Jesus Is Praying for You on "Super Stumped Sunday"

Hey folks! What follows is a sermon I was blessed to preach this past Sunday at Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit, an amazingly welcoming congregation in Albany, NY. It was primarily on two of the appointed readings for Ascension Sunday, Acts 1: 6-14 and John 17: 1-11. I'd love to hear what you think, and thanks for reading!

First of all, I want to thank you for so graciously welcoming me into your community here at Holy Spirit. It’s actually my first time preaching in Upstate New York…and I’m incredibly stoked to be here, especially on a day as important as this one… Super Stumped Sunday! That’s right, it’s Super Stumped Sunday, or as it’s been understood for most of Christian history, at least since the fourth century, today is the Sunday closest to the Feast of the Ascension, which took place this past Thursday, which was exactly forty days after Easter. It’s Super Stumped Sunday, which in non-church history/ liturgy nerd terms means the Sunday when Christians around the world commemorate Jesus rising up into heaven from the Mount of Olives to sit at the right hand of God… wow, Super Stumped Sunday, more often known as the Feast of the Ascension… it might not have as much street creed as Christmas or Easter, but it’s kinda a big deal… the day when Jesus no longer was in a literal sense walking around, hanging out with us here on Earth, the day when we as believers in Christ sort of needed to start figuring out what to do next… and thus the day when we very quickly realize that at least a bunch of the time, we actually have no idea how to proceed… and hence, it’s Super Stumped Sunday.

It’s not a bad thing by the way, necessarily… being super stumped. In fact, most of these situations in life, situations when we’re super stumped and that often coincidently happen around this time of year, most of these situations often take place after the most amazing of events. We graduate or watch our children and other loved ones graduate around this time of year. We plant gardens. We go to proms. We start thinking about warm weekend trips and summer vacations. We get married more often and buy more new homes around this time of year than any other. Even if you’re having a relatively uneventful season, you’ve probably spent some time recently looking back on your life over the colder winter months, evaluating your efforts and perhaps discerning how to move forward. My sisters and brothers, we are in the midst of a season of endings and new beginnings, some of which we mourn, to be fair, but many of which we celebrate. It’s a season of immense change, immense emotion, and hopefully, nearly unlimited possibilities if only we keep our eyes and hearts open.

Inevitably though, on Super Stumped Sunday, or the Feast of the Ascension, and in this season generally, we end up experiencing quite a bit of uncertainty. Look back at how the apostles acted in the passage from Acts we read in our first lesson today, which is the primary story of Christ’s Ascension in the Bible. The apostles ask Jesus when he’ll be back to lead them, but of course Jesus doesn’t give a definitive answer, instead simply ensures them they will soon receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus is then lifted up, perhaps much like we’ve seen in all those famous paintings of the story, and well, pretty soon the apostles end up just staring at the clouds. Their actions sort of ring true to our own experiences though, right? I mean whether we’ve just finished up teaching our last week of Sunday school before summer break, whether we’ve just gotten married, or just watched a granddaughter graduate from high school, just entered retirement or have just achieved some other long sought after goal, we often get stopped in our tracks, we often can’t help but take a pause, look around, and let it sink in that, wow, that really awesome thing has finally actually happened! Wow!!! We take in that we’ve finally achieved such a difficult goal! But then, all too often, just like the apostles, we get caught staring at the clouds, absolutely super stumped about what to do next.

We experience the same thing in our congregations too. From what we all said in the confession and forgiveness at the beginning of today’s service, it seems like the folks here at Holy Spirit are well aware of this issue. I’ll just reread a little part of what we all said earlier… “Newness scares us, and we confess to shutting our doors in fear. We have not listened to voices that challenge us. We have resisted the Holy Spirit moving us in new directions.” Wow. Wow… now that is a powerful, that’s an amazing thing to publicly proclaim as a congregation. And what you’ve confessed is true of course, I don’t know specifically about here at Holy Spirit, but throughout most of our congregations and certainly as the wider Church, just like the apostles super stumped about what to do next, just staring up at the clouds, we’ve for far too long spent too much time hung up on past successes and joys, the good ol’ glory days, whenever those were, than actually moving forward into the amazing possibilities of the present and the future. The good news though is that in naming our mistakes, whether as individuals, congregations or as a wider Church, we’re freed from those mistakes in Christ, and thereby liberated to begin engaging in some truly incredible new ways to serve God and neighbor.

Now the apostles experience of being caught staring up at the clouds after Christ’s Ascension certainly rings true to our experience… whether it’s something as amazing as Christ’s incarnation or something as ordinary as former years with a whole lot higher church attendance and larger budgets, we often get super stumped, hung up on past joys and achievements.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here though and say that what’s happens next in our first lesson from Acts DOES NOT always ring true to our experience. We rarely see angels flying out of the sky, at least in a literal sense, telling us to get to work. And while it’s perhaps a bit more common, it’s still pretty rare that we easily shift to what’s next, constantly devoting ourselves to prayer, and being harmoniously and perfectly of one mind as we move forward into the future. It might happen once in a while, but whether its as a congregation, as a family or in our professional lives, even though we’re called to get along and move forward hand in hand, by Christ we rarely do it in a perfect manner. Perhaps we overstep, perhaps we ignore the voices of those marginalized in our communities, perhaps we miss some other crucial factor. It’s possible, but really, really rare that we engage in new things near perfectly the first time, or with universal agreement in our communities. The apostles’ experience of being one in prayer, and sort of magically knowing how to proceed, does not usually ring true to our experience living in this time, in this place.

That’s why I’m so incredibly thankful that on this Super Stumped Sunday, on the Feast of the Ascension, we also heard the gospel message from Saint John, a message filled with profoundly good news, with amazing promise. It’s a sort of rare message too, at least as the gospels are concerned. Today’s gospel message takes place near the end of Saint John’s version of the Last Supper, but it’s radically different than the Last Supper we’re used to. Essentially, Jesus talks a really long time, like a really long time, pretty much for four whole chapters, about how we’re supposed to lead our Christian lives after he’s ascended. Then, instead of doing the whole bread and wine bit, do this in remembrance of me, which of course is extremely important, to the point that we celebrate it every Sunday during the meal, Jesus does something perhaps even more amazing… he prays for His apostles. And similarly, Jesus prays for us too, no matter how we’re living out our lives.

Just think about that… a few minutes ago during Children’s Time, parent and child laid hands on each other, saying a short prayer. The first time that ever happened to me, I’ll admit, it was a bit weird, but once I got a little more used to it, it was incredibly profound… I might be a big of a softy, but it usually made me cry. In praying for each other, we often experience a moment of amazing connection with our fellow believers, a moment of amazing grace, even at times when we’re feeling super stumped, or times of great fear. Just as we pray for each other though, as we heard in today’s gospel message, Jesus is praying for us too. Jesus is praying for us too. Jesus is praying for us, as we struggle with change and figure out how to do ministry in an entirely new context. Jesus is praying for us, for our church councils, for our treasurers, for our acolytes. Jesus is praying for us, for our Sunday school teachers, our Sunday school students and our young adults. Jesus is praying for us, for our musicians, our altar guild and even, our pastors.

We often separate our church lives from the rest of our lives, but there’s even more profoundly good news… Jesus is praying for us all the time. Who here is a health-care worker? Jesus is praying for you! Who here is in education? Jesus is praying for you! Who here is in business or finance? Jesus is praying for you! Who here works a government job? Who here works retail? Who here is retired? Jesus is praying for you! Who here is a parent, a grandparent, a son, a daughter, a spouse or a friend? Jesus is praying for you! Who here is just really darn lonely or searching for meaning? Jesus is praying for you! Just like he prayed for the apostles in today’s gospel message, Jesus is praying for all of us, as we live out our lives in churches, in our families, and in our professions. Jesus is praying for all of us, whatever we might be facing, no matter how confused, or angry, or joyful or just super stumped we may feel. Today, my sisters and brothers, on this Super Stumped Sunday, the Feast of the Ascension, know that no matter how imperfect, angry, weak or tired you might feel, Jesus is praying for you, Jesus has promised to pray for us, and Jesus keeps His promises. Amen.

Dustin is a recent graduate from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and approved candidate for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his professional 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.

Acts 17: 16 - 34 or: How I Learned to Stop Whining and Love Christmastime

What follows will form the basis for the first of a four-part Advent adult forum series on the ongoing secular vs. religious "Battle Over Christmas" in American culture. The main premise is that hopeful desire and longing is at the heart of both the Christian liturgical season of Advent and secular Christmastime, and thus that there are more pastoral and useful ways to proclaim the Gospel to folks than zealously critiquing secular Christmastime culture. This adult forum series is the final assignment for an ethics course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia entitled Christian Discipleship in a Consumer Society. If some congregation actually makes the huge mistake of actually calling me to be a pastor next year (heheh), I'll probably do an adult forum series that's something like this, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.

So here's the deal... I was planning on going in an entirely different direction for this adult forum series until this past Friday. I was sitting in Georgia, enjoying leftovers from Thanksgiving, trying hard not to check my email while on vacation and watching college football when I opened up Facebook and was immediately flooded by blogposts, comments and the like critiquing Black Friday and arguing that we should put Christ back in Christmas. There was even an official Black Friday Death Count that was particularly ominous. Most of what I read though, at least from my Christian sisters and brothers, tended to go in one of two directions. Folks on the more liturgically theologically/ politically conservative side of the spectrum tended to be lamenting the fact that in American culture Christmas is joyfully celebrated throughout the month of December thus resulting in the hopeful, prayerful liturgical season of Advent being ignored. Other issues from these folks included nativity scenes not being allowed on public town greens and the like. Folks on the more liturgically/ theologically/ politically liberal side of the spectrum primarily were attacking the radical consumerism that has become a part of secular Christmastime tradition. Christian criticism of consumerism seemed particularly pointed this year, probably because of Black Friday sales increasingly eating up Thanksgiving itself.

Most of the posts I read made some good points, some more than others, but the one I found most insightful was "On Black Friday" by Micah J. Murray at Redemption Records. A main premise of the post is that its all too easy to zealously tell folks what to do rather than listen to their own perspectives. Check out the perspective of one of the commenters on Micah's blogpost, for instance:

This is a very generous and thoughtful post.

My family is lovely, but we grew up really poor. Money has always been scarce, and as you say, it's easy to be a minimalist when you have no money. And sure, making homemade bread, putting in a garden, and raising goats and chickens sounds idyllic, but becomes less fun and more urgent when your skills determine how you will eat.

Black Friday is an important time for my parents to be able to buy Christmas gifts, but also it's when my mother buys basics like jeans and winter coats for the family. The things she can't make herself she tends to buy at thrift stores or rummage sales, but Black Friday allows my siblings to have new things. It's a small but significant joy.

I love my family and can't imagine a better place in which to grow up, and when people get preachy about what other people should do, it's unkind and offensive. Many families barely get by, and we shouldn't forget or belittle them. ~ Holly Houston

So then, as all Christians, not just pastors, are called to spread the Gospel, especially to folks who haven't heard it, the question simply becomes how should we respond to God's call during our secular, overly consumeristic American Christmastime without sounding like overly zealous, whiny jerks? I really dig the Bible, and find it tends to be a great starting place for resolving these sort of problems. One of my favorite passages, Acts 17:16-34, provides a great deal of insight here:

16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. 18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ 21Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. 

22Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”  

29Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’ 

32When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33At that point Paul left them. 34But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. (NRSV)

Christianity, when it is at it's best at least, tends proclaim the good news of God's act of liberating love in Christ through a culturally relevant means, just like Saint Paul did in Athens by referring to "the altar to an unknown god." Our American culture is no longer a predominately Christian culture, and thus sharing the good news through the same old nativity scenes, Advent calendars and critiques of consumerism is like trying to talk about the Gospel in a foreign language. So, while it doesn't mean we'll be able to reach everybody (even Paul couldn't do that), if we can point to and embrace how Christ is already at work in our American secular Christmastime culture rather than zealously critiquing it, we'd probably do a whole lot better at fulfilling our Christian calling to spread the Gospel.

So, how is Christ at work in American secular Christmastime culture? The central theme of the Christian season of Advent and the true central theme of secular Christmastime is one and the same: creating space for the hopeful longing for the fulfillment of legitimate human desires. Think Christmastime and Santa and reindeers and toys is all about consuming material goods? Think again. In recent decades at least, most branding and advertisements for consumer products or commodities have veered toward emotional branding. It's not about selling the product on its material merits, but rather on the emotions or experiences that having a given product will bring. Just check out this famous Christmastime Folger's Coffee commercial as one example:



Everybody loves Peter! That great nineties hair, epic cable-knit sweater... huge fashion whoa! And everybody in the family is so happy that Peter is home for Christmas! While the commercial somewhat indicates Folger's Coffee smells good, the commercial isn't really about the coffee at all... it's about a longing for family, for togetherness, for lasting memories with loved ones, all legitimate human desires. And buying Folger's Coffee somehow will magically result in the fulfillment of all these desires.

If you still need further evidence that secular Christmastime is about hoping and longing for the fulfillment of legitimate human desires, check out these two famous and (primarily) secular Christmas songs:

David Bowie and Bing Crosby: "Peace on Earth/ Little Drummer Boy" (lyrics here)


The Peanuts: "Christmastime is Here" (lyrics here)


See? These two songs, and plenty of other cultural documents indicate secular Christmastime at its heart isn't about the toys or plasma TVs or wild drinking parties but rather hopeful longing for legitimate human desires: peace, family, love, joyful memories, cozy fires, olden times and ancient rhymes. Christ is present in all these legitimate human desires, and it would be pretty darn silly for Christians not to share the good news through these legitimate "altars to an unknown God."

So, the next question becomes how can we talk about and reflect on legitimate on the hopeful longing for the fulfillment of legitimate human desires through the lens of the good news of God's act of liberating love in Christ? While there's plenty of sinners/ saints who could help us out in this regard from our collective Christian heritage, I'll bring up two here, one for more rational thinking folks and one for more spiritual/ mystical thinking folks: Martin Luther and Gregory of Nyssa. While they both come at the question of desire using somewhat opposite approaches, they pretty much land in the same place.

Let's start with good ol Luther, a major 16th century reformer whose work pretty much touched off the Protestant Reformation. He's probably a better resource for more rational sorts of thinkers. I'll just provide one excerpt from his model sermon for "The Gospel for Christmas Eve" on Luke 2: 1 - 14, but I encourage you to check it out in its entirety. You can find it in Volume 52 of the English Edition of Luther's Works:

For the Gospel teaches that Christ was born for our sake and that he did everything and suffered all things for our sake, just as the angel says here: "I announce to you a great joy which will come to all people; for to you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord" [Luke 2:10-11] From these words you see clearly that he was born for us.
He does not simply say: "Christ is born," but: "for you is he born." Again, he does not say: "I announce a joy," but: "to you do I announce a great joy." Again, this joy will not remain in Christ, but is for all people. A damned or wicked man does not have this faith, nor can he have it. For the right foundation of all salvation which unites Christ and the believing heart in this manner is that everything that have individually becomes something they hold in common...

A central teaching here is that while its extremely legitimate to have all sorts of human desires, including desiring God, God desires us more than we could ever desire anything, even to the point of being born in a manger amongst farm animals to an unwed virgin and a lowly carpenter.

Let's see what Gregory of Nyssa has to say, a 4th century Cappadocian Father who writes from a more spiritual/ mystical perspective. The following excerpt is from his "First Homily on the Song of Songs," discussing Song 1:1-4. I encourage you to check out the whole thing, especially as the more mystical side of Christian theology is lesser known in our contemporary times, at least in the Western churches:

Moses conversed with God face to face, as scripture testifies [Dt 34.10], and he thereby acquired a still greater desire for these kisses after the theophanies. He sought God as if he had never seen him. So it is with all others in whom the desire for God is deeply embedded: they never cease to desire, but every enjoyment of God they turn into the kindling of a still more intense desire.

Even now the soul united to God never has its fill of enjoyment. The more it enjoys his beauty, the more its desire increases. The words of the bridegroom are spirit and life [Jn 5:24], and everyone who clings to the Spirit becomes spirit. He who attaches himself to life passes from death into life as the Lord has said. Thus the virginal soul desires to draw near to the fountain of spiritual life...

A main premise here is that God is the gift that keeps on giving. Although God draws us closer and closer to Herself in faith, our ever increasing desire for her can never be satiated, through our own action or otherwise. Thus, the central focus once again becomes not on what we're doing, but how God's love is for us an infinite "fountain of spiritual life."

Martin Luther and Gregory of Nyssa are only two of many possible saints/ sinners in our collective Christian history that can help us think about how to proclaim the good news of God's act of liberating love in Christ through the "altars to an unknown god" that are the legitimate human desires celebrated during secular Christmastime. I'd love to hear more perspectives as well.

As a final bit (and one I don't have a lot of time reflect on), check out this letter from Lutheran World Federation General Secretary Martin Junge. Entitled "God’s Free Gift of Grace in Market-Driven Times" and written for Reformation Day 2013, it talks about how the LWF's upcoming celebration of the 500th anniversary of the reformation in 2017 will focus on three related themes: 1) salvation is not for sale, 2) human beings are not for sale, and 3) creation is not for sale. This letter can definitely help us think about consumerism, the hopeful longing for legitimate human desires celebrated by secular Christmastime and how we can respond as Christians. Thanks so much!

God's peace,
Dustin


Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

One Grand Collective Story - Easter C6 Sermon (in video)

What follows is video of the sermon I preached this past Sunday evening during Jazz Vespers at Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar.  It's predominately on the appointed first reading for the day, Acts 16: 9 - 15.



God's peace,
Dustin 

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Ordinary Folks Doing Extraordinary Things in Christ (Easter C6 Sermon)

What follows is the rough manuscript of the sermon I preached last night during Jazz Vespers at Saint Peter's Church (where I currently serve as Vicar).  It's predominately on the appointed first reading for the day, Acts 16: 9 - 15.  I'd love to hear what you think and expected video of the sermon out in the coming days.

So, I’m a really big fan of the Book of Acts. I’m a really big fan of the Book of Acts because it tells the story of ordinary folks led by the Spirit, doing extraordinary things in Christ… it tells the story of ordinary folks led by the Spirit, doing extraordinary things in Christ. And this evening’s part of the story, from Acts 16, very much follows that theme… it begins with Paul, Silas, Timothy and perhaps some other early Christians bumbling around in what we now know as the country of Turkey, trying to start new churches and largely failing… Paul had just experienced a falling out with his fellow apostle Barnabas as well, perhaps due to a rivalry between the two colleagues. Despite his previous life as a Pharisee, by this point in Acts Paul just seems like an ordinary sort of person, making ordinary human mistakes, getting into ordinary human arguments yet trying his best to spread the Gospel… the sort of person we find largely familiar to our own lives.

Luckily, God even works through ordinary folks like Paul and like you and like me though, and in this case the Spirit intercedes by leading the way for Paul in a vision, a vision of a Macedonian man pleading for help. Paul then faithfully crosses the Aegean Sea into Macedonia, into an area associated with the heights of Greek culture and learning, and through the life of this ordinary fellow God begins making the most extraordinary things happen in Christ. A few days after getting off the boat Paul meets and preaches to Lydia, a somewhat ordinary businesswoman, who after being baptized with all of her household invites Paul and his companions into her home, and prevailing upon them with her great hospitality. Eventually, this somewhat ordinary businesswoman named Lydia is lead by the Spirit to do a most extraordinary thing, creating and likely financing what would become one of the most vibrant and faithful of the early Christian communities.

My sisters and brothers, although the story of Lydia and Paul takes place nearly two thousand years ago in the Greek city of Philippi, the collective story of ordinary folks led by the Spirit, doing extraordinary things in Christ, does not end there. While there are a few chapters in between, I’ll skip ahead to talk about another part of the story, featuring another ordinary person, a member of Saint Peter’s Church in fact, a fellow named Wuigi Howard, who like Lydia and Paul before him, was led by the Spirit to do extraordinary things in Christ. When Charles Taylor invaded Nimba County and touched off the Liberian Civil War in December of 1989, Wuigi was a student at the University of Liberia in Monrovia, studying to be a teacher. As he prepared to graduate the following summer, war was engulfing the entire country, yet Wuigi took up teaching anyway. As the fighting took on deeper religious and tribal connotations and Muslims started killing Christians and vice-versa, the war eventually hit home for Wuigi when his mother was brutally beaten to death on her rice farm on February 15th, 1993. She was murdered not only because she was a Christian, but in fact a well-known Christian leader in her local community, and those who murdered her promised to do the same thing to her children. Despite the chaos all around him, Wuigi kept teaching, thereby doing the most extraordinary thing of giving hope to a new generation of young Liberians.

With only one brief reprieve the Liberian Civil War continued until 2003, leaving a quarter million people dead. Even after the war ended, religious violence continued, and on September 26, 2006, Wuigi’s oldest brother, Peter Howard, was murdered as well. Despite even the loss of his brother, Wuigi kept teaching. He even became principal of Saint Matthew’s Lutheran Church School. After being physically attacked and receiving numerous death threats himself, Wuigi had to make the hard decision to flee his native country, to cross the sea much like Paul and he eventually arrived in the City of New York on November 17th, 2007. The story doesn’t end there though, because while Saint Paul was called to do extraordinary things in a vision, Wuigi was called to do extraordinary things in a phonebook… in 2009 to be exact when looking when for a new church. As his church back home in Liberia was also named Saint Peter’s, our name stuck out to him, so Wuigi called us, spoke to our Senior Pastor, and has been blessing to our community ever since.

The story still doesn’t end there though because for over four years Wuigi has been seeking asylum status in the United States - his wartime enemies are still waiting for him back in Liberia. So this past Wednesday, when Wuigi had another in a long series of immigration hearings, five other ordinary folks, all members of Saint Peter’s Church, took what seemed like the rather ordinary action of accompanying him to court, sitting in the back of the room, praying for him and silently supporting him with their presence. And it was then my sisters and brothers, it was then that the Spirit moved to make yet another extraordinary thing happen… You see, Wuigi’s lawyer told the government representative, essentially a prosecutor, that Wuigi had five church members present with him. This seems to have encouraged the representative and immigration judge to fast-track Wuigi’s case. Instead of having his final hearing in 2014 or 2015 (that’s how long it usually takes in our broken immigration system), Wuigi will in all likelihood be granted asylum and become a permanent American resident this November. And while Wuigi has once again taken up the profession of teaching here in the city, he’s been teaching all of us here at Saint Peter’s as well, greatly strengthening our growing immigration advocacy program with his story and spirit.

So, why bother telling Wuigi’s story at all? Why bother telling Lydia’s story or Paul’s story? Quite simply put, the reason these stories are so important is because they’re all of our stories… they’re your stories and my stories, all part of the same grand collective story stretching from ancient Philippi to contemporary New York. A story of ordinary folks, led by the Spirit, doing extraordinary things in Christ. Amen.

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

...and God Has Even Chosen You (Easter 5C sermon video)

Figured I could take a break from polishing up my sermon for tomorrow and post video from last Sunday at Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar.  The sermon is primarily on the appointed 1st Reading for the day, Acts 11: 1 - 18.  I ended changing a bunch of parts at the last minute and thus there was way too much reading, but I'd love to hear what you think.

 

God's peace,
Dustin 

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

We All Long to Feel Chosen (Easter 5C Sermon)

What follows is my (very rough) manuscript for a sermon I preached yesterday at Saint Peter's Church where I serve as Vicar.  It's primarily on the appointed 1st Reading for the day, Acts 11: 1 - 18.  I'd love to hear your feedback.
 

We all long to feel chosen. We long to feel chosen by others, even at a young age… we stand awkwardly in line at recess, praying that we’re not chosen last or not chosen at all for a sports team. And we don’t like to admit it, but that feeling never goes away… we want to be invited to happy hour by our coworkers, or phoned by an old friend, perhaps we want to rock an audition and be selected for the lead role in a performance or perhaps we simply want to be welcomed home at the end of a long day by a familiar face. We all long to feel chosen by others, we long to be included, and often for good reason.

On an even deeper level, we long to feel chosen by God. And no matter how hard we try to do otherwise, we can’t help but look to all sorts of things to indicate that God has chosen us. Whether it’s a great job, a great family, a vibrant social life or a great home, we can’t help but struggle and pray for such blessings, and often with good reason. We all long to feel chosen by others; we all long to feel chosen by God… we all long to feel chosen.

Looking back on what we know about his life, it’s easy to see that Saint Peter longed to feel chosen too, and often with good reason. In fact in today’s story from Acts, we find Saint Peter confronting everything he ever knew about chosen-ness in the previous chapter’s scene of how commanded by God, he spoke and then broke bread with Cornelius and his fellow Gentiles and how in turn, those Gentiles received the Holy Spirit. Peter reacts in shock to God’s command, and the disciples react in shock to Peter’s report, with good reason… Peter wasn’t just breaking antiquated dietary laws of Jews not eating with Gentiles, or non-Jews, here. Following Alexander the Great’s conquest of Palestine and the subsequent forced adoption of Greek culture a few centuries earlier, maintaining strict religious customs was a central way of insuring that Jewish culture, that Jewish identity, that the Jewish people themselves, would survive foreign domination. To insure that God’s chosen people remained a people at all, strict lines of who was in and who was out needed to be enforced.

As Peter discovered though, God was doing a new thing in Christ, and the Spirit was moving to make it happen. Ya know, in just a couple weeks it’ll be Pentecost, a festival that in its Christian incarnation celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles early on in the Book of Acts. But there are a number of Pentecost moments in the Books of Acts… in Acts 8 the Samaritans, even though they were descendents of the northern tribes of Israel considered impure, receive the Spirit. Later on in that chapter, an Ethiopian eunuch studying the book of Isaiah is baptized by Philip and receives the Spirit of God too. But in today’s passage an even more amazing thing has just happened, as Peter experienced not just some people, but in fact all peoples of all nations being brought into God’s ever-expanding covenant. It’s not that there are no longer a chosen people, but rather that all of humanity, in all its diversity, is chosen as well.

So what could all this Holy Spirit stuff have to with us today, in this time, in this place, in this city? Well, I propose that we can figure that out in only two steps: So step one: let’s reread the part of today’s passage where the disciples respond to Peter’s story: “When the disciples heard this, they were silenced. And then they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’ To put it simply, the disciples exclaim: “God has even chosen the Gentiles…” And then step two: fill in the blank, fill in the word ‘Gentiles’ with whatever words describe you in your situation: God has chosen even the lonely. God has chosen the addicted. God has chosen those who have made horrible mistakes. God has chosen the unemployed, the homeless, the destitute and the bankrupt. And God has especially chosen the oppressed of our society… those bullied kids never picked for the sports team… those folks still stinging from irresponsible news reports about “a dark-skinned man” in the aftermath of the Boston bombing. God has especially chosen those rejected by their families and their communities because of who they love and those who many of our political leaders still choose to label illegal. God has even chosen you, no matter who you are or what you are experiencing. God has even chosen you, to love you and bring you into Her ever-expanding covenant. God has even chosen you. My sisters and brothers, we all long to feel chosen, and in Christ, we all are. Amen.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.