Sunday, January 31, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
watch this service online (readings start around 16:54; sermon starts around 24:01)

(full disclosure, this is a reworking of an earlier sermon I preached while on internship)

To eat meat, or not to eat meat – that is the question!  This controversy that Paul is writing about in our second reading sounds kind of strange and antiquated to 21st century ears.  We don’t really talk about or observe many religious dietary restrictions these days – and apart from being sure to give thanks, we don’t usually spend much time worrying about how the food we eat will impact our relationship with God.  But for the Christian community in first century Corinth, these were pressing and important issues.  And in his letter, Paul is addressing some serious concerns – concerns that went well beyond the question about food.

Corinth in the first century was a hopping place.  It was an incredibly diverse city, situated at the crossroads of several major trade routes; people from all kinds of cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds found their way to Corinth.  And this diversity was reflected in the early church.  The Christian community in Corinth had a sometimes volatile mix of believers from the Jewish tradition and Gentile believers who had converted from other religions and were unfamiliar with the Jewish way of life.  The first century church as a whole was, of course, rooted in Jewish religion and practice, but it struggled to establish its own identity and traditions as more and more people outside the people of Israel began converting to the Way.  And the community in Corinth was very much at the heart of that struggle.  

Food became a particular area of struggle because of what an important role it played in the life of their community.  Communal meals were a central part of their Christian practice – not just the bread and wine that we might imagine, but full, actual, community meals.  And the argument about whether to eat meat was especially contentious, not because of upset vegetarians or vegans, but because almost all the meat available to eat in Corinth was meat that had been ritually sacrificed to idols.  

Sunday, January 24, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Third Sunday after Epiphany
watch this service online (readings start around 12:03; sermon starts around 17:34)

Our gospel reading for today tells one of those old familiar stories that we know so well that we’ve kind of stopped noticing what an odd little story it actually is.  Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, where he comes across some people fishing – “for they were fishermen,” as Mark helpfully tells us.  Jesus stops, looks at them, and simply says, “Hey, follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”  

Now, you or I would probably have some follow up questions to an invitation like that – questions like: “Uhh, who are you?” and “What do you mean, ‘fish for people’??  Pretty sure I don’t have the right kind of bait for that,” and also “Where exactly are we going?”  

But neither Simon and Andrew nor James and John ask any such questions.  Mark writes: “Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him.”  And there is no further conversation about it; they just go.  Granted, part of this suddenness may just be due to the style of Mark’s gospel – Mark’s in a hurry to get the story out and doesn’t always worry a whole lot about going into detail.  But even in the other gospel accounts of Jesus calling the first disciples, there’s still not much more of a back and forth than this.  Jesus calls, and Simon, Andrew, James, and John leave everything behind – their boats, their nets, their livelihood, even James and John’s father Zebedee!  They decide on the spot to become disciples of this guy who just came walking along and issued that simple invitation: Follow me.

Sunday, January 17, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Second Sunday after Epiphany
watch this service online (readings start around 15:27; sermon starts around 24:49)
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One of the most powerful acts of love I have ever received did not feel like love at all while it was happening to me.  It came in the form of a very difficult conversation that a friend had with me during my first year of college.  This friend was another student in the music department who was a few years older than me, and she warned me that I was starting to develop a reputation for being kind of arrogant and full of myself.  

I had come to college out of a very small, K-12 school – there were only 17 kids in my graduating class!  And being good at music was a big part of my identity – it was my thing (not only did I win the senior musician award my senior year, I was the only person who was even eligible for it that year, lol).  I was kind of used to being hot stuff, the lead singer on things.  But when I got to college, even though it was a relatively small university, I was suddenly surrounded by lots of people who were the best singers from their schools – and they came from schools that were a lot bigger and better funded than mine.  

It was extremely intimidating.  And I think I developed that sense of arrogance and pridefulness as a kind of defense mechanism, to hide that underneath it there was this profound insecurity and a loss of a sense of identity.  And so I didn’t want to believe what my friend was saying to me at first – how could I possibly be coming across as arrogant when that wasn’t at all how I felt on the inside?  But she repeated back to me some of the things she had heard me say, and I heard my own pridefulness come through those words loud and clear.  It was a painfully humbling experience.  

And as hard as it was for me to hear what she had to say to me, I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for her to say it.  It’s one thing to call out someone you don’t like for their poor behavior – but to call out someone you care about for the way they’re behaving is much, much harder.  And my friend did it for my benefit, pointing out that my defensiveness and ego were pushing people away and making it hard for me to make more friends in the department.  That hard conversation helped me let down my walls a little bit and connect more deeply and authentically with other people, many of whom I’m still friends with to this day.  And it was humbling to realize after the fact that she chose to be so brutally honest with me because she cared enough about her friendship with me to say the hard thing.  I’m grateful for the courage and care she showed in telling me the truth.

Sunday, January 10, 2021
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Baptism of Our Lord
watch this service online (readings start around 13:43; sermon starts around 20:00)
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Even though there was a lot of disappointment for many of us this past holiday season, for me there was at least one really exciting thing that happened.  And that’s that I became a godparent for the first time!  No one had ever asked me to be a godparent before and I’m really excited about it!  

I’m sure many of you remember our friends Pastor Allison and Deacon Timothy Siburg and their little daughter Caroline.  Well, Caroline became a big sister back in October when little baby Cora came into the world – she was actually born on Reformation Sunday (a very Lutheran baby!).  And on Christmas Day, baby Cora was baptized into the body of Christ at Salem Lutheran Church in Fontanelle.  

I wasn’t able to be there in person, unfortunately, but I participated in worship over Facebook Live.  I got to witness the baptism and I made the promises that sponsors are called to make: to nurture the newly baptized in their faith and to help them live into the covenant of baptism and in communion with the church.  With all the assembly gathered there in person and online, I renounced the powers of sin and evil that draw us away from God; I confessed my belief through the words of the Creed.  And after the presider (my friend Heidi) poured water over little Cora’s head, baptizing her in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we got to my favorite part of the baptismal rite. Pastor Heidi made the sign of the cross on Cora’s forehead and said to her: “Cora, precious child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

Sunday, December 13, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Third Sunday of Advent
watch this service online (readings start around 18:50; sermon starts around 25:35)
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Today is the Third Sunday of Advent, a day in the church year that is traditionally known as “Gaudete Sunday” or the Sunday of Joy.  And no matter how you might actually be feeling as you come to worship this morning (or whenever you’re watching/reading this!), I think it’s important for us to spend some time lifting up joy this Advent season.  

This has been a long and difficult and, for some of us, a deeply painful year; and it’s culminated in a holiday season full of disappointments and a rising death toll.  But focusing on joy doesn’t mean we have to paste on a fake smile and try to pretend these things haven’t been happening.  Real joy is actually something much deeper.  Catholic theologian and author Henri Nouwen describes it well; he writes:

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing — sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death — can take that love away.  Joy is not the same as happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but joy can still be there because it comes from the knowledge of God’s love for us.

Henri Nouwen

Sunday, December 6, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Second Sunday of Advent
watch this service online (readings start around 16:58; sermon starts around 23:54)
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One of the most surprising and engaging classes I got to take while I was in seminary was a course called Desert Discipleship.  In this class, we spent time studying the lives and teachings of the ancient desert fathers and mothers who lived in the deserts of northern Africa and the Middle East.  These were followers of Christ from some of the earliest centuries of Christianity.  They were ordinary people whose deep faith led them to live in extraordinary ways.

One of the first and most famous of these people was Anthony the Great, whose life became an inspiration and example that many others chose to follow.  Anthony was born into a wealthy family in Egypt.  But instead of carrying on his family’s wealthy lifestyle, Anthony decided to follow the advice that Jesus gives to the young rich man in the gospels:  he sold everything that he had and he gave all the money away to the poor.  

Anthony then went out into the wilderness, out into the deserts of Egypt, to take up a simple, ascetic lifestyle.  He fasted and prayed and wrestled with temptation and spent his every waking moment focused on Christ.  It’s probably pretty hard for any of us to imagine doing something like that with our own lives!  And even for other people living at the time, Anthony’s way of life in the desert was strange, to say the least.  

It gets even stranger the longer you look at the place and the context where Anthony lived.  If you look at satellite imagery of Egypt, to this day, you can instantly spot where the “wilderness” is.  There’s one narrow green ribbon that runs the length of Egypt – the Nile River, flowing from south to north.  But everywhere else – something like 90% of the country – is inhospitable desert.  In class, we looked at photos of the desert and of the cities all along the river, with their green crops and irrigation systems.  Even up close, you can see a clear line between where that cultivated green strip ends and the desert begins.

Sunday, November 29, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
First Sunday of Advent
watch this service online (readings start around 19:45; sermon starts around 26:57)

In the classic 80s movie The Karate Kid, a teenager named Daniel LaRusso moves to a new city with his mom, where he meets a local handyman: Mr. Miyagi.  Mr. Miyagi saves Daniel from getting the snot beaten out of him by a local gang of karate-loving teenagers.  Daniel watches as Miyagi single-handedly defeats the entire gang with ease, and afterward he begs Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate so he can defend himself against the bullies. 

After some initial reluctance, Mr. Miyagi agrees to teach Daniel.  Daniel shows up at Miyagi’s place, ready and raring to learn some kick-butt karate moves.  But he’s completely taken aback when the first thing Miyagi does instead is hand him a sponge and point him toward a dusty car.  Daniel spends several days doing chores around Miyagi’s place: Miyagi has him wash and wax his cars; he has him paint a fence, sand a floor, and even paint his house.  

By the end of the fourth day, Daniel is understandably fed up with this so-called “training.”  He feels like Mr. Miyagi has just tricked him into doing a bunch of household chores for him instead of teaching him anything.  So Daniel angrily tells Miyagi that he’s done.  But before he can storm off, Miyagi calls him back.  And in one of the most famous scenes of the movie, Miyagi asks Daniel to show him the motions of the chores he’s been doing: “Show me wax on” “Show me wax off” “Show me sand the floor” “Show me paint the fence”  Miyagi then unleashes a flurry of punches and kicks at Daniel, and he blocks every single one with these repetitive moves that he has learned.

By having Daniel repeat these motions over and over again in the chores he assigned him, Miyagi actually teaches him how to do these defensive moves he needs – through the power of muscle memory.  

Muscle memory is one of the most fascinating pieces of how we learn.  As humans, both our bodies and our brains are very trainable – the more we repeat a thought or an action, the more it becomes ingrained and instinctual.  Muscle memory is how you learn to play a musical instrument or dance or play a sport really well.  It’s how you know how to do everyday things like tie your shoes or drive a car or make your favorite recipe.  You do it over and over and over again until you can do it without consciously thinking about it – until it becomes part of who you are.  That way, when you see an untied shoe or a G Major 7th chord or an elderly Japanese man who’s trying to punch you, you don’t have to think about your response; you act on whatever your muscle memory has learned to do.

Sunday, November 22, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Reign of Christ
watch this service online (readings start around 15:48; sermon starts around 23:38; fair warning: our mic system has been on the fritz and the sound is pretty crappy)

(Full disclosure: this sermon is an adaptation of one I preached while on internship)

There is a LOT going on in in our texts for this morning, and some of it can be a bit difficult to process.  Today is Reign of Christ Sunday, and fittingly, we have these lovely images of God as the compassionate shepherd looking after the flock, of Christ as a king who cares for the “least of these.”  This is the kind of ruler that I think most of us imagine God to be.  But then alongside these images, we also read all this other harsh language that’s full of judgment and destruction.  

The contrast is especially sharp in our gospel reading.  This passage from Matthew is the only detailed account of the last judgment to be found anywhere in the New Testament – but even so, it’s definitely left an impression on the popular Christian imagination.  

I can imagine that many of you, like me, grew up in religious households where you were raised with the fear of hell.  As a kid, I remember being frightened with the idea of eternal torment, and I can remember seeing images of the last judgment, of sheep and goats going off to either side of the throne.  I suppose it’s an image that people kind of glom onto because it seems very tidy and clear and black and white, even if it is horrible.  And it allows us to think of God’s reign in more human terms, in ways that we can wrap our heads around.  

In one sense, it’s kind of appealing, isn’t it?  It’s satisfying to imagine God telling off all the people who have wronged us, casting them into eternal fire where they’ll get what they deserve and we won’t have to deal with them anymore.  Especially in the aftermath of such a brutally divisive election, when we have all been left with hurt and anger and a deeply polarized nation, these feelings of emnity and antagonism are running strong.  And I fully admit these feelings in my own self – if I’m being honest with myself, I can certainly think of a few goats that I’d personally like to see get barbecued.  I’d be willing to bet you can too.

Sunday, November 15, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (readings start around 16:24; sermon starts around 25:08)
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I was thankful to get to take a little bit of time off last Sunday and during the week leading up to it.  I really needed to just get away for a bit and recharge.  And one of the ways I ended up recharging was by attending a retreat all last weekend up at the St. Benedict Center.  It was a retreat centered on a practice called “BioSpiritual Focusing.”  And I hadn’t planned to preach about it this weekend – but then I read these texts, and even as somewhat harsh as they are, they are rich with all these themes of waiting and of being awake and attentive, and it really started to resonate with what I experienced at this retreat.

You’re probably wondering: “Biospiritual focusing – what the heck is that??”  And that was actually my initial reaction too, when I saw it advertised in St. Ben’s newsletter.  But then I read the description and realized that it was actually something I was exposed to a little bit in seminary.  

Broadly speaking, the idea of biospiritual focusing is that there is wisdom held in our bodies.  As western people of faith – especially as Lutherans – we have a tendency to be theologians only from the neck up, as they say.  For us, faith is usually more about what we believe than about how we live it out.  But Christianity is actually deeply incarnational; it’s a deeply embodied religion.  Especially around this time of year, as we draw closer to Advent and Christmas, it’s all about celebrating God in the flesh.  So the purpose of biospiritual focusing is to help us to experience God in our flesh, in our own bodies.

The focusing practice itself is actually pretty simple.  It starts by allowing yourself to grow quiet, inside and out – closing your eyes, if it helps.  Then you work on noticing whatever sensations you might experiencing in your body – pain or tightness, or whatever – and ask yourself, “What is taking up space inside of me right now?”  What feelings or pains or sensations are most prominent in my body right now?  You identify whichever one of these feelings is strongest and then you, well, focus on it.  Without trying to analyze it or to make sense of it or to make it go away, you just sit with that feeling and let yourself feel it fully.  And eventually, you invite this feeling – or sensation or pain or whatever – to tell you more.  You let it connect to memories or images or other feelings and embrace whatever comes.  And at the end, you sit with your body as a loving presence and give thanks for whatever it has revealed to you.

Sunday, November 1, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
All Saints Day
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 19:32)

As a preacher, I know I have a tendency to talk a lot about grief.  And that’s because grief has been a part of my life for just about as long as I can remember.  I went to my first funeral when I was five (or, at least, the first funeral I can remember).  It was for my mom’s mom, my Grandma Orpha – though we always called her Grandma Ziggy.  She had been sick with cancer, and she looked sicker every time we went to see her.  She died around Christmas time that year, and two months later, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.  

The same year my mom died, one of our next door neighbors who was a dear friend of the family was violently murdered – which was as traumatic as you might imagine.  And over the years since then, I have lost grandparents and great grandparents, uncles, mentors, close friends still in their 20s, and a cousin I grew up with who was born the same year I was.  I’m only 35 and I have already lost so many people that I care about.  

So when I read a text like this one from Revelation, it hits me differently.  When I try to picture the multitudes gathered together in praise before God’s throne, it’s not a faceless crowd of people that I’m imagining.  I see my mom’s face – and Grandpa George, and Kristin and Kasey and Ellen and Uncle Franklin and Leo and a whole host of others.  I see the faces of all the saints that I remember and honor today.  

Sunday, October 25, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Reformation Sunday
First Reading • Psalm • Second Reading • Gospel
watch this service online (readings start around 16:28, sermon around 22:26)

Psalm 46 is one of those old favorite psalms that we read together every Reformation Sunday.  It’s a powerful and comforting psalm.  And, of course, Martin Luther loved this psalm so much that it inspired him to write A Mighty Fortress, which we also sing every year on Reformation Sunday.  Both the psalm and the hymn still have lots of power, inspiring us and comforting us over five centuries later.  

With so much intense stuff going on in the world right now, it seems like now is a good moment to pause and just let ourselves rest in these words for a moment.  Now is the time to pause and remember that God is our refuge and strength, even in the midst of chaos and calamity.  The earth may move, the nations may rage and the kingdoms shake, but the Lord of hosts is with us, and the God of Jacob is our stronghold.

I know this hasn’t been an easy time for any of you.  I know your lives have been chaotic and disrupted.  This pandemic has stolen our sense of safety and forced us to question nearly everything that we once took for granted.  This election season feels like it’s lasted about 50 years, and now that we’re finally entering the final few crushing days before the actual election, it feels like every nerve is on edge like the sound of nails screeching on a chalkboard.  We’re all feeling the stress.

And I know you are tired.  I know you are sad.  I know you are frustrated and fed up and full of grief that things continue to be so difficult and so different from life as it was.

All of this is why today I want to invite you into the peace of Psalm 46.  There’s a centering prayer practice that uses Psalm 46 that I’ve seen people using around the synod a lot lately, and I want to share it with you.  It focuses specifically on the first part of verse 10 of Psalm 46, which is the part of this psalm that you probably know best: “Be still, and know that I am God.”  This practice shows that practically every word of this phrase has rich meaning and can speak good news to us.  

Sunday, October 11, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 23:25)

I think I’ve mentioned before in my sermons that part of my regular, weekly routine is to attend text study on Tuesday afternoons.  It’s truly a blessing to have that time to gather with clergy friends and colleagues, whether virtually or in person, time to check in with each other and to dig into the readings for the week.  And if you’re a preacher, it’s really great to have other preachers to trade ideas with, especially when you’re feeling stumped about what to preach on a particular set of texts.  

This has been one of those weeks for me.  In fairness, the readings for today do have a lot of really great stuff in them.  We have this theme of feasting and celebration that starts in our first reading from Isaiah and goes all the way through all four of our texts.  In Isaiah, God sets an extravagant mountaintop feast with rich foods and fine wines.  All people from all over the globe are invited to attend, especially the poor and the suffering, and God promises to destroy “the shroud that is cast over all peoples” and “swallow up death forever.”  

In our well-known psalm – Psalm 23 – God sets a table for the psalmist in the midst of his enemies with a cup overflowing with goodness.  And in his letter to the Philippians, Paul is so much in the party mood that he says it twice: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”  

And of course, in our gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus tells a parable that takes place – where else? – at a wedding banquet!  In his story, this king is so determined to have this big party that even when the original guests turn down the invitation, he sends his servants out into the street to invite literally anyone else they can find.  Like in Isaiah, everybody is invited to this banquet!

Sunday, October 4, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 23:08)
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I’ve been meditating a lot this week on our hymn of the day: “Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service.”  It’s actually one of my favorite hymns.  I’ve been reflecting on the text of this song and realizing that it might actually help us make some sense out of our readings for today. 

This is a really challenging set of scripture texts.  Throughout these readings, we see deep conflict playing out between God and God’s people.  And that’s mainly because God’s people have failed to produce the kind of fruit that God had hoped to find growing in the “vineyard.”  Instead of following God’s will, these people have acted with greed and stubbornness and pride.  Jesus points out in his parable that even when God’s own son comes to them, instead of changing their ways, they double down and treat him terribly too.  And Paul reminds us in this passage from Philippians that Christ is the one we should actually all be striving to imitate.

That’s where “Lord, Whose Love in Humble Service” begins, with a reflection on Christ.  The first verse goes:

Lord, whose love in humble service
bore the weight of human need,
who upon the cross, forsaken,
worked your mercy’s perfect deed:
we, your servants, bring the worship,
not of voice alone, but heart;
consecrating to your purpose
ev’ry gift which you impart.

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)
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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)
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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?”  

Sunday, August 30, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 20:22)

I’m really excited that we got to read the second half of Romans 12 today.  I didn’t get the chance to talk about it last Sunday, when we read the first half of this chapter, but Romans 12 is actually my favorite chapter of the whole bible.  There’s so much good stuff packed into it.

This passage that we read today is particularly special to me, because it’s the first passage of scripture I can remember ever being captivated by.  It came up in the lectionary when I was in my last year of confirmation, right around the time that I was starting to think about what my verse was going to be.  

I actually ended up choosing the last three verses of the chapter as my confirmation “verse” – and to refresh your memory, that’s the part of the chapter that goes like this:

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”  No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.”  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:19-21

Haha, it’s not necessarily the kind of scripture that you would expect most confirmation students to choose for their confirmation verse.  Those kinds of verses tend to contain a lot less wrath and vengeance, and burning coals – which is the one part my family still remembers to this day.  But for me, choosing these verses was a really powerful statement of faith.   

Sunday, August 23, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this sermon online (gospel and sermon start around 23:50)

The month of August has a strange way of sneaking up on me every year.  I forget about just how complicated a month it is for me.  On the one hand, there are some really joyful milestones to be celebrated this month.  For instance, August 1 is the date that I first started my call here at St. John’s, back in 2018.  And next Sunday, August 30, will be two years to the day since I got ordained – what a gift!  And, of course, who could forget that August 13 is International Left-Handers Day, which – as a proud lefty myself – I am delighted to celebrate.  

But, on the other hand, August also brings with it reminders of some deeply sad and painful things.  August 2 would have been – should have been – a celebration of my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary.  Now it’s a reminder that they barely made it to 14 years.  And that’s because today, August 23, is the anniversary of my mother’s death.  She died 26 years ago today, after a long battle with breast cancer, leaving behind three young kids and a devastated family.

And even though it’s been such a long time since she died, the grief doesn’t really ever go away.  It just changes.  If you’ve ever lost someone close to you, you probably know what I mean.  My mom died so young, so much before her time, that it’s not just that I miss her, though I do; it’s that I grieve all the many things she should have been here for – the birthdays, the graduations, the anniversaries, all the many, many milestones and moments of life that just pile up deeper and deeper with each passing year.

Sunday, August 9, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this sermon online (gospel and sermon start around 18:50)
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It was a very hot evening in the Dominican Republic, and my project committee and I had just finished yet another very long and very unproductive meeting.  I was feeling so frustrated and so angry about how we never seemed to be able to get anything done, to move toward the goals that we had set.  And, evidently, I was not the only person feeling a little hot under the collar.  Another member of the committee – Ángel – was a middle-aged man with whom I’d sometimes butted heads on previous occasions.  He and I spoke at length after this meeting – and our conversation pretty quickly turned into a full-blown public screaming match right out in front of the community technology center.  It was not pretty.

I still remember looking at his face, all red and flushed and sweaty, and thinking to myself, “What am I doing here??  How did it come to this?”  I was about a year into my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and I had put SO much time and thought and effort into developing a project plan for the community, based on the needs and resources they had identified.  But a year in, almost none of it had come to fruition.  Almost nothing had changed.

There were a lot of reasons things had not panned out.  I was sent to be an education volunteer working mostly with computer education – which is pretty hard to do when the electricity goes out all the time.  I was a 23-year-old with a degree in music – convinced I was somehow going to save the world – being faced with the reality of complex problems that were never going to be solved overnight.  And as a young woman, I was often not taken seriously as a leader, and I found out the hard way that there were just not that many people who were willing to put in the sustained effort needed to actually make a difference.  

In short, I had no real idea of what I had signed up for when I decided to become a Peace Corps Volunteer.  And especially in that one very heated moment, I felt like maybe I had gotten myself in over my head.

Sunday, August 2, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 19:08 — now with greatly improved audio!)
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Our gospel reading for this morning is a very familiar and well-loved story.  The feeding of the 5,000 is one of the only miracles that appears in all four gospels.  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all thought that it was important to share this story – which says to me that this story tells us a lot about who God in Christ really is. 

It’s a story of mind-boggling abundance.  And that title – “the feeding of the 5,000” – really doesn’t do it justice at all.  After all, that 5,000 number only counts the men – if you include just one woman and one child for every man, that’s 15,000 people right there!  That’s like double the population of Schuyler!  I mean, just think of the logistics of putting on our pancake supper or the soup at the Holiday Fair every year – and all that is for just a few hundred people.  Now imagine trying to scale that up to serve every single person in Schuyler – twice over.  🤯

Yet as powerful as this image of divine abundance is all on its own, this story actually becomes even more powerful when you read it in its context.  Because this story contrasts starkly with what is going on in the verses around it.  

The story that comes right before this one – at the beginning of Matthew 14 – is one that the lectionary chooses to skip over.  And understandably so, because it is both gross and tragic.  Our gospel reading gives us a hint at it, the way that it’s printed in the bulletin.  It starts out, “Now when Jesus heard [about the beheading of John the Baptist], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”  

Sunday, July 12, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon start around 19:35)

When I was growing up, we always had a big garden in the back yard.  My dad especially was really into gardening; and I have a lot of fond memories of helping plant impatiens or pick tomatoes or dig up carrots… or eat all the strawberries…  After I graduated and left home, I moved around a lot – and I kind of missed having that big garden.  I always had a houseplant or two, but it just wasn’t the same.

So when I moved into the parsonage here and saw that great big back yard and the space already marked off for a garden, I got SO excited!  Finally I’d get to have a garden of my own!  I spent my first winter here dreaming about all the vegetables that I was going to plant, all the things that I wanted to grow.  When it finally got warm enough to plant, a member of the congregation was kind enough to come over and till up the ground so that I could get my plants in. 

I bought tomato plants and red bell peppers and eggplant and summer squash, all ready to get started.  And then I realized: I didn’t actually know the first thing about growing my own garden.  Literally!  I knew some of the middle things, but definitely not the first thing.  I knew I had to dig a hole and stick a plant in it, and that I would need to water it from time to time.  But I had no real clue of what I’d gotten myself in for.  I was totally unprepared for battling with the weeds that had lived in that soil long before I decided I wanted to wrestle tomatoes from it.  It had never even crossed my mind to do something like have my soil tested to see what kind of fertilizer I might need to add to it.  And I had very, very much underestimated how physically demanding it would be to try to get a garden going on my own.

Suffice it to say, my garden was in pretty sad shape by the end of the summer – as my neighbors could probably tell you.  I did manage to get out of it about a dozen or so tomatoes, a few bell peppers, a squash or two, and one massive, fat eggplant.  But if I had known what I was doing and had put in more effort to take care of my garden, I probably would have gotten a lot more out of it.  With patience and commitment and hard work, it probably would have borne a lot more fruit.

Sunday, July 5, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
watch this service online (gospel and sermon begin at 17:08)

I am tired.  And it’s not just because I generally don’t get a lot of sleep on Saturday nights.  I have been tired for many months now.  I am worn out with worry and uncertainty.  I am exhausted with trying so hard to be a good pastor when it’s hard to be sure what that even looks like right now, in the times we’re living.  I have been feeling cut off from you, from my people.  

I have been struggling a lot with my mental health these past few months – with depression and PTSD and anxiety.  I’ve been feeling even more isolated than usual; and those negative internal voices that are always there start to get really loud without any kind of external connection or feedback to interrupt them – those internal voices that tell me that I’m not doing enough, that I’m not good enough, that I am worthless and unloved.

Maybe you know what it’s like to struggle with those internal voices as well.  And even if you don’t, I’m sure that the last several months still haven’t exactly been an easy time for you.  I imagine that you are also tired.  I imagine that worry and uncertainty also keep you awake at night.  I imagine that you are also worn out from trying to do the best you can for your family and for your community. 

For me it can be hard to open up about just how much I have been struggling.  It feels risky and vulnerable to speak openly, especially about mental health issues; it often leaves me wondering how other people might see me because of it.  And I think that this is at least partly a feature of our culture.  We are afraid to show weakness.  We feel like we have to be strong – and that being strong means we carry our burdens all on our own.

Sunday, June 28, 2020
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Schuyler, NE
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Watch this service online (15:44 for 2nd reading and gospel, sermon around 19:38)
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The main protagonist of Victor Hugo’s famous novel, Les Misérables, is a man named Jean Valjean.  Valjean is a poor man who ends up spending 19 long years in prison just for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his hungry family.  At the beginning of the novel, he has just been released from prison.  The authorities have sent him off with a yellow passport, which signals to everyone he meets that he is an ex-convict.  

At first, Valjean is turned away at every single place he comes to.  But finally he meets a kind clergyman – Bishop Myriel – who invites him in.  The bishop treats Jean Valjean with respect; he invites him into his home and feeds him supper and gives him a place to sleep for the night.  But Valjean is distrustful and he repays the bishop’s kindness with theft; he steals a bunch of the bishop’s silverware and runs off in the night.  

Before he gets very far, the police catch up with him, and they drag him back to the bishop’s house.  When the bishop sees Jean Valjean in custody, he says to him: Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come back!  You took the silver forks and spoons with you, but you forgot to take the candlesticks I gave you. 

The apostle Paul would have immediately recognized this story for exactly what it is: grace.  Jean Valjean was saved and set free by grace.  Bishop Myriel showed him the kind of love that God showed humanity in the cross of Christ.  He spared Valjean from the punishment he deserved and instead chose to set him free.