The Perfect Body April 14, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on April 14, 2024. It can be viewed on our YouTube and FaceBook pages. The texts for the third Sunday of Easter were: Acts 3: 12-19, Psalm 4, 1 John 3: 1-7 and Luke 24: 36b-48.

Young Friends message:

I found this cool image on the internet…if you look at the four dots for several seconds and then close your eyes, you’ll see something else. Try it! What did you see? Jesus! It’s so cool huh! This picture on its own doesn’t look like Jesus at first, and then we recognize him! It’s a good reminder for me that I may not always recognize Jesus when I see him. Kinda like the disciples in our story today. Jesus comes to the disciples after he has been resurrected and they didn’t know what to do or think. Ok, we’ve talked a lot about Jesus’ resurrection a lot in the last couple of weeks, but here’s the deal: it is a weird thing. Jesus did really die and God really did bring him to life again. The disciples were confused! Jesus wasn’t a ghost, they could touch him as you can touch the floor, the chairs, anything around you. They could hear him talk, they could see his wounds in his hands and feet, and Jesus was even hungry and asked for food! And ate it! The disciples recognized Jesus, not only how he looked but by reminding them that it’s God who is doing the work, it’s God who is continuing to bring life into the world. The disciples were what Jesus called witnesses: people who see things and tell others and witness also means evidence or proof. The disciples themselves are proof that Jesus is alive and God’s work of caring for people, and their actual bodies goes on, which is our story in Acts where Peter uses God’s power to help a man walk again. Bodies matter, and our bodies tell stories of God’s power and love too.

You too are witnesses! You matter to God and you just as you are, are perfect to tell other people about God’s love and that God cares for them too. We want all bodies to be healthy and well, which is why we have the little pantry. Another way is by helping people when they’re hurt. We’re going to make little first aid kits to go into the Little Pantry for folks. (Bandaids, antiseptic wipes, gloves, a sticker, granola bar, gauze)

As a woman in the US, I would be lying to you if I said I have never struggled with body image, to see myself as I really am. It’s a challenge being in a female body in a world that priorities male bodies. While I somehow escaped a serious eating disorder or body dysmorphia, I can say that I internalized the need to stay small, not take up space, compare myself to impossible standards and wonder why I couldn’t be blonde. Oh then there was that time in 7^th grade where I decided that my glasses were too nerdy so I didn’t wear them to school for a week trying to pretend I didn’t need them. Well after running into walls (also nerdy and not helpful for a cool reputation) and failing some school assignments, I resentfully put my glasses back on. What started that experiment you might wonder? A tv commercial for the newly invented contacts that featured a gorgeous woman proclaiming: “Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses.” Again, the female body was only worthy if a male body found it so. And I wasn’t lovable or worthy to anyone because I wore glasses and I desperately wanted to be included, to belong, so much so that I would risk hurting myself by not wearing glasses that I needed. My body had betrayed me by not being perfect.

Our media talks incessantly about bodies and there are whole sections of the internet dedicated to how to get “the perfect body,” through a specified diet and/or workout. For most of us, to achieve that perfect looking body would have to include some clever cosmetic surgery and/or simply being born with different genes. And paradoxically, perfect bodies also never do the things that human bodies naturally do: you know, smell, bleed, have blemishes, have needs, leak anything, or things that still make grown adults giggle. We want our bodies to be controllable, sanitized, predictable, worthy and lovable and it doesn’t occur to us that maybe we all already have and are in the “perfect body” for our lives as witnesses to the love of God.

Our Acts 3 and Luke 24 stories this morning offer insights to the realities of bodies, and how bodies as they are indeed matter. Peter and John had healed a man born unable to walk who had been laying by an entrance to the Temple called the Beautiful Gate for years. Each day someone brought him there so that he could collect alms (charity) from folks as they entered the Temple for worship and prayer. He would have been deemed unworthy of participating in prayer inside the Temple, so the best he could do was stay at the front door. Peter had healed him by the power of Jesus’ name and brought the man (who remains nameless) with he and John into the Temple. The people stared as we do when we see someone or something that disturbs us. Now Peter offers a sermon to the people that we need to read through a lens that is NOT our western Christian one. These words have been twisted to be anti-Jewish and they most certainly are not. They are pointed not at people’s faith but our shared human condition. Peter is himself a proud Jew, after all he and John had come to the Temple to pray. Peter calls out that we all have a proclivity to exclusion, to keep people who due to their differences, or make us feel insecure and anxious hoping to keep any imperfection at bay. But they are now witnesses to God’s power through Jesus, power that proclaimed that this man belonged, and had been restored to “perfect health.”

I will admit to you that the physical healing stories in the Bible are hard for me. Do I believe that God does have the power to heal our bodies and return them to “perfect health”? Yes. Do I believe that healing our bodies to our definition of “perfect health” is not necessarily how God will use God’s power? Also, yes. For me, I read the healing stories as real and as signs of a bigger wholeness, a bigger reality than what my meager faith and myopic vision can conjure up. The man was returned to perfect or complete health as a sign that return from anything, no matter how dire, is possible. The meaning of repentance in Greek and Hebrew is to change or turn around. Return to who you truly are- God’s beloved. It’s not about perfection in the sense of being without blemish, scar or wound but perfect in the sense of wholeness, completeness and authenticity.

Jesus was perfectly resurrected, returned to life, scars and all. His body wasn’t perfect, in the without defect sense, but it was authentically his and complete the way it was. Jesus is the story of the power of God in the flesh to bring flourishing life from unexpected places, even death. And then the disciples are witnesses, proof in their own bodies of what God can do with ordinary bodies in the world to tell of extraordinary love, grace and mercy.

We are bodily witnesses. In these bodies, here and now. Short, tall, sighted, unsighted, hearing, hearing impaired, white, brown, black, young, old, straight, queer, unblemished or heavily scarred by life, neurotypical or neurodivergent, your body, is perfect. It’s perfectly fit to witness to the love of God through Jesus Christ. Your body tells and shares the stories of what God has done to ensure life thrives, finds a way and never gives up. As the body of Christ, we imperfectly/perfectly bear witness of the power of community to bring life from death, to proclaim that hands and feet that are wounded, dirty, small, arthritic have the power in Jesus’ name to lift someone up to life, belonging and hope.

In Jesus name, we are the perfect body of Christ, witnessing to the world. Amen.

The Story We Want or the Story We Need? Sermon on Mark 16:1-8, Easter Sunday March 31, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT. It can be viewed on our YouTube and FaceBook channels. The texts for Resurrection of Our Lord Sunday, Easter Year B, were: Mark 16: 1-8, Acts 10:34-43, Psalms 118:1-2, 14-24, I Corinthians 15: 1-11.

 Young Friends Message: Gather them together. On Transfiguration Sunday, six weeks ago, we buried the Hallelujah’s for Lent. We take a break from saying hallelujah in Lent so that we can remember that not everything is joyful all the time, and it’s ok to acknowledge when we’re sad, mad, hurting. On Easter, we say hallelujah again with joy because we tell the world that Jesus is Risen Hallelujah! Let’s open our box and get going being joyful and shouting hallelujah! *open box and it’s empty…uh oh. No hallelujahs…that’s not good. I wonder where they are? What if something happened to them? I’m so confused and sad! I had a whole plan of what I was going to do today…oh dear. Liz: Hey! Why are you sad? Me: The box is empty! No Hallelujahs! I may never be happy again. Liz: Oh Pastor Brigette, it’s a good thing that the box is empty! Joy and love can’t stay locked up in a box! They have to be out in the world where the people are! Look I have one here! *Hold up and shout Hallelujah! Me: Oh my goodness! I was so afraid for a while but look, here’s one too! *I hold one up and shout Hallelujah! Liz: it’s ok to be afraid! God gets that, but we need to keep looking for God’s work of love and joy free in the world! Me: That’s a great idea! Turn to the kids: Let’s go looking for Hallelujahs! When you find one, shout it out!

We don’t always know what’s going to happen in our lives, but the good news is that Jesus is with us no matter what! And Jesus has already made sure that it will be ok, even when we’re afraid, uncertain, confused or worried. For our craft today, you can make hand flowers to remind us that God’s loving hands never leave us and our hands are free to look for and be God’s love and joy in the world!

If I were to write the resurrection story, what we just heard from Mark 16:1-8 wouldn’t be it. There are too many loose ends, no natural resolution, it’s simply an unsatisfying ending. No, I’d probably write something closer to what Matthew, Luke and John did with the disciples seeing the risen Jesus, and there were people a few centuries later who agreed with me and added verses 9-20. But for this morning, this is the story that we get, no risen Jesus sightings, and disciples frightened into silence, whether we like it or want it, or not.

The gospel writer of Mark starts their story of Jesus out strong: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Nice. I like it. Then we get a cast of interesting characters such as the disciples, the everyday folks healed, fed, and helped, as well as those that are opposed to our beloved protagonist, and the ever present crowds of people. The arc of the story leads to a great struggle (as all good stories do) where the leader of the movement is killed and put in the grave. Wait, that’s not good. This is terrible story telling. Jesus, the Son of God is dead? Shouldn’t Jesus suddenly gain superpowers and put all his opposition into their places? Turn around and kill them to save himself? But instead, death comes. But oh good, there’s another chapter! A couple of days later, three women disciples go to his grave to find it empty, except for some guy we’ve never met until now, saying “Jesus is raised from the dead. He’s not here. Go back to Galilee where the story started.” And the very last line of the book is even worse, as Mark ends his gospel with the women “said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.” The End?

It’s not the story we want. Or at least I don’t. There is a definite lack of Hallelujahs in there. I would have much preferred an ending where Herod, Pilate, crowd yelling “Crucify!” and the soldiers who mocked and hung Jesus got what was coming to them. It’s not fair that they just get to go back to their lives like nothing happened with no consequences, and Jesus’ followers absorb all the trauma, tragedy and devastation. Or at least have Jesus waiting for the women at the tomb to say, “Hey God raised me from the dead! Let’s get out of this tomb, find the other disciples and get the party started!”

The story we get is not the one that we want, but maybe it’s the one that we need. We need the story of the women going about their daily tasks after their beloved leader has died, their chatter of how they will remove the huge stone from the entrance, the mystery of Jesus’ body being gone, and of their terror, amazement and fear upon hearing that Jesus is raised, and is ahead of them, in Galilee, where it all began. The story of how they were afraid to tell the story of what they have witnessed.

We need this story as it’s closer to the truth of our lives stories. Our stories where our lives aren’t neatly wrapped up, we betray or abandon a friend, on the one hand, and feed, clothe and care for a stranger on the other. We are sick and don’t receive healing, our relationships are fraught with tension, ego, and hurt. We don’t speak up when we should, we let fear dictate our actions and we worry about the mundane tasks before us. And if we’re honest, death terrifies us. Our human stories aren’t always the ones we want either. We yearn for the story that makes us feel better, that makes us feel safe, secure and in control. A story that is fair and everyone lives happily ever after, the story that tells us exactly where Jesus is, what Jesus is doing, what God is up to in our lives and the world. We want THAT story-the people we don’t like to get what’s coming to them and good people, like us, are protected and saved from harm.

What we get from Mark this Easter morning is the one that we need: the story that God’s power, love and mercy can’t be contained by a grave, a rock, our need for vengeance, our fear, or our silence. God’s power and love is the story that doesn’t depend on our telling it, on our seeing it, or our willingness to participate in it. God’s story won’t be domesticated, or made into a fairytale ending, because God’s story never ends. This is the story that we need: that God’s story doesn’t end with the cross, doesn’t end with an empty tomb, doesn’t end with silent disciples, doesn’t end with us or our shortcomings, and doesn’t end with our death. God’s story begins again and again with the good news of Jesus Christ who’s life tells us the story that matters: grace, mercy, compassion, community, wholeness and LIFE. It begins when we are afraid, when we are speechless, when we are alone, when our lives stories seem hopeless, helpless and devastating. God’s story begins again, in us, each of us.

The simple story we can proclaim: Hallelujah, Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! Hallelujah!

Wiped Out: Sermon for Maundy Thursday March 28, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on March 28, 2024, Maundy Thursday. It can be viewed on our YouTube and FaceBook. The texts were: Exodus 12: 1-14, Psalm 116:1-2,12-19, 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26, John 13: 1-17, 31b-35.

It’s not uncommon for some dedicated church folks, paid and unpaid, to feel wiped out as we approach Holy Week. The 40 Days of Lent, with the additional weekly worship, devotion or sacrifice, extra worship planning, can all accumulate. We stumble into this week with weariness, expectation, dare I say hope, of the end being near. Some may wear this exhaustion as a badge of honor, as maybe we *should* feel exhausted, wiped out, with no gas left in the tank as we sputter into Holy Week on fumes. But I wonder if this being wiped out by the busyness of the season and our daily lives can cause us to miss the sacredness of these Holy Days and all our days.

I can imagination that Jesus was feeling wiped out by the time we get to this part of John’s gospel. Jesus’ ministry had been nonstop for three years: walking, healing, feeding, teaching, sparring with authorities, turning over tables of injustice, weeping at a tomb, raising the dead, a political rally with shouts of Hosanna. And now, he knew that his life, his work, his ministry was nearing the end, it’s completion. Jesus stumbles into dinner with his disciples, perhaps still with the scent of the perfume wiped on his feet from Mary the day before. Weary, hungry and on fumes, he looked around at the people whom he would soon leave. Those who doubted, those who wanted greatness, those who were impulsive, those who would run, those who would betray. An imperfect bunch most definitely, but they were his imperfect bunch. And maybe they too were wiped out from all the ministry expectations.

Jesus got up from the table, assumed the uniform and posture of a servant, and began to wipe their feet with water and a towel. Protests emerged from likely suspects, but Jesus wanted them to not only hear, but experience that being wiped out, isn’t the end of his, or their story. In washing and wiping their feet dry, Jesus was wiping out any doubts of how they were to care for each other in his absence. No matter how tired, afraid, or hopeless they felt. Even, if the authorities, both Roman and Church, wanted Jesus and his disciples wiped out, at all costs. Wiped from the annals of history, wiped from the community consciousness, wiped from their daily impact of rabble rousing the common people to demand food, healing, clothing and true belonging for all.

But here’s what the ancient authorities failed to comprehend, and what so-called leaders today still fail to comprehend: Death cannot now or ever wipe out love. Love refuses to be simply wiped away by threats of violence, or actual violence. Love stands with people who governments are trying to wipe out. Anywhere we hear of God’s beloved people being killed, sent away, denigrated, abused, called horrific names to dehumanize them, love, the love of Jesus is there. This love that stoops so low to get into the dirt and the muck, is what Jesus tells the disciples and us, how we are to love. Even when we feel wiped out by the reality of death around us, we take a morsel of bread and sip of wine, use the simple gifts we have of a towel and a basin of water, to wipe out hate, division, violence, harm, and fear. Jesus blesses our feet, our hands, our heads, our hearts for the journey. Jesus’ love, love that wipes away our tears, our divisions, our weariness, our hopelessness, promises to never be wiped out and to be with us to the end. Thanks be to God.

Jesus the Influencer: Sermon for Lent 5B, John 12:20-33 March 17, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on March 17, 2024, the 5^th Sunday in Lent. It can be viewed on our YouTube and Facebook pages. The texts were: Jeremiah 31: 31-34, Psalm 51: 1-17, Hebrews 5: 5-10 and John 12: 20-33.

Young Friends Message. Have tray with some metal objects. Have a powerful magnet. Who knows how magnets work? Accept all answers. Yes, they can be very powerful and we use them in our daily lives more than we realize. Let’s see how this works…the magnet can gather or draw the objects together, even if the objects are not super close to each other. Today in our Bible story, there were some people, named as Greeks, which just means that they probably weren’t Jewish, who were drawn to Jesus. They wanted to see him and talk to him. This was common for Jesus that people wanted to be near him, because he healed, fed and told people that God loved them. Jesus was fine with that, AND Jesus said but that’s not all. All people will be drawn to me, like this magnet draws these objects to it, when I am lifted up. Now, lifted up can mean when Jesus dies, or when God raise Jesus from the tomb or when Jesus goes to be with God. I think Jesus meant all those things, because Jesus means that no matter what is happening in our lives, we are always drawn into God’s love and we can help draw others, like these objects stick together. Jesus says that God will stick with us, and where Jesus is, so are we, and so we can bring other people to stick to God.

To help us remember that we have magnets that you can stick crosses on. You can make one for yourself and give it to other people.

At age 51, I’m ambivalent about most technology and particularly social media. When I jumped on Facebook in 2008, and watched a couple of people I knew IRL-in real life-become social media famous or influencers, I admit that I did wonder if I could be FB famous too. But alas, I have never trended. These people who are influencers have a knack for being able to make mundane and everyday situations seem glorious, and are able to be on the nose with what the world is talking about. I am drawn to scrolling and I’m bombarded with the never-ending perfectly curated videos and posts from professional influencers (yes, that’s a thing now): how to lose 10 pounds in a week, how they get that perfect eyebrow, or outfit, or make homecooked meals every night. I scroll through my feed drawn to what they’re doing, see the praise that they receive from total strangers and feel as if I am less than for not garnering that same praise. I see these influencers and the glorification of what they offer the world as their every day life, and can’t help but to want to be seen, and glorified too. I don’t want to disparage anyone, and if you are an influencer, a sincere and hearty “good for you.” We all live under the oppression of capitalism and I’m not going to diminish anyone’s livelihood. And it makes me aware of how seeing all that perfection, shiny, happy glory can affect me. How it influences how I see my own life, vocation, family, and how I am influenced to only offer the world what the world wants to see, what the world wants to promote, affirm and applaud. I am influenced to isolate my true self, my pain, imperfections, and suffering.

Glorifying the perfect body, house, career, income, family is nothing new. Glorification, giving praise and honor to something or someone, is part and parcel of the systems that we all know too well that keep us in jobs we hate, houses we can’t afford, in transactional relationships, piling on debt, and compounds already desperate situations such as mental and physical health crises. We are caught in systems that pulls us into the vortex of thinking “if we can just…fill in the blank, then we will be secure, happy, famous, wealthy, etc.” But more often is that we see something or someone else to glorify comes along and we start all over again. This is what our consumer culture calls “trends.”

Jesus knows all about trends. Jesus knows all about what the world glorifies, gives praise and honor to, and offers the Greeks who ask to see him, the disciples and us another way to see glory. We can assume that the Greeks (possible gentiles who converted to Judaism, or simply gentiles who were curious about Passover and/or Jesus), had heard of Jesus and knew that he was trending in their social media feeds. Jesus had made some noise healing, feeding, turning over tables in the Temple, etc. They wanted to see Jesus for themselves, maybe to be close to fame, or maybe for more altruistic reasons. But regardless, Jesus doesn’t seem to be interested in trending. Jesus was interested in revealing what God was doing and influencing people to see God’s glory in the world.
Jesus reorients the Greeks, disciples and us to what true influence and glorification means as God’s people: God’s glorification is God’s dynamic word of promise for abundant and eternal life that has spoken since creation, through the Red Sea, from the mouths of the prophets like Jeremiah, in Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh, who brings wholeness, oneness, and creates us into God’s people. Jesus’ influential words and actions to the people that God’s name has been glorified and will be again, thunders the ancient story, God’s name is continuously glorified through God’s Son, creation, and yes, through God’s people.

Jesus knew that God’s name would be glorified not by his fame or by being the latest trend, but by his love for God and God’s people. Love that rejected the glory of  worldly rulers, wealth and safety and embraced solidarity with the least glorious in the world, the bandits, the poor, the hungry, the abandoned, the outsiders, the least influential. Love that proclaimed to the world, “you might lift me on the cross in humiliation and shame, but God brings glory from unexpected people and places, like the grave.” God’s glory can’t be buried, killed or disappeared. God’s glory will always rise up: through folks refusing to let God’s creation exploited and destroyed, people who keep pushing for medical care, food and housing as a human right for all people, providing sanctuary for immigrants as God didn’t create national borders, protests for an end to wars, ending all hierarchies and any system that says some people have more dignity, worth and divinity than other people. God’s glory will always rise up, through the people of God who are influenced and compelled by the love of Jesus that we will not let the world influence us to save, glorify, and enrich ourselves. We won’t let the world influence us to despair and hopelessness. Jesus couldn’t be influenced to forgo the cross as Jesus embraced the human reality of suffering, moving through pain and sorrow, held in the outstretched arms of God, who draws us all in together. God digs us out of our self-imposed graves, brushes off the dirt and isn’t repulsed by our imperfections. God is glorified in our gathering as God’s people, influenced by the love of Jesus Christ for the sake of healing a broken world. God’s name has been, will be and is glorified. Thanks be to God.

“If You’re Not Outraged, You’re Not Paying Attention” Sermon on John 2:13-22 March 3, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on March 3, 2024 the Third Sunday in Lent. You are encouraged to view it on our Facebook or YouTube. The texts were: Exodus 20: 1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 1: 18-25 and John 2: 13-22.

Young Friends Message: I love rocks. I used to collect them as a child. My grandpa had a rock polisher and when I would visit we would go down to the beach and collect cool rocks that he would polish up for me. One time he even set one as a necklace pendant. Rocks are beautiful, aren’t they? What do we use rocks for? We use rocks to build, in our yards instead of grass, big rocks hold back dirt on hills, etc. All good things! And can rocks be harmful if used that way? Yep, if we throw them at something or someone, we can do a lot of damage can’t we. Even accidentally. Rocks are neither good nor bad themselves it’s how they’re used. I was thinking about this in our bible stories today. Our first story was about the 10 Commandments. Have you heard of the Ten Commandments? 1) Have no other gods beside God, 2) Do not misuse God’s name 3) Keep sabbath day-rest, 4) honor your father and mother 5) do not murder, 6) do not steal 7) do not commit adultery, 8) do not bear false witness-don’t lie about someone 9) do not covet, be jealous of someone’s wife, husband 10) do not covet, be jealous of someone else’s stuff.

That’s a lot! And I think there’s a word in there that can help us sum up all of these commandments: misuse. God doesn’t want us to take ourselves, or God’s name, or anything or anyone that God has created as good and misuse them. Jesus saw the people misusing the animals and God’s house, the Temple and got mad. Getting mad about people being misused is ok! We need to use what God has given us to make the world good for everyone. So whenever you think about using anything, ask “will this be good for me and someone else?” If not, use it differently! In the back I have rocks that you can decorate and put in your room, your yard, or as surprises in your neighborhood to get someone’s attention about God’s love.

There are a few iterations of a quote I think of often, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”[1] Well, I’m outraged, so maybe I’m paying attention. Over what you ask? Oh, so much, my friends, so much. Anger is a “go-to” emotion for me and has been since birth. However, I was raised with some very specific parameters on anger and maybe you were too. I was told things like “now temper, temper,” or “You can’t be angry,” or “don’t be mad.”  I was taught that anger isn’t ok, isn’t acceptable, never to be expressed, and just plain wrong, especially for a girl. I spent and still spend, much time beating myself up for feeling angry. And when I do express anger, people who were also told that anger is wrong (most of us), quickly become uncomfortable and demand that I stop being angry. Just calm down. Yeah, that works.

Anger is a forbidden emotion in our society and our American mythology of “niceness” seeks to keep angry people in check without asking if their anger is justified: particularly women, women of color, and people of color in general. We’ve all heard the tropes about unpleasant women who bluntly speak their mind, I think we used to be called shrews, or the racist stereotype of the “angry Black woman,” and that Black men and men of color are dangerous when angry. The idea is to tell angry people, who also happen to lack access to power in our society, that they don’t have a right to be angry, and anger is character flaw, and being angry simply demonstrates their point that we are unpredictable, hot headed, impulsive and need to be controlled.

I’ve had to do a lot of work to unlearn these misogynistic and racist ideas, and I’m still a work in progress. I’ve learned that my anger isn’t good nor bad, but it’s what I do with it. As a child, I, of course, had to learn that I couldn’t hit someone or break something because I was angry. But instead of teaching me how to channel anger, I was told just not to feel it. As an adult, I’ve learned that there is a cost associated with unexpressed anger, and that it will come out, one way or another. I’ve had to learn how to use and not misuse my anger. (Still learning!)

Anger and how to direct it is not a modern issue. Humans have a hard time using any of our emotions, as it turns out, and we tend to misuse them and thus, misuse other people and God’s creation. God, the good parent, decided house rules were necessary: The Ten Commandments, to let people know that God is paying attention and doesn’t care for the misuse what God has given us. Such as, don’t misuse God’s holy name in anger and fear to deny half the population bodily autonomy, adequate housing, food or education to anyone. Don’t allow jealousy as an excuse to misuse other people’s bodies, steal material things, or wreck relationships with family, or neighbors. Don’t misuse our days and work with no rest, no justice, no time for creativity, relationships and flourishing, to stoke your own ego. Don’t misuse what God has given us to ensure only our own status, wealth, welfare, and self-interests.  

And misuse continues, doesn’t it?  John 2 tells us this story today: The Passover sacrifices at the Temple evolved as a way for merchants to make money off their fellow religious adherents, such as how Christmas and Easter have become commercialized today. Roman money wasn’t allowed in the Temple because it broke the commandment of “no graven images” with the picture of Ceasar on the coins and it had to be exchanged, often unfairly, for the shekel. Shekels were only good in the Temple to purchase an animal for the ritual sacrifice and those animals. A captive consumer. The misuse of the commandments, the misuse of the rituals of sacrifice, the misuse of the Temple built for connection to God, is what sparked Jesus’ anger. And before we get too far down the path of self-righteousness as enlightened people; I would invite us to take the log out of our own eyes before we remove the splinter from our ancestors. We have plenty of tables for Jesus to flip over. The table of denominationalism, the table of racism, the table of homo and transphobia, the table of ageism, the table of capitalism, the table of scarcity, the table of apathy, and the list can go on.

Jesus was angry at the misuse of the Temple, of community and angry that they had turned their attention away from loving the Lord God with all your heart, soul and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself. Jesus’s anger was to get the attention of the people, to turn over the actual tables, yes, and to turn over the tables in their hearts that were keeping them from God and each other. They were misusing tables, tables aren’t supposed to be barriers, status symbols or exclusive, they are places to create inclusive community, share abundance and joyous love.

If you’re not angry you’re not paying attention. If we are paying attention to the world and to God’s desires for humanity and creation, then anger used for the safety, wellbeing and inclusion of our neighbor, anger that turns over tables of injustice, division, oppression, genocide, scapegoating, violence, anger is a proper, reasonable, and needed response to the reality of the misuse of God’s love in the world. We are called to use our anger as Jesus did: to build, heal, restore, renew and transform the world. To use our anger to pay full attention to loving God, God’s creation and our neighbor, each other them, as ourselves. Thanks be to God.

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[1] This quote is from Nicholas D. Kristof, but Tom Morello, guitarist from Rage Against the Machine said something similar in the 1980’s. *Gen X trivia of the day.

God Gets Us Indeed But More Importantly, God’s Got Us: Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent February 18, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on February 18, 2024. It can be viewed on our FaceBook and YouTube Channel. The texts for the first Sunday in Lent were: Genesis 9: 8-17, Psalm 25: 1-10, 1 Peter 3: 18-22 and Mark 1: 9-15.

Young Friends Message: I have had bad days, days when it feels like everything is terrible, like that book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. Everything goes wrong and nothing feels right. Have you ever had a bad day? What cheered you up? Yes, talking to a friend, maybe reading, watching a favorite tv show, relaxing, a walk, sunshine, a hug. Those things all help. Now, if we have a lot of bad days in a row, it can get tougher. We become tempted to think that life is always bad and will always be bad. But God says no to that! One of our bible stories this morning you may have recognized was the end of the Noah’s Ark story. Do you remember that story? God told Noah to build an ark, a big boat and fill it with all the animals, and bugs, and birds because God was going to flood the world. God was apparently also having a bad day. Noah and his family with all these creatures lived on the boat for 40 long days! I think that would feel like a lot of bad days all in a row. It would have been stinky, dark, and very unfun. Well, God knew that Noah, his family and the creatures needed to be reminded that bad days don’t last forever, and God doesn’t want us to have day after day after day that feel bad. God wants us to remember that we are loved, cared for and not alone. So God put the rainbow in the sky to remind God that we need to know that bad days when all it does is rain, God holds us. A rainbow is shaped like a hug, reminding us that God holds us and God’s got us, even when times are hard. So today during the rest of worship, you can make rainbow cards to give to people reminding them that they are loved and bad days won’t last because God promises us that God’s got us.

I will admit that I just don’t get winter. I’ve never been a big winter fan, but lack of sunshine, light in general, something constantly falling out of the sky and the feeling of being cooped up indoors, just wears on my spirit. The old joke of “March, May, July, August, October and December have 31 days, April, June September and November have 30 and February has 28 (29 this year) but January has 9,467 days” rings less funny and more depressing with each passing year. January gives the vibe that diabolical winter will last forever, it will always be cold, damp and miserable. This is our life now. But there are people who LOVE winter. They love to ski, who aren’t bothered by the cold, who don’t get why I’m so grumpy about the winter season. These are often the same people who don’t get summer, which I love. They feel about July, how I feel about January. They feel trapped in their air conditioning and think being sweaty is having a bad day. They don’t get me, and I don’t get them.

It’s common that there are people and situations that we just don’t get. Maybe we just don’t get a coworker who takes your lunch, or why a loved one snapped at you, you don’t get why something has happened to you, or why you do things you don’t want to. Maybe you don’t get why some people love who they love, or live how they live. Maybe you don’t get why someone votes differently than you, or likes Taylor Swift or can’t stand Taylor Swift. Ok, if you can’t stand Taylor Swift, I don’t get it. Maybe you don’t get why people don’t want you to be you and want to harm you, deport you, or place legislation on your life. It can feel like being trapped on a big boat with stinky animals for 40 days in the dark, in the damp, in the cold, wondering if you’ll ever set foot on dry, stable land again. Or it’s like being thrown into the desert for 40 days with wild beasts, into the desolation, into the constant heat wondering if you’ll ever set foot on lush, stable land again. You just don’t get it, why is this (gesturing wildly) so hard?

God gets that our hearts, our minds, our bodies and our spirits can get stuck and need pushes to drive us back to the truth of our existence: God gets us, and God’s got us. You may have seen the Super Bowl ad that has caused a fervor in Christian circles on both the right and the left. I’ve mostly stayed silent on the topic as I’m cautious about removing the log from my own eye before removing the log from my neighbor’s. Now some heavy realities have come to light about how this campaign is funded by people and organizations who have but one goal which is to condemn anyone not of their flavor of Christianity and impose their will on the rest of us. But here’s also what I realized this week: The statement is not wrong, but perhaps we’re all missing the meaning. God gets us indeed, understands us and calls us through the waters of the flood and the desolation of the wilderness with that good news: God gets us and God’s got us. God sent Jesus, fully human and fully divine, proclaimed him as beloved and drove Jesus to the wilderness, where it seems Jesus had some bad days. Jesus gets what it is to have a bad day or two. Jesus gets us. This is what makes Jesus’ proclamation of the good news of God’s kingdom believable: Jesus is one of us, Jesus knows the feeling of being alone, trapped and forgotten. Jesus screams “my God, my God why have you forsaken me?” from the cross fully getting that death is terrifying and anguish is real.

God gets that we have bad days, that is the reality of living as humans in the world. Some days it will feel like a flood is pouring down on us, some days we will feel dry, dusty and desolate, some days we will wonder if all is dark, and no light can reach us through the cracked wooden boards of our hearts. God gets that, God gets our inability to see beyond our limited vision, to raise our heads above the waves for a fuller perspective. God does indeed get us, but more importantly, God’s got us.

God’s got us even when it seems we are in the clutches of the temptation to believe that God’s power isn’t enough, that God’s promises aren’t enough, that God couldn’t possibly get me, get my situation, get what I’m going through. That’s the promise of the rainbow, the promise of our baptism, the promise of the good news that Jesus proclaimed to the people in first century Palestine, the good news that in our very worst days, when death, anguish, and sorrow lurk in every corner, God’s got us. God holds us, sends angels in the form of one another, to attend to us, and sends us as angels, messengers of God’s good news, to attend to the people we encounter. To attend to them, their needs, not to convert them, not to shame them, not to impose our belief system on them. But to get them as God gets them and love them as we love ourselves, fully as God’s beloved. God’s got us and creation, and is never tempted to let us go. God’s got us no matter where we are, what we do, what temptation we follow. God won’t let us drown in the flood of what the world pours on us and won’t let us dry up in the scorching heat of the world either.

God does get us, gets our failings, our troubled hearts, our temptations, our weaknesses but the promise through Jesus, is the God’s got us, holds us, today, tomorrow and forever. Amen.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? Sermon for Ash Wednesday/Valentines Day February 15, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. It can be viewed on our Facebook and YouTube Channels. The texts were: Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51: 1-17, 2 Corinthians 5: 20b-6:10, Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-21.

Today is a sacred day in our calendar, a day when we contemplate love, have a meal with loved ones, and offer tokens of our relationships: Ash Wednesday. What holiday were you thinking about? Yes, today is also Valentines Day, and the convergence of these two holidays that share some rituals is poignant. Ash Wednesday normally is not connected to musings of love, typically, the reality of death is the topic of conversation. But this year, the waters are muddied with the mixture of love, death, dust, ashes, and hearts. We contemplate the words that Tina Turner belted out: “What’s love got to do with it?”

The origins of Valentines Day are murky at best, but it seems there was a someone named Valentine or Valentinus who defied the Roman Emperor Claudius II in some way, either by marrying young people after the emperor outlawed it (Claudius decided that unmarried men were better warriors than young men with families) or by freeing imprisoned Christians. Claudius beheaded Valentine and Valentine became the patron saint of love, and the Roman Church declared his feast day to be Feb 14, possibly to obscure the Greek pagan celebration of Lupercalia. If we believe any of the above legends to be true, then Valentines Day comingled love and death from the start. Valentine exemplified what love has to do with Ash Wednesday, if we truly love, then death might be a reality. The part of Valentine that might have been afraid of losing his reputation, vocation or very life, he let go for love to prevail, whether it was the love of the people he married or the love for the people he freed from Roman prisons. For Valentine, his actions had everything to do with love, even his death.

Ash Wednesday, a day when we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return, also has everything to do with love, God’s love. God who has loved creation and humanity from the beginning and created us for love and to be love. God who knows who we are, knows all our secrets, our failings, our false piety and loves us fully and without end anyway. God who loves us so much that they sent prophets reminding us of who and who’s we are every day of the year, not only on holy days. God who hears the cries of our admissions of guilt, remorse and shame, who holds our broken and contrite hearts with tenderness and compassion, who sent Jesus, the beloved, to show us in person what love has to do with it, with us, with our lives, and our deaths. Love that has everything to do with God’s promises for abundant life in the face of the reality of death.

Jesus, the connection of God’s love from heaven to earth, shows us how God takes death and transforms it for the renewal of our hearts, souls, minds and the world. The dusty cross that we will wear shortly is a reminder that love has everything to do with God’s renewing, recreating, transforming work in the world. The dusty cross proclaims that we too have everything to do with God’s love in the world and how we live out this love in our day to day lives, every day, not only on Valentines Day. The dusty cross has everything to do with how we love people and bring them to a table to feed them, we offer signs of loving relationship with our neighbors whom no one else loves: immigrants, trans people, people without jobs or shelter, people of color, people with disabilities of body or mind. And subversively, the dusty cross has everything to do with how we love those who don’t love us, or the people that we love. The dusty cross has everything to do with our love for God’s creation and changing our environmental behaviors. The dusty cross has everything to do with our love that defies simple holiday trappings and transactional relationships. The dusty cross has everything to do with how we love when it’s hard to love, when harm, despair or death is near.

Ash Wednesday and Valentines Day together reveal that today God’s love is everything and has everything to do with this love that calls us to participate in relationship with God. Today is about love that has everything to do with God’s mercy and forgiveness, a cross and an empty tomb, and the transformation of our very reality today and forever. Today is about love that has everything to do with God’s unending and enduring love for us all. Thanks be to God.

Lifted Up: A Sermon on Isaiah 40: 21-31 and Mark 1:29-39 February 4, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on Feb 4, 2024, Epiphany 5. It can be viewed on our Facebook and YouTube channel. The texts were: Isaiah 40: 21-31, Psalm 147: 1-11, 20c, 1 Corinthians 9: 16-23 and Mark 1: 29-39

Young Friends message: Invite them forward and yawn, stretch, rub your eyes, and other indications of being tired. Have you ever been tired? Yeah, I can be really tired after I go for a run, or I work a long day. What makes you tired? We are get tired, it’s part of be human. What do we do when we get tired? We rest! We might take a nap if we can, or go to bed or even just lay on the couch and read. We all have to rest. Even God had to rest after creating the world! Resting is a good thing! Rest and sleeping give us energy for the next day or the next thing we want to do. But we often don’t think it’s a good thing, as we’re afraid of missing out on something. If we are asleep, we might miss out on doing something we want to, finishing a book, a puzzle, playing with a toy, talking to a friend. What happens if we run out of energy and get tired, we get crabby, we can’t concentrate and do the things we want to do well. It’s so hard, but we can’t do everything.
This was true even for Jesus. In our bible story today, Jesus is healing a lot of people, Simon’s mother, and people he didn’t know. He was exhausted! But Jesus remembered that God is where we get our energy-like a cell phone, we have to get recharged. So Jesus went to pray to God to get more energy. In our Isaiah story, we read about how God gives us energy when we are tired, or the fancy word there is weary. IF we trust in God and rest, we will have so much energy we can fly! To help us remember to rest in God to get recharged, I have an activity for you to do at the table in the back: I have plain pillowcases and fabric markers. I want you to write or draw a prayer asking God to give you energy to help people in God’s world.

There’s a lot that makes me tired and weary. Not just “oh it feels good to sit down” kind of weary after a long run or a hike, but the kind of weary that wants my brain and heart to disconnect from the world. From the never-ending news cycles spewing the latest human made devastation: government leadership doubling down on transphobic and racist policies, tensions at our southern border, Palestine and Israel, Ukraine and Russia, climate related floods, ice storms, droughts, to the everyday exhaustion of traffic, paying bills, worrying about retirement, my health, my children’s health, and retirement, it all feels like heavy backpack pulling me down and I could use a hand so that I don’t topple.

“Weary” seems like a way of life for so many people right now, versus a temporary state of being that can be resolved with an afternoon coffee or energy drink. It turns out you can’t selfcare your way out of low pay, no health insurance and unaffordable housing. A facemask doesn’t pay the rent or lift you out of poverty. This weariness also leads to desperation that our society is primed to leverage. Turn your hobby into an Etsy shop in your spare time and lift yourself out of weariness! You can do it yourself! We’ve been sold, literally, the lie that everything is up to us, no one will give us a hand, and even rest is something we must earn, like our paychecks, vacation and sadly sick days, and rest, isn’t ideal and is a slippery slope to the worst of the worst: lazy. Lazy people who can’t lift themselves up for a better life.

I have done a great job of internalizing all the above, what author of “Rest is Resistance,” Tricia Heresy, calls our “grind culture.” What you produce is your identity, your power and worth, and you’d better use every talent and interest to hustle. No one is going to help you and it’s all up to you. No hobby left unprofitable, and no spare time left unproductive. The result is that we forget what lifts us, that our time isn’t just for ourselves but for God, creation and the people around us. We feel weighed down by all the lies we’re being sold that rest is a four letter word.

Tricia Heresy reminds her readers that rest is where connection, delight, beauty and mystery unfold. Poets, writers, musicians, artists of all sorts, often talk about dreaming up their next project or idea. If we don’t rest, take a break, we can’t dream, we can’t imagine, we can’t create anything new for ourselves or the world. She aptly names that in the US, the toxic mix of white supremacy and capitalism, keeps us in grind culture and purposely keeps us down, unable to rest, dream, create, and imagine. Grind culture keeps us isolated, exhausted and locked into the framework that we are what we produce or buy, and nothing more. Grind culture tells us that no one will give us a hand.

God proclaims that rest is sacred and instituted a rest culture for themselves and all creation. Rest as an invitation into connection with our own bodies, minds, spirits, connection to the divine in us, in the world and in God. Rest to trust in God’s power and not our own. The prophet Isaiah proclaimed this to the weary Israelites in Babylonian captivity. They were weighed down by separation from their land, way of life and families; they forgot that God’s power lifts them anywhere and everywhere. God never grows weary of sharing power with God’s people for the sake of our flourishing. God seeks to lift us from what is weighing us down.

Jesus’ used his power to heal, to lend his hand to lift people up, like Simon’s mother in law, to their inherit dignity, worth and purpose, to love and serve God and neighbor. Jesus, himself, went off to pray, to rest, to be lifted by God for the strength to spread God’s power grid of love, mercy and grace for the people most weary of life’s vicissitudes. Jesus’ message of God’s power that liberates us from what is weighing us down, lifted people to hope. This freedom and hope is what the authorities feared most from Jesus and our authorities today fear most from us. If we are free from weariness in the power of God’s love through Jesus, if we are free to accept Jesus’ hand and offer our hands to lift our neighbors in need, then we are free to dream and imagine a world where God’s will be done on earth as in heaven. We’re free and lifted in the power of God’s name and purpose for us: beloved.

The world makes us weary, weighs us down; God’s power lifts us with the truth of our divinity, our sacredness and our holiness that is also true of each person we will ever encounter. We can rest, rest in the confidence that God will always offer God’s power to us, to those in need, to the sick, the oppressed, the unheard, the closeted, the undocumented, the aged, the young, the just plain weary. Power that lends a hand. Power that gives us the peace to close our eyes and envision a new heaven and a new earth where all will have heard the message that has echoed from ancient times through creation, the prophets, and most loudly through Jesus: the good news that God’s powerful love lifts us. Thanks be to God.

It’s Time! Sermon on Mark 1:14-20 January 21, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on January 21, 2024. The texts for the third Sunday after Epiphany were: Jonah 3: 1-5, 10, Psalm 65: 5-12, 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31 and Mark 1: 14-20.

Young Friends Message:
Let’s put together a schedule of how today will go: What do we do first? Then what? (Write and draw a simple daily schedule with the children, leaving room to add later.) How do you know when to go to school or get up in the morning? Accept all answers. Yes, we have clocks, parents, we know when it’s light out. We have schedules that tell you when to do things. Like do you brush your teeth while you’re eating candy? No that’s not the right time for that! There’s a right time of year for coats, mittens and hats, and a right time of year for shorts, sandals and popsicles. Time matters doesn’t it! Time helps us to know when to do or not do things. Well, in our bible story this morning-Jesus talks about God’s time and what that means. God’s time isn’t quite like ours, it’s different. God doesn’t have a schedule like the one we created. I’d say God doesn’t have a schedule, or even a detailed plan. God has a vision. Jesus says that God’s time is always now. What do you think happens in God’s time? Yep! How about loving people, feeding people, making new friends, helping people who are hurt. Jesus came to show us that God isn’t that worried about our schedules but wants us to know that it’s ALWAYS the right time to be love in the world everywhere we go no matter what our schedule says!

In my daily life, I worry about what time it is A LOT. AND I mess it up more than I like, as the Caring Ministry team learned on Wednesday. The meeting was at 6 not 7 pm. Sigh. I have tried lots of different kinds of planners, if I can just find the right one, I will always know what time to do what task.  I have not found that. The advent of calendars in my phone has been handy. The alarms telling me it’s time or almost time for the next thing means that I miss fewer meetings, if I input the time correctly. And there is a viciousness to the constant alarms, buzzers, paper lists and post-it notes. It’s always time for something, it seems, and what I find myself longing for is more time. Not to fill it with “have-to’s” but “get-to’s.” Time to do what fills me, time for who and what matters.

Western culture has taught us a few things, perhaps unhelpful things, about time: time is money, time is short, time is precious, time is fleeting, time waits for no one, time heals all things and I’m sure you can offer a few of your own. I have a friend and clergy colleague who taught me “time is a nonrenewable resource.” The core message here is that time is finite, scarce and powerful, so how we spend our time matters. As people of faith we ask: will it be our time or God’s time?

The beginning of Mark’s gospel is sharp, concise and wastes no time. No sweet baby in a manger story, no wise people, no star, singing angels, or shepherds. For the gospel writer of Mark and their audience, time was paramount. Written about 40 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the people of The Way, followers of Jesus, wondered if their time was up. The temple had been destroyed, Jerusalem razed (again), Roman legions in control of daily life and danger lurked around every corner for this sect of Jesus believers. And so, Mark doesn’t mess around and tells them what they need to hear up front: Jesus’ proclaiming “the time is fulfilled.” Not just any time, God’s time. These four words told the people everything they needed to know. Jesus’ presence shows the world how God spends God’s time, what and who matters to God, and the true value of time in God’s kingdom. Jesus proclaims that his time will be spent in very specific and counter cultural ways, time spent that will reorder lives and reorder the world.

Jesus’ calling of disciples shows us the power of God’s time in the lives of ordinary people. It’s time, Jesus says, to free as many people as we can from the nets of the world and catch them in the liberation and love of God that has no time limit. It’s time to participate in the healing and reconciliation of creation is now filling the world with what does matter, actions that proclaim God’s love for all people and creatures.

I so often want to fill my time with what I think matters, or what other people tell me matters, and I’m tangled in the nets of other people’s schedules and agendas. I can hear this proclamation of Jesus and think “yeah right, I can’t just walk away! What will people think! I’ll get fired from my job, people won’t like me!” I don’t hear this passage as the good news it is. The good news is that God’s time, is, always has been and always will be more powerful in our lives than the constant ticking of the clock on the wall, or our Outlook calendars. God’s time calls to us over the alarms, buzzers and post-it notes to give us a glimpse that it’s time, the time that matters, for what matters and who matters.

God’s time clears our personal agendas, egos and anxiety and sends us out into our daily lives with the gift of time. We are called by Jesus and it’s always the time to feed hungry school children, call for a ceasefire, free transgender people to use whatever facility wherever they want, protect reproductive rights, welcome and give robust hospitality to all immigrants regardless of paperwork, to demand each human has dignified shelter, and yes, to ensure that all kids have the care they need at home or in the community, and parents are supported. It’s time, the time is now, Jesus says, to dig for the root causes for poverty, racism, white supremacy and misogyny. The time is now to eradicate those weeds in the garden for the flourishing of all. The time of incrementalism and being told to wait for the comfort of those in power is over, Jesus says. The powers and principalities will always say it’s “not the right time” to give full human and civil right to women, people of color, indigenous folks, LBGTQIA+ folks, and foreigners, it’s not the right time, they say, to have the rich pay their fair share, and to give thriving wages in all sectors of the workforce. But we know differently as people who hear Jesus words today: It’s time, the time is now, and God’s time commands us to act, with urgency because it’s already passed time for division, exclusion, hate, harm, and every oppression to end. It’s time for God’s kingdom to come on earth as in heaven.

The time is fulfilled and God’s time fills creation, fills our lives, fills our communities,  and fills our hearts. Jesus calls to us, the time is now to trust in God’s love that knows no end and is in all, with all and surrounds us until time no longer matters. God always freely and lavishly spends God’s time on you, on me and each human being and creature. We matter to God, and in Jesus, God gives us all God’s time to be with us, love us and show us how much God cares. It’s time, Jesus says, and that is indeed good news. Amen.

Making Waves: Sermon for Baptism of Our Lord Sunday January 7, 2024

This sermon was proclaimed in the community of St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Taylorsville, UT on January 7,2024. It is Epiphany 1, Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. The texts were: Genesis 1: 1-5, Psalm 29, Acts 19:1-7 and Mark 1:4-11. Sermons are aural and oral presentations and can be viewed on our YouTube and Facebook channels.

Young Friends Message: Have a clear tub of water. Ask the them what water can do. Accept all answers! Ask if they like water, baths, swimming, etc. Some will, some won’t. 😊 Take a minute to talk about what water does. Then wonder out loud what happens when wind is added to water. Blow on the water to make “waves” probably be more like ripples but it will get the point across. When wind is added to water, water moves. Water doesn’t move on its own, it needs wind, or something else, to move it. We’re kinda like water…we don’t necessarily move on our own, but need someone or something to move us to action. In our Bible stories today, we read about God’s spirit or wind moving over the waters, and when that happened, creation started! We call God’s spirit the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is what moves us, makes us move and be a part of God’s creation, to make waves like in this tub of water. When we move with the Holy Spirit, stuff happens! Baptism, when we pour water over a person, is when we promise to move with God’s Holy Spirit in the world, like Jesus. We celebrate Jesus’ baptism to remind us that Jesus moved with God’s Holy Spirit and made a lot of waves in the world. Some people liked his waves and some didn’t. That’s true for us too, some people won’t like it when we move with the Holy Spirit by being kind to people others are mean to, or by sharing, smiling, being truthful, what else can we do to move with God’s Holy Spirit? Yes! All those things! We can make waves of God’s love in the world! We’re going to talk about that more with everyone.

While I do love the mountains, I’m a beach girl at heart. And yes, I spent some quality time on tropical beaches when I lived on Guam, but my favorite beaches are those of the Pacific Northwest. I love the rugged shores, the waves crashing up on the rocks, the wind blowing in storms. What’s ironic about my love of beaches and the ocean, is that I’m not much of a swimmer and don’t care much for being immersed. I’m very aware of how powerful and dangerous water can be, particularly when combined with wind. I’ve been on my grandpa’s fishing boat in the Puget Sound when the wind whips up; it’s scary and a bit nauseating. As mesmerizing as the waves can be, there’s a difference between the gentle waves lapping up over one’s toes on a warm summer day and a torrential crash of a giant wave on a raw day in January. And I tend to much prefer the former. And the impact of the wind driven water is evident as the shoreline transforms and recreates itself with each passing day. Waves create new features, landscapes and realities.

We’re taught the power of waves and then simultaneously warned not to make any waves in our or other people’s lives. Making waves is seen as problematic and something to avoid at all costs and yet, there are some of us that can’t help it and seem to make waves even when we’re not trying to. Have you ever experienced that? It’s most of my life. I don’t mean to make waves, but here we are. Much like a sneaker wave at the coast, I inadvertently say or do something that will cause another person to be drenched.

It seems that making waves is what God does and has done best, as we read in Genesis 1, “in the beginning.” God’s first action was to cause wind to move over the waters of the earth to make things happen. Yes, we have a God who doesn’t do status quo well. God’s spirit, wind, breath, or Ruah in the Hebrew, just couldn’t help herself and stirred up the waters to spark creation. And God didn’t stop at the creation of light/dark, day/night, water/land, animals, birds, plants, trees, and yes humanity. Even when it seemed all was complete, Ruah was still on the move. Ruah blew through Sarah, Rachel and Rebecca, our foremothers, Ruah revealed God on Mt. Sinai to Moses, and on Mt. Horeb to Elijah. Ruah ignited judges, anointed Israel’s kings, called prophets and gasped for breath in the lungs of Emmanuel, God with us. Ruah, God’s Holy Spirit, moves and moves all life.

Ruah makes waves, rippling through God’s people, and creates new landscapes and realities. Ruah filled Jesus as he came up out of the water, waves drenching him, and Jesus continued to make waves of his own. Jesus, moving with the power of the Holy Spirit, made waves by healing the lepers, feeding the multitudes, declaring the outcast blessed, wrestling with demons, eating with the tax collectors and prostitutes, raising the dead, and refusing to let death be the final word. Jesus made waves wherever he went-waves gently washed over some and crashed down on others. Making waves, it seems, is a mark of God’s Holy Spirit, Ruah, from the very beginning.

Humans, us, have tried to mitigate and domesticate the impact of these waves from the beginning. We might put up levees or attempt to ride them like surfers and control the waves. We avoid waves, and making waves, get into trouble, even good trouble, as John Lewis admonished us, afraid that making waves isn’t what good people, good Christians do. The irony is that making waves is exactly what we promise to do in our baptism ritual. We promise that our lives will ripple out with God’s current, to reflect the light of Jesus in the world and strive for justice and peace. We promise to splash God’s mercy and grace as we go, not in dribbles but in torrents. We promise to make waves and change the realities of our neighbor siblings for housing, healthcare, food and dignity. Our waves recreate landscapes of gender, racial and socio-economic equity. Our waves drench the powerful, and push people with authority to lead for the common good and not their own ideologies and agendas. Our waves move people around us and sweep them into the current of what God is up to in our world. We make waves, as we are moved by God’s Holy Spirit, Ruah, from the beginning of our days. The collection of books we call the Bible is a testament to God’s people making waves in the world, a testament to God’s creation ripples through time and creation. Powerful waves of God’s Ruah and Love that create new realities of communities of mutual aid, radical inclusion, compassion, and care. My friends, this is the mark of our baptisms, that we make waves. We are pulled into God’s loving current and swept up in the work of God’s realm right here, right now.

As we begin a new year, God’s Ruah has moved us here, to this time and place to make waves that recreate the world, ordering chaos into God’s kingdom. That is a promise that began when God created, the promise of being beloved. You are sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever, now go and make some waves. Amen.