Broken Things Let the Light in.

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

26th Sunday after Pentecost

November 17, 2024

1 Samuel 1:4-20

Psalm 16

Hebrews 10:11-14 [15-18] 19-25

Mark 13:1-8

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

"Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

there is a crack in everything

that’s how the light gets in."

Anthem, by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen died eight years ago this month, and yet his words still speak to us today. Indeed, the lines I just spoke offer a modern take on our gospel this morning and a perfect interpretation of what Jesus wants us to learn from his words.

Jesus is being tough on us these says, calling out our flaws, and nobody likes that. Last week, we were flawed in our generosity – too selective in our giving. Our failing was in risking all for the good of others. This week, we are reminded by Jesus – even as he tries to assuage the fears of the disciples – of our other weaknesses. Our pattern of killing one another in war. Our helplessness in the face of earthquakes. Our willful blindness to famine even when we have more than enough food as a species. Do not be alarmed, Jesus tells the disciples – though of course they are. These things will happen. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs, he tells them. Painful, but inevitable. Part of the experience of being human.

Of course, history has proven Jesus more than accurate – though we are ashamed that this is true. But Jesus does this all the time: he is honest with us to a fault, as if he were marking the papers our university kids brought home this term: he would lay it all out on the line. All our pettiness; our laziness; our snobbery; our selfishness – and as he points out this week, our faithlessness. We are so easily swayed by better offers; so willingly distracted by shiny objects. “Beware no one leads you astray,” he warns. Beware that no one rises from the ashes of war, or the desolation of famine and tries to preach an easier way.

But isn’t that what happens over and over again? And not least of all in the very words we hear every Sunday from Jesus? It is always astonishing to me how anyone can read the gospel and think it is about making rules, when, in fact, it is about breaking them. Every rule that Jesus tries to teach us to break is quickly rebuilt again in society. Treat each other as equals, Jesus says, and yet we have our long history of slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia. Be humble before God, Jesus says. Don’t be quick to judge, forgive one another. And yet once again, we have a long history to teach us the damage and pain that comes with pride and judgment. All the time, as people of faith, we hear interpretations of these very gospels that warp the meaning into one that fuels the very qualities Jesus was trying to teach us to overcome. Or we hear that religion makes us sheep, baa-ing helplessly in the pasture.

But how wrong that is: to me, what makes the gospel so powerful is that there’s no pussyfooting around. The gospel says to me – Joel, you are not the greatest guy sometimes: you fail where you should succeed, you neglect what you should tend, you judge what you should accept. A lot of the time, in fact, you’re a jerk. But Jesus isn’t telling me this so he can cast me out; he wants me to own my flaws, to see them for what they are and live with them. If we don’t see the war for what it is, how do we stop it?

Look at the story of Hannah. She was failing in the most important job a woman could do back then - she couldn’t have a child. In her time, that was right at the top of the list of rules that mattered for women. By the standard of a judger, by a rule maker, she should have been cast out, tossed aside. We have Eli, the priest, who mocks her in the temple. He serves as the keen-eyed rule-keeper, just looking for someone a little different to cast them off. But Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, loves her, even though she cannot bear a child. He says the most beautiful thing to her: “Why is your heart sad? Am I not worth more to you than ten sons?” And what we really hear Elkanah saying is: You, Hannah, are worth more to me than ten sons.” Elkanah is the rule breaker; he loves his wife, and that is enough.

But whoa, there are those who will say, we can’t all be rule-breakers, or even rule- benders; we need rules to keep the peace and maintain society. Of course, they are right: but we’re not simpletons. We know the rules that are important; and we know the ones that mark a hard line in the ground and cast a long shadow to keep certain people in, or out, or down. Elkanah cast that latter kind of rule out – the one that said a wife had value only if she bore a child – because he knew it was foolish, and, what’s more, it spoke against his heart.

If all of us were like Elkanah - if Elkanah could even be like that all the time – well, we could whistle on our way. But even Jesus, as we see him in the gospel, wasn’t perfect. And we are not. What is masterful about what Jesus does is that he turns our mistakes and weaknesses into a moment of illumination. Our humanity is our strength. Once we pretend that it’s all about the other guy making mistakes over there, the gospels dissolve into the background.

Jesus tries to tell us over and over again that we are messed up in our own unique ways, and yet we are loved by God, and we have the strength inside us to do these amazing things – to save people and discover cures and create art and ease grief. And the reason he does this is so that we might understand that there is always grey within a rule, that the world is nuanced, that people are good and bad, messed up and marvelous. Once we know this about ourselves, we are free. Once we see this in others, we are just.

These are the birthing pangs that Jesus is speaking of: the journey of life. The history of humanity. And when we fail to see the many sides of it, when we assume that rules can never break or bend, we worship something other than the gospel. And then we are led astray. The rules that humans make not free of flaws. Just as human are not flawless. Our task is to live in a complex world where both are true.

When this task overwhelms you, don’t lose faith, remember the gospel. Remember how Leonard Cohen so beautifully put it into song: “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Amen.

It Could Have Been Us

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

25th Sunday after Pentecost

Remembrance Day

November 10, 2024

1 Kings 17:8-16

Psalm 146

Hebrews 9:24-28

Mark 12:38-44

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

Imagine for a moment, that it happened here. The mood in the country has been growing darker. People are beginning to say that Christians – that Lutherans -- are to blame for what is wrong in society, that we aren’t true Canadians, that we shouldn’t even be citizens. On the streets, we check over our shoulders to see who is around us. We have heard our neighbors talking about “those Christians” and casting glances in our direction. When we pass, they look at the ground. We gather for worship, but we are nervous. We wonder if we should leave our children at home. We wonder whether we should leave our country, but everything we own is here - our aging parents are here. And where would we go?

And then one night, all the whispers and hate become rage. On the streets outside we see people we thought were decent throwing stones through the windows of a neighbor’s home and laughing while they do it. We hear that in the market, certain store windows are being smashed, their contents destroyed. When we come the next day, the windows of our church have been shattered, the door has been smashed in, the altar desecrated, burned to the ground. Some of us are missing, arrested we hear, but only for the crime of faith.

Just imagine.

This happened, of course, – on this day, 86 years ago in Germany. We know it as Kristallnacht – Crystal Night -- named for all the shattered glass an angry mob of ordinary citizens left on the street after targeting their Jewish neighbors. It seems so long ago now, and the longer our distance from it grows, the more it feels like an event from another time. That wasn’t us. It couldn’t be us. It would never happen here.

And yet of course it is. Of course it can. Of course it does.

As the gospel reminds us, beware: beware that you do not pay too much heed or give too much power to peacocks preening in your midst, lording it over others, devouring those less fortunate. But Jesus is also saying this to us: Beware that we ourselves are not such peacocks, preening and lording, and devouring. For as history shows – as Crystal Night shows – too much power in the wrong hands, too much power in our own hands – leads to shattered glass and broken lives. We must be our own checks and balances – the widow, generous to a fault, giving perspective, and teaching empathy to the power-hungry peacocks.

We choose, on this day, to tell our own versions of history, and of war. We might remember that after Kristallnacht, many Germans were horrified and sought to help their Jewish friends and neighbors. We may remember that while Hitler liked to quote Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran, became a brave and influential Christian voice of reason and resistance in the darkest hour. We may remember the terrible loss and devastation in the trenches, and we may also remember the courage and sacrifice of those who signed up to defend freedom in those same trenches. We may remember the hate and bigotry and rage that devoured us; and we may remember the times when people gave like the widow, everything that they owned.

Remembering is our burden. Truly understanding the cost of war and the roots of aggression is our responsibility. And practicing the kindness, grace and mercy that saved the day is our duty.

So, let’s not hide from the truth. This is us. This could be us. It does happen here. When we don’t take the time to hear out someone else’s view – to understand their experience – this is us. When we don’t get informed – figure out what is fact and what is lie – this could be us. When someone who is working, or shopping, or entering their house is targeted because of their race, when people spout hate online, it is happening here.

What we understand now, so clearly, is that no one wakes up one day and just decides to smash windows. As with all societies where people have turned on one another, it took time to happen – the careful planting of certain myths, the worst kinds of fictions. A population that wasn’t happy with their lot in life. Leaders who used their power not to create but to devour. It happened gradually, building like an argument that begins politely and grows in volume until everyone is shouting and no one is listening. And then one day, you do wake up. And you don’t recognize the world. But you see now that it was headed this way all along.

War is the result of not one thing, but many conditions– an assassination, the right economic circumstances or interest, an evil, charismatic leader, a failure of information. And yet, ultimately, it comes down to human beings not settling differences as we should. Not listening. Not trying to learn. Not hearing one another other out. Not being empathetic. Not balancing the self-serving desires of the scribe in all of us, with the other centeredness of the sacrificing widow who gives everything. Not checking the taker against the giver.

But that is the burden of remembrance. The responsibility of those remembering. The duty of those who live in the society that was gifted to us – not by our own ingenuity, but by great sacrifice. We sit here in this church and sing freely and loudly because of the people who listened to the Christ-centered voice and actions of Bonhoeffer, because of the young men and women who were called to serve, because of the givers who stood firm before the takers.

True remembrance is not simply retelling the past. It requires understanding how the past defines the present and shapes the future. So, imagine for a moment that it happened here. In this place. To those we love. And then think: have we done our very best, in all we say, and do, to make sure that it never will happen again? Amen.

God Grieves With Us.

Sermon, by Pastor Joel

All Saints Sunday

November 3, 2024

Isaiah 25:6-9

Psalm 24

Revelation 21:1-6a

John 11:32-44

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

If you go online, you will find a lot of people talking about the will of God. They use it to explain away negative events – “Hurricane Milton was the will of God.” They use the will of God to justify their own intolerance. My prejudice or intolerance, they argue, is the will of God, as if they know. Or they acquiesce to evil in the world: “What can be done?” they say. “What happens next is the will of God.”

Ah, the will of God. How many times as a minister have I heard that phrase used to explain all kinds of events. Someone gets better from an illness, and they are told, it’s the will of God, as if they have a pipeline to God, and their neighbor who didn’t recover did not. Or they wait for rescue – from debt, or storm, or other calamity – because it’s all up to God’s will.

In a new show on Netflix, the main character, who is a rabbi, told a version of an old nugget in one of his sermons: about the guy on the roof, with the flood waters rising, who ignored his neighbor, the rescue boat, and the helicopter, and, upon arriving at the Pearly Gates demanded to know why God hadn’t saved him. “I sent you help three times,” God says.” “What more did you want?

Surely, we all see quickly, where that “will-of-God” argument falls down. We become complacent, witless, even blind to the gospel at work in our midst. What happens when the cure doesn’t come? What happens when the flood waters rise? What happens when lousy things happen despite our best prayers that they won’t? Is this also God’s will? Have we somehow let God down?

Let’s not kid ourselves. Lousy things, terrible things happen, and they are not by God’s design; they are not intended to build character. They are just lousy, terrible things. These events - illness, tragedy, misfortune - leave their mark: they destroy families; they leave people carrying deep, deep grief. You know I am no stranger to this in my own family, with the death of my brother. The accident that took his life was not God’s will. But I believe God willingly walked with my family through that valley and onto level ground again. God grieved with us; God wept with us. Our faith in God carried us.

This is all to lead into the famous story we hear today in the gospel: the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Jesus arrives to find his friend dead and placed in a tomb. His sister Mary is despondent: If only you had been here,” she tells Jesus, “Lazarus would have been okay. “

There is a version of that age-old question in Mary’s voice: If God cared enough, would our problems be solved? If God felt me worthy enough, all would be well. It’s hard not to ask that question: don’t we sit here each Sunday, hoping for a better life? Put it in this time, and it is easy to think that maybe we deserve it a little more than the next person.

But how quickly does that go astray? Once we think of God, not as guide, not as a source of strength and comfort, but as a puppet-master, we lose our free will; why should we do anything at all? Why should we strive to makes things better? Once we assume God intervenes, we begin to notice who gets God’s grace and who doesn’t, and suddenly we are ranking people. Maybe you’re thinking, “But that’s an old school understanding of God.” But it’s not that old, and it creeps into our conversations more than we think.

How does Jesus react to Lazarus’s death? The gospel suggests he is deeply shaken by this news. He grieves with Mary. Just as God grieves with us, when misfortune comes our way. And then what happens? Well, we can’t know for sure. We might call it a miracle, we might call it healing. Jesus does not lie in place, praying. He goes to the tomb of Lazarus, as the gospel depicts it, and has the stone pulled away. And then he calls Lazarus out. And Lazarus is unbound. Jesus credits the act to God; “Thank you for listening to me,” he says. But we know that it was not God alone: Jesus was there as well. Just as we are there. Just as we are part of our own stories.

To be our own stories, we must have faith, in God and in ourselves. Faith in our ability to handle life’s crappy times. Faith to know that we are not abandoned by God during them. From that faith comes strength and healing and connection. I have been witness to many families who have found that will - not of God, but from God - to carry them through great trials.

There is another point to all of this, perhaps the most important one for us to remember this day: we are the hands of God. We are the doers who make God’s will happen. We are not subject to God’s will; we are given new life because of it. God walks with us; but we make the journey on our own two feet. We send the neighbor and the rescue boat and helicopter to those in need, and God gives us the strength and resolve to do so.

Lousy things happen for no reason at all. God does not promise to spare us from the difficult parts of life. Just as God’s will is not the reason behind them. Putting our faith in a better way, our belief in a brighter path, the lessons of the gospel that teach resolve, patience, trust, forgiveness, and resurrection, are part of the divine package that makes miracles happen.

The gospel spares us from a sorrowful fate: to be alone. We are never alone. Sometimes that divine presence comes from those around us, and sometimes we feel the company of God - just as did Mary, who sat that day, grieving her brother’s death with Jesus. And always, when we empower ourselves, when we are guided by the gospel, God walks with us.

A deep and profound belief can be found on this All Saints’ Sunday as we remember the loss of a loved one. If we truly believe that we are never alone, then there is nothing that can keep us from experiencing the resurrection and being made free and whole and alive. Find the will - not of God, but from God - to roll away the stone and unbind yourself and others. Amen.