Same-Sex Marriage: Implications for Pastors and Congregations

The Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage by the Minnesota Legislature

Some Implications for Pastors and Congregations of the Northwestern Minnesota Synod

A working document by Bishop Lawrence R. Wohlrabe, NW MN Synod ELCA

 

On May 14, 2013 Governor Mark Dayton signed into law a bill[1] that had been passed by the Minnesota House and Senate to legalize same-sex marriage in the State of Minnesota.   The law goes into effect in August, 2013.

 

Congregations, church councils and pastors in our synod are now wondering, “What does this mean for us?   How will we respond to requests for same-sex marriage ceremonies in our church buildings or, if off site, to be presided over by our pastors?”   In this document I hope to offer some guidance for important local conversations that will be happening in congregations of our synod. 

 

Some Considerations to Keep in Mind:

 

1.       Lutherans understand marriage to be one of God’s gifts bestowed on the whole creation.   For Lutherans marriage has never been a sacrament of the church as it is in, for example, the Roman Catholic Church.   An ordained pastor who conducts a religious wedding ceremony for two persons who have obtained a valid wedding license and are legally eligible to marry, simultaneously functions under Minnesota state law to solemnize the civil marriage between these two parties.

 

2.       Pastors minister with couples seeking marriage as part of their calls to serve congregations.   Most pastors, wisely, do not see themselves as “Marrying Sams” who have “hung out a shingle” to marry anyone who shows up at a church.   At the same time, some pastors view their work with couples approaching marriage as one of the ways they can open the door to invite persons into the Christian life.   As we approach this issue it will be important for pastors to be in conversation with the congregations that call them, regarding how congregations may or may not change their marriage policies in response to the legalization of same-sex marriage.  

 

3.      The same-sex marriage legislation provides exemptions to religious organizations and/or ministers whose beliefs prevent them from being able to officiate at same-sex marriages (see the text of the legislation under footnote 1)

 

4.       The ELCA Social Statement, Human Sexuality:  Gift and Trust (2009), declares

“Marriage is a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope authorized legally by the state and blessed by God. The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, reflecting Mark 10: 6–9: ‘But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one put asunder.” (Jesus here recalls Genesis 1:27; 2:23–24.) p. 15

 

5.       Concerning same-sex marriage, the social statement goes on to say:

“Recognizing that this conclusion differs from the historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions, some people, though not all, in this church and within the larger Christian community, conclude that marriage is also the appropriate term to use in describing similar benefits, protection, and support for same-gender couples entering into lifelong, monogamous

relationships. They believe that such accountable relationships also provide the necessary foundation that supports trust and familial and community thriving. Other contractual agreements, such as civil unions, also seek to provide some of these protections and to hold those involved in such relationships accountable to one another and to society.”  P. 18

 

The social statement seems to be open-ended regarding the question of same-sex marriage. Such open-endedness is further reflected in the ministry policy recommendations that were passed at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.   The first two of these recommendations committed our church body to “bear one another burdens, love the neighbor, and respect the bound consciences of all,” and to find “ways to allow congregations that choose to do so to recognize, support, and hold publicly accountable lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

 

6.      Members of our congregations will want to seek ways of discussing these questions with love, respect and regard for issues of conscience that persons on all sides of the question may bring to the table.    The pastor and his/her conscience-bound reflection regarding same-sex marriage needs to be taken seriously in such conversations.

 

7.      As you discuss this issue, one way to frame the question might be:  “How might our congregation and pastor(s) recognize, support and hold publicly accountable same-sex couples, with valid Minnesota marriage licenses, who request to be married in our church building or on our church grounds, or who request our pastor to preside at an off-site marriage ceremony?”    This is essentially a local, congregational question—as has always been the case with non-sacramental rites of the church such as marriages, funerals and confirmations.   We who serve you on the synod staff will be available to consult with pastors and congregational leaders, but we will not be proposing synodical policies regarding what has always been a matter of congregational discernment.

 

8.      If your congregation is led toward being open to same-sex marriage ceremonies, please note that the ELCA does not have an “official” rite or liturgy for marriage, blessing, or union of same-gender persons.   Some ELCA congregations and other church bodies have produced liturgical resources that may be helpful to us.

9.      It goes without saying that pastors will continue to bless marriages involving opposite-sex partners.  This is important for us to remember as we hear strong opinions expressed that suggest the Minnesota Legislature has “demolished” or “abolished” traditional male-female marriage.    That has not happened, and the church needs to be a thoughtful voice in such discussions.

 

 

 

Having Good Conversations About this Topic

 

The kinds of conversations that need to happen will play out differently in each congregation.   Here are a few ideas to guide you as you approach the conversation that your congregation needs to have:

 

·        Take ample time for prayerful, careful conversations in your congregation.     Because congregations and pastors may soon face requests for same-sex marriage ceremonies, your council might want to consider adopting an interim (short-term) policy that can be reviewed and refined following fuller discussion within the congregation.

·        Ponder the question of which leadership group in the congregation might most appropriately address this question.   For example, if the church council normally adopts marriage policies and procedures, it might be best for the council to take the first steps in addressing the question of same-sex marriages (and the council will probably be the appropriate body to draft an interim policy in this regard).

·        Two resources that have been developed in our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America might be helpful:

Talking Together as Christians About Tough Social Issues available for downloading at http://www.elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Moral-Deliberation.aspx;

Report of the Communal Discernment Task Force is available at http://swmnelca.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/exhibit-i-part-2-with-appendices.pdf

Such resources can help shape congregation council discussions and open forums among church members.  They can also help you move into small-group discussions that intentionally bring together folks with differing viewpoints.

·        As members of the Body of Christ, let us not lead with threats or ultimatums:  “If our congregation permits (or does not permit) same-sex marriage ceremonies, I will leave.”  As we discuss possible courses of action in our congregations, let us also avoid hasty approaches that  immediately create winners and losers, e.g. demanding a congregational meeting to “take a vote” on a proposed policy.  

·        Try to think about this issue not in the abstract, but with real live people in mind.    Chances are the persons who will request a same-sex marriage in your congregation are persons you will know and love--or the sons or daughters of persons you know and love.

 

Jesus makes a wonderful promise in Matthew 18:20:  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”   What makes this promise even more comforting for us right now is that Jesus’ promise focuses on times when we’re dealing with conflict and tough issues (Matthew 18:15-19).

 

God be with you!  

 

Lawrence R. Wohlrabe

Bishop, Northwestern Minnesota Synod

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

God’s work.  Our hands.

 

Date of draft:   May 22, 2013

 

---

[1] Unofficial text of the bill is available at https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?id=74&doctype=Chapter&type=0&year=2013.  The final form of the bill will be posted on this website during the summer of 2013.

Greasing the Skids for God's Mission

Celebration of Mission and Ministry

With the Rev. Dr. Rodney Spidahl

St James Episcopal Church, Fergus Falls, MN

Acts 11:1-18

A man once decided to travel to a very special place in western Ireland.  Being a total stranger to the area, he asked a local resident for directions.   “Can you tell me how to get to this place?” the traveler asked.

“Never heard of it,” came the response.  “But if I were going there, I surely wouldn’t start from here.”  (based on a story from "We Are Here Now:  A New Missional Era" by Patrick Keifert)

As silly as this story sounds it does capture a truth we probably feel in our bones—the truth that if we want to go somewhere, we often wish we could start from someplace other than where our feet happen to be planted right now.

Which is to say:  if things were completely up to us, most of us would probably just stay put.  

But fortunately things are NOT completely up to us.

Wherever you are, wherever you may be heading, the Holy Spirit is already out in front of you, clearing a path, finagling ways, greasing the skids for God to get you wherever God needs you to be.

Whatever it takes, the Spirit, the Pathfinder, opens up possibilities we didn’t even know existed….swinging some doors wide open, closing other doors, cajoling us along in order to move us out into God’s mission field.

In our reading from Acts, we see how the Spirit is even bold to break apart old ways of ordering human life, even within the people of God, for the sake of God’s mission.   Jews and Gentiles had no dealings with one another—that seemed to be written in stone—but then one fine day the Apostle Peter was knocked up the side of his head with a divine 2 by 4—leading him and others to conclude that “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18).

Old ways of sorting people into this pile or that pile, time-honored methods of ordering life that calcify into rigid boundaries that keep us separated from one another….the Spirit has no compunction about sweeping those away if doing so will break open new ways of making known the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So, in the Book of Acts especially, the Holy Spirit appears in the guise of a demolisher of the old, in order to pave the way for the new thing God is doing in Jesus Christ.

But even so, this same Spirit does not lead us into chaos.  

Goodness knows that chaos can do as much damage as hyper-rigidity, so sometimes in the Book of Acts, this same Spirit moves people into novel-but- coherent patterns…ushering  into the messes of our lives a fresh paradigm that helps us be the people God sent into a mission that is purposeful, not chaotic. 

So, in the Book of Acts, we sometimes run into persons who have received the Spirit but not been baptized….and then we encounter other folks who are baptized but still awaiting the Spirit—but, no matter!  The Spirit gets that chaos sorted out, not to bring everyone into lockstep, but to make sure that the Word of God has free course to be proclaimed for the joy and edifying of Christ’s holy people.

So, Rod, if you’re still wondering how you got here….a Lutheran lad, a global missionary, a seminary teacher….now hobnobbing with Episcopalians in an exciting missional experiment called Total Ministry…..if you never imagined showing up in a situation like this—welcome, to another apostolic episode in the unending movement of the Holy Spirit who never tires of removing obsolete barriers and imaginatively reordering life so that Christ may be all in all.

In this mission of God there is always a “sending out” and an “inviting in”….there are always disciples-on-a mission being shared  by one community in order to be received by another community.   And this too is the Spirit’s bright idea!

So today, I am pleased  to represent the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as the sending, sharing church.  We are delighted to facilitate Pastor Spidahl’s new partnership here with you of St James Church.   Rod’s pathway from the Church of the Lutheran Brethren through the ELCA and now to you—that pathway looks a little like a tour of a sausage-making factory….but the Holy Spirit rather prefers such twisty, turny, “scenic routes”….because when we don’t simply make an easy beeline from point A to point B we realize that Someone other than ourselves is calling the shots.

Having journeyed with Rod in his vocational discernment, our synod is grateful that the Holy Spirit is using us to empower your ministry.  If we ask Rod to be with us occasionally  for  a few “Lutheran things” like our Synod Assembly or our Theology for Ministry Conference or the regular gatherings of the Ottertail Conference ELCA….it will be so that Rod can be reinvigorated for equipping you and your Total Ministry team for faithful witness and fruitful service here in Fergus Falls.

There is just one last thing I way to say:   as we share Rod with you, we intend to learn from you and this missional experiment.   For six years now one of my synod staff colleagues has been gently, persistently bugging me to learn more about Total Ministry.   What if God is making that happen precisely through this new partnership here at St James?   How odd of God to embed a Lutheran here with you, to facilitate your worship and work and witness….so that, among other things, he and you might teach the rest of us Lutherans a thing or two as we, in so many of our communities across northwestern Minnesota, face the very same challenges and opportunities that you face here in Fergus Falls?   

So thank you, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, for your kind hospitality this morning and for so graciously and eagerly receiving this brother in Christ, Rod Spidahl.  There are all sorts of Lutheran eyes and ears paying attention to you—eager to rejoice with you and learn from you, as together we serve God’s mission of blessing and redeeming the world through Jesus Christ.  

Imitators

Imitators
Senior High Youth Gathering
Camp Castaway—April 7, 2013
John 13:2-13 and Ephesians 5:1-2

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

(Note:  at the gathering a PowerPoint presentation accompanied the sermon; those photos are not included in this post--please use your imagination.)

 I have great news to share with you.

Around June 1 Joy and I will become grandparents.    Our daughter Kristen is expecting a little girl—and we couldn’t be happier.

Here’s what the baby looks like right now (PPT: picture of a pineapple).   Well—that’s not exactly what she looks like—but it’s how big she is….

The birth of this little girl will probably be the best thing that happens in our family this year.  

And already this little girl is very much on our minds.    We think about her every day.   We wonder what she’ll be like.   We have hopes and dreams for her. 

And we pray she’ll be healthy…..happy….smart…..loving….strong…..imaginative….and fun!

We’re also already praying that our grand-daughter will be filled with faith in the God we know best in Jesus Christ.

Because I want my granddaughter to know Jesus, I’m planning to start reading to her from the Bible and the Catechism as soon as she’s born.  I can’t wait to teach her some of the wonderful ideas, deep concepts and vital facts of faith.

Of course she won’t be able to take all that in right away.  Newborns are too tiny and hungry and sleepy for that.  So, I’ll wait until she’s about a month old before starting her instruction to be a Christian.  

That should work, because I’m sure our granddaughter will be an amazing child!

OK, you know I’m pulling your leg.   No tiny baby, not even Super-Baby!, can fully understand God or faith or being Christian at the ripe old age of one month.

But our granddaughter will start learning all that, the same way we all started to learn it.   She’ll start to learn as she notices and imitates others doing things that matter.

The first thing my granddaughter will notice are these faces—her Mom and her Dad, smiling down at her, making a fuss over her, giving her a smile she can imitate!  

She will learn that these two persons….and a whole wider circle of others can be trusted….to feed her, cuddle her, bathe her, change her, love her.

When she’s laid down in her crib at night, she’ll start hearing things:  “Mommy and Daddy love you and Jesus will watch over you.”   When a little baby hears that goodnight blessing a couple hundred times, they start believing it.

As my granddaughter grows, she’ll notice how her parents care for her….and also how they care for each other.   Love that’s expressed between a mom and a dad makes a home feel safe and secure. 

My little grand-daughter’s first inklings of what God is like will come through her experience of her own parents as caring, trustworthy, protective, ever-present.

As she grows my granddaughter will be caught up in some predictable routines and rhythms:  getting dressed, eating, sleeping, going to bed.   She’ll notice that when mom and dad eat, they first say a prayer…and when she goes to bed they say a prayer.   

The day will come when my granddaughter will fold her hands for the first time—and that will go into her baby book, right along with her first words and first steps.

Most every Sunday her mom and dad take her to a big interesting place called church, filled with other people who’ll make googly eyes at her and pinch her little cheeks.  At Christ Lutheran Church in St Paul my granddaughter will imitate those people—sing their songs, pass the peace, listen to Pastor Gary, pray the prayers, hold out her chubby little hands when bread and wine is shared.

And so it will go for this little person our whole family is dying to meet.   Before she can really think, before she can truly speak, my granddaughter will know how to imitate…and by imitating others she will start to grow up into her Lord Jesus Christ.      

We sometimes think that believing in God and thinking about faith come first….leading to actions that flow from such faith.

But in reality…..most of us start out our Christian lives by watching and doing and imitating others, long before our brain cells fully understand.

There’s a new word that describes that:   neuroplasticity.  It’s a word that tells how our experiences shape the ways we think and behave, how imitating others even changes the ways our brains work.  

Imitate others….repeat certain actions over time, and those actions will mold how you think and believe and live.

That’s why we talk a lot about faith practices (6 photos)….stuff we do….to help us believe and think with the mind of Christ.   So we say our prayers….we open our Bibles….we give money to church and charities….we serve our neighbors….we show up for worship every week...

…We do all those things, we imitate other Christians doing those things, we do those things even when we don’t feel like doing them….because we know that doing those things, imitating those actions changes us, forms us, molds us into the believers, the disciples Jesus is creating us to be.

“Neuroplasticiy” might be a new word to us, but it names a very old reality.

In the early years of the Christian church, when someone was coming to faith, preparing for baptism, the local church didn’t ask them to read a bunch of books or memorize a catechism (though there was a creed everyone learned and recited before being baptized)….

Coming to faith in Christ wasn’t so much a “head trip” in the earliest church as it was a hand-and-foot trip.   It was not about memorizing facts as much as it was walking on a pathway…..and not walking alone, either.

The first Christians recognized early on how every neophyte, every newborn believer needed a guide, someone who had been walking in the way of Christ for years and years….someone who walked the walk in such a way that others would imitate.

But this whole approach to forming persons in Christian faith and life was even older than the early church.

It went right back to Jesus himself who always let his actions do the talking for him.

Sure Jesus told fascinating stories and delivered deep sermons and taught lofty wisdom….but mainly Jesus acted.   Jesus did things that others picked up on, reflected in their own lives, imitated.

Jesus was baptized in the Jordan river…as we are baptized

Jesus was tempted to sin…as we are tempted.

Jesus invited others to join him….as we form groups.

Jesus ate and drank, often with persons who were unpopular…as hopefully we also do in our schools and circles of friends..

Jesus prayed…as I hope we also do.

Jesus stood up to bullies.

Jesus touched sick persons.

Jesus forgave sinners.

Jesus got angry at things that were just wrong.

Jesus held little children.

Jesus told uncomfortable truths.

Jesus suffered.

Jesus died for us and all people.

Jesus was buried.

And Jesus rose from the dead—Jesus broke out of the grave….as we too shall arise.

Jesus did all that and more so that you and I could see, hear, smell, taste, and imitate the ways of God.

One of the most powerful things Jesus did, the night before he died, was to wash his disciples’ feet.

It was something people in his day always did to themselves.  Not even a slave could be forced to do this!   Jesus got down on his knees and washed the filthy feet of his followers.   This just wasn’t done—which is why Peter, at first, didn’t want Jesus to wash his feet….but Jesus insisted because there was no better way to express his deep, deep love for his friends.

Jesus did that because he wanted them to have an example worth imitating...and we’re still “doing feet” today!

If you Google the phrase “washing feet”…..hundreds of pictures like this one pop up.  

This just happened a week ago Thursday—Maundy Thursday--in Rome.   Who’s the man in white?   Whose feet is he washing?   (young people…in a juvenile detention center….boys and girls….Christians and non-Christians, insiders and outsiders)   The pope didn’t just wash their feet…but he kissed them, too.

I’m thinking that Pope Francis is a different kind of pope.   He doesn’t want to be treated like a king.   He has a heart for the poor.   He “gets down” with folks (his security detail must be having fits!) 

The pope is acting a lot like Jesus.

He’s acting the way Jesus-in-you-and-me acts:   connecting with all sorts of people--especially people in trouble, washing the feet of insiders and outsiders, being a servant not a master, showing love for all.

Dear God, keep our eyes and ears open.  Help us notice you as we imitate those who belong to you.  Make us people worth imitating—persons in whom others can see Christ.  In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

Prayer as Protest

Devotions for Synod Theological Day on the Faith Practice of Prayer

Cormorant Lutheran Church, Lake Park, MN

April 4, 2013

It is a precarious thing, to say just a few words about prayer.   It’s perhaps even more dangerous to say many words about prayer….but that seldom stops us, and today will be no exception.    We can abide words about prayer, whether they be few or many, as long as those words about prayer lead us to pray.

So, Anne Lamott says that, when you get right down to it, there are just two kinds of prayers.   There are the help me, help me, help me prayers…..and alongside them—the thank you, thank you, thank you prayers.  And “that dog can hunt,” for most of us.

But the aphorism about prayer I’ve been pondering most of late comes from Karl Barth, who said this:  "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."

Let me say that again:  “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”

Barth points us in the direction of prayer as protest, and that’s what has captured my imagination lately—how prayer is always, in one form or another—an expressing, a speaking out, a protesting against my old self and against the way things seem to be.    Prayer says that the way things are isn’t the way things were meant to be—and, in these Great Fifty Days we hasten to add:  prayer proclaims that the way things are isn’t the way things shall yet be in God’s New Creation that stepped gaily out of the tomb on Easter morning.

So when we clasp our hands in prayer, when we open our mouths to speak—daringly—to God, we are articulating a protest of sorts.    We are joining in an “uprising against the disorder of the world.”

We need look no farther than the quintessential prayer, the one that Jesus taught us, to see how protest weaves its way through the whole thing.   Although I have no claim on God, I am bold to say “Abba-Father.”   Although we spend most of our waking hours focused on our solitary selves, we pray, “Our Father.”   Although we’re surrounded by pretenders to the throne and alternative kingdom-visions, we protest:  “Holy be YOUR name, YOUR kingdom—bring it on, YOUR will—make it so.”   Always too easy to accept hunger or put up with endless strife, we beg for “our daily bread” and “forgiveness” and “deliverance” from all that is not right.   Famished for hope, maybe now more than ever, we insist that “the kingdom, the power and the glory are YOURS—O God!—forever and ever.”   And in the face of all this world’s “No”s we stubbornly, rebelliously insist on shouting an Amen!—a big fat YES, at the end of this and all our prayers.

So, let us think on such things today, and let our thinking and speaking and pondering about prayer, lead us to pray.   Here is one of my favorites, to lead us into this day:

Redeem us, O God, out of all our poor ways into thine.  Teach us thy will for us by calling us back each day to the things which we know are most certainly true.  Direct our lives by the constant pressure on them of other lives that have felt the touch of thy hand and loved the beauty of thy peace, until our faces be set toward thee, and all our hopes hid forever in thine.  For Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

For All the Saints:  A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. II, p. 973.

Proclaiming the Lord's Death

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Moorhead, MN

Maundy Thursday—March 28, 2013

I Corinthians 11:23-26

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

Welcome to worship!  I’m really glad you’re here—because today you will be giving the sermon!

What was that?   You’re saying:   “I’m giving the sermon??”

“Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do!   I didn’t show up here today to be put on the spot.   I came to sit in the pew, sing the hymns, pray the prayers, and hear God’s Word.”

“I didn’t come here to preach,” you’re probably thinking.

Except that today you WILL be delivering the sermon.  You may not have picked out a text, drafted an outline, found any illustrations or practiced your delivery.

But—not to worry!  The text is one you know.   The outline is provided.   A powerful illustration is already here.   And most of you have practiced this sermon so often that you can probably give it in your sleep.

You will be preaching the sermon this afternoon/evening.

In a few moments you’ll step forward with your fellow worshipers, hold out your hands, receive some bread and wine, consume this Meal, and hear how all of this is “for you.”

And that will be your sermon…”for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes…”

That sentence is so simple, so stark—and for good reason. The Apostle Paul needed to do an intervention with the Christians living in Corinth.  Paul had to get their attention fast and re-orient them to the power and purpose of  the Lord’s Supper.

The Corinthians, you see, had forgotten what the Lord’s Supper was all about.   Back in their day, when the Supper was still a real meal, the Corinthian Christians came together to eat real bread--lots of it--and to drink even more real wine.

Except that they didn’t really “come together.”  

The Corinthian church around 50 A.D. was a “house divided.”    They had well-to-do members, the poorest of the poor, and everyone in between.

The rich folks got off work early and started partying with the other rich Corinthians.  Only later did the poorer members arrive—the ones who had to work a full day and punch a time clock.

So the Lord’s Supper, which was meant to draw Christians together, instead became a point of dissension in the Corinthian church.  The social and economic divisions that ordered daily life spilled over into the community of Christ.  

It got so bad that some Christians were getting filled up and drunk, leaving little food for the ones who arrived later.   “This is not the Lord’s Supper,” Paul solemnly warned them.

So here in our Second Reading Paul re-orients, re-educates the Corinthians about what they were actually doing when they come together for the Lord’s Supper.   

The Corinthians were proclaiming something by how they celebrated the Supper—but it was the wrong sermon.   They drew attention to who’s well-off and who’s not, to the social divisions that separated them from one another.

The Corinthians had to re-learn that this wasn’t their supper, it was the Lord’s Supper.  It was about the death of Jesus Christ for their sins and the sins of the whole world.    Believers stand on level ground at the foot of the Cross and at the communion table—preaching one unifying Word, “proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.”

What about us?  Thank God, we don’t turn the Lord’s Supper into a time of carousing or a game of one-upmanship  the way the Corinthians did!  We take this Supper far more seriously, don’t we?

But is “taking it seriously” perhaps merely another way to drain this Supper of its profound meaning and power?   Have we domesticated this meal, reducing it to the barest of acts that sometimes feels like a tack-on, a” liturgical lean-to “that (we hope!)  won’t make the worship service exceed the sacred sixty minutes?

My dear friends, whether we treat this Supper too frivolously or too seriously, we’re always in danger of losing the profound significance and power of this Meal.    Therefore we never outgrow our need to ask ourselves what it means to “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes?”

It means this:  coming to the Lord’s Supper  is the biggest deal of your life.  All the ways we fritter our days away can’t hold a candle to what happens here, in the sharing of the bread and the wine, the Body and the Blood of our Savior.

Indeed, every single time we approach this Meal we preach a powerful sermon….the sermon you will in fact preach in just a few minutes.

It’s a sermon, first, about our hunger and thirst, our fears and our doubts, our insufficiency and bankruptcy.   As often as we eat this bread and drink this wine we proclaim that without it—without Christ—our lives aren’t worth a plug nickel.  We’re starving for this Food!   There is something about us that only the death of Jesus can fix.

But what if we don’t always feel this hunger?  When that happens Martin Luther suggested, “First put your hand in your bosom and ask whether you are still made of flesh and blood.  Then look about you and see whether you are still in the world…and finally, if you cannot yet feel the need therefore at least believe the scriptures…for they will not lie to you…. Listen to Paul when he cries out:  ‘I know that nothing good dwells with me, that is in my flesh.’”

We preach a sermon here about our hunger for God.  That’s why the proper posture at the Table is with hands outstretched and open.

Second, we preach a sermon here about God’s nearness, God’s actual presence here in the Supper.   This is where God de-cloaks, where God shows up, where God  draws so near to us that we take God into our bodies, and thus become the body of Christ.  

Whenever we “proclaim the death of Christ until he comes,” we proclaim the amazing nearness, the inside-of-us-ness of God in Jesus Christ--whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup.

Third, we proclaim our interdependence.   “Independence” or autonomy are not Christian virtues.  That’s why, properly speaking, the Lord’s Supper is something you cannot do for yourself.  It takes a bare minimum of two Christians, always, to celebrate this sacrament.

Here at the altar, unlike so many other places we inhabit, there is no “first class” seating area for big contributors or heroic deed-doers.  Those with masters degrees line up with 8^th grade graduates, those who wear denim rub elbows with those who wear 3-piece suits, those who pay-their-own way kneel with those who never make ends meet.

We’re all here because we all received the same invitation.   We’re all present and accounted for because Jesus’ last will and testament names us ALL as his heirs, beneficiaries of his goodness.

Fourth,  we proclaim that this Meal changes us.   After going to Holy Communion we can never return to “business as usual.”   This is the meal of God’s New Covenant, God’s New Creation, God’s Reign among us.  

If you just want to stay the same as you are, this Meal probably isn’t for you.   Because eating this bread and drinking this wine will not leave you unscathed.

By partaking of this Supper you lean into God’s gentle and glorious rule in Christ the crucified and risen one.    This meal gives you the gumption to start living now as if the Kingdom of God were already here, among us.   Eating this food makes you long for peace, pine for justice, and turn in compassionate ways toward your neighbors and this good creation.

….which brings us to the fifth thing we proclaim here:   we proclaim our hope.   “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”  That is to say:  until Christ returns to bring to fruition all that God is up to.    In this Meal we proclaim that we have a God who plays for keeps and who will finish the good thing he has begun in us.

This meal is God’s “earnest money,” God’s downpayment on the New Creation.  We proclaim that God’s going to finish what God has started--of that we can be certain.

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the wine you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”   That’s all you need—your text, your outline, your illustration, your sermon.

I need to shut up now.   It’s time for YOU to preach.

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.    

A New Creation Mind in an Old Creation World

Joint Lenten Worship Service

PioneerCare Center, Fergus Falls, MN

March 20, 2013

Philippians 2:5-11

 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

So Lena calls Ole on his cell phone while he’s out driving on the freeway.   And Lena says:  “Ole, be careful out dere! I yust heard on da radio dat some nut is driving his car the wrong direction on one half of da freeway.”

To which Ole replies:  “Yiminy Christmas, Lena, it’s not yust one nut driving da wrong vay—dere must be hundreds of dem doing dat out here!”

Thirty-two years ago I actually found myself in a similar situation, and believe me, it was no joke. 

My wife, my mom and I were driving down an entrance ramp onto Highway 36 in Roseville, when we hit a patch of ice, spinning our car around 180 degrees….leaving us facing right into oncoming traffic.

FORTUNATELY that oncoming traffic was still about a mile away from us at the time, giving us just a few seconds to scoot out of the roadway and off onto the shoulder.

But for one terrifying moment--frozen in time--we knew how frightening and disorienting it was to be heading the wrong direction on a one-way road.

That image might help us make sense of what our Lord Jesus experienced as Paul describes it here in Philippians.  

…because what Jesus did was to travel the wrong direction on a one-way road.   That’s what got him betrayed, framed, strung up, killed and tossed in a borrowed grave.

And it wasn't one of those situations where the DOT or the street department pulls a switcheroo and suddenly makes an old familiar two-way street into a new one-way street, either.

No, Jesus didn't get caught unawares here.  Rather:  Jesus deliberately headed the wrong direction on a street that had known nothing but one-way traffic forever and ever...

The street Jesus went the wrong way down, had been a one-way street ever since the serpent slithered up to Adam and Eve in the Garden and hissed:  "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of [this fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Gen.3: 5)

On that day, lost to us now in the mists of our primeval past....our first parents set us all on a course we've been traveling ever since.  It's a one-way street from emptiness to fullness, from humility to glory, from earth to heaven...and all who travel it (ourselves included) assume that by following this one-way road we’ll somehow "become like God."

This one-way street that is stretched out before us...always seems to be leading us onward and upward.  Signs along the way tell us to:  "Make your own decisions.  Chart your own course.  Claim your destiny.  Be full!  Grab some glory!  It’s all within your grasp!

Here in Philippians 2 Paul tells us that it was on this road that Jesus set out to travel, deliberately heading the opposite direction on that one-way street.

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus," Paul writes, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death--even death on a cross."

All the road signs screamed:  "Grab it.  Seize the advantage.  Get ahead.  Enlarge your holdings!"

But Jesus didn’t even notice those signs….because he was heading the other way on that one-way street.  So Jesus didn't exploit his position—or grab and hang onto his divine prerogatives.

 Jesus didn't fill himself up with good things.  Instead, he emptied himself out.

 Jesus didn't hang on to life with a white-knuckled grip.  Instead, he let all of that go...pushed it all aside.

 Jesus chose to walk straight down the middle of a one-way street, heading in the wrong direction.

 And what happened to Jesus is what happens to anyone who gets caught heading the wrong direction on a one-way road:  Sin, death and the devil—coming on like a Mack truck!-- hit Jesus hard, wiped him out, laid him low, and buried him!

 And then with Jesus out of the way....the traffic resumed, roaring up that one way “glory” road from earth to heaven.

 But three days later....something astonishing happened.  (To hear the full story you’ll have to show up for worship a week from this coming Sunday.)

 But for now, let’s just say that three days after Jesus got “creamed” on that one-way street....everyone woke up--including Jesus!--only to discover that in the darkness of the night Someone had switched all the road signs.  Someone had turned the one-way street arrows around 180 degrees. 

 On Easter morning, God changed the direction of that road once and for all.

 And when God did that--lo and behold!--we began to see what God had intended for us from the very start. 

 Here--we had it all wrong!  The one-way street we human beings had been traveling was heading in the wrong direction all along.  It was never meant to run from earth up to heaven.  All along...God the Almighty Creator, God the Consummate Self-Giver...all along God had intended it to be a road from heaven down to earth.

 And Jesus traveled that road faithfully, courageously for you and for me.  Jesus headed in what seemed to be the wrong way on a one-way street....so that we might see, finally, with eyes wide open, that Jesus was actually traveling the right way, the only way on God's royal highway...traveling down for us from heaven to earth, down from mastery to slavery, down from glory to disgrace—and then back again to glory.

 "Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

 This is how God gets to us, how God transforms us, makes us new…by going against the customary flow of traffic in this dying world and opening up for us a new and better way, God’s way.

 Friends, we don’t really know what a god is….we don’t truly understand who the one and only God is, until our eyes behold Jesus, who discloses God’s true nature as the God who always comes down, the God who sets everything aside and becomes empty for us, the God who suffers and dies and is buried for us.

 Jesus shows us not a command-and-control version of God.   Jesus reveals to us not a “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive” Superman-style-God.

 Jesus shows us…indeed Jesus is for us the God who descends, becomes empty, embraces humility…because that is God’s way of being God….and God’s way for you and for me.

 …and that’s why this passage from Philippians starts out by saying:  “Let the same mind be in you [all] that was in Christ Jesus….”

 God in Christ wants to get inside our heads, our hearts and our hands.   God intends to form the “mind of Christ” in us communally.  As NT scholar  Elizabeth Shively observes:  “Paul does not call on individuals to imitate Christ in the privacy of their prayer closets….Paul aims [instead] to form a collective mind that informs collective actions….following Jesus’ example of humility and service to others.”[1]

 God gives to us a New Creation mind in this old creation world.  God opens up for us an alternative existence—God invites us to come down, to empty ourselves, to live the humble, cross-shaped life of Jesus Christ.

 Last week I think we may have caught a fleeting glimpse of what that might look like in this time and place. 

 Moments after the white smoke poured from the chimney of Rome’s grand Sistine Chapel, a friend of the new pope embraced him and whispered three words into his ear:  “Remember the poor!”

 In that moment, Argentina’s Cardinal Bergoglio realized he had to take Francis for his name—for Francis of Assisi, who in the 12^th spurned his family’s vast wealth to embrace a life of poverty and Christ-like self-giving.

 What would it look like, my dear friends, if all of us, if the whole church, the whole Body of Christ on earth heard—and heeded!--that same voice whispering in our ears:  “Remember the poor?”

 In the name of Jesus.

 

Amen.

 

 

---

[1] Elizabeth Shively, Commentary on Second Reading, Working Preacher.org (accessed on 3/18/3013).