Sunday, September 27, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 22:02)

When I was a kid, growing up, I had a wide variety of random interests.  (Not much has changed as an adult, haha)  I was an avid reader and read every book in our school library.  I liked making art and I’d jump around between drawing and painting and collage and papier mâché and other media.  I liked science a lot, and I had this huge rock collection.  One summer I even tried to convince myself that it would be cool to get into studying bugs – though I quickly gave up on that once I realized that I’d have to spend a lot of time around, well, bugs.  As kids do, I was just trying on all kinds of different things to see what might fit me.  

I still remember the advice my dad gave me whenever I or one of my siblings decided that we wanted to launch ourselves into some new area of interest.  He said that if you are really, truly invested in something you say you’re interested in, you put in the effort.   It’s not just something you decide to do on a whim and then drop later when you lose interest or it becomes inconvenient (especially if you want Dad to put time and money into it!).  If you’re really invested in something, you think about it and talk about it; you learn about it; you practice it.  

Dad always used the example of skydiving.  He said that if you say you’re genuinely interested in skydiving, you look into it.  You know how much skydiving lessons cost and where you can take them.  You know what parachutes are made of and how they work.  You know what kind of planes skydivers jump out of.  You know if there are any magazines about skydiving – and if there are, you have a subscription.  Basically, if you don’t know the first thing about planes, parachutes, or gravity, you probably don’t actually care about skydiving as much as you’d like to think you do.

If you really do love skydiving, then it will show.  You won’t have to convince someone else that you’re truly interested in it, because they will see it for themselves.  Our actions – or the lack thereof – have a way of showing us what we really care about; they show us what is truly in our hearts.

Sunday, September 20, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 20:55)
image source

When I graduated from high school, there were lots of different parties at different people’s places.  But there was only one party that every single member of my class went to – including me.  And that was the graduation party at the house of this girl named Ashley.  Ashley had pretty severe cerebral palsy; her speech was impaired and she walked with crutches, and developmentally, I think she stayed around more or less the third grade level.  But Ashley stayed in our class all through middle school and high school as we all grew up together.  She was one of us – and so of course we went to her party.

After gorging ourselves on pizza, we started playing a game of kickball out in the back yard.  Ashley played too.  And I remember, every time Ashley came up to bat, the pitcher would gently roll the ball toward her, and when she managed to connect with it and kick it somewhere into the infield, whoever was closest to the ball would just take their time and leisurely stroll to go get it.  Then they would pick it up, rear back, and chuck it as hard as they possibly could out into the outfield.  The outfielders would go scrambling after the ball, while Ashley made her way to first base and ran on toward second, laughing her head off the whole time.  Then they’d throw the ball again toward second base and overshoot it by a mile, while Ashley just kept running and laughing.  We kept up like this all the way until Ashley made it back to home base and practically collapsed into a puddle of giggles.  We all cheered for her like crazy the whole time.  It was such a lovely afternoon together.  

We didn’t care all that much about the rules of the game – nobody was playing to win.  For us it was more important to make sure that everyone – especially Ashley – was included, and that we all just had a good time together.  

Sunday, September 13, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon begin around 18:30)

Our gospel reading for this morning follows right on the heels of our gospel reading last week.  You might remember that last week, Jesus was giving his disciples instructions for how to go about resolving conflict with each other.  He laid out this long process to follow: first, if you have a problem with someone, go and talk it out with just that person.  If they don’t listen, then take someone else with you; if they still won’t listen, then bring the matter before the church; and if even that doesn’t work, then let that person become to you “as a Gentile and a tax collector” – which by now, as followers of Christ, we know actually means: love them all the harder.

Reconciliation and right relationship are of utmost importance to God.  It’s no accident that the two greatest commandments we receive are to love God and to love our neighbor.  There is power in relationship – as Jesus said in our gospel reading last week, if even two or three are gathered and in agreement about something, God is there among them.  And throughout the long history of God and the church, we have seen that God will go to any length in order to restore relationship with us – even taking on human flesh, suffering, and dying in order to bring about reconciliation.  This is the God of love in whose image we are made.  And this is the path of Christ which we are called to follow.  

All this talk about loving one another sounds really lovely – and it is – but in real life, it’s not always as easy as it sounds.  And so it’s not very surprising that immediately after Jesus gets done saying all this, the disciples have a few more questions for him.  Of course Peter is the first one with his hand up, and he asks Jesus:  “Okay, so I totally get that if another member of the community wrongs us, we go through this whole process to try to reconcile with them.  But, like… what if it happens again?  And again?  I could get behind forgiving someone, say, a half dozen times.  But seven?  Jesus, do we have to forgive someone as many as seven times?”

Sunday, September 6, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon begin around 19:39)
image source

Many years ago, when I was still in high school, my family and I took a road trip out to western Nebraska and South Dakota.  We saw the Badlands and Toadstool Park; we drove up into the Black Hills, visited Mount Rushmore, and got to see all kinds of cool stuff.  We had taken trips out there before, but this particular trip was different, because it wasn’t just the four of us.  For the first time, my dad’s then-lady-friend had come along with us, which was a big deal.  And while I don’t remember my dad explicitly saying as much, it was very much understood that the three of us kids were to be on our best behavior.

Unfortunately, at the time, my brother Ben and I were in the middle of a huge, ongoing fight.  I have no memory whatsoever of what we were fighting about, and I’m not totally sure that I knew at the time either.  It may just have been that we were both in the middle of our peak “sullen, angsty teenager” years.  

Whatever the case, I could hardly stand even looking at my brother without being overcome with fury, let alone being stuck with him in a confined space for hours at a time.  Ben and I mostly did our best to keep our distance from one another, which is pretty hard when you’re both stuck inside a car.  And I’m sure you can imagine that our bad attitudes did not make us very pleasant company for most of the trip.  

By the time we started wrapping up our vacation, I had started feeling really guilty about that.  Ben’s and my conflict with each other had also negatively impacted the people that we cared about; and it probably hadn’t left a very good impression of either one of us.  And I guess Ben must have been feeling the same way – because the one clearest memory I have of that trip is of sitting next to my brother in the car; I looked at him and he looked at me, and we both raised our hands in a peace sign and declared: “Truce?”