Jesus is the one who walks among us

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Sermon, by Pastor Joel

Reign of Christ

November 24, 2024

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14

Psalm 93

Revelation 1:4b-8

John 18:33-37

The context of this sermon is

100% written by a human

Erin told me a story recently, about a conversation she had at a work assignment in Florida, covering young women who were going door-to- door, campaigning for a constitutional amendment that would restore their right to abortion under Roe V Wade. At one door, she met a middle-aged contractor who told the canvasser that he didn’t agree with abortion, but he was willing to listen and take her flyer. On one point, he was firm: he was, he said, Trump all the way – the former president would be better for the economy, though how exactly, he didn’t say. “I know he’s not a good person,” he said, “but who cares?”

Is this where we are today? Where we no longer care about the integrity and values of our leaders so long as we feel individually advantaged by them? How afraid that should make us! A leader’s values are the very qualities that guide their decisions, decide whether they will cheat, or bully, or lie. They matter far more than any campaign policy that may or may not get passed in the end. Indeed, when it comes to the leaders we elect, or the celebrities we follow, or the people we admire, their values should be the first consideration, not the last thing we care about -- if for no other reason than this: leadership is full of unexpected trials and difficult decisions you cannot prepare for. In those bleak and tense moments, it will be a person’s values and beliefs that guide them.

Who, after all, would Jesus have been without his values? Yes, they were shaped by his parents, by his early teachings, even by the disciples, his friends walking with them, and by his encounters on the road. But he chose to hold them to himself along the way – to listen and learn, to be kind and trustworthy. Each time those values guided him, they became stronger within him, and spread to those around him, until those values defined the faith, the gospel we follow today.

This is the Sunday that the church sets aside to consider the leadership of Christ, who is at the core of what we believe and guides the good we want to accomplish. More than the God who watches over us, and the Holy Spirit who inspires through us, Jesus is the one who walks among us, the one we can best imagine meeting on the bus someday, and who is the most firm and visible model of our faith. Jesus is not ethereal for us – he was a person who walked the earth as we do, and whose values are trumpeted across the major religions – among Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Baha’i and Christians. We may differ on what ties us to Jesus – and his connection to God – but we do not differ on who he was, and what he did. He was a leader -- in almost every way the ideal of what we want out of a leader. Which is why he remains such a key figure in religion and history for so many people.

Now, a lot of what Jesus did and accomplished often gets muddied up by people of different faiths, and by believers and non-believers alike. Was he the son of God? Not to a Rabbi or an Imam. Did he perform miracles? An atheist would say no. But let’s set all that aside. As Christians, we believe that Jesus was the son of God, that he did bring about miracles. For us, the Reign of Christ is more than an earthly title. But Jesus is not a leader for mice, or blind believers. The confidence we place in Christ does not have to be so locked into our faith, that when faith falters, so does our confidence in Jesus. As history has recorded, across writings, the things he did, the lessons he taught, are as true and important to be learned no matter where we stand on our journey of faith. He was a leader, as we wish our leaders today might be.

What makes Jesus a sovereign worthy of these modern times? “For this,” he says, “I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” Those are nice words, clever rhetoric, and we all know people who would argue about their authenticity after being written down so many years after his death. But we don’t need to distill Jesus down to one quote, when we have the events and actions of his life to develop our view of him.

For me, there are three important moments that define Jesus as the one who reigns in my life – they are not times when he was making blind people see or sick people well, or even when he calmed the sea for the disciples. No, it was the moment he was tempted, the moment when he judged wrongly, and the moment when he doubted.

The first time happens in the desert, with the devil. We can interpret this passage literally, but it is really about Jesus confronting his pride and his own power. He was a person, by then, that people followed, at whose feet strangers fell, and in whom men and women were desperate to believe. He was in charge. He was the CEO faced with the choice to skim a little off the top, or the politicians who could take a brown envelope or two without anyone knowing. Who could blame him for wanting to show how cool and powerful he was? But he didn’t – he did what he knew was right, and did not fall to temptation.

The second moment happens when a Canaanite woman grabs his cloak, begging for him to heal her daughter. The disciples are ready to cast her away, and in that moment, Jesus is ready to do the same. But the woman appeals to him again: “Aren’t the dogs fit to eat at the master’s table?” And Jesus changes his mind and cures her daughter.

A lot has been made of this passage in the gospel – to say nothing of some awkwardness around the analogy – but what is significant to me is that Jesus allowed himself to be corrected by another person, to hear their point of view, to see in a new way. His ministry became known for its openness, for his welcoming even those whom society deemed unworthy. That is a leader – someone who listens, who learns.

And the third moment happens on the cross. Theologians debate the meaning of those words repeated in Matthew and Mark—Eli, Eli, lama sabbachthani—when Jesus is said to have wondered out loud if God had forsaken him. Some people are troubled by the thought that Jesus could also have stumbled in his faith. But for me, that makes the experience of the cross all the more honest. What is important is not that Jesus’s trust may have wavered, but that he found the faith to go on with grace and hope. Leaders face these moments of doubt every day – those paralyzing “I-can’t-do-it” thoughts – but they do not get stuck in them. They act - they stand in front of the guns, or face down the wall, or leap, or run. They do whatever is needed in the moment.

These are the qualities, the values, that make Jesus a ruler worthy of our times, and especially in these times. In a time of temptation, he resists. In a moment of hubris, he listens. In the midst of fear and doubt, he finds courage and faith.

In Jesus’s moments of fallibility – when he is less the Son of Heaven and more a Man of the Earth – he demonstrates the values of true leadership possible in all of humanity. Possible in each one of us, despite all our blundering. This is the Jesus who stirs our hearts today. Not the angelic figure, glowing, and at peace. But the Jesus in his dusty robes in the desert - the Jesus, weary from a long day of bringing people together. The Jesus who was humble enough to hear the voices of others, and who carried on in the dark moments. That is a man worth honouring. A teacher worth learning from. A leader worth following. Amen.

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.