The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

October 7,2012

READ - Genesis 2: 18-24                                Hebrews 1: 1-4; 2: 5-12                  Mark 10: 2-16

 

IT’S ALL ABOUT __________

 

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

                It’s all about relationship.

                Yesterday’s Apple Festival at Emanuel, do you think that was all about raising money?  Well, we certainly need it!  We’re $6,000 in the hole at the end of September.  But if it’s primary purpose is raising money, then we would be the first to be fired by Donald Trump.  No, it’s about relationships; relationships with the community around us and relationship with one another in our service.

                The now-infamous infield-fly-rule game, do I think many people care that my Braves got cheated in their loss to St. Louis?  No, I get mercilessly teased because it’s all about relationships; with my friends and fellow baseball enthusiasts.

                When I counsel a couple in preparation for their wedding day, do I tell them that theirs will be a match made in heaven and that God has brought together the only two people in the world meant to be with each other?  No, because then God wouldn’t have a very impressive track record.  Instead, I tell them that marriage is about relationship, and commitment to one another, and the need to constantly work at keeping the vows of promise for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, unless those vows are irrevocably broken.

                Attending worship every Sunday, do you think it’s about obligation?  That line isn’t even working in the Roman Catholic community anymore.  Do you think it’s about obedience to God’s command?  Then a lot of people are simply going to hell.  And I think a good portion of our society has resigned itself to that fate.  I presided at a wedding at St. Luke’s with over 150 people in attendance.  Communion was offered, and is 20 people came forwards to receive, that was a lot.  The rest seemed too embarrassed about their lack of church attendance and participation to think they could…or should.

                Do you think worship is about getting something out of it?  Like, if you’re not spiritually moved, then it wasn’t really worth it.  Or if you’re not sufficiently entertained…heaven forbid it should seem boring!  No, it’s about relationships.  It’s about gathering together as the people of God, as the family of God, to enter into the mutual consolation of the saints, to bring something into the worship experience rather than demand to get something out of it.  Perhaps you will provide the hope and the comfort for someone going through a particularly hard time.  Maybe you, and not necessarily the preacher, will share the Gospel Word of good news that can change someone’s life.  We enter into a covenant with our fellow brothers and sisters to serve one another and to pool our resources and talents to serve others in need.  We are each an integral part of the body of Christ; and when missing, the entire body suffers and is diminished.  It’s all about relationships.

                Jesus’ death on the cross, do you think that was about appeasing an angry God, that God requires blood, sacrifice, and death in order to finally forgive humanity the collective burden of its sin and thereby qualify for salvation?  Oh, I admit that sounds correct and often I fall into the trap of similar words.  But is that really what we think God is like?  A god like that might just as easily decide that the death of Jesus is not sufficient, and extract of us an even higher price to pay.

                No, it’s all about relationships.  The author of the book of Hebrews tries to explain that relationship.

                The apostle writes: Jesus is “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being.”  The first relationship is the one between Jesus and God.  Jesus isn’t just the best possible human being, he is to God as a son is to a father.  Ah yes, it takes a human relationship as imperfect as that at times may be to illustrate and help us to understand the perfect, divine relationship.

                Then the apostle writes: “The one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father, therefore Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”  The second relationship is between Jesus and us.  Jesus isn’t a distant, transcendent God; he is one of us, God in human flesh, completely and truly human.  God isn’t angry or upset with us or requiring mortal compensation, for rather we hear that we have been “Crowned with glory and honor.”  Now that sounds beloved!

                The third relationship is between God and us.  The apostle writes again: “We can’t see everything, but we can see Jesus, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”  What bridges the gap between human and divine, between temporality and eternity, between this life and eternal life?  Is it not death?  But not death as punishment, not death as appeasement; but death and resurrection, death that ushers in new life.

 

                So what does all this have to do with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the creation story in the second chapter of Genesis?  And what does all this have to do with the teachings of Jesus on marriage and divorce and the suffering of little children?  (as the KJV puts it: “Suffer the little children to come unto me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”)

                It’s all about ____________ (that right, relationship).  Ha Adam, the man, in solitude was incomplete and impotent.  Other animals, birds and every living creature ultimately failed to complete him.  Man’s perfection could only be accomplished through his own complimentary nature.  So, as the Yahwist writer illustrates for us, out of Adam’s rib God creates woman, Woman from Man, Ishah from Ish, not in subjected or secondary status, but as the man’s own reciprocal being; a helpmate, a partner; a relationship is created.

                It is significant and revealing that the Hebrew word for physical and sexual intimacy is the word “yadah,” which is correctly translated as “to know.”  And Adam “knew” his wife, Eve.  I remember as a teen, we used to wink at one another when we would respond to the question of whether we knew someone with “Do you mean “to know” in the Biblical sense?”  Yadah is a word of intimacy.  It’s all about relationship.  Such human intimacy remains for us, a sit was for Jesus, the closest illustration of our relationship with the Almighty.

                When Jesus chastises divorce, do you think it is because he wants to excommunicate people from the Church?  Do you think it’s because he wants to establish a Biblical definition of marriage?  No, it’s about relationship.  Divorce is so devastating to anyone involved because it creates a division of relationship.  It admits that even our closest illustration of relationship with the divine is flawed.  It is the separation of relation that breaks the Sixth Commandment.  And once sin separates, then what can possibly bind us back together?

 

                Jesus then finds the perfect answer to his implied question right before his eyes.  Not cute and adorable; but noisy, bratty, disrespectful, vulgar, disgusting children are clamoring around Jesus and pulling at his robes and stepping on his toes.  The disciples are trying to chase them away.  (There is nothing worse and totally disruptive to a worship service than a crying baby – am I right?)  No!  Jesus gathers them in his arms as a mother hen gathers her chicks, lays his hands on them, plays with them, and blesses them.

                Let’s go back to the beginning.  Let’s go back to birth.  Let’s go back to creation.  It’s all about relationship!

                It is my prayer that each one of us may experience such a relationship with Jesus –

- to know what it is like to be gathered in his arms, (“to know”)

- to know what it is like to be touched with his healing hands,

- to experience the joy of playing with Jesus, and

- to know that through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, we are blessed with a right and wonderful relationship with God.

                The writer of Hebrews ends our lesson for today: “In the midst of the congregation I will praise you!”

                And that, sharing in that God-blessed relationship, we may put aside all that separates us from one another; to not allow valid differences of who we are or what we hold important to us to divide us from one another; to not give sin the opportunity to divorce us from God’s love; but to enjoy living in the perfect relationship that God intends for us.”  AMEN.

 

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  AMEN.

 

Rev. James Slater

Emanuel Lutheran Church – Stuyvesant Falls, NY

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church – Valatie, NY

 

THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

August 26.2012

 

Joshua 24: 1-2, 14-8

Ephesians 6: 10-20

John 6: 56-69

TIME TO COME HOME

 

Well, it has been a quiet week in LAKE WOBEGON, my hometown.  You’d think that as summer reaches its peak in central MN and all the camps and cabins around the lake were full that the town itself would be hustling and bustling.  But it just isn’t so.  As soon as school closes for summer vacation in May, folks from the Twin Cities flock to LAKE WOBEGON.  The streets are full, the stores are crowded, as provisions are bought to stock the newly opened camp for another season.  But now, as another school year looms just around the corner, the lake camps are being shut down and the city folk are preparing to flock back home.  Every once in a while a pickup truck will drive into town to pick up sheets of plywood at the Bigger Hammer Hardware store.  You’ve heard their motto on radio commercials from WCOO, the call of the Loon, out of St. Cloud: “If at first you don’t succeed, try using a bigger hammer.  If you can’t find it at Bigger Hammer Hardware in LAKE WOBEGON, you didn’t really need it, now did ya.”  The plywood, nails and hammers are for boarding up the camps against the poSunday Schoolibility of another severe LAKE WOBEGON winter.  It’s the same with the locals.  They’re all out at their camps for the summer too.  So it’s been a really quiet week in LAKE WOBEGON. 

Don & Wendy Lundberg have a camp out by the point.  They were thinking about coming in to town for church last Sunday, but then noticed that the Gonzales family, from one of the Dales outside of St. Paul (Oakdale, Ferndale, Chippendale, they couldn’t remember) , who just this year bought the camp next to them, were putting up the plywood on the inside of their windows.  I gueSunday School they were kind of new to camp life and MN winters.  Don tried to be real patient as he explained that the wind blows from the outside, not from the inside.

So they miSunday Schooled church.  They were actually kind of curious to see what church was like in August.  Long before many people can remember, Val Tollefson, council president at LAKE WOBEGON Lutheran Church, had convinced the rest of the council that, since no one attends worship in August anyway, they should just shut down for the month and save on expenses by having the minister take his four week vacation then.  It started before David Ingqvist had been pastor there and that had been for 30 years.  Pastor Ingqvist never challenged the idea.  His own children had imagined that Jesus himself went on vacation during the month of August.  That’s why nothing exciting in the life of Jesus (you know, birth, death, resurrection) happens in the summer time.

But now Pr. Ingqvist had been transferred to be chaplain at the Mall of America and Pastor Liz, a young, female pastor from New Jersey, had taken over the pulpit of LAKE WOBEGON Lutheran.  She could not believe that a church would close down for a whole month and force her to take all four weeks of her vacation at that time.  So that was the first change she made.  She had argued that the summer lake people would want to come to church in August, but that never happened.  So the loyal remnant came, the Bunsens and Thorvaldsons, but that was about all.  Long-established habits are hard to change, even for the better.

As it happened, Pastor Liz did want one week off in August to go back home to New Jersey and visit her family.  She went to church with her parents last Sunday and was kind of caught by surprise when they sang “Onward, Christian Soldiers” as the hymn of the day.  Why she hadn’t sung that hymn in years.  It was considered far too militaristic an image among her Uppsala College and Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary communities.  But as she sang the hymn, memories came flooding into her mind of being one of the SUNDAY SCHOOL children, dressed in suits of armor, marching around the classroom, led by her mother who was her SUNDAY SCHOOL teacher.  “I don’t think children experience that anymore,” she pondered, “marching with the assurance that Jesus has conquered all the world’s evils and we can feel protected from sin and the devil by wearing the armor of God.  Was that really all so bad?  What confidence of faith do children have today with life seeming so much more complicated than it was then?”  But it wasn’t just the old hymn.  The Gospel lesson for the day spoke about Jesus teaching the people at the synagogue in Capernaum.  She had been there, stood in the ruins of that Cafer Nahum synagogue with her parents, on a trip to the Holy Land.  It was as if, after all those years, she could feel the presence of Jesus in the ruins of that holy place; and now, sitting next to her mother and father after all these years, she could still feel the spirit of God moving in her soul.

Since hardly anybody would be at worship at LAKE WOBEGON Lutheran anyway, Pastor Liz had asked Pr. Ingqvist to fill in for her.  Maybe some of the old timers would come out to welcome him back.  But there weren’t many in the pews to hear Pr. Ingqvist preach on the Joshua text for the day.  He called their attention to a quilt hanging on the church wall.  Many years ago, all the families of the church were encouraged to submit a square that would represent their family to be woven together into a big quilt.  Pr. Ingqvist had created a square with a picture of a church and its steeple surrounded by the names David, his wife, Judy, and the two kids and then on the bottom he wrote Joshua 24: 15, which if you looked it up would read “as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”  He rambled on about how he wished he and Judy would have had nine sons who would all become pastors and then they could form a barnstorming clergy baseball team to play during the month of August, when there was no church anyway.  And they could establish a Lutheran dynasty to equal the Boumans or the Wangerins or the Martys.  But that never happened.  It was hard being PKs (preacher’s kids) and having to sit in the front pew of church with their mother, while Dad preached against the evils of the world from above their heads, sometimes feeling the spray of his spit if he got really worked up about something.  Now both his kids are grown up and doing well with families of their own, but they hardly ever attend church.  At best they are C&E Christians; Christmas and Easter, doncha know.

He wondered if that’s how Jesus felt when he preached at the synagogue in what Pr. Ingqvist pronounced as Caperni-um.  Jesus’ first real effort at outreach, feeding over 5,000 hungry people, had resulted in everybody turning away from him.  Jesus, in teaching about eating his body and drinking his blood for everlasting life, had been an evangelism failure, go figure.  People wanted and believed that they deserved food to fill their bellies, while Jesus was offering undeserved grace to feed their souls.  Then Pr. Ingqvist grew very serious.  He said that the trouble with people today is that so many believe that what they have is what they deserve, what they have worked hard for, and don’t acknowledge or appreciate that we live in community and that we depend on one another.  That was in the heart of those lost Norwegian explorers who settled LAKE WOBEGON and established this church in that same pioneer spirit.  Now everybody does their own thing and that does nothing but reduce a community of thousands to one.  That’s why so many churches today have to have plywood nailed over their stained glass windows because there is no spirit blowing on the inside.

When the disciples of Jesus were confronted with such decline they realized that they, alone and left to their own devices, could do nothing to change the trend.  It is Peter who finally realizes when Jesus asks if they also want to leave him, “Lord, to whom else shall we go?  You alone have the words of eternal life.”  That was not what they deserved or worked hard to earn, but that was what Jesus had to offer for free for all who trusted in him – eternal life.  “The danger,” preached David in a power he had never before displayed, “is not to the Church.  The Church belongs to God and will always be what God wants it to be.  No the danger is to each one of us; that we become lonely, isolated and self-serving.  The Church will exist wherever the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed.  The Church will exist wherever the praises of the Lord are sung.  The Church will exist wherever those in need are served as Christ would serve them.  Within the community of God’s Church you will find meaning and purpose.  Within the community of God’s church you will find your hope and your future.  Within the community of God’s Church you will find Jesus alive and working among his people.  (He was starting to spray a little now)  Within the community of God’s Church you will find your home.”  Then he sat down and thought to himself, “Woah! Where did that come from?” and wished Arnold Thorvaldson would have been awake for it and more would have been there to hear it.

Yesterday Pastor Liz flew from Newark to Minneapolis/St. Paul  and then drove her car north to LAKE WOBEGON.  The traffic heading south from the lakes of Minnesota was bumper to bumper.  All the summer folk were heading home.  And she was going in the opposite direction.  “No,” she thought, that’s not really true.  Although I’m returning from visiting my family in New Jersey, I’m also on my way home…home to LAKE WOBEGON.”  She pulled up to her home and as she began unpacking her car, Wendy Lundberg and her three girls walked by.  “Hey, Pastor Liz,” she greeted,” welcome home.  How was your trip?  Hey, when does SUNDAY SCHOOL start again?”

Pastor Liz replied, “September 9, first Sunday after Labor Day weekend.  That will be our Rally Day.”

“Good, we’ll be there,” said Wendy, “We’re back home from camp now.”

Yes, thought Pastor Liz, someday we’ll all be back home.  Then she started thinking about Rally Day.  Maybe she’ll have all the SUNDAY SCHOOL children create armor and shields out of construction paper and march around the church singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”  I betcha that’s something they would never forget.

And that’s the news from LAKE WOBEGON, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

AMEN.

George Dickson

In Memory of George Dickson

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

        Today’s worship is full of Scripture and hymns and songs of praise to our God.  There is no better way to honor and remember George and to give praise to God than through the means that was so important and meaningful to George.

        Song was his prayer – especially scripture songs: God’s Word and the music of angels equaled true devotion for George.  And he couldn’t get enough of it.  George would sing every Sunday in the St. Luke’s choir, but what most of the people at St. Luke’s didn’t know was that he had already worshiped at Emanuel in Stuyvesant Falls each Sunday morning.  It was like he wanted to make up for all that lost time of his former years; not in contrition, but in gratitude for once having been lost, God by such amazing grace found him and saved him.

        But it meant so much more to George that all that.  While his faith may have been as simple and child-like as that, his personal interests were complicated, profound and eclectic.  And he certainly wasn’t afraid to expound upon his thoughts and views, ideas and insights, over the radio; even as he himself grew and changed with new awareness and new revelation.

        In planning for this service, Linda and the family shared with me many of George’s favorite Bible verses, but left the choosing of the Gospel text up to me.  That was good, because I already knew what I wanted to use: John 3:16.  Oh sure, everybody knows John 3: 16 (“For God so loved the world that He have His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have life everlasting.”)  But in the original Greek language of the verse there is even deeper meaning.  “For God so loved the world.”  The Greek word for “world” is “kosmos.”  Imagine that!  That was the full expanse of George’s faith – God loves the whole cosmos!  George believed that if you expand your mind to the furthest limits – there is God.

        And then in the revelation of God’s total cosmological glory, infinite wisdom and divine majesty, George knew that God loved the person of George Dickson in an intimate, personal and unconditional relationship.  So George believed that if you condense the vastness of the universe down to just one person, to just you – there is God also!

        When, on many occasions, George would sing “Where you there when they crucified my Lord?” he would do so with full acknowledgement of that not being a rhetorical question, but answering with a confessional, yet confident, “Yes!”

        Yes, George was there because it was for his sins that Jesus died on the cross.  Yes, in a metaphorical cosmology, George was actually there as a witness and participant.

        “Were you there when God raised him from the dead?”

Yes, Jesus rode from death and ascended to heavenly glory as a promise for George.  Yes, George was witness, a faithful witness, to the resurrection of his Lord and Savior.

And now George is really there in heaven’s eternal glory.  Not just because the heavens are part of God’s universal cosmos, but because God’s love in Jesus is so vast so as to include a mere mortal named George Dickson.  And if George, so also each one of us.

With George and (as our St. Luke’s people know) Everett Secor before him, we’ve now passed on two tenors to the heavenly chorus.  What can we do, but keep singing God’s praises with every last breath that we have (as George did) and keep the cosmic harmony of God’s love and grace sounding through all the extremes of the universe and into each individual heart and soul.  That’s what George always tried to do.  AMEN.

May the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  AMEN.

Rev. James H. Slater

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church

Valatie, New York

June 18, 2012

Abide with Me

Fifth Sunday in Easter

Acts 8: 26-40

I John 4: 7-21

John 15: 1-8

ABIDE WITH ME

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

                Many of us can’t sing the hymn, “Abide with Me,” without a tear in our eye as we think of loved ones for whom the words had deep meaning.

                One of my favorite Greek words is MENEO.  It is often translated into English as “to remain” or “to dwell.”  But my preferred translation is the word “abide.”  I like it because it’s a word we hardly ever use anymore, except when we read something from the scriptures attributed to John.  Even then most modern translations do their hardest to avoid using the word “abide.”  I believe that old-fashioned, church word is still the best for capturing the true meaning of MENEO.

                Our readings for today preserve the word “abide.”  Search for it in the Gospel lesson from John and you’ll find it eight times; in the epistle lesson from I John, six times.  It was a favorite word for the writings of John because, I believe, it was a favorite word of Jesus.

                The power of the word “abide” is illustrated by Jesus in the image of the vine and the branches.  Jesus identifies himself as Yahweh, (I AM) the vine, and we are the branches.  As the branches abide in the vine and as we abide in Jesus, so is good fruit produced.  So the word has to convey some sense of connectedness, of interdependence.  Life blood flows through that connectedness.  When branches no longer abide in the vine, they wither and die.  We have old, dying trees on the parsonage property.  With every wind storm, branches, no longer connected to the life blood of the tree, no longer producing leaves, wither, break off and fall to the ground.  A natural pruning takes place.  So abiding in Jesus is crucial for our life, for our survival; for our worth and for our value; for apart from Him we can do nothing.

                I don’t think it escaped the intention of Jesus or the notice of the disciples that the fruit of the vine was being identified with the life blood of Jesus; the connection made real for us in the meal of Holy Communion.

                In the epistle of I John, our second lesson, the word “abide” is intimately connected with the Greek word AGAPE, divine love.  Those who abide in love, abide in God and God abides in them.  For the apostle, love is the greatest of all gifts, the greatest fruit of the Spirit.  “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love.  Yes, they’ll know we belong to Christ by our love.”  So abiding has something to do with the deep intimacy of love.  Wow, that is an important word!

                Perhaps it would help to define MENEO by what it is not.  MENEO does not mean “to visit.”  It is not to drop in on someone, invited or not, expecting to share and enjoyable time together, but not expecting to stay.  Visiting comes with an ending and an automatic out.  MENEO does not.

                MENEO does not mean moving in together.  That has lost so much meaning over the past years.  Moving in together has become a matter of convenience and experimentation rather than any sense of commitment or permanence.

                MENEO does not even mean “to dwell.”  Last month Christa and I toured the impressive cliff dwellings of the Synagua Native Americans in Arizona.  Built into the sides of mountains, like at Solomon’s Castle, or surrounding a lake of water, like at Montezuma Well, the structures remain but the people do not.  With each location comes the mystery of why they disappeared. Cliff dwellings housed people for over 500 years, and then the people were gone.  That’s not the meaning of MENEO.

                But still we have only scratched the surface of this powerful word.  Let’s explore other times when Jesus uses this word, “abide.”

                We can go to the very beginning of the ministry of Jesus.  In the Gospel of John, the very first invitation Jesus gives as he calls disciples is not “Follow me,” but rather “Come and see.”  The would-be disciples go and they ABIDE with Jesus.  Abiding with Jesus was the source of their calling to be disciples.  It was their connectedness to Jesus.  They could not bear the fruits of discipleship until they had abided in the presence of Jesus.

                Then, at the very end of his ministry as Jesus spoke with his disciples in anticipation of and in preparation for his death, he promises them the comfort of knowing that “in my father’s house are many abiding places.”  God’s love will surround Jesus and so also us when we draw our last human breath.  And death will not be a pruning of the branches, because we will still be abiding with Jesus.

                Now, here’s the thing.  As important and as powerful as this word MENEO, “abiding,” obviously is, we have to remember that Jesus didn’t speak Greek.  Believing, as I do, that John is thinking in Hebrew and translating into Greek, I have to ask the question, “What is the Hebrew word that Jesus is speaking and that John is thinking?”  If rooms in God’s heavenly mansion are called “abiding places,” or “dwelling places,” then I can’t help but think of the ending of the 23^rd Psalm: “And I will DWELL in the house of the Lord forever.”  That Hebrew word for “dwell’ is SHABBAT.  How interesting!  And I will Sabbath in the house of the Lord forever.  I will find rest for my soul.  I will worship God in eternal glory.  Abiding in God’s presence, I will dwell in peace.

                The writer of the Prologue of the Gospel of John, most of the first chapter, also wants to convey the power of this concept.  The writer wants to emphasize that abiding is less about what we must do and more about what God has done for us.  Abiding is not a work; abiding is a gift from God.  So it is written that the word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Only the word used for dwelling was not MENEO, but rather ESKENE.  ESKENE is a Greek word based upon the Hebrew concept of building a tabernacle, of God pitching a tent in the midst of our campground of life, of God revealing total glory in human presence in the person of Jesus.

                So the fact that God abides with us is a pure gift.  It is a statement of God’s grace.  God wants to Sabbath with us.  God wants to give us rest.  God wants to fill us with peace.  God wants us to worship in the very presence of divine glory.  To refuse to abide with Jesus, to forget to Sabbath with Jesus, to reject his skene, the presence of his glory, is a fate worse than death.  It means living worthless lives and having a purposeless existence.

                But those who abide in Jesus, or rather and better yet, know that Jesus abides with them, they know the true meaning of love in their lives and they bear the good fruit of faith in their words and deeds.  I’ll never forget when Lydia Frick, the matron saint of the Emanuel congregation, told me that “Abide with Me” was her favorite hymn.

                I wasn’t at all surprised.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto eternal life.  AMEN.

Oma & Googa (4/22/12)

The Third Sunday in Easter

April 22, 2012

First Lesson – Acts 3: 12-19

Second Lesson - I John 3: 1-7

Gospel Lesson – Luke 24: 36-48

OMA and GOOGA

                Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

                It is now the third time having had this experience as a grandparent, but because our grandson, Slater, lives so far away and we don’t get to see him as often as we do Gabriel and Abigail, it is that much more amazing.  How is it that this one and a half year old child, who sees us only two times a year, can immediately and unquestioningly bond with Oma and Googa?

                As a parent, I never thought twice about it.  We were with our children 24 hours a day and seven days a week; all day and (for the first six years) all night.  The parent/child relationship is a working relationship, but being a grandparent is a miraculous blessing.  Many of you who are grandparents may identify with this.  For others of you, think about a special relationship you may have had with a grandmother or grandfather.

                It is not unlike the question I’ve always wondered about the post-resurrection experiences of the disciples of Jesus.  How did they know it was him, risen from the dead, alive in their midst?  In today’s Gospel lesson, the disciples can only image Jesus to be a ghost.  That’s the only thing that made sense to them.  That was the only plausible explanation to his presence.  Earlier in this same chapter of Luke’s Gospel, two disciples travel on the road to Emmaus, walking and talking with Jesus without any idea who he is, until the revelation is made.

                I thought a lot about this while on vacation because 1) well, we were visiting with Becky, Ben and Slater in Las Vegas and 2) I had been listening to a book written by the atheist author, Sam Harris called The End of Faith, in which he tries his hardest to disprove faith with many mental gymnastics and Biblical misinterpretations.  But it begged the question: “How do we know Jesus is real?”

                For little Slater, I can identify two important factors in his acceptance of the revelation of who his Oma and Googa are:

1)      Becky and Ben, and Ben’s mother, Denise, are witnesses to the fact that Oma and Googa exist.  They tell Slater stories about his grandparents and surround his room with pictures, going through a litany of family members in his evening prayers.  So then, when we do arrive, Slater has some idea what to look for.

2)      When Christa and I are with him, we do “grandparent” type things.  You know, Oma helps to feed him at meals and sings him songs and changes his diapers.  And Googa plays with his blocks, I mean, I play with him playing with his blocks and carry him on my shoulders.  And together, we take him to the park to play on the slides and sing swinging songs together.

And in those two experiences Slater knows, he just seems to miraculously know that these are his grandparents, that they belong to him, that they love him and that he loves his Oma and Googa.

Do you see the Jesus connection?

1)      Jesus, by his preaching and teaching prepared his disciples for one day being able to see the face of God, his Father.  His life would be an example of what to expect in a victorious and glorified God that would be real in their lives.  He told them to pick up their cross and follow him.  That sounds pretty intentional.  He even predicted his suffering, death and resurrection.  And he taught them, “I am telling you these things now, so that when they do occur, you may believe.”

2)      And then, after his death and resurrection, he did “Jesus” type things to open up their eyes to his presence.  He greets the huddled disciples by saying, “Peace be with you,” after having departed from them with the words, “My peace I leave with you.”  He lets them see the nail holes and his pierced side, just like what happened to him at his crucifixion.  And he eats with.  Wasn’t that the very last thing Jesus did together with his disciples?

And their eyes were opened to his resurrected presence.  They just miraculously knew that it was Jesus.  The promise of God’s love had been revealed to them.   And after their eyes and minds had be opened to the reality of Jesus in their presence, he commanded them that repentance and the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.  And he added, “You are witnesses of these things.”

                We are so blessed that our parents and our godparents, our teachers and pastors of the past told us the stories, surrounded us with pictures and music, and prepared us to know what to watch for to see the God of love, to have Jesus be revealed to us, so that we might miraculously just know the God of our ancestors, the God who loves us and the God whom we can love.

                And now it’s our job, our parental responsibility, to let our children know that they have a heavenly parent, better yet – a grandparent – who is real and never far away.  It’s our turn to tell the stories, describe the pictures, sing the songs, and prepare the table.  Or else they won’t know what to look for.  It would never be that God isn’t there.  It’s just that they wouldn’t know because no one ever told them that God is in the sunset, that Jesus sits at table with them and eats with them, that when someone comforts them it is with the embrace of the loving arms of Jesus.

                But, after being thus prepared, when God comes into their lives in God’s good time – and in Jesus, the promise of God is made so we know that God will do it – when God comes into their lives in the sharing of peace, in the forgiveness of sins, in the sharing of the meal; when God comes into their lives as Jesus carries us on his shoulders, as Jesus plays with us and comforts us, as Jesus breaks bread with us, they will miraculously just know it.          AMEN.

                May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Have You Seen Jesus, My Lord

Have you ever looked at the sunset
With the sky mellowing red,

Seen the clouds suspended like feathers?

Then I say you've seen Jesus my Lord.

Chorus:

Have you seen Jesus my Lord?

He's here in plain view.

Take a look, open your eyes,
He'll show it to you.

Have you ever stood at the ocean
with the white foam at your feet?

Felt the endless thunderin' motion?

Then I say you've seen Jesus my Lord. (Chorus)

Have you ever looked at the cross,
with a man hanging in pain?

And the look of love in his eyes?

Then I say you've seen Jesus my Lord. (Chorus)

Have you ever stood in the family
With the Lord there in your midst?

Seen the face of Christ on each other?

Then I say you've seen Jesus my Lord. (Chorus)