A little bit of history

1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29

There’s a saying that probably most of you have heard: “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” (George Santayana).

That sounds nice, doesn’t it? But that doesn’t change the fact that most people find history painfully boring. It’s hard enough to convince people that things happening right now matter in their lives, let alone things that happened a long time ago. Obviously, some of you do care—some of you perhaps a lot—but you already know you are weird.

So, today is Reformation Sunday, and 502 years after Luther nailed some theses to the door at the church in Wittenberg I am fairly certain that this doesn’t matter much to most of you. Furthermore, the scripture reading for today is about the throne of Israel after Solomon—about these guys called Jeroboam and Rehoboam—a minor story about relatively minor characters in the Bible from hundreds of years before Jesus. I think most of us are content that somebody somewhere is studying these events, and their job is to hold the universe of history together, because we feel like this is probably important for some reason and we simply don’t know why. I believe we also probably feel this way about the entire history of the early church stretching from the beginning of time to oh, about whenever we were fifteen years old.

I’m creating a caricature here, but I believe our apathy toward history is generally truer than we want to admit. Here’s my argument why you should be at least generally aware of the long-standing history that stretches like a river far back to a headwaters you cannot remotely see. You should be aware of this history because everything about the practice of faith is built on the backs of those who have gone before. You are not an individual on an island of faith, building a personal relationship with Jesus. Everything from your baptism to your confirmation to your relationships, friendships, and the like has impacted and changed your faith, and it often had little to do with you. Confirmation is not about confirming a personal relationship with Jesus. It is about acknowledging an awareness that God knows you and has chosen you long before you could respond. God is not just your God but the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses, and David and Mary, and Martha, and Paul, and all the others. Confirmation is sitting down in line with all the historical figures of the faith. Confirmation is about getting off your faith islands and becoming part of a community full of sinners who recognize their need for a Savior.

On our first day of Confirmation class every year we talk about the Reformation. Lutheranism 101, we call it. I’m acutely aware that most people in the world do not care about the Reformation. A good many people out there who did not grow up in the Lutheran church think that Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr are the same person. They don’t know—they don’t care. Our kids also don’t know anything—not until they step into that first class—and then we talk about this remarkable thing that happened a long time ago. And they still don’t care about most of it.

They don’t care about the argument between Luther and the papacy. And they don’t care about the Diet of Worms. And they mostly don’t even care about the peasants wars. But then something happens pretty much every year. They hear something they do care about, and what catches their attention are two things: Luther’s kidnapping and the translation of the Bible into German. Our youth are sitting there watching this clip from the Luther movie of the Diet of Worms. Luther is standing before Cardinal Cajetan and Prince Frederick and there’s this dramatic theological debate where Luther finishes by saying, “Here I stand. So help me God.” And the theology students and the peasants break into applause. And our confirmation students have the same reaction that the rest of the world has: Blank stares. They don’t care. Theological debates do not matter to them.

Then we start talking about what happens next, and in an instant they are engaged. We talk about how Luther was guaranteed free passage from the Diet but how the Catholic Church leaders were planning to break that promise, to capture and eventually to kill him, and how Prince Philip (Luther’s protector) kidnapped Luther himself and hid him away in a tower so that the students and the peasants believed the church had in fact kidnapped and killed him. Seriously, have you never heard this story? It’s some 16^th-century James Bond stuff. Our kids love this story.

Prince Philip locks Luther in the tower of Wittenberg to keep him safe, and Luther in turn uses his time locked away in the tower to translate the Bible into German for the very first time. Our kids enjoy this story because it’s dramatic but it’s more than that, because what happens next is the really cool part. Luther lived at the perfect moment in history because just down the road they were inventing the printing press at Gutenberg, and it lined up perfectly with Luther’s German translation of the Bible. The point that always gets our youth wide-eyed was when I tell them that nobody could read the Bible before Luther—just the priests.

Somebody always asks some variation of the question, “Well, how could they trust them, then?”

And that’s just it. The Catholic Church could tell the people whatever they wanted! It was why Johannes Tetzel was wandering around Germany selling people indulgences that he claimed would help free their dead relatives from purgatory. Creating the capacity for the common people to read the Bible was a revolutionary act. For the first time in modern history, it encouraged people to actually learn to read. This is how the Reformation kick-started the Renaissance. Before Luther was the Dark Ages; after Luther, the lights turned on.

Now, one of the things we talk about quite a bit in Confirmation is how we do not worship Luther. The guy was incredibly flawed. He was racist, an anti-Semite, and he was the most foul-mouthed church-leader in history. He was also one of the most fearless, the most revolutionary, and the most important. Our kids love that story, because most of what we hear about in church is rather mundane. Somehow, we have taken the greatest story ever told—the story of Jesus dying for you and me and rising for our salvation—and made it so boring that people leave the church every Sunday without once starting a revolution.

I suspect that the reason our confirmands resonate with that story of Luther’s kidnapping and the translation of the Bible into German is because that is where they are in the story. They don’t know a thing about the Bible, let alone any of this deep-dive stuff like Jeroboam and Rehoboam. What they can relate to is a world that tells them how it is, and the flicking on of that light of understanding that allows them to be part of this world. Our kids want to be part of things. They want God to be accessible—to feel God’s presence, to experience deep things and to be changed by them. They don’t want to answer questions about the Reformation; they want to live the Reformation and not have to explain it, because they haven’t had remotely enough time to reflect on it.

The Reformation is important not because it happened 502 years ago. The Reformation is important because it is always happening, and it is happening right now. You are the church that is always reforming, and I can tell you as we look at a daycare center coming down the line we are sometimes reforming in big, visible, life-changing ways.

For our confirmands, that is the church I hope for you. You are entering a body of believers that is willing to take the past and remake it for the sake of a better world, a clearer view of Jesus, and to help those in need. And we are more like Luther than we might want to believe. We are sinners in need of redemption. And we are saints, living as disciples of Christ.

That’s the history of the church, but it’s also the present. You are the church now. Reform it, like ever.

You are loved

Ruth 1:1-17 

            Today, I want to talk about a single word in Ruth, chapter 1, verse 14. The word is translated “clung” and it the verb used to describe how Ruth reacts when Naomi has ordered her away. I want to talk about this word because—if we’re being completely honest—we don’t have a very good barometer for love in the ancient world. Surprisingly, this word that is translated “to cling” or “to cleave” may show us something of what it looks like.

            But first let’s quickly recap today’s reading. There’s a woman, Naomi, whose husband, Elimelech, dies. Their two sons, Mahlon and Chilion, take wives from among the people of Moab and then they, too, die. So, Naomi finds herself in a hopeless situation. She has lost her entire social security safety net. She is in a foreign land, outside of her homeland back in Bethlehem, and she has no means to provide for herself and nobody else to provide for her. In the ancient world women could not own property themselves, so what was she to do? Most widows without a clan resorted to begging. That was the option left to them.

            Ruth should have been nothing to Naomi. After her husband died Ruth had no legal obligation to Naomi. It was also not expected of her according to the rules of the clan. Daughters-in-law were not responsible for their mother-in-law’s well-being. Naomi was from another clan anyway. More than that, even if Ruth wanted to support Naomi how could she? The only way for Ruth to live was to find another husband, or else she would have to resort to the kind of life that awaited Naomi. Her way forward was clear, but Naomi had none.

            So it is that we have this remarkable scene in which Naomi orders Ruth to go and find a husband—Go back home, she says—and against the conventions of the day Ruth refuses to leave Naomi’s side. She clings to her. The Hebrew word in Ruth 1:14 is davaq, a word that appears fifty-four times in the Old Testament in a variety of contexts. It is the word that God uses to explain marriage in Genesis 2. “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife.”

            It is a word that appears three more times in the book of Ruth. Boaz tells Ruth (2:8), “Do not glean in another field, but <cling> to my young women.” In other words, stay with me. Stick with it. It is a word of connection—a word of relationship—a word of devotion—but ultimately it is a word of love.

            To davaq with someone is forge a bond and hold on. It means to stick to it even when forces are pulling you apart. This devotion is found in marriage, in friendship, with family, and more, which is why this word appears in so many contexts.

Taking away the air: Discipline, children, and the effects of the law

Deuteronomy 5:1-21, 6:1-9

The source of the issue

When I became a parent I became an expert on the law. This happens to all of us who travel that path through life. You spend your youth looking for exceptions to the law. You spend your young adult years testing, bending, and maybe even breaking the law to see what happens. Then, there comes a point where perhaps you settle down and have a family, and your entire perspective on the law changes. Suddenly, the law exists to keep your children safe, and there is nothing more important.

            Now, I’m not talking specifically about the laws of our country, though perhaps those may play a role. I’m mostly talking about the rules we establish to help our children grow. But our kids don’t understand how wise we are, and so they don’t always listen. They bend the rules; they break the rules; and then we have to figure out what we’re going to do.

            Seriously, please tell me what to do.

            You follow through, right? There are consequences. You take something away that they want. We do this with Natalie, and it always has the same effect: she gets worse. The effect of the law pushes her further down the path to self-destruction. So, what next? Well, we’ve gone down that road, so now we need to commit to it or else she’ll sense weakness. So, we take away something else. She behaves worse. We are backed into a corner, so we start bargaining. “You can earn back that last thing if you just start behaving.” She doesn’t care, because she’s not reasonable. She rejects the premise of the law entirely. So, we have no choice but to take away one more thing. Pretty soon we’re out of things to take away, and it’s like, “Natalie, if you do that one more time we’re going to take away… the air!” Or “So help me God, you’re not going to eat ever again!”

The little things

Exodus 3:1-15

            I want to talk today about holy ground, about noticing the little things, and what we can do to find God in front of us.

            I’m guessing most of you remember something about Moses and the burning bush. It might literally be just that—that there was a guy named Moses and a burning bush—but at least that’s something! We remember it because of its simplicity. God speaking from a fiery bush that is not consumed. How cool is that?!

            The first thing that God says from the bush is “Remove your footwear!” because Moses is standing on holy ground. First of all, it’s worth considering why the ground is holy. It’s not because the ground possesses any kind of special resources or geological features; the ground is holy because God is there. Just like heaven is heaven because it is where God lives (for lack of a better term) so the ground before the bush is holy because that is where God meets Moses. That meeting requires not only God’s appearance but also Moses’ recognition. Moses recognizes that God has met him there, and, thus, the ground is hallowed.

            We all have our holy ground. Each year, I joke about the high holy days of deer hunting season, though, let’s be honest, a lot of what happens during those days is not exactly holy, but there is an element in hunting of returning to a holy space—a place where God might meet you in the silence, a refuge from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Another holy space might be this one—this sanctuary. We know that God doesn’t live in the church, but God may very well meet you here. Still, holy ground is not confined to the places you might expect. Holy ground can be at home, in nature, on the road, at work, or at the cemetery, or a garden, or it might not be on ground at all. How many times in scripture does God show up on the water, for instance?

            I suspect this is why we remember the burning bush story so well. It is a story grounded in a place that feels familiar to us. The bush is so tangible and not just because we all know what a bush is. It is a setting unencumbered by the specifics of historical time and place. You don’t need to know anything about Jewish history to grasp it. You are as qualified as me to understand it. It’s simple.

Wrestling with God on the trail and in life

Genesis 32:22-32

I thought I was under a lot of pressure to say something wise before going on sabbatical, but now I’m supposed to have found myself or something. Talk about pressure!

            It’s good to be back. Honestly, I can say that. It was also good to be gone. Those things are not mutually exclusive. One of the things I found to be very true over the course of a month walking the Superior Hiking Trail was the futility of grand declarations and defining experiences before you have them. There are lots of people hiking that trail for lots of different reasons. Some people are out there to make some definitive change in their lives. Something isn’t right back home and the trail offers a kind of proving ground to test a new way of living. But that wasn’t me.

            For others, they were out in the wilderness to find themselves. If you’ve ever read the book Wild or the seen the movie with Reese Witherspoon that’s the kind of mentality I’m talking about—people walking a trail because they don’t know who they are and something about it calls out to them. This is closer to an act of pilgrimage. You strip away the daily rigor of life and replace it with a different, simpler rigor and you may discover something about yourself you’ve never realized before, but again, that wasn’t why I was out there.

            I had the advantage of perspective. I wasn’t a 20-something trying to find myself, and neither was I in a mid-life crisis. But that’s not to say I knew what I was doing. There’s a tendency on the trail (as in life) to make wide, sweeping declarations about why we are doing what we are doing. Many of these declarations end up being impossible to maintain.

            How many of you know people who are constantly talking about making 180 degree changes in life? They’ve been going one way for so long, but now they’ve reached a point and decided, “Now’s the moment! I’m going to change.” I’m guessing many of you have been there. I’ve been there! Maybe you are there right now, thinking, “I just need to flip things completely around!”

            Some of you have grown past that stage, perhaps. There were plenty of those folks on the trail, too. People returning someplace meaningful… people just getting out to get out.

            That’s the thing about the trail: It’s a metaphor for life, because everyone has a different direction, pace, and purpose. Everybody is out there for different reasons. Everybody is starting and ending at different places. Everybody is looking for a different experience. Everybody suffers differently. Everybody enjoys it differently. It’s a huge mistake (whether on the trail or in life) to assume that everybody is in it for the same reason that you are. They’re not. Your goals are not other peoples’ goals. Your deepest desires are not their desires. Sometimes they line up, sure, but not always, not most of the time.

Do not go through life trying to make other people have the same purpose as you, especially not your spouse and especially (especially!) not your children. Even if you’re walking the same path, don’t assume it’s for the same reason.

My last sermon (if I get eaten by a bear)

This will be the last sermon posted until mid-September as I head off on sabbatical.

Hebrews 9:1-14

I was told this week that there’s a lot of pressure on me with today’s sermon, because it’s the last thing people will remember before I go off into the wilderness and get eaten by a bear. So, there’s that.

            Also, thanks to the lectionary, I’m stuck preaching on a story about church buildings when I’m getting increasingly excited about getting out of the building, so to speak. At first, I thought this was a bit jarring. Then, I thought, maybe I should actually read the scripture (which is a novel thought, I know), and once I got through Hebrews 9 I had a bit of an epiphany. This is about something that might actually play very well with where I’m going, because this is scripture about Jesus taking us through the walls of right practice and dogma and the sacredness of the buildings we’ve erected and opening the doors to something better further in.

            This is a story of how Jesus takes a church that is all about walls and whispers, very quietly, only for those who are listening, “There are no walls anymore.”

            First, a little bit of history about the temple in Jerusalem. When you imagine the temple, if you’re like me you probably first go to an image of a single, immense building like the National Cathedral or Notre Dame. But that’s not exactly right. Neither the original Temple of Solomon nor the second temple under Herod was a big, monolithic building. In Jesus’ day, that temple of Herod consisted of the temple precinct, which was basically the neighborhood. It may have been as much as a mile wide. Then there was the Court of Women. That’s where you who were born with two X chromosomes could go. Further in was the Court of the Israelites, which was where Jewish men could go. Then, the Court of the Priests, then the Temple Court, which was where the offerings were taken to the altar and at this point you were finally entering the temple building itself. Then, the temple vestibule or porch, the temple sanctuary, and finally the Holy of Holies.

            The temple was an onion that you peel back to find another layer, and each layer was separated by another wall. Walls upon walls upon walls. And in those walls were religious people doing religious things. What’s not to like? Well, according to Jesus, perhaps a lot.

You probably don't know Melchizedek

Hebrews 4:14-5:10

You know how you’re reading through your Bible and come to some reference you don’t understand, but you keep on reading because, honestly, if you stopped for every reference you didn’t understand you’d only ever be reading a Bible encyclopedia? Does this sound familiar to anyone? Have you ever stood up and read the Bible in front of people and felt like a bit of a fraud, because even though you are reading the words you don’t know what they mean?

            I’m guessing a lot of parents don’t read the Bible to their kids for exactly this reason. At least when this happens with Harry Potter we can be like, “It’s a wizard thing, kid. Don’t worry about it.” But the Bible? It feels too important to not understand everything, and yet we don’t, because there’s a lot going on. And we don’t get it. And that makes us feel shame.

            So it is with this guy named Melchizedek. Honest moment from me right now. I know I stand up here and have a week to prep on things, so I can say some smart-sounding stuff about people in the Bible, but I’m really glad nobody came up to me last week and asked, “So, what do you know about Melchizedek?” Because I had no clue. Zero. And if I spent a serious amount of time studying this stuff—undergrad plus four years of seminary plus seven-and-a-half in the parish—then how can you possibly be expected to know any of this?

            Answer: You aren’t.