Friday, June 08, 2012


Building the Fires of Love

A sermon for the opening worship of Camp Lutherwood

Mark 12: 28-31

The First Commandment

28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ 29Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 31The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’

On this first worship of the summer, let’s talk about something really important. Fires. 

Starting a campfire, as any counselor who has ever taken kids on an overnighter knows, is one of the most important skills to have.  How else can you cook your foil dinner or make smores? And what will you sing around if not the campfire?

Confession: Although I’ve been a counselor, I’m still not terribly confident about getting my fires started on my own.  Maybe I didn’t play with matches enough as a kid, maybe it was because we had central heating instead of a woodstove. 

So I’ve built up pyramids and teepees and log rectangles.  I’ve used lighters, matches, and even flint.  And I’ve definitely sung, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.”  Pro tip- keep your matches dry.

Getting that blaze going- the kind that will yield those glowing coals and heat enough to warm my toes on a cold Pacific NW night- that’s a challenge.  Getting that fire started and going enough to stoke it and keep it stoked- it can be hard. .

Here we are starting off the summer, and Jesus is talking not about fire, but about love.  All very cozy- loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength- that’s a veritable blazing fire of love.

 Love, love, love, all you need is love. Doo, doo, doo doo doo.  Love is all you need. That might last you a few days, maybe until July even. 

Look around the room.  By the end of the summer, I can predict a few things. 
At least one couple will have fallen in love here and may even end up getting married.  At least one life long friendship will be forged.  At least two people will date each other and then decide that they are not compatible.  At least one person here will not be interested in a romantic relationship but will be more focused on growing as an individual.  And at least one person here will be trying to sustain a long-term, long-distance relationship, with phone calls, emails, and perhaps even letters or visits- trying to sustain love with someone who is not experiencing camp.

And somewhere in July- everyone is going to get on your nerves.  You’ll be tired of camp food and that one camper who wants to hang on your leg or test every limit.  You’ll miss the internet and your phone.  You’ll get tired of going on overnights and you’ll miss your bed at home.
And your fire of love for your neighbor and for God, it’s going to be like a downpour opened up on your little pyramid of kindling that was just about to catch on that log.

So how do you get the love fire going, really going? How do you keep it blazing?

Building a fire of love for God and neighbor-
With all your heart and soul and mind and strength.  A little pyramid with which to start the blaze.

Greeks thought that there were 3 kinds of love:
Eros- Cupid, Eros- erotic, romantic
Philos, from which we get the word philosophy, it's an earthly kind of love.

Agape-
It’s that third one we’re talking about tonight.
Greek word agape:
Agape a person:  1a) to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly 
2) of things  2a) to be well pleased, to be contented at or with a thing/

Listen again to the passage- now that you know the Greek words:
‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall agape the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 31The second is this, “You shall agape your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’
Agape isn’t just a feeling- because you agape with your heart AND your soul AND your mind AND your strength. 

This summer the theme of camp is love to serve.
Taken at least two ways- like “I love to serve”
Or acting in love as service.
Or perhaps, we could try to understand it this way: let’s say someone asks you, “how is it that you serve?” and your answer is “I agape.”   

What will it look like for you to agape? For you to agape God? For you to agape your neighbor? Will be different for each person.

Think about a time when you have known that you were agaped by someone.

How did you know? Was it because of something they did or said? Was it in their body language or their tone of voice?

Now turn to your neighbor- tell them about when you have been agaped.
Now tell me what does agape look like/feel like?  (Write on poster)

In some ways, this-agape is your job description this summer, and perhaps for the rest of your life.

Remember my descriptions of what will happen this summer? They will almost certainly come to be.  Life will happen, as life always happens.  You will not always love one another or God.

But here is the good news- the surprising news, the kicker.

Your fire of love is not started in your heart or your soul or your mind or your strength.  Those are the things which will burn with love for God and neighbor.  But it will start in this way: We love because God first loved us.

Turn to your neighbor and say to them, Neighbor, we love because God first loved us.

Whether you love one another or God at the end of the summer or the middle of the summer or now, whether you love God with your heart and soul and mind and strength or just with one of the four or none of the above, even if you are pissed off at God and everyone… God will still love you- with a deep and enduring and powerful and unending love.

So when you get tired or annoyed, when you want to quit and go home, or when you don’t want to face the world outside of camp, remember that your agape is a gift from God through Jesus the Christ- the one who loves us and loves us and loves us.
It turns out that the song is right, “Love is all you need.”

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Pentecost- Power from on high


John 15:26–27, John 16:4-15

‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them.
‘I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, “Where are you going?” But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
 ‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.


Last week, we remembered Luke’s account of how Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high.

While they waited in the room they must have wondered what that meant for them to be clothed with power from on high.

Following Jesus, they had seen power, the power of God through Jesus: power to heal, power to unite, power to restore to community. Power to conquer death.

Up until now, none of the disciples had done any deeds of power.  They had seen their rabbi heal and teach, but they had been disciples, students.   It seemed unlikely that any of them would be the next rabbi.  Each person had a weakness, a failing. And each weakness or failing had been brought home at the time of the crucifixion, when even Peter had denied Jesus. 
How could it be possible to be clothed with power?
Paul later wrote, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.”
And that is exactly what Jesus sent- the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper.

These days, we know also the magnitude of our problems, and we see how impossible it would be to solve these problems if it were all up to us on our own.

But today we affirm with the disciples that our power does not come from within, it comes from the Holy Spirit acting through us and with us.

When some of us learned about the challenges that our brothers and sisters around the world face as they suffer malaria, it was so widespread, how could one stop it?  What could one person do? One person’s actions will make a very small difference, but many people’s small actions have made a big difference.
In two year’s time, the rate of death has slowed such that instead of a child under five dying every 30 seconds, it is now every 45 seconds.  We are making progress, $10 at a time, bed net by bed net.  The Holy Spirit is at work as people gather to save lives.

But what can we do about global climate change? It’s overwhelming and scary.  One among us said, “Sometimes I want to just stop reading everything and go hide to make it all go away.” But others of us went out to work on wetlands restoration just last month, and joined a host of people who have removed invasive species and planted trees. And throughout the city and our country and our world, projects that reclaim natural spaces make a difference.  The Holy Spirit is at work as people gather to heal creation.

Participating in global health initiatives and wetlands restoration is all very fine and good if you can do it, but what about those among us who struggle with addiction at home? Life itself can seem unmanageable, impossibly chaotic.  And there, it is the church that gathers in the AA group or the NA group or as friends to say, “One day at a time,” “One step at a time.” And brothers and sisters, because of the power of those who are gathered, the grip of addiction loses its hold and healing takes place. The Holy Spirit is at work as people gather to heal relationships.

This is what Martin Luther called the work of the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, our helper: to call through the gospel, to gather, to enlighten with gifts, and to make holy the whole Christian church. So that the Body of Christ, gathered and united by the Holy Spirit receives power from on high- the power to save lives, to restore creation, to heal broken lives.

The Holy Spirit has been doing this powerful work- from the days in which those scared and confused disciples gathered in Jerusalem until today. The Holy Spirit has been working through the Body of Christ, of which we are just the latest members to join.

So as some of us go to tend graves tomorrow, and others of us simply take time to remember those who have gone before, let us give thanks for the lives of our loved ones and let us also praise God- the Holy Spirit- who has acted through and with all the beloved of God and continues to act today. 

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Supporting and protecting families

For the past two days, I voluntarily entered a large, windowless room, packed with all sorts of people, a good portion of whom were mostly twice my age. And it was there., as voting members of our synod assembly, that we did the work of the church, which sometimes gave glimpses of the work that God is up to in this world.

Yes, there were the inevitable resolutions and amendments to the constitution (although remarkably, two of those passed with 100% support.  That never happens.) And we did discuss and pass a budget.  We wouldn't have been doing our jobs otherwise.  

But the exciting part for me culminated in our discussion and action to support families.  Three highlights (briefly because it is early Sunday morning).

1) This resolution in support of marriage equality. It passed with 81% in favor.  It was a wider margin of support than I expected.  Here's an excerpt of that resolution that I loved:

WHEREAS the ELCA “will advocate for public policies that support and protect families” while the ELCA also “commits itself to continued attention to and discernment about changing family configurations and the ways they serve to shelter and protect relationships of mutual trust” (ELCA Social Statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, p 24);
Therefore, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Northwest Washington Synod meeting in assembly affirms Marriage Equality in Washington state as a public policy that provides social support and social trust for same-sex couples and their families;

Sounds like dry language, but that is good news coming through.  Good news for families of all different kinds.  Hurrah!

2)We affirmed our relationship of support for our sister synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and Other States.  Sounds boring, right?  Not so much.  See this guy in the middle?
That is Bishop Dietrich Brauer.  Looks young, right?  Yep. He's 29.  How does that come to be- a bishop at 29?  
Because not so very long ago (within living memory), the vast majority of Lutheran pastors in Russia were executed.  So ELCROS is a baby church, with young pastors.  Their territory is 40% of Europe.  
They have pastors, raised up and trained at their seminary, and they are serving their communities, with social service agencies and places of worship.  But their young pastors are often not being paid- even though their salaries are about $200 a month.  Do you think you could help? Send a check made out to Northwest Washington Synod.  Mark it ELCROS.  They'll make sure it's passed on. 

By the way, supporting those pastors means supporting their families.  Bishop Brauer and his wife (also a Lutheran pastor) are expecting their second child next month.  Being young means having young families.  Ministry is stressful enough as it is without adding in months of not getting paid.

3)The ELCA Malaria Initiative.  Awesome things are happening.
As one speaker said, "Tanzania is about the same size in population as Oregon and California combined.  Last year, 38,000 children under the age of 5 died in Tanzania from malaria.  If that happened in the States, from a preventable disease, our country would come unglued."  If you can give even $5, that helps.  Please give, and give generously.  

The ELCA Malaria Initiative supports families like yours and mine. I'm proud that my church is doing this work.

Thanks, NW WA Synod for the awesome assembly.  It may have been remarkably boring for most of the time, but we did some great work together.  

Friday, May 11, 2012

From Joppa to ?

{I edited this sermon by listening to the audio of what I actually preached.  I did not originally intend to even speak the words "Gay Marriage" during the sermon, but at the 8am service, I received what I can only describe as a powerful shove from the Holy Spirit to speak what had been on my heart for the past week. I do have audio and once I convert it to a youtube file, I'll post that, too.}

Easter 6B
Sermon for May 13, 2012

Acts 10:44-48

44While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” 48So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.


Please pray with me: Gracious God, help us to hear these words. Help these words to open our hearts so that we may love each other. Amen. 


The sermon today is not on the Gospel of John, nor is it on the 1st letter of John, but it is on the Acts story, which is a story about miracles of hearts opening and it is also a story of deep conflict in the church.

You can see from the first line that we are jumping right into the middle of the story, because you don't get that sense of the tension and the fight when you read this little short blurb from Acts but that's exactly what we're getting into and we're going to go there today in the texts.  So please hold me in prayer as we go here, because it's a hard thing to talk about, even these many centuries-- millenia-- later.  Here it is. 



Our reading from Acts begins, “While Peter was still speaking.” And that clues us in, that we're jumping into the middle of a conversation. It's like you just opened the door into a room and Peter is still talking about something. So where is he, what was he talking about? Who was he talking with?
The story starts not with Peter, it starts before Peter gets involved, with a guy named Cornelius in a city called Caesarea.  Cut off the last two letters and you see who it was named after: Caesar.  You can see what this town is like. This town was as Roman as they came.  It was a coastal city that Herod the Great renamed after Caesar Augustus. In 22BCE Herod put a lot of money into Caesarea:  a palace overlooking the sea with an Olympic size pool, a massive deep sea harbor, markets, wide roads, baths, temples to Rome and Augustus. Moreover, every five years the city hosted major horse races in an arena with a capacity for 15,000, and theatrical productions in its theatre that seated 3,500 and overlooked the Mediterranean Sea
In Caesarea, there was a guy named Cornelius.  Cornelius was a centurion from the Italian cohort, and not just a grunt, but a leader. He probably has some money, living comfortably in this Roman outpost in a bit of a backwater area. Here's what we hear about him in the book of Acts.  “He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God.” (Acts 10:2, NRSV)  He was well-known in the Jewish community, but Jewish he was not. So why not? If he's a believer, why isn't a member?  Membership involved more than just classes or meeting people, but for adult men, it involved a certain risky and painful surgery.  There's good reason he's not yet fully Jewish. 


And one day, Cornelius has a vision.  In it, he receives very specific directions with an address no less- to send people to Joppa to find a guy named Simon called Peter, staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is by the seaside.

So Cornelius, this believer, sends people to the seaside town of Joppa. 
The story may start in Caesarea, but the next scene takes place in Joppa.  For Jewish hearers of Acts, bells would have been going off in their heads. You may not know Joppa, I've never been there.  But it's an ancient port city and it would have been known because of a short story that everyone knew that starts out like this:
"Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord." (Jonah 1, NRSV)
God sent Jonah to those wicked Assyrians in Nineveh- and that story ends with Jonah really ticked off at God- why? ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing." (Jonah 4:2, NRSV)



So, Joppa, the city that Jonah went to as he fled from sharing the message of God's mercy for those outsiders, those oppressors. 


Back to the story at hand.  Cornelius has had his vision, he sends people to Joppa to find Simon, called Peter, in Joppa.
Meanwhile, in Joppa, the ancient port city, Peter is having a little rest.  He’s been visiting with a friend, Simon the Tanner.  Things have been a little hot back in Jerusalem.  There are disagreements.  Peter and Paul are on two sides of the disagreement. 


Paul says that everyone should be able to be part of this church, and if they don't want to have that dangerous and risky surgery, that's okay, and baptism will unite us. 
And Peter, who has been an observant Jew all his life. And he believes that new believers are welcome, but they need to become Jewish first, according to the law that has come before.
Look at your bulletins.  You were probably wondering what that picture was about.  It's Peter's side- 
1) Both Jews and Gentiles are welcome. 2) Gentiles must follow Jewish law and rituals. Welcome.


So they are on the two sides of the debate back in Jerusalem. 


Peter is hanging out in Joppa, and he's recently healed one of the congregation’s quilting ladies, a disciple named Tabitha.


At Simon the Tanner’s house one day, it’s just about time for lunch.  Things aren’t ready yet, so Peter goes up onto the roof to pray.  While he’s up there, Peter, who has probably been seeing a lot of dead animals of all kinds at a tanner's house, falls into a kind of trance.  He’s hungry, but in this vision, a sheet with all sorts of animals, both clean and unclean, is lowered. And Peter hears a voice telling him to get up and eat.  Peter is shocked and declares he would never eat unclean things.  He’s a good Jew, after all. Why would he?
Peter is told, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Three times he is told this. And then the vision is over and the sheet is taken up into heaven.

Because just then, before lunch is even served, Cornelius’ men show up at the gate, asking for Peter.  And the Spirit tells Peter, to get up and go with these folks without hesitation, for the Spirit has sent them.


Now, has the voice of God ever been ignored before? Has the voice of God been ignored before in Joppa? Peter has a choice.  He can go down and meet these uncircumcised believers from Caesarea.  What will he say to them?
Or he can go down to the port and get on a boat to Tarshish. What will he do? 



The next morning, Peter brings along some believers from Joppa and sets off to Cornelius’ house.  When he arrives, the house is full of Cornelius’ friends and relatives, and they’re eager to hear from Peter.  
There, Cornelius and Peter talk openly and share their dreams. And Peter begins to share the good news of Jesus Christ.  And Peter preaches one of the most shocking and powerful sermons ever preached:  “I now know that God knows no partiality.” God doesn't pick sides, God doesn't have favorites.  God has no partiality. It was shocking then, and it is shocking now.  No partiality- at all.


And it is just after this sermon that the Holy Spirit rests on Cornelius and his family and friends, showing everyone that "these Gentiles are full members of the family of faith.  And then Peter opens the way for them to be baptized and become members of the family of Christ. Cornelius invites Peter to stay the night at his house:  hospitality seals their friendship and their kinship in Jesus."("Holy Calamity" by the Rev. David Lewicki)

Peter stepped out in faith, going to Caesarea, to a Gentile’s house.  And now that he's baptized these Gentiles, there is no going back. The whole next chapter in Acts is dedicated to Peter explaining back at the church in Jerusalem about his change of heart and saying now what do we do?

Peter's  relationship with Cornelius and all those people who are baptized with him in Caesarea has just set a new precedent for the church.

So what does this mean for us now?

Brothers and sisters, we are in a Joppa kind of time. Our world is changing.  We know far more people than we have ever known before, and that means we know more people who are different from us than ever before. This last week has been one of the more divisive weeks of recent history. 


I was talking with a friend of mine.  She was saying that one of her dearest friends from a long way back, had, on her facebook page, been updating, "This may be the last time that you hear from me.  I'm having to make hard decisions about my friendship list.  People who aren't following God, I just can't be around them."  This friend was in North Carolina, and she was distraught about all these people who were making decisions to support gay marriage which she felt was contrary to her belief about who God was and what Jesus was calling her to do. 

On the other side of the debate is a friend of mine from college, a faithful Christian and follower of Jesus, who I have considered open-minded for a long time, posted on her facebook page that she, too, was defriending people.  That it was too painful to hear bigotry and hateful things slung around. So she was just cutting that out of her life. 


But when you defriend people on facebook, aren't you cutting people out of your life? And you have to wonder, as Christians, isn't there something better we can do than cut the debate and cut people out?



How do we love one another when we have differences? And we have real differences.

We are in a Joppa kind of time. 



Do we get on the boat to Tarshish? Do we cut out the people that we don't want to tell about God's love? Or that we can't believe that God loves them? Or that we just simply disagree?


Brothers and sisters, there is another way.  It is a hard way, a difficult way. 


Caesarea may not be that far from Joppa, but it is very hard to go there. It means going into the territory of the other. It means giving up some of the things that we have held dear, that we have known to be right for so long. It means going and listening to one another's stories. It means holy listening. It means leaving room for the Holy Spirit to blow through our church, and I daresay, our community.

As we prepare for this election season, in which gay marriage will be on the ballot, brothers and sisters, I invite you to come along on the journey to Caesarea: to find out where God is at work in one another's lives, to listen to one another, to allow the love of Christ to infuse our hearts and our conversations. Amen. 



Pastor Abby d'Ambruoso