Sermon for Pentecost 2A

Matthew 9:35-10:23

³⁵ Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

10 Then Jesus^[a] summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ² These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;^[b] 4 Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’^[c] 8 Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,^[d] cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. ⁹ Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, ¹⁰ no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. ¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. ¹² As you enter the house, greet it. ¹³ If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴ If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

¹⁶ “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; ¹⁸ and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. ¹⁹ When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; ²⁰ for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. ²¹ Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; ²² and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ²³ When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

Sermon

God has a sense of humor. We know that in a variety of ways in our daily lives, but there are times when I simply wonder if God is just laughing at me. For example, for most of the time that I have been with you, before the pandemic happened, each week I had encouraged the people of St. John’s to move closer together in the sanctuary. To make my point, I even had red ribbons put over the pews on the sides to get you all to move into the center of the space. Now, as we make preparations to reopen the building, I have instructed that the ribbons on the side pews can come down, and everyone has to spread out in order to avoid the potential for infecting one another with Covid-19. God is laughing at me, and I smile, shake my head, and laugh along with God. Well, the same thing is going on with today’s text. Three years ago, when I was installed as your pastor at Salem, the Gospel text was out of Luke, but it was the story of the sending out of the seventy, with the same instructions there that Jesus gives the disciples in today’s Gospel from Matthew. My internship supervisor preached at my installation three years ago on the Luke text; now I get to give you my take on it from the Matthew text. God definitely has an interesting sense of humor.

So, what’s been going on in the Gospel of Matthew up to this point? We have the infancy stories of Jesus in the first two chapters of Matthew, and then the Gospel skips to Jesus as an adult, with John the Baptist preaching about the coming of Jesus and then baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River. Jesus has spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness and then being tempted by the devil. He calls his first disciples and begins his ministry, including many miraculous healings. And then in chapters 5-7, Jesus goes up the mountain and lays out his blueprint for what the kingdom of heaven looks like. He tightens up laws until there’s no wiggle room for us left, with the intention, I believe, of emphasizing what right relationships with one another look like. He exhorts us not to worry about material things, but to trust in God to provide for us. He teaches many other things, including the proper ways of fasting, giving alms, and praying. Then in chapter 8 he continues his healing ministry among the villages of Galilee. Now the disciples have been with Jesus long enough, heard his teaching and seen his healing miracles, that he feels the time is right to send them out on their own to proclaim the good news and continue his healing ministry, to help as many people as possible to enter the kingdom of heaven.

So, let’s talk about some of these twelve disciples that Jesus appoints, and what we know about them. Of course, there’s Simon Peter, a brash man who almost always speaks before he thinks, leaps before he looks, and who will end up denying that he knows Jesus three times. And we know from church tradition that he will go on to be one of the pillars of the early church after Jesus is crucified and resurrected. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, whose mother will request that her sons be seated at Jesus’ left and right hands in the coming kingdom, not knowing that Jesus’ kingdom will not be like earthly ones. Then there is Matthew the tax collector, the collaborator with Rome who extorted more money from the people than what they owed in taxes so that he could get his payment. And on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum from Matthew was Simon the Cananaean, probably from the Aramaic word meaning “zealot,” a member of a group who wanted to completely overthrow the Roman Empire. And finally, there was Judas Iscariot, who would betray Jesus. The point that I am making by describing some of what we know of the disciples is this: they were not perfect. They were likely not educated. Matthew and Simon the Cananaean came from opposite sides of the 1^st century political spectrum. And yet, Jesus has enough confidence in them to send them out to the villages and tell other people about him and about the coming kingdom of heaven. Isn’t that amazing?

This is enough by itself to give me hope for the coming days. Hope that you, the people of Salem and St. John’s, have learned enough about Jesus from my ministry among you for the last three years that you can find ways to spread the good news about Jesus to those who need to hear it. I know that you’re creative and can tell others about Jesus while still observing social distance protocols. And one thing that I want to emphasize from today’s Gospel reading is this: nowhere does Jesus say to his disciples that he wants them to go out and invite people to church because there are so many nice people there. No, what does Jesus commission them to do? “Proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” While we may not literally be able to do some of these things, we can carry on with Jesus’ ministry in the same spirit in the 21^st century.

“Proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’” How do we do this in the age of Covid-19? Safely, of course. A couple of weeks ago I spoke of how the Holy Spirit has used this pandemic to get us out of our buildings and into the online world, to speak the good news of Jesus Christ to people who would never have darkened the doors of our buildings. I encourage you all again to get into the online world and use those computers to see what’s out there. Have your children and grandchildren help you out as they are able. But you can still proclaim the good news of the kingdom of heaven without going online. Think about what difference Jesus makes to you. Not church. We all miss church, and we’re hopeful for the day we can return, but that’s not what Jesus is really all about. In your personal devotions, think about what Jesus means to you. What difference does it make to have Jesus in your life? Why do you believe in Jesus? Write out your faith statement, and then find a way to share that with someone who needs to hear it.

Proclaiming the good news would seem to be easy compared to what Jesus instructs the disciples to do next. Cure the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse the lepers. Cast out demons. We’re disciples, Jesus, not doctors. But there are still ways that we can follow Jesus’ instructions in the ministry that he has given us. We may not be able to physically heal someone from an illness, but we can help make sure they have adequate access to doctors and nurses who can heal them. That could mean anything from helping someone who doesn’t have transportation get to a doctor’s appointment to advocating with our elected officials for all people to have affordable health care. Raise the dead. The Holy Spirit, in these days, has not given us the ability to do this literally. But metaphorically: we can be with someone who finds herself at absolute rock bottom, and give her hope that, with Jesus’ help, she can make it to the next day. That’s what raising the dead looks like. Cleanse the lepers. We don’t see a lot of literal leprosy these days. But we do see other illnesses and conditions that cause social distancing. Some of this is justified: we do need to continue social distancing to stop the spread of Covid-19. But there are people on the margins who don’t need to be on our margins, such as people whose voices have been suppressed and who are now coming to light with the new movement for racial justice. Be open to learning and to having your mind changed. Reach out to people who are different from you. Listen and don’t speak. Work to bring those people in from the margins. That is what Jesus’ instruction to “cleanse the lepers” looks like today. Finally, cast out demons. I have talked about this in the past with reference to mental illness, and this is another group of people on the margins that we can advocate for: for better access to mental health care, for example, and for removing the stigma of mental illness in our society. But folks, the demon that needs to be cast out today is that of racism and white supremacy. The ELCA, our Lutheran church, is the whitest denomination in this country, and that’s not good. We need to work at becoming “color-amazed” as our Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton put it, rather than “color-blind”. That is hard work, but I encourage you to engage in that work as you go out into the neighborhoods of Oberlin and Steelton and find out what’s really going on out there. And join in the work of casting out this demon of racism and white supremacy and participating in the coming of God’s kingdom.

Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” I think that when we ask this, Jesus turns it back around on us and says, “You’re the laborers, and I am sending you out into the harvest. Continue to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Jesus does not leave us to do the work alone. Even though I will be leaving you, Jesus will never leave you, no matter what. And the Holy Spirit will guide you in the work that God the Father has created you to do. So, do not be afraid, even as all of these great societal changes are happening around us. God is with you, encouraging you, forgiving you when you fail, and picking you back up to try again. Do the hard work that God has called you to do, and lean on God’s love, God’s forgiveness, and God’s constant presence to sustain you. Amen.

 

Sermon for Trinity Sunday 2020

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

1 In the beginning when God created^[a] the heavens and the earth, ² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^[b] swept over the face of the waters. ³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶ And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸ God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹ And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. ²⁵ God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humankind^[c] in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^[d] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

²⁷ So God created humankind^[e] in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;^[f]
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” ²⁹ God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. ³⁰ And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ³¹ God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. ² And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. ³ So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

⁴ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

Sermon

Today we observe Trinity Sunday, that day of the church year when we talk about God as the Three-in-One, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the day when we preachers struggle with that theology and how to make it relevant to you, the congregation. But what to do with this today? After months of being in quarantine in our own houses with Covid-19, and starting to cautiously emerge into a new world where worship is not going to look like what we’ve been used to our whole lives, we are now horrified by the murder of a black man, George Floyd, by police in Minneapolis, and frightened that protests are continuing on in our major cities a week after it happened. And not only protests, but violence and looting accompanying the protests, causing crackdowns by police and the National Guard in many places, which just seems to make the unrest all that more frightening. How do we as Christians respond to all of this chaos in the world? How are we to make sense of this? Where is that Three-in-One God now, and what good does all of our high-falutin’ theology actually do for us?

I think that we are given a gift today in our reading from Genesis. When all else fails, let’s go back to the beginning, which someone once said is a very good place to start. And we notice that “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” In the beginning, according to this storyteller, everything was tohu vavohu, wild and waste, chaotic. Kind of what it feels like in our world right now. And so, the question for us becomes, when everything seems wild and waste, chaotic, could it be that in the midst of this, God is creating something new? But then, what is this new thing that God is creating?

For that we return, again, to the story of how God created everything that exists, from the world around us to human beings, and how God called everything good, and, in the end, very good. And I want to take a step back and give some background on this story. Scholars think that, while this story was told orally in Israelite communities for a long time, it was only written down during the time of the Babylonian exile, after the year 586 BCE. And we need to understand what it was like for the Israelites to be in exile in a strange place, surrounded by people who worshiped many different gods. They didn’t want to lose their identity; they wanted to affirm that they were different from the peoples who lived around them, and that they had something important to say about who God really was. The creation stories of the Babylonians were all violent, involving things like the gods creating human beings and then wanting to kill them all because they were too noisy. Or, in one account, the gods fought against one another and used the corpse of a dead god to create the earth. These kinds of stories portrayed the gods as fickle, who didn’t have a care for the material world that they were responsible for, and who would destroy everything and everyone on a whim.

In contrast, the Israelites proclaimed a God who lovingly created the world and all creatures in it as something beautiful, and who proclaimed it all very good. And, the storyteller says, human beings are actually made in God’s image. And further, the storyteller says, we are made to be in relationship with one another: male and female, animals and human beings, plants and animals and human beings, all in relationship with one another. God giving human beings dominion over the creation doesn’t mean that it is ours to do with as we please. Rather, it means that we are to care for the creation, to treat it as valuable because God made it and God loves it just as much as God made and loves human beings.

And it’s human beings that I want to talk about today, and how we treat one another. It would be long after the creation story that Jesus would come along and teach us that we are to love one another as we love ourselves. But we have the theological grounding for Jesus’ teaching right here, in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness,” God says. “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” So much ink has been spilled over what it means to be created in the image of God. The short answer is, we don’t exactly know, other than we’re pretty sure it means that we don’t physically look like God, because we don’t know what God looks like. But our concept of God as Three-in-One and One-in-Three can give us a clue.

This week in our Zoom Bible study, we talked about the Athanasian Creed. This is a really long creed that we as Lutherans subscribe to, but we don’t say during worship for several reasons. Although, the churches I grew up in would usually trot it out on Trinity Sunday. It’s a very detailed description of what our concept of the Trinity is all about, that we believe God exists in three persons, separate and clearly marked off from one another, but that all persons of the Trinity are equally God, but yet we don’t worship three gods, but one God. It’s confusing. But what I take out of it is this: God is somehow in relationship with God-self. And if that’s the case, and if we human beings are made in the image of God, then one thing that image means is that we have been designed to be in relationship with one another. And that, if I have the image of God in me, then that means you also have the image of God in you.

We have learned this lesson in new ways during the time of Covid-19. We long for physical relationships that are forbidden to us for fear of transmitting this highly contagious and highly deadly virus one to another. We long for the simple acts of hugging one another, of being able to get our hair cut, of being able to convey our sympathy for one another through that touch. We keep in touch now through phone, social media, and Zoom meetings, and while that’s helpful, we instinctively know that it’s not enough. But where we haven’t learned the lesson that everyone has the image of God in them is manifesting itself now as we hear about the murder of George Floyd, and everything that’s being brought to light with the continued racist and unequal treatment of our African American brothers and sisters: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, and so many others. We haven’t learned this lesson when it comes to reactions of fear and prejudice against Asian Americans as there have been attacks against them, accusing them of transmitting Covid-19 because they “look” Chinese and refusing to be treated by them if they are doctors or nurses in the hospital. Folks, we simply haven’t learned this lesson that everyone is made in the image of God, and I am going to be bold enough to say that if we want to call ourselves Christian, if we want to claim that we are following Jesus, then we need to first admit our sin and then commit to changing ourselves. Because that’s what being Christian is about: it is about repentance, and true repentance means turning around 180 degrees from where we have been. And I think that we, and I’m including myself in that “we”, have been lazy. We have asked for forgiveness, but we have not really repented. We have relied on what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace”; the idea that we can sin all we want during the week, come to church and be forgiven, and then go on sinning without attempting to change ourselves.

So, I’m going to be the first to confess my sin. I confess to you, Lord, and to you, my sisters and brothers, that I have not recognized the image of God in the others around me. I have regarded people who are different from me, especially African Americans, as people who are to be helped charitably but not to be listened to. I have not been willing to walk alongside of African Americans. I have only scratched the surface in understanding the systemic racism that still exists in this country. I have self-righteously thought, “Well, if they’d only do what the policeman said and not fight back, maybe they wouldn’t have this problem,” without realizing that even when African Americans do this, they are still too often killed in police custody. I confess that I have self-righteously called out racism in others and not seen it in myself. I confess that I have also remained silent when I have seen racism expressed by others, rather than calling it out. Lord, I repent of my sins; I truly repent, and I want to do better. I ask for forgiveness, and I ask for your help as I try to turn from my sins; to be better at listening and understanding those who are different from me; to willingly educate myself; and to willingly walk alongside African Americans and other minorities in this country; and finally, to recognize the image of God in everyone around me, and to respect that image as I respect the image of God in myself.

For the image of God is about relationship. Just as the Trinity is three persons in one God, and one God in three persons, we, too, are called to be in relationship with one another. And that means we need each other, not only to survive, but to thrive. We need to be in relationship with one another, and not only with people who look like us, but especially with people who don’t look like us. I believe that one reason our two congregations are as small, white, and old as they are is because, rather than trying to get to know what’s going on in our neighborhoods, getting out and getting to know people, and walking beside them and advocating for them, we have instead retreated into our buildings and said that if they want to come to us, they can come to us. And I believe that that is racism, even if we would not name it as such. So, in my second-to-last Sunday with you, I encourage you to really find out what’s going on in Steelton and Oberlin. Listen to the voices of the African Americans who live here. Repent of any racism that you did not know that you had. And learn to walk alongside your neighbors and to advocate for them. Only then will our communities know that we are Christians by our love. Amen.