Luke 14:1, 7-14

1 On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. 7 When Jesus noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them all a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; 9 and then the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, your host may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

 12 Jesus said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, don’t invite your friends or your siblings or your relatives or your rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, so that you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite those who are poor, disabled, lame, and blind. 14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of abundance,

You lavish us with extraordinary gifts,

And we could never give back to you

As extravagantly as you have given to us.

Give us courage and boldness

To be people of invitation.

Help us to invite others, our neighbors,

To experience the same powerful

Grace and love we have received from you.

Amen.

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One of the best meals I’ve ever had was on our honeymoon. We went to New York after we got married, and right when we got there we asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation for a classic New York steakhouse, which he gladly provided and so we made reservations for a couple nights later. Y’all… This place was great, and it had everything. Exhaustive wine list, white table cloths, and the waiters had those little table scrapers that they pulled out of their pockets to clean your crumbs off the table. It was fantastic. And, it was a really good steak.

Now we’ve had other really good steaks elsewhere, but this place in New York was also one of the times when I was painfully aware that I was out of place, like I didn’t belong. I mean, we were just a couple of 20-somethings from Texas who had just gotten married, we really didn’t have any business being in one of New York City’s fine dining establishments, but you know, I guess our money spends the same as everyone else’s. But that feeling of being out of place…that feeling you get that everyone’s looking at you because it’s like they know you’re not supposed to be there…that kind of shameful feeling sticks with you, and it’s a feeling that I think resurfaces often in our lives.

Shame is a powerful emotion. So powerful, in fact, that we can start to believe the lies that our shame tells us about ourselves.

Contrast that feeling with how I felt just a few days before that steakhouse in New York, at our wedding reception, and the differences couldn’t be more striking. In that case, we were the hosts. We were the ones who made the guest list in the first place, much less had the most right to be there. And not to brag, but it really was a great party. Hamburgers, hot dogs, Cracker Jack, open bar…all at the Ballpark in Arlington…I’ve told y’all before, we threw a great party that night.

When have you felt painfully out of place, church? When was a time, maybe a meal, that you were so aware that you had no business being there? And you just knew that everyone else knew it, too… Everyone knew that you didn’t belong…

Jesus is invited over for dinner after church. We’d say Sunday dinner, but for Jesus it was probably Friday or Saturday, right? Jesus is invited over for dinner and noticed the kind of maneuvering that was taking place trying to get a better seat at the table, trying to sit closer to the head of the table, to the place of honor, which was reserved for the host. When you host a dinner or a party, where do you sit? Usually at the head of the table, or somewhere else? And where does everyone else try to sit? Usually near you, near the host, right? In ancient Roman custom, the tables were arranged in a kind of “U”-shape, and the host sat at the end place, at the head of the table, and the guests arranged themselves next to the host, one after the other, in descending order their place of importance within the Roman empire. So politicians and wealthy folks first, then the tradespeople, then the servants, on and on, etc.

Jesus says, “Don’t presume to take a higher place than you should, in case the host has invited someone more important than you. In that case you would be shamed if and when your host asks you to move down to a lower spot. Instead, sit at a lower place, and in that case your host would come and honor you by asking you to move up to a higher place.” This is fitting with one of Jesus’ consistent messages throughout the Gospel of Luke, this great leveling of things, the powerful and mighty are brought low and the lowly are lifted up, all who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

But then Jesus goes further. He turns to the host, the one who gave the dinner, but really he’s still speaking to everyone at this point, and he says, “When you host a dinner, don’t invite the wealthy and the powerful and your friends and neighbors who are of higher status than you, don’t invite these folks just to get on their good side so that they’ll invite you to things.” In other words, don’t seek to bend over backward to elevate your own status. Rather, when you host a dinner, invite all the so-called wrong people: the poor, the blind, the disabled, the lepers, all the less-thans, the least of these…invite all the people who can’t pay you back, who can’t offer you anything in return…because they can’t repay you and it is to such as these as the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God belongs.

It’s the same thing we hear over and over from Jesus, particularly in the gospel of Luke. Align yourselves, put yourself proximal to, be found standing with and alongside…the poor, and the outcast, and the cast-aside, and the downtrodden, and the ones with ailments, the ones with disabilities, the widows and the orphans, the marginalized and the vulnerable, the ones the world thinks nothing of…because by being close to them, by placing yourself in close proximity to the suffering and the pain of this world, there you will find God. Whatever you do to, however you treat, those who are suffering and those cast aside by the empires and powerful of this world, you do to God. To look into the face of the poor and the marginalized and the vulnerable…to look into the face of suffering…is to see God.

We’re throwing a party here at New Hope, too…we’re having a banquet. On Sunday, September 11, along with congregations across the country, we’ll join with our denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in celebrating “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday. A day of celebration and service that honors who we are as Lutheran Christians, a people freed in Christ by the love of God to love and serve and care for our neighbors and our community. And we’re having a big party.

We have one worship service at a special time, 9:00am, here in the Sanctuary, and then we’ll go over to our brand spankin’ new Community Center. We’ll have brunch! We’re bringing in breakfast tacos…we’ll have mimosas…we’re asking you to bring fruits and pastries…we’ll have coffee and juice…and mimosas… We’ll have mimosas… And we’ve got a wonderful bunch of service projects that focus on our community, our city, and even the world. There’s a sign up sheet in our Anchor newsletter for you to sign up to bring items for brunch and supplies for our service projects…there are still lots of slots available, so please, please, please do sign up to help.

But here’s the thing, church…we’re having a party…and you’re the host. This party is for you…but you’re the host. You’re the ones in charge of inviting. So here’s the deal…I’ve got some helpers I’ve asked to help me out. We’ve already made the invitations for you. Our young people are coming around with your invitations…every single person—not family, every single person—is getting a very small packet of 5 invitations. Your responsibility, church, your job, your…call, disciples of Christ…is to invite. The only place these invitations do no good is in the backseat of your car, or on your kitchen counter, or God-forbid the recycle…these invitations don’t do any good outside of the hands of others. We’ve made it easy as we possibly can for you.

Invite someone.

I’m serious. Invite them.

Give them an invitation, offer to give them a ride…invite 5 people to come with you on Sunday, September 11.

Jesus’ illustration this morning is not just a culture of invitation, but a culture of invitation for which it is impossible for those invited to reciprocate. An impossibility of reciprocity. It casts aside those feelings of shame and says they have no place here because all are valued and invited and celebrated. This impossibility of reciprocity is the foundation of our Lutheran faith. Everything we have and everything we are is first given to us by God.

We are recipients of extravagant and completely undeserved gifts. Church, this is the point of grace. It’s unmerited. You can’t earn it. It’s given to you because it is the nature of God to lavish such blessings on you. It’s what we experience every week at this table in the Eucharist.

The grace of God flies in the face of the way the world works. It casts those feelings of shame aside. You’ve heard over and over that you are nothing more than your work. You can only get as far as you are willing to work. The idea of grace dispenses with this notion of being self-made entirely. The grace of God says because I love you, I have given you these gifts. God loves you because you are a beautifully and wonderfully made child of God, not because you’ve earned it.

And the crux of grace is that we can never give back to God anything that comes close to what God has given to us, we can only share it. We can only share with others what we have been given. We can only strive to give others the same kind of hand-up that we have been given all of our lives.

All we can do is throw a party, celebrating the goodness of God and all God has done for us. And invite others to it. Invite those who cannot pay you back, who cannot offer you something in return.

So invite them. Give them an invitation.

Invite them to this party we’re having.

This church, this community of faith, is only what you will commit to making it. New Hope will only be as vibrant and thriving as you want it to be, only as alive and wonderful as you will commit to making it.

What’s your vision for New Hope, church? What do you want to see happen here?

I’ll tell you mine…at least for right now…

I want to see lives changed. I want to see people caught up in the incredible and overwhelming love of God. I want to see people coming to know Jesus more deeply.

But just as much…I’d love to have another incredibly memorable meal.

Tacos, breakfast, mimosas…

My vision, at least for now…I really want to run out of tacos.

Luke 13:10-17

10 Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand upright. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When Jesus laid his hands on her, immediately she stood upright and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered the leader and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or your donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom the Accuser bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” 17 When Jesus said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of wholeness,

Sometimes our lives feel broken,

And we long for your healing presence.

Come among us again, this morning.

Restore us through the meal,

Through this community, and through one another.

Amen.

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Growing up, we were very regular church goers. Like…every single week. Like, Sunday morning came around, your butt was in the car ready to go because you were going. “I don’t care if you don’t feel like it. I don’t care if you’re tired. You should have thought of that before you stayed up playing Sega Genesis or watching Nick at Nite. We’re going to church.”

“If you’re not in the car, you had either be dead or bleeding, and even then, here’s some neosporin and a band-aid. Let’s go.”

Yep, fairly regular.

Now, it helped that I actually enjoyed church. I enjoyed Sunday School and worship. I enjoyed seeing my friends, I enjoyed that time set aside. I especially enjoyed the after-church breakfast/brunch/lunch stop at Tippin’s, which was situated just diagonally across the street from the church. It was one of those diner-type places with a spinning case of pies and cakes next to the register.

Hmmmm……simpler times…

Over those very formative years, my parents built up for me a habit.

And, I guess you could say it worked out ok, because here I am standing in front of you fine people every single Sunday morning, doing the Sunday morning thing as my call, as my vocation.

I still very much am a creature of habit. I love planned rhythms and predictable schedules. I used to say that one of the surprising things about me was that I had an unpredictable streak and that I enjoyed spontaneity. I don’t think that anymore. I think that was a lie I told myself. I’m a habit person, one who craves structure and schedule.

For at least 18 years, it was this woman’s habit to go to worship on the Sabbath. Very likely it was her habit her entire life, but for these past 18 years, she went to worship doubled over. Forced to stare at her feet and the ground, entirely unable to stand upright. What a painful posture to endure.

But she maintained her habit anyway.

Surely in the hopes of receiving something. Either the kindness of strangers, or a recognition by someone who might be able to help her, maybe even a desperately-held hope to be on the receiving end of a gift of divine healing. Whatever it was, she maintained her habit in the midst of excruciating pain and nearly two decades of certain disappointment, maybe even resignation.

Do you think she prayed to God to be corrected of her ailment? I do.

Could you persist throughout 18 years of feeling like your prayer went unanswered? I don’t think I could…

Jesus, too, is in a pattern in our Gospel story today. A familiar pattern of being in the synagogue, in worship, on the Sabbath, and a familiar pattern of teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus was, after all, a Rabbi, we would expect Jesus to be teaching. And to the indignation of the other religious leaders, Jesus heals this woman on the Sabbath. Healing, too, we’ve come to understand and recognize, is a familiar and typical pattern for Jesus. Throughout the Gospels, we’ve come to know Jesus as someone who provides healing.

How many of us, church, have similar patterns?

How many of you revert to habits and practices particularly when life feels difficult? Particularly when you slowly start coming to realization that maybe you can’t do it on your own… Particularly when you begin to recognize that you’ve done all you can do and so maybe you need someone else whom you trust to help you out along the way…

I don’t know if Jesus physically stretched this woman out like a chiropractor and she was suddenly able to stand upright. I don’t know if a man who had been blind since birth suddenly was able to actually see after Jesus rubbed mud on his eyes. I don’t know if lepers with scabs and boils and scars immediately had those wiped away and were cured of their disease. I don’t know if the young boy from Nain actually jumped off the funeral pyre where he once laid dead.

I do know that Jesus seems to have had a remarkably uncanny ability to expand the circle of who was welcomed into the community. By spending time with and hearing the stories of the most outcast and downtrodden, over and over again Jesus picks up their cause as his own, takes to task those in power, and restores dignity and relationship and value and belovedness to these folks who were previously seen as existing outside the community. Jesus forces the circle wider and the tent bigger so that those who were formerly not welcomed, not only are invited in to the banquet, but are in fact, given the seats of honor. Jesus elevates these marginalized and vulnerable people and restores their humanity back to them and restores them to their community.

There is no greater gift of healing than being told that in spite of your ailments, in spite of what the world says you are, you have worth and you have value and you are loved and you belong.

I’ve seen these shows where folks experience miraculous healing. People in wheelchairs get up and walk, folks with cataracts suddenly see clearly, people once unable to walk without difficulty start skipping around…I long for that kind of healing…for you. If that’s your prayer, I’ll hold that prayer with you. But I’ve never had that kind of touch. I can’t heal like it’s said Jesus can heal…

But I’ve sat with folks in some of their life’s most difficult moments. I’ve sat with folks in hospital rooms and funeral parlors and prayed with them. I’ve been angry with them, I’ve searched for meaning with them, I’ve cried with them… I’ve lifted up the causes and the pleas of the underserved and cast aside and looked down upon from this pulpit.

Maybe you’ve shared those burdens of others, too.

I don’t have Jesus’ healing touch…but I like to think that folks have experienced healing here.

I think they have. I’m pretty sure they have. I pray they have.

I pray that New Hope continues to be a place where healing is experienced. Where you experience healing. I pray that New Hope is place where we seek to mend and repair relationships, rather than tattering them further. I pray that we would be a place that seeks to draw the circle larger and make the tent bigger, where people who aren’t here yet find a place of community and welcome and inclusion and affirmation and celebration…where people hear over and over and over again that who they are is nothing less than a radiantly beautiful daughter, son, child made in God’s very own image, and that who they are is so extraordinarily valued by a God who is so deeply in love with them. And because God loves you, this community loves you, too.

I pray for that kind of healing.

As we get ready for our “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday on September 11 and the start of a new program year with Faith Formation and bible studies and choir and small groups and dinner groups…I pray you’ll take a moment to uncover a new passion. We’ll have a few service projects for you to devote your hands to, but we’re also going to have lists and signups for a lot of our ministries that we’re involved with and that go on here at New Hope. Stewardship, Congregational Care, Faith Formation, East Fort Bend Human Needs Ministry, El Buen Pastor, Faith Formation…

Particularly Faith Formation… We’ve got a couple of great teachers that have already said yes, and we’d love to have a few more. This congregation has said over and over again that we value young people and their perspective and what a gift they are to our community…and I’m just asking you to back that up. Tell me, let me know…tell me that I can count on you to be one of our teachers for one of our Sunday School groups.

One of the best ways to build habits is through consistency. Consistent patterns of worship and faith formation. Not just for our young ones, but for you, too. There are no shortage of opportunities to keep learning, to keep growing in your faith.

And help us develop these patterns for our young people, as well.

We need your help to continue cultivating and growing New Hope as place of welcome and invitation and wholeness and healing.

Luke 12:49-56

[Jesus said:] 49 “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they will be divided: 

 father against son

  and son against father,

 mother against daughter

  and daughter against mother,

 and in-laws against one another.”

 54 Jesus also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of life,

Division we know all too well.

Help us with unity.

Unify us in the healing, although difficult,

Call and message of your Gospel.

Give us courage and boldness to live out

Your liberating good news of love in our world.

Amen.

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Goodness…the feel-good vibes from Jesus just keep on coming, don’t they…?

Bridegrooms coming in the middle of the night, unexpected hours, storing up treasures for yourself, snakes and scorpions…and now this week, houses divided and fire on the earth. Geez, Jesus…give us a little bit of break, it’s only summer. Good vibes only, as the kids say.

The challenge that often comes up with difficult readings or tough words from Jesus is that sometimes I don’t know what to say, or my creativity might be running a little dry that week. So there are times when I’m feeling less than inspirational that I might revisit some of my old sermons to see what genius pearls of wisdom I came up with 3 years ago. The problem this time is that 3 years ago in August we had just welcomed a new baby into the world and into our home so I was on parental leave and so I wasn’t preaching and I don’t have a sermon on this gospel! Agghh! Cruel twist of fate…

Well, onward anyway, I suppose…

Jesus doesn’t mince words here, this morning, and I don’t think we should either.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a divisive thing.

Being a disciple of Jesus and patterning your life on the Gospel is a divisive posture.

I’ve said it from this pulpit before, following Jesus and living lives according to the call of the Gospel will necessarily put you at odds with all manner of people—the empires and powerful of this world, those who reap advantages from the oppression and exploitation of others, it will even put you at odds with your friends and family. This is the nature of a Gospel that calls you to be in close proximity to the dispossessed, the outcast, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.

The thing is…we know division. We know what it’s like to be at odds with friends, neighbors, and even family members. Division, we got. It’s unity we’re pretty poor at. Amen?

“Do you think that I’ve come to bring peace to the earth?”

Well…yes, Jesus… Actually that’s exactly what I think. I mean, after all, this is the Gospel of Luke, from which we hear the quintessential Christmas story every single year. Lowly mangers, silent nights, shepherds in the fields, heavenly hosts singing “Alleluia!”… I think the Prince of Peace is what most of us are expecting.

“Not so,” says Jesus, “rather division.”

The thing is, true peace—deep and lasting shalom—is a difficult thing to come by. It’s hard-fought and hard-won. You don’t get to deep and abiding peace without ruffling a few feathers, or overturning a few tables. As the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. says, “True peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.” And justice means righting some wrongs. Justice means those with means and privilege get taken to task on account of the ones without. The message of the Gospel, the call on your life, Christian, to be a disciple of Jesus is not an easy one. “Very truly I tell you, if any want to become my disciples, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9. “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

The call on your life to be a disciple of Jesus is not easy. It is demanding, it is difficult, and it is not popular. Because the call on your life will necessarily find you aligning with and standing alongside the poor and the marginalized and the outcast, it will necessarily be the cause of division between you and those who don’t understand why you do what you do. “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.” St. Paul in First Corinthians. This Gospel is foolishness. It will not make you rich. It will not win you friends or admirers. It will not make you famous. But it will find you standing alongside those to whom God has called you. It will find you reaching out and serving and showing compassion and mercy and love to those most in need. It will find you giving up your life for the sake of those in need.

And in losing your life, you will find life.

Life abundant. A rich and full life. A life everlasting. A life overflowing.

It’s been a while since I’ve told you how our gardening adventures are going. Some of you might recall, we started some raised beds this spring with some tomatoes and peppers, and we added a couple more tomatoes and an eggplant a few months ago. We managed to keep them going throughout the unbearably hot June and mostly, everyone’s still going strong. Not producing a ton, but they’re going. I got worried when all of our plants were looking kind of sickly a while ago, so I started watching videos and doing research, and now I have all these TikTok videos and now like my whole feed is just gardening and tomatoes and things like that, but one of the things I learned I need to do is to prune the bottommost leaves when they start getting yellow and shriveling up. These leaves are dead, obviously, but the plant spends a significant amount of energy trying to keep alive these leaves and these branches that are dead and dying. The best thing for your plant is to prune away the dead leaves so the the plant can send the nutrients to the leaves and the flowers that stand the best chance of producing fruit.

Maximizing the flow of nutrients to the places where new growth is taking place, the places that have the best opportunity for new life to grow and flourish.

There are some places that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want them grow and flourish, they will never be that again. But if you prune them away, if you allow them to die, other leaves and branches, other parts of the plant have a better chance, they can thrive just as much, and even produce more fruit than those other places before.

Are you with me?

Are we still talking about tomatoes…?

You can read the sun and the moon and the stars, you’re great at interpreting the weather, but you’re terrible at interpreting what time it is, Jesus tells the crowds. Church, this is the most important question in any exercise of discernment, “What time is it?” What is God calling us to in this time? It may not be what God has called us to previously. Likely, it’s something new. And different.

In a season of clarifying values and discerning who we’re for and where God is calling us, a time of pruning away can feel like the scorching fire Jesus talks about at the beginning of our Gospel reading. It can feel like that fire is only coming after the things that you hold close and dear, and it can feel destructive. But church, throughout Scripture, fire, though scary and dangerous, is always understood as a sign of God’s presence. From the great spheres of fire set to rule over the day and the night from the very beginning of creation, to leading God’s people through the wilderness in a pillar of fire, to calling God’s servant Moses from a bush that was aflame but wasn’t consumed…God is present in these fiery trials.

And although fire is destructive, the new life and new growth that is allowed to break forth as a result of that cleansing and purifying fire is often stronger and healthier and more vibrant than what was present before.

In losing, you will gain.

Through the sharp edge of the Gospel, values and missions are distilled and purposes are clarified.

Through death, new life bursts forth in resurrection dawn.

Luke 12:32-40

[Jesus said:] 32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you God’s kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 35 “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36 be like those who are waiting for the bridegroom to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those servants whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 38 If the master comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those servants.

 39 “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, the owners would not have let the house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, for the Son of humanity is coming at an unexpected hour.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Loving God,

You persist in lavishing us with good things.

Give us hearts that yearn after those

People for whom your own heart yearns.

Mold us into compassionate disciples

And give us courage to boldly live into our values.

Amen.

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A good friend and mentor, who is a pastor out in North Carolina, often tells the same story whenever he talks about stewardship. He tells the story of his grandmother who was meticulous in keeping her checkbook, showing my colleague all the entries and how much went to this person or organization and how much went to this thing or that thing. And the way he tells it, as she was doing this she said to him, “You can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their checkbook. If you want to know what or who a person values, look at their checkbook.”

If you want to know what someone’s values are, look at how they spend their money.

Our gospel reading from the Gospel of Luke this morning isn’t inherently a stewardship text, it seems like it’s more just like a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus that the gospel compilers didn’t know where else to put so they just kind of rammed them in here in the middle of chapter 12…but I do think these verses speak about values. And if my friend’s grandmother is correct, and I think she is, our values are necessarily linked to our stewardship.

What are your values, church? What do you say you’re passionate about? Who do you say you’re for? What causes and ideas will you put yourself and your reputation on the line for?

The verses this morning come after our reading from last week when we talked about the wealthy landowner who gave no thought to the poor and marginalized in his midst, and also after this lovely teaching from Jesus that we didn’t hear in worship about worry and how worrying doesn’t add life to your years or years to your life, and how much more valuable are you, dear child, than birds and lilies. Jesus continues this morning, “Don’t worry…and don’t be afraid, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the treasures of God’s kingdom. And where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

We’ve talked about these good gifts that God gives to God’s people now for quite a few weeks. And today Jesus says that God delights in giving God’s people those good things, namely the treasures of God’s kingdom. And it’s interesting that Jesus is talking about the treasures of God’s kingdom, instead of saying that God will give you the treasures of your heart. But like we talked about with the Lord’s Prayer, like we talked about last week with storing up wealth and riches for yourself without a thought toward those in need, God is intent on bringing about God’s dominion, God’s kingdom, God’s reign of peace and love and justice and equity—not what our heart desires, but what God’s heart desires. Your dominion come, God, your will be done.

Because when we confuse God with a divine vending machine, we think that God will give us whatever we want or ask for, but God promises to give us the gifts of God’s kingdom, which isn’t necessarily our own heart’s desire. But…Jesus says…”Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” If God gives us the treasures of God’s kingdom, if we receive those gifts as treasures, our hearts will long after those treasures of God’s kingdom as well.

What are your values, church? What are those causes and ideas and people that your heart longs after? Are they the same things that God’s heart longs for? I wonder, how have your values changed over the years, over the past 2 and a half years of a pandemic, and as you’ve gotten older…?

We’re in a season of clarifying values here at New Hope, as well.

We value worship.

We value thoughtful, engaging, inspiring worship. We value worship that draws you closer to God and propels you to be close in proximity to your neighbor. We value making a joyful noise; whether it’s your lovely voices joined together in song, our extraordinary organ and musicians, our outstanding choir, and even the shrieks and laughter of our young people, the Psalmist tells us to make a joyful noise to praise God, and so we do.

It also means that we need you to do it. The fullness of our expression as a worshiping community that praises God depends on you and on your presence. It’s been a real gift of the pandemic that we can now worship wherever we are, that new people to our worshiping community can join us from across the United States, and that you can join us when you’re away from this place. It’s why I have you wave hi to our friends every single Sunday, because they, too, are part of this community. But we do recognize that it’s a mediated part. I hope that livestreaming doesn’t become a substitute for joining worship physically in-person. Because when you are here, present, and physically in this space, we are more reflective of the fullness and the beauty of our worshiping community. I long to see our friends who join us every week on our livestream, at such time as they are able to be here.

We value consequential faith.

We value asking questions, exploring together, in dialogue, in conversation. We believe that faith doesn’t stop developing at Confirmation. We believe that we are, all of us, on a lifelong journey of growing and being challenged and being changed in our faith. It’s why we try and offer so many options to grow and ask questions. From bible studies to book studies to Sunday School classes to retreats…just as important as worship, is a regular practice of growing in your faith. As we get ready to start a new program year, I deeply hope that you will find an education class on Sunday morning, that you would bring your kids and grandkids regularly, and that you would invite someone to join you. Pastor Janelle is doing a truly wonderful job at pulling everything together, but similar to worship, your presence is needed. Not just to attend, but to volunteer, to teach, to lend your voice, and to help shepherd and lead our young ones. We will give you everything you need, but if you feel called to help our youngest members grow in their faith, would you reach out to me or Pastor Janelle and let us know? We could really really use your help this year.

We value inclusivity.

We value the beautiful spectrum of all of God’s children, and we want to be clear that all are created in God’s image. We recognize that some of us is not all of us, and when there are some who don’t feel welcome at God’s house and around God’s table, this community is, once again, less reflective of the fullness and the beauty of God’s creation and the magnificent diversity with which God has blessed us. Over the coming weeks and months, you’re going to be hearing more about how we’ll begin having this conversation about welcome and hospitality and inclusion, and how we hope New Hope comes to be known as a place that is clear and explicit about it’s welcome, hospitality, and inclusion.

We value service.

We value showing love, compassion, and kindness to our neighbors, to those we don’t know, and to those who aren’t here yet. We know that sometimes we, too, have needed a hand up, and we strive to look for opportunities to be those hands for others. We value being the hands, feet, and heart of Christ in our community, in our neighborhood, in our city, and in our world.

The common theme throughout all of these, church, is you.

We cannot grow into the fullness of any of our values without you. We need your presence. We need your commitment.Yes, if we want to fund these things, we need your offerings…

But we need you.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You’re going to be hearing from our Council over the next couple of weeks, and things aren’t super-great financially, and not as good as we’d hoped over the first half of this year. We’re trying to do as much as we can, but if you could make an extra gift or give a little bit more, it’d certainly go a long way to help us out. I do have faith that we can make it through these times, but like I’ve said lots of times this morning, we need you, we need all of us, to do it.

It’s during these times, I find that one of things I’m valuing more and more is connection. I value reconnecting with people. I value seeing people and spending time with them.

So whether it’s the Sugar Land Space Cowboys game coming up, that we hope you’ll wear your new New Hope shirts to, or our “God’s work. Our hands.” service Sunday coming up in about a month, or any of the Faith Formation and bible studies and Sunday School classes that are coming up…I deeply hope I’ll see you there.

I value trying to live into this new thing God is doing here at New Hope.

It’s been a long 2 and half years of a pandemic. And we’ve tried as best we can to keep things moving through this in-between time as we figure out how to live well together in the midst of all this strangeness, but it’s been hard. And so I’m asking.

Will you be here? Will you commit?

Will you show up and trust God to do what God does…to move mightily among us, to do so much more than we could ever ask or possibly imagine, to multiply our gifts and resources and energies, to make them so much more than they could ever be on their own…will you hold that faith with me, church?

Jesus urges the disciples and the crowd gathered to be watchful and alert.

Be on your guard, for you don’t know when the bridegroom is coming to the door.

Pay attention, church…attentive to the new thing God is doing here at New Hope.

I am excited.

I’m thrilled to see the ways God will move in this place.

As we come together in faith, as we learn from each other, and as we live into our values.

I’m thrilled to see the ways God will move through you.

Luke 12:13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Rabbi, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But Jesus replied, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And Jesus said to the crowd, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then Jesus told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And the landowner thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my self, Self, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to the landowner, ‘Fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Loving and generous God,

With so much to worry about these days,

So much that demands our attention,

So much that dials up our anxieties,

You keep calling us and turning us toward our neighbor.

Call us and turn us again this morning.

Keep reorienting us toward those in need

And toward you.

Amen.

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There’s a game that gets played between Tiffany and I and our families. Whether it’s my parents or my in-laws, every time we go out to dinner or for a meal, there’s a gamesmanship and jockeying that happens for who’s going to get the check. It’s a lighthearted game, but there are some meals where the winner has had to get pretty creative in how they will get their card to the waiter. There was once when my father-in-law gave his card to the waitress before they even seated us for the meal.

All in good fun.

Generosity is a learned habit, and it’s usually learned by seeing it and experiencing it from others. I never saw my parents decline an opportunity to be abundant with their generosity toward others. I noticed that, I picked up on it, and it’s a habit I strive to keep to in my own life. Even knowing now what I didn’t know then, which is that there were certainly some lean times…we weren’t rich, by any stretch, but my sister and I always had everything we needed and so much more. What I know now, and what you certainly know, church, is that there are lean times, but generosity isn’t just limited to picking up the check when you go out to eat.

We can become preoccupied with materiality during those times. Obsessively checking our bank accounts or our wallets. Constantly refreshing your retirement account. It’s like the doomscrolling you’ve heard me mention before about social media, but with money. It gives you anxiety. And it’s needless. And look, I get it, I can fall victim to that same trap. Preoccupied with worry, preoccupied with what we don’t have…and I’m called to help lead and shepherd this small non-profit, so I’ve got two bank accounts to worry and fret over! Double the anxiety! Double the fun!

But it’s this worry and this preoccupation that Jesus is addressing this morning.

After a word of caution against greed, Jesus launches into a parable about an extremely wealthy landowner who has a great year. A few notes of context: landowners in the 1st century, unlike the farmers many of you are thinking about, many of which may be your relatives, landowners did not necessarily do their own work. Landowners, obviously, owned the land, and paid others, hired servants, to do the work on their land for them. It wasn’t an inherently oppressive system, workers were paid, but as with all things, and as all of you are well aware, in economic systems, if you’re making money, you’ve gotta make your money somehow. Landowners paid hired servants to do the work, but if they were turning a profit, it’s because the proceeds of the sale of their crops brought in more money than they were paying out in wages and spending on equipment. Economics 101. Revenue vs. expense.

It’s also important to note that Hebrew law, Torah, expressly forbid charging interest on loans, making vast amounts of money at the expense of others, and hoarding and keeping for yourself without a thought toward those on the margins of society—the poor, the outcast, the downtrodden, the stranger, the immigrant, the sojourner, and the vulnerable. Torah commanded that you leave the edges of your field, about 10% of your crops, unharvested for those folks to glean from. This was apart from the 10% that you were to dedicate to God, right? That was your tithe, your first fruits, the first 10% of your harvest that was to be given to God, offered at the temple. So you were left with about 80% of what your produced.

The landowner in Jesus’ parable doesn’t do this. He has a great year. So great, that he has more produce than he has space to store it. “I’ll pull down my barns, level them to the ground, and build bigger ones, with enough room to store it all. And I’ll say to myself, ‘Self, you’ve done well. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.’” 

1. My. Myself. Self. I. Me.

Without a passing thought to those who actually did the work in the fields. Without a passing thought to those with whom he’s commanded to share his abundance.

Then all of sudden, God shows up, calls it curtains for the landowner, and now whose stuff does it become? Who gets to enjoy the proceeds of this abundant harvest? The workers? The laborers? The poor, the strangers, the immigrants, and the outcast?

The author of Luke spends more time talking about wealth and money than any other gospel writer, and Luke certainly has some harsh words for the wealthy in their society, but Luke’s harshest criticisms are for those who make and enjoy their wealth at the expense of others, who make their money through the systemic oppression and subjugation of others. Jesus’ condemnation here isn’t that the landowner had a great year of abundance, but that his plan for storing this abundance gave no thought to others. No thought to his workers, no thought to the downtrodden and those in need, no thought to anyone who wasn’t himself.

It’s the same thing we’ve been talking about this whole month. It’s the lawyer’s question to Jesus from a few weeks ago: “Who is my neighbor?” How will I utilize the opportunities given to me to show compassion, hospitality, mercy, and love toward my neighbor, toward those in need, toward those who I don’t know very well at all but who are still in need of a hand-up just the same?

Church, it’s the question at the heart of baptism, at the heart of who we are called to be as followers and disciples of Christ. If God has been so abundantly and extravagantly generous in faithfulness, love, compassion, and goodness with you—those incredibly good gifts like we talked about last week—if God has been so faithful and loving toward you, how much more are you, as baptized Christians and disciples of Jesus, called to be abundantly and extravagantly generous with others, with your neighbor, with strangers, with your community, and with the world?

This is the call placed on Colson’s life this morning. It’s the call placed on you and on your life through your baptism, church. It is who we are called to be as baptized members of the household of God and as followers of Christ and disciples of Jesus.

In the Psalm we read this morning, the Psalmist recounts God’s faithfulness throughout history. From creation, to the deliverance from Egypt, and the Israelites’ sojourn in the desert…throughout all of time, God remains faithful. “Her faithful love is everlasting.” The very character of God is faithful and loving. God remains faithful in her love toward her people. God has been faithful in love toward her people before, and we can trust that she will act faithfully and lovingly toward God’s people again, toward us, in our present, and in our future.

This is God’s great promise made to us through baptism, that nothing in all of creation can separate us from the love of God. Whatever we do, however far we wander, however much we mess up, God remains faithful and loving toward us. And if this is God’s posture toward us, how much more, then, is it a model for us in our posture toward God and toward one another? Since God has been so faithful and loving toward us, part of our baptismal calling is to be vessels of that same faithful love toward our neighbors.

The wealthy landowner was preoccupied with himself. I. My. Myself. Self. I. Me.

When we are consumed by our self, and our stuff, and our things, we are incapable of turning our focus outward. This is Luther’s definition of sin, interestingly, that we are incurvatus in se—to be “turned in on one’s self”—to be so focused on me and my and my self that we are incapable of seeing and responding to our neighbor in need.

The liberating good news of the Gospel is that God’s love and faithfulness unbends our backs. God loves us back to upright, and calls us not only to see our neighbor and those in need, but to extend hands and hearts of help, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and love to the world.

If God has been so abundantly and extravagantly generous with you, dear people, how much more are you called to be generous with others?

Generosity begets generosity.

Not a preoccupation with your self.

Not a preoccupation with what you have or don’t have.

Not a preoccupation with having enough space.

But a preoccupation with your neighbor.

And making sure your neighbor has enough.

Luke 11:1-13

1 Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of the disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say: 

 Father, Mother, Parent, hallowed be your name.

  Let your dominion come.

  3 Give us each day our daily bread.

  4 And forgive us our sins,

   for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.

  And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

 5 And Jesus said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to that friend at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set out.’ 7 And your friend answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though the friend will not get up and provide anything because of the friendship, at least because of the neighbor’s persistence the friend will get up and provide whatever is needed.

 9 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will God, the heavenly Parent, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask!”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy One,

Teach us to pray.

Give us words when we feel lacking.

Give us energy to serve and devote to others.

Give us melodies to sing our prayers to you.

May our very lives be prayer and praise.

Amen.

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I’ve long been jealous of folks who can just rattle off eloquent and thoughtful prayers at the drop of a hat. That’s not me.

One Thanksgiving a few years ago, we were celebrating with Tiffany’s family and I got asked to pray before the meal, because when you’re in seminary, and later when you’re a pastor, you generally get asked to pray at things…unless we’re with Tiffany’s grandmother, who was a Pentecostal pastor way back when…when Gigi’s around, Gigi prays… Anyway, I have a bad habit of fidgeting and shuffling my feet when I get nervous, so I started in on this prayer, thanking God for the abundance of blessing of family and food and gathering together, and I took a step backward right into the dogs’ water bowl…which really threw me off and so then I just kind of had to wrap it up at that point.

These days I tend to plot out a prayer in my head if I think there’s a chance I’ll get asked to pray at something. Just in case. It really helps the nerves.

I also take note of any rogue water bowls in the immediate area.

I have a theory that most folks’ aversion to prayer isn’t so much about praying as it is about public speaking, but there’s also a little bit of crossover with public speaking about something as close to us and personal as our faith. There’s a sense of anxiety and nerves and not wanting to “mess it up” when we think about praying with or in front of others. We may feel like we want a little bit of training first, or some pointers. Like the disciples, we ask God, “Teach us to pray.”

What an honest urging…”Teach us to pray…”

When I was doing my chaplaincy internship, one of my learning goals was to learn how to pray better. I wanted to have something meaningful and comforting to say to folks and patients in their hospital rooms and at these most important times in their lives.

Lord, teach us to pray.

Last week, we talked about the need for balance between the hustle and bustle and doing of Martha and the attentive listening of Mary…and how part of that attentive listening is done through prayer and conversation with God. And so if we’re going to pray, how, then, should we pray?

Jesus lays out the very familiar Lord’s Prayer…not the one we’re most used to that comes to us from the gospel of Matthew, but a fairly similar one here in the gospel of Luke.

First of all, Jesus says, begin by blessing God. “Heavenly Parent, bless you, holy is your name.”

The prayer begins by defining the relationship between God and the one praying, the relationship of a parent to a child. It’s a relationship of respect, but one that also names a kind of dependency. We are dependent on God for the things that we need. We need God to provide for us. It’s a vulnerable posture, especially for those of us who are used to acting and believing that we do everything ourselves, bootstraps and all.

“Your kingdom come.”

We ask that God’s kingdom, the reign and the dominion of God, the fullness of God’s vision for our world…would be made manifest in our present time and place. A recognition that the fullness of God’s vision has yet to be realized among us, so we entreat God to make it so, and to make us agents in bringing that about. It kind of flies in the face of this idea that the kingdom of God is some far-off reality only to be wished for and only to be glimpsed and realized when we die. Asking the reign of God to be made known in our present is an affirmation of what Jesus will say in Luke chapter 17, “The kingdom of God is within you.” It’s among you. It’s here, and now, and is a promised future that is ready to be lived into in this present time and place. It’s one of my favorite verses in the Bible and I never get to preach on it because it never comes up in the lectionary…”The kingdom of God is within you.” A powerful statement that I think shifts our focus from some far-off, imagined, hoped-for time and redirects our attention and focus to the here and now and those in need in our midst.

Sometimes prayer looks like action, doing what we can with what we have to make God’s dream a reality here, by serving those most in need. It’s what we did this week with Family Promise and what we talked about just a bit ago with our New Hope 101 session about how so much of the ethos and DNA of New Hope is a focus on Service and Mission, and particularly serving the most vulnerable of our neighbors. We talked about how our hope is that every single person at New Hope finds at least one internal ministry and one external ministry to give your time and energy to. Sometimes prayer is action through service.

“Give us each day that which is needful for life.”

Martin Luther, in the Small Catechism, says that daily bread is everything we need to live—food, housing, shelter, family, relationships—everything that is necessary for a full and abundant life. Again, naming that we are reliant on God for the things we need. A recognition that everything we do have comes to us from God. God is the one who provides.

Then Jesus launches into this story about a persistent neighbor and uses it to illustrate those who are persistent in prayer. And while I would certainly advocate for our need to pray more and pray persistently, I do think we misunderstand or mischaracterize the imperatives to “ask, seek, and knock.”

A neighbor shows up to your door in the middle of the night, asking for a few loaves of bread to feed their guest who has just arrived. Church, I don’t like getting out of bed to take my toddler back to his room, much less to answer the door for someone who needs to borrow bread. Come back tomorrow. I’m already in bed. The kitchen’s closed. I really identify with the posture of the neighbor behind locked doors.

And isn’t that where a lot of us might prefer to stay anyway, right? I’m in bed, my children are with me, we’re asleep, don’t bother us, we’re safe here… There’s so much that’s so scary in the world right now…behind locked doors, with my family, safe…truthfully, that’s where I’d prefer to be. Sometimes prayer is a deep sigh at all the scary things in the world, because sometimes all we can do is sigh and trust that God knows what we mean. Especially in a world where it seems as if we are so good at giving our children evil gifts rather than good gifts, as Jesus talks about later in today’s reading. We who are evil might know how to give our kids good gifts, but these days, we certainly do seem to be handing out snakes and scorpions to our young ones, rather than fish and eggs. Bulletproof backpacks, active shooter drills, a world where civil liberties seem to be regressing…these don’t feel like good gifts… No, I think I’d like to stay here behind my locked doors with my family. At least here I feel like we’re safe.

Can you relate?

“But then, because of the neighbor’s persistence, their neighbor will relent and give them what they need.”

God is persistent in loving you, church, and in lavishing you extravagantly with good things. How much more are we called to persistent in love and generosity and abundantly lavishing good things on our neighbors, on our young people, and on those who haven’t been given a fair shake in this world?

I think we tend to interpret Jesus’ imperatives to “ask, seek, and knock” as an indication that if we just pray more, if we just ask God more persistently for what we want, then God will relent and give us what we’re asking for. But friends, that reduces God to a vending machine…doling out the things you ask for if you just put in enough quarters or ask nicely enough. And church, we know that’s not how these things work. You’ve prayed for things often enough that haven’t come to be, that you know that’s not how prayer works. Church, it’s not how God works…

Countless theologians from Kierkegaard to Luther to the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Reverend William Barber III to even Pope Francis have all said some version of this about prayer—prayer is not a way to bend God’s will to conform to your own…rather, prayer reorients us and opens us up to having our will shaped and molded to conform to God’s.

Notice the shape and direction of the Lord’s Prayer, and particularly note the reason for the neighbor’s persistence. The neighbor is asking on behalf of a guest who has visited them, they are asking so that they may show the hospitality required of them to their guest. The Lord’s Prayer asks God to forgive us, as we have forgiven those indebted to us. In both cases, the direction is outward. Prayer beseeches and asks God on behalf of others, prayer is focused and located outside of ourselves. Not what I want…but what you want, God…make me to be that which my neighbor needs, use me to care for my neighbor, to provide what they need, to lavish them with good things as you have have given those things to me.

In that way, prayer’s really quite simple, church.

God, thank you.

Help me to be for others what they need.

Use me to help make our world just a bit more reflective of your dream and vision for us.

And if all that still feels like too much, the Psalmist today reminds us that our worship and praise is prayer, too. Let the liturgy today be your prayer. Let this community’s prayers be your prayer. Let these hymns be your prayer. Our Sending Hymn today is an exceptional prayer based off a prayer of St. Patrick. “God, be the love between us. Christ, surround me.” Let this singing be your prayer.

There are so many ways to pray.

Try it, church.

I can tell you prayer is one of those things that really does get easier with practice.

Luke 18:38-42

38 Now as Jesus and his disciples went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But Jesus answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of our moving and our being,

There are seasons of our lives when

We are called to more active doing and and busy-ness.

And there are seasons of our lives when

You call us to slow down, listen, and reflect.

Help us to discern these seasons in our lives.

Give us wisdom and boldness to join you

In the movement in which you are already active in our world.

Amen.

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Summer’s a good time for vacation.

I’m not exactly sure why or how we’ve collectively arrived at this conclusion, but it does seem as if we’ve all just kind of decided that summer is when we’ll take the majority of our vacations. Although if I knew who to write my letter to, I’d petition for vacation season to be shifted to my personal favorite season of autumn, but I’m not sure it’d get much traction with the school administrators or even here around the church with our own program year calendars. Oh well…

Many of you have taken vacations recently. Some of you, newly retired, with all your new-found freedom, “Every season is vacation season!” Good for you.

You know I just recently took my own time away, and this was really the first time that I took some time off in this way before, with such a big chunk all at once. And honestly, I’m not sure I’ll go back to 5- and 7-day stretches ever again. Because I found that it usually takes me about 3-4 days to really unplug my brain and get into time-off mode. And so if I’m only taking a week at a time, I’ve got to start ramping up just as soon as I’ve ramped down. But this time was different. This time, I was really able to refresh and rejuvenate, and it was really good. So thank you, church, again, for the time.

But the flipside and tradeoff of this is that it’s taken me a little bit longer than usual to get back into the flow of things. I’ve been back for like, 2 weeks now, and I’m really only just now starting to get my feet back under me.

Good and needful refreshment……little bit longer to ramp back up…

In so many ways my body was…(is…?)…still inhabiting the restful rejuvenation of Mary, and my brain was…(is…?)…racing trying to pull and force my body to get back to the doing and the work of Martha.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve kind of methodically been making our way through chapters 9 and 10 of Luke. Next week, we’ll just briefly touch chapter 11 and then begin making our way through chapter 12 the week after. But what’s important to remember and recognize is, recall a few weeks ago when Jesus said “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of humanity has no place to lay his head.” And remember just before that how the reading began “When the time drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Jesus is on a collision course with the cross. Nothing can deter or detract from this mission. Not an unwelcoming Samaritan village, not burying dead family members or long goodbyes, not people and towns who will not receive the message of the disciples, not upstanding religious folk who fail to see their neighbor in need right in front of their face…not even the generous hospitality of one of Jesus’ closest companions, Martha, can be allowed to push Jesus off-course. In corporate jargon, they call this scope-creep or mission-creep.

Nothing can be allowed to deter or detract from the mission. Jesus is on his way, and the cross and the crucifixion is the only thing that matters.

Many things might be good and necessary in this moment, only one thing is needful, only one thing is essential.

The essential thing is Jesus’ journey to the cross.

The essential thing is for Jesus to teach, and for the disciples to learn and soak up as much of this Jesus knowledge as they can while Jesus is on this mission.

“You are worried and distracted by many things.” Well, geez Jesus…rude…just tag me in your social media post next time… Church, these are Jesus’ words to Martha, but how many of us are worried and distracted by many things? In a world of the constant and endless news cycle, over the past 2 years when many of us occupied our quarantine time with doomscrolling, we are inundated with the next breaking story, the next mass hysteria, the next tragic injustice, the latest loss of civil liberties, the latest officer-involved shooting, the most recent war halfway around the world…to say nothing of the very real cares and concerns of your own household, your partner, your spouse, your kids and grandkids…there is no shortage of things that demand our attention.

Jesus says, “Just for a moment…sit…and be still…and listen.”

Set down your phone. Turn off the notifications. Shut your computer. Put your day planner away.

Just sit. And be. And listen. And soak in. And learn.

When we are attentive to what Jesus is saying, we just might hear the most important words Jesus will ever tell us, which is that you, dear child, are loved beyond measure. You are precious, you are worthy, you are valuable, you are valued, you are extraordinary, and you are enough.

And you are called to share that beautiful and wonderful message with a world that is desperate to hear just a bit of good news. You are called to share that beautiful and wonderful word of love with your neighbor who is certainly longing deep within their heart of hearts to hear just that about themselves.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t work to be done, or that there won’t be work to be done. Lord, we know that’s true. But it does mean that we shouldn’t endeavor to take on the work without first pausing and listening and reflecting on just what God and Jesus and the Spirit might be calling us to.

I’m so excited for this current season at New Hope. As we continue to make our way out of the worst parts of this pandemic, I feel like we really have an opportunity to lay everything out on the table, listen intently for God and the Spirit, discern together, and to respond faithfully to what we’re hearing. Our Capital Campaign has been on a tear recently. The interior of our Community Center is effectively finished. We’ve got a new gym floor, updated rooms and classrooms, new doors, new paint…and starting this week, we’ll be hosting the Family Promise families in there for dinner. I really encourage you to stop by and spend some time with these extraordinary families this week if you can. Let them know this church prays for them and is deeply invested in their success in the Family Promise program to move them from housing insecurity to more stable footing.

Just today we started a series of conversations with new members and visitors and long-time members, and we’ll be welcoming new members in a couple of months, which is something we haven’t really done since the start of the pandemic.

In just a short couple of months we’ll start a new program year and everything that comes along with that. New Faith Formation classes, getting back into Christian education and Sunday School, small groups and bible studies kicking back up… We’ve got new bible studies starting, a new book study especially for parents coming up in August, some fellowship opportunities, ways for you to reconnect with this community of faith and with one another…which is something I think we’re all recognizing is super-important in our lives right now. Also coming up soon, I’m so so so excited that we’re going to be starting an intentional conversation about Welcoming, Hospitality, and Inclusion.

And y’all…can I just say…have you seen the Nursery yet?

Holy cow…there’s so much room for activities! Seriously, if you haven’t already, please go check it out. And Pastor Janelle… Y’all…Pastor Janelle… Not only did she cover for me while I was away…not only did she take on the sprucing up of the Prayer Garden and getting new benches and new flowers and plants out there…not only is she doing all the regular ministry things as our Pastor of Faith Formation…she’s also getting our Faith Formation classrooms set up in the Community Center, as well as the supply closet (which is a monstrous undertaking)…but she’s also taking the lead on this Nursery project and trying to get our brand new Nursery outfitted with all the things it needs to be a wonderful ministry here. Will you just join me in thanking her for her incredible dedication and so much hard work…? Y’all…seriously…

And…we are trying to get some more things for our new Nursery, so check out our Amazon wish list in our Anchor newsletter, and if you can’t get one of the big ticket items, will you make an extra monetary gift with your offering and just designate it to the Nursery project and we’ll make sure it gets to where it needs to go. We could really really use your help.

Church, I’m so excited for this next season of life and ministry here at New Hope. You are not going to want to miss what’s coming up.

It feels like a big season of doing, but I think there’s just as much intentionality and thoughtful reflection infused throughout. We are listening in this moment. And praying. And having conversation.

Many things might be necessary in this moment—many things feel and are important—and…the first needful and essential thing is to first listen to Jesus. To pray, to invite the Holy Spirit, and then to listen, and to pay attention.

It’s an exciting season, church.

I invite you to rest and renew and listen and pray with us.

And I invite you join in the doing and the work where your gifts can be best used.

It takes all of us…Marthas and Marys alike.

Thank God it takes all of us.

Luke 10:25-37

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “what must I do to possess an abundant life?” 26 Jesus said to the lawyer, “What is written in Torah? What do you read there?”

27 The lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And Jesus said to him, “You have answered rightly; do this, and you will have life.”

 29 But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when the priest saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw the man, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while traveling came near the man; and when the Samaritan saw him, he was moved with compassion. 34 The Samaritan went to the man and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then the Samaritan put the man on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of this man; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37 The lawyer said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God who is our salvation,

We call out to you in our distress and you find us.

You seek us out and pull us out of our despair and hurt.

Make us bold and courageous to extend those same hands

Of compassion and care to those who are in need.

Help us to be neighbors, and make us mindful

Of the help and saving being offered to us from others.

Amen.

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It’s been way too hot recently to do much of this, but up until a few weeks ago, one of our favorite things to do in the afternoon was to go to the park. We still like to go to the park, we just have to get it out of the way early in the day. And recently, Oliver’s been wondering aloud a new question, “Dad, these are our neighbors? This is our neighborhood?”

“Yep, this is our neighborhood and these are our neighbors.”

Last month when we were at my parents house for a few days, we were walking to the park by their house, and then came not a question but an exclamation, “Wow! Grammie and Gramps have lots of neighbors!”

“Yep. Grammie and Gramps have lots of neighbors.”

Who’s your neighbor, church?

Do you have lots of neighbors? Or just a few neighbors?

I’ve recently started trying to get to know our neighbors better. Now, I’m an extrovert, so in some ways, the conversations come pretty naturally for me. But with all the craziness in our world right now, I’m kind of doubling-down on this idea that one of the ways to overcome the division and hatred and violence in our world is to just get to know our neighbors more. And I figured I should just, like, practice what I preach.

Having good relationships with your neighbors can go a long way, too, especially in times of distress or need. Maybe you’ll recall a few years ago during Hurricane Harvey, I bet you were checking in on your neighbors, making sure they had what they needed. Maybe they did the same for you. Or during the February freeze last year.

Having and being a good neighbor is invaluable.

So do you have lots of neighbors, church? Or just a few?

A different question—who’s not your neighbor?

A lawyer gets up to test Jesus—more like a scholar in Jewish law, in Torah, less of a lawyer in the legal sense that we think about—this person knows their Scripture, and the lawyer isn’t really asking for clarification, this is an adversarial encounter. The Torah scholar wants to know who Jesus is, where Jesus stands…”Which school do you belong to? How do you, Jesus, interpret Torah?”

“Rabbi, what must I do to obtain a full life?” So notice, this is not a question about a life that never ends, the idea of a never ending life is not a Jewish idea…it’s not really a Christian idea either, at least in the biblical sense, but that’s for another time…this is about a quality of life, a fullness of life now, in the present. “How can I enjoy a richness and a fullness of life now?”

“Well, what’s written in Torah? How do you read what’s written there?” Jesus replies.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” The first part from Deuteronomy, the second part from Leviticus.

“Great,” says Jesus, “go and do that.”

“Yes, but who is my neighbor?” comes the reply. I told you…this is adversarial.

So Jesus answers these antagonistic questions with a story. Classic Jesus…

Jesus tells a story about a person, likely Hebrew, traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, who is attacked and left for dead. And all the people who you would think would stop and help pass on by. The nice, upstanding religious folks keep to themselves and pretend not to notice their neighbor in need. But the Samaritan is the one who stops to render aid. And not only does the Samaritan stop and literally and figuratively stop the bleeding, but the Samaritan takes care of this person’s immediate needs, loads them up on the Samaritan’s own transportation, takes them to the next town and shells out 2 denarii, enough to prepay this person’s lodging for 2 months, and also prepays their medical bills. This is absurdly extravagant generosity.

But most striking, and certainly most controversial, wasn’t the generosity of the Samaritan…it was the fact that in Jesus’ story, it was the Samaritan who did these things. For those who remember such things, or those playing along at home, recall from the gospel of John, that Jewish people do not share things in common with Samaritans. In fact, they were enemies. More like mortal enemies. Hebrew people and Samaritans hated each other. They were culturally, ethnically, racially, religiously, socially…every possible dividing line you could think of, they were on opposite sides of that spectrum. Hebrew people and Samaritans hated each other. And so the fact that it was the Samaritan who stopped and who did these things, the fact that it was the Samaritan who was the hero in Jesus’ story is shocking and scandalous of the highest order. Those who were hearing this story were incensed that it was their enemy who was the hero of Jesus’ story.

Who’s not your neighbor, church?

Like so many of Jesus’ teachings, this one, too, is scandalous. It’s the Hebrew, the Jewish person, who is attacked and robbed and left for dead. It’s the good upstanding religious folks who pass by their sibling in need. It’s the enemy of one who was attacked that stops to give aid. And similar to so many of Jesus’ teachings, the Samaritans are the oppressed group in this power dynamic. Jesus is always lifting up the sacred worth of oppressed peoples. Samaritans were impoverished compared the wealthy city folks in Jerusalem. Samaritans had been oppressed for many years, by the Hebrews and by Rome. The hero in Jesus’ story is the unlikely one, the oppressed one, the one from the margins.

So often, church, we’ve heard this story of the compassionate Samaritan and imagined ourselves as the one who stops to help. Monica Perin forwarded an article to me last week from a couple of years ago that said that the Christian church in the United States suffers from a bad case of “Disney princess theology.” We have a bad habit of placing ourselves in the place of the oppressed groups. We love to imagine that we’re the ones swooping in to help. We’re the saviors. We’re always the heroes and sheroes and they-roes in the stories. “Well, that’s what good Christians do, they stop to help out.” Yes, truly, but in Jesus’ story that’s not how it went. Church, in the power dynamic, we western Christians who live in the United States are the powerful ones. We’re the ones with the wealth and power worth being robbed of. We’re the ones in the ditch, figuratively and literally. We’re the ones in need of saving. Like, most of all, from ourselves. At best, we’re the upstanding religious folks passing by on the other side.

Can you see, church…within someone you despise…the capacity to save your life?

Can you see your enemy as having the capability and capacity of saving you?

Would you let your enemy save you?

Interestingly, in Hebrew the words for “neighbor” and “enemy” aren’t that different. Leviticus 19:18 is where we first see written that ubiquitous teaching, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Every major world religion has a version of this teaching in their sacred texts, by the way. Amy Jill-Levine, professor at Vanderbilt Divinity, notes that the Hebrew word translated as “neighbor” in Leviticus 19:18 is re’a (“one who dwells nearby”). And it uses the same consonants as the Hebrew word for “enemy”—ish’ra. And in the original texts, as some of you know, the vowels are not present. So is the command to love your neighbor as yourself? Or is it to love your enemy as yourself?

Who’s not your neighbor, church?

In other words, as Amy Jill-Levine says, “When Jesus asks the lawyer, ‘What do you read there (in Torah)?’ Jesus is asking, ‘Are you able to see, in Torah’s words, the command to love both neighbor and those you would see as enemies?”

Can you imagine your enemy, someone you despise, as possessing the capability and the capacity of saving you? Maybe not your enemy, but what about that person that you really just can’t stand? What about the person who just does something to you that you can’t explain, but they make you feel like a not great version of yourself? Can you imagine them as being the one to save you?

It’s a difficult teaching, and a convicting one. Certainly for me.

I don’t know if I want to be able to see my enemy or the person who annoys me or someone who I really dislike as the source of my saving. A lot of times I prefer having someone or something I dislike or despise, because at least then, I have someone else outside myself to blame when things don’t go the way i want. We love a good bad guy. Because then we have someone we can project all kinds of wrongs upon.

But do you have the capacity to love that person? Can you imagine that person saving you?

Psalm 116 this morning reminds us that our saving comes from outside ourselves.

We do not save ourselves. Contrary to everything you’ve ever been taught.

We are a people in need of saving. And dear church, you do not…and you can not…save yourself.

It is God who saves.

The one who has inclined her ear to your cries for help. The one who is life. The one who loves deeply. The one who is faithful. The one who delivers you from death.

And so very often our saving comes from God through the gracious, loving, compassion, and kindness of our neighbors. Those you know well. And those you don’t know well yet. Those you might even consider to be enemies.

Keep your eyes open, church.

You never know when someone might be saving you.

Even someone you least expect.

And keep your eyes open for opportunities to offer that same kindness and compassion to someone else.

We could all use some more neighbors.

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 Jesus said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers for the harvesting. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The reign of God has come near.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the reign of God has come near.’ 16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

 17 The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the evil spirits submit to us!”

18 Jesus said to them, “I watched the Accuser fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19 See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

God of peace,

In the midst of a world that feels like a lot recently,

You call us and send us out into the harvest.

Give us courage as we go,

And a willingness and boldness to share our story.

A story of wonderful love, incredible grace, and fervent hope.

A story about you.

Amen.

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Whenever we leave for any kind of trip, whether a long extended vacation like I just got back from or even just a weekend away, I always go through the same ritual. I’m usually the last one out the door because I’m always late; and our cat, Piper is usually in her tower by the fireplace watching everyone rush out the door and looking at us with judging eyes, as cats do; and I always walk by her scratch her head and say, “No parties. Or at least if you do, just clean up after yourself.”

And it always works. We always come home to a house just as we left it, maybe a hairball or two or a pile of vomit, just to let us know who’s actually the boss. But in 11 years, I haven’t had to clean up a single red solo cup or a game of kitty beer pong left set up on the kitchen counter.

Things tend to be just as we left them.

I am very glad to say that things are mostly just as left them here, too, church. Truly, such is the mark of an incredibly capable and gifted Staff. And my thanks to Pastor Janelle for covering for me, to Danny, Jessica, Jeffery last week and Hsiao-Lan this week, Wanda, and Aimee, as well as our Council and everyone who helps out with worship and everything else. Thank you for the time away, it was very refreshing for me, and I am truly able to rest because I know New Hope rests in such lovingly capable hands that are not my own. So thank you, and I am grateful.

But not only are things mostly just as I left them, things are actually much much better since I’ve been away. The Community Center is almost all the way done, we have new locks on all our doors, a brand new Conference Room in the Community Center, brand new doors on the Community Center and the Sanctuary…y’all have been busy!

It all looks really really good.

Things are much better here at New Hope than when I left.

Things in our country and elsewhere…? Ehhh…… Debatable… Maybe we’ll work on that next time.

It’s been a wild few weeks…amen, church?

Lots of folks are scared. Lots of folks are despairing. Some folks are rejoicing. Some of us don’t really know what to think. Some of us are feeling a whole lot of different things.

And it’s all ok. And it’s all holy.

But if you’re feeling overwhelmed. If you’re feeling sad or hopeless or despairing…particularly if you’re feeling sad or hopeless or despairing…I want you to pay close attention real quick. Because one of the real gifts, I think, of our Lutheran understanding is that we view the Gospel—God’s good news of restoration and wholeness and liberation—as Lutherans, we say that, yes, that good news is for all people, but it is especially for those moments in our lives when we are sad or hopeless or despairing. A Lutheran understanding of the Gospel doesn’t shy away from the hurt and the pain in our world. Quite the opposite, Lutherans acknowledge that hurt and pain and say that God is most especially made known in those moments. Lutherans say those are pretty well universally felt, right? We all have times and seasons in our life where hurt and pain and discomfort and dis-ease and anger and hopelessness are very present and very real. This is simply part of what it means to be human in a very broken world.

But God has something to say in those moments.

God is not indifferent to the suffering of God’s people.

What I’m saying is that a very Lutheran understanding of the Gospel says that God’s good news of liberation and restoration and wholeness is most powerfully felt and experienced when we are feeling at our least, when we are feeling hopeless, when we are feeling hurt and broken and shattered.

That’s a real gift, I think.

So if that’s you today, I want you to hear me for the next couple of minutes.

Psalm 146

1 Hallelujah! Praise the Ageless One, O my soul! 

2 I will praise the Ever-living God all my life; 

I will sing praises to my God throughout my living 

3 Put not your trust in the great, nor in any child of earth, 

for there is no help in them. 

4 When they breathe their last, they return to earth, 

And in that day their thoughts perish. 

5 Happy are these for whom the God of Rebekah’s line is their help, 

Whose hope is in the Creator of All, their God. 

6 Maker of heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;  

Keeping faith forever. 

7 Bringer of justice to the oppressed, 

Bringer of bread to the hungry;  

The Compassionate God sets the prisoners free. 

8 The All-Seeing God opens the eyes of the blind, 

The Just God lifts up those who are bowed down; 

The Righteous God loves the righteous. 

9 The Mother of All cares for the stranger,

Orphan and widow she bears up,

But the way of the wicked she confounds. 

10 The Majestic One shall reign forever, 

Your God, O Zion, from generation to generation. Hallelujah!

Don’t put your trust in people who claim to be great. There is no help for you in them. When they breathe their last, they return to the dust, just like everyone else, and their thoughts and their wickedness and their evil and their attempts to exert power and control all die with them. Happy are those who trust in God, the God of Rebekah, the Creator, the One who laid the foundations of the earth, the One who brings justice to the oppressed and food to those who hunger, who liberates those in captivity, who heals the sick, lifts up the lowly, cares for the immigrant, upholds the vulnerable and marginalized. She disrupts the ways of the evil and wicked ones. She shall reign forever and ever.

Amen. And Alleluia.

I’m so thrilled to be using these Psalms for the Summer, these translations from the Reverend Doctor Wil Gafney out of Brite Divinity in Fort Worth. I’m so grateful to Pastor Janelle for suggesting this and for putting these together. And I’m going to try and preach from the Psalms these next few weeks and see how it goes. It’s a bit of a new challenge for me, but one that I kind of also love because I think we have an opportunity to hear some new words in new ways, words we might not have heard before or might not have paid much attention to.

These are part of our story, too.

I’m going to steal a line from our Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, she preached at our Synod Assembly about 6 weeks ago, she said, “We have a better story.”

The world tells us one thing, the world and the powers that be, very often leave us feeling sad or hopeless or despairing, the world often tells us a story of hurt and pain and divisiveness and wickedness and evil…we have a better story.

Not that those things aren’t true, at some level…but we have a better story.

And friends, it is a story that the world needs to hear. There are those who aren’t here this morning who need to hear. There are those you know in your life and in your circles who need to hear. There are those who aren’t here yet…who need to hear.

And friends, you are the ones to tell them. You are the ones sent out. You are the seventy. You are the ones entrusted and called and equipped and sent out to tell this story.

It’s interesting that on a weekend when we remember and celebrate the independence of this country, that we hear a gospel story about co-dependence, about being sent out together, about having to rely on one another and to rely on the hospitality of others. Over and over and over again, the Christian narrative is one of reliance and dependence on God, and interdependence on your neighbor and on the stranger. There is no independence in the life of a Christian. Your life is not your own. Your life is claimed by God for God’s purposes, for the sake and for the well-being of your neighbor, the stranger, the outcast, the immigrant, the vulnerable, the have-nots, and those that the world sees as less than…the hurting, the despairing, and the broken.

These are the ones who need to hear this story, and this is the story that you are called to share, dear siblings.

And the thing I probably take the most comfort in in all of this is that these 70 didn’t have special training. They got a pep talk from Jesus, but they didn’t have a crash course in Evangelism 101 from Jesus. Jesus called them together, said, “Don’t take anything with you,” and sent them out. That’s it. No special training required. Go out and share your story. All they had was a call, instructions to share peace and show and receive hospitality, and to announce the imminence of the reign of God. That’s it.

No special training required, church. I promise you.

You already have everything you need.

Only a willingness to share your story.

To share where God has moved powerfully in your life.

A word about a time when you were hurting or despairing or broken, and someone showed you kindness.

A word about when you felt seen and found by God.

About when God didn’t leave you just like God found you.

A word about when you felt loved back to life by God.

What a story worth sharing.

Luke 24:44-53

44 [Jesus said,] “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then Jesus opened the disciples’ minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you the Spirit, that God promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

 50 Then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into the heavens. 52 And the disciples worshiped Jesus, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

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Please pray with me this morning, church:

Holy and mighty God,

Sometimes our sighs are too deep for words.

Thank you for your Spirit,

Who intercedes on our behalf,

When we are unable to even muster a prayer.

Hold us tightly, God.

Amen.

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*sigh*……

I’m so tired, church… So tired…

Aren’t you? In the words of Viola Davis, playing Aibileen Clark in Kathryn Stockett and Tate Taylor’s seminal film The Help, “Ain’t you tired…?”

Yes… Bone tired… Down to my soul tired… Worn, weary, crushed…tired…

Aren’t you…?

The last time I brought out these candles was 4 years ago, May 20, 2018, Pentecost Sunday that year, after a 17-year-old brought a shotgun to Santa Fe High School and murdered 8 classmates and 2 teachers. And now, just over 4 years later, here we are again, with countless murders, mass shootings and otherwise, in between. Just 2 years after the murder of George Floyd. The massacre in Uvalde happening just 10 days since a horrific racially-motivated, white supremacist rampage in Buffalo took the lives of 10 others. But did you know, church, that in those intervening 10 days, in the 10 days in between Buffalo and Uvalde that 15 other mass shootings occurred in this country, according to gunviolencearchive.org…? 15…!

Ain’t you tired…?

Hell yes, I am! I ran out of candles! I ran out of places to put them! That’s obscene!

The prayers that we used at the beginning of worship come from a Prayer of Lament for Gun Violence from our newest worship resource from our denomination, the ELCA, called All Creation Sings. Hear that again…there’s a litany of prayers, in a denominational resource, the largest Lutheran denomination and one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, there’s a litany of prayers for victims of gun violence! Please let that sink in! That is obscene!

How are we ok with this?

Every single time we want to say, “This is just not who we are.” when I am very sorry to tell you, church, it very clearly is. It is exactly who we are. It may not be who we want to be, or who we hope to be, but I’m devastated to tell you that it is exactly who we are.

We have accepted it.

Because if it wasn’t who we are, if we hadn’t accepted this, we would do something to change it.

But we don’t. So we offer “thoughts and prayers” and we ask questions to the wind and to no one in particular like “How could this happen again?” and in less than a week something new will overtake our news feeds and we’ll move on just like we have for over 20 years since Columbine High School.

But there are those who can’t move on. There are those who are too close to these endless tragedies that can’t simply move past it. We must be aware that every single one of these instances leaves a devastating wake of communities, neighborhoods, schools, families, and people.

Every single one of these massacres leaves a wake of destruction.

I ran out of candles to tell you about Ms. Katherine Massey, 72, who was a civil rights activist who called for stricter gun laws in Buffalo.

I ran out of candles to tell you about Andre Mackniel, 53, who was at the grocery store picking up a birthday cake for his 3-year-old son…who wouldn’t make it home for his son’s birthday party.

I ran out of candles to tell you about Ms. Ruth Whitfield, 86, who lived in Buffalo for more than 50 years and loved to sing in her church’s choir.

To tell you about Roberta Drury, 32, who was a caretaker for her brother and was buying groceries for them.

About Eva Mireles, 44, who taught in Uvalde schools for 17 years and used her body to try and protect her students.

About Irma Garcia, 46, who taught at Robb Elementary for 23 years, co-taught with Ms. Eva for 5 years, and whose husband of 24 years, Joe, died of a severe heart attack just 2 days later. They had 4 children.

Xavier Lopez, 10, who had just found out he made the honor roll.

Amerie Jo Garcia, 10, who just celebrated her birthday and gotten a phone she wanted, and tried to use that phone to call for help.

Lexi Rubio, 10, who made the All-A Honor Roll and received a good citizen award.

Tess Marie Mata, 10, who had been saving her money for Disney World and who loved doing TikTok dances.

Babies… Educators… Mamas… Daddies… Grandparents… Hermanos… Hermanas… Primos y primas…

Ain’t you tired, church…?

Of course you are. We all are.

It’s not part of the lectionary readings for today, but they are some of the most potent words in Scripture, from the prophet Amos, chapter 5: “Thus says the Lord, I hate—I despise—your festivals. Your worship is worthless. Even though you bring me offerings, I reject them. I refuse to listen to your songs and music. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

God desires oceans of justice and raging rivers of righteousness. And the best we can do is offer thoughts and prayers?!

We can and should be sad. We can and should lament. Sorrow is holy.

But we must not remain in despair. We cannot stay in our sorrow. Because if we remain in that despairing place, we are incapacitated to do the work to which we are called. Pray and then act. This is the work to which you are called: the holy work of healing, of binding up the wounds of the broken, of repairing that which has been torn, and delivering love and mercy to those most in need of it. God desires justice. God desires righteousness. God desires so much more than thoughts and prayers.

The Sunday of the Feast of the Ascension is the time in the church that we commemorate Jesus leaving the disciples. The day always happens 40 days after Easter. And for those who are paying attention, 40 is an important number, biblically speaking. 40 days of rain and flood. 40 days in the desert being tempted by the Accuser. 40 years journeying in the desert, traveling from slavery toward freedom. 40 is a good, long time. 40 is the amount of time it takes, biblically, to arrive at the moment you throw your hands up and cry, “Enough!” 40 is the time it takes to be done.

Ain’t you tired, church…? Haven’t you had enough? Of course you are. Of course you have.

In some ways, Jesus has had enough, too. He’s spent time with the disciples, he’s taught them things again that he’d already taught them. He’s been with them, but now it is time for Jesus to go. Because if Jesus doesn’t go the book of Acts doesn’t happen. Acts is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke, written by the same person or group of people, and there’s a reason it is called the Acts of the Apostles. This is the disciples getting on with the work—with the acts—of being the church. And if Jesus doesn’t go, they, and we, might be tempted to cling tightly to what we know, stay where we think it’s safe, and not get on with the work and the acts of being the church.

Jesus is tired… But if Jesus doesn’t go, the church doesn’t spread. If Jesus doesn’t go, the work of the church can’t begin.

“You Galileans, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

Church, why do we stand looking up toward heaven? What exactly are we waiting around for? Are we waiting for someone else? Waiting for Jesus to come back triumphantly in the same way in which he was taken?

Church, I have good news and bad news… The bad news is that Jesus isn’t coming back in the same way in which he ascended. The bad news is that no one else is coming to bail us out of this mess. The bad news…is that you are the ones God has called in this time and in this place to do the work of mending this horribly broken world. The good news…is that you are the ones that God has called in this time and in this place to do the work of mending this horribly broken world.

And the good news…is that you do not do this work on your own.

God has given you the Holy Spirit. You have been clothed with power. And God has given you one another. You do not do this work on your own. But you are called to do this work.

There is no one else. You are the ones.

Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Look out. Look at your neighbor. Look at the kids across the street. Look at the people in your cul-de-sac. Look at the people in line at the grocery store with you. Look at the babies out at the restaurant with you. These are who you are called to, church.

Justice. Righteousness.

Our legislators will not save us. The people that we elected to represent us and make and pass laws to protect us and our babies have abdicated their responsibility. This is on us.

I’m so so sorry to tell you that help is not coming. But we do have what we need for this fight.

We do have the good news of God’s vision for the world, God’s hopes and dreams of a restored and whole and well earth. You have been given the Holy Spirit. You have been clothed with power.

And we have each other.

Of course you’re tired. I am, too.

Rest when you need to rest.

But do not stay at rest.

This fight is a holy and righteous one and the forces that would seek to deny life to God’s people can not stand against you when we stand shoulder to shoulder.

You have been blessed. You have been called.

You have been strengthened and nourished.

You have been blessed.

You have been anointed for this fight.

And you will prevail.

You will be victorious.

We must win. We must.

And we will.

We will because our kids are begging us to.

We will because our babies demand that we do.

We will because this is the promise of the resurrection. That death does not win. Death does not get the last word. God has promised life and life abundant, and you are the vessels and the messengers through which God is working and redeeming the world.

This is the work of the church.

Rejoice, people of God.

This is the work to which God has called you.

This is the work for which you have been clothed with power and blessed and anointed

Go and do likewise.

If you’re wondering where to start, if you look at all that’s happening and think, “There’s just no way I can effect any meaningful change.” I invite you to start with a prayer. Pray and beseech God that God would break open your heart and cause your heart to break for that which breaks God’s heart. Pray that God would give you the same eyes of love, tenderness, and compassion with which God looks upon the world. And then I invite you to start. Start somewhere. Start small. But start.

As a bit of Rabbinical wisdom goes, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work. But neither are you free to abandon it.” Or a Mother Teresa reminds us, “Not everyone can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”

Start. Somewhere.

If you can find one hour a week in your schedule, I’d love to introduce you to some of our friends at Armstrong. Reading buddies, mentors, teachers’ aides… Young people having positive influences in their lives is the single biggest influencing factor in them being successful in their education and not growing up resorting to violence to solve their problems. That’s not made up, that’s research-backed.

Look, this is convicting for me, too. I haven’t made the time this year to volunteer. Will you join me? Will you commit with me to signing up to volunteer just one hour a week next year as a Reading Buddy or a Mentor at Armstrong? And will you hold me accountable?

We can effect change in our world, church.

We can and we will because we must.

Be of good courage, people of God. Do not be frozen in place by this enormous task.

Pray, and then act.

The crucified, risen, and ascended Christ has empowered, blessed, and anointed you for this work, and joins you in this fight.

Death does not get the last word, praise God.

Take heart. Hold fast to faith.

This is the hope to which you have been called.

God’s resurrection promise for a weary and downtrodden world.

Alleluia.

Amen.