June 5th, 2022

Sermon By Rev Joel Crouse

Article IV of the Augsburg Confession: We are justified by God’s Grace through our faith. To our newly confirmed, I say, “Well done!” This article they have been studying, is, for us as Lutherans, not merely any test we have to pass, but the most important summation of our belief that God loves us first and foremost for ourselves, And as they are confirmed on this Pentecost Sunday, as they become adults in your church community, we are, all of us, reminded about our own understanding of faith. We often think of faith as a way of being, something that exists like a flame inside us. Have faith, we say: believe that things will work out. Go in faith, we say: take God with you in your life. Faith is like hope and love - a feeling, a knowing, a way of being, that keeps us going through hard times. But faith is something else as well. Faith is an intellectual exercise. Faith enables us not only to feel, but also to think. The Lutheran church, after all, was founded by a scholar -- Martin Luther - who wrote thousands of pages on all kinds of issues, including the role of leaders in the pandemic that happened in his time. Martin Luther was far from perfect – indeed some of the mistakes he made require God’s forgiveness and ours as well. But he saw faith as something you both felt in your heart and thought through in your mind. In fact, the gospel you heard this morning went unheard for many centuries in the Christian church. It was read only in Latin, which most people didn’t understand, until Luther translated it into German, because he wanted people to hear it for themselves, to debate and reflect on the words with their own minds. And since then it has been translated into every language in the world. But, of course, long before Luther, we have Jesus, the teaching carpenter who sets our first, and foremost, example. Jesus posed the gospel as a series of questions and thought exercises. Faith wasn’t something that he just threw out like candy, for us to enjoy. It was an intellectual challenge, to force people to think. The questions Jesus asked, in his day, were not only good debate material; they were dangerous. Because Jesus asked: Is the way we have always done things the right way? What do you – as an individual – think of what this person is saying? Jesus was not afraid to be challenged by those who followed him; he encouraged it. Because to believe in something, enough that you will fight for it, you must know why you believe it. Now, we live in a world where we get all sorts of ideas thrown at us. We are told “This is truth, believe me,” by so many voices, especially ones that are online. The Internet is a wonderful source of information – and misinformation - and it is hard to tell fact and fiction apart. You may know people, as I do, who believe the COVID-19 vaccine was a way for the government to inject nanobots in people to track them. This conspiracy spread on social media, and it convinced a lot of people not to get a vaccine that would keep them, and others, safe from the worst of the virus. Of course, once you think about it, the whole idea falls apart. Is it reasonable that this technology even exists? Is every scientist and doctor and journalist in on it? Why would someone want to spread this fiction? But there are many more conspiracy theories drifting around on Tik Tok, and they are hard to tell apart from fact. Watch one too long, and you are flooded with more of them. It takes a lot of energy to critique each one, to pause and think: Does this match the truth I see? Is this the world I want? Is it what I believe? And yet, that is the journey of questions we are called to live. Confirmed into our faith, we face the intellectual challenge of deciding what that means for us, as individuals. That may not always be clear. That’s okay. These gift of faith takes on new meaning as we move through life, and it is up to us to find that meaning for ourselves. One of the first things we might have learned in Sunday School is the story of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, who protects the sheep. The sheep in the metaphor are us, the flock of the faithful. But sheep get a bad rep as mindless followers; and sometime people who believe in God get called sheep as an insult. I hope you will never accept that version of events. In fact, your faith – and the history of your church – is one of questioning, challenging, and debating. We follow Jesus to be those questioners and challengers. There are many ways we become sheep in this world: when we chase money at all costs, when we get caught up in having the best things, when we blindly accept the word of political leaders, our peers, and our bosses. But our faith lives are meant to make the sheep of Jesus into Shepherds for the World. We are meant to lead in faith, and to ask tough questions of others, and of ourselves. Today is Pentecost - this story in the Bible, when people of many different languages were able to understand one another, as they spoke of their faith. This story is not meant to say that people all thought the same. But it reminds us that in the gospel is a common language that all people hear, that all humans desire - teenagers and adults. It is a common language of love, and tolerance, and kindness. A language that says: I hear you. I see you. I will help you if I am able. This is also how we make faith an intellectual journey – how we use our brains to shape and sustain our faith. We remain open to listening to people who speak a different language – whether they actually speak a different language, or just believe different things. We reflect on the words and the wisdom of others. We talk rather than shout. We seek common ground. In the end, though, what God want for us is that we always come back to ourselves and to the gospel. Think about the stories we have all learned about Jesus – debating the leaders of his time, listening to people who were often ignored, challenging us over and over again to think about what kind of world we want. We are called to do the same, guided by our faith, confident that God loves us, knowing that we are free - that, in fact, we are called - to ask these tough questions. Does this match the truth we see? Is this the kind of world we want? What do we believe? Amen.

May 29th, 2022

Sermon By Rev Joel Crouse

Jesus prays: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one.” What can it mean for us all to be one? When this week, we watched with horror as an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semi-automatic weapon stormed into an elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers? When parents waited for word their sons and daughter had survived a place where they should have been safe? When doctors at University Hospital in San Antonia prepared for the young patients they hoped would not come, and then when all was too quiet, for the young patients they desperately wanted to come to them, so that they might save them? When we watched politicians say that he acted alone, when of course, we all know that behind that gunman is a gun lobby and gun companies and other political leaders in the pockets of both? What word of God on earth can ease the pain of those parents, and in our own hearts? What unity might we find against a cause that is so heartless and seems so hopeless? And can we rest so easy across the border? Can we say that our society is more united than in the past – as we also approach the first-year anniversary of a Sunday evening when a 20-year-old drive his pick-up truck into an innocent family waiting at a crosswalk, because of the God they prayed to? When in Nova Scotia, an inquiry continues into a rampage that killed 22 people in the small town of Portapique, an anniversary just passed? What word of God can ease the pain of those who remember them this week? What unity might give them comfort? I do not know. On this week, it is not so much the words that Jesus says in the gospel that sit with me. But the words he spoke while dying, murdered, and innocent, on the cross: Forgive them, God; they know not what they do. But do we not know? What part have we all played in our world today? Are we truly just innocent attendants at the graveside, weeping for tragedy of that other problem, over there? I guess that is a question only we can answer. A question and an answer between us and God. Every morning this week, my Twitter feed was full of the faces of the children in Texas, who went to school and never came home. I didn’t want to see them; I wanted to click away, to watch the trailer for Top Gun, to avoid seeing. But they kept coming back, demanding to be seen. And so, I scrolled through their faces, all precious, all full of potential. What word of God can ease my pain? Shall I accept forgiveness for my humanness, requested by Jesus on my behalf as he died at human hands? Shall I accept responsibility for being a member of a species that inflicts such careless atrocities on one another – not just in the actual act of pulling a trigger, but in the long path strewn with greed and power for their own sakes that gets us there? How can the gospel rise up against such tragedy - small acts of kindness like a butterfly’s wings flapping against a great storm? Sometimes it is hard to find the words of God that can bring comfort and ease. Because sometimes the responsibility to bring comfort lies with our human actions, in the same way that the pain we cause lies with human hands. “Thoughts and prayers,” we say. And for what? As cover, not as call to action. Thinking and praying, while the world divides and little children die, and families of a faith are not safe crossing the street? So let us turn, once again, to the prayer that Jesus makes on our behalf in the gospel? God, Jesus says, may they hear the word of God – the grace of the gospel – so that they may all be one. The glory you have given me, I give to them, so that they may be one. As you have loved me, I have loved them, that they will love one another. What is the gospel if not a hope for a united world? Not in the name we give ourselves, or in the faiths we choose, but in the mission we follow, the call we hear. Where we grieve every lost child as our own; where we reach out to embrace every wayward soul; where we make space for every stranger. So Jesus, in his prayer, returns each time to this theme: let them hear the gospel and be as one. Let them see the glory of God – the wonder and mystery of the world – and be as one. Let them love, as one. What will we do – in our homes, at work, in our communities, on the bus, at the grocery story, at school, while visiting a friend, or caring for family? God hears the prayer of Jesus on our behalf. But how will we, in our humanness, answer? Amen.

May 22nd, 2022

Sermon by Rev. Joel Crouse

To begin, let’s all take some deep breaths. Perhaps you are in the pew, your face behind a mask, and could use a moment just to breathe intentionally. Or maybe you are at home on Zoom, distracted, or less focused, and not paying attention to your breathing. Please do so now: breathe in deeply, breathe out deeply. Feel calmed. Feel the presence of God.

This is the power of our breath. To center us. To ease our troubled heart, as Jesus tells us. When we are afraid, our breath can steady us. When we are anxious, our breath can calm us. Just paying attention to our breath can transport us away from what is worrying us.

To breathe easily, we take in, and we must give back.

This week, on Facebook, I read a post from Hassan Masri, an ICU doctor in Saskatchewan, who has been working on the front lines of the pandemic. In the post was a loosely-translated Arabic saying that he had happened upon, and that had resonated with him.

In his post was the following: “A wise man said that the simple act of breathing has taught us that to live happily, you need to take some air in and give some air back.”

In other words, he said, “To live a life that is not suffocating, you must take some in, but you must always give back.”

To breathe easily, we must take, and we must give.

I thought of this post when considering our readings for this week. In our first lesson, we get a too-short introduction to Lydia, a woman from the city of Thyatira, and a dealer in purple cloth. And yet she is so much more than that.

Lydia was an extremely prosperous businesswoman. In her time, purple cloth was the very finest to purchase. To get to where she was in life, in the society of the time, Lydia would have had to overcome great odds. We don’t know a lot about her – Did she build her business from scratch? Did she inherit it and continue to build it up? But no matter: she had prevailed as a powerful woman in a world run by men, and despite rules designed to keep her in her place. No wonder, then, that she is given special mention in our first reading this morning from the Book of Acts.

On the Sabbath Day, we hear, Lydia goes down to a place along the river that has been set aside by the authorities for prayer and worship. There she meets Paul and Silas, newly arrived, and takes time to listen to their words. Despite what must have been the pressing business of her day, she pauses to expand her mind. Rather than bury herself in work, she keeps herself open to new ideas. She is ready to breathe in the word of God.

We know from our lesson that she goes home and shares her faith with her household, and they, too, are baptized. And then she invites Paul and Silas into her home, to be her guests. Indeed, she prevails upon them – we are told, and we might imagine just how forceful Lydia can be when she wants something to happen. Having breathed in the Word, she released back generosity and hospitality.

Lydia finds a balance between giving and taking. Basically, the Arabic saying being cited by the good doctor is a reminder to all of us to find that balance. Yet, we all know takers, who suck the air from everyone else for their own purpose. And we all know givers, who are gasping for respite, because they never take any air for themselves. The trick in life is to take in when we are in need – whether that’s when we need wisdom, when we need rest, when we need comfort and care; and to give back the same – wisdom, rest, comfort, and care – in equal measure. We breathe in; we breathe out.

To do otherwise is to suffocate.

This week, perhaps we may all pay attention to our breathing. When are you holding it all inside? What are you doing when you breathe most easily? But also, look around: who are the people who take all the air from others? And who especially are those who give away too much of their own air. Just as we must find balance in our lives, we must step with care to be a loving presence that brings balance to the lives of others. Who might we stop enabling? Who might we help?

Jesus says to us: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives.” Indeed, he does not: Jesus does not give so that we might only be takers; so we might only breathe in. Jesus gives to us the gospel; and takes only what we can offer of ourselves, and yet inspires us into giving. Amen

Amen.