Pastor Jon's Farewell Sermon, Preached Sunday, February 12, 2012

A Service of Dedication, Thanksgiving and Blessing
Philippians 1:1-11
Psalm 30
Luke 21:5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, ⁶“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” ⁷They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” ⁸And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them. ⁹“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” ¹⁰Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; ¹¹there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. ¹²“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. ¹³This will give you an opportunity to testify. ¹⁴So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; ¹⁵for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. ¹⁶You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. ¹⁷You will be hated by all because of my name. ¹⁸But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹By your endurance you will gain your souls

You may be wondering why we are hearing this Gospel text on a Sunday when a tower is being dedicated. What could such a Scripture have to say to us, when Jesus’ words about the stones of the Jerusalem Temple foretell nothing but destruction. Let me paint the scene for you of when this Scripture was last heard in this sanctuary.

The day was Sunday, November 14, 2010, the 25th Sunday after Pentecost. The Scriptures for this day were for the thirty-third week of “ordinary time” in the church year, the Sunday before the last Sunday of the church year, Christ the King Sunday. The day previously, Council President Zan Lofgren had sent an email to myself and other leaders of the church leaders that gave an update on the work that had already begun on tuckpointing the tower. It read in part, “Not looking good. Some of it (the tower) or most of it will have to come down.” Then, the next day in worship, came these words of Jesus that came from the appointed lectionary readings of the day: “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” (Luke 21:6)

The congregation would not find out about these changes until a week later, but for the leaders who knew the tower was so structurally weak it would need to be rebuilt or lowered, this text could not have been more poignant. It’s moments like this that make us say to God, “are you kidding me?” It’s moments like this that are not just mere coincidence…more than pure happenstance. It’s a moment in time that we could call a kairos moment. Kairos is one of the two Greek words for time. While chronos time means quantitative, sequential time; kairos signifies a time “in between”, an intermediate time in which the sacred breaks in…and speaks. (“Kronos”, www.wikipedia.org) It’s this kairos time that I hope becomes the central story that is remembered about these tower repairs…not that it was not a trial to go through, but indeed it was a time when God interrupted what was happening chronologically, to say something qualitatively about what was going on.

What was it that we heard God saying through this kairos time, when, amidst the dismantling of a literal pillar of the congregation, we tried to make sense of this challenge? What did we hear God saying that we had heard before but now with fresh ears, or perhaps heard anew? Did we hear God say…the church is more than a building? Did we hear God say…temporary times of trial will not keep God’s eternal merciful embrace from is? Did we hear God say through Jesus' words: “By your endurance, you will gain your souls”? (Luke 21:19) Did we hear God call us...to a renewed stewardship of our whole lives around God's most priceless gift of Jesus' grace? Did we hear God say…we can trust God’s promises that mean we will not live by sight but by faith in God alone? Did we hear God still speaking to us?

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes is the answer to each of those questions! No matter what dimension of it was that you heard, God indeed spoke into this “chronos” time with a “kairos” message that testified to the sufficiency of God’s grace, the power of God’s Word, and the possibility of faith turning God’s vision into a reality. God did not just speak that November 2010 Sunday when a few people knew the hilarious way that God was trying to say something through that appointed Gospel reading. But God has been expanding our hearts and minds in faith to see this crisis not only as a time of struggle but also of opportunity.

It’s that same God that also God spoke to me when you extended the call to serve you. God spoke to me when I began here of the commitment you have to this church and its people. God spoke to me of your blessed desire to listen for and follow God’s will in loving your neighbors with all your mind, body and soul. God spoke to me of the blessing you are to the world by the countless ways in which you give of your time, energy and resources for others despite all the other demands on your lives.

God’s holy embrace spoke to me even through the challenges of learning the ropes of what being a pastor is all about, through the process of admitting mistakes and through growing in getting to know you better. I know I may not have met all the expectations you had when you called me here…I think we all hungered and desired to see the church grow and become renewed in its mission and vision. We did grow, maybe not in all the ways we hoped, but we did…by learning to welcome new young adult members, by trying new ministries and by working together to adopt a vision for the future. Perhaps the need to grow numerically was more urgent than I had first thought…and there were chronos times when I felt I did not have the experience with church renewal to give the kind of leadership this church needed to move even further towards growth. But through it all I heard God's kairos message speaking, asking me to be authentic, and to give my all. Despite my fear of being judged that can seem to put up a wall to others…God still was able to find ways to break through and hold us together...through the Word of life, and through the holy food of abundant life at our Lord's table. God spoke to us in the promise of the gospel that is bigger than any one pastor or any one person.

And now…the God who has spoken to us before we met—who did so during our partnership, and who will continue to hold us together in Christ's body—that God will continue to speak. Several years ago the United Church of Christ began a denominational marketing campaign for its church that prominently featured the slogan: “God is still speaking.” The logo for that campaign was a big, black, large comma. That is what God is saying to us as we transition from this day forward. God will continue to speak to you. We can have the courage to listen to God, to follow where God sends us, and tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

As this pitcher is leaving your starting rotation, God is speaking to another pastoral candidate who, whether coming up from the minors or as a seasoned veteran from another team, when the kairos moment is right...God will break in and speak once again to them of the rich blessings that await serving your needs, and you will once again be blessed by God's guiding hands. I pray that God is preparing a pastor for you with the experience and skills to equip you for the ministry of renewal and evangelical witness to the gospel that this church now has envisioned so clearly for its future.

Let our word to God this day be a word of thanksgiving, a word of thanks for kairos moments, a word of thanks for God's faithfulness, a word of thanks that we share today with the apostle Paul, who wrote to his beloved in Philippi: “I thank my God every time I remember you... I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (1:3,6) Thanks be to God, who is indeed...still speaking,

Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, February 5, 2012

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Isaiah 40:21-31
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22-23
Mark 1:29-39

As soon as [Jesus and his disciples] left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Last fall several youth and parents from United Lutheran went to Lake View neighborhood to do a Night Walk with an organization called the Night Ministry. Before we broke out into teams to actually walk on the street and simulate what it would be like to be homeless, a Night Ministry staff person talked with us about what it means to be without a home. As part of this discussion, we were asked to say all the benefits that come with having a home. About 15 minutes later, there was a list of at least 50 things on the white board…and I’m sure we could have come up with 50 more. Some of the benefits were bigger things, like safety, protection, a place to cook food, eat, and hang out with family and friends, like many of us will do to watch the Super Bowl this afternoon. Some of the benefits were more hidden things that we take for granted: a mailing address, an internet connection, light to see and do things at night, a place to grow plants and vegetables. Put together, these all combine to give the over-arching benefit of a place that gives us identity. It was an eye-opening moment for us to see with new eyes all these seen and unseen privileges that come with living in a home.

That over-arching home benefit of receiving identity—a sense of self-worth, a sense of groundedness—is something that we may have come to see with deeper appreciation in recent years. Since the economic collapse of 2008, thousands upon thousands of homes in the U.S. have been foreclosed on. Many have found themselves without a job, without steady income, and without the resources to pay their mortgage. Even more than the economic impact this has had on these homeowners who had to walk away from their homes was the devastation of no longer having that identity, self-worth and stability that comes from living in a home. Not only did these people have to leave the place that gave them identity...they had to leave the whole web of relationships that surrounded their home—neighbors, their children's classmates, friends, their church community and nearby family members. Being torn apart from their homes meant rebuilding the whole foundation of their social lives...and rebuilding their connection to a new community.

It’s that kind of loss of connection that Jesus sought out immediately after his first act of public ministry in the Capernaum temple. If you’ll remember last week’s reading from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus healed an unclean, demon-possessed man right there in the temple—the very place where this man's uncleanliness had forbid him to enter. Now Jesus continues his campaign of renewal, his campaign of bringing the kingdom of God near to us, by going to one of the most ordinary places in our daily lives: our home.

Jesus did not begin his ministry by bringing his message of the good news of God’s renewal of God’s kingdom come near to the places of power in Israel. Jesus did not go right away to a city, where the richest and most politically powerful people and institutions in Israel were. Jesus went directly into a common setting, where everyday people lived everyday lives doing everyday kinds of work, in everyday kinds of homes. Jesus shows up in a home, a place that gave people as much an identity and connection to community as it does today.

But even moreso than blessing the structure of the home itself with his presence, by coming into a home so early in his ministry, Jesus gave his blessing to the relationships, the self-worth, and the grounded connection to the family and community that a home gives us.

When Jesus enter the home of Jesus' disciple Simon Peter, however, the health of the relationships there are being torn apart. His mother-in-law’s fever threatened to isolate her from the relationships in her home and community that were the lifeblood of her existence. Without her health, she could not function in the role that gave her an identity of who she was. Without her health, she was unclean, unacceptable and isolated to the rest of her community—a community that she had already been distanced from after her husband's death widowed her.

Jesus comes into this place and extends the reaches of his kingdom to this relationally void setting. Not only does he come there and heal this woman, he restores her calling within her home life. Immediately after her healing she builds on the relationship that has healed her, and begins to serve and minister to Jesus and his companions.

Last week, we heard that Jesus’ healing in the temple turned sacred spaces like this church into spaces where God turns us from unclean into acceptable in God's sight. Today, Jesus turns the ordinary space of homes like ours into spaces where God connects us to one another and to Jesus’ kingdom of restored relationship. Last week’s Gospel blessed us to re-imagine this place as a place where we can find healing. This week's Gospel blesses us to re-imagine the home as a setting where Jesus also longs to set up his kingdom in our lives. His presence there does not necessarily promise to fix whatever may try and isolate us from relationship to our community...but his is a presence that puts us in touch with his power that casts out the power that sickness, disease and death try to wield to keep Jesus and his kingdom at bay. This week Jesus sets up his kingdom in the most ordinary of places, to show that his transformation can turn any place—even a place of sickness—into a place of healing, a home and a community.

What could Jesus’ kingdom look like in the homes we live in? How can we take Jesus’ power over what keeps us from others into our homes? In what ways can Jesus' healing presence turn our homes into places of community and wholeness, just like it was for this widowed relative of Jesus’ disciple? Maybe Jesus' kingdom coming to our homes looks like a place where relationships with each other are surrounded and bathed by daily prayer, a practice that bathes us in closer relationship with God and one another. Even Jesus himself needed prayer, like when he goes alone to pray after healing his disciples' relative. Maybe Jesus' kingdom coming into our homes looks like a place where family bonds run deeper than blood, where strangers are welcomed as family, just like the Bread Breakers ministry at ULC that mixes up different people into homes for meals and fellowship. Maybe Jesus' kingdom coming into our homes looks like a place where Jesus’ Lordship dismantles our attempts to live for ourselves, and empowers us to instead serve one another. Maybe it looks like a place where no sickness, disease, stigma or fear keeps the compassion of others from coming in. Maybe it looks like a place where eyes are kept open for Jesus' healing to break in and mend the cracks that are bound to come between anyone living under the same roof.

Homes may be something that we take for granted. But Jesus’ second miracle in Mark shows his power equipping us to share his healing even in such an intimate and private setting as a home. Even there, being present to one another in our weakness—which is the definition of healing—becomes not just something Jesus gives us, but something Jesus gives us the power to be for each other.

Christian memoirist Sara Miles writes that Jesus’ healing “shows us how to enter into a way of life in which the broken and sick pieces are held in love, and given meaning…in which strangers literally touch each other, and [in] doing so make a community spacious enough for everyone…in which the deepest desires of our hearts draw us to health…” (Jesus Freak, 105) May each and every one of us discover Jesus’ healing way of life not just in this sacred space, but also in the ordinary that Jesus makes sacred through his healing presence that creates his kingdom in our homes.

Amen.