Sunday, June 28th, 2020 – You, a sermon on Matthew 10:40-42

Matthew 10:40-42
40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; ⁴² and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.” 

Beloved, children of God, Grace, peace, and mercy are yours in the name of Christ. Amen.

And Jesus said to them, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

Earlier this month, our denomination got a bit of 15 minutes of fame. One of our very own ELCA pastors and congregations was featured on the first episode of the newest season of Queer Eye. For those of you who don’t know, Queer Eye is a makeover show on Netflix where 5 lifestyle and fashion gurus, also known as The Fab 5, are invited and welcomed into a person’s life for a week-long make over.

In this particular episode, Pastor Noah Hepler has been nominated by his church council for a make-over. He needed a new look and the confidence to go with it.

Much of the episode tends to the material side of Pastor Noah’s life. A closet full of clothes he didn’t feel confident in, and an unkempt parsonage apartment with mold and collapsing drywall. All of which the Fab 5 declared as the physical manifestation of the stress in Noah’s life.

But the heartbeat of the episode isn’t in the material, external make-over, but rather is in the spiritual, internal work going on inside Pastor Noah. Not only is Noah the pastor of a struggling congregation in Fishtown, Pennsylvania, but Noah is also a pastor struggling with his identity as a gay man. Like so many who grew up in the church, Noah was taught that queer people were wrong and probably going to hell. This led to a lifetime of feeling like he didn’t belong, and led to a marriage that he thought could hide in, which inevitably ended in divorce.

Pastor Noah was having a crisis of identity. He was struggling to accept who he was because of the theological abuse he received from his church as child. But he also felt ashamed that he had accepted and welcomed his sexuality earlier on in life, because he carried so much guilt for not being an activist and on the front lines of people years ago leading the church into greater acceptance of the LGBTQ community. He didn’t step up when he thought he should have. And so he had an overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome as a gay pastor in a faith that did so much psychological damage to him and to so many others. And wondered if he really was the right person to lead a church now, even though he finally feels ready to be the leader he’s been called to be. Who am I? Is it too late? Who can I be?

Later on in the episode, Pastor Noah gets this pep-talk from Pastor Megan Rohrer, one of the first openly transgender pastors in the ELCA Lutheran church. She says to him with this urgency in her voice, “Noah, our world needs you right now. And is calling you…(It’s not too late!) And the good news you put out (into the world through your ministry) makes me think there is a place in the church for all those who feel like they don’t fit in.”

Suddenly, Pastor Noah starts to come alive. You can see it in his smile. Pastor Noah tells the story about a young man, in his small congregation, who has been part of their church since childhood. And though everyone who loves him has known he was gay for years, that young man didn’t come out to the church until this year. Pastor Noah, still coming alive, said he was “elated that for (this young person) the one place that won’t tell him anything bad about who he is will be his church.”

As you watch this moment, you can almost see and feel the wrestling of identities within Noah. Who am I? Am I an outsider destined for struggle my whole life? Am I gay man complicit in the suffering of my own people? Did I not come out soon enough? Am I too late to be whom I am called to be? Can I be a pastor ready to shed the cloak of my past and lead into the future of God’s kingdom come near? Who am I?

 And then Pastor Megan looks Noah in the eyes, and says, “Noah, would you ever tell that kid in your congregation that he didn’t come out soon enough?” And Pastor Noah said, “No.”

Pastor Megan said, “So why do you tell yourself that, child of God?”

And that was the moment. Child of God, she called him.

The gospel-in-a-nutshell right there on Netflix reality TV.

Suddenly, all those other identities that were fighting for center-stage in his life were moved aside for who he really was. His true and unwavering identity – Child of God. And in that moment, a deep moment of relief washed over Pastor Noah as he was anointed into the silence and tears of being known.

And Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

Whoever welcomes you, welcome me.

Something about that little three-letter word – you – stood out to me this week. What strikes me is just how piercing it can be if we let it. You. Whoever welcomes you. This week I was reminded of just how weighed down we can get from all the identities we carry with us – such that when we hear a simple word like “You”, our first thought is…which one? Which me are you talking about Jesus? The confident co-worker I am at my job or the crushingly insecure spouse I am at home?

Which me are you talking about Jesus? The guilt-riddened failure of a mother I think I am or the super-fun-loving-I’ll-make-up-for-it-on-the-next-generation Grandma that I try to be.

Which me are you talking about Jesus? The me who projects an image of someone who is keeping up-to-date on all the things, all the monumental shifts that are happens in our world and society right now and doing my part, or the me who is hanging on by his finger-nails and just simply cannot get caught up on laundry.

Whoever welcomes you, welcome me. It’s easy for us, as the church, to take this short gospel reading as a command to go and do something. To go and be hospitable and be welcoming in the world.

And don’t get me wrong – I do think the church is called to that ministry. Jesus is sending his followers out to those who are lost, and sick, and outcast, and to welcome them into the kingdom of God. I just think we forget how hard and risky that is and what it demands of us, when we aren’t always even sure who we are in the kingdom of God.

In this long sending speech, Jesus tells his disciples-soon-to-be-Apostles to go with nothing to their name. No money, no bags for the journey, no extra set of clothes. Jesus asks them to go from house to house, where sometimes they will be greeted kindly and sometimes they won’t. Which means that as followers of Jesus, we will be asked to put ourselves in less-than-comfortable situations. Into places and with people and situations that are unfamiliar to us. At times it will feel like being sheep sent out into the midst of wolves, Jesus says. Meaning that at times, the life you’ve been living will feel under threat.

I can only imagine that some of them would have had an overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome too. Me, Jesus? Really? Who am I to be your apostle?  Not only because many of them were common fisherman and tradespeople, not trained to be laborers in the kingdom of God, but also because of their own pasts. Where some of their loyalties and identities used to reside. Because of who they used to be.

You see, one of the things I love about the Gospel of Matthew is that it likes to hide crucial clues inside the mundane. Particularly inside lists of names. At the beginning of this chapter, the author lists the names of Jesus’ apostles. These are the names of Jesus’ Apostles: Simon Peter and Andrew, James, and John, Philip and Bartholomew, and Thomas and Mathew the Tax Collector, and James and Thaddeus, Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot.

Most of us skim over such lists and move on to the rest of the story, but the gospel of Matthew wants us to be stopped in our tracks. Because this list tells us something about who is included in this group of called apostles, sent out in God’s name. You see hidden within this list is the little detail that Matthew was a tax collector – meaning he used to be an employee and lackey of Rome, the empire. And in the very same breath, the name of Simon the Cananaean is mentioned. “The Cananaean” likely being a title revealing Simon’s participation in a group of zealots ready to overthrow with violence the Roman Empire.

Matthew the Tax Collector and Simon the Cananaean. Apostles of Jesus.

“To find the former Roman (loyalist) Matthew and the revolutionary, anti-Rome Simon together among the disciples is quite striking.”[1] It reminds us that followers of Jesus sent out to minister to a hurting world are not a group of like-minded people with a squeeky-clean history. But rather are a group of people whose own lives have been cluttered and weighed down with complex and competing identities, and those are the very people who also have been called to be bearers of the grace and love of God to a world in turmoil.

And I just don’t think there is anyway they can do that without casting aside all those competing and fragile identities in order to know who they are. Who they really are.

And so maybe this short gospel reading isn’t a command, maybe it’s a blessing. Maybe Jesus ends his call to action not with a command of what we are to do, but with a blessing of who we are. “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

The you whom I have called blessed. The you whom I have declared the light of the world and the salt of the earth. The you whom God called at the moment of your existence, “This is my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”

Whoever welcome you, Child of God, welcomes me.

I imagine that was the moment. When a deep moment of relief washed over these Jesus sends these ill-equipped deer in the head lights apostles that Jesus was sending out into a world that can be both hospitable and hostile. But a children of God, they carry Christ with them. In their very being. For no other reason than that Christ has bound his life up in theirs. Jesus gives them nothing to carry. Nothing but himself. God with us. Knowing and trusting that they too have been gripped by such a grace that saves us from all other false identities that try to lay claim over us, they have empty hands but full hearts, and an identity that is everlasting.

And Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.” It’s not too late.

I know we are living in a time when we are living in a time where we are all being asked to look outside of ourselves – how we welcome and care for the stranger, the neighbor, those who are different than us. And that is sacred and critical work that we cannot look away and move on from.

But I also see us living in a time when we are all being asked to look more deeply inside ourselves and our life and at the assumptions and unquestioned privileges we’ve been living with. For many of us, this is the first time in our life when we’ve had to wonder if we will be welcome and safe in the places we go.  This is the first time we’ve been asked to follow rules that cramp our style and suffocate our self-image, all for the sake of others. And that is a privilege we have had and taken advantage of for far too long.

It’s a scary thing to really look in the mirror and ask “Who am I? Who am I called to be? Is it too late?” That is what’s being asked of us. And I don’t know if any of us can really do that crucial and spiritual work without knowing that Christ stands beside you when you do.

And Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

The real you. You, child of God. The you that is beneath the surface of all the identities you’ve gathered up over the years, desperately clinging to hold to and to balance in the grip of just two human hands.

In the midst of a global pandemic, and the call to dismantle racism within our own communities and within our own hearts, in the midst of PRIDE month where we celebrate the upholding of LGBTQ rights that are long overdue but as we continue to witness a prejudice that is still alive in us and in our country, we the Church are called out to be the presence of Christ to others and to receive the presence of Christ in others. And there is simply no way we can step out and up into that hard, and scary, and life-changing work, without first being blessed with the reminder of who and whose we are.

I wonder if you, like Pastor Noah, can finally hear your name called, as you really are. Child of God. Beloved apostle.

These are the names of Jesus’ apostles: Nathan and David, Chuck and Anita, Pam and Ruth, Samuel and Oden, Luke and Izzy, Clara and Karl, Dau and Erik, Anna and Abner, Emmett and Joran, Ellie and Monica, Rachel and Joan, Marilyn and Todd.

That’s twice as many as the Gospel of Matthew lists and I could go on and on and on.

Can you hear your name on that list? It’s not too late. Because your name is on that list.

And so before you go, hear this blessing – whoever welcomes you, welcomes Christ. For you are God’s beloved. Amen.

[1] Thomas G. Long, Matthew, pg. 115.

Sunday, June 14th, 2020 – Here It Comes, a sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:23

Matthew 9:35-10:23
35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; ³⁸ therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” ¹ Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ² These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. ⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. [9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, ¹⁰ no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. ¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. ¹² As you enter the house, greet it. ¹³ If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴ If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. ¹⁶ “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; ¹⁸ and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. ¹⁹ When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; ²⁰ for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. ²¹ Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; ²² and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ²³ When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.]

Second Reading
Romans 5:1-8
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Well, here it comes. I can feel it. Can you?

The temptation to move on. To forget. To look away. To think, “I’ve done my part. I’ve read an article, I’ve watched a PBS special or two on racism in America. I’ve downloaded Ibram Kendi’s book How to Be an Anti-Racist. I haven’t started it, but I probably will. So, that’s pretty good. Time to keep calm and carry on. Time to let the legislature and the really dedicated activists do the work from here.”

Those are the voices and the inklings I can feel and find in myself. How about you?

I heard a famous preacher say this week, “Well, if you did your racism sermon last week, then maybe it’s time for something different this week.”

Well, we’ve had two sermons on racism here at St. John’s. That’s enough, right?

For me, as the preacher, the fear, of course, is that you will find another sermon on racism to be homiletically aggressive. Or discouraging and deflating. Or worst of all – boring and repetitive.

But to even have a choice of topics this morning, an array of options from which to choose that might be engaging simply goes to show just how privileged my everyday life is. To get to choose when to think deeply about the role of race in my life, the life of the church, and the life of this country, and when to not think about it.

But we can’t. We cannot move on. We cannot look away. Too many have said this time feels different. Maybe real change will come from this. Maybe the suffering this time around really will produce endurance. Which will produce character. Which will produce real hope, as Paul says. So, we cannot look away. We cannot move on. We continue to have too much to learn.

An artists in the black community said this past week, “These are tough days watching (people) wake up from history.”

He was talking about people like me.

I confess that I just learned this week about the Tulsa Race Massacre that happened 99 years ago. Where mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses, from the ground and from the air, destroying 35 blocks of the wealthiest black community in the United States at the time. Over 800 people injured and possibly as many as 300 killed. I never learned about this or didn’t care enough to pay attention. And only this year 2020 was this tragedy finally included in Oklahoma’s school curriculum.

We cannot move on. We have too much to learn. We cannot look away. Especially, not this week.

You see, on Wednesday, it’ll be 5 years. 5 years since a young man – who grew up in an ELCA church – took the lives of Sharonda, Cynthia, Susie, Ethel, DePayne, Clementa, Tywanza, Daniel, and Myra at a Wednesday evening bible study at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. That was 5 years ago. And last I heard, prior to COVID-19, they still had that Bible study on the weekly schedule. Which is a profound act of resistance and a witness to the faith of that community.

Friday of this week also marks Juneteenth –  a holiday, I confess, I knew very little about until recent years. This Friday will mark the 155^th Anniversary since the Emancipation Proclamation – the declaration that all slaves are free – was read to newly free African Americans in Texas – the last Confederate state to hear this proclamation. That’s this Friday.

We cannot move on. We cannot look away. Not just yet. As Jesus said in the gospel reading, the harvest is plentiful – meaning there is a lot of work to do. But the laborers – the laborers are few. Will the work get done? Will enough people join in to do it?

You see, in light of what’s happened and what’s in front of us, I’m both convicted and comforted by this week’s Gospel reading.

Listen again. Our reading begins by telling us about Jesus’ ministry to all the cities and villages. To proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God come near. To cure every disease and sickness. Which means the scope of Jesus’ ministry is wide. There is a wideness in God’s mercy, the hymn tells us.

But it is not a generic mercy and ministry. This is not the routine bag of swag handed out to each person at a faith conference, as if we all get doled out the same thing. You see the good news of Jesus will move on to places like Samaria and the Gentiles. Just not today. Because today, there is a crowd around Jesus – a crowd that is harassed and helpless. They need Jesus’ full attention. And the text says he had compassion for them. Actually, the Greek word means “to be moved in your guts.” In your stomach. To the core of your body and being.

The crowd was harassed and helpless. Lost – like sheep without a shepherd. And Jesus has a gut-wrenching love for them.

And so Jesus’ gathers up his disciples. That’s what the text says. He summoned his twelve disciples. Disciple – a Greek word for student or learner. Jesus gathered his 12 learners. And gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out and to cure every disease and sickness.

And then. And then in the reading, in the story, the word – the title – for these followers of Jesus changes. In the very next verse, it says…” And these are the names of the twelve apostles…”

Apostle – a Greek word that means to be sent out. As a delegate. A messenger. In one verse – they go from being the 12 disciples to the 12 apostles. We often interchange those words. Disciple of Jesus, apostle of Jesus. Same thing.

But they aren’t. Not here.

You see this is the disciples’ graduation day. They’ve done the learning, now it’s time for the doing. They’ve passed the in-class or online disciple’s drivers permit test. Now it is time to get behind the wheel of faith. But don’t worry, Jesus won’t just hand over the keys to the newbies and leave them on their own. The Holy Spirit is the passenger, right beside them.

You see, here is the thing – you can be a disciple but never step out and up to be an apostle. We can learn and learn about the grace and challenge of Jesus that is for us but never leave the comfort of our privilege to carry that gospel word to all people.  To live it out in the world.

We are called not to just be disciples of Jesus. We are called to be apostles. The ones who are sent out.

And it won’t be easy. Jesus says we will not be paid for curing the disease that plagues us. We will not be reimbursed for lifting up the lowly, resurrecting those who have died being held down.

Jesus warns us that some will receive this good news and receive this peace kindly.

And some won’t.

But that rejection does not make the good news any less true and it should not slow us. If we are rejected, then we are to shake the dust from our feet and go on to the next house.

But it won’t be easy. Jesus warns us that he is sending us out like sheep in the midst of wolves. And as my seminary professor put it so succinctly – there will be wolves.

So, we are to be alert. Wise like serpents, yet innocent like doves. For we very well maybe dragged before boards and councils, handed over to the politically powerful.

And then Jesus escalates into full-on apocalyptic language. There will be persecution and betrayal and hatred, even among family members. But if we can endure – then we just might find salvation. Not simply salvation for the afterlife – but salvation for this life.

In case it hasn’t been obvious, this is not your average church new member program. This is not your best-seller discipleship book about having a purposed driven life and your best life now.

To be sent out as an apostle of Jesus – to be laborers for the kingdom of God that has come near – is to put your entire life on the line.

And now – just as I am starting to feel empowered and brave to be an apostle for Jesus, to head out into the mission field, to proclaim the good news, to rescue and save those lost, vulnerable sheep, to dodge the wolves, and endure the consequences…suddenly, I realize something.

Maybe it’s that I grew up in a predominantly white, affluent church, where being Christian mostly meant being polite and well-behaved in the pew. And no one really raised their voice or pounded their fist for anything of significance, and the primary weekly concern seemed to be that worship be performed without any major mistakes….

Maybe it’s that I’ve felt a calling in my life to pastoral ministry and so I went to seminary, where the language of being a shepherd to a flock, a disciple of Jesus ordained in lineage with the apostles of Jesus is ever present.

Maybe it’s because for all of my life as a white person, I’ve been told that people with black and brown skin “are forever and desperately in need of (my) help.”[1]

Perhaps for all those reasons, every time I’ve heard this passage, I’ve always envisioned myself as one of the disciples. As one of the 12, the special ones set apart and sent out to do ministry for those people, who are lost and in need of what I have.

But maybe I’ve been wrong.

Maybe I am the sheep who is lost, not actually recognizing or seeing the world I live in.

Maybe I am the possessed one with an unclean spirit of racism clinging to my easy life.

Maybe I am…the wolf.

Maybe God is not sending me out like an apostle. What if God is sending an apostle out…to me. To find me. To show me the way.

Might we see those who moving their feet and raising their voices, as the apostles, the ones Jesus is sending out today? The ones through whom the Spirit of God is speaking?  Sent out into the streets and sent out to knock on my door and call my name and say, “Hey! The harvest is plentiful. There is a lot of work we have to do. There is a disease that has infected this country for over 400 years and we have to cure it. We have to cast out this unclean spirit. God has given us authority to do it. But we need more people. We need you. Will you join us?”

And perhaps the good news, the comfort of this passage – is that someone is willing to give me a chance to join in. Despite my complicity in the spread of this disease. For it is while we were still sinners that Christ died for us – not giving up hope on us to be a blessing to this world, despite all our previous indifference to our ways in the world.

And when the knock comes to our door, and our name is called…will our own homes and hearts be worthy of this apostle presence? Or will we be the wolves?

In a moment, we will sing the hymn – Will You Come and Follow Me?

And when we sing this hymn, I want you to sing it and hear it not like Jesus is singing to you and all the other apostles in a spiritual huddle before sending you out to all the cities and towns. I want you to sing it like Jesus’ apostles have finally reached your front door. They have come to find you.

Will we welcome them? Will we listen to them? Will we join them in the journey? Or will we close the door, leaving them with no choice but shake our dust off their feet, and move on?

Here it comes. I can feel it. Can you? Someone’s about to knock on the door and call us each by name. Amen.

[1] http://agoodchristianwoman.blogspot.com/2020/06/paternalistic-racism-of-nice-white.html

Sunday, May 31, 2020 – When Mary Sings a Song of Protest at Pentecost, a sermon on Luke 1:45-55

Luke 1:46-55
⁴⁶And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Acts 2:1-21
1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. ⁵ Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶ And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷ Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹ Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹² All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³ But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” ¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵ Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ¹⁷ “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. ¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. ¹⁹ And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. ²⁰ The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. ²¹ Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire and awaken us with your refining fire. We pray this in the name of Jesus, the Crucified one. Amen.

I love to go swimming. Not to swim laps for exercise, but simply to be in the water, swallowed whole, by the ocean, or the lake, or the public pool. In fact, my favorite thing to do in a body of water is to dive deep. To just swim around, beneath the surface.

It’s so quiet. And just as the noise of the world grows distant, the noise in my head is hushed, and I can find myself. I can wake up to myself again. But, of course, I cannot stay there. I have to come back to the surface.

When the world is chaotic and heart rending and uncontrollable, and the pools are shut down, music is my ocean. It is that place that can hush the dizzying sounds that are both inside and outside myself, and it takes me deep. Deeper into the moment of whatever is going on around me. And I can find myself again.

I can remember on September 13^th, 2001, two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some friends and I had tickets to the Minnesota Orchestra. And like musicians do so well, they pivot to their context, to the moment. And even though the programs had been printed days earlier, the Orchestra scrapped the first piece, Symphonic Metamorphosis – it just wasn’t right. Not for that night. No, instead at the orchestra’s request, the musicians entered the stage in silence and performed Edward Elgar’s Nimrod. With its fluctuating dynamics, its unresolved tension, and laden with anticipation, it sent each one of us deep down into our grief, and fear, and anger, and just let us stay there for a while. And when the piece was over and we came back to the surface, we were by no means healed and whole, but we were different. More awakened to ourselves and to each other.

That’s the power of music. Of a song.

On Thursday morning, after the first night of a city burning down, during a Press Conference, Minneapolis City Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins was invited to speak. And she began….by singing.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

And for 25 seconds, she took us down deep. To the quiet. To the place where we can find ourselves, our hearts, our voice again in the midst of it all. And I’d find it hard to believe if not everyone in that room had a lump in their throat at that moment.

That’s the power of music. Of a song.

This morning, I want to talk with you about another song. Mary’s song.

Today is Pentecost, which tends to be a loud Sunday. Our clothes and paraments would be loud with red shoes, red stoles, red sweaters, and red bowties. Our service would be active and loud with a children’s processional at the beginning and maybe a red helium balloon slowly and accidentally floating to the rafters. Our Acts 2 reading would be loud, as we invite multiple readers, speaking multiple languages, to take us into the cacophony of sound that was that Spirit-led Pentecost so many years ago, a powerful moment with the disciples in that house that filled with the rushing wind of God, and the devout Jews from every nation hearing a personal word from God for each one of them, in their own language. It’s a loud Sunday – this Pentecost.

Freedom LullabyBy Lisle Gwynn Garrity
Inspired by Luke 1:46b-55. Purchase a print here.

But today is also Feast of the Visitation, which sounds….churchy. But May 31^st is the day the Church commemorates when young mother Mary, pregnant with Jesus, the Incarnation of God,  came to her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. I imagine it was a quieter day. But a day still filled with power. Because on this day, Mary doesn’t host a gender reveal party. On this day, she doesn’t have a baby shower. On this day, she sings a song. A song about the world she wants for her child.

This morning, I want to talk with you about this song. Mary’s song. Too often, by our Christian art and Christmas pageants, we’ve been led to think of Mary as sweet, and meek, and mild.

At the center and heart of Mary’s song are these words, “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

If that does not sound like a song of protest, I don’t know what does. A protest and a plea for things to be different than they are. That the world is not as it should be.

And this is song is Mary’s song. Mary, who will give birth to Jesus. Jesus who listened to this song from the studio of Mary’s womb, letting those words sink into his ever growing divine and human body. Jesus the incarnation of God, the promise and proclamation of God with us. Jesus, the one who will stand up to empire with Holy anger, but not holy violence. Jesus, who will call out the injustices of the world, and tell Peter to put away his sword when the fear gets the best of him. Jesus, an unarmed brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, whose own neck will be crushed by the knee of an empire in the form of a cross.

The cross, which the late Dr. James Cone calls the ancient symbol of lynching.

As Christians follow a crucified Savior, yet “when lynchings and Christianity were so much a part of the daily reality of American society,” Dr. Cone says, “white Christians were silent.”[1]

So let’s not be silent. Our Savior Jesus was lynched. And if that disturbs you, it should. But it should not surprise you. Every Sunday your preachers stand up here beside Jesus on the Cross, a man killed by hanging on a tree, the book of Acts says. And we dare to point and say, “There’s our God.” And yet, as the late Reverend Dick Dalin said on the Sunday after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated, “We keep building crosses.”[2]

Make no mistake – we all watched Christ be crucified this week. Christ was put on the cross we built for him once again. It was Christ’s face pressed against the bruising concrete, sponging George’s blood. It was Christ’s lungs that could not breath as the weight of empire and power and privilege and deeply systemic racism knelt on his neck. It was Christ body that was carried away, lifeless.

And will we dare to say, “There’s our God.” Not in the unflinching, cold, embodiment of abusive power, but in the broken and powerless one who cries out for his mother and also for a glass of water. “I’m thirsty,” Jesus cried out from the concrete cross.

And so when Mary, the mother of Jesus and the prophet of hope, announces that there is a divine stirring inside her, ready to be born into the world from her body, she does so with a song, that sings ahead of its time.

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones. God has lifted up the lowly. ⁵³God has filled the hungry with good things. God has sent the rich away empty.

In a moment, we will sing this song in the form of a hymn, “The Canticle of the Turning.” And I’ll admit – when I first suggested this hymn for this Sunday, I had no idea how connected it would be to the events of this week.

“My heart shall sing of the day you bring. Let the fires of your justice burn.” Those are hard words to sing today, when fires have both grabbed our attention and illuminated injustice, but have also been co-opted by those threatening life and community and progress.

“From the halls of power to the fortress tower, not a stone will be left on stone.” Those are hard words to sing today, when those halls of power do need to be ripped down stone by stone, but then we distort the image of God in ourselves and in others when we heave those stones at one another..

“Mercy must deliver us from the conquerors crushing grasp.” Those are hard words to sing today, when we’ve watched the conqueror crush yet another black body.

And my first impulse was to protect you from this hymn. To do a last-minute hymn-exchange, to something more palatable. But then, with the help of my brilliant colleagues, we discerned that maybe it is just the right song to take us to the depths and back. To help us dive down from the surface of everything, the noise and the fray, to hear our own heart beat again. To find ourselves, and the Spirit of God alive and at work in us, calling us to the work of justice that is before us.

Maybe it is just the right song because there are also words of this song that are not hard to sing.

“My spirit sings of the wonderous things that you bring to the ones who wait….could the world be about to turn?”

“Though nations rage from age to age, we remember who holds us fast.”

“Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.”

Mary’s song takes us to the depths of ourselves. This song holds within it the horror and the hope of our faith.

So many voices are telling us we can only hold one thing in our hands. It’s either this or that. It’s either rage or compassion.

When so much of our faith asks us to hold multiple things at the same time. The gospel of John says Jesus was full of grace and truth. As people of faith, we are ones who hold onto the horror of the cross and the hope of the resurrection. As people of faith, we are the one who know what it is to be both sinner and saint at the same time. We know our need for the law – that protects and preserves the sanctity of life- and our need for the gospel – which restores us to try again when we’ve failed.

We can hold two things at once.

So, we can raise our voices and move our feet at the murder of George Floyd by someone who was called to serve and protect life, and we can stand against the death threats made to local police officers.

We can both check in on our black and brown friends and we can check in our law enforcement friends.

We can be awakened and illuminated by the fires of rage at centuries of injustice while at the same time working to put out the fires of outside agitators seeking to confuse and consume our communities.

What we cannot do is let injustice distort us anymore than it already has such that it becomes our knee on the neck of another.

Let us stop building crosses. And it begins by dismantling the racism and white supremacy, that lives in our communities and in our own hearts.

If you, like me and so many others, are new to this, and that all sounds really daunting, then do not be afraid. We all begin somewhere. We will do this together. Reach out and we will find a place to start with you.

And yes, this is an altar call for those who wish to give their life to the Crucified Jesus and to do the work of dismantling the crosses we build.

Come, all you who are ready.

And so on this day when Pentecost and the Feast of the Visitation collide, let us sing Mary’s song, trusting that the Holy Spirit stir in each one of us.

I want this song to take us all down. Down into the depths of ourselves. Beneath the fray. Let it stir us and stir within us. Let it refine us so that we might find ourselves again. The core of our faith rooted in the horror and truth of the cross and enlivened and inspired by the resurrection of God’s undying love for you and for every single life in this world.

And when we come back to the surface, may we be different.

Lord, could the world be about to turn? Dear gracious and loving God, I sure do hope so. Come, Holy Spirit. Come.

Amen.

[1] James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, pg. 96.

[2] http://naomikrueger.com/2016/03/21/palm-sunday-1968/