Faith beyond fear

 John 10:22-30

“If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly,” the people say.

            I know these people—they are all over the place. Just tell us plainly, they say, until he does. And then they use those words against him, because that’s really what they want, because they are so afraid of what is possible. In reply, Jesus goes for the whole hog here and says, A) I have told you already and you don’t believe, B) the works I do are testimony enough, but also C) The Father and I are one. Jesus takes the worst of what he is being accused—a false prophet—and turns it up to 11 here. Not only does he claim to be the messiah, he claims to be one with God. You can imagine how this goes over.

            About the same as it goes over whenever anybody speaks truth to power. And Jesus, bring truth-incarnate, embodies what is good and true in a world that is fearful and protective of what we have. Jesus breaks us free to what is possible on the other side of fear, but the problem is: We crucify him first. We would rather be afraid than chance what might be. It is the universal human problem—we are afraid, we act out of our fear, and we kill the very thing that is sent to save us.

Where we once hoped to walk on water, now we dive in

 Scripture: John 21:1-19

This is one of my favorite readings in all of scripture for several reasons not least of which is the fact that Jesus has just appeared to the disciples after the resurrection while they were locked in a room and immediately after he leaves, Peter looks around, stretches, and says, “I think I’m going to go fishing.”

That is a vibe I can get behind.

But this is more than an excuse for church folks to head to the lake, though I will certainly take it. This is a transformational moment in the life of Peter—from the disciple who denied Jesus three times to the man given a chance to affirm Jesus three times by the end of the chapter—and so it is also a seminal moment in the life of all those who follow. After all, Peter is the rock on which the church is to be built.

And why not, Peter? He is the one who leads the disciples out of the house—from the locked room where they waited in fear, not believing Mary Magdalene until Jesus stood before them in the flesh, showed them his wounds, and breathed on them with the Holy Spirit. The scene cuts and it is Peter who leads the disciples out of the room and on to the fishing boat. Peter takes the first step. Now, he doesn’t catch anything (which is also relatable), but perhaps he intuits that outside is where Jesus will meet them. They can no longer stay in a locked room. After all, the Gospel is written on the trees and on the waters if only they have the courage to leave the room—to go outside like we live at camp where scripture was written and meant to be the read, outside like the unroofed book that reveals Christ to us. Sometimes, Christ comes on the shore telling the disciples to cast to the other side of the boat, and sometimes Christ comes to us at camp when our inhibitions are cast aside and we let go of our fears.

When Peter and the disciples meet Jesus after that night of fishing, he famously tells them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. When they do, according to John, they catch 153 fish—a very specific and strangely non-round number which has been theorized to represent all the known species of fish in that time period. Clearly, the disciples are about to go fishing in a variety of places, casting nets for people who were once far outside of the tradition. Jesus calls them as Jews not only to minister to Jews but to Gentiles, to sinners, to Romans, and to generally smelly people. Peter and the disciples fishing quickly becomes a parable of evangelism. Jesus shows them that the world is indeed about to change.

Which leads us to that splendid scene on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus pulls Peter aside after breakfast and asks him three times “Do you love me?” as if to reverse the curse of Peter’s denial. For every denial there is an affirmation. Do you love me? Yes? Feed my lambs. Three times. Do you love me? Yes? Tend my sheep. And once the curse is broken, then Jesus finally leaves Peter with a brief allegory about what lies ahead. Peter who was once young—Peter who once tried to walk on water—Peter who just a few minutes ago stopped his naked fishing, put on clothes, and jumped into the water when Jesus appeared on the shore (I simply cannot let that detail pass without comment)—that Peter has a different destiny ahead, one marked by his ultimate obedience to death. Yes, the path of discipleship leads toward death, because on the other side of the empty tomb, death has no power any longer.

Keeping it weird

 John 20:19-31

I’m going to preach to you today on “keeping it weird,” because that is what the Holy Spirit does. It keeps church weird—it keeps camp weird—it keeps you and me weird—and this, my friends, is a really good thing, because the alternative—well—the alternative is to lock ourselves in a room in fear while resurrection is bursting out all around us.

This begins with the scene from today’s Gospel. The disciples are huddled in a room afraid because they didn’t believe the women who told them Jesus had risen from the dead. Typical. And Jesus comes to them, shows them his hands and side, says “Peace be with you,” and then he continues with something really neat. He says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

We would do well to remember that the Holy Spirit does weird things. We have been largely desensitized to its work because we have heard the story so often, but everything that follows the Holy Spirit is really weird, and perhaps the weirdest thing of all is the primary work that the Spirit does: The Holy Spirit gives us faith. That’s right, faith doesn’t come from inside you, it comes from the Spirit through you. Only after they have received the Holy Spirit do the disciples go off and do disciple-y things. Once they have the Spirit, then they can fully believe.

So, what is the difference between Thomas and the rest of the disciples? Thomas has not met Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. And for two thousand years of church history that is how he has earned the label of doubting Thomas—for responding exactly as the rest of the disciples did a few minutes after they received the same visual evidence he was asking for.

Keeping it weird at camp in Idaho, 2006

Mary of Bethany, hidden figures, and our desperate need for perspective

Scripture: John 12:1-8

            One of the great benefits of camping ministry is that it takes us outside of our normal. There are countless benefits to getting out of our routines every once in awhile, not least that we might see something that we were blind to back home. This is what we might call perspective, and perspective can only be gained by stepping back and looking at things from a different angle. Our world needs more perspective these days. The more perspective we have, the more deeply God is revealed, and the more we may understand who God is.

            Take today’s Gospel reading, for example. There is something really obvious about Jesus’ ministry that we all should have probably noticed the first time we ever heard the Gospels, but if you are like me, you have been trained by a lifetime of biases to ignore it—trained by a world that values certain voices over others and taught to look elsewhere. If you look at this passage from one perspective, you can reduce the episode of Jesus, Mary and Martha to a moral: Be a Mary, not a Martha. And we move on.

Jubilee: The father runs to us

Scripture: Luke 15:11-32

            In 2008, I was the Offsite Trip Leader for summer camp at Lutherhaven Ministries in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Midway through the summer, I had a cabin of 7^th and 8^th-grade boys in a program that involved camping out in various locations over the course of the week. The boys were various levels of miscreant from your typical just-can’t-stop-bothering-the-girls’-cabins to the stay-up-all-night and raise hell sort. Two of the boys in particular were the worst—naturally, they were twins. Each night, I would find one or both of them up at 2 or 3 in the morning pretending to be an animal in the woods, or throwing rocks at teepees, or trying to sneak off to Lord knows where. This was not my favorite week of camp counseling.

            Which brings us to Wednesday night… when we had our central worship for the week—a meaningful service on the beach with the rest of the campers on site for the week. It was poignant as always, but I was not engaged. Mostly, I was relieved that there were other staff around to watch out for my terrible campers. I decompressed for half an hour around the campfire before it was time to make our way back up the hill to get ready for another night of poor sleep. As we walked, one of the twins lingered and fell behind the rest of the group so I slowed along with him. I wish I could say I was checking in on his emotional or spiritual wellness, but mostly I suspected he was trying to slip away and I was going to force him to move his butt up that hill before the rest of the boys got out of sight.

The trees on Easter morning

 John 20:1-18

Jesus Christ is risen today! Alleluia!

And far be from me to cheapen anything about this day, but there is a little secret you should be aware of: Jesus Christ is risen every day! This is merely the season when we feel it most acutely—when we celebrate Easter, and when the green shoots rise from the earth, and COVID-19 vaccines show us hope for a better tomorrow, and the long winter (which wasn’t that long this year but it’s North Dakota, so, hey, it feels that way regardless) gives way to spring, and the birds fill the skies on their way north, and the ice breaks apart, and the trees start to show their buds. It is a season of resurrection.

Now, about those trees…

You can trace trees through all of scripture if you want to. In the beginning, there was the tree of the life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—one tree to give life and one that was a harbinger of death. A few chapters later, there was the ark—God’s salvation in the form of Noah’s advanced woodwork—and then in the prophets we hear whispers of a root of Jesse—a reference to a royal “family tree” foreshadowing Jesus. Moses had a staff; Psalm 23 mentions a staff and a rod; the ark of the covenant was acacia wood; and Jonah hides under a shrub to protect himself from the elements. There are ships and bows left and right. You will not get very far in the Old Testament without running into a tree or the product of a tree, but it is the New Testament where the importance tree really comes into relief.

Two days ago, we remembered Jesus crucified on a tree. The cross is the tree that stands in the gap created by Adam and Eve tasting from that first tree long ago; it stretches back to the tree of life and the garden where we were created to roam. And let’s be clear here: it was not just Adam and Eve that put us in this predicament. Each of us tastes of that fruit—every day—all of us yearn to be like God, to become God, and that’s why Jesus had to come in the first place. If not for us, the tree of the cross would be unnecessary. That is the weight we feel on Good Friday; I suppose it is also the reason so many do not worship on Friday and skip ahead to Easter. It is much easier to imagine it is all fluffy bunnies, especially when the world out there is so full of brokenness and loss and grief.

But God knows us better. God knows what is required to bring us to Easter morning with a heart and a mind open to the resurrection. The only thing in the world required for resurrection is death; it is the thing we fear, yet the very thing that gives Easter its power. The cross should be preached not only on Good Friday but also on Easter morning because on this side of Eden, the bridge to the tree of life is the tree of the cross.

A new covenant: God will show up

 Jeremiah 31:31-34

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors… a covenant that they broke… but instead it will be like this: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

            God goes on to say, “You don’t need to teach one another about me anymore, because all will know me, from the least to the greatest.”

            Wow! This is the God we worship—a God who is always doing new things. When the covenant was once only for those in power, God came on to the scene and said, “Now, it is for the powerless.” Later, when the covenant was only for those of pure blood, Jesus came along and told a story about a Samaritan who showed mercy. And when the covenant was still only for those who could claim a little Jewish ancestry, God came on to the scene and said, “Now, it is for Gentiles, too—for all of us here today, I imagine.” Then, in the centuries since the Bible was written, God seems to be up to the same business—taking those we believe to be outside the covenant and welcoming them in, not as subservient but as equals. This is the God we are dealing with here—a God who makes all things new, who welcomes in the lost and least and the ones we have rejected.

            I come to you this morning representing Red Willow Ministries, and I can tell you that right now it feels like a new covenant moment. We spent the better part of a year, alongside churches like yours, assuring that the least and the last are remembered and cared for, and it hurt because we have rarely had clear answers, and we are missing so much of what we feel we once had. At Red Willow, we come back to camp this coming summer thirsty for what we have been missing, longing for something familiar but also for something new, because the pandemic has also revealed many of the ways that things have been broken. God is going to do a new thing and it always starts now.

            I love how the new covenant in Jeremiah is simply a promise about knowing God, because that is exactly what we are about at camp. Camp cannot be the arbiter of good theology; we are not here to delve deeper into Luther’s catechism or to spend a lot of time talking about church practices and rituals. Rather, we are a place where God is made known to us. We are a place where you go to meet Jesus on the way, and this happens to the least and the greatest of us, each in our own way. And we have one tremendous advantage at camp both in the days of COVID-19 and as we seek to be a place where people meet God: at camp, we spend so much of our time outdoor. Outside, God’s presence comes alive. The Christian faith is a faith open to the skies (a “hypaethral” faith). We are a faith that comes alive outdoors where the miraculous does not seem so miraculous anymore; where the yearly migration patterns and the green shoots rising, where campfires and songs bear witness to something magical.