John the Baptist and Radical Humility

Prophets and Baptisms, Pharisees and Sadducees; our gospel story for today is chock full of a dizzying array of terms and events.  Indeed, the more you look at this text the more confusing it seems to become.  While the story of John the Baptist has become so well read and so well loved by Christians that we may no longer notice it, the reality is Matthew is describing some genuinely strange things.  Why is this man John wandering the Judean wilderness, putting his life in danger from both the elements and robbers?  Why is he baptizing people in the Jordan River?  Religious immersion was hardly foreign for the Jews, but usually they did that in baths.  Why drag everybody out into the desert for something everybody could do at home?  And then the Pharisees get added to the mix.  Why are the Pharisees heading way out into the wilderness chasing after this man?  And why would they think that being a child of Abraham would exempt them from repentance?  It doesn’t make a lot of sense.  I mean, last time I checked the children of Abraham literally wrote the book on their screw ups so if somebody was holding a repentance tent revival out in the desert you would think they would be first in line.  And then there’s the matter of Prophecy, we are Christians seeing the fulfillment of Isaiah in this, and is some guy shouting in the wilderness really that tremendous of a prediction?  Indeed, Matthew has been well critiqued over the years for his use of the Hebrew

Scriptures and the fulfillment of his people’s prophecy, wrongfully so in my opinion.

But how do we make sense of it all?  How do we make sense of all the strange and wonderful things going on in our text today?  We can do what Christians normally do, what the Church as a whole has gotten in the habit of doing.  We can gloss over the text, ignoring all the questions and it’s strangeness. We can just talk about the need to repent because that’s the word that appears twice.  It’s nice, it’s safe.  It’s shallow, but I guess it’ll do.  But the reality while we might emerge with a nice, very forgettable lesson, it wouldn’t be all that helpful to other people would it?  Indeed, when those outside the church look at what we do with our Scriptures, when they see us ignore the questions and be content with a shallow gospel, it doesn’t paint a very pretty picture of Christianity does it?  It reinforces the image that a Christian is no different than any other religious person, someone who seeks to solve life’s anxieties by mere obedience to any old book.  When they see us unwilling to ask good questions, unwilling to prod too deep for fear we might at last pierce the illusion, well that sends a message.  It tells people that yes we believe, but only so far.  Yes, we obey, but it is out convenience and familiarity that we do so, not out of knowledge and faith.  I have been with you for over a year now and I am proud to say that I don’t think you have ever settled to be that kind of Christian, and so I will not do you the injustice of preaching that kind of sermon.  

But how DO we make sense of it all? How do we honestly wrestle with what is going on here? Why did Matthew put this account into his story, and how might this message apply to us today?  In an America where Christianity has become almost irrelevant to people’s lives, these are all questions the Church can no longer afford to avoid.

While I would absolutely agree that repentance is indeed a substantial piece of our gospel lesson, the reality is it’s not the only piece, nor, I would argue is it the most important one.  Repentance is of course essential to the Christian Life, or indeed just moral living in general.  None of us gets it right the first time through, so repenting of one’s mistakes in this life is a given.  However, there is a deeper theme in our gospel lesson, one that is very easy to miss – not only because we are not first century Jews but also because that theme is an attribute that doesn’t really come naturally to most human beings.

Now to illustrate this theme, however, we have to switch gears a bit.  It’s going to be difficult to see without a more modern day example.  Before graduating Seminary, young pastors-to-be have to find a place to intern.  The Church I had found for that purpose was a very liberal UCC church in St. Louis Park.   As a student of an Evangelical Seminary raised in Lutheranism, I wouldn’t say I was exactly welcomed with open arms by everybody there.  Indeed, as I would find out rather quickly Liberal Christianity could be just as cold and self-righteous as any other; I think it took me two years to finally convince everyone I was in fact not some sort of right wing spy and saboteur.  After all that was said and done there, however, I did learn a very valuable lesson.  I learned the problem is never the politics; people on every side or no side of every philosophy, ism, or party can and do have valuable and respectful dialogues and even friendships.  No, the problem is never the ugly politics, it’s the ugly people. And while I could go on and on about my experiences there, there was one incident in particular that I think is most relevant to our gospel lesson.

As the seminary intern I was placed in charge of a program called Theology on Tap.  It was essentially a Bible Study at a bar, and to be honest it was actually a really wonderful experience.  Many people who go to drink the night away don’t do so because they that believe God loves them.  Indeed, many of the regulars there feel abandoned, that God somehow hates them and wants nothing to do with them.  Being able to bring the gospel into their midst, the good news of God’s love and acceptance was life changing for a lot of people, myself included.  One particular session, however, we managed to attract a student from United Theological Seminary, an institution for very, very liberal Christians.  And no, he wasn’t a regular there, he came because of the Theology not the Tap.

 Lots of people came to these meeting: Conservatives, progressives, agnostics, atheists, even a modern pagan or two.  Everybody was welcome there.  And at this particular meeting we had this soon to be ordained very Liberal young man from a very Liberal educational institution and a conservative evangelical marine.  And you know what they did?  They talked.  They respectfully conversed, asking questions making points, and they walked away loving each other.  Not only that, where God was in that moment was when I saw all the presuppositions of that young pastor-in-training completely melt away.  Everything that his professor’s taught him about the opposite side he saw fell terribly short.  He was ready for an unlistening monster, stubborn and arrogant, but what he got was loving and kindly thought.  I do believe God was in that moment for him as he realized that talking about the other side in fact was no substitute for talking to the other side.  It was a baptism of the spirit, what went in was afraid and confused, but what emerged was humble and at peace.  Humility, ladies and gentlemen, that is the deepest theme that is woven into our gospel story.

St. Matthew, Jesus’ disciple, was of course a Palestinian Jew, indeed a former tax collector according to the earliest traditions, and his gospel is to other Palestinian Jews.  Now, as an American, I don’t need to explain to anyone here what 9/11 is, I won’t confuse anywhere here when I say the words, “Just do it” or “Git ‘er dun.”  These things are very well known in our culture and they are understood implicitly.  The same is true for Matthew.  Matthew doesn’t need to explain to his fellow Jews why John the Baptist is out there, he doesn’t need to waste words explaining why Pharisees would follow him out into the middle of nowhere, they already know.  They’ve lived it.  You see, Baptism in the Jordan was a common practice in first century Judea – for gentiles.  Judaism had garnered the interest of many Gentiles in the first century, they were called God fearers or Theophilus, friends of God.  Well, as a Gentile you could also take this a step further and become a fully Jewish.  You could convert entirely to Judaism and be given all the rights and responsibilities of a native born Israelite.  As part of that process you were Baptidzomai,  immersed in the Jordan just like Naaman the Syrian from the book of Kings.  Just as Naaman went in as a leper, Just as he went in full of uncleanness but emerged on the banks of the river cleansed and believing in the power of the Jewish God, so would this new gentile convert.  But John’s isn’t baptizing gentiles, is he?

John the Baptist is very controversial in the first century.  Not only is he deliberately dressing like the prophet Elijah, not only is he wandering the desert and eating locusts and wild honey just like Elijah, but he is offering repentance, indeed offering atonement, reconciliation to God apart from Animal Sacrifice, Apart from Temple, Apart from Jewish Scripture.  Do you see why a legalistic Pharisee would chase this guy out into the middle of nowhere, now, why he’d say he didn’t need to be baptized because he was a child of Abraham?  Starting to make Sense?

Now to be clear, I don’t think John’s ministry was about being disobedient.  There is nothing written about him that says he taught to avoid the temple, not to sacrifice or observe holidays; neither do we possess anything that says he taught disobedience to Scripture.  John’s ministry was not about that.  John’s ministry was about radical humility, radical repentance and conviction of sin.  John’s message was abundantly clear, that if you as a Jew cannot come before your God publicly and shout that I am no better than the unclean people I look down on, then all the sacrifices, all the Temples and all Scripture verses you can muster are going to mean exactly diddly squat.  A jew going to the Jordan to be baptized by John is no different than a Nazi undergoing a Barmitzvah or a Klan Member being baptized in a black church.  It is a heart-wrenching admission of guilt and an act of brazen, selfless humility. 

Ladies and gentlemen, John the Baptist is not some idle curiosity within the Christian faith.  Of all the factions and ministries that existed from within the Judaism of that time, when God became Incarnate this is the one He backed.  Jesus was Baptized into this ministry, and indeed, without the message of John the Baptist Christianity would have been very, very different.  John’s ministry is as vibrant, relevant, and necessary as it was two thousand years ago.  If we are not right with God here in our hearts, that if we can’t walk with our God humbly, repenting of our pride then no amount of sacrament or correct theology is going to save us.  People come up and tell me, “Keven, I can’t find God, He is missing from my life.  I can’t feel him.”  Well, if God cannot be found where you are comfortable, than the only answer is you’ll to go where you are uncomfortable to find Him.  If God cannot be found in the city then the reality is He must be somewhere in the wilderness.  If you have not felt God, if you aren’t experiencing God, the answer is not to stay where you are, to keep comfortable and feel secure, but to find that voice calling in the desert and be humble enough to follow it before it’s too late.         

Christ is coming, ladies and gentlemen, both as the babe of Bethlehem and as the Conquering Hero of Creation, and we have been called to prepare the way of the Lord in our own lives, and to make straight the paths of crooked hearts.  Let us not be so prideful as to meet him with our work unfinished.  Amen.              

Christmas in an ugly year

Christmas Eve Sermon

Christmas is always a busy and bustling time of year, but this year for my family and I it has been particularly hectic.  Not only has there been the gift buying, the dinner preparing, and the socializing in addition to the daily necessities of work and, for us at least, caring for a household with a perpetual cold, but it has also been a season of tending to the needs of others.  While care for the poor and the needy is not a Christmas only past-time, in this season of lights the needs of so many seem particularly apparent.  The sad, the lonely, the afraid, the hungry and the hurt have lined our lives, and while it saddens me to see so many in pain during this season of joy, I find myself grateful in those all too few quiet moments.  Grateful that God has not forgotten them, and that God has not abandoned them in the cold but sent them to us for the care we can provide them.

But it was in the busyness and the anxiousness that seems to have permeated this year that I was reminded of an old college professor of mine.  Her name was Faith, and she was the chair of the Legal Studies Dept at Hamline.  Feisty and Proud, and so incredibly sure of herself, Faith had a confidence about her that was, well…intimidating.  I remember being part of Mock Trial under her, an organization where mostly Pre-Law students play at being lawyers, and I remember time and time again being stranded in the snow every year. Faith was gonna have us make that mock trial competition, weather be damned.  I remember one year in particular, one of the worst snowstorms in decades.  White out conditions were everywhere and every news agency in Minnesota said for the love of everything holy don’t you dare leave your houses that weekend.  I-35 was closed, every major highway was impassable, and the authorities made it clear that we were all going to risk our lives if we went out into that storm.  We approached Faith with what we believed to be rather reasonable concerns.  She looked us straight in the eye, her face like flint.  Like a modern day Admiral Bird, she cursed us for cowards and shoved a map of side streets into stunned little hands. 

I’m happy to say that most of us made it.  I mean, nobody died, and thank the Almighty nobody got injured, but quite a few got stranded that year and could have gotten very, very hurt.  In hindsight these many years later I’m not so sure a chance for the coveted Ames Iowa Mock Trial Regional Trophy was worth the risk, but I digress.  Still, despite the emotional manipulation and the obvious child endangerment, I still remember Faith fondly.  Dauntless and completely indestructible, Faith did care about her students very deeply and we always learned a lot from her.  But, I was not to be a young Pre-Law Student forever, and Faith and I parted ways as I graduated college and stepped into those hallowed doorways of the Hamline School of Law.

I didn’t see Faith for many years, and oddly enough it wouldn’t be until I applied to seminary that we would touch base again.  As part of the application process into seminary they require four letters of recommendation from various sorts of people.  I guess I can’t blame them for not trusting me, I was trained by lawyers after all.  But it was precisely here that I ran into trouble.  My academic advisor from Law School, Professor Richard Oakes, God rest his soul, passed away years before which left me in a bit of a pickle.  Doing a little research, however, I had discovered that Faith was still the chair of the Legal Studies department at Hamline University, and so I approached her explaining my situation.  There was one problem, though.  Faith had lost her faith.  Herself a lifetime Methodist, she broke with God when she broke with her husband I think.  That woman had never failed at anything in her entire life, but when she failed at her marriage…I think a part of her just broke.

She listened to what I had to say and what I wanted her to do.  The task was simple enough and she was more than able to do it.  She knew my hard work as a student and could easily testify to it.  But then she asked me, “Keven, why?”  “Why do you want to throw away your career as a lawyer?  Why pass up the status, the respect, the money…for religion?”  Her mind could not even comprehend it.  Christianity was nonsense, stupid tales for the control of thoughtless masses.  And Faith knew me.  From day one in her Introduction to Legal Studies course, when asked why I wanted to be a lawyer my answer was always the same.  I came from a corrupt rural county in rural Texas; funds went strangely missing, drug deals went down, people were kidnapped and wrongfully imprisoned; and every time I was asked why I wanted to be an attorney I said the same thing, “I want to fight monsters.”  I was not going into seminary because I was some manipulative little rat, not fit for any other profession, I wasn’t changing careers because I wouldn’t make it as an attorney.  But still, she asked me that question, “Keven, WHY??”

And so I told her.  I was perhaps not so very eloquent in front of my old Legal Studies advisor, but what I simply said was this, “It fulfills me, Faith, and it will let me fight the good fight in ways the law just can’t.”  She stood there for a moment, silent, nodding her head.  I thanked her for her time and bid her good day, and for reasons that I will never know, she wrote me that letter of recommendation, and the results of that one act stand before you today.

It’s been about a decade since that meeting, and sometimes I wonder what that awesome and frightful old woman would think of her law student turned pastor.  I’ve done things I know she wouldn’t think pastors would do.  I’ve sat with Muslims discussing religion until midnight, has aided the helpless, fed the hungry, shoot I’ve even presented on religion at a Twin Cities pagan convention, shaking hands with the likes of elders like Oberon Zell.  I still fight monsters, indeed, I believe I fight them more effectively than I thought ever possible.  I fight the horrors of not just a handful of men, but the worst humanity has ever offered.  Pestilences like Fear and Ignorance and Apathy; Diseases like Pride and Foolishness and Hate.  My weapons are not just statutes anymore, but I fight with Knowledge and Reason, and it is my spirituality that is my shield. But still, despite all this, I still see people ask me that same question that Faith did so many years ago.  “Keven … Why?”  “Why give it up?  Why turn your back on so much?”  I’ll tell you why.

Christmas.  Not the Christmas of trees and decorations, nor the Christmas of pretty carols.  Those are all done to celebrate Christmas; but they themselves are not Christmas.  They are merely our response to Christmas, done in joyous gratitude for what God has done.  No, I am talking about the real Christmas.  The Christmas concerning the God who did not abandon His world or His people to misery.  The Christmas about the God who got His hands dirty, who came into our world of suffering to be what we could not.  He did not come with great fanfare or blaring trumpets, he did not come in regal attire, indeed his nobility would only be recognized by those who were actively looking for it.  The God who, for the Salvation of all Creation; man, woman, plant, and speck of dirt; was born to an unwed mother, who became in that culture an illegitimate child.  Born to be despised and destined to wander the wilderness homeless and destitute, preaching the good news of God’s love to a violent and uncaring nation.  Treated as a fatherless heretic his entire life only to finally, and illegally, be executed as a traitor and a criminal.  He lived the life that none of us could bear.  The king, humble and righteous, who would rather spend every waking moment of abuse teaching people to be better than give them the fate that the law demanded of them.  The God who became illegitimate, so no one could mock the illegitimate. The God who loved every single one of his children so much that he became homeless, became a refugee, became condemned in every meaning of that word, so no one could despise them without despising him, too.  That God, that all-consuming Otherworldly Reality, who steps down into our miserable, muck filled lives, whose dedication to human redemption included a death so horrific and shameful that they had to invent a new word for it.  Ex Crucio.  Out of the cross. 

IT IS THAT GOD, THAT CHRISTMAS, that I will follow to my dying breath, and even after.  It is that God that gives this old soul hope in ways that the law just can’t, because if all those things did not deter God from our redemption than I know there is nothing that ever will. 

I won’t lie to you, ladies and gentlemen.  2016 was a rough year.  Politically, this election cycle has left many of us exhausted, uncertain, and, perhaps, even morally compromised.  Socially, I have never seen a more divided America.  The rifts between Democratic and Republican, conservative and liberal, brother and sister, I have never seen them this deep or this raw.  Globally, we are becoming not a world of peace but one of almost perpetual war.  Human rights abuses thought unthinkable just a few years ago in all but in the most disturbed minds have become commonplace, and it seems that the 2010’s will be known not for advances in medicine and spirituality, its great strides in improving the human condition, but crisis after unsolved crisis.    

So I get it.  I get that this year, more than any other year, the busyness of the season may be a welcome distraction.  That you may be exhausted, that your emotional defenses are spent.  There are those dealing with grief this season, with loved ones lost.  There are those dealing with family turmoil and dissension, where the peaceful holiday meal will feel like walking on eggshells; where the family finances are strained, where new bills pile up and creditors fill your voicemail with daily reminders of your continued inability to pay them back.  All of this, this Christmas season, in a world that literally more than ever before wants to rip itself into absolute shreds, and it feels like it’s going to take you with it.  I get it.  I really do.  So believe me when I tell you…

God… is … not … done … yet.

The King of the Universe, the Almighty Redeemer of Creation became as vulnerable as you and me this night 2016 years ago, born to be despised, kicked at, and sneered to ensure us a place in paradise.  Do you really think THAT God is going to abandon you now?  Do you think He’s going to leave you like this, leave His WORLD like this?  The Infinite was born for you, lived for you, and died for you: it is not going to leave you stranded now. 

These things you see around you in here.  The trees, the candles, the tinsel.  They’re not for you.  If you put your Joy in them, they can’t give it back to you.  If you rely on Santa and Christmas Carols to bring you happiness or if you rely on a perfect family meal for your peace, then this Christmas Season is going to leave you feeling drained and miserable, so do not put your stock in them.  Everything we do here, from the songs, from the constant ups and downs on up to the Communion, it’s not about the  nostalgia, American Traditions, or even the duties of religion;  it is about helping you foster a relationship with the God who is both your Heavenly Mother and Father.  Go home tonight, be with family, both the ones present and the ones departed.  Know that God is waiting to be your peace, and the Holy Spirit is desperate to give you His Joy.  Stop relying on the world to be your light; if it could do that God wouldn’t have had to be born into it. 

Let Him bring the light into your life, and don’t think for a minute that 2017 isn’t going to be an incredible year.  Amen and Amen.  

Of Giants

Good Morning!  You know, I’ll just come out and say it this morning, I love All Saints Sunday.  I’ll even say it again, I LOVE All Saints Sunday.  It is a celebration of incredible meaning and significance! But people tell me, “Keven, aren’t you Lutheran?  Aren’t the saints more of a Roman Catholic thing?”  In response to the abuses of his time, our own Martin Luther did say that the living needed far more tending than the dead, but even Luther believed the departed saints were to be seen as a gift. 

                “We honor departed saints,' he says,"…so that we might be encouraged and grounded in the Doctrine of Faith.  It is the same Doctrine which the saints also taught and by which they lived.  Thank God for His favor in giving them to us.”

                All saints day is an amazing day, it is the one day a year that we acknowledge we belong to a very special community, one that transcends life and death.  The one day where we speak openly of the powerful spiritual bond that exists within us, through us, and between us.  So enormous, so penetrating, so incredible is this bond that neither death nor our own human sin can break it.  But All Saints Day is more than this, too.  All Saints day is also about another gospel, the gospel of the Holy Spirit.  It is a day we can look back and see the amazing things God has done throughout human history.  With All Saints Day, we recognize that God is not some far away clockmaker, the unmoved mover who merely set everything in motion.  With All Saints Day, we see that God is present and active amongst his children, the most moved mover, who works constantly through and beyond time to bring redemption to His world.

                Of whom then shall we speak?  This list spans millennia, authored by the third person of the Trinity Himself, whose work in human hearts produced heroes that outnumber the stars in the sky.   Shall we speak of giants?  Shall we speak of men like Augustine of Hippo who with naught but pen and paper shaped the Western World? 

“Our heart is restless, (O God), until it finds rest in you” he writes, and to those in this age of Science who will listen he says “that miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.” And that “Faith is to believe in things you do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what you believe.”

Perhaps instead we should speak of the Eastern Fathers, like St. John the golden-tongued, and a more tireless advocate for the poor you will not find.  “No matter how just your words may be, you ruin them when you speak in anger” St John says, and “if you cannot find Christ in the beggar at your door, you will not find him in your church.”

Perhaps we should speak of American giants, giants like Roger Williams who proclaimed that godly religion cannot be forced religion, that belief only occurs when a person freely chooses it.  Or giants like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Giants like Dorothy Day, Francis Willard, Billies Sunday and Graham.

Or should we talk of Lutheran Giants?  Should we talk of Martin Luther, who defied not only the Pope but his Church for the sake of Christ and the good news?  Should we talk of Phillip Spener and August Francke, Pietists who in a world that would talk endlessly about angels and head of pins pointed us all back to the spiritual needs of the people.  Should we speak of unsung heroes like Phillip Melancthon, the great systematizer of Lutheran Theology, or perhaps we should speak of Lutheran war-heroes like King Gustavus of Sweden, whose actions brought about the end of the thirty years war and ensured Protestantism’s survival to the present day.

But perhaps, this will not be so useful to you.  Perhaps, try as you might, you feel a disconnect between these people and you.  You may say to me, “Yes, Keven, I know that Christians everywhere and everywhen share a bond beyond understanding.  I know that despite what the world tells us about the church, as broken as we are, we’ve done things that moved and shaped the world for the better.  Because of people like these we have advances in medicine that cure the sick, because of people like these we can produce food on a scale unimagineable to the ancient world.  Because of people like these, cruel punishments have been outlawed, slavery for the first time in the history of the human race is called what it ought - kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, and though it may be small the voiceless are being given a voice in ways that were not there before.  I know that these men and women stood against the tide and in the end it was the tide that fled.  But, Keven, I am nothing like them.  What do I have in common with greats like these?

Ladies and Gentlemen they have a word for that sentiment, it’s the same stuff they make at Oscar Mayer.  It’s called Baloney.  These men and women are no different from you in any way, save in only one thing.   Let us look closely at our gospel lesson if you wish to know what it is, what is we are missing is there, imbued throughout the text itself.  Our gospel lesson has been called Luke’s version of the sermon on the mount.  Let’s read it again and see if you can catch it.

“Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.  Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.  Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Did you catch it?  Do you see what you’re missing?  Do you see the one thing that gave every single saint their power? 

It’s hope.

Hope!  Hope in a God that is both good and powerful, hope that whatever things look like now, no matter how bad they are, hope that the Light of God can and will drive back that darkness, that circumstances can and will change.  The poor, the hungry, the despised, Jesus says, these are the blessed of this life, because look what God will do for and through them.   Do you struggle financially to even keep food on the table, that is great news!  For it means you are compassionate and not greedy, it means that you share with others whatever you are given.  Most blessed are you!  For it is to you that kingdom of God belongs.  Are you hungry now?  Do your needs outweigh your ability to meet them?  Blessed are you, for God sees you and will not keep you that way.  Are you despised?  Do people hate you because of your skin, your family, your faith?  Blessed are you!  For you have joined the halls of heroes, for that is what the forces of evil did to anyone that God ever sent.

But you who are wealthy, do you earn far more than you need?  Do you enjoy luxuries while your brothers and sisters starve?  Do you feast, tending to your own needs while others go without?  I warn you that you have received your compensation, Jesus says, and it is far less than what they will get.  Yes for those who fill their stomachs now, enjoy it while you may, for the Lord sees that you do this at the expense of others.  Do not seek after wealth or fame, because in doing so you join with every villain that has ever been doomed to destruction.  But there is hope for you too, because unlike the poor, the hungry, and the despised you have a choice.  You don’t have to be this way, you can choose to be generous and compassionate, and know that God will see you.

And so Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to do good to those who despise us, not because those actions are without cost, but because the power and hope of God far outweigh them.  The chance to win a brother back to God is worth far more than a shirt, stolen goods, or a second strike on the cheek.  Love fills the world with good people, it creates the environment we all long to live in.  But we don’t do it, because in the end we have no hope.  We hoard, we despise, we lash out in hate because we don’t believe there is any hope for something better.

Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, do you think Martin Luther posted his 95 theses because he thought they’d have no effect?  Do you think Dietrich Bonhoeffer started an underground seminary in Nazi Germany because he thought it would be pointless?  Did Julian of Norwhich proclaim the Motherhood of God because she thought no one would believe her?  Did Athanasius of Alexandria, a short black man from Africa, pound his pulpit, persuading people of the rightness of the Trinity from exile, because he thought all there was left to do was give up?

NO!  Ladies and gentlemen, if you feel at all disconnected from this community, if you look upon these greats in the Christian faith and see no way you can be like these giants it is only because you have not hope enough to look in the mirror and see your own stature.  I speak of giants today in the Christian church because within this community there exists nothing else.  If you do not feel like a giant, it is only because the cares of this world have you hunched.  You are a child of God, and your worth and ability far exceed your circumstances.  As C.S. Lewis so poignantly put, there are no mere mortals, so quit believing that you are one.

You were made to do incredible things!  You are part of a community that has shaken the very foundations of the world .  As broken as we are, by the grace of God we are the monsters lurking under the devil’s bed.  So one-sided has God made this battle that hating us, starving us, robbing us and beating us does not work.  The only tactic left for the forces of evil is to convince us, tempt us out of our belief that this world can be better and that we can make it that way.  Do not give into them!  This community is ours by birthright!  Do not let anyone or anything convince you otherwise.  Your participation in this eternal gathering of heroes makes you a giant, so stand tall and let the world quake at your every step.

Amen.