Exploring the identity of Christ as Dayspring calls us to contemplate life in the in-between. The light at the beginning (and end) of the day is less clear and powerful than the mid-day sun, but it has its own power in the way that it calls us to slow down and pay attention to the beauty of transformation.

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

Advent 3 - Living in Liminal Light

Our world today is facing layer upon layer of trauma - pandemic, violence, division, nuclear threat... - and we can be left overwhelmed and emotionally paralyzed. The good news is, we are not alone in this. People of Jesus's day also faced devastating traumas and turned to him to explain them, and guide their response. His response was not a simple and pastoral as we might want. Instead it is challenging. He challenges us to change our thinking and resist our self-protective instincts. We might not be able to fix the brokenness of the world, but our call is clear: compassion.

Photo by Marianna Smiley on Unsplash

What Do We Do With Pain And Fear?

When you step into a church, what do you expect to hear from the pulpit? Our expectations shape our reactions to the things we hear, so if we have a negative reaction to a message, it's relevant to interrogate what expectations were violated to lead to our reaction... and whether those expectations were reasonable. When it comes to sermons, we should expect to hear God's good news through Jesus Christ, but good does not equal comfortable. The promise to change us can be both good and scary, life-giving and disruptive. And if we take the prophetic tradition of the Christian faith seriously, we should always expect God's word to call us into transformation.

Expecting Transformation

In the story of the Transfiguration we get a glimpse of Jesus's glory, while also hearing the challenge not to get distracted by that glory. The glory and power and awe are real, but they are not the point of Jesus's ministry. And God's words on the mountain are not a command to worship the glory but to listen the Jesus, to Jesus who has just been talking of his coming death. 

Photo by Serena Rice of the Transfiguration Window in Durham Cathedral

Faith and the Longing for Magic

When Jesus teaches us to pray, the pronouns matter. He teaches us to pray as community: to pray for our daily bread, for the forgiveness of our sins, for our protection. Prayer in this model is not about private faith, but rather about collective need in which prayer draws us together. It can be a challenging perspective shift for those of us raised in the individualism of American Christianity, but it is also an incredible resource for teaching us how to engage with a hurting world. We are all in this together. 

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Learning to Pray as a Plural You

One of the most pernicious dangers for people of faith is assuming that Jesus's moral instincts match our own. Sometimes this looks like assuming that God hates the same people we hate (nope - God loves them, the same as God loves us). Other times that looks like assuming our moral justifications would earn God's sign-off (nope - God is perfectly ready to challenge us to do better). In both instances, our challenge is to remember that while we always see only in part, God sees the whole. And much as this challenges our biases and self-justifications, this reality is actually really good news. Because it means that even when God is rebuking us, this correction is a message of love. It is an invitation to expect more from God and from ourselves. 

Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash



Not Putting God (Or Ourselves) In A Box

Humanity tends to be drawn to the simplicity of binary categories: yes/no, right/wrong, allowed/prohibited. It can be easy to apply this kind of thinking to Jesus' rejection of legalistic readings of the sabbath laws in his interactions with pharisees in the gospels. But in other places Jesus makes it clear that he has not come to overthrow God's laws, much less one of the "big ten." Jesus simply wants to law to serve the purpose for which is was intended, which is always the practice of love and freedom. To impose modern categories to this ancient story, he understands that sabbath-keeping is about healthy boundaries, rather than legalistic bondage. Which means that even if we reject binary thinking we have any easy way to honor sabbath-keeping law. We just need to ask if our sabbath-keeping serves the needs of love and freedom for all. 

Photo by Aida L on Unsplash



Boundaries, Not Bondage

Grace is a freely given gift - something we do not need to earn or deserve. Discipleship is different. It is a life of commitment to the way of Jesus that will radically change us. It can also mean steep sacrifices and a reorientation of our priorities. So, if such commitment is not the prerequisite to salvation, why would anyone choose discipleship? Because it is a choice to the fullness of life, a transformation that helps to heal the world. 

Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash

WHY Would We Choose Discipleship?

A church festival that focuses on the cross might seem like an awkward Sunday to baptize a sweet baby. A week marked by gun violence and the remembrance of 9/11 might seem like a difficult Sunday to preach a message of hope. John 3:16 might seem like a verse on which it is difficult to say anything that feels new or transformative. And sometimes things are not what they seem. If can let go of our expectations and let the power of story and metaphor call us into learning, we can find the power of looking full in the face of all that is wrong with the world and finding that this kind of honesty is exactly where healing and hope begin. 

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

Lifted Up

Story-telling is one of the most powerful tools for invoking new learning, especially when it comes to seeing truths that we do not want to see. Jesus uses this power when he tells a parable in which none of the characters are sympathetic and the moral seems to contradict our expectations about just rewards and punishments. The story unbalances us, and in doing so it invites us to consider whether the message might be not so much about the characters in the story themselves but in our reactions to them. Maybe what we most need to learn about faithfulness is the way in which our snap judgments of others can be our biggest barrier to faithfulness to the task Jesus has set us. 

Photo by Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash

An Uncomfortable Mirror

Some of the most poignant moments in the gospels come when Jesus calls a person by name, but it only happens once in all the many parables he tells. Most parable characters are identified by the role they play, standing (or falling) as representatives for the purpose of teaching a lesson. But Jesus names one character whose identity is repeatedly dismissed and devalued by his foil in the story. Lazarus is given a name, and in that decision his humanity is emphasized. That focus also calls our attention to the lies that can cause us to dehumanize others in the same way that the rich man does to Lazarus. 

Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash



The Lies that Dehumanize

Faith is, presumably, a quintessentially human experience, and yet blessing of the animals Sunday provides the chance to consider  unique proposition: the dogs might actually have something to teach us about the attitude of faith. Whereas humans express a desire for "more" as dissatisfaction with what is, dogs express it as a desire for what is good to continue. Whereas a human "now" is a demand for things to happen, the dog's now is a contentment with living in the moment. Perhaps most importantly, whereas humans resist a relationship of dependence and service, dogs rejoice in any time with their master. Strange as it may seem, faith calls us to learn from the habits of our dogs, and to find in those lessons a depth of joy and transformation. 

Photo by Kara Eads on Unsplash

Lessons on Faith from Dogs

In an historical moment marked by tension and division, especially as it relates to "foreigners," the story of Jesus's affirmation of the faith of a foreigner offers us a compelling picture of what it looks like to be an agent of healing. Instead of avoiding conflict, he intentionally inhabits the in-between spaces. Instead of doing everything himself, he intentionally engages the religious people in the uncomfortable work of bearing witness. Instead of downplaying, he names the prejudice and then rejects it. This is the work of healing the engages all of the layers of pain and division at work in the world. 
Photo by kyler trautner on Unsplash

Seeing Our Calling

When Jesus' disciples are confronted by the contrast between Christ's vision of peace and wholeness at the end of time, compared with the reality of injustice and pain in the here and now, he tells them a story about persistent advocacy. The knowledge of God's plan for healing gives us strength to not lose heart with the hard work of calling for justice and love in a world that needs to hear that challenge. 

Art: Pittman, Lauren Wright. Tangled Blessing. Non-commercial use permitted.

Sometimes Faith is a Bit of a Brawl

If, as Jesus promises, the truth will set us free, what is the lie that has us enslaved? The witness of the Reformation's initiator, Martin Luther, suggests it might be the lie that the eradication of evil from our own hearts is under our control. There is an instinctive human longing to see evil as something outside of ourselves, something that we can segregate and eradicate. But we all have both good and evil inside of us, and the longing to pretend otherwise drives much of the evil action in our world. The truth of God's grace, however, can free us from that lie and thus empower us to live more fully into the love the Jesus commands. 

Photo by Basil James on Unsplash

Freedom in the Truth About Ourselves.

When Jesus commands his followers to "love as he has loved them," he calling them to reject fear and to be a community defined by the dignity and value for the other. And when those followers try restrict that love with concerns about purity, God's Spirit is having none of it.

Love Is Better Than Purity - Easter 5

Welcome to the sermon feed for Abiding Peace Lutheran Church: Journey of Faith. We would love to have you with us for worship, but if you can't join us on Sunday mornings, we hope these messages bring the challenge and grace of the gospel to your life.

Abiding Peace Lutheran Church

Popular tracks