Sunday, December 07, 2014

The Beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God

Hey everyone!

What follows is a rough manuscript of the sermon I preached yesterday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, New York, a Spirit-filled church where I'm incredibly blessed to serve as pastor. It's primarily on the appointed Gospel passage for this Sunday, Mark 1: 1 - 8. Furthermore, it's also the second of a four part sermon series I'll be preaching throughout Advent called "God with Us." Here's what I'll be covering in the coming weeks:

- Advent 1: God with Us in the Face of the Stranger
- Advent 2: God with Us in Rotterdam
- Advent 3: God with Us at Work
- Advent 4: God with Us in Family

Finally, I'll guess it might be worth noting that I wrote this pretty rapidly this morning before church after discarding what I came up over the past week... there's thus a much more sense of immediacy to it, and I hope it still makes sense. Thanks so much, stay tuned for future installments, and I hope you find this helpful!

God's peace,
Pastor Dustin

Let’s just revisit the first few verses of today’s gospel message again… “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare the way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. After being tempted by Satan, Jesus then begins preaching, healing and exorcising across the Galilean countryside, picking up a motley crew of disciples along the way, who continue to follow Jesus despite having no idea who He truly is. And this, as Saint Mark says, was “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

You know the rough shape of the rest of the story, right? Jesus isn’t accepted by his family in Nazareth, yet more and more folks seem to flock to him as he continues to heal, cast out demons, and teach in parables. While a demon knows Jesus Christ is the Son of God, yet even despite the transfiguration, ya know, that time when Jesus is on the top of a mountain and everything becomes all white and light and the voice of God says “this is my Son,” the disciples still can’t entirely figure out who Christ is. Even if the disciples couldn’t figure it out though, the people were healed, the people were fed across the Galilee, people learned about how God was active in their everyday lives, in the lives of their local community, in the lives of their families. And this, as Saint Mark calls it, was “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Jesus eventually decides to move south, to Jerusalem, to the local seat of power, to where the temple is, to where God certainly should be! Jesus enters the city triumphantly, yes, but after foretelling the destruction of the temple, and cleansing it, and admonishing the scribes and all the official sounding folks in Jerusalem, all those high and mighty, supposedly super holy people in charge conspire to kill Jesus. And even despite everything that happened at the Last Supper, and all Jesus prayers in Gethsemane, all those super holy religious officials along with the Roman officials put Jesus to death, and this wasn’t like Superman Jesus just hanging out there up on the cross like he is in the Gospel of John. According to Mark, this is a painful, excruciating, all too human process… God in Christ experiences the worst of human suffering in a fully human sort of way, even to the point of crying out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The disciples continued to deny Jesus, yet at least one unlikely person, a Roman centurion, knew Christ was. And this too, as Saint Mark explains in today’s gospel passage, was also “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

While all the bros were hunkered down terrified of what had just taken place, Mary Magdalene, another Mary and another woman named Salome went to go attend to Christ’s body after the sabbath was over. But when the went to the tomb, Jesus’ body was not there… only a young man in white who said “Do not be alarmed, you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will him, just as he told you.” Yet, at least according to the original ending of the Gospel of Mark, even these women, the most loyal of Christ’s disciples, dropped the ball… the very last sentence in the gospel reads “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Yet somehow, the word God out anyway… Jesus had indeed gone ahead to Galilee, and a seemingly radical, but in fact incredibly simple movement took shape. Increasing numbers of folks were healed, folks were fed from the local seat of power in Jerusalem, to the seat of global power in Rome, and folks learned about how God was active in their everyday lives, in the lives of their local communities, in the lives of their families. And this, as Saint Mark would characterize, was still only “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Now wow, despite countless martyrdoms, the sack of Jerusalem by Roman soldiers and conflicts with those same super holy religious authorities, predominately due to how well Christians care for the physical as well as spiritual needs of people, more people heard about Jesus, and eventually a few hundred years later, the entire Roman Empire converted! While good news in some ways, this also ensured that the Church, the body of Christ on Earth, would from that time forth tangled up in the political order of the day. Yet while the emperors and bishops and Christianity’s own supposedly "super holy people" argued about heresies and creeds, started all sorts of wars and schisms, folks were still healed, folks were fed, and folks learned how God was active in their everyday lives, in the lives of their local communities, in the lives of their families. And despite all the craziness, this too, my sisters and brothers, was still only “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

I know I’m skipping a few details, sure, but despite a ridiculous number of crusades and inquisitions, barbaric colonialism, the corrupt “super holy people” in charge and often silence in the face of immense injustice, somehow, folks were still healed, folks were still fed, folks still learned how God was active their everyday lives, in the lives of their local communities, in the lives of their families. Nearly ninety years ago, a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ was founded on the outskirts of a small northern city that electrified and moved the world. Through depressions and wars, and crazy social changes, and immense layoffs and outsourcing, and deindustrialization and a massive loss in population, generations of folks were still healed, still fed and stilled learned how God was active in their everyday lives. Right when things were maybe looking up, 9/11 happened, some controversial wars happened, the Great Recession happened, local tragedies and struggles with pastoral leadership happened, sure. The “supposedly super holy people in charge” often had no idea where or who Jesus was, and still don't, but yet, somehow, folks were still healed, still fed and still learned how God was active in their everyday lives. Just this past week, despite all the craziness and extra commitments of the holiday season, when two of our own families here at Messiah were facing immense difficulties, countless prayers were said, phone calls were made, cards were sent, people were visited and meals were prepared. At the same time, funds were being raised, and quite rapidly actually, to make sure a needy family in Rotterdam had presents under the tree this Christmas. While this was amazing, and I personally have never have been so proud of how supportive and active so many members of this congregation have been over the last week, none of this really was very new. Folks were healed, folks were fed, folks learned how God is still active in their everyday lives. And this too, yes, my sisters and brothers, is only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

I was thinking about it on a long ride from New Hampshire last night, and while I see how it happened, it seems like absolute hogwash that religion, or at least faith in Christ, is often thought of as this sort of lofty, academic, hard to understand, super complicated sort of thing, ya know? I mean anyone that’s taught their daughter or son a bedtime prayer, or visited a sick loved one in the hospital or served a meal to a hungry family, knows just as much about Jesus as the most highly credentialed pastor or professor. Sure, it’s absolutely necessary to sort of work through our experience of God with others in community, but in the end, Christ comes to us not predominately in ancient treatises or esoteric teachings, but in the regular stuff of everyday life, in caring for one another, in raising families, in learning and growing, in trying to make our local community a better place. And as we continue to journey together through this Advent season, as the days continue to get shorter and colder, amidst all the craziness this time of the year brings, yet as we still await Christ’s coming in hope and longing, my sisters and brothers, know that this too things too is only the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amen.

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, he spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with his fiancée Jessie, his amazing pup Willy Bear and pretending to know how to sing.

Monday, December 01, 2014

"Why Have You Hidden Your Face from Us?"

Hey everyone!

What follows is a rough manuscript of the sermon I preached yesterday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, New York, a Spirit-filled church where I'm incredibly blessed to serve as pastor. It's primarily on the appointed Hebrew Bible passage for this past Sunday, Isaiah 64: 1 - 9. Furthermore, its the first of a four part sermons series I'll be preaching throughout Advent called "God with Us." Here's what I'll be covering in the coming weeks:

- Advent 1: God with Us in the Face of the Stranger
- Advent 2: God with Us in Rotterdam
- Advent 3: God with Us at Work
- Advent 4: God with Us in Family

Thanks so much, stay tuned for future installments, and I hope you find this helpful!

God's peace,
Pastor Dustin

So a couple years back in the very late hours of Christmas Eve or early hours of Christmas Day I found myself sitting on a couch three stories up above Midtown Manhattan, staring out at these stark and lonesome, but also beautifully and atypically still city streets, just sort of taking stock of my life and wrestling with God. You see, I was in the middle of my internship year Saint Peter’s Church, where the final Christmas Eve service gets out quite late and a hot breakfast is served to homeless members of the community early every Tuesday morning, even if that particular Tuesday is Christmas Day. With this in mind, instead of taking the subway back to my tiny apartment in Queens after helping out with the Christmas Eve services, I headed up to the third floor of the church where there was an amazing conference space with massive panel windows on two sides and also an amazingly comfortable couch that I always took naps on Sunday afternoons between services. My plan was to spend the night at Saint Peter’s, wake up early, help with preparing and serving breakfast, assist in a short Christmas morning liturgy and then take off for a few l expected to be melancholy days with folks up in New England. I reasoned that especially on Christmas morning, there wouldn’t be many volunteers to help serve breakfast, or perhaps that our guests would be in need of pastoral care, so staying all night at church seemed like the both logical and upright, Christian thing to do.

The truth I didn’t want to admit to myself or to God however that night was that the reason I was trying to sleep on that couch perched high over Lexington Avenue wasn’t because I was a super good intern or fulfilling my Christian duties at all… Rather, I was burdened with the constantly dull but overpowering ache of depression, sadly anticipating the anniversary of my mother’s death, drowning amidst the chaos of a failed relationship, experiencing incredibly loneliness I what I viewed as a way too big city and feeling like I really had nowhere else to go. I could have easily gotten the holiday itself off, but going back home to Connecticut would only bring up more hard feelings about my mom and doing what I considered to at least be burdening a friend’s family with my presence didn’t seem like a good option either. And worst of all, much like the speaker in today’s first lesson from Isaiah, I felt like God had entirely hidden from me. Trying to sort out where God still was in the middle of all the garbage going on in my life, especially at Christmastime, was completely proving impossible, and as you might imagine, I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

That morning, our God of surprises definitely showed up. A former member of Saint Peter’s and pastor at another nearby congregation that didn’t have an early service on Christmas Day, showed up to lead what turned out to be a huge group a volunteers, one giant extended family with no previous connection to Saint Peter’s who had simply decided to spend Christmas morning helping folks out. I honestly wasn’t need at all… there were more than enough volunteers, and frankly just by hanging out with me, our homeless guests probably did more to provide me with pastoral care than the other way around. We engaged in a bunch of great conversations, especially about our guests’ service in our armed forces. Although this number has improved in recent years, as of 2013 still around 53% of America’s homeless population are veterans (according to HUD's "Annual Homeless Assessment Report" ). I got to hang out and laugh with the family who was volunteering too, and community was fostered on Christmas morning… our God of surprises definitely showed up.

Now don’t get me wrong, God definitely showed up in the face of the stranger that Christmas morning, but it wasn’t necessarily in this big, beautiful, idyllic sort of way… it’s not like Scrooge running around giving folks money and ham dinner in a Christmas Carol! Although this isn’t typical, we had to serve an unused catered fish dinner from a giant law firm a couple stories up that morning for breakfast, which thus made for a really stinky breakfast! We often romanticize poverty in our society, especially around this time of the year, but there were definitely a few guests, although not a lot, who showed up drunk or high on who knows what. I even remember banging my elbow like really, really hard and cursing pretty loud for being in a church building. My depression wasn’t cured overnight, the messy parts of my life weren’t immediately fixed, the rest of my year in New York while incredibly rewarding still turned out pretty darn lonely, sure, but our God of surprises definitely showed up. That sense of not joy, but stubborn, resolute peacefulness, community and most importantly hope that God freely gives us when Christ shows up, especially in the face of the stranger, was definitely present.

So two closing thoughts as we enter into a new liturgical year, into the season of hopefully longing that is Advent here at our Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ. First, especially in the midst of the holiday season when we’re constantly told again and again in holiday movies, in commercials and even by family and friends that we should be especially joyful, know that in Christ it is absolutely okay to feel whatever it is you’re feeling. Check out verse five of our reading from Isaiah, where the prophet cries out to God, “because you hid yourself we transgressed.” I mean, Isaiah is at least partially blaming God for his people’s sinful behavior!! The prophet’s really discouraged by God seemingly not showing up as in days of old! And I mean, if the guy or woman who wrote that part of Isaiah, one of the most central books of the Christian Scriptures, can take anger and disappointment to God, I think God in Christ certainly gives us permission to do the same. If you are indeed feeling joyful and jolly this holiday season, that is awesome, rock on, but if you’re not, you have absolutely no reason at all to feel guilty about it.

Second, and relatedly, as Jesus cries out to us RIGHT NOW in twenty-first century Schenectady through today’s gospel, KEEP AWAKE! Yes, while God is present in our church, in our families, in all the places we normally experience Jesus, God in Christ is especially present in the face of the stranger! Last night I had a chance to rewatch Jill’s awesome sermon from last week, and the way she proclaimed the good news about serving our neighbors was amazing. Perhaps the best part of serving our neighbors, whether they be people who are homeless, or hungry, or a family where there isn’t enough money to buy the kids Christmas presents, isn’t about what we’re doing, but rather what God is doing to us in Christ. We know in faith that Jesus especially comes to us in the face of the stranger. I took a break from the news while I was on vacation last week, with the exception of course of watching the aftermath on the grand jury ruling in Ferguson, which outside of that city were not entirely but largely peaceful. Whether or not justice was specifically done in Ferguson isn't my specialty, but I couldn’t help but think when looking at the faces of all those peaceful protestors that from one perspective they were simply proclaiming God is present in the face of our African-American sisters and brothers. Yes, Christ is present in their lives and the lives of all who are crying out against a wider societal system where the sin of racial injustice is still certainly weighing down our country.


After everything the prophet Isaiah cries out to God in today’s lesson, there’s a turn near the end, did you catch it? Check out verse eight: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” I’ll read it one more time, “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Wow, despite things certainly being far from perfect in the prophet’s situation, that stubborn, resolute peacefulness, sense of community and most importantly hope that God freely gives us when Christ shows up is definitely present in Isaiah’s words. It may not always be joyful, it might not even always feel good, but God in Christ is certainly at work in your life and life, your life and your life and indeed all our lives, carefully crafting us, forming us, shaping us, showing up in all sorts of places, especially in the face of the stranger. Indeed, God has promised us in Christ that this is the sort of God who God is, and yes, as always my sisters and brothers our God is a God who keeps promises. Amen.

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, he spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with his fiancée Jessie, his amazing pup Willy Bear and pretending to know how to sing.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Zephaniah, Our Stuck Culture and How God is at Work RIGHT NOW

Friends,

What follows is a rough manuscript of the sermon I preached this past Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, New York, a Spirit-filled church where I'm incredibly blessed to serve as pastor. It's primarily on the appointed Hebrew Bible passage for this past Sunday, Zephaniah 1: 7-18. I'd love to hear what you think!

So wow… pretty intense message coming out of our first reading from Zephaniah, huh? Earlier this past week I was in the office working out this Sunday’s liturgy with Tina when I went over the texts for the first time, and after reading that passage from Zephaniah, I had one of those face in palm moments… Zephaniah ain’t playing here! All that doom and gloom… “the great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the warrior cries aloud there. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom… I will bring such distress upon people that they shall walk like the blind; because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung… ouch! Today’s passage from Zephaniah is a perfect example of one of those Biblical texts that makes a lot of confused Christians say things like, “Geesh, the way God’s portrayed in the Old Testament makes God sound pretty mean! That’s not the God I know at all, so it’s not relevant. It’s not relevant, so I’ll just skip those passages and get to all that nicer sounding stuff with Jesus in the New Testament.” Be honest, who here’s done something like that before?

Here’s the thing though… despite the way Zephaniah portrays the voice of God sounding really mean and all, despite all the scary doom and gloom, the historical context Zephaniah wrote for couldn’t better match our own, and thus, definitely has some powerful and indeed profoundly good news to proclaim to us in this time, in this place, RIGHT NOW in twenty-first century Rotterdam. Zephaniah himself says he’s writing during the time of Josiah, sort of the last big, successful king of Judah before the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem in 587 BCE. And the times Zephaniah describes are certainly much like our own… “the people rest complacently on their dregs” the text says. Folks in King Josiah’s time lived in relative prosperity, things were okay, but the text repeatedly indicates there was a certain cultural “stuckness” going on in Judah. Sure there was injustice, all manner of sins going on, but in the end, perhaps folks’ greatest sin in that time was complacency or even apathy… a “stuck culture” where thinks weren’t really good, but not that bad, kinda meh… where folks didn’t either want or didn’t think they could do much to improve the situation. Yeah, they sort of continued to worship God, but they didn’t feel like God was all that active in their everyday lives… Zephaniah tells us the people said in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.” So, the people weren’t really active, and they didn’t think God was all that active either… they were in a “stuck culture.”

That sense of complacency, of cultural stuckness is definitely something we can all relate to. You might remember a few weeks ago when in the midst of writing my sermon I reached out to some close friends, asking them the question “why are we so pessimistic?” Well, throughout the week that followed, one of my friends and I continued our conversation, and at one point he sent me a few texts that describe our situation incredibly well:
Ya know why we’re pessimists… it’s because there is nothing good left to look forward to. Going to the moon for the first time ever. Creating the interstate highway system… the American Dream. We didn’t grow up in a time of great fear that needed to be overcome, yet we’ve just succumbed to the fear anyway. 
And summing it up using a slightly less kid-friendly word than I will, he said, “People don’t have the brass to achieve anymore.” I think my buddy diagnosed our stuck culture pretty well. Ya know this past weekend I saw what I think will be considered one of the best films of the decade, Interstellar. Has anyone else seen it? Yeah… it’s awesome… because outside of its entertainment value, while on one level it’s about a not-too distant future where humanity needs to leave planet Earth to survive, on another level, it has a lot to say about our own times as well… that sense of complacently, that cultural stuckness that while not always there, seems all too often to weigh deeply upon our hearts. Speaking in terms similar to my buddy, the main character Cooper diagnoses the stuck culture of his world and ours with some pretty powerful words, “We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.” We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt… yeah, that’s exactly what’s going on… we live in an incredibly stuck culture.

But luckily, it’s into just this sort of situation, a culture of complacency, a stuck culture that Zephaniah proclaims strong, profound and indeed, incredibly good news. Sure, he uses some pretty harsh words, but he uses all the spilling out of blood like dust and flesh like dung for an important reason… to wake us up. My sisters and brothers, you’ve heard the gospel proclaimed to you week after week, year after year in ways that could be summed up, “God loves you no matter what,” “God forgives you, no matter what” or maybe “God saves you, no matter what.” Now, in Christ, we are promised those things are absolutely true, and they absolutely are, and being reminded of such things is as important as ever. Absolutely. But in our time, in our incredibly stuck culture, the gospel message God cries out to us in the words of Zephaniah echoing across the millennia is one that is perhaps even more powerful… in Christ, God is calling you into a life of incredible meaning. In Christ, God is calling you and you and you into a life of incredible meaning. On an individual level, in your families, when you help your children or grandchildren doing their homework, even if the way they teach math nowadays makes absolutely no sense, what you do matters. What you do has incredible meaning in Christ. When you go and visit a homebound loved one or help out a fellow coworker, even in a small way, what you do matters. What you do can’t get you to heaven or get you right with God, because God already takes care of that for us, but still, what you do has incredible meaning in Christ.

On a larger scale, as a society, God is calling us to lives of incredible meaning as well. This past week as I watched coverage of the annual Veterans’ Day ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers in Arlington, and especially as I heard about Gerald’s flight to DC where he was honored as a veteran of the Second World War, I’ve been haunted by the incredible bravery of our women and men who’ve served in our armed forces… and I know we have a number of them in our congregation. Please stand up or raise your hand if you’re a veteran. Thank you for all you’ve done, for all you’ve sacrificed in service to your country. Now while we prayerfully hope that doing something like defeating the scourge of Hitler never has to happen again, we should also know that we’re still called to dream and solve difficult problems and do incredible things in our time, RIGHT NOW, despite leaders in both of our major political parties and other leaders in our stuck culture neglecting to ask us as a nation to do much of anything… ending hunger, caring for people who are homeless or undocumented, curing cancer, all these things are possible with a collective societal effort. Living lives of incredible meaning, doing things that matter, both on an individual level and as a wider society, isn’t something to be relegated to the past, whether it be two thousand years ago or sometime back in the good ol’ days, whenever those were… God is confronting us with the profoundly good news that we’re called to lives of incredible meaning RIGHT NOW.

And of course, God confronts us with the profoundly good news that we’re called to a life of incredible meaning as a congregation as well. Now let me first say, when you sing in the choir, or help care for our property or teach our children in Sunday school, that already has incredible meaning in Christ. On top of that though, you might recall I spoke last week about a question that the Spirit has certainly put on my heart, and I know on many of yours… “Given all the growth we’ve experienced here at Messiah, what might God be calling us to in that growth?” There was also a homework assignment, if you remember… to brainstorm, to think about needs in our local community, here in Rotterdam and the greater Schenectady area. I apologize, as I know my sermons have been going a bit long lately, I promise to reign it in after my vacation haha, but just take a minute to turn to one of your neighbors and talk about what things you came up with, what some needs are here in our local community…

… We might not be called to build cutting edge low income housing or feed every hungry person in Schenectady as a congregation alone, but whatever needs you talked about, we’re certainly confronted with the profoundly good news that we’re called in Christ to in partnership with others, work on at least a few of those things. As we enter into a busy Advent season as Messiah Lutheran Church, as a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ, I pray the conversations you had keep going, that ideas keep bubbling up. Once we get past Christmas, say in early January, I already heard from a few of you that it’d be a good idea to have a bit of brainstorm session together as a community, to discern what we might be called to do.

Even if the things we come up with seem small, my sisters and brothers, with every hungry mouth fed or family with a warm place to sleep or harmful public policy changed through our efforts, treating our neighbors as Christ is something that always matters. And furthermore, perhaps in doing these things we can proclaim to folks in the ridiculously stuck culture we find ourselves living in that they are called to lives of incredible meaning, that they can and indeed often are doing things that matter as well. For as Zephaniah proclaims, both to the people of his stuck culture and to ours, in this time, in this place, RIGHT NOW in twenty-first century Rotterdam, God is constantly breaking into our lives, stirring things up, making things happen. In Christ, our God has promised to do just that, and yes, as always our God is a good who keeps promises. Amen.

God's peace,

Dustin

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, he spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with his fiancée Jessie, his amazing pup Willy Bear and pretending to know how to sing.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Wake Up!

Friends,

What follows is a rough manuscript of the sermon I preached this Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, NY where I'm incredibly blessed to serve as pastor. It's primarily on the appointed gospel passage for this Sunday, Matthew 22: 15-22. I'd love to hear what you think!


God's peace,
Dustin

So I got this buddy Pete… the only person I’ve ever became best friends with twice… You see, Pete and I became friends in pre-school when I was four years old, but given that you don’t have much control over your social life at that age we lost touch with each other. Fast forward a decade to when I was an awkward, goofy freshman in high school, and Pete and I became best friends all over again, despite only making the connection well into high school that we had originally been friends as preschoolers. While we had a bunch of friends in common, shared similar senses of humor, and all the rest, the reason I especially liked Pete though was that he’d drag me kicking and screaming into all sorts of adventures. And by adventures, I really mean adventures… one time shortly after we had gotten back to school from summer break, Pete suggested that we head out to this spot he heard about along the Connecticut river and go cliff jumping… jumping off the remains of some old foundation, a big rusty metal and concrete sort of thing and plunging through the air about thirty or forty feet down into the water. At first I did not think this was a good idea, especially as I really wanted to take a nap after school that day. Pete kept on me though, telling me it would be an awesome time, and eventually I caved. Now after trekking through about half a mile of tick infested tall grass (I always call this adventure the tick safari), we got to the cliffs, and Pete almost immediately jumped off that big ol’ rusty pile of metal and concrete. I timidly followed him, plunging down thirty or forty feet, and after painfully smacking the water, I realized I was having the time of my life! Pete and I must have jumped off that cliff at least ten more times each that day.

Circa 2006.
And ever since that point, I sort of knew to always trust Pete, that despite all my reservations, that whatever he suggested would be awesome adventure, one from which we’d get out from relatively unscathed. There was another time, probably the following spring when he suggested in early April that we should go off this rope swing and swim halfway across a reservoir to explore this island. Now granted, this reservoir probably still had ice in it only a few weeks earlier, and once again I argued that I wanted to go home and take a nap after school, but he persisted and after I eventually followed him off that rope swing, we somehow made it out to the island and hung out there for hours, having great conversation about girls, about growing up and whatever else teenage bros talk about. After swimming back later in the evening, I’m positive we got mild hypothermia, but no matter, it was an awesome adventure and I didn’t regret it a bit. Fast forward a few years, and despite going to colleges many hours apart from each other, Pete and I remained good friends. There was one year when I was suffering from a fairly major bout of anxiety and depression, it was spring break, and I wanted to do nothing but go home and waste the week away sleeping and watching TV. Pete had other plans though… he eventually convinced me to join his college outing club in a rock climbing and white water rafting trip. After experiencing yet another new adventure, meeting new people and just having some great conversation by the campfire with my best buddy Pete, things started turning around for me, and I always mark that weekend as the turning point of my recovery.

The last time I saw Pete was actually on his wedding day. He’d been dating an amazing girl for a number of years (who he met on the rafting trip actually), and after not hearing from him for quite a while, he called me up two summers ago to ask if I could preside at his wedding, which true to form, he and his fiancee had decided would take place in about a week’s time. I, like usual, was apprehensive at first… I was by no means allowed to preside at weddings before being ordained, I was supposed to do all that marriage counseling stuff beforehand, and not to mention Pete’s a sort of atheist or at least not a big fan of organized religion and that I’d have no idea what to say… you get the picture. But of course, like always, I found myself a week later, standing under a tent in Pete’s backyard, wearing flip-flops, rolled up jeans and a ripped flannel shirt, saying “by the power not vested in me by the State of Connecticut, I now declare you husband and wife.” And of course, that day will be a memory I cherish for the rest of my life… sharing a part of one of my best friend’s greatest adventures.

So, on top of being mortified about some of the situations your new pastor has found himself in over the years, you’re probably all wondering at this point about what Pete and I’s friendship has to do with today’s gospel message… what our adventures featuring a tick safari, hypothermia, a rafting trip and a last minute wedding unsanctioned by the proper ecclesiastical authorities have to do with one of Jesus’s most famous, most debated and yet most misunderstood teachings: Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s… Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s. You’ve probably heard all sorts of interpretations… that this passage is about contributing more money at to your church, or giving more of your time to God, or maybe even that it’s about how your faith should or shouldn’t relate to what you think about public policy. Well, I’ll be honest on this one, I don’t know for sure, but I have a pretty strong inkling that while yes, Jesus’ message about giving to God the things that are God’s has some ramifications about how we should think about stewardship and public policy as Christians, that in the end, Jesus’ message is about something much bigger, and much more important than all of that… Jesus’ message to the Herodians and the disciples of the Pharisees and to us, in this time and place in twenty-first century Rotterdam, New York is about trust. And perhaps on even a deeper level yet, Jesus’ message to us today is also about hope.

Ya see, when I was younger I was a shy, awkward kid, who definitely had big dreams but struggled in figuring out how to work toward them. And there were other factors too of course as I grew up, but I think a big part of my go get ‘em attitude today stems from my friendship with Pete. Sometimes he’d just shake me up and say Dustin, dude, trust me, you don’t want to sleep the day away! There’s a big beautiful world out there! Dustin, trust me, things might be tough for you right now, but joy is still possible! New things are still possible! Dustin, trust me, sure you might be breaking the rules, but help me celebrate my wedding day. And in Pete’s unique ability to instill trust in me while shaking me awake at the same time, I discovered there were so many possibilities, I was reminded what was truly important, and in turn, I was drawn into the sort of free and merry spirit brought only by a deep, down to the core sense of hope for the future. Now Pete’s a great guy, trust me, but I mean, he’s also just a guy… Jesus has similar, even more profoundly good news for us in today’s gospel message.

When you read the whole narrative of this part of the gospel, beginning with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem (ya know the story we celebrate every Palm Sunday), when he casts out the money changers from the Temple, and then all his difficult parables that we’ve all been struggling with over the last month or so… when you read all that, today’s message sort of pops out at you as unique. Jesus often condemns the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees, and all those sort of religious officials for leading their people astray, but that’s not really who Jesus is talking to in this passage if you look at it closely… the Pharisees plot to entrap Jesus, but then they sort of send in their B Squad to do their dirty work… they send in their disciples, young Pharisee padwans you might characterize them as if you’ve ever seen Star Wars. The story reads like the disciples of the Pharisees go collect some low level supporters of Herod, or in other words some pro-Roman folks, and then simply do what their teachers have told them… they try to publicly entrap Jesus with a difficult question about taxes.

Jesus, in famously answering, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” doesn’t really seem to be speaking a word of condemnation to the young Pharisees in training, or to us for that matter… he’s speaks a message of trust, and on even a deeper level, of hope. Much like how my buddy Pete had that unique ability to instill trust in me while really shaking me awake at the same time, Jesus is saying to these Pharisees in training, “Sure pay the tax, whatever, but that’s not what’s important you silly people! Give to God the things that are God’s, which by the way is everything! Quit it with all this trying to publicly entrapping me nonsense! Your teachers are leading you astray! Wake up! Wake up to what’s truly important, to the truly amazing ways God is breaking into your world!” Any Pharisee in training having gone through Torah 101 would have known the first chapters of Genesis… God created the whole world, and it was good! Give to God the things that are God’s, because hey, everything is God’s? Yes, while this statement necessarily leads one to ask how to give everything to God, and that’s an important question, it’s not the central point. In the end, Jesus is simply saying to these impressionable Pharisees in training and the Herodians alongside them… wake up! Trust me! Stop being silly and wake up to what’s truly possible in God! Wake up to all the absolutely amazing things God is doing in your life!

And so, my sisters and brothers, Jesus confronts us with the same powerful message today, right here in twenty-first century Rotterdam, New York in our spirit-filled church seeking to follow Him. Jesus confronts us in that unique sort of way, just like my buddy Pete did for me, that begs our trust while at the same time shakes up awake. Sure, there’s are truly difficult things going on in most if not all of your lives… those Pharisees in training would have hated being reminded about the Roman occupation themselves… there’s truly difficult things going on in many of our lives… the loss of loved ones, illnesses, a rapidly changing and at times dangerous society, the ebola epidemic, economic inequality, yet another war in the Middle East and even concerns and worries too hard to put into words. So many of us are in profound need of comfort, of healing, of strength and it seems like we have nothing left. Yet the living Christ, my sisters and brothers, confronts us with just the sort of message we need. He shakes us up… saying wake up! This whole world is my Father’s, all is God’s and truly amazing things are still possible in a world were God is indeed in charge! Wake up, sure, there will be difficult things, you might have to “deal with the emperor,” but wake up! You are loved. Wake up! You are saved. Wake up! You are not alone. Wake up! Your life still has deep, profound meaning in me! Wake up! Wake up into the love of a God who has promised to walk with you no matter who are or what you’ve done or what you’ve faced in life. And yes, my sisters and brothers, wake up to the love of a God who keeps promises. Amen.

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a Spirit-filled church following Jesus Christ in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his profession time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with his fiancée Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Sunday, October 05, 2014

Chief Priests, Pharisees and Professional "Perfect People"

Friends,

What follows is a rough manuscript of the sermon I preached this Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, NY where I'm incredibly blessed to serve as pastor. It's primarily on the appointed gospel passage for this Sunday, Matthew 21: 33-46. I'd love to hear what you think!

God's peace,
Dustin

So wow, upon first read this is a pretty tough gospel message, one that does not seem to have much good news at all… I’ll provide some context and also do just a bit of recap for those of you who, like I sometimes do, have a hard time staying focused on whatever’s being read up front in church. While I haven't been preaching a whole lot on ‘em over the past few weeks, this Sunday’s gospel passage is yet another one of Jesus’ “vineyard” parables, where the vineyard typically is meant to symbolize the kingdom of God. In this one, which follows right after our gospel message from last week in the Bible, Jesus is speaking to the chief priests, Pharisees, the professional “perfect people” in other words, who throughout history have often been found leading various religious institutions. A landowner sets up a vineyard, essentially builds a fort around it, and then perhaps goes on holiday. He sends over his slaves though at harvest time to collect his portion from the tenants left in charge of the vineyard, and then the tenants promptly decide to kill the slaves. This same thing happens a second time… even more slaves are thrown into the mix, who the tenants once again kill. Finally, in what seems like an oddly cruel decision, the landowner decides to send his son over, who is promptly killed as well.

Jesus then of course traps the chief priests, the Pharisees, the professional “perfect people,” by asking them what the owner will do with those no good tenants. “The tenant will puts those wretches to a miserable death,” the professional “perfect people” reply back, only later to figure out Jesus was talking about them. Jesus, seemingly confirms this, by in fact directly quotes Psalm 118, which is a song of victory: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.” He then goes on, “The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” Now jeesh, this parable seems like quite the bummer! If we place God as landowner in the parable, first we have to deal with God being okay with having slaves, and then we have to be okay with God sending his slaves AND his Son to a certain death, and then worst of all we have to deal with the idea that we’ll be crushed by God if we mess up like those no good tenants. There’s another difficulty with the text as well, particularly since we’re reading it the day after Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar. Texts, and these like it, have throughout much of Christian history been used to the support the foolhardy notion that God rejected the Jewish people with the coming of Christ.

So let me be pretty blunt here… by no means at all is Jesus saying to the chief priests and Pharisees that God has rejected the Jewish people or Judaism. Absolutely, positively, not at all. Jesus was learned Jew… he shows that much by quoting the Psalms in today’s gospel passage. Just a few verses before this passage, Jesus is welcomed with opens arms into Jerusalem, in the scene we experience every Palm Sunday. Let me be pretty blunt here… Jesus was and is completely cool with Jewish people. One thing Jesus is saying to the chief priests and Pharisees however is that God was in fact pretty darn upset with the religious elite of Judaism at the time, the professional “perfect people” who while pretending to act all zealous and holy, were simply leading all their followers astray. Now, anyone who’s spent much time at church over the last fifty odd years knows this phenomenon of professional “perfect people” at the head of religious institutions isn’t something relegated to first century Judaism… many Christians, and especially Christian clergy, haven’t done a particularly good job heeding Jesus’ warning as of late.

Whether its the more old fashioned fire and brimstone preaching or the more popular nowadays picture of the perfectly happy Christian family wearing inoffensive polos standing alongside the handsome young pastor in a really nice necktie, either way, for whatever reason, us Christians, and perhaps especially us clergy folks all too often like to portray ourselves and our families as perfect or at very least quite pious to the folks in our congregations, and of course, to the general public as well. And now after decades of church decline, partially as a result of having these “perfect people” as visible leaders in our congregations, we’re in a pretty dire situation. So many of the folks my age, a majority of my non-seminary friends probably, seeing church as a place full of judgement and backward thinking rather than a place full of the good news. And it’s not just young people who feel this way about church of course… all sorts of folks have been made to feel less than worthy of God’s love in many Christian congregations… folks who have gone through a divorce, folks who don’t fit inside heterosexual norms and folks who can’t afford a nice set of dress clothes are just a few of the groups who often are made to feel they don’t measure up to the “perfect people” in Christian congregations.

Now, upon first hearing it, today’s gospel message seems like one that solely condemns… you will be cast off by God, you will be crushed if you act like those no-good vineyard tenants! Now on one level, it does condemn. It especially condemns us folks who try acting like we’re perfect, who try acting like they have everything together, and especially us clergy folks, the professional “perfect people” found all too often as leaders of religious institutions, myself included. On one level, today’s passage from Matthew does condemn, but on such a more important level, my sisters and brothers, it holds a message of incredible promise. Remember, when Jesus is doing all that condemning, he’s quoting Psalm 118, which is a song of victory… “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.” And just listen to what comes after the verse he cites in Psalm 118… 
“this is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has given us light! Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever!”
Wow, now why do you think Jesus would quote a psalm like that if He wasn’t preaching good news?

On one level, God does expect a lot out of us. Jesus does shortly following the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 famously say, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect,” after all. We should do the best we can do as Christians, out of love for all the amazing blessings God gives us everyday. The funny thing though, and the thing the chief priests and Pharisees and far too many Christians, myself included, can’t always seem to remember, is that doing the best you can do for other folks and for your community usually means not being “perfect” at all! Indeed, in our human imperfection, in our human sinfulness, at least in terms of day to day stuff, it often hard to agree on what “perfect” would mean anyway. And in being “real,” in making ourselves vulnerable to one another, to be okay with bearing witness to our scars and flaws, that in turn creates space for our friends and family and neighbors to be themselves as well. And here’s the best part, and the most important part, that those professional “perfect people” couldn’t seem to get… in trying to be perfect, we make things all about ourselves, which in turn simply distracts us from the new and exciting things God is doing again and again and again in our lives and in the lives of our communities.

In today’s gospel message, my sisters and brothers, Jesus is saying geesh, get over yourself, get outside of your own head for a bit, but he’s not saying that in the end as a message of judgement! Not at all! Christ is instead calling us again and again and again to look at all the amazing ways God is constantly breaking into our lives, doing new things, making new possibilities no matter who we are, how we feel or what we’ve done. God is constantly breaking into our lives, making new and surprising things happen… the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone! So, my sisters and brothers, as we move into this month of hoping and thanksgiving together, know that everyday is a day the Lord has made, where in Christ new dreams are possible and new hopes will be stirred up in our hearts. Everyday is a day the Lord has made, everyday is a day where stones that have seemingly been rejected have become the cornerstones of new and exciting things in Christ. Amen.

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a vibrant congregation ministering with the local community in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his profession time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Monday, September 29, 2014

God Is at Work in You!

Hi friends,

What follows is the manuscript for a sermon I preached yesterday at Messiah Lutheran Church, the amazing, spirit-filled faith community following Jesus Christ in Rotterdam, New York where I'm blessed to serve as pastor. It's primarily on one of the appointed texts for the Sunday, Philippians 2:1-13. It'd love to hear some feedback and thanks for reading!

In line with the style of this week’s children's sermon, this sermon will be a bit participatory adventure as well… So if you could take out your bulletin, open it, and focus on the right inside panel, where it has all the announcements and those sort of things. Now look near the bottom of the page in the box that says Messiah Lutheran Church and lists our contact info. Who here could read for me that first sentence below our wonderful sexton Nicole’s name? Just the first sentence… Thank you! Now there’s a bit of a typo there, but it’s pretty close… Our mission is “to be a spirit filled church following Jesus Christ.” So if you wouldn’t mind, repeat after me… Our mission is “to be a spirit filled church following Jesus Christ.” Our mission is “to be a spirit filled church following Jesus Christ.” Alright, awesome!!! Now say it one more time so you can keep it in you head while we chat for a few more minutes… “Our mission is to be a spirit filled church following Jesus Christ.”

Members of our busy kitchen crew last night @ Messiah.
So as you all know, it’s been a pretty busy time in the life our faith community, and frankly in my own life as well this past week. There was a lot of time spent preparing for the roughly one hundred folks showing up later this afternoon for a beautiful evening vespers, to celebrate all the amazing stuff we’ve achieved together over the past couple months, followed by an equally celebratory, awesome and I’m sure to be delicious ham dinner organized by our very own Kitchen Committee. Some of my family members are of course coming up to Rotterdam in a couple hours for the festivities, most of them for the first time, so I had a whole lot of house cleaning to do, which my increasingly mischievous pup Willy Bear has been making pretty difficult. Our new bishop in the Upstate NY Synod, Rev. John Malcholz, visited Messiah for the first time this past Thursday as well… he loved the new paint job in my office by the way. And on top of all that, you might be aware that I got engaged this past weekend to the beautiful Ms. Jessie Morton. Two of her closest friends, Ms. Brooke and Ms. Hailey, who are joining us this morning in what I think is both of their first Lutheran services, even flew up to spend this special weekend with us.

So given all this, I gotta confess I was pretty much running on fumes all week, not really on my “A game,” a fact that became most apparent when it occurred to me about ten minutes before I was scheduled to lead our first adult education class this past Wednesday evening that I had completely forgotten to plan anything, not even the briefest devotion, for the class at all. Given that I’m the pastor and all here I felt pretty irresponsible, kinda angry and really disappointed with myself, and definitely frustrated about how nuts things have been lately at Messiah, even though all that craziness has stemmed from pretty much all good, and in fact amazing things… new faces and returning old faces joining us during Sunday worship, a new girl scout troop and Home Bureau group using our building, new classes and programs galore… even plans for creating a whole new youth room in the works. We’ve indeed experienced growth in every way over the last couple months here at Messiah, and you’ve all contributed so much to this process, and on top of all that I was just about to celebrate some truly amazing moments in my own life, but no matter, I really upset and even angry about how busy and worn out I was feeling.

Our wonderful volunteer servers last night @ Messiah.
Luckily I had a copy of this week’s bulletin on me, as I was starting to think about today’s sermon, and that’s when I first spied that powerful mission statement of yours… our mission is “to be a spirit filled church following Jesus Christ.” Now mission statements are something folks usually argue over in various committees every five years or so and then promptly forget about, but I figured, hey, that sounds like a pretty good one to describe the mission of folks here at Messiah, so let’s talk a little bit about it and your accompanying dove symbol at the beginning of our adult education class. And guess what folks, we ended up having a fabulous conversation… we spoke about how when first coming here as prospective members looking for a new faith community, it was apparent how the Spirit was truly moving amongst the people of Messiah. We reflected a bit deeper about the how Holy Spirit works as well, about how we experience the Spirit in passion, in emotion, in movement, in making things happen, yet how the Holy Spirit’s presence is also one of indescribable stillness of the soul, and yes, of peace.

And it’s just that sort of thing, the presence of the Holy Spirit, that odd combination of making things happen, of passion yet peaceful stillness amidst it all that Paul’s referring to in today’s passage from the Epistle to the Philippians. Now a couple weeks back we were talking about those troublesome Corinthians… the new rich, people always trying to one up each other and that sort of thing, but the Philippians were a different crew entirely. Acts tells us they were Paul’s first church in Europe, some of the closest supporters of his ministry, and indeed, some of Paul’s closest friends. Paul writes them from what’s probably a Roman prison, in what was probably an extremely difficult situation, and writes predominately to share in the joy of Christian community with his friends and companions in sharing the Good News that is Jesus. And what he write’s them is truly awesome… first he quotes what was probably one of the earliest hymns about Jesus in order to urge the Philippians to be of the same mind as Jesus…
whom 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. 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 the God the Father.
And wow, it sounds like a pretty heavy deal… Paul’s urging the Philippians, and indeed us, to become obedient, even to the point of death, even to the point of death on a cross. We’re to empty ourselves? Just like me nearly panicking amidst the busyness of life this past week or just like us as community scrambling to feed a hundred folks ham dinner from our humble little kitchen and working through the growth happening all around us, or all of us while we’re dealing with all types of difficult challenges in our individual lives, when we hear stuff like that, to be obedient, to empty ourselves, we can’t help but throw our hands up in the air sometimes and yell wow God, how the heck do you think I can do something like that?

Yet all times, and especially in those moments, my sisters and brothers, when we have no idea at all what we’re gonna do, we also need to look at what Paul says to his dear friends the Philippians next… we need to look at what Paul indeed proclaims to us next here at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, New York across the millennia… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. For it is God who is at work in you! It is God, my sisters and brothers, who is at work in all of us, every single day, no matter how imperfect or overworked or worn out we feel like we are… working through that odd combination of passion, of making things happen, and that still sort of peace that is the Holy Spirit. Although it at times may feel like an incredible burden, it’s an incredible promise… God is at work in all our lives, both in what we do here at Messiah and in our wider lives, whether you’re doing big things or seemingly inconsequential things… maybe you’re trimming the bushes outside, or visiting folks who can’t make it out to church anymore or making an emergency repair to the sink in the girls bathroom or volunteering as bartender’s at Proctors or caring for your grandchildren or helping your parents prepare dinner… God is at work in you!

Our Messiah community during Sunday worship.
Whether you’re getting ready to teach a Sunday School lesson or researching the prices of haunted hayride trips for confirmation class or sending out press releases or serving as ushers in worship or struggling to care for your aging parents… God is at work in you! Whether you’re keeping track of church finances or coaching your daughter’s softball team or cooking ham dinner or leading Messiah’s children in singing songs about God or journeying across the country to support a sick loved one, God is at work in you! Whether you’re being silly up in the choir loft or sewing together shopping bags for needy individuals at the SICM food pantry or dropping you kids off at a sporting event or learning more about prayer at our new God Talk series, God is at work in you! In our Spirit filled church following Jesus Christ, and indeed in all aspects of our lives, God is at work in all our lives, moving through that odd combination of making things happen and peace that is the Holy Spirit. In Christ my sisters and brothers, our God has promised to be at work in all our lives no matter who we are, and yes, our God is a God who keeps promises. Amen.


Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a vibrant congregation ministering with the local community in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his profession time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Sunday, September 07, 2014

How Then Can We Live?

Hey friends,

What follows is a manuscript of the sermon I preached this Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Schenectady, NY as part of our congregation's annual Rally Sunday. I focused mostly on the first appointed lesson for the day, Ezekiel 33:7-11. Thanks so much for reading, and I'd love to hear what you think!

God's peace,
Pastor Dustin


So we’re here on a beautiful early fall morning, worshiping outside, rallying at the start of a new year of Sunday School, choir and bunch of other exciting things at Messiah, probably hoping I’ll finish up my sermon early so we can get to the barbecue and that sort of thing, and we’re confronted by a bunch of real choice texts for what’s supposed to be a happy, joyful Sunday… I mean, when I read the texts earlier this week from what’s called the Revised Common Lectionary, this standardized list of Bible texts used each Sunday by most churches in a number of different denominations, I literally had like face in my palm, rolled my eyes… all the folks who came up with the list of texts really dealt us an interesting hand today for our Rally Sunday… In our Hebrew Bible reading Ezekiel is calling out the wickedness of his fellow folks from Judah, talking about how God has appointed him as a sentinel… in our reading from the Epistles, Paul’s writing to the Romans about how there’s no debauchery and reveling allowed… and in the Gospel of Matthew even Jesus gets in on happy fest… talking all about how if people in your faith community sin against you, there’s this long process you have to go through to either reconcile with them, or maybe kick them out… wowzers. Now, it’s not that there’s not wisdom in these texts, I don’t want to make light of them at all in that sort of way, but, to be fair, for a Sunday that’s supposed to be so fun and happy and about all the joys of Christian community, our texts today upon first read seem to be well, a bit of a bummer.

There’s no denying these aren’t the most joyful of texts, but that’s mostly because the speakers in all three texts are taking their prophetic role quite seriously, guarding against the specific sins of their time and local community. In all of three of today’s texts though, it’s not just all fire and brimstone sort of stuff by any means, because every passage proclaims hope in some way as well. Ezekiel explicitly states it this way, but both Paul and Jesus reflect the same message… when the community asks “how then can we live?” Ezekiel quite simply proclaims out, “God lives, so how could you die? God lives, so how could you possible have anything to worry about? God lives!” And to boil it down, that’s pretty much what prophets do right? They analyze the human situation specific to their time and place, figure out what folks are generally worrying about and then proclaim to folks how God is constantly breaking into their lives to show how those worries are complete hogwash. Whether its a people saying no, we can’t live under exile in a foreign land, as the people of Judah were in Ezekiel’s time, or a small, emerging faith community in Paul and Jesus’s time saying no, we can’t get along with one another, no we can’t figure out how to be a church, in both these and I believe in all human situations, there’s always some sort of “no” folks are coming up with. And often in quite simple ways, prophets pretty just proclaim how God is the eternal “yes” to all those “no’s” us human beings keep coming up with, whatever they are.

Just to reiterate, because I’m a bit more discombobulated than usual, I’ve made two points so far… 1) its easy to see that the prophets in our texts today took their jobs quite seriously, and 2) we can pretty much boil down the job of a prophet to show how God is the eternal “yes” to whatever specific “no’s” folks are coming up with in their specific time and place. So, here’s a third point for you to consider my sisters and brother… we’re all called to be prophets. Think about it… remember Jesus’ whole “great commission” thing? “Go and make disciples of all nations?” As Christians, we’re all called to be prophets. We’re all called to be prophets… to look at our specific time and place, figure out what “no’s” people are coming up with, and then show how God is the eternal “yes” to all those no’s and doubts… Just Ezekiel, and Paul and Jesus, we’re called to discern how folks are asking “How then can we live?” and then be able to proclaim, “Hey, like chill out, God lives!! God lives, so how could you possibly die?” We’re called to be prophets, to proclaim the good news of God’s liberating love in Christ to a world absolutely overflowing with all sorts of human hogwash… all sorts of “no’s.”

So what “no’s” then are folks coming up with today in our time and place, in postmodern twenty-first century Schenectady? What “no’s” are we called to answer with the good news of the eternal “yes” of God? There’s certainly a bunch of possibilities, a bunch of “no’s” floating around out there in the societal ether, but after thinking about it a great deal over the past week and having conversations with many of you, I believe two of the most popular “no’s” in our time and place are as follows: “No, I don’t think my life has a whole lot of meaning” and “No, I don’t really feel part of a community.” Think about it… things are changing more rapidly than ever. From government to religion to the market there no longer seems like any institutions we can trust. And there’s so many things to fear… terrorism, disease, loneliness and financial uncertainty are just a few of those things. And there’s just so much to do… most of us, and perhaps especially our kids, are way too over-programed… mounds of homework, twenty different sports teams… it’s an odd sort of paradox, actually. Despite being busier than ever, many of us feel more lonely than ever. And amidst the daily grind of all that busyness and fear and change, wow, we can’t help but often feel like there isn’t much of a point to the whole thing.

How then can we live like this? How then can we live without a life of meaning? How then can we live without a deep, fulfilling connection with community? How then can we live? We’re asking these questions… our neighbors are asking these questions… in our human imperfection, we’re all asking these questions, the specific “no’s” of our postmodern age. And my sisters and brothers, after hanging out here at Messiah for over a month now, after having conversations with most of you over meals or in committee meetings or while feeding hungry kids lunch, I feel more confident than ever that you’re just the prophetic sort of folks God’s calling to proclaim the eternal “yes” amidst so many human “no’s.” You’re just the prophetic sort of folks to answer those human questions “how then can we live?” with the only answer that’s ever really mattered, “God lives.” I mean look around at each other… seriously, nearly everyone here is deeply involved in the life of this congregation in one way or another. In most congregations you get maybe twenty, thirty percent of folks who do more than just come to church on a Sunday morning. Here at Messiah though, on an average week I’d say I see or speak with at least three quarters of you outside of Sunday morning. It’s absolutely amazing! It’s easy to see that in a society starved for meaning, in a society starved for community, you all can’t help but find meaning, you can’t help but find community here in Christ.

There’s a lot to rally about this Sunday, on this beautiful early fall morning, on Rally Sunday… you might not believe it, but just in the way you live out your life in Christ together, its plainly apparent to me how prophetic you’re all called to be. In a world desperately crying out “how then can we live without meaning?” and “how then can we live without community?” you’re just the sort of prophetic folks called to answer those specific questions with the eternal yes of God by being exactly who you are, by doing the simple things… by living out a life of meaning in Christian community and going out to welcome others in to gather with us around bread and wine, to sing together, pray together, share meals together and play together and raise our children together. God lives. God lives. God lives. And in such a time as this, that eternal yes, that good news that God lives is more important than ever. So, on this Rally Sunday, let’s indeed rally. Let’s sing and play and joyfully proclaim it at the top of our lungs my sisters and brothers, God lives!!!

Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a vibrant congregation ministering with the local community in Rotterdam, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his profession time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Looking Back to Move Forward in the Aftermath of Ferguson

Hey friends,

What follows is a manuscript of the sermon I preached this Sunday at Messiah Lutheran Church in Schenectady, NY. I focused mostly on the first appointed lesson for the day, Isaiah 51: 1 - 6 and related its teachings to race relations in the aftermath of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Although it does have a lot of things specifically about our own congregation here in Schenectady, I pray that there's some good news in there for everyone. As there were a lot of folks' stories mentioned in today's sermon, I've deleted last names to ensure a level of privacy. Let me express my sincere gratitude to Rev. Andrena Ingram's public witness last night, which I cited about halfway through. Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

God's peace,
Pastor Dustin

So as many of you know, I was engaged in a little bit of a research project this past week… in home visits and committee meetings, in phone conversations and on Facebook, I spent a bunch of time asking folks about their favorite memories at here Messiah. Now, my purposes in doing this were multi-fold. First of all, after my first few weeks here, with everything that comes with moving and ordination now behind me, I figured it was about time to start figuring out who this community is on a bit of a deeper level… to get some deeper answers about what you value, how you identify yourselves, why you all bother putting in all the effort to be a faith community at all. Second, in having conversations about your most cherished memories from the past of course, I was hoping to discern a bit more about where we could go, what we could do, how we could serve God together in the extremely uncertain times we find ourselves in. And finally, in asking you about your favorite memories at Messiah, I also wanted you consider the similarities between those extremely uncertain times we’re living through here in modern day Schenectady and the situation the author of Isaiah faced over two-thousand five hundred years ago.

Now to be fair, there are differences between our time and Isaiah’s, to be sure… we have the internet and supersonic jet planes, they had wheels, chariots maybe? The people of Isaiah’s time seemed to dig regular types of sacrifices to various gods, and folks nowadays generally only like going to church on Christmas and maybe Easter. So there are differences, but there’s also incredible similarities… The book of Isaiah is one of the largest and for many most important books of the Hebrew Bible… about two-thirds of the time Saint Paul’s quoting the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament, he’s quoting Isaiah. Despite its length and importance, many of us don’t know a whole lot about it, probably because unlike passages like Noah’s Ark, the Exodus, King David and that sort of thing, there’s not a whole lot of stories in this part of the Bible, at least at on the surface, and hence, its not the type of scripture that lends itself to memorable Sunday School lessons. When you put all the hard to understand prophecies of Isaiah next to the cute little animals going up on Noah’s Ark two by two, well, ya know what wins every time.

But Isaiah is incredibly important, it tells us so much about our Christian understanding that Wikipedia tells me many have called it the “fifth gospel.” Isaiah’s incredible important, and one key to understanding it and digging out the stories that are happening beneath the text is knowing there’s no one “Isaiah” writing the thing… understandings about this have changed a bit in recent years, but pretty much all Biblical scholars will says there’s a bunch of “Isaiahs,” writing at drastically different points in Israel’s history. Today’s passage comes to us from a prophet writing at quite a critical juncture, either right before or right as the people of Israel are returning from exile in Babylon. The Persians conquered Babylon a bit over 2500 years ago, and King Cyrus said whoever wanted to go home could… it’s a time of hope, yes, like wow, after over sixty years of captivity in Babylon, we finally get to go home and rebuild the Temple, but its mostly a time of incredible uncertainty… folks barely remember who they are anymore, with so many traditions lost during captivity, how could we possibly again be the people our God wants us to be?

Isaiah’s time was a time of promise overshadowed by immense uncertainty, just like ours. I mean wow, although I don’t usually bring my phone to worship, on a day to day basis I have the ability in the palm of my hand to with a little bit of effort get in contact with almost two thirds of the over 7 billion people in the world today. Now that’s absolutely amazing, and the possibilities of increased understanding and learning in our time are thus immense. Yet not since at least I was child, a young sophomore in high school probably, have we lived in even somewhat optimistic times… 9/11 happened, most notably, and right as it felt like we were maybe starting to get out of all the subsequent messes we found ourselves after that horrific day, the Great Recession happened. And right as maybe it felt like things were starting to improve in the last year, we hear of new things to be feared in Iraq and Syria, Russia and the Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, the Ebola virus… the list goes on. Despite all our advances, all our promise, we live in a more distrustful, uncertain time than ever, a whole lot like the times Isaiah found himself living through in today’s passage.

So what does Isaiah say, what instruction and good news does Isaiah have to proclaim to his fellow Israelites, as well to us in this time and place, here in modern day Schenectady? He tells us to look back, to remember the past, but in doing so don’t stay there… let the best of the past help you figure out how to move forward.  Look back, remember the past, but don’t stay there… let the best of the past help you figure out how to move forward. Look back, to move forward. “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, to the quarry from which you were dug,” proclaims Isaiah. “Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you!” Isaiah keeps pointing us to look back, but only to stay there long enough in order to move forward… “Listen to me, my people… lift up your eyes to the heavens…” And the reason Isaiah keeps pointing us to look back, in order to help us figure out how to move forward? Because even though God is constantly creating and doing new and amazing things, in one sense, God is doing the same old thing God always has… “the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats, but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.” Things may change, but our salvation will be forever, our deliverance will never be ended.

So, now outside of actually mentioning some of the amazing stories I heard from you all this past week about your favorite memories at Messiah, I probably could have just ended my sermon there and called it a day… gave you all a shorter one for once. Honestly until last night that was the plan, but in an odd sort of way, events over the past couple weeks have granted us an opportunity to in a practical sense talk about how this might work, to look back at what God has done in our past in order to figure out how to move forward. Those of you who saw what I was posting up on Facebook last night probably know what I’m about to get at, the killing of an young, unarmed black man in Ferguson, Missouri and subsequent days of rage, protest, both peaceful and otherwise, police and government officials trying resolve the situation… what a mess, but also what an important reminder that race is still such a major issue in contemporary America.

I was really debating whether to bring this up, talking about controversial topics from the pulpit in your first few weeks in a congregation is usually not advised. But last night as I was reading various articles about everything that happened over the past two weeks, I came upon a letter signed by leaders of nearly all the major African-American church bodies in America, urging all clergy of goodwill, no matter the color of their skin, to talk to their parishioners about what happened in Ferguson. I got to thinking that many of you as you watched all those heartbreaking images going across your TV screens may have wondered, how does this sort of thing relate to my faith, how should I relate to these sort of heartbreaking events as a Christian. I still wasn’t sure if I’d bring up Ferguson and issues of race though until a read a post from a good friend of mine, an African American and ELCA pastor from Philadelphia, Rev. Andrena Ingram. She had by far better words than I could ever come up with on the subject, so I’ll just read some excerpts of them to you now:
I woke up with a headache, and it has "racism" written all over it. Here's the thing: racism exists. I have personally experienced it. My son has personally experienced it. Of course, not to the degree that my parents, grandparents and great-great-great- grandparents - beginning with my ancestor, Tarleton "Slave" Fleming. But -- we have experienced it personally as it continues to reach its icy-hot tentacles out from the abyss of yesterday, into today… what gives me this headache is those who refuse to hear, those who continue to deny, those who try and flip the script and make excuses. Those who continually try to tell us, that what we are experiencing is not what we know it to be. We have lived it. We are living it. It seems to be part of OUR DNA. What gives me this headache is that some folks don't even want to be still and just listen and learn. Just hush! You don't have to have a response every time we try and explain to you how it feels. When I am telling you I have a pain...I am not expecting you to be able to make it go away, pronto. What I do want you to know is that if you just be quiet and LISTEN, maybe you can begin to understand just how deep this issue runs and how afraid people are to even acknowledge it. Serenity Now! Divinity Now! Namaste, Shalom, Peace.
Now, my sisters and brothers, no matter your interpretation of what’s happened over the past couple weeks in Ferguson, we should recognize that Pastor Ingram is right in asking us as Christians to perhaps not entirely agree, but at least to listen. When hundreds of thousands of our black sisters and brothers in Christ are saying that race is still an issue in America, whenever that many people are saying something is a big problem for that matter, we at least need to listen, even if don’t entirely agree.

And the good news, my sisters and brothers, is that listening to each other, that creating space to be together despite sometimes difficult circumstances, is from what I can tell central to who we are as followers of Christ here at Messiah when we’re at our best. So with this particular example, with what’s gone on in Ferguson and the issue of race in America, let’s do exactly what the prophet Isaiah tells us to do in today’s passage: let’s briefly look back in order to figure out how to move forward… All week I was trying to figure out a common thread from the stories I was hearing from all of you, but it wasn’t until Jill sent me a post last night that I figured it out… she sent me this image that said “You might be Lutheran if you carry silverware in your pocket to church, just in case there’s a potluck.” You might be Lutheran if you carry silverware in your pocket to church, just in case there’s a potluck. I’m not sure if this was her intention, but it helped me realize what’s central to our identity here at Messiah… we create space for people, we create space to listen to each other, to share. I kept hearing all these things about sharing food all week from you all, and Bill has kept telling me from day one, we loved to eat. But why do we love to eat? It's not just because we like the taste of the food or whatever, although we certainly do like how food tastes around here. It’s because having a meal together creates space, for listening, for common understanding to take place.

And I heard similar things from other folks… Betty told me about being accepted here years ago despite her Catholic upbringing. Cheryl discussed her fond memories of confirmation class overnights at the church, and it wasn’t just because one of her classmates through a football through the window… she said she felt accepted and listened to her at Messiah, even if she didn’t always in school. Cheryl’s daughter Hannah told me about how she loved building a fort out back behind the church and spending time with her friends during community movie night last weekend. Ed mentioned enjoying some Property Committee work, like installing the second floor in the parsonage, and how good of time that was to share with other folks at Messiah. Lore and Dave told me about sharing time together with family and friends as they celebrated their wedding, the very first one to happen in the old sanctuary building decades ago… Judy mentioned sharing stories and celebrating her mother Dorothy’s life at the memorial held here… so that seems to be what we do as followers of Christ here at Messiah, at least when we’re at our best… we create space for folks, space where folks can share their stories and be listened to. Creating space, listening, that’s who and why we are. Creating space, listening… it lines up perfectly with what Pastor Ingram was asking for in her post last night, and its what we should do in the aftermath of Ferguson. So whether its in relation to what’s happened in Ferguson or to any of the many other difficulties and uncertainties we might face, I encourage you to do just as Isaiah has urged us to this day… look back to the best of the past, but just long enough to figure out how to move forward. Because we know that even though God is always is doing new things, in a way, God has and always will be doing the same old but amazing thing as well… “Things may change, but our salvation will be forever, our deliverance will never be ended.” In Christ, my sisters and brothers, God promises us our salvation will be forever, our deliverance will never be ended. And as always, our God is a God who keeps promises. Amen.


Dustin serves as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church, a vibrant congregation ministering with the local community in Schenectady, New York. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his profession time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.