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.

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.

The Canaanite Woman & Challenging God

What follows is the text of a sermon I preached yesterday at Messiah Lutheran Church where I'm currently serving as pastor, primary on the appointed gospel text for the Sunday, Matthew 15: 21 - 28, the "Story of the Canaanite Woman." You can watch video of the sermon on our Facebook page as well. If you like what you read and hear, be sure to "like" us on Facebook, or feel free to stop by Messiah when you're in the area. You're welcome here, no matter who you are!

God's peace,

Pastor Dustin

So last week we talked a bunch about how God more often than not shows up in the simple things, in everyday conversations with strangers and loved ones alike, in ordinary experiences where we’re reminded of God’s presence and love in our everyday lives. So this is awesome, and absolutely true… God is constantly showing up, and usually in the simple ordinary ways we least expect. Today’s gospel lesson though points us in almost the opposite direction though… it proclaims some profound truths about what happens when it seems like God isn’t showing up, when it feels like God isn’t helping us in the most difficult of experiences, when God feels cold and distant, despite our constant pleading and heartfelt prayers. And most of us have indeed had those experiences, or at least will in the future… when we’re confronted by disease, death, broken relationships, heartbreaking disappointment or profound fear… all the sort of modern day demons that most of us have or will face.

And what do us people of faith do in those situations, at least usually? We pray, we plead with God just like the Canaanite woman in today’s gospel passage. To be a fair, a pretty good percentage of folks who usually wouldn’t even consider themselves religious tend to pray when they’re confronted by desperate situations. Yet we also have to admit, we have to confess the fact that at least some of time when we’re surrounded by these sort of demons, it doesn’t feel like God is answering our prayers at all. No specifics needed, but who here has been in that sort of desperate situation, and has struggled with feeling like your prayers weren’t being answered by God? I don’t mean prayers like oh God, I wish I had a coffee, or oh God, I wish I could win the lottery… oh God, I wish mom would get me the latest Justin Bieber album for Christmas or something like that… when God doesn’t answer those prayers, it’s not really a big deal… but those other ones… the ones we can’t even fully describe with words, ones like a desperate mother’s cry for her suffering child, a cry that that in today’s story was initially only answered with silence by Jesus. The text says it plain… “Jesus did not answer her at all.” Jesus did not answer her at all… that’s almost worse than what happens next in a way, right? Jesus calls the woman a dog… and that’s pretty horrible, to be sure, but the silence… “Jesus did not answer her at all.” When it feels like God isn’t responding at all to our desperate pleas, in my experience at least, that’s the toughest our relationship with God can get.

And then how do we respond in these situations, when it feels like God answers our anguished cries with silence? For me at least, in my own experience with this sort of thing, I’ve tended to respond with anger… I’ve tended to become absolutely furious with God. I believe the folks who were on my call committee heard part of this story, and I honestly hesitate because its important I believe that a pastor doesn’t make a sermon about herself or himself, but I think its worth telling to illuminate today’s gospel message. At our Christmas Eve worship service of 2007, I was home in Connecticut from my final year of college in Washington, DC, and I was riding high… I knew I had a great political campaign finance job lined up after graduation, was in a great relationship, and was most importantly really enjoying family life… having just sort of grown out of a sometimes tumultuous relationship with my dad and especially my mom as a teenager, I felt overjoyed to be getting to know them all over again as a young adult, that sort of thing. So it’s Christmas Eve service, and many of you saw my childhood church of Emanuel yesterday at ordination… it’s a pretty big place… full of people, celebrating the coming of God into our world with all the usual Christmas fanfare, we were probably singing Joy to the World or something similar and I look around, see my smiling family, great girl standing next to me, and I just feel well, overjoyed.

I felt like I had it all, that I was ready to graduate from college, be a successful adult with a great family, doing the political campaign work I always dreamed about… everything was awesome. But unfortunately it didn’t stay that way… fast forward a few months to spring break, only a couple months before graduation… my parents had been acting kind of weird on the phone over the last few days, but when my dad picked me up at the airport, he looked absolutely dejected. After I repeatedly asked him what was up, he told me my mom had just been diagnosed with late stage-three lung cancer. There was a chance it could be operated on successfully, but not a very good one. Later that week, I went to the doctor myself after noticing a lump sort of thing in my throat, and the doctor told me there was a good chance it was thyroid cancer. That perfect life, that American dream sort of thing I had been thinking about at Christmas Eve just a few months earlier, was quickly beginning to unravel. Of course I prayed, but it never felt like God really answered. Just like the Canaanite woman experienced in today’s gospel message, it didn’t seem like Jesus would answer at all.

Right around that same time, my relationship was beginning to unravel, and I quickly realized that in trying to help care for my mom and to continue with all the various tests and treatments myself, I couldn’t do the long hours of that campaign finance job I had dreamed about for so many years… the folks over at Camp Calumet in New Hampshire were kind enough to give me flexible work, so that I could head home when needed, but to be honest being a camp counselor in your mid-twenties with a college degree is well, less than ideal. My mom went in to have an entire lung removed, and indeed almost died, but survived for the time being, and left the hospital only a couple days before I went in to have my entire thyroid removed. There was thankfully some good news that came out of that, as I myself had a false-positive cancer diagnosis, but unfortunately a few months later we found out my mother’s cancer had metastasized. My mother passed away only a few months later, a few days after Christmas of 2008.

Now fast forward to Christmas Eve service of 2009. I was in my same childhood church of Emanuel, with the same joyful music playing, a bunch of awesome brass instruments booming out Joy to the World, but it was otherwise nothing like Christmas Eve two years earlier. Instead of anticipating an awesome job and graduation from college, I was unemployed and living at home… although I worked with Thrivent for a year, I had since quit to find a job with less hours and figure out how to get to seminary, but of course at the height of the Great Recession, there wasn’t a whole lot of options. Most importantly though, I felt completely alone in that crowded, massive sanctuary at Emanuel… no girlfriend, no family… I had to go to Christmas Eve service alone that year… my dad and brother usually only went to make my mom happy, and well, approaching the first year anniversary of my mother’s death, they weren’t really in the Christmas mood anyway.

So Christmas Eve service happens, I pray and sing, completely miserable, but it still felt like no one answered. And then I get home, increasingly desperate, and in this intense, chaotic, almost rage I all of the sudden just start screaming at God, tears streaming down my face, barely making words out in between my cries. I looked back at that perfect, happy scene only two years earlier and let out this torrent, accusing God of being completely absent, doing absolutely nothing to help while my family and I were suffering so immensely. Not really thinking that God had done all these horrible things to my family and I, but rather, just like the Canaanite woman experienced at first in today’s gospel message, that God had seemingly answered my prayers with silence… “Jesus did not answer her at all.” Jesus did not answer her at all. Now in my case, that Christmas Eve was a turning point, things did indeed start getting better very soon after my night of struggling with God. Even then though, for years later, even up to perhaps only months ago, although our relationship certainly improved, I never felt like I could entirely forgive God for those two years of silence. But that, however, is a whole other story.

There is, in fact, good news in today’s gospel message my sisters and brothers, and its not some silly platitude like God only gives you what you can handle. And its not an answer to why bad things, and especially a lot of bad things at once, can happen to good people. I have absolutely no idea on that one, although I’d love to have something definitive to tell you, its just a mystery of faith. There is definitive good news we can know from today’s gospel message however, actually two huge portions absolutely amazing, crystal clear, easily defined good news that we can be absolutely certain of. First, God promises us, as shown by Jesus’ later reaction to the Canaanite woman and in a bunch of other instances, that a life of faith need not be one of constant praise. Ya know, for years I felt incredibly guilty that I was so angry with God, but as the Canaanite woman shows us, struggling with God at times is completely okay. God is bigger than our anger, and even more importantly recognizes that just because we’re struggling or even accusing God for a time does not mean we’re not being faithful followers of Christ. Remember, after her repeated challenges, Jesus says, “Woman, great is your faith!” “Woman, great is your faith!” My sisters and brothers, it is completely okay, completely acceptable, to struggle with God, especially when you’re going through the most difficult of circumstances.

Our second portion of absolutely amazing, crystal clear easily defined good news today is also a fairly unique one. Ya know, I’ve studied other major religions in some detail, and this is the one thing that Christianity has that the others don’t… our moral system is not unique, nor is the idea that God is love, but the part that is unique and that today’s gospel message emphasizes, it’s that God was human. And not just divine with a human mask, no! God was fully human. God was fully human in the person of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we don’t like to think about that part, that Jesus was fully human, it makes us feel uncomfortable… that in his humanness Jesus messed up in today’s gospel message by calling the brave Canaanite woman a dog and by at first insisting that he had only come to serve the children of Israel. There’s a few other of these Bible passages too, that emphasize Jesus’ humanness, when he cries out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” most notably.

Yet it’s true. God was fully human in Jesus Christ. And not only is it true that God was fully human, but it’s really, really important, and it’s incredibly good news. It’s incredibly good news because we know, we were in fact promised, that when we’re struggling with God and struggling with the world around us, with death, disease or all sorts of disasters, that not only is it okay to challenge God, but more importantly that God knows what we’re going through. And not in some divine, all knowing sort of way. God knows what we’re going through because God’s experienced it in a fully human way. In a fully fragile, limited, struggled human sort of way God has experienced our human struggles in Christ. How God did it, how it makes logical sense, I have no idea, but we have been promised in Christ that this is true. And thus, my sisters and brothers, while it may not be true that God will only give us we can handle, we have been promised, we have been crystal cleared been made a promise that God will only give us what God has handled in a fully human sort of way in the person of Jesus Christ. And as we know through Christ’s resurrection over the forces of sin, death and despair, none of those things have a chance against the awesome power of God’s love for us. 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.

Jesus is a Goofy Sort of Gardener!

Friends, so wow, it's been an amazing last couple weeks, but it's been pretty busy too, as I was recently called to serve as pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church in Rotterdam, New York. I meant to post this sermon a while back, but am only getting to it tonight. I preached this a few Sundays back on Matthew 13:1-23, the Parable of the Sower. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

- Dustin

If there’s one thing that today’s gospel message tells us my sisters and brothers, its that Jesus is a really, really goofy sort of gardener. That’s right, Jesus is a really goofy gardener… He acts seemingly imprecise, laissez-faire, unconcerned, perhaps even foolhardy and wasteful with all those seeds of His. At least from our human perspective, Jesus is a really goofy gardener. Has anyone here done any gardening? Or spent some time on a farm or orchard? Perhaps you’re one of those folks who likes having really nice lawn? Even if gardening isn’t your thing, I imagine you pretty much have a basic idea of what it typically entails… you carefully choose and then cultivate your soil… you work in some fertilizer or compost, maybe test the pH levels, break it up or till the soil if that’s your practice… in short, it’s a very precise operation with a lot of choices that begin long before you even start sowing seed. And why is gardening such a precise operation? As human beings, we don’t want to waste our limited amount of resources, nor do we want to waste our limited amount of time or effort. There’s a pride element too of course… we want to have the sweetest lawn, the most vibrant flower garden, or have the biggest pumpkin at the county fair. And finally, let’s recognize there’s an altruistic element… we want to feed our families in a less costly, healthier manner than our supermarkets can provide. We want to grow the best zucchinis so we can make grandma’s famous zucchini bread recipe to share with friends and neighbors. As human beings, we have a whole lot riding on those seeds, and hence, we’re real careful about how we choose our soil.

From our human perspective then, Jesus’ manner of gardening is really goofy. If you Google “parable of the sower” you get all these images of a stern guy with a beard slowly placing seeds in carefully drawn rows. And that’s often what we tend to picture when we hear this well known parable too, but its simply not what’s going on in the text at all … Jesus is not being selective, but is rather rapidly dancing all over the place, tossing seeds just about everywhere. In thorns, on hard paths, on rocks, Jesus is making long bets with most of his seeds too, entirely against human logic, only throwing a few on what seems like good soil. While it’s not particularly clear in the parable, it strikes me that for Jesus this is largely a joyful process, not a stern, overly serious one like all those images would like to make us think… Jesus is planting and nurturing the bounty of God’s creation, which by the way, is immense. Historians have recently argued the largest harvest one could ever expect two thousand years ago in Palestine was fifteen times what one planted. This parable however tells us God’s yield in Christ is much larger than humanly possible… thirty, sixty, even one hundred times what is planted in the good soil alone. Jesus is a really goofy sort of gardener, whose manner completely goes against human logic to be sure, but He’s also amazingly amazingly successful, joyfully dancing about, celebrating in God’s immense abundance.

Ya know, throughout much of Christian history, right down to the present day, in our sinful human tendency to make things about ourselves we try all too often to spin this parable around. We spin this parable around… we simply can’t help it. We sometimes read ourselves into the story as the seeds, either worrying we’re not doing enough for God or at other times smug that we’re super-perfect Christians, reaping a huge bounty for our Creator. Either way, when we read ourselves as the seeds, we end up stressing the importance of our own work instead of God’s.We try turning ourselves into mini-gods in fact, something that while incredibly vain is also way too much responsibility for any of us to bear. Other times we get it partially right by seeing ourselves as the soil, but once again in our sinful human tendency to turn ourselves into the central character of God’s story, we start worrying about what kind of soil we are. Are we the thorny soil, too distracted by other worldly cares to see what God’s doing in our lives? Or are we the rocky soil, getting super excited about God’s work only to burn ourselves out? We worry about whether we’re saved, or one of the elect, these sort of things that turn God’s story in which we’re only minor characters into a story just about us.

The good news my sisters and brothers, is that we’re all every type of soil at once. We’re all sinful, we all get distracted from what God’s doing in our lives by other worldly cares. We all burn ourselves out at times too. You are all sinful people. You are bad soil! I’m a sinful person too, bad soil, no better or worse than anyone else here today. We’re all sinners. But we’re also all saints, we’re all good soil too! You are good soil! You are good soil! This congregation, Messiah Lutheran Church, is good soil. The town of Rotterdam, the city of Schenectady, indeed the whole Capitol District, is good soil. God has worked amazing things in all our lives, in the life of this congregation and in the life of our local community and will continue to do so, through the best of times and the most broken of times as well… It’s absolutely amazing, when you stop to think about it, the powerful works God can pull out of the most dire of circumstances.

It’s certainly good news, that we’re all every type of soil at once, but its not even the best part folks. It’s not even the best part! My sisters and brothers, the really good news that Jesus proclaims to us today through the parable of the sower has nothing to do with wondering about whether we’re chosen or elect or good or bad soil. The truly good news is that in the end, the parable of the sower is not really much about us at all. It’s about God in Christ. Our God in Christ is the main character in this parable, who by human standards might be a really goofy gardener, but who is also a God of abundance, immense care, and indeed, joy. Through this parable Jesus teaches us how God is constantly casting seeds everywhere, sometimes in the places we’d least expect it. Ya know over the past few days I’ve had amazing conversations with you folks here at Messiah Lutheran, and the part that got me excited the most was hearing about the dreams you have for this congregation. One person told me how Messiah should be a known resource here in the Rotterdam community, where neighbors no matter their religious affiliation know they can go if they need help. Another said really profoundly, I want my daughter to be just as excited about church when she grows up as she is now as a small child. Other dreams included doing more service projects, adding an adult education program, a youth group, perhaps a vacation Bible school in the summer for the kids and of course welcoming new members into the community here at Messiah.

Yesterday afternoon I was blessed to take a drive with Bill around town. He told me how GE outsourcing many of its jobs over the years really hurt the Schenectady area. He also told me though about how good planning and a revitalized Proctors Theatre downtown has really starting improving things. Even more importantly, Bill talked about growing up in Rotterdam, living in this very neighborhood, the town’s good schools, its friendly faces and how amazing the folks are here despite working through all sorts of changes and challenges. Whether its dreaming and praying for your daughter to grow up strong in her faith or whether its a city trying to figure out how to be a city again after decades of decline and struggling about the idea of a casino coming to town, these things are all seeds my sisters and brothers. Joys and challenges alike, they’re all seeds in God’s hands. Seeds, opportunities for us to do God’s work in our little corner of the world despite all our human imperfections. Seeds, opportunities God constantly presents us with every day of our lives, as individuals, congregations and wider communities, opportunities to do God’s work with our hands. Opportunities to put a smile on someone’s face, to strengthen someone’s faith, to make our community just a little bit stronger.

And remember, God in Christ is one goofy sort of gardener. Our parable today teaches us God ain’t sternly and slowly walking in neat little rows, plopping down seeds in only the most choice of soils. Our God in Christ is a joyfully gardener, a God of abundance, dancing about and scattering seeds everywhere, often in the most unlikely of places. We’re aren’t going to be able to take advantage of all the seeds God tosses us, by the way. To be fair, sometimes in our humanness we’ll be bad soil. Mostly though, its the shear fact that in God’s abundance, there’s simply too many seeds for us to plant. Our God is a God of abundance, a God who takes chances, and God who dances about joyfully making amazing things happen. In Jesus, God has promised us this is the sort of gardener God is, no matter how good or bad soil we think we are. And our God, my sisters and brothers, 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.

Sermon: How "An Eye for An Eye, A Tooth for a Tooth" is Gospel

Hey friends!

So I just got done preaching in midday chapel at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia where I'm in my last semester. What follows is a rough manuscript of my sermon, which was on Leviticus 24: 10-23 & Matthew 7: 1-12. I'd love to hear what you think.

So this past Tuesday I wasn’t in the best of spirits… I was stricken with cabin fever after being pretty much constantly snowed in over the last weeks, I had a bad cold, a bit of a sore throat and to top it all off, I was absolutely terrified about what this week’s assignment process might hold in store for me. After debating whether to go to class that evening, I did what any logical sick person would do and decided the best course of action would be to get in my car, head to CVS, get a fresh supply of cough syrup, get some ice-cream for dinner and then tough it out, heading to class with a soothed throat, full belly and cheered spirits. I hadn’t driven my car in a few days and thus knew it would be pretty snowed in, but the proud rugged New Englander in me figured I could dig myself out with no problem. After about twenty minutes of shoveling and chopping what turned out to be mostly ice and not snow I thought I was all set. I smugly got behind the wheel, turned the key, put my car in reverse and didn’t move an inch. Keeping my cool of course… I’m a proud, rugged New Englander after all, I got out, chopped at the ice a bit more, threw a piece of cardboard I had in my trunk under one of my front tires, got back in my car, turned the key, put the car in reverse, and once again, didn’t move an inch. After repeating this a third and fourth time, I started to get angry, was no longer thinking, and did exactly what I knew you’re not supposed to do in these situations… I gunned the engine, simply dug myself deeper into the ice.

Exasperated, I gunned the engine again, and then a third time, all the while digging myself even further into the ice, feeling more and more angrily self righteous that I could get myself out of this situation, even to the point that when a neighbor eventually came out to help me, I initially refused. She continued to press me, and eventually I conceded to let her give me a push and put some branches from her old Christmas tree under my car tires for increased traction. Around this same time, another woman came out of the train station across the street, got in her four-wheel drive truck that was parked next to mine, and only to immediately get stuck in the ice as well. Now I got really pissed off… if this woman couldn’t get out with four wheel drive, what hope did I have? And well… I absolutely gave up. I figured forget getting my ice-cream dinner, and going to class… I’m just going to go home, lay sick in bed, and wait a couple days for the darn ice to melt. And knowing my luck this week, I started figuring I’d be assigned somewhere deep in that scary part of the country frequently called the Midwest.

So I gave up, I stormed home, barely thanking the woman who tried to help me and not even thinking to help the other woman get her truck out of the ice. I gave up and went home cold, exhausted and defeated. Yet, after getting in the door and walking up the stairs, I felt an utter surge of hope. I felt a surge of hope because none other than my amazing housemate Doug Hjelmstad was home. Now, I think all of us recognize that if there is anyone on this campus that could help get a car out of the ice, it would be that rock solid, harder than the granite of the White Mountains, rugged New Hampshirite himself, Doug Hjelmstad. So, I asked Doug for help, and of course he quickly went downstairs, quietly puts on his coat, got a pry-bar out of his toolbox and headed out to my car. I followed him, grabbing a dead potted plant on the way thinking the dirt in it might be somehow of use, and we got back to work. Except, while Doug was hacking away at the ice under my tires, I felt pretty useless and kind of embarrassed so I decided to help the woman in the truck who was also still sitting there, spinning her wheels, stuck in the ice. By now one of her friend’s had come to help too.

No matter how much we tried to push the truck or put dirt under the tires, this woman still couldn’t get out of the ice. But right as we were about to give up, Doug took a break from hacking away and comes over, turns some sort of knob on each of the woman’s front tires, the four-wheel drive engages and only a few seconds later, she was freed from the ice. I immediately made a joke about how Doug and I are seminarians and that we’ve been blessed, etc. The woman and her friend actually get kind of excited they’re hanging out with almost clergy, were sort of almost having this mini worship service in the middle of the street but then they insist to try at least try one more time to get my car out of the ice too. So now, probably two hours after I originally intended, I get behind the wheel, turn the key, put the car in reverse, and with Doug, the woman with the truck, and her friend pushing, I slowly backed my way out of the ice. I backed my way out of the ice, put the car in drive, and immediately felt joy. I immediately felt joy.

So, why do I tell this fairly long story? I tell it not to simply to talk about myself, although it may seem it since I’m so long winded. I tell it not to simply proclaim my main homie Doug Hjelmstad is a modern day ice messiah, although let’s admit it, he’s not far off. Most importantly, and this may surprise you…. I don’t tell this story to necessarily proclaim some sort of ethics for humankind… I’m not simply trying to illustrate how this “do unto others as you would have done unto you” business Jesus proclaims to us today in the gospel, which is given a pretty way to go about things, played out in some cute story about getting out of the ice. Rather, I tell this story to show how both Jesus’ reference to the Golden Rule and even the more difficult principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” in today’s Leviticus reading, aren’t just meant to be law, they’re not just meant to be rules God provides us to regulate human relationships on Earth or to scare us toward embracing the gospel. Sometimes, much like the difficult situation I had with my car a couple days ago, the Golden Rule and “an eye for an eye” work like gospel too. They’re gospel, because they remind us quite simply that our lives aren’t just about us in the end. They remind us, as MLK put it, that “we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” If you look in the Talmud, “an eye for an eye” is rarely interpreted literally, its rather taken as a limit on how much someone could be punished for a proven transgression. If we ask ourselves what an extremely difficult part of today’s Leviticus texts might tell us about God, we realize even the stoning of that dude is meant to indicate how God, the people of Israel and even foreigners are amazingly interconnected. Nor was Jesus coming up with anything really new when he proclaimed the Golden Rule… it’s sort of in Leviticus 19, and only a generation before Jesus, the great Jewish sage Hillel pretty much said the same thing in summing up the Torah, as have the great sages of most other religions, many centuries older than Christianity.

When my car pulled off that ice and I was freed to drive away, I felt joy, but I didn’t feel joy simply because I could now go get my cough syrup and ice-cream dinner. In the midst of a week that felt like it was all about me, worrying over everything I’ve and said wrote in recent months to hopefully stay in the Northeast, bumming about me getting all sick, I felt joy in being humbly reminded that I couldn’t do it on my own, no matter how much I spun my wheels, no matter how hard I tried. I felt joy. And I believe that our texts today and situations like I had on Tuesday can be gospel, not just law… my experience was a humble reminder that it wasn’t all about me, that my life was inescapably linked with God and neighbor, and in some sense then, that I could let go, falling into God’s loving arms of grace. And whether God meets us in bread and wine, the waters of baptism, words like the Golden Rule or even "an eye for an eye" proclaimed or in the face of neighbors known and unknown simply giving us a push, my sisters and brothers it is profoundly good news that your life is not all about you either. For it is through these means, including sometimes seemingly insignificant occurrences, that our gaze is drawn outward to what is truly important, freeing us from ourselves and turning us toward the amazing work of God in Christ. Amen.

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.

Preaching on Syria and a New Seminary Year at LTSP

What follows is the manuscript for a sermon I gave earlier today at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  The sermon is centered around Matthew 10: 34 - 42 and discusses the Syria conflict, as well as the uncertainty of a new academic year.  Please let me know what you think.

My sisters and brothers, I confess that I come to you this day with a near overwhelming sense of having no idea what the heck is going on... it feels like we’re living amidst times of great uncertainty, and I imagine there many of you here today who feel much the same way. For seniors like me nearing the end of our seminary education, we’re looking to graduation with excitement... we’re pumped, we are ready to go and “preach the damn gospel,” as someone once described it, although I can’t remember who. On the other hand, we’re worrying about being approved for ordination, or getting new jobs and worrying about where in this very large country we’ll be first called and most importantly, we’re worrying about how as a new generation of leaders we’ll be able reinvigorate a Church in seeming decline and share the good news with population that has for many reasons, both good and bad, largely turned away from organized religion. Middlers, at least from what I remember, you’re probably starting already to worry about internship placement and why there are so many darn papers to write. Juniors, now after almost two weeks of figuring each other out, settling in and socially establishing yourselves over beers and board games, you might be worrying about what the heck you got into by starting this whole seminary thing, and you might feel a little homesick too. Our wonderful faculty and staff, amidst what you’re continually hearing about this declining Church, you might be worrying about the future of seminary education, or maybe even whether or not you’ll have a job five years from now.

Inundated by these concerns as a seminary community, and whatever may be going on in our own personal lives, in recent days we’ve also been hit by a truly major crisis, a life and death crisis in fact, as a nation and a world. When I first saw those pictures of rows upon rows of deathly white pale bodies, many of whom were children, and heard reports of over 1500 Syrians being gassed to death by their own government, my first reaction was that the United States and our partners in the international community needed to militarily intervene. Those rows of pale bodies reminded me way too much of that haunting pile of victim’s shoes at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Those rows and rows of pale bodies reminded me way too much of the horrifying stories I’ve heard from folks roughly my age who were young children, both Hutus and Tutsis, during the Rwandan genocide. Those rows of pale, deathly white bodies reminded me way too much that after every hard rain, human bones still decades later wash up out of the ground in the killing fields of Cambodia, crying out for some sort of justice. Reminded of the hell of human sin in our previous century, despite my typically peacenik tendencies and hopefully Christian values, my first reaction was that we need to act, to militarily intervene, to somehow halt absolute evil.

My sisters and brothers, our current situation is by no means the same as the run-up to the Iraq War a decade ago. This is not a crisis built on lies, its very real, and there are legitimate arguments for meeting the large-scale use of weapons of mass destruction with a strong military response. Yet, there are other voices, some of folks actually on the ground in Syria and the surrounding region of Western Asia, arguing for a radically different response. The Right Reverend Munib A. Younan, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, recently wrote, “The only ones who will benefit from Western military intervention in Syria will be extremists on all sides. The violent ambitions of extremists within all traditions in the Middle East— Muslims, Christians, and Jews, among others—will be stoked by the fuel of even greater military destruction. As an Arab Christian, I am concerned for the effects this violence will have on every community in Syria, whether they are Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Druze, or Christian.” The Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reverend Mark Hanson, has also echoed these sentiments, as have countless other leaders of many faiths and denominations across America. I also see the pleas for peace of a close friend from my early childhood, the only Syrian I personally know, coming across my Facebook Newsfeed on now a nearly daily basis. She makes strong arguments that the situation is much more complicated than our media portrays, and that the Syrian government in fact still has a great deal of popular support within her country. And, plenty of experts also fear an even modest US military intervention would only exacerbate the cycle of violence in Western Asia, dragging Iran, Israel and other countries into a wider regional war. Following the initial shock, upon further prayerful discernment, it appears as if a peaceful, diplomatic approach to the Syrian crisis is the best of two difficult options. And, I humbly invite you to contact President Obama and your leaders in Congress to advocate for such an approach.

But besides that, what shall we say, what shall we do? Even more importantly, what good news does a God who proclaims He comes not to bring peace, but rather with a sword, have to share with us this day, as we live amongst such great anxiety in our community, in our Church and our world? Well, first of all, we have to recognize and rest in the profoundly good news that no matter what uncertainties we may face, what’s really important is not what you, or me, or frankly any of us are doing at all. What’s truly important is the amazing things God is doing, and has always done, to bring about reconciliation, to bring about peace and to bring about liberation in Christ. If you look at the earlier verses of Matthew 10, the saints Jesus is talking to are initially named the twelve disciples... in other words, they’re students of Christ first, learning the way of the Cross as they grow in their faith. As I’m sure all the professors here will affirm, as students, we’re ain’t expected to be perfect... we’ll all make mistakes, and we won’t always have the right answer, or sometimes, any answer at all. It’s only in a later verse, after the evangelist establishes them as ongoing learners of the way of the Cross, that the status of the twelve as apostles, as doers, as proclaimers, is affirmed.

Furthermore, if you really look at the text, the fact that our God comes not with peace but the with the sword is profoundly good news. Jesus isn’t portraying himself as a barbaric warrior, a violent judge or destroyer of families... no! Jesus proclaims to the twelve, and to us in this city, on this campus, in this most uncertain of times that God is a God of movement, not of stagnation. Yes, our God promises us She is a God of change. For our God promises us She is a God of a sometimes chaotic creation, but a new, life-giving creation nonetheless. For God is always at work, dancing through your life and your life and all our lives, lovingly strengthening and comforting us when we doubt why we’re here or what lies ahead. God is always at work, rebirthing the Church, the body of Her Son in this world anew, whether it be through a new Pope washing the feet of a Muslim girl or a new Lutheran Presiding Bishop proclaiming the good news on MSNBC or the grassroots work of missional faith communities across this land serving their neighbors in Christian freedom. And even amidst a difficult global crisis, even as calls to war once again sound across this country, God is and will always be at work, guiding us and our leaders, bearing peace amongst the hell of human sin and in fact freeing us to reach out in mutual comfort and consolation like never before in human history to our sisters and brothers half a world away. In Christ, God promises to be a God of movement, of change, of life, of new creation, of liberating love that is always at work. And, God is a God who keep Her promises. Amen.

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.

Immigration Reform Liturgy and Sermon

While I'll spend some more time later reflecting on the Immigration Advocacy Workshop we just held at Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar, I figured I could at least post the homily and liturgy we used for the text immediately.  Click the link below for a .pdf of the liturgy, which borrows from Lutheran, Catholic and evangelical resources.  

Immigration Reform Liturgy at Saint Peter's Church

Additionally, the a rough manuscript of the homily I preached on Saint Matthew 25: 34 - 40 follows:

Born in the wilderness, a young Israelite sojourner with tears in her eyes steps foot into the Promised Land for the first time. A poor Gentile woman is welcomed into God’s covenant with Israel through Christ. Fast-forward a couple thousand years… Dutch Anabaptists arrive in New Amsterdam, later to be renamed New York, having braved sea and storm in order to be safe from religious persecution. A recently freed African-American family, whose ancestors were brought to America in chains, make the long journey north to New York from the Carolinas seeking safety and economic opportunity. An Irish widower, with two young daughters in tow arrives on Ellis Island. Pro-democratic activists flee from a newly Communist China. Persecuted Hmong families arrive from Vietnam. A Nicaraguan family in a similar situation flees from the US-backed Contras. A migrant worker hopes for a legal status that will allow him to receive just wages. Today, a young Mauritanian girl escapes from forced prostitution and seeks asylum here in our city.

I’m a vicar, studying to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and I way too often hear from folks both at my seminary and in other churches that the Church, that the Gospel no longer seems relevant in our society, that it’s hard to find Christ in our contemporary situation. When I hear that sort of talk, I find it quite odd… to be fair, there’s oftentimes when Jesus can be quite cryptic in what he says in the gospels, but when you listen to the stories I just mentioned and then listen to Christ’s words in today’s gospel reading, I have no worry at all that the gospel, that Christ, is still relevant in our world today, as he’s always been. Christ is with us, and it’s amazingly good new that Christ shows up where we least expect him to… in simple water, in Words, in bread and wine and in the faces of those oppressed, those seeking refuge those made to feel not welcome in our society. It’s also amazing good news that churches from across the political spectrum agree on this… today’s liturgy uses prayers from Catholic, Lutheran but also evangelical sources. Christians can’t help but see Christ in those refugees and migrants who most need immigration reform, and across the country we’re starting the conversation about how to respond. Thanks for being here, and thanks for joining us.

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.

Calumet Yellows Reunion Sermon: Rowdy Faith in A Rowdy God

What follow's is a rough manuscript of a sermon I preached this past Sunday at Camp Calumet Lutheran during a reunion retreat weekend for the previous summer's teenage campers.  There's a few inside jokes throughout the text, but hopefully they won't be too distracting.  For a full Twitterfeed from the event, click here.  For more info about our curriculum for the weekend, click here.  I'd love to here what you think!

So, you may have heard at some point that we’ve been live tweeting throughout the Yellows 2012 Reunion. There were some pretty good tweets out on the tweetosphere this weekend… on one end of the spectrum we had some about exploring our faith. On the other, we had some about the smellyness of our farts… all of these were good tweets. That said, my favorite tweet of the weekend was one of the first… it was written by Rachael. She was probably heading back to her cabin Friday night when she wrote something along the lines of “that was a rowdy devos.” A rowdy devos… a rowdy devotionals… who would have thought! Those two words don’t usually go together, but Rachael was definitely right… while we were learning about each other’s faith and playing people bingo and singing a bunch of camp songs, things got pretty rowdy.

[ROWDY SONG INTERRUPTION]

Ya know, sitting by the fire last night, thinking about the weekend and going over the Bible texts for today, I eventually realized why I liked Rachael’s tweet so much… it was filled with really, really good news. And that good news is that we have a faith that can make things get a little rowdy… we have a rowdy faith. In fact, God Herself was getting a little rowdy in today’s gospel story. It’s a pretty well known one… three wise men, or sometimes we call them the three kings, came from the east, or from basically really far away, and told King Herod they came to worship the baby Jesus because they were led by a star in the sky. Herod wasn’t a big fan of baby Jesus, so he tried to use the wise men to find Jesus and kill him, but luckily, Herod’s plan didn’t work… Instead, the wise men followed the star all to Bethlehem; they knelt down and worshiped Jesus, and eventually, they went back home by a different road.

Now, I imagine you’re wondering, how was God getting so rowdy in the story? The answer begins with the fact that God didn’t put that star in the sky for some priests in Jerusalem or for King Herod… She put that star in the sky for three wise men from far away, which means three folks that were far outside God’s old covenant with Israel. By putting that star in the sky for the three wise men, God proclaimed the good news that all are welcomed, that all are saved and that all are loved through Christ. You see, for all the religious authorities and King Herod, this news would have been completely unexpected… they thought the Messiah was only coming for Israel… by shaking things up, God was getting pretty rowdy.

[ROWDY SONG INTERRUPTION]

You see my friends, we have a rowdy God, and we have a rowdy faith, and that is amazingly good news. And you know what, we learned a bit this weekend that at least in some ways, we have a rowdy church too… As Lutherans we have the largest charitable organization in the United States, Lutheran Social Services, shaking things up and helping folks out… that’s pretty rowdy. Through it's Young Adults in Global Mission Program, the ELCA is sending about fifty young adults, some just a couple years older than you all, abroad ever year to shake things up and help folks out… that’s pretty rowdy too.  We also have offices at the international, national and state levels advocating for a more just society.  Of course, our church needs to do more… the world is changing really, really fast, and as faith communities we’ve got to change too. In our world, in this time and place, the church can’t look like it used to. We talked a lot this weekend about what Calumet means to us as well, and for me at least, by providing such a powerful model of serving others, of loving others and of worshiping God in fun and life giving ways, Camp Calumet is one place that represents the change we need to make as a church… it’s a place shaking things up with a rowdy faith in a rowdy God.

The good news of the rowdy things God is doing through Christ… that’s what today’s gospel message is all about and it’s the same good news that Christians all over the world are celebrating today. You see, today’s a very special church holiday called Epiphany… in many Spanish-speaking congregations it’s actually a bigger celebration than Christmas. On Epiphany, the reason we read the story of the wise men is that when God put that star up in the sky, guiding folks from far away to the newborn Jesus in Bethlehem, the good news that through Christ, God loves, accepts and cares for all us was proclaimed. So my friends, as you go home on this Epiphany Sunday, celebrate and share the good news of our rowdy faith in a rowdy God… a God that loves you and you and you… a rowdy God that loves all of us, whether we’re young or old, gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, whether we’re outgoing or shy or even a weird kid that loves cats, fireworks and margarine. In short my friends, celebrate God’s good news, and get rowdy.

[LOUD, ROWDY ENDING SONG ABOUT GOD’S LOVE]

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 really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Christian Response to SOPA

Thou shalt not steal... some might think that's basically all their faith might say about SOPA/ PIPA and support the new anti-piracy legislation.  From my own perspective though, it's not so simple.  I support the initial spirit behind anti-piracy legislation, but as I understand it, SOPA/ PIPA is currently written in a way that would hamper online innovation and freedom while in fact really not doing much to actually stop the pirating of copyrighted content online.  In doing so, SOPA/ PIPA would strike at heart of our evolving definition of community, and therefore our evolving definition of the church in the twenty-first century.  Jesus taught in Matthew 20:18, "where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."  What we've seen over the last decade or so has been a revolution in what it means to be gathered, a revolution largely enabled by sites like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter that are at risk of being shut down by SOPA/ PIPA.

I've often thought about how important it is for the church to get connected online, but up until the controversy over SOPA/ PIPA in the last few days, I never thought about it in the other direction... how the church must give thanks for the gift of internet freedom that allows us to gather in conversation.  Not only must we give thanks for how the internet can strengthen our existing physical faith communities and create virtual new ones, we must further give thanks for what internet freedom has contributed the cause of social justice.  As I wrote about a month or so ago, social media sites allowed millennials and other peaceful protestors this past year to enter into conversation and work to reform or rebuild many of the world's most oppressive governments and other social systems, whether in Egypt, Russia or Wall Street.  The overwhelming condemnation of Rick Perry's hateful "Strong" ad and today's response to SOPA/ PIPA further shows the political power of online viral organizing.

For those of you who wish to become better educated on SOPA/ PIPA and what it does to curb freedom online, I've found the following video most helpful:


Having realized and unlocked the power of online community and viral organizing against systems of oppression over the last few years, we should all do everything we can to protect the internet as one of our central tools in evolving what the church is and does in the twenty-first century.  For more information about what you can do, click here.

God's peace,
Dustin

Sermon Imagery for 11/6/11: Daily Called Towards Christ

This Sunday’s lectionary readings are absolutely filled with movement. Movement is a universal thing, something that we do by our very definition as living things. We move for a wide variety of reasons… we dance in community to celebrate great joys; we spend our lives running from death and great sorrow. We move to supply our most basic needs, whether it is through hunting a wild animal or traveling long distances to seek proper nutrition in an urban food desert. The theme of movement throughout this Sunday’s readings (Amos 5: 18 – 24, Psalm 70, 1 Thessalonians 4: 13 – 18 and Matthew 25: 1 – 13) could thus speak to congregations and individuals of any context.

What then is the nature of this movement? “Movement” of course is a fairly generic term… what specific image of movement could one convey in a sermon? Each reading illustrates a movement towards hope of one type or another. Amos is rich in movement imagery: one flees from a lion toward a bear and flees into a seemingly welcoming home only to be bitten by a snake. These words paint the image of a nightmare yet are also juxtaposed with the rolling waters of justice and the ever-flowing stream of righteousness. The Amos text places hope in God working through the right actions of humanity; the right actions of believers slowly, like an ever-flowing stream, chip away at what has been constructed by the powers of sin and death. 1 Thessalonians also illustrates movement towards hope. The dead rise at the archangel’s call and the sound of God’s trumpet while the living meet Christ in the clouds. Here, the embrace of our loving Christ is the hope we are drawn towards. In the gospel reading there are two types of movement. While bridesmaids either wisely or frantically prepare for the coming of the bridegroom, it is fact the bridegroom’s slow, steady movement towards the banquet that provides hope in the darkness of the night.

The image of movement towards hope in these Biblical texts puts emphasis on the actions of God rather than our own. That’s because while hope looks somewhat different in each of this Sunday’s readings, they all in different ways describe hope in terms of the eschatological event. The eschatological event is portrayed positively in 1 Thessalonians, negatively in Amos and ambivalently in Matthew. In the lives of believers every day is one of positives and negatives… every day we are drowned and reborn in the waters of baptism. All days in the lives of believers thus become their own little eschatological events. We die… we literally die, the world ends, and then we are reborn in the coming of Christ. Dying is not fun and by no means feels good. At times we might feel like we’ve fled into a cozy home only to be bitten by a snake or feel like we’re the bridesmaids left out in the cold. In that dying though we move from darkness to light… we’re reborn in Christ and respond to the hope of God’s loving saving grace by serving our neighbor as Christ.

While the imagery of movement towards hope can be used to preach law and gospel it also compels us to respond in action… and it is in that action where a preacher can crystallize the image for each individual in the congregation. Perhaps one’s congregants might be struggling simply to make ends meet, struggling to put food on the table and pay for rising healthcare costs in face of diminishing government support. Perhaps one’s congregants are struggling to make meaning out of the recent death of a loved one. Perhaps one’s congregants are simply struggling to discern how they should respond to God’s saving grace. Sunday’s lectionary readings can speak to whatever trials one might face. By painting a portrait of being moved towards hope in Christ, the preacher can help congregants see the “little eschatological events” of everyday life.

You Always Have the Poor With You... But They Need Not Be Hungry!

So here's part two of my ongoing series "catching up on what I've been doing the last couple months" posts.  Thanks to Mikka McCracken for all the pictures.  Enjoy!

It's always a hard quote talk about... Jesus says something similar to "the poor will always be with you" in every gospel except for Luke, and it's a passage that some folks have used to argue against social justice initiatives.  On one level, I'd like to point those folks to how Jesus' quote parallels Deuteronomy 15:11: "There will always be poor people in the land.  Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land."  Yet on another level, while the poor may always be with us, they need not be hungry.

Tour of the Rodale Institute.

The poor may always be with us, but they need to be hungry... this became abundantly clear for me  couple weeks ago while participating in an ELCA World Hunger "Ethics of Eating" retreat.  From September 29th to October 2nd folks from synods all over the ELCA's Region 7 gathered at Camp Men-O-Lan in Quakertown, PA to find out more about world hunger and what people of faith can do about it.  And boy... it was a powerful event!  First of all, it was great to part of such a diverse group.  While there were a number of seminarians and pastors, there were farmers and business folks too.  There were younger folks in attendance, but there were others who had been working on hunger issues long before I was born.  Most encouragingly, there seemed to be a diversity of political opinion in the group... feeding the hungry need not be a liberal or conservative issue, and it was great to see Lutherans from diverse backgrounds and experiences working together towards that goal.

The only nice cow at Living Hope Farm.

Over the course of four days, we had a number of amazing education opportunities.  We heard more about ELCA World Hunger, learned how the ELCA does advocacy on both the federal and statewide levels and visited Living Hope Farm, a Mennonite community-supported agriculture project.  We also heard about both sides of the GMO/ organic farming debate from the perspective of two dairy farmers and even got to tour the Rodale Institute, a research farm that's been pioneering organic farming for well over fifty years.  While I came away from the event with many learnings and new ideas, there's five specific points that need sharing.

A greenhouse at Living Hope Farm.

First, (and most importantly) we can solve hunger as a systemic problem in this world.  We are blessed to live in a time where we have the means to feed the hungry, and it's just a matter of will and proper coordination to do so.  There will be difficulties posed by a continually rising population for at least a few more decades and many negatives effects from climate change, but still, feeding the hungry is possible.  In many areas, it's actually happened... hunger in America was nearly eliminated under the Nixon administration, although since then we've backtracked to now one in six of our citizens being hungry.  There are similar stories on the global front... David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World has written that if we continue on a similar trajectory, from 1990 to 2015 we would have cut the number of people in extreme poverty in half.  It's true friends, feeding the hungry can happen... and imagine if it did.  What would happen for instance if your church no longer had to operate a food-bank because it simply wasn't needed?  Imagine what other important ministries all those resources could go to!

Discussing future projects.

My second learning was that while hunger is solvable, people of faith can't do it alone.  We're called in the waters of baptism to not only directly feed the hungry, but to accompany them in advocacy as well.  That of course might look different for different folks.  It might mean signing up for the ELCA's e-Advocacy Network or writing a letter to your local newspaper.  Bread for the World also provides great advocacy resources, particularly in this critical time of budget cuts and the upcoming debate over the Farm Bill.  It's a empowering experience to visit either your state rep's office or even your congressman's office in Washington to advocate on full support of hunger programs... and thank them while you're there!  Once again, hunger is solvable problem, but it's going to take collective action that only government entities can bring to bear to do so.

The group at Living Hope Farm.

Third, I learned that advocacy and organizing go hand in hand.  Advocacy does not need to be done alone, and of course is particularly enjoyable while working with others.  From my experience, advocacy is pretty contagious, especially when you know your efforts have paid off in a big way.  People of faith bear a lot of political weight with their opinions... politicians listen to us, particularly when we're in large numbers.  Ethics of Eating was particularly effective because it gave all of us participants the tools to be leaders back home in our local congregations and communities.  Hopefully, with the Spirit's help, all that education and energy will spread and foster even more leaders and open ears.  That's sort of related to my fourth point in a way... feeding the hungry is going to take a lot of listening.  Oftentimes it's so easy to think we're doing good while in fact we're only making the matter worse.  For instance, oftentimes sending food to foreign countries depresses local food prices so farmers can't make a living.  In advocating and building community around solving world hunger, we need to listen to all interested parties.  The genetically-modified organism/ organic farming debate particularly can vilify one side or the other.  I came out of the retreat a little unsure about where to stand on this one.  Organic practices and CSA's were certainly great when possible, but it seemed unclear to me as to whether or not such farming continue indeed feed all our hungry planet.

Finally, as we discussed in the first night of the retreat, feeding the hungry is all about good discipleship.  Check out this well known passage from Matthew 25:

³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 25: 34 - 40).

That's what discipleship is all about folks!  Seeing Christ in others and doing our best serve them as Christ.  From a Lutheran perspective, this is done not out of a need to justify ourselves, but rather in response to God's love and saving grace.  As second generation Lutheran theologian Andreas Musculus puts it, we serve others "out of a free and merry spirit."  Whether we are directly feeding the hungry, making sure folks have clean drinking water, clothing the naked, caring for the sick or visiting those in prison, all those things at least indirectly contribute to making sure all of God's children have access to good quality food.  Feeding the hungry is at center of Christian hospitality, central to good discipleship, and a central part of who we are as people of faith.  Thanks for reading!

God's peace,
Dustin