At camp, God shows up!

 For daily scripture, see Matthew 25:31-46

 First, a few things about me: I have a wife, Kate, and two kids, Natalie and Elias, who are both excited to be living at camp and extremely isolated at the moment. I wear sandals when I can wear sandals; I would be preaching in sandals if this were July, but I can’t, so when I don’t wear sandals, I wear trail runners. And I’m a chess master, which I don’t normally tell people, but now that Queen’s Gambit on Netflix has made chess insanely popular, it is finally cool to tell people that. So, I just did.

Anyway, I am thrilled to be with you today in these strange and challenging times. And I think that’s a thing that can unite all of us up-front; we are all living through strange and challenging times. Up until October, I was a pastor in northwestern Minnesota where I saw the difficulty of leading a church in this time when we are being torn apart trying to figure out how to care for our neighbors with our church’s policies and with our politics—and all of it is exacerbated by the fact that we don’t really have a playbook for what we are going through as a society, as a church, and as neighbors to one another.

            We certainly haven’t been immune to this at camp. We’re facing some of the same struggles that churches are—financial uncertainty and the viability of programs and when will things ever return to something like what they were before? But I am inspired by camping ministry in part because it brings us out of our normal ruts, and somehow that makes significant challenges more approachable. At camp, God breaks through boundaries. At camp, God shows up. It is the place where kids meet God perhaps for the first time, but I think more often God simply becomes real to them in way they’ve never experienced before, surrounded by a community of kids and young adults who come together to have fun, to praise and chant and sing and play games and swim, and to experience it all under these big, beautiful North Dakota skies. Camp is one of those rare places that breaks us out of the echo chamber of the ordinary.

            This pandemic has reminded me how we need to venture into these extraordinary places more often. All of us need to figure out how to leave our echo chambers behind.

The covenant that lasts

 Genesis 15:1-6, 17:1-8, 15-22

For my final sermon with you, I want to talk about a covenant. As you probably know, covenants are a promise. The Bible has several covenants between God and God’s people. These bear a kind of weight—like a vow—that God will not break. They are meant to last, but the covenants in the Old Testament also relied on the chosen people holding up their end of the bargain. There was mutual responsibility between God and God’s people, which ended up being a huge flaw in the plan since it was never long before people failed to live up to the standards of the covenant. After all, nothing that human beings get their hands on lasts forever.

            When I was called to Grace-Red River, the call paperwork that the council presidents and I signed was a covenant between myself and these congregations. I want to quickly rehash exactly what we promised to one another. In that covenant, I promised to learn about you, to work to strengthen your faith, to be actively involved in the community, to teach and to inspire this church to walk in faith each day, and to spend time in prayer and reflection. In turn, Grace and Red River promised to welcome and support me, to work together to deepen your relationships with each other and God, to remember me and my family in prayer, to give me space for reflection and time off, and to use our talents for the betterment of one another. Those are the words of the promise we made to one another, and for the best part of a decade we lived into that covenant.

None of us are God—least of all me—so these promises we make to one another always have an expiration date. That’s challenging, because all of this stuff really matters, and if a covenant is more like a wedding vow than a job description, then we set the expectation that this will last until God’s kingdom come. It’s hard to separate the good we accomplish as brothers and sisters in Christ from the feeling that covenants are meant to last!

            Those Old Testament covenants didn’t last forever for other reasons. Inevitably, somebody broke it. There were golden calves and kings put on thrones against God’s will; there was the time of the Judges when the chosen people so consistently forgot about God that nearly ever chapter says that the people “did what was right in their own eyes.” If you read the Bible through—and not just the parts we pick out for Sunday School and Confirmation—the history of faith is marked more often by a lack of faith than an abundance of it. Most covenants are broken.

            But then there was this unique moment in history where everything changed. Mary received a different kind of promise—that she was carrying God-incarnate—and when Jesus came to earth to live and to die for us, it was a covenant of a whole different sort that changed our salvation, of course, but also how we relate to promises of all kinds. In Christ, no longer are the covenants dependent on us. Thank God! Because otherwise today would be way rougher than it is. It would be a day to assess and reassess if we are doing right by the gospel—if we’re being good enough at being church—and if I have done well enough. And no matter how good things have gone, there is always that nagging feeling—that wonder if we did enough, if we are doing enough—if we are enough. Thank God, we have Jesus Christ, who holds our inadequacy. All my faults—all the times I didn’t do as good a job of being a pastor as I should have—all the times you-yourselves have felt unworthy of the title of Christian—all the times the church didn’t act as it should—that’s why Jesus came! That’s why the promise we have on Easter morning is so powerful—it’s not about how good we are; it’s not even about whether we know God correctly; it’s that God knows us, chooses us, loves us, and walks with us. And if we, for a moment, manage to do something together that is beautiful and points to that reality, then we have done something good together.

            The new covenant that is promised through Jesus Christ is a covenant of newness. God makes things new even when we are afraid! In Christ, there is no status quo. There is only new, new, new. And I get how disorienting that can be, because we long to be able to settle into some kind of rhythm, especially when the world is so topsy-turvy, but we have to trust that the promise of newness is better than that.

            The trouble is we are always comparing. We are always ranking. We are always thinking, “Man, that was great. How can the future live up to what we’ve done?” I hear this all the time. Man, you should have seen what the church was like in 1965! Well, you know what, I wasn’t alive in 1965. These Confirmation kids? Their parents were not alive in 1965. We cannot be a church that tries to recreate 1965 or what may one day be referred to as the good ol’ days when Pastor Frank was here. Both the church of 1965 and the church of the 2010s cannot hold a candle to the kingdom of God, so don’t spend an ounce of energy trying to recreate what has gone by and instead set your vision for the church straight ahead. Occasionally, we need to put into perspective what it is that we are doing as the church—not seeking to save the universe (that’s God’s job), and not trying to create the perfect church free from sin and terrible theology (good luck!), but rather, we are seeking simply to

Red River: “be a community…created in the image of God, called to discipleship in Jesus Christ, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.”

Grace: “commit our lives to manifest Christ’s love to our families, our communities, our Church and God’s world.”

In case you didn’t know, those words I just read are taken straight from your mission statement. We are saved by grace and thus set free to love our neighbors as God loves us. That’s what we are up to, and we are in this together. We are part of a wider church, and I’m talking about the ELCA, but also about the ecumenical relationships we have with other churches and even the churches with whom we don’t have a relationship. I’m pretty sure God doesn’t care about our silly theological arguments. I bring this up today, because in many ways, I am not like you. I am not from here—I am not one of you by heritage or culture or blood. And, yet, you have welcomed me and my family into this community with an understanding that in Christ we are all one, and it does not matter if you were born in Hallock or Minneapolis. That’s a good start, now take it further.

            Tomorrow, I will no longer be your pastor, but I will still be striving for much the same goal—to make God’s love known to a world that needs it. And you will be here seeking after the same goal. So, I will not be your pastor, but I will remain your brother in Christ, forever connected to the shared mission of the good news of Jesus Christ. And that connection ultimately matters far more than the office of pastor, because when we die, there is not going to be a separate super-secret club for pastors. I hope there won’t be anyway, because most pastors are boring. Instead, we will all be one in Christ—none higher, none lower. All the ways you look up to me or down upon me will be rendered moot.

            The covenant that we made together ends, but it is not the end, because we have a better covenant holding us—one that lasts and lasts. Ultimately, it is this covenant that does an astonishing thing—it raises the dead and brings to life all those things that have passed. That’s the covenant I hold to. After all, today marks a kind of death, but death is the only thing necessary for resurrection.

Two weeks left and I'm preaching on forbidden fruit. Great.

Genesis 2:4-0, 15-17, 3:1-8

The Narrative Lectionary and I are going to be having words after this. Two weeks left to preach and you give me the stupid snake in the Garden of Eden? Great.

            So, I guess we’re going to talk about sin?!

            The ol’ forbidden fruit. I suppose it’s worth thinking about what that fruit is. The phrase “forbidden fruit” is typically used to mean a particular kind of temptation—a different kind than what we see in the Garden. Today, we might call the temptation to commit adultery “forbidden fruit,” or the temptation to steal “forbidden fruit,” or the temptation to cheat, whether on a test or a diet. The temptations we tend to label as “forbidden fruit” are issues of control that we can avoid. The forbidden fruit that the snake promotes, on the other hand, is a matter of idolatry.

            The snake tells Eve that the fruit from the tree of the middle of the garden will give her the knowledge of good and evil. The problem isn’t the fruit—it’s the desire to be god. This is where nuance is challenging, because knowledge is not in itself a bad thing. The problem is the endgame of knowledge. We think it will be really good if we figure everything out, and we’re right about that up to a point. Human ingenuity has led us to down a pathway of many incredible inventions and innovations that make our lives more pleasant and longer. But at the same time, we are terrible at rationing our use of power. I think of that great quote from Ian Malcolm in the original Jurassic Park movie where he says, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” That quote echoed again in my mind a few weeks back when Elon Musk made public that he had implanted a computer chip in a sheep’s brain.

            You see, the knowledge of good and evil is not as black-and-white as we suppose, and it’s very easy to see ourselves as the “lawful good” saviors of the world even when the things we are creating are doing irreparable harm. The knowledge of good and evil inevitably leads to seeing ourselves as righteous, and, therefore, we place ourselves in front of Christ. This kind of knowledge leads only to idolatry.

Why confession and forgiveness is most of our worship

Luke 11:2-4

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

            We say it all the time. In fact, in Lutheran worship, we begin our worship service by confessing and receiving forgiveness. Then, just to make sure we got it good with God, we pray this part of the Lord’s Prayer often right before taking communion where we do forgiveness for the third time—unless we also had a baptism or the sermon is about forgiveness… like today, then it’s 4, 5, maybe 6 times we center our worship around forgiveness. It’s almost like we have guilty consciences in this particular church—almost like we hold a lot inside that we never tell anybody about.

            Now, I’m not going to say that’s any of you necessarily—let’s just say on the off-chance that any of you maybe, possibly hold some things in from time to time, this confession and forgiveness may be an important thing.

            In fact, if you are participating in a children’s sermon, or one of those sermons where the pastor is asking questions of the congregation (which I think I've done twice in my time here because I'm so uncomfortable when other people are uncomfortable), or a Lutheranism 101 class, and the pastor asks you a question and you get that deer-in-the-headlights look that you remember from 10^th grade math class when Ms. Crabapple asked you to draw a sine wave—if you think the answer is not “Jesus,” then the 2^nd best answer is probably forgiveness, because when it comes down to it, so many of our worship and sacramental traditions are about confession and forgiveness. We start the service that way; we baptize with that promise; we commune to experience is viscerally; and just to make sure we really get it, we even have a whole season in Lent where that confession is one of the central themes.

Our daily bread

 Luke 11:2-4

Give us this day our daily bread.

            That simple sentence—the center of the Lord’s Prayer—is both deep and shallow, like water, like breath—the most straightforward and yet deeply important of things. Firstly, bread is food, obviously. We need food to survive, and too many in this world do not have it. Through the years, we have taken many groups from Grace-Red River to volunteer through Feed My Starving Children or a similar organization, and every time we go they have us watch a similar video, which typically shows women in Haiti (or somewhere similarly impoverished) making patties of clay to give their children something to eat when there is no food.

            Across the world, it is estimated that 820 million people go to bed hungry each day—a number unfathomably high in the 21^st century. This is a problem not of scarcity but of distribution and willpower. The human race hasn’t cared enough to make sure everyone is fed. So, when we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” it is a reminder both that the only sure source of nourishment is God, and also that we-human beings have not done our duty in feeding the world. If you’re hungry, it is all but impossible to hear a word of promise for anything deeper. First you need actual bread, then you will understand your need of something deeper.

            Naturally, daily bread is also not only bread. Daily bread consists of other kinds of nourishment. We need a safe home; a safe job; a chance to flourish; health care; and we all need love. Our daily bread is varied and complex, and each of us has different needs—but needs they are. As people of God, we strive for a better world where these needs are all met. Still, we understand who it is that provides for them, so when we pray, we remind ourselves of our littleness and how everything we have is ours as a gift, surely nothing we have earned.

            Once those basic needs are met, then we can go a level deeper, and understand the primary meaning of daily bread. Jesus himself proclaims that he is the “bread of life.” God’s presence comes to us daily—certainly in the bread of communion—but also in all of our varied nourishment. Once we are fed by bread; once we are safe from persecution; once we are surrounded by love; then we are in a place to receive the bread that will never run out—Christ’s body broken for us—a reminder of the loaves and fish that Jesus once multiplied for a crowd of enormous size.

            This bread requires neither good weather nor good farming.

When we pray 'thy kingdom come'

 Luke 11:2-4

            When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” it may well be one of a hundred religious things we say that we don’t really mean. After all, we have so much life to live here, so much to see and do; not to mention the lives of others we care about—our children and grandchildren. Kate and I have talked a lot about life and our future in the past few months and not once have we said, “You know, now would be a good time for God’s kingdom to come.” And, yet, that’s what we pray every time we say the Lord’s Prayer. Thy Kingdom Come—Thy will be done.

            For most of us, we live our lives in these distinct spheres: The religious sphere where we say “Thy Kingdom Come” and the sphere of the rest of our lives where we try to imagine the best life now. I believe that too often we misunderstand the right place of these spheres in our lives. We treat the religious sphere like the glue that will hold us together when things get hard. I get why we do that. Life here is good. Friends and family are good. We hope for a good life filled with few moments of sadness. Things like Covid-19 might challenge us to see how good things are, but underneath it all, our preoccupation with this pandemic is about the fact that we have a sense of what life should be like for us, and what should not be.

            However, the metaphor is wrong. Our lives are not held together by the glue of God’s kingdom. Rather, God’s kingdom shatters the life that we know. It upends the tyrants; it lowers the powerful; it makes the rich poor and the poor rich. Yet, we live on in a world where the opposite is true—where billionaires add billions while the poor struggle to survive in a damaged economy. Martin Luther famously called this the Two Kingdoms. A Christian must live in both the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God, and as such, we are always torn in two directions at once. Love God; love people. It’s simple but infinitely challenging.

Not what we have but how totally we give it away

 2 Corinthians 8:1-15

One of the things I have long believed is that comparison is the root of sin. Whether it is me looking at other people and wishing to have something they have, or the imagined expectations we levy on ourselves, nothing turns us so in on ourselves (and at the same time away from God) as the act of comparing.

            This takes many forms. You might have less and see somebody with more, leading you to covet what they have. You might even resent them for having it. You start to make comparisons: Surely, you work as hard as them; surely, you deserve what they have. Soon, you feel justified in feeling everything from jealousy to contempt to rage. It is comparison that allows us to feel like we are within our rights to feel this way.

            It also works the other way: You have more and see people with less. You begin to compare and judge them. They must be poor because… they’re lazy… they’re entitled… they’re not as smart as me. Surely, you deserve what you have. You become prideful, resentful, or just plain greedy. This is true of wealth but also of the way we make friends, and how we see our own physical appearance, and our relationships, and our jobs, and you name it. We compare ourselves more than even realize.

            The actual act of comparing is not bad in itself. I’m short, he’s tall; I’m white, he’s black. These are simple observations. The question is both about our prejudices and society’s preferences, which is to say that certain characteristics have been engrained positively or negatively into the fabric of society. This can be useful when society values character traits like kindness and humility, but it is downright dangerous when society also values characteristics that are simply part of a person’s identity.

            It’s a question of equality. In 2 Corinthians, we learn that God values this equal footing and that those who have much are expected to give much. This shouldn’t really be a surprise, since Jesus lifted up this concept of equality throughout his time on earth, and more often that not, Jesus did this by talking about wealth. In fact, throughout the Gospels, Jesus talked about few things more than wealth and money.

One of the most straightforward examples of this takes place when Jesus is watching people give donations at the temple. Out of the crowd, there appears an extremely poor woman with a couple of pennies to place in the till. This doesn’t pass without notice, even though others are giving much more. It is she who Jesus lifts up as the example of generous giving, because she gives not out of her riches but out of her poverty. Jesus flips the script and considers the poorest woman to be the richest, because she is not captive to her wealth to limit her benevolence. She is the only one capable of giving it all away.

            This is the kind of upheaval that Jesus preaches all the time. Even before he was born, there was Mary singing her Magnificat, proclaiming that not only has God put down the mighty from their thrones and uplifted the lowly, but also God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty! (Luke 1:52-53) It’s not that God hates wealth; it’s that wealth is not what we think it is.

So, in another place, when the rich man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus tells him, “Go, sell all your possession!” The possessions have gotten in the way of his faith—they have become his god, since he has trusted in them to give his life meaning. He has made the comparison and determined the best life is one full of things—a calculation that many of us make—and, yet, he finds himself unfulfilled.

            It is so established that more money is good for us that most of us never even step back and consider whether this is true. For all the things that we are able to buy, there comes a point where we know that no things can satisfy. Faced with this reality, those who have wealth often turn toward using their wealth for power. They compare themselves with the rest of the world, treating life like a game to be won, and so they transition from looking for security to looking for power. But all of it starts with comparison.

            This mentality is also why there is so much shame around perceived failures to make money. Folks who see themselves as rich but who fall on hard times (often with little fault of their own) tend to struggle with their identity thereafter. The moment we see ourselves as deserving wealth is the moment we are lost. If we define ourselves by the comparisons we make and the expectations we set, we can only disappoint. God wants for us something better. God wants us defined not by how much we have but by how fully we give it away. And that is something more available to the poor than the rich, to the humble than the proud. Like the poor woman who throws in her two pennies, the real question is how fully are we giving?

            This is about money, for sure; but it’s also about time and energy and commitment. How much are we giving ourselves for the sake of our family, our friends, our church, and our community? What are we doing with ourselves?

            It’s not about what we have but about what we are doing with it. This is the key to ending the comparisons, because when you give freely, you aren’t concerned with what others are doing. The other side of this—the thing that’s surprising to many folks—is that when they give, people actually end up discovering some meaning in the gifts. We were created not to compare our worth based on how much we have but to find fulfillment in freely giving it away. This is what we call joy. Joy is not happiness; it’s not receiving—it is giving! We were created for joy! So, at Jesus’ birth, we sing “Joy to the World,” because God sent his Son into the world as a gift.

            That’s what all this is. Everything is a gift, and comparison robs us of that awareness that we are children of grace, whose only credits to enter heaven come from a Savior who died for us. So, let the comparisons go! Instead, rest in the mercy of God who frees us to give freely in turn—to be the poor woman, to strive for true equality, and to spread the good news that we are saved not because of the comparisons we make but because of the God who chooses us nonetheless.