Do not fear. I have redeemed you. You are mine.

-->

This post consists of the scripture passages and text of the sermon I preached during the opening worship of the 2018 Indiana-Kentucky Synod Assembly, which began just under a week after the shooting at West Noblesville Middle School in Noblesville, Indiana.
The recorded audio version may be found here

Isaiah 43:1-2, 5-7

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Luke 4:16-21

When [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

----

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in abundance, dear sisters and brothers, from God, our Creator through the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Friday morning, this past Friday morning, I was sitting on our deck off the back of our house working on this sermon. All of a sudden, a news helicopter flew over the house and that made me realize that the air was also filled with the sound of sirens.

Living where we live, I assumed that there must have been a car accident. We live near some major roads and, unfortunately, this happens with some frequency, so I set down my tablet and paused to pray for whoever was in that accident. As I was praying, a notification popped up on my phone to tell me that there had been a shooting at West Noblesville Middle School, fifteen minutes from our house. I knew then that all the commotion I had heard was first responders on their way to tend to those who were in need.

I was reminded immediately of Benton, Kentucky, another community in our synod, where this past January two students were killed and some eighteen injured at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky. One of our congregations, St. Matthew by the Lake Lutheran Church, is in Benton.

Truth be told, I wept and prayed.

Then I did what any contemporary bishop does. I texted our pastor in Noblesville, Teri Ditslear, to offer her support and prayers. She responded as I knew she would. "I'm already at the high school." They had bused all the kids from the middle school where the shooting had happened to the high school and Pastor Teri was there.

Thankfully, only two people were injured, and nobody was killed, in great measure because of the quick response of one of the teachers. Like Pastor Teri and the first responders and so many others who gathered with that community, who entered that community, who came up alongside those who were suffering – to bear their suffering, to offer whatever companionship they can offer, to offer them human touch, human presence – that's what the church does.

That's who we are. It's who we are called to be. It's who we are sent to be. It's why Jesus came. He said it in the temple that Sabbath day so long ago: "I'm here to set people free. I'm here to move into the lives of those who cannot see. I am here to proclaim release to the captives." And then, we saw him do it. Over and over and over again, Jesus went deep into the suffering of God's people, of all people, especially those whom others were not going to be with. "This is why I came," Jesus said.

By entering their suffering, entering our suffering, our trauma, our sin…by going deep into the ways in which we hurt and harm one another and break and shatter human community…by entering into the depth of it all, going all the way to Hell.

And there, right there in the midst of it all, somehow, in the amazing wonder and grace of God that is a mystery beyond my comprehension, new life was born.

Jesus gathered it all up into his very self, into God's own self. Our suffering became God's suffering. And, wonder of wonders, wounded by that suffering himself, Jesus carried it all the way to the cross, entered the depth of death. I don't know exactly what happened during the next couple of days, but I do know this: on the other side of hell, Jesus left it all wrapped in a white linen on the floor of an empty tomb and rose up from the dead to offer new life to the world.

That's what Jesus does and it's what we do because we are Jesus people.

Sisters and brothers, we are marked indelibly with that cross on our forehead and sealed forever in the Holy Spirit. The spirit of Jesus is sealed in our hearts and that spirit shares our suffering, our sin, our pain, our hurt, and somehow in the midst of it all, offers new life – wounded – but new and abundant and lasting life.

Jesus calls and claims us to follow Pastor Teri and all of the others like her, including those gathered in this room who know the deep and abiding love of Jesus for them that sets them free to go deep into others suffering share to share that life and love with others.

We are, after all, people who have heard the ancient words echoing down through the centuries to us. Did you hear it just a bit ago?

Now thus says the Lord, the one who created you, O Noblesville, the one who formed you, O Benton:

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you. Do not fear, for I am with you and I will bring your offspring and I will gather you.” I will offer new, abundant, and lasting life and the restoration of human community.

Sisters and brothers, this night, these days, hear these words: "Fear not. I have called you. You are mine."

Hear them in the bit of bread and the sip of wine. Hear the promise in the rippling waters of the font. Hear it in the peace passed from one to another in this assembly. Hear it in the word spoken and silent in your hearts and from the lips of others. Hear it in the presence of a sibling in Christ, a brother or sister who comes up alongside of you to walk with you, in your own suffering, if only for a moment.

Then rise up as part of the resistance to step into the world and into the depth of its pain to say by your presence, "Fear not. God has claimed you. You belong to God and in the amazing mystery of God, wounded, you too will find new, abundant, and lasting life. And we'll find it together."

Thanks be to God.

After the Election

I voted today. Now what? What are you going to do when the election is over?

No matter who lands in office, we have work to do.

I hope you will join me in a renewed and energetic commitment to repairing the torn fabric of our public life. Deep hurts that we have inflicted on one another need healing. Both we ourselves and our elected public servants need a re-call to civility and a persistent commitment to the common good over personal and partisan agendas. The post-election world needs ambassadors of reconciliation in every arena of influence that we have, in our families, our congregations, our communities, our church, our counties, our states, and our country.

Most pundits and social commentators agree that we will be sorting through the debris left behind by this election cycle for a very long time. As cross-marked, Spirit-sealed followers of Jesus, we are claimed, called, set free, and sent to stand in the breaches. We are sent to tear down walls that divide and build paths to peace. The cross on our foreheads and the Spirit in our hearts call us to turn the gaze of our common life – which has been saturated with attack ads and volatile rhetoric –toward those who have been overlooked, pushed aside, dismissed, disrespected, detested, and dejected.

If you and I don’t lead the way forward, who will?

Long ago, the apostle Paul reminded riven communities that in Christ, God has torn down divisive walls of hostility and has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us [Ephesians 2:14; 2 Corinthians 5:19]. We know the power of forgiveness and we are sent to offer it to others. We know the peace of being restored in relationship and we are blessed to be peacemakers. We know the transforming power of receiving mercy and the freedom and new life that ride the coattails of justice and we are empowered to give ourselves so others might know it, too. We know the commitment of Christ to care for the poor, the outcast, the captive, and the wandering ones and we are called to follow in that way of Jesus.

We follow this Way trusting the even more ancient call and promise from God through the prophet Jeremiah: Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope [Jeremiah29:7-14].

Of course, this is not an easy path to walk. The divides are deep and the needs are myriad. But it’s the path the crucified and risen Jesus has always walked. He will continue to walk that way long after the election results are in. For the sake of the life of the world so beloved by God, he calls us to follow.

So, what do you say? Let’s cast our votes and get to work.

Can We Talk?

Sometimes I wonder whether we have lost the ability to talk. I don’t mean the ability to form and speak words. I mean the ability to talk – really talk – with others.

Think about all the “conversations” about race, politics, or religion that you have heard or participated in recently, on TV, at public meetings, in church, on Facebook. It appears to me that, on the whole, we are pretty good at making demands, spewing projectile perspectives, yelling, interrupting, accusing, labeling, and making sweeping assertions about whole groups of people or about how the world ought to work. But we are not very good at conversing, especially when the stakes are high. At least, I don’t hear much genuine conversation going on around the very difficult issues we face together as the body of Christ and in the world, issues like racial tension, violence, politics, religious perspectives, sexual identity, even the future of the church.

In her wise and important book, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre reminds us that “To ‘converse’ originally meant to live among or together, or to act together, to foster community, to commune with…When we converse, we act together toward a common end, and we act upon one another…Indeed, conversation is...a way of building and sustaining community.”[1]

If we are going to find a way forward through these challenging times somebody needs to create spaces in our life together for genuine, careful, caring, honest, mutually-honoring conversation, the sort of conversation that changes the participants and builds and sustains community toward a common good, rather than tearing it apart in a wrestling match over who will get their way, over whose perspective or interest or power will dominate the day.

Of all people, we who have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with his Spirit ought to be able to engage and create space for this sort of conversation. After all, trust in the grace of God made known in Jesus who is our forgiveness, love, and hope frees us to go deep into the sorts of paradox, ambiguity and pain that so often give rise to fear and angry imposition of hardline demands. We who rest in amazing grace and walk in the way of the cross are able to face hard, harsh truths about the brokenness and sinfulness of life – together – and to lead the way in our human search for life-giving paths forward.

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. [2 Corinthians 5:18-20; NRSV]

This sort of conversation is neither natural nor easy. In many ways, it’s quite countercultural. It involves deep listening to the other, listening at the risk of being changed, not listening in order to find a hole in an argument or a target for rebuttal. Community building conversation that moves to action calls each participant to honest sharing of their experience or perspective in an non-judgmental environment that honors each and is committed to working together for the common good. It’s walking, or rather, talking in the way of the cross, trusting that there really is “one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” [Ephesians 4:6; NRSV]

How might we create space for this sort of conversation in our families, our neighborhoods, and our congregations this fall?

How might your book group or Bible study or youth meetings or congregation council or committee meetings be different if genuine conversation about difficult issues were to become a high priority?

What if we all looked around our congregations, communities, and workplaces for people who are different from us or who hold perspectives different from ours and invited them into genuine and sustained conversation about the very things about which we differ? 

Such conversation certainly won’t remedy all the challenges, divisions, and injustices that we face. But I do suspect that, with McEntyre, we’d discover “conversation that discloses us to one another and brings us into relationship that reaffirms our common dependencies and our importance to each other. Like prayer, good conversation fashions words into vessels that carry living water.”[2]

---

[1] Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 89.

[2] McEntyre, 110.

New Life Unnoticed

They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.

Mary Magdalene, first report from the empty tomb [John 20:2]

She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus…supposing him to be the gardener…

Mary, weeping outside the tomb [John 20:14-15]

Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

On the road to Emmaus, the first Easter evening [Luke 24:16]

Icon by Vladimir Tamari

New life rises from a stone-closed tomb and it goes unnoticed, unrecognized, unappreciated. The first visitors to the empty tomb assume that the body has been moved or stolen. One of them thinks the just-risen Jesus is the gardener. Others ask the traveling companion who comes up alongside them if he’s the only one who doesn’t know what awful things happened to Jesus in Jerusalem…and it turns out the companion is, in fact, Jesus.

This life is so new, so fresh, so unexpected that no one sees it for what it is: world changing, life transforming resurrection. People just like you and me squint at the new life through old lenses, lenses clouded by long-held assumptions and colored by fear, yet rendered obsolete the moment Jesus shed the shroud and left the tomb.

We are Easter people. We live on the far side of the resurrection of Christ. We proclaim for seven weeks: Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Yet we so often walk through our days as if Jesus were still lingering in the tomb. Resurrection life is afoot in the world and, squinting through old lenses, we so often miss it.

Thankfully, this Risen One is persistent. He keeps coming up alongside us to give us new lenses to see the new life he offers. A sip of wine and a bit of bread…water and Word washing over us…forgiveness offered or received…a friend living in recovery day by day…a simple sunrise or the complexity of a relationship restored…these and so much more are signs of resurrection and new life afoot in the world, so easy to overlook or mistake for something else. In, with, and under the mundane matters of our drudging days the Risen One comes near again and again to speak our name, open our eyes, stir our hearts, take our hands, and lead us out of dark tombs into resurrection light.

This Eastertide, may God’s Spirit open our eyes wide with wonder to see new life coming near, open our hearts to receive it with hope and joy, and open our hands to share it with all we meet along the way.

Christ, our companion, hope for the journey,

Bread of compassion, open our eyes.

Grant us your vision, set all hearts burning

That all creation with you may arise.

       [Susan Palo Cherwien, “Day of Arising,” ELW 374]

Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Risen Indeed?

          Alleluia! Christ is risen!

When you read that did your mind go immediately to the well-conditioned response?

          Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

That grand Easter greeting has been around for a very long time. It’s a wonderful way to invite celebration of the gift of new life offered through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

And, yet, I wonder if any of the first witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus would have immediately responded so confidently.

Think about those stories. Almost no one immediately recognized resurrection as it stared out at them from the empty tomb.

We are told in the 24th chapter of the gospel of Luke, for example, that the women who first made their way to the tomb were “perplexed” by its emptiness. And the men thought the story the women then told was an idle tale and didn’t believe it.

Through the veil of her tears Mary thought the risen Jesus was a gardener [John 20:11-17]. And the despondent disciples on the road to Emmaus thought he was a clueless stranger [Luke 24:18].

Resurrection power did not burst forth like spontaneous combustion from the tomb and into the hearts of waiting believers to suddenly set the world ablaze.

It did, of course, eventually change the lives of the followers of Jesus: they found forgiveness and healing and new and abundant life. They began to draw others into the fellowship of the crucified and risen Christ and to change the world.

But this change wasn’t instantaneous. It’s as if resurrection power simmered for a while in the world, unexpected, unrecognized, unwelcomed, untapped.

It wasn’t until echoes and tremors from the empty tomb found their way into the mundane moments of every day life that the disciples experienced its transforming power.

This power rose up and transformed them through words spoken and bread broken and wounded hands extended and fish fried on the beach…all offered by the risen Jesus to eventually move those early folks who were so much like us to proclaim with power, confidence and joy: Christ is risen…he is risen indeed! [Luke 24:30-32; John 20:26-29; Luke 24:36-49; John 21:1-14]

Dear brother, dear sister, it’s not likely that every challenge in our lives will be solved, every brokenness restored, all hopelessness overcome this Easter Sunday or even in the fifty days that follow.

But the Word we proclaim these happy, holy days, the hymns and songs we sing, the fellowship and meals we share, even the pastels and the butterflies and the eggs remind us again of the sure and certain promise that because Jesus lives resurrection is afoot in the world. It simmers just below the crusty surface of our days, waiting to grab hold of each and every one of us and work the wonder of new beginnings, new and abundant life in the risen Jesus.

Look for it. Listen for it. Sense its nearness. Surrender to it. Share it.

Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

(You may listen to a podcast of this reflection at http://iksynod.org/podcasts/. Happy Easter!)