared to what gets valued in society. United Lutheran Church can feel disabled now by not being what it once was.

But this church, like the man born blind, has a story to tell.

This church meets Jesus today. In the Word. In touching his body andblood. Like this man we have an incredible story to share with the world. A story that makes us whole.

“One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (9:25)

“One thing I do know: that as United Lutheran Church, Jesus promises to see this church as dignified, whole people—no matter how disabled we may seem. One thing I do know: that we are sent from this place today with the presence of Jesus—a presence powerful enough to accept us and all who we encounter as vulnerable, treasured gifts of God.

Thanks be to God! Amen.