SERMONS
Unconventional Saints
This morning, surrounded by photos of our dearly departed who were also blessed in this life, we remember that God sees us. The Holy One knows the losses and struggles that weigh us down. The exhaustion from caring for others. The disappointments at home, work or school. The worry about a loved one who is ill or preparing to die. God sees us and honors us. God blesses us and accompanies us.
Tricks, Treats, and Trees
Zaccheaus decorated a tree with himself. His neighbors saw the chief tax collector.
Jesus, passing through, saw Zacchaeus.
Sorting People
For God is not a sorter like we are. Rather we have the sort of God that always surprises us with mercy. And forgiveness. And a new beginning. At the baptismal font. At the table. And in the world.
Being Seen
There is a basic human need to be seen and known. Chasms between the rich and the poor, the hungry and those who feast sumptuously, the un-housed and well housed still exist today. Seeing the other is a big deal. We are called to acknowledge their presence, their needs and gifts. And above all, their status as children of God, worthy of respect and dignity.
Marked Down
Rather than hoarding, let us be about dispossessing. Let us be about letting go. Let us be about extending grace to the underserving and the unsuspecting. Moving away from a tit-for-tat way of looking at the world. To a divine economics full of surprising mark-downs.
Practicing Grace
Tables are where we get to practice receiving and giving God’s grace. God has invited us to be a part of an incredible banquet – a metaphor for God’s community – the place where all of God’s people come together.
Mary, Part Two
Mary is an icon of God’s boundless love and comfort. As Jesus has been portrayed in images from every possible culture and ethnicity, so has Mary.
Risk Taker
Yet theologian Carter Heyward reminds us that faith, by definition, is uncertainty. Faith is full of doubt, steeped in risk. Faith is about matters not of the known, but of the unknown.
Be the Church
But truthfully: We’re already really good at worship. It’s one of the things Holy Trinity is known for. It’s the first thing we figured out how to adapt (and re-adapt repeatedly) during the pandemic.
Dealing With Stuff
This beautiful earth. This wonderful city. The people dear to you. Your neighbors—both people and creatures. The water of baptism. The meal of bread and wine. This community. Riches, indeed.
Are you a pray-er?
Not a piece of bubble gum. Not a shiny toy. Or a new car. Or the love of our life. Though sometimes life brings these things. But what we receive is the presence of God. The assurance that we are not alone. The promise that life is worth living. And that from suffering will come new life and resurrection.
The "Good" Samaritan
So let’s bring back the shock value of this parable! Saying the Good Samaritan is the one who was neighbor to the one in the ditch is like saying the good immigrant, the good Muslim, the good you fill in the blank of which group is opposite from you, who you distrust, consider bad or suspicious.
Shake it off
That doesn’t sound like shaking off other people. Maybe the Spirit is calling us to something different: not shaking people off but shaking things up.
Outsiders Who Get It
And when they actually paid attention to those voices, things changed for them. Naaman washed his leprosy away. God’s grace found its way across established boundaries of ethnicity and ego alike.
No law against loving your neighbor
At that time 35 years ago, my pastor was not pro-choice. Most of my peers had never talked about it and would have considered themselves anti-abortion if asked. But that’s the problem when only given binary options. It’s either/or and there’s no room for gray, for nuance, for understanding and compassion.
God's freedom
You see, if we expand the definition of “possession” to include everything that conspires to keep us dead when God wants us alive, everything that keeps us bound up, when God wants us free, then this ancient story is not an oddity about a crazy demon-possessed naked man, but it is a reflection of our own lives. We too seek freedom from all that torments us. And like the healed man we find freedom (or salvation) in the presence of Jesus. Because there is no death-dealing power in this universe that can withstand the saving, healing, resurrecting power of Jesus.
What time is it?
Listen again to the scripture Leon chose, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Leon trusted this promise that no matter what season in life he was in, nothing would be able to separate him from God’s love in Christ Jesus.
A Blurry Blessing
What about the scars that you and I carry? Our response to life’s hardest moments may be a kind of blur for us, but there is a blessing there as well?
A Wonder to Behold
This day we behold the wood of the cross. We gaze upon the One whose suffering brings hope to our dying world. We behold the suffering of those in Ukraine. We behold those suffering in our city. We behold all those with broken hearts, broken bodies, troubled spirits.