LET THE SPIRIT BLOW WHERE IT CHOOSES

A Sermon for Second Sunday in Lent

March 20, 2011

Pastor Laura Gentry

John 3:1-17

In our Gospel text for today, we get to overhear a conversation between Jesus and a rabbi called Nicodemus. It’s not a very long conversation, but like everything in John’s gospel, it is layered with meaning. So let’s dive in and see what we can find that will nourish us on our 40 day Lenten journey.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus as night. Why at night? Theologians like to puzzle over details like this. Maybe he was afraid his fellow rabbis would see him so he wanted to sneak to Jesus under the cover of darkness. Or perhaps he was a really studious man who studied all the time—you know, like a college student who stays up all night reading. Then again, John’s gospel has a lot of symbolism with light and dark so this may be a way of illustrating that Jesus’ teachings are the light that illuminates the darkness of the religious establishment. He offers them enlightenment.

In any case, Nicodemus shows up and tells Jesus that he knows he’s from God because of all the signs he’s been performing. Nicodemus is not very humble but he’s at least recognizing Jesus as a teacher on par with himself.

Then Jesus then offers him the vision of God's kingdom. He says “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Now this is a powerful statement, but it confuses Nicodemus. He takes it quite literally. He wonders how in the world a person could enter his mother’s womb to be born again. We don’t even want to consider the logistics of that! But before we go thinking Nicodemus is a dense character, we have to realize that he’s a Jewish teacher and this whole idea of being “born from above” or “born again,” which is another way to translate it, is a foreign concept. This rebirth idea is a Greek, not a Jewish one.

Yet, Jesus, this young Jewish teacher from Nazareth—the one whom they believe had come from God—tells him he must be born again, born from above, born anew. Of course, this kind of language isn’t about literally redoing natural childbirth, but it is about God literally redoing our lives, literally transforming us.

You see, Jesus was telling Nicodemus that just being religious wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to for him just study and follow the law—though he was probably a great leader. The Kingdom of God is not attainable on our human terms. It is God’s grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not our good behavior, that makes entering the Kingdom possible. Being “born again” is not amending of a part of our lives, but renewal of the whole nature, a total renewing that only God can initiate.

But how does the Spirit do so? Jesus explained this to Nicodemus by saying, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” This metaphor of wind is a powerful one. Consider the power of strong winds: windmills move, cars swerve on the road, huge trees can be uprooted, power lines thrown downed, rain gutters bent out of shape or in the case of a tornado, whole towns leveled—winds can suddenly reshape the whole landscape. You cannot see the wind, but you can feel it, and you can see all the powerful changes that the force of the wind brings. To everyone but meteorologists, the wind seems very mysterious—the way it erratically comes and goes with great force, blowing as it chooses. You just can’t control it. And Jesus says, “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The author Annie Dillard thinks that churches should be required to issue worshippers with crash helmets, life preservers and seat belts, just in case God shows up. God’s that powerful, you know. That’s what Jesus is saying here. The Spirit blows where it pleases and it whisks you off on it’s wings even if you’re not ready.

How does that happen for you and me? We can get pretty discouraged with ourselves. It reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown shows up at Lucy’s therapy booth and she says: “Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown? You know what your whole trouble is? The whole trouble with you is that you're you!"

Charlie looks at her in great earnest and asks, "Well, what in the world can I do about that?"

Lucy answers, "I don't pretend to be able to give advice...I merely point out the trouble!"

Yes, we can feel Charlie Brown, tired of being ourselves. We may be life-long church-goers and yet we’re still not where we want to be spiritually. We’re still not loving or patient enough. We know that our sins encumber us in so many ways.

Nevertheless, Jesus' revelation is clear. We are transformed by God's spirit. We are transformed and given the gift of a new life. We have the opportunity to start again—to be different, act different, live in community in a different manner.

When Nicodemus began to allow himself to be born of the wind, things changed for him, too. In the chapters which follow, we read that Nicodemus, later spoke up for Jesus, publicly questioning those in authority who would judge Jesus. Then after Jesus' death on the cross when all the disciples had fled, Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus came forward to prepare Jesus' body for burial. Nicodemus was no longer intimidated or afraid. Nicodemus had come to realize that he was born from above not by his own doing but by the love of God who birthed him anew and gave him a life of boldness.

The theologian Bruce Epperly states that “if we affirm that God is moving through our lives, filling us with the divine presence even when we are least aware of it, then we can learn to open our lives to be more open to these moments of divine inspiration.”

Are we open to God’s inspiration? It’s like the little fish who asked his mother "Where is the ocean?" She laughed and said "It's all around you!" So it is with the Spirit of God. It’s all around you! Do you notice? Do you let it transform you? Because the Spirit blows where it pleases and it wants to change you.

We always want to place limitations on God, though. In his autobiography Saint Augustine explained how in his early life, he really didn’t want God transforming him. He prayed to God: "Give me chastity and continence, but not just now." Not just now. Have we been saying that to God?

Paul Tillich once wrote: "Only the fulfillment of what we really are can give us joy.” The fulfillment of what we really are. That’s where true joy is to be found. And that’s exactly what the Spirit aims to do.

The prophet Ezekiel spoke God’s word to the people in ancient times. He said: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you.” (Ezekiel 36:25-27)

Yes, that is what God has always been doing. Our salvation is not about our action, but about God’s. We have been given a savior and we’ve even been given the faith with which to believe him. God’s Spirit is constantly working to put a new heart in us, to put a new spirit in us, so we can be the fulfillment of who we really are. That’s what it means to be born again.

As we proceed on our Lenten journey, may we intentionally open ourselves to God’s all-powerful Spirit. Let the wind of the Spirit blow where it pleases and transform us entirely. We need a new heart. So let’s fling open our hearts so the spirit may blow where it chooses.

As Dag Hammarskjold said, "For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes."

© 2011 Laura E. Gentry

GRACE ABOUNDS

A Sermon for First Sunday in Lent

March 13, 2011

Pastor Laura Gentry

Romans 5:12-21

There’s a lot of talk about sin in our texts for today. Genesis tells us how our ancestors, Adam and Eve, chose the way of sin and death instead of the joy that was theirs in the garden. The Psalm cries out in penitence from a state of despair and sin. Paul talks at length about the nature of sin and in the Gospel, we hear that familiar story of Jesus being tempted by the devil himself to fall into a state of sin.

But what is sin anyway? We use this word so much that perhaps it is difficult for us to really understand it. I mean, it’s a strange word—a churchy word. And in our modern society, it’s been shunned. Some churches have done away with the confession of sin part of the liturgy—fearing that the whole talk of sin might be too much of a downer. Others have tried to re-brand sin with another word to help people better understand it. Still, the word hasn’t gone out of use because it really is the most accurate word to describe, well, sin.

We tend to think of sin as an act—something bad that we do or some particular character weakness that we have. Just this week, my 8 year old niece, Erin, came running into her mother’s room, wracked with a metaphysical dread. “I’m so afraid!” she said as she threw herself into her mom’s lap.

“It’s ten o’clock. You’re supposed to be asleep. What are you afraid of?” my sister patiently asked.

“I am afraid I’m not going to heaven. I sin so much—I am always pinching and hitting my brother and I really want to stop but I can’t! I just do it all the time.”

And this is a very child-like view of sin as a naughty act. Advertisers tend to play upon this childish understanding that many adults still hold. How often have you seen an ad presenting some sugar treat as “sinful” or “tempting”?

But sin in the biblical sense, is not defined like than that. It doesn’t have to do with how many snack treats you have.

I think the best clue we can get as to the meaning of this word is that a substitute word for it is “separation.” Separation is an aspect of the experience of everyone. To be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation. And our separation is three-part: there is the separation from our own selves, separation from our fellow human beings, and separation from God—our very ground of being.

This separation our heritage. That’s what the story from Genesis tells us. In our hearts, we know this. We “get” the depth of our separation. We feel our estrangement and this causes us to suffer. Sadly, we know that our separation isn’t a one time event—it is our whole reality. Not only that, but we understand that this separateness is something we participate in, that we feed into. We do not fully love ourselves, we do not fully love our neighbors and we certainly do not fully love God. This gives us a growing sense of guilt. This is our existence, from birth to death. The bible tells us that even in our mother’s womb, we were separate, we were sinners. Indeed, sin is our existence. Existence is separation! Before sin is an act, it is a state.

As Saint Paul explains in our second lesson for today, we can say the same things about grace. For sin and grace are bound to each other. We do not even have a knowledge of sin unless we have already experienced the unity of life, which is grace. And conversely, we could not grasp the meaning of grace without having experienced the separation of life, which is sin. Grace, however, seems just as difficult to describe as sin.

What is grace? We like the word and the idea. We like the hymn “Amazing Grace” but do we really know what grace means? It has always been an enduring name for a baby girl. In fact, in 2010 it still ranked 29 in the most popular girl names. So what is grace? For some people, grace is the willingness of a divine king to forgive over and again the foolishness of his subjects. This is not exactly grace. For other people, grace is about utilizing the gifts we have so that we can be in service to society. But grace is more than gifts. In grace something is overcome; grace occurs in spite of something; grace occurs in spite of separation and estrangement. Grace is the reunion of life with life. Grace is the acceptance of that which is rejected. Grace transforms guilt into confidence and courage. There is something triumphant about grace. In spite of the abounding of sin—grace abounds much more.

That’s what my sister explained to her daughter, who was so caught up in the fear of her own sin. She said, yes, we do sin and it is even part of who we are. We make choices that God doesn’t like. We could never earn our place in heaven. We are sinners. But God knew that and wanted to save us anyway so that’s why Jesus came. He showed us the way to live and he went to the cross for us so that we would no longer be separated from God. This made Erin so happy that she woke her little brother up and apologized to him. Dazed and confused, his hair sticking up, Michael sat quietly. Then, he offered her forgiveness. The two of them hugged. There, in the dim light of the child’s bedroom, my sister witnessed the miracle of grace. Just as sin is separation, grace is reunion. It reunites us with ourselves, with our brothers and sisters and with God.

So what does this mean for us today, in the midst of our Lenten journey? We know full well our sinful nature—our disgust for our own selves, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure. We often feel our own selves are intolerable. We realize that the longed-for perfection of our lives isn’t here yet. Despair over this threatens to take away our joy.

And in the midst of our sin, a light breaks in. The gospel message sings to our longing ears, saying "You are accepted—accepted by God. Yes, accepted! This is a pure gift. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!"

This is the experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no change in behavior is needed, nothing but acceptance.

In the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion. We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs to the same God to which we belong, and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the many barriers people place between themselves. Grace can truly reunite us with those to whom we belong.

How wonderful are these moments where we feel the full reality of God’s grace! For it is such moments that make us love our life—that make us accept ourselves, not because we’ve done anything incredible, but because we’ve been accepted by an incredible God. Grace empowers us to say "yes" to ourselves. And when we do, peace enters into us and makes us whole. Then we are reunited with ourselves and all of life and we know for sure that grace has come upon us and yes, it abounds.

"Sin" and "grace" are strange words; but they are not strange things. We find them whenever we look into ourselves with searching eyes and longing hearts. They determine our life. They abound within us and in all of life. May grace more abound within us!

© 2011 Laura E. Gentry

SPRING CLEANING

A Sermon for Ash Wednesday

March 9, 2011

Pastor Laura Gentry

Isaiah 58:1-12

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I admit it: my basement is a mess. In England, they have an expression for a messy place. They say: “It’s a bit of a bomb site.” Yep, that would be my basement. Now the upstairs, living spaces are quite neat and some have been completely reorganized. But since I don’t live in the basement, it has become a dumping ground for all kinds of old stuff. And with my dad is emptying his house for sale, I’ve acquired even more stuff than ever. I know that I have to clean it. Why? Because it’s holding me back. I can’t find anything down there anymore. It’s just a source of stress.

Tonight we begin the season of Lent. Here in the church, we try to describe this ancient liturgical season in all kinds of ways. Lent, we are told, is a time of sacrifice for Jesus—to give something up, like ice cream or donuts. Lent, we are also told, is time of preparation for Holy Week and Easter. It is a time of self-denial, repentance and prayer. It’s a somber time when we don’t even get to sing “hallelujah!” in worship. And while all of this true, I think it confuses the modern believer.

What I find to be the most helpful explanation of Lent is that it is a spiritual spring cleaning. Just like my basement needs a lot of sorting and emptying, so does my soul.

You see, Lent is not supposed to be a downer time. Maybe you were taught that as a kid. But believe me, it’s not. Really. The whole 40 day tradition came from the early converts who would prepare themselves for Baptism on the vigil of Easter. In order to get ready, they would engage in repentance practices, like dumping a bucket of ashes over their heads. And they’d just keep doing it until they’d look like a walking dust cloud. Think of Pigpen from Peanuts and you get the picture.

That’s why we’ll impose ashes on your forehead tonight—it’s in keeping with that early repentance ritual. Yes, the ashes represent our mortality. When you are imposed with the ashes you’ll hear the familiar words: “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” And then you’ll get to spend the rest of the evening with a big messy cross on your head.

But what I think we often miss is that the ashes symbolized something else in the ancient church: cleansing. Before they had soap and body wash and fancy, good-smelling lotions like we have today, people used ash to wash themselves. Yes, ashes are about cleansing. They are about letting go of what keeps us from God—cleansing that away entirely so that we can turn around and run back into the loving arms of God.

No, this is not a sad season. In fact, I would argue it has the potential to be the most joyful time of all. We all need to clean our spiritual basements. All of those resentments and grudges and free floating anger hanging around inside us is no good. We know this. God knows this. But now’s our chance to really let it go—to draw nearer to God so that we can be cleansed and made new.

This Ash Wednesday, I’m letting go of everything that keeps me from rejoicing in this life. How about you? I mean, this life is such an incredible gift. When’s the last time you really rejoiced in it? Children get this. But sometimes we adults miss it.

I painted a mural on the retaining wall in my back yard a few years ago. When my sister came to see it with her children, we walked through the yard together. I explained all of the bright and colorful images and symbols. Kathy and I were engaged in the whole intellectual discussion of it. Then, I looked down and noticed her son—who was probably about 3 at the time—and he was taking in the beauty of this gigantic painting with his whole body. How could I tell? Because he had broken into dance, like they do in musicals. There he was, oblivious to our adult conversation, whirling and wiggling—entirely immersed in the wonder of it. Kathy and I laughed with joy to see his childish energy. I said, “Ah, if we all had the capacity to dance at the sight of beauty!”

Well, my friends, God is in this place and our whole world is beautiful and full of grace. Do we perceive it? Can we take it in—casting aside our worries and fears enough to rejoice?

In the reading we heard from Isaiah tonight, the prophet calls us to be in this place of rejoicing over the abundance of the Lord so that we can share our bread with the hungry, invite the homeless into our homes, and give the naked something to wear. Then, he says, our will your light break forth like the dawn and our healing shall spring up speedily. When we joyfully care for our brothers and sisters, our light will rise and God will satisfy the parched places of our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I get what he means by parched places. It’s painful to have parched places where hope feels dried up and situations seem impossible no matter how hard you try. Well, parched places: be gone! Isaiah says that God will change all of that. We will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail! Incredible.

Now who can't find time for that? Lent is not a demand to squeeze a little more time into an already overly busy life or give up some category of junk food. It’s much more important than that. This is an invitation to get our lives together, to do that spiritual spring cleaning we know we need. This is a chance for true healing. This is an opportunity to re-cultivate the childlike joy that is within us, so that we can feast upon the grace of God, share it generously and dance again at the sight of beauty.

So that’s exactly what I plan to do this year. That, and I might even get my basement cleaned as well.

SALT, LIGHT & PAPRIKA

A Sermon for Epiphany 5A

Pastor Laura Gentry

Matthew 5:13-20

I admit it. I used to hate paprika. I know, I know, it's hard to believe. But it’s true. I just couldn’t see the use for it. I mean, it’s pretty—especially if you sprinkle it on a nice little deviled egg—but if it doesn’t do anything for the flavor of it, what’s the point?

Once, when I was on a back country Boundary Waters trip with my sister and some friends, I reached into the food pack, which was prepared by the professional outfitters from whom we’d rented our canoes, and what did I find in the spice pack? Paprika! Paprika? Seriously? You never want to carry an extra ounce of weight when you go into the Boundary Waters. You have to portage—sometimes long distances with your packs and canoes—so you only want to bring what you absolutely need. And, in my opinion, paprika was a total non-necessity. Why in the world did they pack this for us?! I ranted and raved about it so much on that trip that everyone else ate it excessively just to torment me, saying things like: "Wow this paprika tastes terrifically good on pancakes, Laura. You are really missing out!" So in response, I jokingly formed an organization I called WAP—Women Against Paprika.

Well, it took me many years, but have changed my mind about paprika. Turns out, I was only tasting the really cheap, really old paprika. It had such a faint flavor that I didn’t even consider it a spice. When you buy good paprika and eat it before it gets old, however, it’s actually delicious. In fact, I recently bought some high-quality, smoked Spanish paprika and it has become one of my favorite spices.

You see, a good spice needs to make a difference. You should be able to put it on your food and taste an immediate change. It should bring out the flavor of your food. If not, why bother using it?

Jesus uses spice as one of his metaphors in the Sermon on the Mount, which we read in the Gospel of Matthew this morning. He climbs a mountain and sits down to teach his followers, which in ancient times meant that he was serious. He wants to engage his students. He, then goes on to give them a series of spiritual teachings. In fact, some scholars say that these things were not delivered as one sermon. Instead, they are a collection of the important things he preached frequently about the coming reign of God. You could think of it as his “greatest hits” sermon. Clearly, everything in it is important and so it serves us to take a closer look at what was written.

First, let’s look at the students gathered around Jesus on the mount. Like any good preacher, Jesus is delivering a message to his specific audience. So what were these people like? Well, this was a time of oppression by outsiders for Israel. It’d actually been a problem for them since the Exile 600 years earlier. They’d been wondering why God would let this happen to them. They weren’t sure how to handle their suffering. They were tired of being outsiders and desperately wanted to obtain political freedom so that they could preserve their religion and culture.

These people who have gathered around Jesus don’t know him as resurrected Savior as we do. For them, he is just one more voice in this debate about what to do politically. Yet, he is a challenging voice with much to say to them in the midst of their oppression.

In the “beattitudes” section of this sermon, which we heard last week, Jesus lifts up some fairly unlikely people – the poor in spirit, the meek and the merciful, those who mourn and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted – and calls them blessed, which also means happy. He tells them that God’s reign is breaking in and they can be happy even in their present bleak circumstances, even in the midst of their oppression.

Then Jesus calls the people—and that includes you and me today—two things: "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." These are everyday images, yet they are packed with meaning.

Salt of the earth. What does Jesus mean by that? Well, as I explained in my opening discussion, flavorless paprika is worthless. So is salt that has lost its saltiness. Even today, we can appreciate that salt has to stay salty to be worth anything.

But in our modern world, salt has been given a bad name. Since we typically use overly processed salt and it’s so prevalent in prepared foods, it has come to be associated with high blood pressure and heart disease. This was not so in the ancient world. It was used not just as a zesty seasoning and as a preserver of food, but it was a disinfectant, it was rubbed on newborn children, used to seal covenants, sprinkled on sacrifices, and understood as a metaphor for wisdom. Salt was so important that it was regarded as a miraculous substance associated with God's gracious activity. Keeping your saltiness, then, is a big deal in this metaphor.

Light of the world. What does Jesus mean by that? This metaphor seems a bit easier to grasp. Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Isaiah that "the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." For those who were lost or in despair, on them "light has dawned." Jesus is himself this light. He illuminates our way. He gives us hope and direction. When we baptize people, we recall the words of Jesus from this Gospel passage: “let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

To be the light of the world is a daunting task. We can’t do it on our own. We must be a channel of the divine. We must allow God’s light to shine in and through us by the things we do. We are to valuing those who are dispossessed, care for those who suffer loss, seek to do justice, show mercy, have integrity, be peacemakers, and courageously stand up for what we believe. That’s being light to the world.

However, the church has been challenged for some time, even before the global economy veered toward collapse. Just about all the major denominations in the US have lost numbers and influence in recent years. It’s difficult to make Christ known in this fast-paced, digital age. As Christians, we are not understood or appreciated by our world. In the face of this opposition, it is not easy to remain steadfast. It is not easy to keep on keeping on, to hold fast to what we believe, to love all people and continue to work for justice on behalf of those in need.

But this difficulty is nothing new. Back in Jesus’ day it was a problem. That’s why he told them implicitly that they were to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. This is and always has been our mission as Jesus’ followers. This is exactly why we are here and we don’t need to expect that task to be easy. It never was.

Yet as the salt of the earth, as the light of the world we are different from our culture. We have faith. We have hope. We are called to live the new life that we’ve been given by God. Like salt changes the flavor and dynamics of the food it’s placed on, we are to make changes in our world. Like light illuminates its surroundings, we are to illuminate and change our world. We are to be active—not just talking about love and mercy, but doing it. And if we neglect to do this, we are like salt that has been rendered unsalty. We are like a flashlight whose batteries have grown dim. Perhaps you could even say we are like flavorless paprika that doesn’t deserve to be carried out on a wilderness trek and against whom organizations like WAP could form. If we neglect our mission, we are worthless.

Jesus has given us quite a challenge. We must remain salty. We must remain bright. How? It seems the only way this is possible is for us to plug into our source. We must know Jesus. Really know him. We must sit as his feet—as the people did on the mount— so that we can learn from him. Our entire Christian life hinges upon our relationship with Christ. This is why prayer, scriptures, worship and the sacraments are so important. They deepen our relationship with Jesus. And when this connection is deep and strong, then we can simply allow his light to shine through us. Doing God’s work is a natural desire placed in our hearts. So in this season of light, let us pay special attention to God’s light—that in drawing near it, it may shine more brightly through us. Amen.

© 2011 Laura E. Gentry

UNCHAIN MY SOUL

A Sermon for the 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

Rev. Laura Gentry

Preached at Our Savior's Lutheran Church

Lansing, Iowa

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Picture this: you are sitting alone in a prison cell. You are shackled, hungry and miserable. You are aware that you are awaiting your death sentence. Worst of all, you didn’t commit any crime. You are here in this awful place because you did the right thing and you boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus Christ.

What’s your response? Do you live in denial and try to pretend this is not happening to you? Do you shake your fists at God and ask why you’ve had to suffer so? Do you give in to depression and lose hope?

You don’t do any of those things. Not, at least, if you are Saint Paul. Instead of despairing—which is obviously his natural reaction (he is human, after all), he holds firm to his faith, resolute to endure everything. And then gets busy with his letter writing.

In our first lesson, we are privy to one such letter. This one was written to Timothy, a young church leader who has worked with Paul. In Ephesus, Timothy is facing false teachings that are threatening to destroy his ministry. Scholars today find it unlikely that Paul himself wrote this letter to Timothy. It was probably a minister who was inspired by Paul and who was writing in his style. In ancient times this was a common practice and was a way of showing respect for the person in whose name it was written. In any case, the timeless truth of God’s power shines out in these words.

This is a letter of encouragement. Even today, so many years after this piece was written, we Christians still need encouragement. Perhaps, we need it more than ever before. It is so easy to feel sorry for ourselves and think that God ought to be doing more for us. But this letter reminds Timothy and it reminds us that we must focus on the gospel if we are to endure our presence circumstances.

This amazing passage declares the central message of our faith: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. He has broken the bonds of death and is alive, and because he lives we may live also. This truth should always be in the forefront of our minds. We must hold firm to this. We live because Christ gave us life and not just life for this world, but life beyond the grave.

Paul knows this. Here he is, languishing in prison while nearly all of his friends have abandoned him. His ministry has led him to suffering. But he knows that his Lord Jesus Christ also suffered and so this suffering can draw him closer to God, not further away. He is aware of the truth that though his body is chained, God’s word is not. God’s word is not chained. What a powerful message!

And because God’s word is not chained, Paul is not chained. Yes, he may be in prison, but his soul is unchained. All things are still possible because he walks in faith. Now, he can endure this suffering and he reminds us that God gives us the power to do the same. We an live as resurrected people. Every morning is Easter morning because we are risen with Christ and that means we are risen above any of the circumstances of our lives that chain us. In Christ, our souls are unchained.

The other scripture readings for today bear witness to this reality. In both the Hebrew Scripture reading about Naaman and the Gospel reading about the 10 lepers, we see God’s word being unchained. In both stories, there are men who are stricken with leprosy. Talk about chains. These people were afflicted both physically and socially because their disease caused them to be ostracized. They were truly men without hope.

And then God’s power comes into the picture and heals them. They are given their lives back—resurrection is truly what happens to them. And not only that, some of those healed are outsiders. Naaman is the commander of the enemy army and one of the ten lepers Jesus heals is a Samaritan. It would have been unthinkable to the ancient audiences of these scriptures that God would heal such unworthy candidates. Yet that’s precisely what God does. Unchained? Yes! God’s word is unchained and God’s embrace is so much wider than we could ever fathom. And now, those who have been healed and unchained as well. Their lives are resurrected and will never be the same again.

So what does this all mean for us? We who live with the many chains of our modern world, we who suffer untold pain, we who fear about the future—what can this brief letter, which wasn’t even necessarily written by Paul, do for us?

Well, if we listen closely with the ears of faith, we know that these words were written just for you and me. "If we have died with him, we will also live with him." There is nothing surer. Though life may be full of suffering, we follow a living Lord. Paul says it all in his second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4 verse 17, "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

God's Word is not chained, my friends. Do you believe that? Can you embrace that truth even when things look really dismal? Can you allow God to unchain your soul so that you may truly live today?

The wonderful thing is that God offers to free us even without our own doing. We don’t have to earn God’s love. It is a gift. Martin Luther once said that "the only thing we bring to our salvation is sin and resistance!" How powerful to know that all is God’s gift, all is grace even though we are so imperfect and so frequently faithless.

And now that we have this gift of resurrected life, we have the gleaming opportunity to live it. We have the amazing chance to be truly unchained. God wants to heal us and lift us up so that we can walk in newness of live today and on into eternity. Let us be unchained. Let us live. Amen.

Now, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura Gentry 2010 (painting and sermon)

A DESPERATE GOD

A Sermon for the 16th Sunday in Pentecost

September 12, 2010

Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 15:1-10

Don’t you just hate it when you lose something and you have to go searching around for it? Have you ever lost something really important? What did you do? How did you seek it?

I once lost a turtle in the garden outside my office in the church where I interned. I turned the place upside down. I even let the children’s choir mess up the landscaping in an attempt to locate the wayward reptile. “Izzy!” they shouted wildly as they hunted around. I had to chuckle when I overheard one little girl pleading. “Izzy, Izzy!” she cried, “please come back or I think Pastor Gentry’s going to cry!” When we found Izzy five months later, we rejoiced. It even became the headline story for our Christmas letter that year.

In today’s gospel reading from Luke, Jesus tells two parables in a row on being lost and found. Now these parables are probably quite familiar to us and so they might sort of fly under the radar. They seem so nice. Even sentimental. Especially the one about the lost sheep. That is even cuter than my turtle story.

But what we might not realize is how shocking these parables really are. So let’s try to unpack Jesus’ radical message in them, shall we?

First of all, let’s look at the context. It begins with Jesus getting criticized by the religious authorities. Now we have religious authorities today too, me, for example. And we’ve got our church council members and our Sunday school teachers, who we will be installing this morning. They’re good people. They work very hard to know God’s will and obey it. But these folks are having a hard time understanding Jesus’ actions.

You see, Jesus isn’t behaving the way they expected him to behave. They don’t mind his message so much as the company he’s keeping. He’s hanging out rather extensively with sinners. We’re taking about tax collectors—traitors who worked for the oppressive Roman government, and sinners so bad they couldn’t even move in polite society. And if that weren’t bad enough, he’s eating with them. In biblical times, that implied a closeness, a familiarity. You only eat with people that you’re really connected to. So why would Jesus, this famous rabbi, be eating with this band of scumbags? It is not surprising, then, that the religious authorities felt obligated to say something about this to Jesus. His behavior was driving them through the roof.

Jesus, however, in typical Jesus-fashion, has a ready answer for their complaint. In fact, he’s got two parables ready to go. He unleashes them to help them understand that God is not at all like they thought.

"Which one of you," he asks them, “having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”

Now at first, you might think that this is a logical anecdote. Ah, but wait a minute. Think about it: who would you leave their ninety-nine safe and sound sheep to go search for their stray? Well, perhaps if they had a nice clean pen to put them in so they’d be safe. But that’s not what Jesus is asking. He’s asking who would leave them out in the wilderness where they would be in peril to go search for the lost one? Um, well, then I’d have to say nobody. Nobody would be that ridiculous and reckless. That makes no sense. No. You cut your losses and move on. That's what a normal shepherd would do.

Well, what about the second parable? This one makes a bit more sense: if you had only ten coins and lost one, you'd search, too, sweeping and sweeping until you find it. Hey, you’ve probably done this! But once you found it, would you really call your friends and invite them to rejoice? Keep in mind that in biblical times to have a party means to serve a meal. So with that in mind, let's try that again: which one of you would search all night for your silver coin and then spend at least twice that much in celebrating your find with your friends? Again, nobody! At least nobody with sense.

But that's just it. When it comes to God's children—God's lost children—God hasn’t any sense. At all. God would eagerly risk everything to find one of them—one of us—and having found a lost child, would give everything to celebrate. There's only one kind of word for this behavior: desperate. We don’t usually think of God as being desperate but that’s the exact picture Jesus is painting of God in these parables. God is desperate for us. God wants to throw all caution to the wind in hopes of finding us and drawing us back into the fold of God’s love.

It is in Jesus that we see most profoundly that God is desperate for us. God sent Jesus to come and claim the wayward children who are lost. This is radical news.

Have you ever been physically lost? It’s a frightening feeling. When we traveled to Bulgaria 3 years ago, we were surprised to discover they rarely post street signs so having a map doesn’t really help. We joked that we had no idea where we were until the third day. But seriously, being lost is no fun.

And when you're lost, at least according to this parable, there's not much you can do. Jesus doesn't set out a formula about how you have repent first or earn your salvation by saying the appropriate "sinner's prayer." He seems to understand that when you’re lost, you’re lost. Sometimes, you don’t even know you’re lost. You need someone to come find you.

And Jesus finds us. The good news is that you and I have been found. Now that we’ve been found, we are free and we can rejoice. That’s why the Christian life centerd around joy. We were lost but now we’re found. When we can let this fact sink in, we cannot help but be happy.

Perhaps that’s what the Pharisees have forgotten—how amazingly joyful it is to be sought, found and loved by desperate God. They remember the importance of obedience, discipline, and morality, but they’ve lost touch with the pure joy of being found.

Thanks to these parables, we are reminded again of our own joy. It is easy to forget amid the stress of our everyday lives that what we’re called to is rejoice. How comforting to know that God is still desperately searching, sweeping, and looking for God's lost and beloved children and won't ever stop until we're all found.

I understand this because that run-away turtle I told you about earlier, well, she ran away again. So if you happen to see a box turtle who answers to the name of Izzy, please let me know. I’m desperate to find her.

Now may the peace of Christ, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

© 2010 Laura E. Gentry