"Why Have You Hidden Your Face from Us?"

Hey everyone!

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

- Advent 1: God with Us in the Face of the Stranger

- Advent 2: God with Us in Rotterdam

- Advent 3: God with Us at Work

- Advent 4: God with Us in Family

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

God's peace,

Pastor Dustin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"UN - I do not want to be poor anymore."

In 2000, world leaders promised to reach eight specific, measurable goals for global development by 2015 called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The most notable of these goals was to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty, as measured by people living on a $1.25 or less. Thanks in part to the strong participation of people of faith, along with many other persons and organizations working together in one massive global effort to fulfill the MDGs, we have made real progress. The number of people living in poverty has fallen to less than half of its 1990 level. Over two billion people gained access to better drinking water. The share of slum dwellers living in cities fell, improving the lives of at least 100 million people!

Yet, we still have work to do. 1.4 billion people remain in extreme poverty. Every four seconds a child dies from preventable causes and over 900 million people, particularly women and young people, suffer from chronic hunger. Climate change threatens to destroy the lives of millions more and undo much of the progress we have made so far. Inequality is growing everywhere and human rights are being undermined, especially in many of the world’s most fragile and conflict affected countries. Even with these great challenges, for the first time in history we have the resources to end extreme poverty while enabling sustainable development. As the 2015 target date for fulfilling the MDGs approaches, a global conversation on these two topics is well underway. Termed the “post‐2015 dialogue,” this conversation has already brought together thousands of government officials, non-profit organizations, business leaders, academics and grassroots activists in order to craft new goals for a global development agenda.

Despite the unprecedented openness and inclusivity of the post‐2015 dialogue, people of faith have yet to fully engage in the conversation. This is unfortunate, because as major players in fulfilling the MDGs, people of faith have much to contribute ‐ they have rich grassroots experiences to share and their members and neighbors have a major stake in what happens after 2015. For instance, the ELCA’s well-known “Make Malaria History” campaign directly relates the MDG 6, “Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,” and thus Lutherans should be very concerned about what global development goals follow the MDGs.

Even more importantly, faith communities are often the only grassroots networks that directly reach people living in poverty and other underrepresented global citizens. Thus, as people of faith, and specifically as Lutherans, we need to do our part in amplifying the voices of those who most need a strong set of new development goals – people living in poverty and communities and organizations who accompany them. We must practice what we preach, what we teach. It's about directly accompanying people concretely, not merely multiplying words. If we, as people of faith, do not confront "the scandal of poverty," then we are part of the problem.

People living in poverty and those who accompany them have unique gifts to share with the global community as it prepares a Post‐2015 Development Agenda. After countless consultations, reports, meetings and debates, we largely know what needs to be done and that we have the necessary resources to end extreme poverty. What we do not yet have at the United Nations is the political will to make it happen. In late June, during yet another meeting at UN headquarters in New York, a man from Latin America stood up, and in one startling statement got everyone’s attention. He simply said, “UN – I do not want to be poor anymore.” It is such dignified, hopeful people, people living in poverty and those who directly accompany them, from whom we need to hear more in the post‐2015 dialogue, for only they can build the political will to end poverty in our time while enabling sustainable development.

Inspired by that startling example of speaking truth to power, the New York offices to the United Nations of Caritas Internationalis and The Lutheran World Federation recently launched a new conversation on the World We Want platform entitled “UN ‐ I do not want to be poor anymore: a collection of faith‐inspired voices of people living in poverty.” If you're someone who has served in a soup-kitchen, if you’re someone who has gone on a mission trip, if you’re someone who worships with people living in poverty and especially if you have experienced poverty yourself (however you define "poverty" in your local context) please contribute to this conversation by going to http://www.worldwewant2015.org/voicesoffaith. By creating a user profile and answering four simple questions, you’ll make your voice heard by leaders at the United Nations and greatly contribute towards ending extreme poverty while sustainably growing our world!

If you have any additional questions, feel free to email me at dustin.wright@elca.org. Thanks so much for reading, and we hope you can participate with other people of faith around the world in this important global endeavor!

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.

A Psalm for Her City

Had to write my own psalm for a First Testament course this semester and the following is what I came up with... it's based on a conversation I had with a woman who used to call the Occupy Philly encampment her home.

Creator, nurturing mother;
     Your love and beauty fill all the earth.

Nurturing mother;

     You come to even the forbidden places,

     the merciless grid of the city street.

Yet the demons of poverty, and hunger and open-air death dealing

     press in on me.

The hellhounds of addiction, and depression and hopelessness

     seek to overtake me.

How could I remain without your guiding hand?

     What would I do without your comforting embrace?

May you vanquish my enemies O Lord,

     not with the sting of your sword,

     but with the wild shoots of your garden

     breaking forth through blood stained concrete.

I know your attentive ear

     will hear the groans of your child

     stripped of her humanity.

I am blameless Lord.

     I shout your name from atop tenements.

     I shout within burned out rowhouses.

     I shout both night and day.

     I shout you are my strength, my healer, and my champion.

Sermon Ideas for Advent 3B

Friends,

First of all, I want to thank you all so much for reading lately... this blog has really taken off in recent weeks (I hit over one hundred readers for the first time today!) and for that I'm so grateful.  

In an attempt to begin practicing what I intend to do in the parish, I'm putting up some initial sermon ideas and questions for preaching the lectionary texts for this Sunday, December 11th, 2011.  I have the luxury of not actually giving a sermon until this coming Thursday for my Homiletics course, so I would greatly appreciate some feedback in the comments section of my blog.  This and most of my other posts either directly have to do with coursework or something I'm writing for my field internship with Lutheran Advocacy Ministries of PA, so your feedback is a critical part of my education process.  For example, when looking at lectionary texts I often come at them from a social justice perspective (see below) and often worry I'm missing other messages that scripture may be telling me.  Thanks again for helping me fill in the complete picture.

To begin, here are links for the Advent 3, Year B texts in the NRSV: Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11 | Psalm 126 | 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 | John: 6-8, 19-28.  There's three main ideas I see in this Sunday's texts: social justice, release and Christian freedom.  Let's try to treat all of these seperately:

Social Justice
A social justice theme is definitely running through all these texts.  For instance, "the year of the Lord's favor" in verse of two the Isaiah text is probably referring to the concept of a jubilee year.  Basically, jubilee happened every fifty years in Israel in order to maintain a well ordered society.  Debtors would be forgiven of all their debts and indentured servants would be set free.  The jubilee was also a sabbatical year for society: fields would be left to lie follow, giving both people and the land a well-deserved break.  In this age of extreme income disparity when our society's most vulnerable are asked to shoulder ever greater burdens by cuts to government programs, what would declaring something like a jubilee look like?  Isn't forgiving others of their debts (and other things) something the Creator always asks of us?

One line that could provide an organizing idea for this Sunday's sermon is the "Do not quench the Spirit" in 1 Thessalonians.  In response to God's love, don't quench the Spirit.  Don't quench the Spirit and pray without ceasing about how people of faith can best care for their neighbor.  Like John the Baptist, never quench the Spirit, bear prophetic witness to the sins of our society but recognize that it is God doing the work, not you... Don't quench the Spirit, and "raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations" (Isaiah 61: 4).  That sort of stuff could be great right?  What do you think?

Also, for those that are interested in more emerging/ emergent styles of worship, I keep thinking of one of my favorite Jackson Browne songs:


It definitely is all about prophetic witness.  I don't know the exact story around, but I heard from a friend once that his father played "The Rebel Jesus" at church during Advent and was asked to leave... now that's definitely being a prophetic witness.

Release
In this season of hopeful waiting, what exactly are waiting for?  Jesus of course, but what does Christ coming mean for each of us?  What sins do we need to be assured Christ will release us from?  What else troubles our souls?  Parishioners could be asked to take a meditative moment to think about what they need to be released from.  Going back to the jubilee year concept, what can they release others from?  The "may those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy" in Psalm 126:5 could be a central theme of this sermon.

Christian Freedom
Is Advent a good time to get a little doctrinal?  Maybe.  And through talking about Christian freedom could allow you to roll both themes of social justice and release into one sermon.  Verse ten in the Isaiah text could be especially great for talking about Christian freedom:

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."

How does this state of Christian freedom compel us to serve our neighbor as Christ?  Christian freedom is what allows us to do God's work in the world, to be the body of Christ in the world until the eschaton.  Definitely something you could talk about.  Well that's about it folks.  As Paul says, don't quench the Spirit and may God rock your congregation this Sunday with a good dose of Word.  And please, I'm sure I missed a lot here... leave me some comments.

God's peace,
Dustin

Prophetic Witness @ OccupyPhilly

As written in an upcoming edition of LTSP's The Seminarian:

Over the last few weeks I had the pleasure of visiting the OccupyPhilly encampment at Dilworth Plaza three times.  Each visit was a uniquely amazing experience.  It was great to talk with folks and feel a strong sense of community during my first visit, but I was also disappointed that people of faith weren’t visibly present at all.  My second time down I attended a meeting of the then newly formed Interfaith Working Group.  Since that meeting, I’ve seen the Interfaith Working Group do some fantastic ministry.  They’ve organized weekly speakers, made appeals for food donations and cared for the many homeless folks living at Occupy.  The group provided a calming presence when police closed the encampment last week and they’ve even worked with the Rev. Jesse Jackson to reach out to the city’s African-American church community.

I purposely made my third visit to OccupyPhilly during one of their public feeding times.  At the encampment’s height they was feeding 900 folks each day of the week and 2100 folks on the weekend free of charge.  Meals were cooked at a local Friends Center kitchen and carted over to the encampment, providing a very public witness to our city’s hunger crisis right in front of City Hall.  Before leaving that evening I briefly spoke with a man who said he wanted to start going to church because the Friends Center was so helpful.

The city government evicted occupiers from Dilworth Plaza last week to make way for a construction project without granting a new overnight permit for another location.  Since then OccupyPhilly’s Interfaith Working Group has worked hard to help homeless folks find another long-term residence.  While I pray the movement stays alive and even grows in the coming months, Occupy has already provided us with an important model for being church in the 21^st century.  Living amidst such social and economic injustice, the church must bear very public, prophetic witness to the many sins of our contemporary society.  Like Occupy, the church must publicly witness in partnership with our interfaith sisters and brother in manner centered on conversation rather than violence.

God's peace,

Dustin

Only Offering A Prayer

Here's the manuscript from a temple talk I gave last Sunday to my home congregation of Emanuel Lutheran in Manchester, CT:

When Pastor Cady asked me to speak here today about my experiences so far at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, I knew I wanted to be brief, but wow… I also knew that there is a lot I could talk about. My first semester at LTSP has been an amazing opportunity to grow, learn and discern God’s call. The academics have been rigorous, the community has been amazingly supportive, and the worship life there has been greatly nurturing. I’d go into how I’ve benefited from all those things in great detail (and I’d be happy to do so if you want to chat more after worship), but really, and in the interest of brevity; one quick story sums it all up.

Right across the street from the seminary there’s a Wawa, a typical convenience store that I often head over to during a late study night or the occasional evening when dinner isn’t very good at the refectory. There’s one man I’ve seen a few times there in particular, sitting on a curb in front of the store, asking for spare change. For my first couple months at LTSP, I’d occasionally give him a quarter if I had one, but more often than not I’d awkwardly mumble that I had nothing to give. A few weeks ago on my way into Wawa, I was asked again by this man to spare some change. Almost automatically I told him I could offer no money, but I could offer to pray for him.

Since that day I’ve had a couple brief conversations with him, which have led me to consider poverty and homelessness from a deeper theological perspective than ever before. Saying a prayer for someone in a convenience store parking lot isn’t all that amazing… it should be a common occurrence, its something we should all be able to do as Christians and its something that we’re called to do. That said, only after spending time at LTSP was I empowered to get up the courage and speak with that man on a deeper level than apologizing for not having any change… recognizing Christ in “the other.” While this simple act wasn’t amazing, the community at LTSP and my education there is proving to be, and I greatly look forward to continue growing and exploring my call to public ministry while there. Thanks for all of your continued support, and God bless.