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St Luke Lutheran Church of Beckley, West Virginia
"Joyfully witnessing the Gospel of God's grace, serving others in accordance with God's will."
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St. Luke, January 9, 2011 The Baptism of Our Lord
There is the story about a pastor and an embarrassing moment in ministry. He was in the middle of performing a wedding ceremony, just about to lead the couple through their vows, when, all of a sudden, he forgot the name of the groom. Trying to cover the awkward moment, the pastor asked the groom with great solemnity "With what name were you baptized?" The groom, a bit taken aback, paused. But then with great confidence, he responded, "I was baptized with the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!" This guy understood the meaning of baptism! And no, the pastor was not me…but those of you who have seen my bloopers, it could have been! In the first three or four centuries of the Christian faith the people of the Roman Empire didn't understand it. They didn't know the stories of the Old Testament or the stories of Jesus. So over the first three or four centuries the church developed holy days – to teach the faith. To tell and retell the story to people that hadn’t heard it since childhood, to a culture that didn’t know the stories of the faith. So today, on the Baptism of our Lord, we hear the story of Jesus’ baptism. Jesus came to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. In his baptism, Jesus was declared to be the Son of God, the only Son of God. “This is my beloved Son”. And the Spirit of God came down upon him. This Spirit was the very presence of God. The same Spirit that was present in creation. The same creative Spirit that came on the prophets. The same Spirit that came on King David to help him to rule wisely. These people were all filled with the Spirit. And having the Spirit of God inside of him, Jesus had unusual power. By the power and Spirit of God in him, he turned water into wine, controlled the wind and waves of the sea, cured the lepers, healed the deaf and blind. This same Spirit gave Jesus unusual gentleness. When Jesus came to earth and was filled with the Holy Spirit, there was a spirit of gentleness to him in all relationships. And he had this unusual power to fight the demons, to fight the evil power and forces around him, to face the challenges. Sometimes those who are not fully absorbed in the Church have the most insightful observations about God. I love this story about the professor from Princeton Seminary who visited a high school youth group. As he was speaking about the baptism of Jesus, One teen-aged boy sat aloof in the back, slouched in a chair, staring at his shoes, seemingly blocking it all out. But after the professor finished speaking about Jesus’ baptism being a revelation of God's presence in Jesus, the young boy suddenly said without looking up, "That ain't what it means." Glad that the student had been listening at all, the professor asked, "What do you think it means?" "The story says that the heavens were opened, right?" "Right." "The heavens were opened and the Spirit of God came down, right?" "That's right." The boy finally looked up and leaned forward, saying, "It means that God is on the loose in the world. And it is dangerous."
God is running loose in the world, and it is dangerous. Heaven is open. And it is risky in the world. It is risky because you have been baptized by the Spirit of God, and your life may take dramatic new turns. Down through the centuries, Christians have been obeying the command to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We baptize children and we baptize adults. We baptize in rivers, in churches, in hospitals, in kitchen sins, in fonts – large and in fonts like ours. We baptize in the first months of life and on deathbeds. We baptize in the name of the Trinity. This is what we have been commanded to do. The summer I traveled all over Israel I saw ancient fonts – a little larger than the size of ours, some round, some octagonal, some in the shape of the cross. In the early church, on the day of the baptism, catechumens, or pre-baptismal converts, would process to the font, wearing typically a white, baptismal garb. At the font, the bishop would administer the rite. First, he would perform an exorcism on the and in some cases anoint the convert with oil before baptism itself took place. By the 4th century, the bishop baptized the naked candidate, and this ritual marked the moment at which the candidate became a member of the Christian community. Clearly, none of us is called to be the Lord, the Messiah, the Christ who reigns in glory. Yet through our baptism, we become one with the Christ. As Jesus was baptized, so are we baptized -- to become who we are called to be, to begin a ministry. Luther had many times of doubt and despair in his life and he said that the only thing that kept him afloat during those times was to touch his forehead again and again and to repeat the words: Baptismatus sum, baptismatus sum…I am baptized, I am baptized. "Remember your Baptism." All those other important things -- family, home, health, jobs -- they're precious and wonderful. But your baptism is foundational, it's fundamental, it undergirds everything else. No matter what changes in your life, God's love in Jesus Christ for you will never change. Everything else can be taken away, but God's love for us in Jesus Christ is a given. That's what our baptism is about. And so you come and sing in the choir, you come to learn the stories, you come to teach the faith to our little ones. We do this through children’s sermons, through Sunday school, in vacation bible school. Right now we have enough children to hold a one room Sunday school for all ages but we need teachers to be willing to do this. Right now, we have no nursery, and precious little space for our children to meet in. Our present nursery has been ruined by a leaking roof. The mold is clearly present in this room, rendering it useless to us…except for maybe storage. Right now, we need to renovate our building, bring our restrooms up to par – they’re not even handicapped accessible, the galvanized pipes are corroded. Have you tried to get hot water in our kitchen sink? It takes a long time. The wiring is ancient – don’t use the microwave, the coffee pot and a crock pot at the same time in the kitchen…the fuse will blow. Right now, we are at a crossroads, asking for the Spirit’s
direction for us. We have been called to build up this
community of faith and to share the good news of Jesus Christ
with those around you and all the world. This same Holy Spirit gives you and me power and gentleness to meet our daily challenges. To face the challenges within your marriage that you are going through right now. …To face the challenges of loss. To face the challenges with your kids who may be driving you insane right now. ... To face the challenges with your mother’s aging, your father’s aging, with their death. …To face the challenges with your own aging and with your death. … To face the challenges with all the injustices in the world that surround us, with the demonic in this world. To face the challenges of an inadequate building, the challenges of a small and growing congregation, the challenges of economic difficulties but a huge and awesome mission. When the Spirit is on the loose, there is power and you might want to call it dangerous! Walter Brueggeman has beautiful penned this poem And we Are Different, that says it this way. We are counted your people. We are grateful to be called by you, and glad for our special way of faith in the world. You have marked us and named us and signed us, and we are different, different memories, different hopes, different fears, different commands, different ways of being. That difference we find glorious, but at times a burden too severe. We yearn to be like the others, like the others in power, in money, in freedom, in certitude, in security, like the others, uncalled, unburdened, unembarrassed. We come to you in that deep trial of difference and likeness. Engage us in our difference, Give us courage for our different vocations, and energy for our different hope. In the name of your crucified Easter One, so unlike all the others. After we sing our hymn, Shawn, Dave and Alexa, Kathie & Steve, Billie, Joe, Karly & Cosby are going to come and lead us in the affirmation of our baptism. They are coming from various churches and various places to join us in Christ’s mission here in this time and place. The same Spirit that descended up on Christ in his baptism has sent them to St. Luke - to lead with us, to support us, to encourage us, to inspire us, to teach us. Let us give thanks, let us welcome these who are our sisters and brothers in baptism. God in heaven, your Spirit of power and grace is overwhelming. It is all around us, ever-present and all encompassing, and we are empowered and we are blessed. We give you thanks for the power of your Holy Spirit and pray that we honor it in all that we do in your name. Amen.
Homily for Sunday, January 2, 2011 - Joe Morgan-Smith A Word
that Transforms the World John 1:1-18 Have you ever heard a word—or perhaps it was one that you
yourself spoke—that changed your whole life? Words can do
that, you know? Throughout history, words have established
deals, freed slaves, bought and sold companies, started and
ended wars, destroyed friendships and mended them again. Think
of how a just a few simple words can change your life. Words
like: “You won!” or “You’re fired!” Words like
“It’s cancer,” or “I do.” Just a word and suddenly
your whole life is turned on end. That’s what the Apostle
John is writing about in his gospel: a Word that transforms
the world. In the beginning…that where John beings. Pretty
good place to start, I suppose. But it’s more than that.
Those who, like John’s original audience, are familiar with
the Old Testament, cannot help but hear this as an echo of
Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.” And this is intentional. The first eighteen
verses are to John’s gospel as the overture is to a classic
opera. The overture, as you know, is the bit at the beginning
that summarizes and synthesizes the whole of the opera that is
to come. So John’s prologue is his entire gospel in
miniature. John is a masterful writer, probably the most
sophisticated of the New Testament authors, and in these first
eighteen verses he introduces every theme that he will fill
out as the story unfolds. John begins in the beginning
because the whole of John’s gospel is about new
creation—it is a retelling of the story in Genesis 1 and 2.
That’s why at the end of the gospel when Mary sees the
resurrected Christ she does not recognize him, but mistakes
him for the Gardener. Indeed, he is—for he has come
to re-plant the Garden of Eden, to restore the Creation to its
original design and for its original purpose. So this strange
Christmas story that John is telling is about how God is
re-creating the world, not least, how he is re-creating you
and me. What’s there in the beginning, says John, is a Word—a
simple Word, nothing more. That’s the way it is with
John’s gospel: things that seem trivial or insignificant
turn out to have transformative power. And words are often
like that. Sometimes a simple word spoken by the right person
at the right time can change the fabric of reality. Think
about it: when an umpire says the words, “you’re out!”
even if the runner made it to the plate before the ball, the
fact that the umpire uttered those words makes it the
case—the runner is out. Or when Christ speaks to us his word
of promise: “This is my body broken for you.” We feast
each week on what looks, smells and tastes like merely bread
but because Christ gave his word, he is present in with and
under the host. Luther says, “we chomp on him with our
teeth.” So it always is with God’s word. John’s audience
knows that when The God of Israel speaks things happen. “By
the Word of the Lord were the heaves made,” sang the
Psalmists, “all the host of them by the breath of his
mouth” (Ps. 33:36). It is this Word that was there in the
beginning that becomes in John’s story the agent of
transformation and new Creation. With John’s use of this word “Word,” or “logos,”
he brings two Old Testament themes together with the
prevailing pagan philosophy of his day. One of the major
questions of the entire Hebrew Bible is this: How is it that
this God who is wholly other—this God who dwells in the
highest heavens and speaks the word into existence—how can
he be covenantally bound, intimately connected to his
creation. One answer is that God is united to his creation
through the Torah, or the Law—his word to
Israel. The alternative answer given is that God is present in
the Jerusalem Temple, that the Temple is the physical dwelling
place of God’s presence on earth. When John writes in v. 14
that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,”
the Greek word he uses is skēnoō, it means
tabernacle, or Temple. The Word became flesh and tempeled
among us. In other words, every way it is thought in the Old
Testament that God is present to Creation is bound up in this
one Word that became flesh. Logos is a significant concept also in the pagan Greek
philosophy of John’s day. It is the symbol of rationality,
of eternal divine wisdom. John is in effect saying to the
prevailing culture, “the logos is not just some
vague eternal, limitless rationality. He is a person, and
I’ll introduce you to him.” And indeed that’s exactly
what John sets out to do in the rest of his gospel: to show
how the fullness of God rests in this one human person, Jesus
of Nazareth. But this is a hard pill to swallow, for both the Jews and
the Greeks. Some people just cannot stand this kind of
particularity: God with bodily fluids and raw emotions? I mean
birth is painful, right ladies? Babies are inconvenient and
messy. There is a lot of trouble involved with having
children, trust me I know. Eugene Peterson puts it best:
“It’s easy for us to accept God as Creator of the majestic
mountains, the rolling seas, the delicate wildflowers, but
when it come to the sordid squalor of the raw material
involved in being human, surely God would keep his distance
from that.” You see, we tend think that we’re different, that our
souls are above the business of diapers, debts and domestic
trivia. We believe we are made for higher, more spiritual
things. That’s why the ink was barely dry on the stories of
Jesus’ birth before people started publishing
alternative stories, more “spiritual” than the ones we
find in our gospels. These stories are recorded in what
are called the Gnostic gospels, which were immensely popular
in the times of the early Church, and people are still writing
them today. In the Gnostic writings, the doctrine of the
incarnation is dismissed as crude—God with dirt under his
finger nails? Instead, they’re replaced with something
more palatable to sensitive souls. Jesus was not truly
flesh and blood, the Word made flesh, but entered into a human
body temporarily to give us the inside scoop on God. The body
taken from the cross was not Jesus at all, but just a costume
he borrowed for a few years and then discarded. That’s
the sort of things the Gnostic gospels say. But the real gospels won’t have it. Jesus—God from God,
light from light, true God from true God—was conceived by
the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary and was made man.
Fully God and fully human, that’s the Christian
doctrine. He was born in a dark, cold, stinking barn and laid
in a feeding trough. He was, Matthew tells us, a baby refugee
born in the middle of Herod’s genocide, his family had to
seek asylum in Egypt. If you think, by the way, that the
gospel has nothing to say to the political issues of our day,
ask yourself what it means that our Lord was an illegal alien
seeking refuge in Egypt. Not to mention what he had to say in
Matthew 25 about how in welcoming the stranger we may
unwittingly be welcoming him as well. It was a cruel and violent world into which Jesus was born.
But somehow, amidst the singing and the lighting of candles,
the cookies and the time we spend with family, we have gotten
the idea that Christmas ought to make us feel at ease, when
perhaps the one thing Christmas ought to do is make us feel uneasy.
Christmas is that time of year when we are faced squarely with
the dissonance between the old world into which Jesus was
born, with its violence and injustice, and the new world of
righteousness, justice and peace that he is inaugurating.
There are Herods in our day—oppressors and wielders of
war—and learning to be uneasy under their rule is part of
the meaning of Christmas, too. But it’s no surprise that people have been attracted to
the kind of Gnostic spirituality that has no use for a
barn-born refugee, that attempts to flatten out and
universalize the messiah so that he has nothing to say to the
powers. The Word become flesh has always been a hard word to
understand. Most of all it frustrates people who think they
are in the know. To the religious leaders of his day Jesus
says “my word has no place in you, because you cannot hear
it” (Jn 8:37,43). Even some of his disciples abandon Jesus
when he begins to tell them that he is the bread of heaven,
and that to receive eternal life they will have to eat his
flesh and drink his blood. They walk away saying “this is a
hard word” (Jn 6:60). This is a classic example of what
biblical scholars call Johannine irony. In John’s gospel,
the religious leaders, the disciples—the people who think
they are in the know—rarely “get it.” But to those who
shouldn’t get it, the wisdom of God is revealed. To the
imprisoned he says, “If you abide in my word, then you have
the truth that sets you free” (Jn 8:31f). And to the stained
soul he says, “You have already been made clean by the word
I have spoken to you” (Jn 15:3). The “spiritual” in
John’s gospel are discovered to be the in the dark, even
while the blind see and the def hear. Those old and weary
souls who have nothing in the world to cling to but faith in
God’s Word, they are the children of God. That’s what is
on offer at Christmas: not just gifts and time with family and
warm fuzzies, but a Word that is incomprehensible and
frustrating but that, when we learn to hear it, transforms our
entire being. And this is the great news of John’s gospel: As he says
in v. 12, “To all who believe in his name, [Jesus] gives the
power to become children of God.” To all who believe in
his name…That line echoes across gallows of time as to
say this is a word spoken to you and to me. It’s
what Luther calls the pro me of the gospel: it’s
good news for me! John reminds us that it’s
important, when we reflect on the birth of the Son of God, to
reflect on how we too can be born in new ways. Now, I know, when I say things like Christmas is about
being “born again,” some of you have red flags immediately
popping up in your heads. That’s because many of us grew up
in or around traditions where to be born again meant simply to
hold to a certain set of doctrine or beliefs. In the broader
culture, by the end of the Carter administration, to be
“born again” had come to be synonymous with a certain type
of conservative evangelicalism. And, perhaps more to the
point, most of us have known at least one person who was
“born again” in a remarkably unattractive way that
resulted in sort ridged fundamentalism and an “us”-vs.-“them”-mentality.
Traditionally we Lutherans have felt a bit threatened by all
of this. No doubt, some of you, like me, became Lutheran in
part to escape some of the going on about being born again in
your tradition. But I think it’s time we look again with
fresh eyes at this born again language. Look at what John says: “To all who believe in his name
will be given power to become children of God” (v.12).” So
at the heart of what it means to be born again is a new kind
of power. We see one kind of power in the birth
stories of Jesus: Herod ruled first century Palestine with the
power of violence and fear. The Herords of our day are more
apt to rely on the power of money or social status. But John
is talking about a power that is quite different from the
power of the kingdoms of this world—the power to become
children. Talk about irony. Children, especially in the
first century, are regarded by the world as less important
because they lack power, prestige, money and social status.
But our Lord says that if we are to enter the kingdom of God,
we will become like one of these little children—not yet
conditioned to “need” control, money and social respect.
All who believe will receive the power to become children. “Ahh!”
you say, “but it is children of God.” Yes, but
remember the meaning word God is being redefined, so that we
only really discover who God is when we look at Jesus, the
Word made flesh, the helpless baby refugee born in a barn, the
one who reveals God’s glory on a cross. This is the Word spoken at Christmas time. The Word that
was with God in the beginning, and still today reveals who God
really is. It is a Word that is incomprehensible and often
frustrating to those who are in the know, who rely on the
power of control, money, and prestige. But to those who can do
nothing but cling with faith to this Word, to these is given
the power to become Children of God. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, Amen.
Homily for December 19, 2010 It was a few days before Christmas. A woman woke up one morning and told her husband, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" "Oh," her husband replied, "you'll know the day after tomorrow." The next morning, she turned to her husband again and said the same thing, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And her husband said, "You'll know tomorrow." On the third morning, the woman woke up and smiled at her husband, "I just dreamed again that you gave me a pearl necklace for Christmas. What do you think this dream means?" And he smiled back, "You'll know tonight." That evening, the man came home with a small package and presented it to his wife. She was delighted. She opened it gently. And when she did, she found-a book! And the book's title was "The Meaning of Dreams." Dreams. As 21st century Christians, we don’t put the stock in dreams as the ancient world and the biblical tradition. We tend to move in the opposite direction…focusing on that which is factual and concrete, shying away from that which is elusive and out of our control. Yet, even in the 21st century, we still sleep-we require a time of rest which leads us into the world of dreams, of vulnerability, of stirrings that come to us out of our control. In today’s gospel from Matthew, we read that the birth of Jesus is announced to Joseph in a dream, in which he is instructed to name the child Jesus. You know, the ancients dared to believe that the unbidden communication of dreams is a venue in which the holy purposes of God, come to us. They knew too that this communication is not obvious. It requires interpretation, but the dream world of sleep, of stirrings of the heart, of imagination…these were honored and respected. (Brueggeman) So in today’s reading from Matthew we hear Joseph’s story and we catch a glimpse of his faith…of a quiet and unyielding faith that we don’t often hear about. His story begins at the start of the gospel with a long genealogy of Jesus. The genealogy shows that Jesus is a descendant of David through Joseph. But it’s an unusual geneaology. First of all it includes five women: Tamar, Rahab, ruth, “the wife of Uriah” whom we know is Bathsheba, and Mary. Since ancestry and inheritance were traced through the father’s line, reference to women in a geneaology was uncommon. Secondly, each of the women mentioned are involved in some sort of questionable sexual behavior. We don’t know the full reasoning behind Jesus’ family tree according to Matthew, but we do see a recurring theme in that the plan of God has often been fulfilled in history in unanticipated and irregular ways, as in the birth of Jesus from Mary. Joseph's story shows that God's plan often occurs in surprising, unpredictable, even scandalous ways. Yet most of us like our life with some kind of order. I suspect that Joseph was no different. He probably had a
sense of where his life was headed, what his hopes and dreams
were for Mary, his intended wife. And then Mary shows up
pregnant with a child that is not his. Before I met David, my husband, I had plans to live in New York City. Little did I know that my future husband couldn’t abide NYC. When we met and fell in love, everything changed…and I ended up in rural PA and now rural WV. Sometimes changed plans are positive. On the other hand, a change in plans doesn’t always feel so
good. It might be through the loss of a job, sickness, financial
misfortune, divorce, or an unplanned pregnancy, trouble with
children, or death This is precisely where this story of Joseph and the life he
lived from this point on can guide us. But to take a Joseph Look would be to ask “Where is God in
all of this What might be God calling me to do with this
situation so that it becomes an opportunity? What is God up to
and How can I be a part of it?" When the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, Joseph doesn’t say a word, but he listens to this message from God. When Joseph woke up from his dream, he dropped the ordinary plans he'd made and began a whole new life not at all of his own making or choosing. He stands as an incredible model for us of faith. We often think of righteousness as always doing what is right. To divorce Mary quietly, as he had planned, would have demonstrated a certain kind of righteousness. However, marrying her - based on a dream, knowing that people were talking about him, facing the disapproval of his family, facing shame and embarrassment and disapproval of the religious authorities – this was taking it to a whole other level. Have you been faced with a decision or decisions over which you have agonized and prayed and sought advice. Maybe marriage; maybe divorce, choosing a career or taking retirement. Maybe having surgery. For Joseph, it was marriage or divorce. Matthew says that Joseph decided to divorce Mary. But then - then came the angel. The angel said, "Joseph, don't be afraid to do what you really want to do. Don't be afraid to risk your reputation. Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife because God has a part in what is going on here." The angel was saying, "Joseph, I know about the decision you have made to divorce Mary. I know it must have felt like the right decision at the time, but give it some more thought. Find the courage to change your mind and do that which God is leading you to do." Joseph models for us what it is like to struggle with a difficult decision. In Joseph, we find one who is willing to risk being unpopular, one who is willing to reject an easy way out, and one who is willing to face a most difficult circumstance. In Joseph, we find one who takes a courageous stand against the current and then does what is right. And the angel came to Joseph in a dream. Abraham and Sarah heard the angel, as did Moses and Daniel. An angel spoke to the women at the empty tomb, as well as to the apostles who were in prison, and to Paul in the midst of a storm at sea. But by far, our favorite angel stories are those that have do with this season. An angel promised old Zechariah and barren Elizabeth a son. An angel promised Mary a special baby. An angel directed Joseph to marry Mary. Most of us don't escape difficult decisions and situations. The decisions range from family matters to financial ones; from health concerns to career choices; from deciding what is right to peer pressure. This Christmas we rejoice that we do not make any decision alone. The promise of Emmanuel is that when we are weighing the options carefully in the midst of difficult decisions, we are in the presence of the one true God who is always for us and always with us. Do you realize in the Bible how often God's Spirit makes
things new? Bruggeman writes: That is what Matthew is telling us, that God's Spirit has stirred and caused something utterly new in the world. God has caused this new baby who will change everything among us. Is the voice of God whispering to you in your heart, in your sleep, in your feelings, in your hunches? How can you sink into your dreams, trusting and following them, so that God can be born in you and through you into the world? Perhaps we follow the ancients in at least this aspect of faith. While we don’t forgo the use of reason; we know that reason must involve the presence of the Holy. Our technological achievements require and permit us to learn again what the community of faith has known -- and trusted --that there is something outside our controlled management of reality which must be heeded. Joseph's story tells about how to accept changes. Joseph helped these three people come together as a family. It's not the way he would have wished it or planned it himself, but it's the way it happened. It’s hard to do the right thing when you might suffer for it. It’s hard to do the right thing when you’re not sure it’s the right thing. And it’s very hard to do the right thing when everybody else thinks it is the wrong thing. Joseph shows us what faith involves. It isn’t simply following the right rules and procedures; it’s following God’s way even when it is costly and even when we are not 100% certain. It is being willing to suffer with others. It is demonstrated not in our words so much as in our actions. St. Francis once said, “Preach the gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” For Joseph, words did not seem to be necessary. Amen.
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