Keeping it Real

Commissioning of Hans Vigesaa, AiM

Calvary Lutheran Church, Bemidji, MN

July 24, 2011

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

[Jesus] put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” ….

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

These last three Sundays we’ve been wending our way through this 13^th chapter of St Matthew’s gospel…pondering seven parables, seven “jewels” of Jesus’ teaching….witnessing firsthand how Jesus himself is (in his own words) “like the master of a household who brings out of treasure what is new and what is old.” (v. 52)

It occurred to me the other day how ir-religious all these parables are.   They are not stories about spiritual people doing profoundly spiritual things.  The parables, rather, are narratives of the sheer  daily-ness of  life lived close to the earth.

Jesus spins yarns about farming, weeding the fields, germinating tiny seeds, making bread, finding unexpected windfalls, catching fish.   He could have lived here in our part of the world—imagine that:  Jesus in northern Minnesota!    That’s probably why these stories have had such a long “shelf life.”   They are stories about real-life people doing real-life things.

Hans, today as we commission and install you as an ELCA Associate in Ministry, I remind you that the ministry to which you are called is also about real-life people doing real-life things:   working and paying bills and tending homes and trying to get along with one another and mending fences and raising kids and sharing good news.   I think you already get that—and I urge you never to forget it.

There’s a story about a Scottish minister who sequestered himself in the parsonage of the church that he served, which was connected by a covered walkway that led him straight from his home right into his pulpit.   All week long the minister labored over his Sunday sermon, and he took pride in the fact that he could walk directly from his home to his pulpit without being distracted by anyone or anything.

It was said of this Scottish minister that “six days of the week he was invisible, and the seventh day he was incomprehensible.”  

Although this story is a bit far-fetched, it does get at something that really bugs me:  the fact that so much of what we do and say as Christian people seems to be divorced from the daily-ness of life.   How far removed we are from our Lord Jesus who loved to tell tales of sowing and harvesting and mustard seeds and buried treasure and sorting out the “keepers” from the rough fish.

Hans, I urge you to “keep it real” in your ministry with children, youth and families.  We have a real Savior who walked in real time on the real earth and now in the power of his Resurrection walks among us in the same way still.

But there is more here in these parables of Matthew 13.   It’s not simply that these are down-to-earth stories about stuff that happens all the time.

These are also stories about how God’ has a predilection, a preference for salvaging lost causes….redeeming confused, hardscrabble, fault-filled lives.

Because in each of these parables in Matthew 13 there is ample recognition of the dark side of life.   The seed that is sown appears mainly to go to waste—it lands in all the wrong places, gets choked out by all sorts of malevolent forces.   Enemies come along and plant weeds in our gardens--there’s always someone or something throwing a monkey wrench into our best-laid plans and efforts.   It’s debatable whether mustard was a cash crop or a prolific noxious weed—whether leaven was  an ingredient to be used or a mold to be avoided.    The treasure hidden in the field may well have been stolen goods.  The pearl of great price shouldn’t have been lost in the first place.   And the rough fish—the carp, the suckers the zebra mussels—why do they proliferate so much faster than the walleyes and the northerns?

These parables are not pristine tales of a too-good life in a perfect world.   Like all good stories, there’s always a problem, a dark side, a tension needing to be resolved…..just as it is in life itself, don’t you know!

And God is smack dab in the middle of all that, as Jesus never tires of reminding us.   God is working out God’s renewing, faith-creating, future-opening activity in the midst of all the “problems” in this real-life stories.

And Hans, there’s another keeper, I hope, for you and your colleagues and those whom you serve….perhaps especially in the “worlds” of youth and family life in this 21^st century.  

This is a hard time to be growing up.   This world is a broken, treacherous, terribly uncertain place.  I can’t blame young people for wondering what the future holds for them.   There are all sorts of reasons why folks could well be tempted to pull the covers over their heads,  just stay in bed, not venture out, not risk themselves in the treacherous adventures of work and learning and faith and family life.  

You are here at Calvary, Hans, to speak up for our amazing God who does some of his best work with bent lumber, flawed building materials, twisted situations….starting with the Cross itself, a perverse sign hoisted up in Jerusalem’s garbage heap—a perplexing sign that nonetheless rescues us from all that would do us harm.

There is one last thing I want to say about these treasured parables in Matthew 13.   There’s a little bit of sheer, off-the-wall craziness in each one of them.   Jesus portrays things and persons and situations that end up blowing our minds—knocking our socks off, surprising the heck out of us.

So even though most of the seed doesn’t germinate properly, the kernels that do grow produce astonishing off-the-charts yields.  The “mixed bag” of the church provides a fertile seedbed for all sorts of persons to grow up together into Christ.   Stumbling upon the treasure, the pearl leads people to go a little nuts—to liquidate all their earthly assets in order to possess the treasure.   The mustard seed that can barely be seen, winds up producing a tree that birds can call home; the yeast multiples the bread-making capacity of the baker so that hundreds might be fed.

You get the picture:   God takes ordinary, even twisted things and God produces  totally-unforeseen, amazing, life-enhancing results.   God gets his way—and God’s way means life for us, freedom from all the ways we mess up, and a wide open future to boot, in Jesus Christ whose very life for us is the parable of salvation par excellence.

There’s a take-away here for you, too, Hans.   I admire you and anyone else who works full time in youth and family ministry.   Although I’ve always had my finger in that pot, I haven’t made it the focus of my working days as you are doing.  

But I know what keeps you going—I understand why it’s gotten into your bones.  

You get to see the results, the payoff.   You have the joy of witnessing all the ways God takes confused folks, crooked lumber and fashions out of them a thing of beauty.  

My prayer for you, Hans, is that in the midst of the dry and challenging times you will inevitably experience—the promise of that payoff, God’s New Creation beckoning and continually bursting in, will keep you faithful, steadfast and excited to come to work every day.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

A Mess of a Church

Summer Campus Ministry Conference

Bemidji State University—Bemidji, MM

July 14, 2011

Matthew 13:24-30

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

It’s midsummer, and the crops and gardens are all growing.  Seedtime is weeks past—but you wouldn’t know it to encounter the parables that come at us in the lectionary these hot weeks of mid-July.

Here in God’s Word, seeds are still being sown—and in a manner that drives 21^st century farmers in the Upper Midwest stark raving mad.

First, there are entirely too many seeds being flung around willy-nilly, “broadcast” hither and yon, a real hit-and-miss operation if ever there was one.

My father who farmed for over 30 years in southern Minnesota was a stickler for not wasting any seed.   He adjusted and readjusted the old John Deere planter to deliver each kernel into the soil, not too close, but not too far away either,from the next kernel, each precious treasure deposited at just the right depth.  It was both an art and a science, to trust the seed so painstakingly, so stingily to the well-tilled soil.

But not so in Matthew chapter 13.   Whole handfuls of seed are flung with wild abandon all across the un-cultivated landscape, as we heard in last Sunday’s parable, repeated now in this one. Don’t spare the horses—don’t skimp on the seed!

But the farmer in this parable isn’t the only prodigal sower.  By night his nemesis slinks through the same field, just as lavishly sprinkling weed-seed, to germinate alongside and hopefully over-power the good seed.

The Word of God, like the night-time cold cream my mama used, the Word is meant to be applied liberally.   Slather it on, overdo it whenever you get the chance, don’t hold back.   The Word is not some pinched, parsimonious spice to be sprinkled here and there—just a pinch, just a dash.    Let it fly!  Fling it as far and as fast as you can…

….because Lord knows, there are other sowers eagerly spreading other “words,” with no compunction, no reluctance to “let ‘er rip.”

David Lose of Luther Seminary observes:  “In recent years, the presence and influence of the Christian story in contemporary culture has shrunk considerably. The proliferation of different and competing stories about reality—some of which are religious, while many more are about material wealth, nationalism, or ethnicity—has occupied more and more of our attention.

We may see these stories proclaimed on the front covers of magazines or more subtly hidden in the logo of a powerhouse brand, but they are all around us, each inviting us to subscribe to a particular understanding and worldview about what is good, beautiful, and true. Taken as a whole, the proliferation of all these different worldviews has crowded out the biblical story as the narrative by which to make sense of all others and rendered it just one among a multitude of stories.”  ("Stewardship in the Age of Digital Pluralism, p. 112 in Rethinking Stewardship--Word and World Supplement Series 6, October 2010.)

Campus ministry offers the church a strategic foothold in the world of American higher education, sowing the Word where it desperately needs to grow.   And, now more than ever, we need to remind the whole church that if we’re not in this game—flinging the seed of God’s word on campuses all across this land, we will be missing “big time” a golden opportunity to be out there, meeting young adults where they are already choosing to be, contributing to the marketplace of ideas, trusting the seed of the Word to find places to grow on territory we dare not abandon.

Moreover, campus ministry cultivates a generosity of spirit and a yen for adventure, even a little craziness about how far and how fast we are ready, willing and able to “broadcast” the good seed, wherever and whenever it might germinate.

The second thing about this parable, is the way it portrays the farmer’s willingness to tolerate all sorts of messiness in his field.  

My farmer-dad knew that, as Garrison Keillor puts it:  farming is a spectator sport.   So every summer, when our work-day was ended, our family climbed in the old galopy to go inspecting the fields—ours and our neighbors’ fields as well.

My farmer-father loved rows that were straight and hound’s-tooth clean of weeds.  He was a lot like the farmhands in this parable.  When they realize their enemy has sowed weed-seed on their turf, they’re eager to do a little separating of the wheat from the weed, while it is still growing…

…..but the farmer in Jesus’ parable will have none of that.   “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”   This farmer is less interested in “appearances,” less enamored with “purity” than most of his peers.

Now more than ever it seems clear that there are two dominant ways of being Lutheran in North America.   There is the way of “enclave Lutheranism”—marked by tightknit circles of the likeminded—straight as an arrow, neat as a pin, all the rough edges rounded off, pure doctrine producing a putative pure community.

And then there is the messy alternative, the expansive, experimental, ecumenical, “almost-everything-is-up-for-discussion” Lutheranism of our own tribe, the ELCA.   Lord Almighty, but we are a mess of a church!   We let in all sorts of rabble and we tolerate all sorts of nonsense, and sometimes I wonder whether God doesn’t just wonder what to do with us.

In short, we who are the ELCA look an awful lot like that farmer’s field must have looked—with weeds and wheat all over the place—a source of head-wagging and tongue-clucking by our neighbors, no doubt.    A mess—but what a glorious mess…..and if the farmer in the parable is the God-figure, well then it’s the kind of mess that only God could love.

Campus ministry has always had a high tolerance for such messiness; perhaps that is one of our “charisms.” We stubbornly keep prying open doors that others thought they had safely nailed shut.   We’re always on someone’s hit list, always in the cross-hairs of some neatnik repristinator of the “good old church,” trying to circle the wagons and batten down the hatches….but to no avail, because—wouldn’t you know it?--some hippy-dippy campus pastor keeps coming along and inviting in all the wrong crowd.

What the church hasn’t always realized or treasured is how desperately we need to cultivate hothouse experiments, demonstration plots, like campus ministry….to intrude upon the buttoned down closed-system that some in the church always find alluring.

And perhaps even now, in the midst of our understandable angst over little things like money and support—we’re receiving a chance to revel anew in the glorious messiness that the Lord of the Church seems to covet.

But why?  To what end?  For what reason does this parable’s farmer sow seeds so recklessly and cultivate messiness so ridiculously?

It’s for the sake of the harvest, don’t you know?   The farmer doesn’t want to lose one single stalk of wheat, one solitary sheaf—none of it must be wasted.   If I didn’t know better, I’d think that this crazy farmer even imagines that some of those weeds might—when day is done—turn out to be wheat after all!

Such wishful thinking is called erring on the side of grace, and it’s God’s favorite way of making mistakes.   The bean counters, the heavenly hall monitors, the guardians of a mighty fortress of “orthodoxy” fret that somewhere someone might be whispering something that verges on universalism---but they haven’t taken a good gander at this goofy farmer in Matthew 13, have they?  

For what appears to be wastefulness and a tolerance of messiness is none other than a fierce determination to demonstrate power chiefly in showing mercy, which is the hallmark of the God who has drawn near to us in Jesus the Christ, crucified and raised again, for us and for our salvation.

It is for the sake of this divine “erring on the side of grace” that we care so passionately about and give ourselves so recklessly to campus ministry, is it not?

It is for the sake of this confession—that surely deserves a place on every campus devoted to the fearless quest for truth—it is for the sake of contending that at the center of the universe there beats a passionate heart of unconditional self-giving, a self-emptying love that will not let us go. 

It is for that that we believe campus ministry deserves the very best we have to offer.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Dear Minnesota Politicians....

Dear Minnesota Politicians...

Get this state budget crisis fixed NOW.   Stop your preening and posturing and pontificating.

Stop describing "the government" as an entity outside of yourselves--for sure, stop describing government as an enemy.   Hey, Bucko, if you hold elective office in this state you are part of the government.   Heck, if you're a citizen (a "citizen" not a "taxpayer", by the way!) YOU ARE PART OF THE GOVERNMENT.

While you're at it, stop comparing the state budget to my household budget.   Cut that out.   Quit saying inane things like "Just as we have to tighten our belts in our families, so also state government (there you go again, speaking about the government as if it were an "other" and not a shared enterprise you are part of) must tighten its belt."   Sorry--that's not even close to being a valid analogy.   My little household, our little platoon, is small potatoes compared to the State of Minnesota....not just in terms of the dollars in our respective budgets, but also in terms of the scope and mission of our state's government.

What really isn't going to wash with me or other true-blue Minnesotans is tightening the belt of our state government around the necks of the poorest of the poor.   Don't even go there!

Read my lips:   politics is the art of compromise.   In Minnesota right now we have divided government--a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor.   We Minnesotans like it that way, apparently.   Compromise in this case means that the state budget will be balanced by a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.   Get on with it!

And one more thing:  our family is going to vacation on the North Shore in another week.   I expect all those gorgeous state parks to be open.    Don't disappoint me and my loved ones. 

As my namesake the Cable Guy likes to say:  "Get 'er done!"

Your fellow citizen of Minnesota, a great state, worthy of our support, including our taxes....
Larry Wohlrabe

Tree-Hugging Dirt Worshipper

OK, so I'm a sucker for clever bumper stickers--on other people's car bumpers, not mine.   When Joy and I were over at Itasca State Park last Sunday afternoon I saw one that was new to me:  TREE-HUGGING DIRT WORSHIPPER.

"Nice to know there are still some unreformed hippies running around," I mused.   But then I pondered those four words more deeply...

"Dirt worshipper."   Pretty down-to-earth, one of my favorite ways of talking about God's way with us...incarnational to the core, wrapped in flesh, fully human (a word related to "humus," dirt) while fully divine.  

The One I worship is described, in at least one place in the scriptures, as a Second Adam ("Adam" from "adamah"--dirt, in Hebrew, cf. Romans 5:12-21).    Dirt has worked its way into God's DNA.  

Am I, in some sense, a "dirt worshipper?"

But "tree-hugging?"   I don't think so....unless...we're talking about that Tree, the one on which the Savior of the world hung.   The Tree to which we cling for life and freedom and a fresh start.  

I guess I do hug that Tree--yes?  And I hope you do, too.

TREE-HUGGING DIRT WORSHIPPER.

An appellation for only neo-pagan eco-freaks?

Or might that bumper sticker describe even souls like me, who worship the Word-made-human (humus), who hug for dear life the Tree of Life on which was wrought the salvation of the whole world.

Hmmm.  I wonder where I can get me one of those bumper stickers....

Cracked Pots

Ordination and Installation of Margaret Jacobus

Oklee Lutheran Parish, Oklee, MN

June 25, 2011

II Corinthians 4:1-7

 In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

Margaret, it’s customary in an ordination sermon for the preacher to offer some sage advice to the candidate for ordination.  

So, here goes:   don’t try to be too good a pastor.  

Let me say that again:   don’t try to be too good a pastor.

And above all, avoid saying, doing or being anything that might cause someone to say of you:  “Oh, Pastor Margaret—she’s such a perfect pastor!”  If anyone starts saying THAT you surely will have failed as a minister of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, you’re probably thinking:  who let this guy into our pulpit?  This is about the last thing anyone gathered here this afternoon wants to hear—especially the parish call committee and parish council that met with Margaret, discerned her strengths for ministry and perceived a “match” between her gifts and the gifts of this parish.   Surely your call committee and your council did not go casting about for mediocrity….they weren’t just looking for “an OK pastor.”

No, far from it!  In fact this afternoon we are all here because we want you to succeed, Margaret.   This is your cheering section—in full force.    We want you to be a good, maybe even a great pastor.   We are pulling for you!

And yet, I caution you:  just don’t try to be too good a pastor.

And really, those aren’t just my words to you today, as much as they are the words of the apostle Paul in our second lesson. …where we read:  “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

You and I, Margaret, as pastors of the church, and indeed all of us who are baptized into Christ, called to bear God’s redeeming Word in the world…..all of us gathered here this afternoon are “clay jars,” earthen vessels--some have suggested “cracked pots.”   

And yet God chooses to do God’s work through us—the work of pastoral ministry in the church, the work of daily life ministry among our neighbors in the world.    God has a predilection for, a preference for, flawed vessels….and thankfully, there seem to be plenty of such flawed vessels at God’s disposal.

But that isn’t exactly what we want to hear….and it’s not what Paul’s first hearers of this word, the Christians in Corinth, wanted to hear either.  

You see, our second lesson is an excerpt of a much longer conversation between St Paul and one of the churches he helped start, the church in the Greek seaport city of Corinth.

It was a stormy, love/hate relationship that existed between Pastor Paul and the Corinthian church.  We know that Paul served among them and revisited them in person, but mainly we know that he wrote letters to them….probably at least four letters, though we have only two of them in our New Testament.

The Corinthian Christians were confused and conflicted over many things, not the least of which was the nature of pastoral leadership—the faithfulness and fruitfulness of those who had preached the gospel in Corinth.   Paul may have jump-started this congregation, but he was followed by a whole succession of other preachers….some of whom were apparently much more impressive, more charismatic, (we might say) more EFFECTIVE than the Apostle Paul.

It got to the point that there were even “favorite pastor fan clubs” within the Corinthian congregation, with members of the church haggling over which of their pastors had been the best (I Cor. 3)….so much so that Paul had to go right after the whole notion that faith and discipleship and mission are dependent upon the personal gifts or qualities of any pastors, including himself.

And how Paul did that was to use himself as an example of how God often does some of his best work through his least-impressive, least-gifted, least-powerful preachers (I Cor. 4).   Why, Paul even boasted of his weaknesses and drew attention to something about him—a physical disability, a speech defect, epilepsy, some “thorn in the flesh”—that made him, Paul anything BUT a “perfect pastor.” (II Cor 12:5-10)

Now, we could chalk all of this up to a flaw in Paul’s fragile psyche, I suppose—his frail ego, his desperate need to defend himself, raise his own stock and curry favor in the Corinthian congregation…were it not for the fact that Paul finally didn’t make this all about himself.  

Finally, Paul made it all about God, specifically the God who meets us in the foolishness of the Cross and the weakness of the incarnate, in-the-flesh Jesus Christ who demonstrated his power chiefly in showing mercy, submitting himself to sinners, being betrayed by his friends, dying on a cross, and being buried in a borrowed grave.

Paul argued with the Corinthians and right here in our text for today, that it’s not about the preacher, it’s not about who’s the most persuasive or witty or impressive speaker of the Good News.   It is rather about God who works through our weaknesses and deficits, who takes us and hides the treasure of the gospel in us, clay jars, “cracked pots,” so that no one will miss the point:  it’s not about us.  It’s about God, the God who meets us in the weak, vulnerable, crucified, dead-but-now-risen-again Jesus.

So I repeat, Margaret, don’t try to be too good a pastor.   If you do that, people might forget that they still need Jesus!

It’s easier said than done, though—this “don’t be too good a pastor” thing.   It sounds like it should be simple, but it’s not. 

It will go against your grain, Margaret, trying not to be too good a pastor.   Because that’s how it is for all of us called to the office of Word and Sacrament.   There is so much to do—and we want to do all of it as well as we can. 

Take preaching, for example.   Preachers, good hardworking preachers, want to “say it all” in every sermon.  That is a temptation, especially when a pastor is starting out—“give them the whole load of hay” every Sunday.

But here’s the kicker:  you will find that the sermons that “hit home” are the ones you feel least good about.   Every preacher I’ve talked with about this can tell stories to that effect.   You think you have a pretty good sermon—but it falls flat, goes nowhere!   Then the next week, you’ve been distracted by other things and you didn’t prepare as well as you’d like—so you go into the pulpit on a wing and a prayer—and afterwards some of your hearers request a manuscript, so they can ponder this magnificent sermon again.

Here’s what I think is going on in all that:   when we step down or step back or step aside, as preachers, Jesus steps up.   Where we are lacking or incomplete or just plain weak—Jesus has a chance to shine all the brighter.  

More than once in my many years of being a traveling preacher, I’ve stepped into a pulpit on which is carved this verse from John 12:21:   “Sir, we would see Jesus.”

That’s what it’s all about, my friends.   Ministry is about stepping back so that Jesus can shine all the brighter.

So Margaret, I say to you again:   although we all know you bring wonderful gifts and ardent passion to this work, and although we know you are eager and ready to “dig in” in here in the Oklee parish, with heart and soul and mind…..please don’t be too good  a pastor.  Please don’t think you need to say it all, do it all, be it all.   

And you, people of God, you can do your part by not trying to be” too good” Christians, as well.  Because Christians who are hung up on being “too good” usually become hung up on themselves, often in ways that divide them from one another…no longer focused on or trusting in Jesus, no longer united in Christ.

Give Jesus time and space and ample opportunity to do what Jesus does best:   save us from our self-centeredness, our mortality, our captivity to forces that mean us harm.

Give Jesus a chance to save us and to send us, not as perfect specimens, but as “clay jars,” flawed vessels, cracked pots through whom God nevertheless does God’s amazing work in this world.  

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

All About the Future

75^th Anniversary of Immanuel, Bejou, MN

Trinity Sunday—June 19, 2011

Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Matthew 18:16-20

In the name of Jesus.   Amen.

I love days like this--church anniversaries--when we “militantly modest,” shy, understated Lutherans give ourselves permission to “cut loose.”  

I love how days like this feel like big old family reunions.  I love how we wheel in the old pastors, gawk at them, whisper to one another over who has gotten the grayest or lost the most hair.  I love how on days like this we look back, tell ancient tales, and relive episodes from our church’s past.  I even love all the “stuff”—the cookbooks, the wall plates, the ornaments and gizmos and nick-nacks that we let ourselves get talked into buying to remember our dear old church.

What I maybe love the most is the food—the big dinner (sometimes under a rented tent) and the cake and all the trimmings.  We Lutherans don’t know how to celebrate anything without eating too much—and today is no exception.

I love days like this, and I get invited to church anniversaries every summer, and that always surprises me—because usually I’m the most unfamiliar face in the whole crowd.   Makes me feel a little like a “reunion crasher.”   Why in the world do congregations like yours ask a total stranger to come and even preach on a day like this, anyway?

Perhaps it is because you realize a congregational anniversary is always about more than the congregation.   Deep in your bones, you recognize that Immanuel Lutheran Church isn’t your cozy club—your private preserve.   This whole, glorious history that we revel in today is about you and those who came before you—but it is also all about God—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—and everyone who belongs to God.  Today is about all the “operations of the Holy Trinity,” coming sharply into focus in one small corner of God’s vast domain.

Years ago I heard an anniversary sermon I will never forget.   The pastor brought into the pulpit an eight foot-long stick on which he had he had painstakingly marked off, in 100-year segments, highlights of the history of the whole Christian church on earth, from the Day of Pentecost down to the present moment.

The pastor used this wooden timeline to give us all a lesson in church history, scrolling through all the events that have defined Christianity, until he arrived finally at the last 100 year segment—the century in which his congregation had been in existence. 

To tell the truth, measured against the whole sweep of church history, the time this one congregation had occupied looked like a blip on a screen.

Which was precisely the pastor’s point.   The years a single congregation has been around--though precious us who love the congregation—are like a drop in the bucket of eternity.   So we would be wise, the preacher urged us, to keep all our anniversary reminiscing and remembering in proper perspective.

Well,  this morning I didn’t bring an 8-foot stick along with me, but I did bring along the scripture lessons for this Trinity Sunday, which point, in three specific ways to all the “operations of the Holy Trinity” that will help us keep this 75^th anniversary here at Immanuel in proper perspective.

First, to keep us from getting too tightly focused on this single congregation, in this tiny village, God’s Word for today calls us to take a wide-angle lens view of all that God has been and still is up to across the panorama of the whole universe.

So, it’s good to hear the poetry of the Genesis 1 creation story, to see the cosmic backdrop, across which God’s “portrait” of Immanuel Lutheran  has been painted.  For the God who called your congregation into being in 1935 is the same Creator God who spoke all things into existence…

…the Lord to whom this congregation belongs is the one who according to our gospel lesson has “all authority in heaven and on earth.”   Wow!

There may be 1.3 billion persons in China who will never hear of Immanuel Lutheran of Bejou—but the Creator of all that exists, Jesus the Son who is Lord over all has called you, Immanuel Lutheran Church, to be one of his kingdom outposts.     Big enough for you?

Second, to help us resist turning inward (as can happen so easily in any congregation), God’s Word for today invites us to consider the entire web of relationships and connections that have made and still sustain Immanuel as the congregation that it is.

Relationships, you see, are in the spotlight on every Trinity Sunday.  Relationships, after all, are at the core of God’s very being.   God is “three in one” because God is a relationship of mutual self-giving in which the Father gives the Son, even as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son for the life of the whole world.

It is this Triune, three-in-one God out of whose abundance of love and relationships that Immanuel Lutheran Church was formed 75 years ago.    And that’s why for these last three-quarters of a century, you have continually tended relationships both within, but also outside of this congregation.   It’s what Christians do, after all—as persons who’ve been commissioned to expand God’s life-giving web of relationships, making disciples of “all nations.”  

So today, rather than risk getting turned inward, God’s Word bids us give thanks for all the relationships that got Immanuel going and kept it going, through thick and thin.   As I’ve gotten acquainted with your congregation’s history, I’ve been struck how often Immanuel has been threatened by forces that could have wiped you out.

Founded during the Great Depression, you had to reorganize yourselves in your first five years of life, recognizing that you would survive only in relationship with others…with neighboring congregations like First of Mahnomen and now Calvary of Winger….with part-time pastors who served here for many years…with financial assistance from the old ALC back in the 1970s…and, after a tornado struck Bejou, with the prayers and support of others who helped you put up a new church building that serves you still.

Your ongoing life, my dear friends, will be full and rich as you keep on tending relationships with God, with one another and with your fellow believers across this region, this country and this world. 

Third (and finally), lest we get stuck in nostalgia—looking back only--on this anniversary Sunday, God’s Word for today reminds us that God is all about the future—and that God’s mission is always beckoning us forward, toward the New Creation that God is bringing our way.

What we might miss, in this morning’s gospel lesson from Matthew 28 is the fact that here at the very end of the gospel is the first time the disciples show up since they forsook Jesus on the night he was betrayed.  As Matthew narrates Christ’s passion, the disciples run and hide like scared rabbits.   Only some women followed Jesus to the Cross and ventured to the tomb on Easter morning….the disciples are nowhere to be seen until these last five verses of Matthew’s gospel.

You’d think, under those circumstances, that the Risen Christ would turn back the pages of time and rub his disciples’ faces in their cowardice, reminding them of all the ways they let him down.   

But not the Risen Lord Jesus Christ:  he meets his disciples, some of whom still have their doubts, and he sends them—woefully inadequate though they may be—Jesus sends them out to turn the world upside down with the astonishing news of life, forgiveness and freedom.

The Risen Lord Jesus who commissions those scared rabbits is all about the future, all about what lies ahead, and his final words in Matthew’s gospel drive us and all who hear them toward this same future:  “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We will do some history-sharing, we’ll engage in a little nostalgia today here at Immanuel.  But may our looking back serve the purpose of charging us up, in order to move ahead, with our Risen Lord who is indeed all about the future.  

You may have your doubts about that future—especially now as you say goodbye to a beloved pastor and prepare to call a new pastor with your parish partners of Calvary.    But have no fear:  you will never be alone, never far from the One to whom has been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

The future, your future here at Immanuel, is God’s future.  It’s a gift from the Living Lord Jesus who has death behind him, who has promised to continue being Immanuel, God-with-us, forever.

In his name.   Amen.

Out of the Boat

Grace Lutheran Church, Ada, MN

Installation of Pastor Matthew Williams

Easter 7/June 5, 2011

Acts 1:6-14

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

So it was two weeks ago this past Thursday. I was in a meeting, and I get a text message from my 29-year-old son Erik, who lives in the Twin Cities. Our brief exchange went like this:

ERIK: “Is it true that “May 21 is Doomsday?” Some nut got (on) the front page of the (Fargo) Forum today…

ME: Yeah, there’s a guy who is SURE the Rapture starts on Saturday. From the standpoint of what Jesus (actually) said on the subject, the world will NOT end on Saturday.

ERIK: OK, but just in case you and mom do get raptured, can I have the snowblower?

Now this little text message exchange went on a while longer, but you get the picture. Erik and I were hardly the only ones “buzzing” about radio evangelist Harold Camping’s prediction that the Rapture would happen at 6 p.m. on May 21st. All over the world billboards got put up, possessions were sold, fiery “get-ready-for-the-rapture” sermons were delivered and “Left Behind” parties were planned.

Of course, we know now that our Lord didn’t return two weeks ago to gather up the faithful—all two or three hundred million of the “elite” whom Harold Camping predicted would “measure up” and qualify for the heavenly updraft.

Undaunted, though, Mr. Camping quickly revised his prediction, saying that it would be October 21st, not May 21st when the celestial fireworks would go off….so I’m sure we haven’t yet heard the end of this business.

And really, that shouldn’t surprise us one bit!

Because speculation about the “mechanics”of the End of the World has been around at least since the Ascension of our Christ, as recorded in today’s 2nd Lesson from Acts.

“Lord,” the disciples asked the resurrected Jesus, “is this the time—is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

That question has been asked for nearly 21 centuries. “Is this the time…?” Is this when God is going to wrap up this whole business?

It’s an old, old question….that is also as fresh as this morning’s news. And why does it fascinate us so?

There is, to be sure, something vital at stake here. We long for God’s final purposes to be achieved. We ache for God to consummate, to draw to a decisive conclusion all of God’s saving work.

And the fact that God will do that is taken for granted by Christians of all stripes. The last word about Jesus in our Creed, after all, asserts that “he will come to judge the living and the dead.”

But how and where and when exactly will that happen? The Bible dangles out some hints about that, here and there….and that has led some earnest souls to try stringing together all those hints into some meaningful whole—to produce a heavenly timetable….

….even though the clearest and most compelling word of Jesus on the topic is usually forgotten. It goes something like this: “No one knows. Not the angels in heaven. Not even the Son. Only the Father knows….and he isn’t telling!”

The surest word we have on the “mechanics” of the End of All Things is that it’s way above our pay grade to know all the details….so we would be wise to focus on other things.

And fortunately, Jesus, tells us—flat out—what those other things just happen to be.

Reading from our text: So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ 7He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

It is not for us to be privy to the heavenly timetable. That isn’t within our purview. We best leave it alone by leaving it to God.

What is within our purview, our capacity to grasp and “do something” about is this: bearing witness here and now in this world.

And if Jesus does provide any timetables or itineraries, it’s about this down-to-earth, here-and-now work that we HAVE been given.

Picture it, for the first Christ-followers, as a series of concentric circles…moving outward from Jerusalem.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witness in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It all starts where it all started for Jesus, in Jerusalem, where the Cross was raised up on the city’s garbage heap….and where the crucified Jesus was raised up three days later.

Start here—in Jerusalem…and then move on out to the first ring of witness, Judea and Samaria—walking where Jesus walked….and then keep on moving out to territory the earthly Jesus never covered, “to the ends of the earth.”

This, my dear friends, is what God in Christ would have us be about—speaking, acting, living the Christ life…”witnessing” to the life, death and resurrection of our Lord….to the ends of the earth.

Anything else, everything else, will too easily become a distraction.

One of my seminary professors recalled a bumper sticker that said: “In the event of the Rapture, the driver of this vehicle will not be responsible.”

“Yes, that’s the problem with so-called ‘rapture theology,’” my professor observed. “No one is responsible for God’s people or God’s good earth.” We can become so heavenly-minded that we’re of no earthly use.

We can become so distracted by other things---end of the world speculating, moralizing about other people’s behaviors, arguing church politics, you name it---we can become so distracted by other things (and the Lutheran tribe has its own favorite ways of doing that, mind you!)…we can become so distracted by other, lesser things that we miss the Main Thing, which is sharing Christ.

A Christian leader from Africa put it this way: “Oh, you American Lutherans! You’re always trying to fish INSIDE the boat.”

But Jesus is crystal clear: our place to fish is OUTSIDE the boat, in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Move on out, Jesus says.

But all too often, we prefer to hunker down inside the boat. If you follow the narrative here in the Book of Acts carefully, the first followers of Jesus don’t actually DO what Jesus told them to either until the 8th chapter of Acts.

The first disciples got “stuck” in Jerusalem, until the horrific martyrdom of Stephen (which we read about in Acts 7), which in turn led to the first general persecution of the Christian church in Jerusalem. THEN, finally (as it says in Acts 8:1)…”a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.”

The call and command of the risen Jesus in Acts 1:8 comes to fruition only in the persecution “scattering” of his followers in Acts 8:1.

God uses whatever’s at his disposal—even the horror of persecution—to pursue God’s purposes, through God’s people. God didn’t call us to duct-tape together clues scattered across the Bible, God didn’t call us to expend our energy debating secondary, here-today-gone-tomorrow “hot button” issues, God didn’t call us to stay stuck in one place or to even try “fishing inside the boat.”

God in Jesus Christ calls us to move out, to move forward, bearing the Good News about Jesus, wherever we are sent.

And when we get stuck, mind you, God will get us unstuck.

In her provocative book, The Great Emergence, author Phyllis Tickle suggests that every 500 years or so, the Christian church holds a big rummage sale. Every five centuries, give or take, God turns the church upside down, in order to get us off our duffs and move us out once again, to recapture for a new generation the freshness, the sweet inviting aroma of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

I think we’re in such a turning-point time right now. Even the upheaval in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America may be akin to what happened in the first eight chapters of the Book of Acts: God getting us “unstuck,” God getting us all shook up, so that God can get us all sent out once again.

And here’s how it always begins, though: in prayer and worship, as we await with Jesus’ first followers the gift of the Holy Spirit. How apropos for this service of installation for Pastor Matt Williams, whom you have called to help lead you in the two chief activities of the people of God: prayer and work, worship and mission--especially the good “work” of passing on the faith to the next generation of disciples.

Notice how our text concludes, with Christ’s followers caught up in prayer and worshp. Maybe that’s how the next chapter in our lives of faith will always begin: in prayer, gathered around Word and Sacrament, awaiting the fresh air of the Spirit to blow through us and scatter us and send us just exactly where God needs us to be--Out of the boat. Into the world. Bearing witness to Christ

.In the name of Jesus. Amen.