I Am Told It Is True: A Sermon in Utero

A sermon preached at the Ryssby Church on December 12th, 2015 on Luke's birth of Jesus. 

Alleluia, Christ is risen! 

Oh, I’m sorry, please excuse me. I tend to get Christmas and Easter mixed up. It is an honest mistake, of course, because beyond the ham they also have this very interesting detail in common. You see, on both Christmas and Easter Jesus doesn’t have a very active role to play. You could say that on the two highest holy days of the church year Jesus is largely absent. 

At Easter the good news is that the tomb is empty. The good news is that Jesus is not here, he has gone on ahead of us while we stand at the entrance of an empty tomb and rejoice. 

Throughout Advent we wait and watch and prepare for the promised messiah who removes disaster, deals with our oppressors, heals the lame, and gathers the outcast. We await the coming of the one who will fulfill all that God has promised in the past and pull us into a new future. And into those very large shoes steps…a baby.

Why is it that we call the days most holy, when Jesus does not seem to be here?

The Spirit, Rhubarb, and Pumpkin-filled Visions and Dreams of a Late Night Pentecost

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly while we wait…hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?

- Romans 8

David Letterman’s run on late night ended this week. While the Late Show hasn’t been a regular part of my television viewing habits in a number of years, it played a critical role in my development as a person of faith. As a kid the very best part of Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation was that my mom allowed me to stay up to watch the Late Show. I loved it. It was absurd and ridiculous. It had the veneer of your average network produced show, but then when you paid attention it was…weird.

With all due respect to Rupert , Richard Simmons and Regis, Stupid Pet Tricks and the Top Ten, my favorite recurring segment was Guess Mom’s Pies. Every Thanksgiving (which meant I got to watch it) the Late Show went live to Dave’s mom’s house in Indiana with a simple premise. She had prepared two unidentified pies for Thanksgiving. It was the job of Dave, Paul, and the audience to guess what kinds of pies Dave’s mom had made. 

That’s it. It was stupid. There was no skill involved, there were no prizes, and I loved it. (So did a number of online fans. In fact, there’s a website dedicated to tracking the historic results of Guess Mom’s Pies.) My favorite was the 1994 edition of GMP. That year Dave’s mom bucked the trends and prepared, not two, but three pies. Get this…two of those pies were cherry! Insanity, human sacrifice, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! Certainly the third pie would be something different, but, no! Cherry, again!

Dave’s mom is now in her mid-nineties and the segment came to an end a couple of years ago, but it has stuck with me. It’s absurdity, how it turned the familiar (Thanksgiving, apple pies, moms) into the strange. Guess Mom’s Pies was one of the first times that I began to see that the world is not as it seems. That’s where we find ourselves in the church year. At Pentecost we speak of seeing visions and dreams, not as illusions or the supernatural, but as the natural, as the way the world really is. This weekend we proclaim that despite all signs to the contrary (I’m looking at you Game of Thrones) life has the final word over death. As the Late Show comes to a close I give thanks for the role it played in revealing the coming kingdom.  This Pentecost may the Spirit come and open our eyes to see the world as it really is, as a world filled with life and pies.

peace,

z

Good news... Jesus is not here.

A sermon on the road to Emmaus from Easter evening.

I trust that you had a lovely Easter; that you found all your Easter eggs, that it was a day filled with triumphant trumpets and jubilant proclamations. 

Alleluia, Christ is risen! 

I hate to throw a wet blanket on the celebration, but...if you would allow me to speak frankly for just a moment, I have an unseemly question to ask. Easter is the apex of the church year, the holiest of holies on the church calendar. Easter is the day when we mark Jesus’ greatest triumph, defeating death. Which is great, but there is an elephant in the room…where, exactly, is Jesus?

This Lent Remember to Forget...

Below is my monthly contribution to Bread for the Day.

"Has his steadfast love ceased forever? Are his promises at an end for all time?

Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”

- Psalm 77

Remember.
Remember...that you are dust and to dust you shall return. (note to self...remember this. it seems important.)
Remember...the person God has made you to be. (not to self...figure out exactly what this means.)
Remember...to call Norma, Sara, and Sara with an H. (I know you hate making phone calls, but you can't put this off anymore. just do it. it's not that bad.)
Remember...to send an email reminder to students about this weekend's vocational event.
Remember...to actually get this YouTube channel off the ground.
Remember...to buy more toothpaste.
Remember...to forget.

Forget.
Forget...what the world has taught you about what success looks like.
Forget...that power is a force to be exerted over others.
Forget...the idea that all you have is not enough.
Forget...about taking Friday off this week.
Forget...the idea that this was going to be the semester where I stay ahead of the game. 

There is much to remember and much to forget. For us…and for God. Today the psalmist pleads with God to remember. To remember to be gracious and compassionate. The psalmist points back to what God has done in the past; leading the people, time and again, through the wilderness, through uncertainty and fear. Today the psalmist tells God to remember that this is what God does. God remembers. God remembers to be gracious, to be compassionate, to...forget. 

Anytime we speak of God remembering, my mind always goes to Jeremiah when God promises to forget the people's sins. Not to set them aside or disregard them, but God promises to forget them altogether. It is one of the mysteries of the faith that ultimately our hope is tied up in God's promise to remember...to forget. 

The season of Lent is a season of self-examination. It is a time set aside to consider what's important to us. What should we remember and what should we forget? Who is it, exactly, that God has made us to be? These are difficult questions, but we are not alone in wrestling with them. With the whole people of God we will remember and forget over the next forty days. May we begin this journey boldly, held by the promise that holds us all along our paths. Held by the promise of the God who always remembers to forget. 

peace,

z

Why we'll administer ashes on campus today...

Yesterday a friend and colleague published a pretty compelling blog post arguing against the increasingly popular Ashes to Go movement where clergy people administer ashes to passersby on street corners and bus stations in a momentary exchange.

While I've offered ashes publicly each year that I've been doing this whole ordained pastor thing, the questions Tim raises have haunted me. I've wondered whether we were cheapening the ritual. Tim's right, the repentant Lenten movement does take time. It takes time to move from death into life. Truly, it is essential that we hear that we are dust and to dust we shall return; that our confession is also communal. 

Yet, it is the communal nature of our Ash Wednesday confession of brokenness and hope that will lead me (and my Episcopal colleague) onto campus later today. 

I suspect that my context and Tim's have some significant differences. Perhaps one of those differences is that my identity as a religious official does not lend me much credibility when I step onto campus. When I position myself to distribute ashes the masses will not rush to receive the sign of the cross. There will be very few members of the campus community for whom this opportunity will bring the relief of conveniently fulfilling one's religious obligations. 

Truth be told, very few people will stop at all. Last year in two hours on a street corner, I recall only around ten students who wished to receive the sign of the cross. Some passersby will observe me with curiosity, some disdain, some complete obliviousness. 

It's a weird experience for me, but I suspect it's an uncomfortable experience for students as well. Last year, with traffic slow on my corner of campus I began walking through academic buildings during class changes. I wore a black cassock, which made me feel like one of Harry Potter's death eaters floating through a sea of students who looked at me like I was more likely connected to Draco Malfoy than to Jesus Christ. Like most of our public theological acts on campus this act has a high degree of weirdness and a low degree of participation.

That's why I think it's important to offer ashes on campus to thousands of students, faculty, and staff who aren't particularly interested. It is my hope that today we might be the ashen cross on the forehead of our community. That we might be that smudge that surprises us with each look in the mirror. It's my hope that our presence might be just the kind of awkward and awakening proclamation that will help pull our community and world into the hope that is found only in death. 

peace,
z

Three NEW Reasons to Connect Your Student to Lutheran Campus Ministry!

I am back this summer with three brand new reasons why you should connect your student to Lutheran Campus Ministry...

1. You can’t!

Well, you can and you should, well, maybe that’s not the best reason to start with…

This is time of year when people tell me that the biggest reason they don’t  connect a student with campus ministry is because they want to the student to make that decision. 

I get it. You want to honor your student’s burgeoning freedom. College is the process of beginning to make for ourselves the important decisions that will shape the rest of our lives...But...There is this important fact I’ve learned about college students…unless you’re holding grades or money over their head, you can’t make students do what they don’t want to do. Trust me, no student has ever stayed connected to campus ministry because of parental guilt. Even if you sign them up, the decision still rests with them. 

It can be difficult to navigate the changing relationship with your student as they head off to college. There are a number of things you probably should not do for them:

• You probably shouldn’t text them multiple times a day, every day. 

• You probably shouldn’t pick out your students major.

• You probably shouldn’t call their professors to talk about their grades.

One thing you probably should do is connect your student with supportive resources that will walk with them as they make the increasingly important decisions they’ll be faced with throughout their time on campus. My suggestions for a knowledgable, supportive, and faithful resource whose only goal is the health and well being of your student…Hmmm...How a campus pastor!? Like me, or my hundreds of colleagues around the country. If your student doesn’t know we exist, it’s a lot harder for them to make the decision to take advantage of a life-giving resource. 

2. You’ll get good grades…and save money!

I know I said this last year, but the research keeps rolling in. Study after study shows that students who have a supportive relationship with a non-student on campus have much higher retention and graduation rates than those who do not. But what non-student on campus has the time to get to know and build a supportive relationship with your student? That’s a tough one...whew...How about a campus pastor?! That’s, literally, my job description. Connect your student to Lutheran Campus Ministry, your student will get better grades, and it’s much more likely that you’ll only be writing out those tuition checks for four years!

3. Because we’re Lutheran….and connecting your student to Lutheran Campus Ministry is good theology. 

You see, in the coming years your student will have to make important decisions that will shape their future. As you send them to college I hope that you send them held in the promise of the God who holds them and refuses to let them go regardless of the the decisions they make and the places they go. Because that’s the God of grace that we proclaim as Lutherans, that’s the God who doesn’t let us decide if God is going to love us or not. Connecting your student to Lutheran Campus Ministry is one way of sending them held in the promise of the God of grace. 

When you connect your student to Lutheran Campus Ministry. We’ll send them a welcome packet, full of our promotional schwag. They’ll probably receive some form of invitation from the students in our groups, but I can guarantee you that they’ll receive an invitation from a campus pastor who wants to get to know them and help them make their way on campus. 

Those are three awfully compelling reasons for connecting with campus ministry. Here’s one more piece of good news. You can connect your student to Lutheran Campus Ministry at college campuses around the country at www.elcacampusministry.org. Just select the campus your student is headed to, submit the information that you’re comfortable sharing, and through the magic and power of the internet that information will find its way to the campus where your student is headed in the fall. 

Check out the website, enjoy the rest of your summer, and we look forward to welcoming your student in the fall!

God is Imaginary

A Pentecost sermon preached at Holy Love Lutheran Church based on Acts 2 and the presence of the Spirit, with some help from John Green. 

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place, the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites, the residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, those from Phrygia and Agloe. Suddenly, from heaven, there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, rested on each of them and they began to speak in a great variety of tongues. 

As this tongue twisting reading from Acts maps out these people and places, I’m reminded of how much I love maps. In fact, I think they’re holy. So much so that each year on campus our students spend a night discovering the theology of maps. 

Before we meet I go to the chamber of commerce and pick up as many of their free maps of Boulder as I can discreetly sneak out to my car. I hand out markers and I ask students to draw their lives on these maps. Mark the places where you live, where you study, where you go for fun, where you work. Draw the routes. How do you get from one place to the other? What roads or paths do you drive or walk?  

We connect the dots and each student ends up with a map of their life. Then we lay all the maps on top of each other, tracing our footsteps over one another. In the end what emerges is a mapping of the life of our small community. But this process produces something else, something that makes maps particularly holy. This map of maps also shows the places we don’t go. It reveals the white spaces; the places we do not go, the places we do not know.