Sermon: The Struggle Is Real

Sunday, September 24, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
(narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (readings start around 22:07; children’s sermon starts around 24:29; sermon starts around 34:24)

Reading: Genesis 32:9-13, 22-30

In today’s children’s sermon, we talked about siblings and why it’s so hard to get along with them. We talked about the story of Jacob and Esau – how Jacob tricks and cheats his brother and runs away when his brother gets angry, and how now he’s coming home after 20 years to face his brother again and beg for his forgiveness. Jacob is feeling guilty and afraid; I asked the kids if they’ve ever done something they later felt bad about, or that hurt someone, and they had to apologize. It’s a crummy feeling – it feels bad to have to admit that we are someone who is wrong and who made a mistake, or to own up that we hurt someone. But with God’s help, Jacob does it – and to his great surprise, Esau not only forgives him; he runs down the road to meet him, wraps him in a big bear hug, and literally starts crying because he’s so happy to see his long lost brother alive. We talked about how Jacob would never have experienced this beautiful moment of reconciliation if he hadn’t done the right thing like God called him to do, if he hadn’t faced his fears and taken accountability. Some of the best blessings we receive only come through the struggle of doing the hard thing to make things right.

One of the requirements for becoming a pastor in the ELCA is completing a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Broadly speaking, CPE is kind of like a cross between a hospital chaplaincy internship and group therapy. Most seminarians do it over the course of a summer as an intense, ten week program. You’re placed with a small cohort of other people who all mutually support and challenge one other. The whole purpose of CPE is to help candidates for ministry hone their pastoral care skills and to make them really dig in and figure out who they are as leaders in ministry.

I did my CPE through a program in Chicago called Urban CPE. In Urban CPE, instead of being all together at one hospital, each of us in my little cohort was placed at a different site around the city. That meant that after we applied and interviewed and were accepted into the program, we then also had to set up more interviews with multiple different sites in order to be placed. It was a long process.

I had applied to Urban CPE in hopes of working in a mostly Spanish-speaking or bilingual site – but sadly, after I got accepted, I found out that that particular summer, they didn’t have any. So I interviewed at a couple of places that seemed interesting, but then it was easy to kind of let it get pushed to the backburner as the semester got busy.

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September 24, 2023 1

Sermon: The Last Laugh

Sunday, September 17, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (readings start around 23:07; children’s sermon starts around 27:12; sermon starts around 33:25)

Reading: Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7

In the children’s sermon before the main sermon, we talked about impossible things. I talked about learning to crochet for the first time — as a lefty, I found it impossible to learn until my teacher brought in the mother of one of my classmates, an accomplished crocheter who was also left-handed. Watching her do it, things suddenly clicked for me; and learning to crochet opened up a whole new world of creativity for me. I asked the kids if they had ever faced impossible things or impossible situations and what that was like. And we talked about how, in our bible reading, God does something impossible for Sarah and Abraham by sending them a child in their old age. This story gives us hope that even the things we find impossible are possible with God.

I come from a family that has a long history of cancer. In fact, cancer was kind of the catalyst behind some of my earliest childhood memories. I remember many, many road trips to go see my maternal grandmother, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when I was only a few years old. My mom’s whole side of the family is from the Quad Cities area way on the other side of Iowa. But my mom was really close with her mom, so we made the drive out to see my grandma at least once or twice a month. That is not exactly a short drive for an adult – and with three very small children in the car, it was an eternity. It’s why I’m pretty sure I have been inside every single truck stop along the whole stretch of I80 in Iowa. (lol)

My grandma ended up passing away when I was five. And it was awful, but not completely surprising, when two months later, my mom was diagnosed – with breast cancer. Those were some very hard years. My mom’s always had a very resilient spirit – so even when things really started getting serious, she was determined to keep on laughing. Her hair all fell out from the chemo, so she started a collection of fun wigs (my favorite was this lime green baseball cap someone gave her that had a long, blonde ponytail coming out the back). She did her best to stay upbeat and positive for my siblings and me, even after undergoing a single mastectomy, and even while dealing with radiation treatments that left her with deep burns on her skin.

But even after she endured all that, the cancer just kept hanging on. And by this point, her doctors were starting to run out of treatments. So Mom got referred to an experimental cancer study being done somewhere out in Virginia. She was gone for weeks. But then even that wasn’t having the kind of effect on her cancer that we had hoped. And gradually it started to seem like Mom might not actually get better. It started to seem like winning this battle with cancer might be impossible.

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September 17, 2023 1

Sermon: A Family of Clay

Sunday, September 10, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (readings start around 25:20; children’s sermon starts around 28:52; sermon starts around 37:55)

Reading: Genesis 2:4b-25

In the children’s sermon today, I brought a container of Play-Doh. I asked the kids if the whole glob of Play-Doh was all made up of the same stuff (yes), then split it into two pieces and then smaller pieces and asked them if it was still made up of the same stuff (yes). We talked about how in the bible story we read, God makes humans from the dust of the earth (not exactly Play-Doh, but close enough) and basically splits the same ball of clay in order to make the first two humans. And not only that, but all the things God makes — trees and plants and birds and all different kinds of animals — God makes them all out of the earth, just like humans. In a way, that makes us family with creation — we’re all made of the same stuff. So we talked about what it means to be part of a family, how they love us and care for us and how we have responsibilities and have to do things like chores as part of how we love and care for them back — God also calls us to do this for the earth.

Many years ago, back when I lived in Lincoln the last time, I was in a bible study at Grace Lutheran Church. This particular study focused on looking at the bible as a whole, and we spent time tracing out some of the major overarching narratives that run throughout the whole book. We started with the first few chapters of Genesis — of course — creation, the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, all that. And then we came to the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. And in our discussion, the bible study leader made a comment that has stuck with me ever since. After Cain kills his brother (spoilers!), God comes to speak with him and asks him, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain immediately gets defensive and is like, “How should I know?” And he asks God a key question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Our study leader proposed that you could honestly interpret the entire rest of the bible as God’s answer to that question, which is: a bold, resounding, all caps “YES! YES, you are your brother’s keeper.”

We see the seeds of that planted from the very beginning, here in the second chapter of Genesis. We have this story of God creating the first humans, shaping them by hand from the dust of the earth. At first, God just makes one human – but God isn’t satisfied with the idea of this first human being alone. So after trying out a few other options, God decides to make another human so they’ll have each other for company. But instead of scooping up another handful of dust from the earth, God decides to do a quick bit of divine amputation, and suddenly one human creature becomes two. Two people who are one flesh – it kind of makes you hear the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself in a whole new way!

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September 10, 2023 1

Sermon: God the Spirit – Forging Community in the Fires of Change

Sunday, September 3, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (readings start around 18:38; children’s sermon starts around 21:18; sermon starts around 28:03)

Readings: Acts 2:1-18, Matthew 28:17-20

In the children’s message this morning, we talked about being called to do things that scare us or that make us uncomfortable. Oftentimes these are things that stretch us and make us grow, and the very people who push us to do them are usually the ones who are there to support us. In our readings, the disciples are called to something new and scary that they’re not sure they’ll be able to do – but the Spirit gives them everything they need to be able to do it, and Jesus promises to be with them always.

In a way, the story of the Holy Spirit as we know it begins with an ending – and that’s not just because it’s featured in the last section of the creeds! These few verses from Matthew that we read today are the very last verses in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus has risen from the dead, the tomb is empty, his followers have seen and touched him, and now he calls them to gather once more in Galilee, to come full circle to the place where it all began. He declares his authority over all heaven and earth and he charges his disciples with a mission: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

It sounds very much like a happy ending, especially that last line – “Remember I am with you always, to the end of the age” – it sounds kind of like the bible’s version of “and they all lived happily ever after.”

And our reading from Acts has kind of that same vibe of a happily ever after. We have this joyful explosion of the Spirit at Pentecost, in which the disciples receive the gifts they need to carry out this mission that Jesus has given them. It’s such a wild and raucous and joyous occasion that Peter literally has to step in and try to convince people that the disciples aren’t all wasted at nine in the morning.

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September 3, 2023 1