When It Reigns

Sermon - When it Reigns

Matthew 22:15-22

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace, Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our creator, the Holy Spirit that connects us, and Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord,

I was really in the mood this week to preach on something happy.  This whole last week and half of my life has really been a comedy of errors.  

It all kind of started last week on our way into the city to see a play, when our GPS had us driving in circles.  My in-laws were in town, and traffic was backed up terribly on the highways, so Google Maps told us that it would be faster to get off the freeways and use some city roads roads instead.  

I’ll never believe Google Maps again.  At one point, we literally came full circle, and passed the same school...twice.

Then last Sunday, my Cincinnati Bengals were poised to kick a game-winning 36 yard field goal in overtime to win the game … and the kicker missed it!  The game ended in a tie, which somehow felt worse than a ls

Then on Monday, when the office had the day off, I went with my wife, my brother and his wife and a few friends to go apple picking.  But when we were sitting down for lunch that day, I threw out a disk in my lower back.

It was one of those weeks that reminded me of the great quote from Mel Brook’s, Young Frankenstein, when one character says to the other “It could be worse!”  And the other one asks, “How?” And he says, “It could be raining!”

And I mean that literally, because right after I threw out my back, like in the movie, it started raining.

It was one of those weeks.

Yes, I could have really used something happy and light to preach about this week, but instead I got the story that has to do with taxes...When it rains...it pours.

Some religious leaders come up to Jesus, with a question that they hope is going to be a wedge issue - because no matter how Jesus answered it, it was going to make some folks mad.  

“Hey Jesus,” they asked him, “Should we pay our taxes?”  Nothing like a question about politics to get folks mad at you.

But Jesus answers in a roundabout way.  He asks one of them to take out a coin, and asks them who’s picture is on it.  And they answer him that it was the face of the emperor on the coin.

So Jesus tells them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”

Good answer.

Let’s think about those words.  What belongs to the Caesar? The coin does.  It has Caesar’s image on it.  It must belong to him.

But the more interesting question is, what belongs to God?  Really.  What belongs to God?  If Caesar owns the coin because his image is on it, then where is God’s image?  

Genesis 1:27, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

We bear God’s image.  We belong to God.  “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”  

Don’t just give of the coin, Jesus insists, give of yourself.  But, what do you give to the God who has everything?  What do you give back to the God who gave you everything, including the coin?  

If you are given everything, then maybe we should give back everything - time, talent, money, resources - all that stuff, yes.  But it’s really much deeper than that.  You give back your heart to God.  

Remember those three great Christian values we heard about in our reading from Thessalonians today? Faith, hope and love?  Those are the things that God truly desires from us.  That should be our offering to God every day.

And that’s a lot to ask, I know.  Because sometimes, we have weeks like I had this past week.  You get lost.  You feel like you are losing at life.  You find yourself in pain.  And then it starts to rain on you...literally or figuratively. When it rains, it pours.

Those days you don’t feel particularly loving.  Those are the days you don’t feel hopeful.  Those are the days you don’t feel faithful.  But it’s particularly when it’s hard - when life is pouring on you - that it matters most.  Your teenager is fighting with you at home?  Love them even more.  Struggling with your faith?  Go pray and talk to God about it.

And hope...hope is something that I think we could all use a dose of these days.  It’s been a tough couple months, here at Bethany. I know more than most. We said goodbye to a Pastor this summer.  We’ve had our fair share of change and conflict.  And at times it feels like we are getting rained on.

But all of this - all of us - belong to God.  We bear God’s image.  And where God is present, there is all kinds of hope.  And so hope is what God asks us to give back.

This summer on our mission trip, every night all the church groups would return from a long day of serving.  We would gather for worship.  And our site leaders from Youth Works, would lead us all in an exercise of hope that they just called “Yay God.”  

And these exhausted kids, who had every right to complain after a week of manual labor and sleeping on floors, would raise their hands, and offer for the group, where they had seen God that day. And when they finished, everybody would snap their fingers...and say...Yay God.  

Sometimes they would lift up somebody who went the extra mile to help that day. Yay God (snap).  Sometimes they would lift up the way they saw God at work in the faces of the community.  Yay God! (snap)  Other times it was the way that God was accomplishing work - fixing broken homes, spending time with the sick, the old and the young.  Yay God! (snap)

They were moments of hope.  They were “Yay God” moments.

We have those too.  This week, I got a call in the evening at home from an unknown number, which is usually a bad sign.  But it was Sharon Saunders, who we’ve been praying for, to tell me that the doctors hadn’t found any cancer at her latest bouts with Chemo. Yay God. (snap)

In our God, we find hope in the most peculiar places - none more peculiar than the cross.  Through an instrument of capital punishment, as Christians, we proclaim our greatest hope for life.

That’s what I would like us all to do today. We need to start practicing a little bit of hope in the rainy times.  We need some “Yay God” here at Bethany and in our lives. 

Think of a "Yay God" moment in your life. Write it down.  Give thanks to God even in tough times.

You’ll be amazed at the incredible ways that God is working in and among you despite all the stuff that’s happened this past year.  There is so much hope - too much, to not be hopeful in our God.

There are days, and sometimes weeks and even years where it rains, and when it rains, it pours.  But as those who bear the image of God, it is our job offer hope back to this world  - especially in the rainy times.  So let faith, love and hope be your offerings.  Because in our God, faith, love and hope reign eternal.  

Yay God.

2nd Sunday after Epiphany: January 20, 2013

2nd Sunday after Epiphany: January 20, 2013

John 2:1-11

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

On February 24, 1969, Johnny Cash recorded a live album at San Quentin State Prison, one year after performing a similar concert at Folsom prison. Both albums became hits, despite the fact that record executives put little money or backing into the projects. The San Quentin concert was also released as an hour long documentary, and if you’ve never seen it—please add it to your Netflix queue when you get home. It’s well worth watching!

Near the end of the show, Johnny tells the audience of prisoners about his trip to the Holy Land. He shares how he visited the town of Cana, and saw the church that is built over the very spot where Jesus was said to have performed his first miracle. As he tells it, he was so overwhelmed with emotion at being in the place, that when he walked out he started singing to himself:

“He turned the water into wine. 

He turned the water into wine.

 In the little Cana town, the word went all around 

that he turned the water into wine.” 

It’s a simple song, really. Each verse recounts another of Jesus’ miracles: he walked upon the Sea of Galilee, he calmed the raging tide, he fed the hungry multitude…and each time, returning to that simple chorus: He turned the water into wine.

In the documentary video, you see the prisoners lined up, row by row, staring intently at the man with the guitar. They’re hanging on every word—hungry for entertainment, perhaps, but also hungry and thirsty for something else. These are men who know what it means to need a miracle. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus performed his first miracle because the wine had run out and the guests were thirsty. For the men at San Quentin, it is their freedom that has run out. The chaos and consequences in their lives have caught up to them, and now their supply of choices, liberties, and opportunity—which once seemed so bountiful—are bone dry. These men need nothing short of a miracle, and Johnny is there to give them Good News. He sings to them of the One who not only turned water into wine, but who also walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead and sets the captives free. The love of God we have through Jesus is the miracle for which we all hunger and thirst. Amen?

Sisters and brothers, let’s talk about miracles. Miracles, by their very nature, are pretty hard to pin down. By definition, a miracle is an event that is unexplainable or falls outside of the laws of nature. St. Augustine once retorted, however, that “Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.” And the great Christian author C.S. Lewis expounded, “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” Well, that about clears it up!

What can we say about miracles? We seem to know when we need one. “It will take a miracle for the Cubs to win the World Series”, for example. Getting Democrats and Republicans to work together and get something done in the next four years will also certainly take a miracle.

We also seem to know one when we see one. We wax poetic about the “miracle of birth” all the time, in spite of what any woman who has been in labor will tell you. And when we’re in particularly good moods, we are apt to call any number of things “miraculous”: rainbows, sunsets, grandchildren, or even a really amazing touchdown in the playoff game.

Still, we’re never exactly sure when or how a miracle happens. Even miracles we experience on a regular basis remain a mystery. In just a few minutes, we will all come to the table and receive bread and wine that is, at the same time, in defiance of the laws of nature and beyond all explanation, also the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. When exactly does that miracle occur? Does the miracle happen when the pastor prays the appropriate words, or holds her hands in the correct shape and her arms in the perfect angle? Does it happen when the congregation sings the “Holy Holy” loudly, and in tune, even when it’s a new setting that we don’t know and don’t particularly like? Does the miracle of communion happen when Martin Luther said it did: at that very moment when one sanctified sinner says to the other: “This is the body of Christ, given for you”?

Or did the miracle of Holy Communion happen when you walked in the door of the church this morning, hungry and thirsty for God?

What if the answer is simply “Yes” or even “All of the above?” Perhaps miracles are not just a moment in time, but are events that develop and unfold, through the grace of God, in unexplainable ways.

At the wedding in Cana, one could say that Jesus’ first miracle happened when the chief steward tasted the water that had become wine and declared it to be a spectacular vintage, better than they had been served at the beginning of the feast. But it was also taking place when Jesus ordered the workers to fill the stone jars with water and they did so obediently and in faith, with no idea of what Jesus was up to. And the miracle was taking shape at the moment when Mary trusted that her son could handle the problem. The miracle continued to unfold as the party went on, as the guests had more than enough to drink, as the bridegroom’s reputation was saved from certain disgrace, and especially as the disciples came to understand who this Jesus really was. For “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” John 2:11

I believe in miracles. I believe the love of God that we have seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ works wondrous things in the lives of the people around me. And I also believe that we have a part in the miraculous unfolding and multiplication of grace and love that happens when Jesus shows up and sets those miracles in motion.

Tomorrow morning leaders and members of several faith communities will gather to honor the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We will sing and pray and remember his powerful witness and prophetic preaching. We’ll celebrate the victories of the civil rights movement in our country—miracles, really—and how we’ve come this far by faith, not in Dr. King, but in God.

But I’ll also be mindful of the many others who were part of the unfolding of this miracle in our country. Dr. King has a holiday in his honor; Rosa Parks has books written about her; but there were so many others who sat on busses, who crossed boundaries, prayed, walked, spoke out, endured ridicule, participated in boycotts, were fired, arrested, imprisoned or lynched. And there were those who quietly went about their daily business, like the workers at the wedding at Cana. The chief steward gave the credit to the bridegroom for bringing out the good wine, but it was the workers who hauled the empty jars to the well, filled them with water, and hauled them back to the wedding, hoping beyond hope that their small effort would be part of a miracle.


The truth is, we need a few miracles today, don’t we? We need the massacres of our children to stop. We need people to put more energy into caring for each other than in preserving their privileges. We need leaders who will put aside talking points and start talking to each other, in the interest of the common good. We need some people who, like Dr. King, will remember that the “time is always ripe to do what is right.”

Dear people, we can sit around forever and wait for a miracle to happen—or we can see ourselves as being part of the one, great, always unfolding, ever-increasing miracle that is the love God has shown the world through Christ Jesus.

As Christians, we proclaim that Jesus died on the cross, once and for all, and three days later was raised to new life, giving hope to the whole world. Amen! And yet, as we live out our baptismal covenants, we become part of the story as it unfolds in our lives, in our families, and in our world.

We become part of that ongoing miracle as we live among God’s faithful people, hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper, proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

On this day, we have heard once again the story of Jesus’ first miracle. In a few moments, we will gather at the table and will be fed once again with his body and blood, freely given to us in love. And when we go out from this place, I pray that we will commit to being a part of the ongoing miracle of God’s love for all of humankind: red and yellow, black and white, gay and straight, liberal and conservative, young and old, rich and poor, prisoner and free. And let us always remember:

We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord; trusting in his holy word…and He's never failed us yet. Amen.

Reformation Day with Confirmation: October 30, 2011

Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

John 8:31-36

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Among your options for movie-watching this Halloween weekend is a film called “Anonymous”. Set in Elizabethan England, “Anonymous” spins out the story of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, who is the true author of the plays that have been falsely attributed to the no-good, amateur, imposter William Shakespeare. “To be or not to be, that is the question”, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” and “This above all: to thine ownself be true.”—none of this was written by the man famously known as “The Bard.” Shakespeare, it turns out, was a fraud!

Now if this information about Shakespeare is news to you, then you also may be interested to know that it was the CIA who really assassinated JFK. And it just so happens that reptilian aliens were behind the plot to destroy the World Trade Center. Oh, and don’t forget the most important fact of all: Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene had a family together, and their descendants are alive today and living in France.

These and other so-called “truths” can all be found in books or on the silver screen. In fact, if you think up the craziest idea possible—reptilian aliens master-minding 9/11, for example—you can probably find an online community dedicated to that very same belief. Conspiracy theories are nothing new, but the free flow of ideas in the internet age has made “the truth” extremely hard to pin down. What makes a theory “true”? Academic research? A million followers on Facebook? Ten books on Amazon? Or seeing it played out on the big screen by our favorite movie stars?
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but these days it seems the truth is in the hands of the movie producers and the web-bloggers.

The Gospel lesson for today, Reformation Sunday, is also about the truth. In John chapter 8, Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The truth, he assures them, lies not with the Romans or the religious authorities or even with established tradition. Truth, says Jesus, is in his Word.

I wonder: if we heard Jesus saying these things today, would we call him a conspiracy theorist? Would we, like that small group of his followers, wonder if Jesus really had the truth on his side? After all, a sandal-wearing, long-haired radical, challenging long-held beliefs and claiming to have exclusive rights to “the truth” could be the guy appearing on the next episode of The History Channel’s hit conspiracy show “Ancient Aliens.”

Jesus could be just another guy with a crazy idea…or he could be Jesus Christ, the son of God. He could be Jesus, our brother, who walks with us. He could be the one we’ve been waiting for, the Savior of the world, the king of love, the lamb of God and the prince of peace! Jesus could be who he says he is: the way, the truth, and the life.

Today, we have 22 young disciples being confirmed at Bethany, thanks be to God! Twenty-two young people, who in baptism were already sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever, will come forward to have their faith affirmed through the laying on of hands and prayer. We rejoice that these young disciples have said “We know the truth, and the truth has set us free.” Amen!

This is a joyful day, but contrary to certain conspiracy theories, Confirmation is not graduation from church. And the Confirmation program is not a two-year process of downloading secret information into teenage brains! Faith isn’t about knowing facts.

But faith is about knowing the truth and being set free because of it. In preparation for this day, each of our young confirmands wrote a faith statement. The idea was for them to articulate what they know to be true about God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now I read all of these faith statements, and I can tell you that our young people did not write lists of facts, or theories of the universe, or systematic theologies. Instead, they wrote the truth—the truth as they have experienced it through hearing the Word of God, receiving the body and the blood of Jesus in communion, and through living in community with you here at Bethany.

Here is a sampling of the truth that sets us free, as the confirmands in the class of 2011 understand it:

“God is always there for me.
When God is on your side, numbers don’t count and size doesn’t matter.
God walks with me.
God pays attention to me.
God makes me strong in hard times.
I am a gift from God to the world!
God will help me make difficult decisions.
Even when I can’t hear God’s voice, God is there.
God knows the future…God gives us a future!
God heals us and helps us to bear pain in life.
God forgives and loves everyone!
I can trust in God!
God has been with me every single day, and knew me before I was born!
Even when I have doubts, God is with me.
I don’t have to do anything special to have a relationship with God!
God gives me courage to do what is right, even if it is unpopular.
God helps us learn from our mistakes."


***
Now this last one was interesting to me, especially coming from a group of teenagers, because some of us were teenagers once, and we never made mistakes, ever. Amen?

Actually, the truth is…we all make mistakes. We all, in fact, sin. And one of the truths that didn’t make it on this list of faith statements is the one Jesus mentions in today’s Gospel passage: “Truly I say to you: Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave doesn’t have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

Most of us have no way of understanding what true slavery is like, but I think teenagers (like our own confirmands) know very well what it means to feel like slaves. Teenagers know what it means to be slaves to fashion. They can feel like slaves to popularity or to achievement. They may feel they are in bondage to the judgment of others or to the expectations of teachers and parents. In some cases, teenagers may feel stuck with the life situation they were born into, or to the limitations of their town, their school, or their neighborhood.

Most importantly, teenagers can feel bound to the mistakes they’ve made.

The truth is, we all feel bound to our mistakes. We feel enslaved to our failings, our mistakes, our pasts, our addictions, or even to our grief.

But sisters and brothers, on this Reformation Day, we give thanks for the truth that Martin Luther brought to our attention: that we are saved by grace through faith, apart from works. The Son has set us free, and we are free indeed! Amen!

Sisters and brothers, God has said “yes” to each of us in our baptisms. God has said “yes” to us, while we were yet sinners and even though we fail even to live up to our best intentions.

Teenagers feel like they hear “no” a lot…but today I pray that our confirmands will hear God’s “yes” loud and clear. And as these young people affirm their faith today, I pray that you will also hear God’s resounding “yes” to you!

Yes, you will make mistakes.
Yes, you are forgiven.
Yes, the cross and the resurrection were enough, no matter what!
Yes, you are loved because of who you are!

And yes, you have gifts and talents that are needed in the world and in the church.

This isn’t secret knowledge. It isn’t a conspiracy theory. It is simply the truth as we know it. Thanks be to God! Amen.