Getting on my soapbox

You know what really bugs me? Well, I mean besides when the pizza guy takes too long to get to my house?

It's those stupid forwards that I get in my e-mail that share some religious story, often kind of sappy or sentimental, and then say something like "If you really believe in God/love Jesus/are a true Christian then you will forward this e-mail to all of your friends."

I don't like them at all. For a couple of reasons.

First, I don't like them because they are based on shame. They are shaming people into forwarding them. What they are telling people is if they don't send them on, then they must not really believe in God or love Jesus or be a Christian. As if their identity as a child of God is somehow dependent on clicking the "forward" link and sending that silly message on to others.

I think we have enough stuff in our lives telling us that we are not good enough, that we are somehow not living up to what we should be. We don't need some silly little chain letter putting its voice in the mix to heap more shame and guilt and "not good enoughs" on us.

And they're lying. Absolutely lying. Because our identity as children of God is in no way determined by our ability or willingness to send an e-mail. In fact, our identity as children of God is in no way determined by anything that we could do, have done, will do, might do or could ever do. It has already been determined by God through Jesus Christ. We are children of God because God loves us. Not because of our abilities or choices or circumstances.

Second, I don't like them because they have got it all wrong. They say that if you love Jesus/believe in God/are a true Christian then you should show it by forwarding that e-mail. I'm sorry, but there are TONS, no MILLIONS of better ways to do that. How about moving away from the computer and actually reaching out and helping someone. Share a smile. Do a good deed. Help a friend. Help a stranger. Serve in a soup kitchen. Volunteer at a food pantry. Shovel your neighbor's sidewalk. Mow their lawn. Donate your money to a worthy cause. I could keep going. The thing is, if we were to create a list of ways to prove that you believe in God/love Jesus/are a true Christian if forwarding an e-mail was even on it, it would most likely be near the bottom. Jesus told us that if we love him that we are to feed his sheep and that whatever we do to the least of these we do to him. Those who are hungry and poor and lonely and sick and broken-hearted and homeless and abused and addicted could probably care less if we sent a sappy little story to all of our friends. They would probably appreciate a friendly smile, a kind word and a helping hand a lot more.

And besides, if you DO forward that e-mail and then go on to share in some gossip, or ignore the needs of your neighbor, it gives people a much clearer idea of what is important to you, anyway.

back when i was a parent

I haven't blogged in a while. Not because I haven't had anything worth blogging about it's just that things happen, my life gets busy, I guess the blog sometimes gets pushed to the background. But the thing is, I usually like blogging when I actually sit down and do it. So that's why I keep coming back. Hopefully you do, too.

Today I opened a package from a ministry organization that has a child sponsorship program. They included a packet of cards with the pictures of the children and information about them. I don't currently sponsor a child through a program like that because I've heard stories such as not much of the money you send actually goes to the child, and that multiple people have pictures of the same child (although I guess that part doesn't matter, as long as money is going to the child I have a picture of, do I really care if it's mine or someone else's?).

But in college two of my best friends and I sponsored a child through a similar program. His name was Albeiro and he was from somewhere in South America. I want to say Colombia. Anyway, we took his picture with us everywhere. We'd seat belt him into the car with us and we'd goof around and talk to him like he was a real child.

One evening we decided to go on an outing to Perkins, a local 24 hour restaurant. Of course Albeiro came along with us AND he got his own seat in the booth (but we didn't ask for a booster). We got to eating and talking and having a good time and then we got up to leave. When we got back to our dorm, we realized Albeiro was not with us. We had left him at the restaurant!

My friend Peter called the restaurant and started to explain that we had left our child there, failing to mention to the woman that he was a 5x7 piece of paper. When the woman on the other end of the phone started to freak out, Peter realized what was happening and told her that Albeiro wasn't an actual child (at least the Albeiro in the restaurant). The woman, much relieved, said that they did, indeed, find Albeiro and would hold him until we got back to get him.

I'm not quite sure what happened to little Albeiro. As they do, our friendships changed and we no longer spent as much time together as we did. We graduated and moved on to other places and things. I know that I did not end up with custody of Albeiro, and I'm not sure which one my friends did. Who knows, maybe they still are sponsoring him and taking him for nice drives and out to eat...

Bound together and tightly woven

Today proved for me, once again, how our faith makes us a family.

My senior pastor has been very gracious with me these past few days, allowing me opportunity to grieve and to process my feelings. Today, before worship, he approached me and said that he was going to talk about the earthquake in Haiti, but he would not say anything publicly about Ben and Renee and Jon, that he would leave that for me to share with others as I saw fit.

As he finished talking about Haiti, he then asked if there were any more announcements. That was when I knew I needed to say something. I said I had something to share and then I told my congregation about my friends. I shared what I know and asked for prayers and then I sat down.

Afterward, many people shared their condolences with me. They said they had seen the story of Ben on the news and had been worrying and praying for him and his family. A few said that they remembered him from my ordination service when he, Jon, Renee and our friend Elly sang (I wish I knew how to get video off of the DVD and into a format that I can share online, it's a wonderful song made even more beautiful by my friends singing it). Almost everyone who spoke to me about this said that they were praying for me, as well, and if I needed anything to let them know.

This is what the Church is supposed to be, I thought. A family. People who care for one another, who bear one another's burdens, who reach out in times of grief and tragedy, who celebrate together in times of joy. A family of people, bound together and tightly woven with the love of God that is revealed to us in Christ Jesus, the love that we are called to share with others. The love that calls us, compels us, to help our brothers and sisters in Haiti and around the world who are suffering.

It also proved to me, again, how small and tightly woven this ELCA world is, too. A member of my congregation told me that her brother is a pastor and that he went to college with Judd, Ben's father. Another woman said that her daughter was college roomates with Liz, Jon Larson's sister. There is another family whose brother-in-law is a pastor near LaCrosse, Wisconsin and knows the Larsons that way. This shows how small and interconnected we truly are as Christians and as Lutherans.

And those are both things that I need right now. I need to know that I belong to a Family who cares, who is willing and able to reach out and care for those who are in our midst but who are also compelled to care for those in other places and countries who are in need of help. And I need to belong to a community that reaches beyond time and geography to be together. A community who, in the face of a world that can seem big and harsh, reminds me of how close and personal we really are as Children of God.

And Ben, you have reminded me of both of these things.

Godspeed, good friend.

A friend and fellow seminarian, Ben Larson, is presumed to have died in the Haiti earthquake. He was over there with his wife, Renee, and cousin, Jon. They are all good friends of mine and sang at my ordination service. I'm still struggling to accept this whole thing. It doesn't seem real.

The article from CNN is here.

It's hard to find the words in situations like this. So I turned to some that have already been written.

Why I Do Not Like Raccoons

This is an attempt at video blogging, or Vlogging. Let me know what you think!

Sermon for 12/13/09

I am not one to normally post my sermons online. It kind of makes me nervous. But I got a lot of response from this one that I preached this morning. And so I thought maybe if it could be a blessing to others, then I'd go ahead and post it on my blog.

The texts for today (that I use for this sermon)are Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-18


At least when we read the Gospel for today, we get some reassurance that we aren’t the only ones who get it wrong.

John the Baptist was quite a guy. He dressed in camel hair, his diet consisted of bugs and honey, and he lived out in the desert by himself. He was a fiery and passionate man who wasn’t afraid to speak out and make a scene. He saw the injustice of the Roman empire, he witnessed what he believed to be spiritual weakness among the people who he was baptizing, and he was not afraid to call them out.

So in today’s Gospel, he’s preaching at the people gathered and he’s really kind of giving them the business. I mean he starts by comparing the people there to a bunch of poisonous snakes. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t take that as a compliment. Then he tells that that just because they say that they belong to Abraham, just because they claim to be a part of that promise that God made to Abraham way back in the book of Genesis, that won’t be enough to save them.

He says that the ax is laying at the foot of the tree and any one that doesn’t bear good fruit will get cut down and tossed into the fire. He’s telling those people that they are one step away from being punished. They had better get their act together or, like that tree, they are going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.

And if they think he’s bad then they’ve got another thing coming. John starts to warn them of one who is coming who will be even tougher than he is. John tells them he just baptizes them with water, but there is one who is coming who will baptize them with fire. John compares the one who is to come like someone who works in a granary separating the chafe from the wheat, separating the worthless part of the plant from the important grain. He tells the people that this one who is coming will take those who are the grain, the ones who are considered important, and will gather them to himself. But those who are the chafe, those who are worthless and unimportant, will be tossed into unquenchable fire.

John is expecting the coming Messiah to be a take no prisoners kind of guy. Either you are good and important and worth keeping, or you are bad and unimportant and you’re gonna burn. John was definitely not expecting the kind of Messiah that we got.

Jesus was not born to powerful and important people. Jesus was born to a poor, young couple who could only find a barn for shelter. The only people who showed up for his arrival were dirty shepherds and wise men from a faraway land who would have been considered unbelievers.

And then, when Jesus and John meet for the first time, Jesus wants John to baptize him. John tries to say it should be the other way around, but Jesus persists, and so John, who claimed he wouldn’t even be worthy enough to tie the sandals of the coming Messiah ends up baptizing him in the river.

But John is excited, and he thinks that now that Jesus is around things are going to start happening. So John goes after King Herod, who was not a good king. He was too close with the oppressive Roman army. King Herod was benefitting from the oppression of his own people and John is sure that now that Jesus is around, it’s gonna stop. John goes after Herod and ends up getting arrested, and he realizes that Jesus isn’t fighting back. Jesus wasn’t there to back him up, he didn’t come as reinforcements. So John has to send a couple of his followers to Jesus to ask him if he really is the Messiah. Are you the one we’ve been waiting for, they ask. Or should we wait for another?

But Jesus was the Messiah. He just wasn’t the kind of Messiah that people were expecting. He came to save his people, but not with a winnowing fork like John said. He didn’t come to gather some people up but send the rest off to be condemned. Jesus came so that no one would need to be condemned. He took the punishment that was meant for us. Jesus took our sins and died on the cross for us, so that we might escape the unquenchable fire. Our Messiah came not to save some and condemn the rest, but he came to be condemned so that the rest of us might be saved.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent. Advent is a time of hope and of expectation. It’s a time where we remember how the people long ago hoped for and expected the promised Messiah to come and save them. And it’s also a time when we hope and expect for Jesus to come again. But Advent is also a time of surprise. Because the people long ago were surprised by the Messiah that they got. Just like John, the people were expecting someone different. So when the Messiah showed up, and he didn’t look or act like they were expecting, they were shocked and surprised.

As we journey through Advent and wait for the big Christmas celebration, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I think we’d be shocked and surprised at how many times we come across Jesus and don’t recognize him.

You see, it’s because we’re like John. We expect Jesus to be like us, to look like us and to act like us. Of course he will like the same things and the same people that we like, and of course he won’t like the same things and the same people that we don’t like. We expect Jesus to believe the same things we believe, to support the same causes that we support, and to make us feel comfortable and safe and warm and fuzzy.

But the truth is, more often than not, Jesus looks like the people we would least expect. He looks like a homeless person on the street begging for money, or a teenager with strange hair and facial piercings. He looks like a single mother in the welfare line, or a gay man dying of AIDS. He looks like a gang member, or an Arab, or a starving child, or an elderly person suffering from dementia. He comes to us as an abused woman, or a man suffering from addiction. He comes to us with tattoos and a big beard and riding on a motorcycle. He comes to us with skin that is a different color than ours, speaking a language other than English.

These are ways that Jesus comes to us. And more often than not, these are times we ignore him because he’s not what we were expecting. We get so caught up in who we think Jesus ought to be that we miss him when he is right next to us. We get so caught up in what we think Jesus ought to say that we fail to hear him when he is speaking right to us. And we get so caught up in what we think Jesus ought to do that we miss all the wonderful things that he is doing around us and through us.

Advent is a time of hope and expectation. But it is also a time of surprise. Our God is a God who surprises us, who comes to us unexpectedly, who is revealed in ways we would not expect, and loves us in ways we could never deserve. Our God is a God who is coming to gather us all together, not like John proclaimed where some were saved and others sent to the fire, but our God will gather us together the way that the prophet Zephaniah proclaimed in the Old Testament reading, where God will gather us all together, every one of us, including the lame and the outcast, and God will change our shame into praise and renown in all the earth.

This is the God who is coming for us, and this is the God we wait for during Advent, and this is the God who is revealed to us every day. Amen.

snow day!

So, we were on the northern edge of the big huge snowstorm that has been blowing across the midwest. We were not far enough south to get hit as hard as many of the places, like Nebraska and Iowa, but we were far enough south that school was cancelled today! It's a snow day!

So that means that all of our Wednesday activities here at church have been cancelled. Well, at least our youth activities. I guess our bell choir and worship choir are still planning to meet for rehearsal tonight. So, my entire evening isn't free (I sing with the worship choir) but all of the stuff that I am responsible for has been put on hold.

Because of that, I have a day free when I normally would spend it making sure everything is ready for Confirmation. Of course that doesn't mean I have nothing to do. I have a wedding this weekend, and I preach on Sunday, so there is plenty that I COULD be doing. But, as I sit here in my office, basking in the warmth of the space heater and drinking a nice, warm cup of coffee, I can't help but look out the window at the snowy, white, picturesque scenery.

That makes me remember the snow days of my childhood when it meant that, as soon as we were done eating breakfast, we'd pile on our winter coats and our snowpants and our hats and mittens and gloves and scarves and boots and we'd charge out of the house and burrow through the snow. We'd build snow forts and snow men and we'd make snowballs and mercilessly pelt each other with them. We'd play outside, free from the restrictions and work of a school day, until we couldn't feel our noses or fingers and then we'd charge back in the house, leaving our cold and wet coats and boots in a pile by the door. Then we'd traipse into the kitchen with our red faces and runny noses and make hot chocolate with those little marshmallows floating in them. Then we'd spend the rest of the day inside the warm house watching TV and relaxing. It was a great way to spend a snow day!

Now my snow day consists of bundling myself up and charging out of the house to cross the street and go into the church. Instead of snow forts and snow men to build I have sermons to write and meetings to plan. Instead of hot chocolate with marshmallows I'm drinking hazelnut coffee. It's definitely not a bad way to spend a snow day. It does have its benefits. But part of me really does want to go outside and build a snow fort. Wanna help?