Sunday, October 17, 2010

Nevertheless and Always (or, What's the Bible All About?)







A young man receives a letter, perhaps the final letter, from someone he loves who is soon likely to die, a mentor who has nurtured and supported him through the years.  He is struggling in a new ministry in a difficult time, and the letter is a gift.  It encourages him to continue in the face of hardship, to pursue, to trust God in the middle of it, to remember and live like those he loves who have gone before and shown him what faith means, (along with lots of more directed instructions on how to live together as the church).

A young man gets a letter.  And in the letter, this older teacher reminds him that one thing that helps him to live into the truth that in Christ we are saved and freed and sent to the world – is scripture.  Scripture that the mentor says is able to strengthen his faith in Christ, scripture that is inspired by God – God breathed
And the letter is delivered into his young friend’s hands, filled with love and prayers and hope for the young man, the budding evangelist and teacher, as he witnesses the story of his life, and this community of lives, unfolding in God.

The scripture our letter writer is referring to, of course, is the work of the prophets, and the stories of Israel’s covenant relationship with God, God’s enduring faithfulness despite Israel’s unfaithfulness.  Spoken stories passed through generations, scrolls taught in the synagogue, promises shared around the dinner table and the fire late at night.  It is the words of the Psalmists - songs of praise and anguishing tomes of despair and grief, and expressions of great joy and gratitude. It is proverbs of wisdom, life lessons in line and meter, it is love poetry and character dramas and differing accounts of similar events throughout the time of the kings that highlight different aspects of the human experience and of God’s relentless devotion to God’s people.  A revealing scrapbook of stories and glimpses of life of those gone before, it is poems and lists and yearning and confidence put down in words and picked up later as true and authoritative testimonies to God. 
This is the scripture that our letter writer commends to our doubting and fragile follower.  This is the scripture that he says will help him to learn and to teach, will keep him grounded in Jesus Christ, and quite astonishingly, even reveal Christ to him, even though almost nothing has yet been written about Jesus, and certainly nothing that he is referring to. 

He doesn’t mail his young friend a bible.  There is no bible yet.  Instead his letter itself ends up in the bible that ends up in our hands as we struggle through our own versions of doubt and belief, of fear and faith, of following in the footsteps of our ancestors in the faith, and practicing the faith in community, carrying on the tradition which at times carries us when we aren’t sure what to do or how to believe.  This letter ends up being for us just what it speaks about, God-breathed, inspired, useful for teaching and guidance, helpful to keep us grounded. 

But our writer didn’t know that, couldn’t know that. But the magnificence of the Bible, our sacred writings, our scripture as Christians is its mosaic of little stories of people’s live and faith that make up one big story about God.

It begins in the beginning ‘In the beginning…” Genesis says, “God created.”  The first words about God and most frequent depiction of God throughout the bible, one who created, who creates, who is creative.  So in the very beginning with God’s creative force, it begins.  
And this book, this remarkable collection of books that is at the same time one book, ends in the very end. Revelation gives us drama, allegory and cryptic and colorful storytelling that speaks of the end that is to come – when God will be our God and we will live as God’s people, and God will wipe every tear from every eye and suffering and pain will be no more, when all wrongs will be made right and the creativity that spun the world into being will pull it into it’s complete and glorious culmination. So the end of this book we call the bible is the end of the Story, capital S.
 
And in between its pages are stories, small s, so many lives unfolding, so many varied characters – kings and queens and peasants and prophets, shepherds and squires and slaves and children, thieves and soldiers, priests and lawyers, strangers and families.  As Buechner says, “men and women of very possible sort, heroes and scoundrals and some, like ourselves, who from time to time manage to be something of both.”[1]  And here in this book we watch them wrestle with meaning, and life, and what it means to live.  

This is the startling beauty of the bible, that as God breathed life into humanity their stories are breathed into as well, and this creative God creates and restores them, and us - because if it begins at the very beginning and ends at the very end, then we find ourselves, our own stories, somewhere between the very beginning and the very end as well. We are in the middle between Genesis and Revelation[2] with all of these other people of faith and fear… we are right alongside the letter writer and its young recipient.

Scripture is remarkably candid: filled with messy humanity, paradoxes and the frustrations, something to offend almost everyone, God’s enduring and comforting presence, and horrifying absence at times. But the many many ways people talk about their faith, live their faith, seek to understand their faith that have been collected here as a way to help us talk about our faith, live our faith, and seek to understand our faith.  It shows us both favorable and unfavorable times, in season and out of season times, when people both succeeded and failed at this life of faith and still God’s grace and mercy prevailed. 

Contradiction and paradox, by the way, are this book’s great forte.  This book screams the great “nevertheless!” into our world.  The bible is full of stories where winners and losers write the history differently and both versions are included, where people amend and change other people’s stories, and translate and transcribe and rearrange, where questions are more important than answers and specific instructions for specific situations get canonized for all time, and it’s cut and pasted together over long spans of time and argued over and compiled - it is all these things and nevertheless it is the very word of God, God-breathed!

We ourselves are filled with inconsistency and ambiguity, we’re forever hurting one another without even trying, and we’re always changing and adapting and repeating old mistakes, and we join right on in the world’s workings where even with enough for all, people go hungry, and nevertheless God chooses us to be a blessing to the world.

Scripture witnesses to the birth and life of a poor peasant man, nothing much to look at who lived to his mid thirties and was executed as a common criminal who nevertheless is the very Lord and Creator of all.  
Because as God’s Story, as God’s word, it is, in the end (and the beginning) the word about Christ Jesus, the WORD of God. It is the many different angled glimpses at the actions of God incarnate, the Creator with us and for us, as he walked and spoke and healed and lived, here among us, to redeem us. God made known, revealed in its pages in flesh and blood just like our own flesh and blood. The very word that spoke the world into being now speaks to us through the broken witness of those gone before, through this ordinary and extraordinary book filled with contradictions and difficulties, just like life, just like us! 

The bible is a testimony, many, many testimonies of God’s creative faithfulness in people’s lives.  And each one of us has our own. Each one of us could share, in poems or words of wisdom, or narratives, or parables or paint or sewing or music or building or baking or caring for children or parents, or whatever way we create and communicate in the world, we could, and do, share our own testimony to God’s faithfulness in our lives.  We have a story that is part of this story.  And sometimes we can’t see our own story, but others can. 
Faith is believing, and doubting and ultimately trusting, that God is at work - when we see it and when we don’t. Nevertheless and always, God is at work.  We have this promise in the person of Jesus Christ.

So here is what our letter writer wants to impart to his protégé.  First: faith, and life, are found in Jesus Christ the person, God with us, who has come to share our place and defeat the power of death.   
The second thing is that we now live that reality, and we do not live it alone. We live it with others, we read scripture with others, we build community with others, we struggle and celebrate with others, we rejoice and we weep with others, and in that way we actually encounter Christ Jesus, who is here, with us as we are here with each other- the Body of Christ alive in the world. 

And then he says that we do this together connected to each other and learning from the faith of those gone before. This isn’t about some kind of right belief, this is about how you live your life.  And really, it is about how WE live our LIFE, because it is never alone, never merely internal, or mental, it is always physical, actual, real and shared. 

And finally, he points him to scripture, a precious gift.

But sometimes, when we come to this book we get afraid, because it doesn’t feel much like a gift. We forgot that it isn’t, and never was, about how much we know or understand or remember about what is inside of it, or even how well and consistently we believe in any of it.  
It is always first and foremost about the grace of God in Christ Jesus that claims us before we have a chance to know or believe anything, long after we’ve stopped really knowing or remembering anything, through all the times in between when for whatever reason we’ve stop believing.  This is what it is really about. 
 
We forget that faith itself is a gift and we get to nurture it, that life is a chance to participate in this story, that in fact, and quite amazingly, our lives already do, because God is still creating and recreating.  We could scarcely fathom that people look at us and see the faithfulness that strengthens their own faith, but they do. Or that one day someone might read a letter you’ve written to a young grandchild or godchild or son or daughter and this letter would give them strength and guidance and teach and ground them in the same way our letter of long ago does for us, in the way the faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother did for him as this letter points to.

So relax. We’re in this faith thing together.  And we’re going to read the bible together. We are going to talk about it and not duck out at the hard parts. We are going to wrestle with it and let it mess with us. 
We are going to struggle together with what it means that this is God-breathed by the Creator who is still creating and creating and creative, and we’ll point out together where we see the breath of God and the creativity of God speaking the world and through our very own lives, our very own stories that are nestled within God’s Story. 
We are going to assume that by doing this our faith will be strengthened, and by that I mean we will follow Jesus more consciously, we will share in God’s healing more generously.  We will be less susceptible to the lies and myths of our own world and time – which are different and yet similar to those of every world and time – recognizing and resisting together the tendency towards independence and isolation, judgment and ingratitude, apathy and anger, and the eternally human habit of listening only to those who are saying what we want to hear.  
Instead we will trust that it will nurture in us strengthening resolve to give, share, pray and to notice God at work in the world and join where we see the breath and spirit moving, stirring, transforming. 

We are going to read the bible together and it will help us remember to remind each other that the end is one day coming, that we are part of a story that is always creatively moving forward.  It will help us live in the hope of a day when justice and peace and love prevail. 
We are going to find times and places to support each other and ground each other in the truth of our salvation in Jesus Christ, in the truth that this great big messed up world actually belongs to God who is subtly and boldly weaving all things towards redemption in his backwards, inside out way, that brings life out of death and hope from despair and creates anew and anew.

And we are going to remember, because we read together, that this is our story, and not so much that we claim it, though we do, unabashedly and sometimes with uncertainty, but that this story is our story because it claims us. Because it has a hold on our lives and we are in it.
And as we do this, may we begin to find, like the Psalmist, that it tastes like honey in our mouth, and may we revel in what a gift it truly is. 





[1] This quote is from a wonderful article entitled, “The Good Book as a Good Book” in Secrets in the Dark: A life in sermons.
[2] I am indebebted to David Lose for this concept

Sunday, October 10, 2010

God likes sinners best




When Owen was three, his great grandmother gave him a set of small, colorful paperback books.  They are ostensibly about little animals on a farm – a little pig book, a baby horse book, a young cow book.  But the pig book is about a piglet that wants the mud all to himself, and the cow book is about a calf that thinks the other cows’ grass is better than his grass, and the foul wants to be the fastest horse of all.  And all the books end with really obvious morals almost spelled out to absurdity: “the horse learned his lesson and never compared himself to others again”, and “the calf was grateful for what she had from then on,” and “the pig invited all his friends into the mud puddle and never resented having to share ever again.” 

And on the surface, our parable today seems almost like one of these little books – with a really straightforward and obvious moral.  Don’t be arrogant and think you are better than others. 
Don’t be like that bad old Pharisee, instead be like that penitent loveable tax collector. 
But this would be a misreading of this passage, and turning it into some kind of behavior modification tool would deprive us of the juicy zinger, the shocking twist that Jesus always had to his parables.  And we’d miss the gospel message besides.  So let’s take a closer look.

Because of our exposure to Pharisees in Sunday school and sermons past, we might forget that Pharisees were decent, good, admirable folks. Very devout, and committed. If you had a Pharisee on your church committee, you would be sure to get a lot more done than if you had a tax collector.  The Pharisee would show up, give 100%, take joy in the work and recognize it as a sacrifice to God.  A stewardship campaign’s dream, these guys gave a full 10% to the church and another 10% to the poor, consistently, none of this pledging and forgetting business.  Truly a model citizen, he had certainly earned some kudos and admiration for his lifestyle.

The tax collector on the other hand, was known to be dishonest.  He’d probably use the church committee as a way to rip people off – like an email spammer phishing for account information. 
His job was to collect tolls for Rome, but he had to pay them in advance and recoup his costs, so the taxes he charged you were often much greater than you actually owed – you were paying his self-set commission as well.  Generally a despicable kind of person, in a looking out for number, gritty kind of life.  He and his “staff” of thugs made sure that the taxes got paid and their wallets got padded. 
Without question the Pharisee is a better person – if your kid got lost in a crowd, you’d tell them to look for a Pharisee.  And the tax collector is not a good person, and has probably stolen from all those he passes on his way to the temple that day.

So these two fellows go to the temple to pray. 
It is already a surprise to see one of them there – not his usual stomping ground.  If you saw him walking up to the door, you would probably assume it was about some unsavory business.  But the Pharisee is naturally quite comfortable in the temple, and you might nod a hello in passing. This is his home-away-from-home.  He strides in and takes a prominent place and begins to pray, confident that he belongs here, not even hesitating for a second.  The tax collector barely gets in the door and finds a shadowy corner, sure that at any point he might get thrown out.  He cannot even look up. 

And when the Pharisee begins to pray, nobody wonders at what he says. He is telling the truth. He is NOT like all those other sinners or that tax collector – he has dedicated his life to doing good and following God. The name “Pharisee” means “set apart” – and he is truly thankful that his life gets to be dedicated to continuing the legacy of Israel, to worshiping God and living righteously.  So here is Jesus’ big shocker this time – the one that God justifies is not the Pharisee, but the tax collector. 

What is this story saying? Be humble? We all know that doesn’t work, you either are humble or you aren’t.   It is impossible to take a self assessment about being humble, because if you think you are then you probably are not.  So I don’t think this passage is about some kind of mustered-up humility.
 
Is the passage about judging other people? Perhaps. Certainly the way we treat other people affects our relationship with God, and shows something of our heart in the way that our isolated actions of piety cannot.  But we get stuck there too.  Because while the Pharisee is being a judgmental jerk when he shoots his prayer over his shoulder thanking God that he isn’t like that guy, the guy he is referring to is certainly a worse fellow overall. He cannot be said to treat people better than the Pharisee does – he is a corrupt predator by trade.

But this passage is not about morality. It is not about the virtue of one and the sin of the other.  And this passage is not about humility and pride, even though it certainly illustrates the two. Jesus is telling us something in this parable about the nature of God, about the kingdom of God and how it works. 
“Who is this God?” is the first question we should always ask of Scripture, “and what is God up to?”  is the second.  In this passage the answer is: God justifies sinners. 

We are all a little uncomfortable when Jesus starts down this road. Suggesting that the last, the lost, the prodigal, and the deathbed confessions get in right along with the Sunday school teachers, meals on wheels volunteers and three-term deacons.  We want to hear about God’s grace, but to a point. We certainly don’t want to leave the impression that how one lives doesn’t matter, that God would accept them anyway.  We need to keep SOME sense of goodness and right living, some order to the universe, right? 

Everyone knows that the Pharisee will say his prayer, and leave the temple to continue an upright and quality lifestyle and position of honor and respect in the community.
And everyone knows that the tax collector will be out the door and back to his shady business ripping people off.  Even he know that, because he lives and works in a corrupt and sinful system, his way of life is not going to change, he is every single day guilty of personal and corporate sin that contribute to the pain and suffering in the world. 
And he is the one God accepts.

Why? We ask.  This seems to be backwards – it simply doesn’t make sense. 
But for some reason, it is the way God works.  It is who God has chosen to be.  God is always to be found with sinners.  “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick,” Says Jesus. “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

The gospel is nothing if not scandalous.  God justifies sinners.  God prefers sinners. But not because they sin, rather because they are honest about it.  It is right there for all to see, impossible to deny or cover up, and everybody knows it.  Jesus’ harshest words throughout scripture are for those who think they are better than others, those who don’t see their own sin and darkness, those who deny their own contribution to the darkness in the world.

Sin cannot be overcome, escaped, or avoided.  If we spend our lives trying not to sin, we will fail.  Human beings must recognize and acknowledge that we live in a state of sin. We can take responsibility for the things we do that treat others as less than human, the ways we further sin in the world.  We can confess our own participation in this reality of sin and our need for a savior.  But we can’t NOT sin.  We are slaves to sin; we are trapped by sin, unable of our own power to keep from hurting others and ourselves.  Karl Barth says it this way, “Particular sins do not alter the status of a person, they merely show how heavily the general domain of sin presses upon him or her.  Sin is the sovereign power in the world as we know it.  It is wholly irrelevant what particular form it takes in the live of each individual.”

The tax collector is telling the truth about himself. He is a sinner in need of forgiveness. 
The Pharisee is telling God how good he is; he is seeking affirmation, not mercy. 
His good works, rather than being an outpouring of his joy and redemption, they are his currency, earned and counted, held up to God in attempt to convince God of his worthiness, and ironically exposing his sin in his very act of prayer by his contempt for another. 
All of his efforts and sacrifices cannot loose sin’s hold on him. 

We are the tax collector and we are the Pharisee. The truth is, we are all sinners. None of us is worthy, no not one.  So do we come to God as the tax collector does, ‘God have mercy!’?
Or do we come to God as the Pharisee – ‘But see how much better I am than others’? 
God justifies sinners.  And only when we can honestly face our own sin will we receive the mercy, forgiveness and acceptance of God.

I was raised in the church – a pastor’s kid with all the answers, true and ardent faith, and plenty of arrogance to go along with it. The goal of our Christian life, I grew up thinking, is to become more good, more godly.  But through the years those whom I have known whose faith seems deep and rich, those whose lives are an example to me of wisdom and love, they are not somehow better than human, generically “good.”  Rather, they are people who are extremely aware of their need for God, and they live in deep and surprising honesty of their weaknesses and their sinfulness.  They are both humble and confident, truly authentic.  For Christians the goal of “holiness” is really the goal of “honesty” with ourselves, others, and God.  I could try all my life to be good, I suppose with some success and plenty of failure.  But what is really intriguing to me, what feels more difficult, and scary, and demands tremendous bravery, is the goal of living honestly.

The church is not the gathering of those who are good. It is not a club for the holy.  The church is the community of justified sinners, forgiven sinners. Sinners who tell the truth about ourselves, the world and God.  
We are here not because of what we do, but because of what God has done and is doing.   God forgives sinners and is redeeming the world, and invites regular sinful people to be part of that.  Not because we are worthy, we will never be worthy, but because God loves us and works with us despite our unworthiness.  
We come to the temple not to be better people, but to be whole people.  In God’s presence, in God’s mercy we are a people restored and forgiven, a people given a place and a purpose.

May we live in stark awareness of our common humanity, face our sinfulness and rejoice in our redemption.  May we live honestly, in gratitude and hope for God’s mercies that are new every morning for us and for our world.
Amen.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Nothing to Fear: A Homily & Eulogy for JoAnne Hansen



Almost three weeks ago, some of us gathered in this very room and held a worship service that we called “Keeping the Faith,” where we celebrated Jo’s life and shared with her what she means to us. This scripture we just read was the scripture we used that day. And on that day we looked squarely at what was coming, and despite the grief, and fear and sadness and incredulity at the thought of losing JoAnne, we faced it together so that we could tell her what she meant to us, so we could thank God for her life and let her know that we loved her.  It was a lovely day.
Jo held onto those notes people wrote to her; and she held on to this scripture and asked that it be read when we gather for her funeral.  And so we read it today.

It is said that those who don’t fear death are not afraid to live. 
When a person is baptized – parents hand over their child to a minister, watching as the minister pours water over them and pronounces upon their new little person the death and resurrection of Christ.  
When JoAnne Hansen was baptized – as her life was even beginning, spoken over her in the presence of witnesses was the declaration that she would one day die, and then the very visible action, through water, of giving her over to death, and then having her resurrected back again, risen to a new life in Christ.    
Baptism says we have faced the worst there is, and now we have nothing to fear.  Our life is in Christ Jesus. In the end when Jo faced death she did so with this confidence: I have faced the worst there is and I have nothing to fear.  
It is said that those who don’t fear death are not afraid to live.

And Jo was not afraid to live.  People remember her boisterous fun, her freedom with life.  Her life revolved around the outdoors and church, camping and company of those she loved.  We all have stories of her fun-loving spirit, and the way she made ordinary things special, how she treasured her time with friends and family, like tipping the canoe on the Rice River, every single year, at the same spot, “Joey, it’s coming up again…!” Ken would say.

Jo was very organized, it is rumored, and this hasn’t been proven but highly supported, that she could put 20 lbs in a 5 lb bag, and speaking of bags, she would wash out and reuse every baggy, refold and smooth out every piece of tin foil, never letting anything go to waste. 
Jo’s dill pickles were famous, she sold them at the bazaar and gave them to Stephanie for Christmas every year, jokingly complaining, “I ask her what she wants for Christmas and all she says is, ‘A jar of your pickles, Grandma!’”  She was one of the quilters at church, treasurer for the Presbyterian women, sidekick confidant to Jan behind the scenes, keeping a small church running smoothly. 
JoAnne brought people together, she made everyone feel part of the group, often smoothing past disagreements with a wave of her hand and an “oh well...” Always one to get involved, but rarely one to get worked up; she made people feel loved and appreciated.  Jo had a way of bringing out the best in people, seeing the best in people.  She had a great sense of humor, and she loved helping people.

Jo was thoughtful and careful, like the way she collected quarters from every state for her grandchildren to put in the eagle shaped holders that Ken had made for them.  And she was famous for her hugs, “Never enough hugs!” she would say.

Sincere and straightforward, Jo didn’t make you guess what she thought of something.  I remember one of my first Sundays here I tried something different in worship that didn’t go so well, and the next week she said to me, with her bright smile, “That was just awful!”

JoAnne was energetic and constantly on the move.  At home she never sat down, and, the kids would testify, it drove Dad crazy – “Would you just sit down?” he’d say, and she would sit for a second, and then get up to do something else.  Jo was a doer.  And she loved playing with the grandkids, brought out the board games and settled in.  She was always up for anything.

As parents, Ken was the strong and stern rock, Jo was the nurturing and calm mother, though towards the end she got fiester with Ken and he turned more into a teddy bear.  Through the different stages in their life, the ups and downs, the changes that life threw at them, they could depend on each other, they supported each other, and they balanced each other out and complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Jo was a good friend and had good friends.  She nurtured relationships, sustained solid friendships, maintained connections to family even across distances, and cultivated rituals, traditions. 
Great fun and deep commitment to one anther characterized her relationships with the 4 musketeers – Jo and her clubhouse people, Harriet, Ed and Russ- and you can just picture Jo and Russ as mall rats at the MOA where they got their exercise, sometimes Russ waiting outside the door while Jo paused the walk to pop into a store and shop for a minute, and the kiosk folks would greet her by name, “Good morning Jo!”

JoAnne Hansen kept the faith, the faith kept her.  She kept the faith with us, and for us, living her life fully and joyfully.  In her own way she kept the faith as an authentic human being, a unique child of God.  One way Jo kept the faith for me was by the gracious way she accepted help.  She was so good at loving others and she let herself be loved right back, which is a great and extraordinary gift we give to another.  When people drove her to chemo, brought her meals, called her up, offered help – she was always truthful about needing it, she was always willing to accept the gift-  and in that way, accepting the very giver himself or herself.

Most of us don’t get to see how our lives impacted others in our own lifetime, we may have glimpses now and then, people may share with us their gratitude and love, but for the most part, we don’t get to appreciate how we’ve made a difference in the world.  Not so with JoAnne. We got to tell her.  We got to thank her. 
We were brave enough to do this for her because she was brave enough to live honestly with us what she was going through.  And she was brave enough to live honestly because we were there with and for her, facing it all together.  
This is how we keep the faith for one another in the hard times.

Most of us wont get to go like Jo did; she had time and peace to reconcile herself to what was coming, she had a long life full of love behind her and a beloved husband awaiting her, she kept her mind until the end and had family around her and a church that held her – in all respects, she died a good death.  But death is never good, as long as it is in the world it steals and lies, it separates us from those we love and breaks down what we spend our lives building up, and it makes us think that in the end it always wins.

But it doesn’t.  The hope that holds us is that this is not all there is, and death does not get the final word.  God spoke the final word over us, over her, even as her life was beginning, as the first word and the last – the word that seals our fate and future – “You belong to me. Now live in boldness.”

Jo wasn’t perfect, none of us are.  And her life wasn’t without pain and suffering, it wasn’t easy, no life is.  But I got the sense that Jo was usually in on the secret; usually aware that life is a precious gift.  
And JoAnne was very blessed to be able to say, I am already being poured out – I feel my life disappearing but never wasted, as a blessing to others, as a gift to be spent. 
I have fought the good fight – I have loved deeply and laughed a lot and clung to those around me and helped others.
I have run the race, and sometimes it wasn’t easy, sometimes it was a real fight, sometimes it tested me beyond what I thought I could endure, but I have kept the faith.  I have hung onto my God who was already hanging onto me and it sustained me to the end. 
And now, now, there is already waiting for me God’s justice – where there is no more pain or sorrow, God’s eternity where I am whole.  This gift is waiting for me! And for everyone else too – because what would it be if it were only for me?  Waiting for us all is God’s peace and joy and justice – what have we to fear?

A couple of months before her death, Jo was leaving the sanctuary after a sermon that ended with these words:

We can’t do anything about death, which comes for us all.  And with the very biggest barns and most clever safety measures, we cannot prevent suffering or protect ourselves from pain or loss. 
But, nevertheless, we do not need to worry.  Nevertheless, we are invited to live generously, freely, joyfully, rich toward God; we are invited to live without fear.
Because our life is a gift from God, God’s own treasure.  It’s not up to us to protect ourselves, preserve ourselves or determine ourselves.  We belong to God.  God who made us and loves us and will not let us go.  God who came and suffered death right alongside us, for us, so that we are not alone, and so that death would not get the last word after all. 
Our treasure, our legacy, our true wealth, is our life, secure and made alive in Christ. 
Our life is a gift of love meant to be used and shared, meant to be lived fully and fearlessly in this passing world, and one day forever in joy when God’s kingdom is all in all. Amen.

When that service was over I went to the back of the sanctuary and I watched Jo struggle painfully to stand, and make her way very slowly with her walker to the rear doors.  When she reached me, she gave me one of her famous hugs, and she kissed me on the cheek, and leaned into my ear, and she whispered, “I’m on my way.”  Then she looked right into my eyes and patted my arm and slowly left the sanctuary.
And she was on her way.

But we all are. 
The difference is that Jo was close and could tell it was coming, and she was not afraid.  Her life was a gift, poured out for others, used and shared, lived fearlessly and fully. 
And in the day when God’s kingdom is all in all, she will know the joy of that fullness without end.  We all will. 

JoAnne Hansen: in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, your baptism is now complete.  Amen.

How to Repent (It's not how you think)

Psalm 46 ,  Jeremiah 31:31-34 When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion o...