Isaiah 40:1-11

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

3 A voice cries out:

6 A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?”

8 The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

COMFORT

Comfort, comfort my people.  There is a time of year for comfort: comfort food like stews, sauces, baked goods and almost anything you can make out of a potato.  If you go to the grocery store in the month of December, prepare to be met by an onslaught of holiday cheer.  All of the things that just last month were flavored with pumpkin spice are now miraculously recreated with peppermint, cocoa and various sorts of sprinkle.  Stores selling fuzzy socks and slippers and wool and the world offering so many versions of twinkle lights and nostalgic holiday activities.  And I have to say, I’ve been feeling the need for some comfort this year.  Can I get an “amen?”

I talk to people about how they are doing and the conversation often takes a turn back to the world and all that is happening.  These are not easy times we live in, with the nation and the choices being made about our common life together and what it will mean for the rich and the poor and the bitterness that fills our deep divides.  These are not easy times we live in.  In our world and the ways that move for war when peace holds fragilely and provocation leads to threats of violence.  Even reading the text this week saying, “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” I wanted to say, “Maybe our country should just stop talking about Jerusalem.”  These are not easy times we live in as week by week we have revealed what once was hidden and now need to grapple again with truth that isn’t new but feels new to us.  These are not easy times we live in.  Even in just a single human life that include illness and worry and the bank accounts that are too low and loved ones whose grief pulls on our hearts.

These are not easy times we live in and sometimes it just feels too much, sometimes you want to escape to a place that is simpler, easier, lighter, softer and maybe includes a toasted white chocolate marshmallow mocha because I keep searching for the thing that will make me feel at ease in a world that isn’t easy.  And goodness knows there are plenty of stores that would like to sell me just the thing as somehow a cupcake, a car, a spa day, a vacation, there is that thing that will allow me to escape from this world of trouble into a place of e

2 Peter 3: 8-13 But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you,[b] not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.[c]

11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening[d] the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire? 13 But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Luke 9: 57-58

57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

In case you were wondering, there are several types of Fox in Israel; I’ve been doing a little research.  One is the Rubles Fox which lives in the desert, which has its wild swings from the blistering heat of day and the cold that follows at night.  As adults, Rubles Foxes live alone in a den during the day and are active in twilight.  As adults they change their den almost every five days, their refuge from this harsh world where they live and the blistering threat of the day.  But when it’s time for them to have children they need a larger place to stay.  Their young are born blind and need almost six to eight weeks to be nursed by their mothers and so they need to create a place that is safe: they create a den, often under a rock or a tree, which needs to be large enough where both the parents and the kids can sit together, sometimes with more than one entrance to allow for options for evading in order to further hide their den.  A fox needs a den for a safe place for its young to grow.

There are over 500 species of birds that are known in Israel, from the great birds of prey that swoop to the smallest of songbirds.  The tiny green Bee-Eater makes its nest inside a deep tunnel.  The Blackstart builds its nest in a crevice of rocks.  The male Sparrow starts building its nest even before he finds a mate, with stems and roots on the outside, getting gradually softer as the layers go inward with dried grasses and then in the very center just feathers and papers.  It is here that the eggs are laid and the young are brooded and fed before they are able to face the outside world.  They create a nest, a place to protect themselves from predators, from the elements, from the harsh world, a safe place where their young can grow.

And if you want to think what it is we do in our country to prepare for a child, I warn you, do not go down the rabbit hole which is a baby gift registry in this country.  It is where new parents are faced with the overwhelming fear that without a state of the art baby bouncer, enough clothes to last them through toddlerhood and, I kid you not, a baby wipe warmer, that somehow we are not prepared, when in fact it is part of how our community tries to act, that we try to create this safe place for a new life to enter the world, creati

1 Kings 19:9-12

9 At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

ELIJAH

When King Ahab first saw Elijah, the first words out of his mouth were, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”  Elijah was trouble.  If you were in power and saw Elijah coming the result would not necessarily be your own joy and merriment.  Instead, if Elijah was showing up it likely meant he would be speaking in the voice of God and calling you to task.  Elijah was most likely to tell a truth you didn’t want to hear to remind you of the power of God when you spent most of our time enjoying your own powers, thank you very much.  Elijah was the one who called accounts and who called the drought:  three years of drought without water or even dew to fall upon the land.  Three years of drought without water to prove that perhaps the storm god that everyone had been worshipping wasn’t quite that stormy.

And so, you understand how those who were in power at the time would have given him the title he had earned:  Elijah, troubler of Israel.  And if you were Elijah, called upon this task, you might find that you ended up with just as much trouble as well, for just as Elijah would say the booming words of courage, “If they shall worship Baal the storm god in the place of God of Israel, then there shall be neither dew nor rain except by my word,” and you can imagine those words with force and conviction.  And then, of course, in the next scene you will see Elijah standing in front of a puddle.  It is a wadi, a valley that catches the rain, except that there is no rain.  So here is Elijah, standing before the puddle that God has provided for him.  This is to be his water for the drought that is to come as Elijah stands and waits each day for the ravens to bring him his food: bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat at night, standing before the puddle saying, “Look at me, the great prophet of Israel.  Here I stand waiting for God.”

When the puddle dries up he goes instead to a perhaps even more unlikely source: a widow.  She is so poor she doesn’t have food both for dinner and breakfast the next day.  She is so poor she doesn’t know what will come next and she fears for her and her child.  So, how do you think that Elijah is going to be fed by this widow, this widow who has nothing, even for herself?  And here it is that the meal and the oil don’t run out, day after day.  Elijah is provided for, if not in the ways he would have wished.  Elijah is provided for by the compassion of God, the grace of a poor widow and a miracle that brings her son back to life.  And at the end of three years of these times in the desert, Elijah is sent by God back to the palace.

Now let me say, in Scripture even the most glorious of kings have their seasons of being terrible: Saul has his rages, David his Bathsheba, Solomon in his wisdom works the people into rebellion.  Even from the beginnings of the monarchy in Scripture, when the people are crying for the king Samuel, the last of the judges, tries to talk t

Patty Ebner

Keep Awake

Matthew 25: 1-13

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

“And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut.  Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’  But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’  Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

In Jesus’ time, wedding guests would assemble at the home of the bride.  When the groom would arrive there, he would be greeted by the guests and bridesmaids, all of whom would be holding torches.  They would then proceed to his home where the wedding ceremony and reception would be held.   Matthew 25:1-13 tells a story of where the wedding party grows tired while waiting on the groom and eventually falls asleep. Upon the groom’s arrival, the torches of the “foolish bridesmaids” have burnt out requiring them to go shopping for oil since the “wise bridesmaids” will not share their oil.   When they return, presumably with oil in hand, the host denies knowing them and closes the door admonishing them that they know neither the day nor the hour.

The writer of the parable contextualizes the wedding story with: “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this.”  He was writing to a group of Christians who had been waiting for 100 years for the 2nd coming of Christ, the bridegroom.  They thought that he would have come long before this time and were becoming concerned and impatient.

As many of you know, this story is often used to classify Christians as the “wise bridesmaids” and non-Christians and the “foolish bridesmaids.”  It has been used by some Christians to support a very strong “us vs. them” current which continues to flow through various Christian communities.  This is not the message I will bring to you today.

The message I hope to bring will enable and prepare us to discover the Kingdom of Heaven and to keep awake as we do so.  So, how might we describe the Kingdom of Heaven?  Where is it?  What does it look like?

I am the Great Aunt of 6 grand nephews and 1 grandniece.  In a road trip to Galveston, TX several years ago, my niece drove past a cemetery where most of the graves take the shape of mausoleums.  This caught the attention of several of the boys who asked “what is that place?”  My niece answered them, “that’s a cemetery—it is where people are buried when they die.”  A cloud of silence hovered above them in the back seat.  Finally, one of the boys spoke up.  “You told us we were going to Heaven when we die.  We don’t want to go to that cement place.”

In

Psalm 68: 4 – 10

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,

When you, God, went out before your people,

Matthew 5: 43-45

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

I remember, as a kid in the Midwest in the middle of summer, some nights the air was so thick you could chew it with that oppressive hot air, the bugs and the heat and humidity.  And then you would hear that low rumble on the horizon and you knew what was coming.  We had a screened-in porch you could sit in and see a good ways off and my favorite memories are sitting there when it started to rain, where you could see the clouds and the rain peeling in with a jolt along the way and the rolls of thunder.  And as the rain fell there was this relief; the air had changed around it as the rain let loose what had clung so close and the whole world was changed.  I remember watching the storms come in with a sense of awe, wonder, gratitude and relief.

I contrast this to trying to get a kid in the car while carrying too many things as the bitterly cold rain pelts down, your hood flopping in the door and your foolishly inappropriate footwear getting soaked in puddles.  For some reason, in this kind of rain, awe and gratitude are not my first inclination.

And yet, what is it still that waters that fall from heaven, more than I need, and here I am overburdened by my blessings: too many things to carry and a blessed child of God who is pretty much my favorite person, even when she doesn’t really care for her car seat.  Here I am, calling the things that are blessings and not really recognizing them for the graces that they are.  We are here in the month of November which, as our local meteorologist celebrity, Cliff Moss, explains, “Although the period from November to February is generally quite wet the greatest rainfall occurs in the last weeks of November, just in time for Thanksgiving.”  Also, we are quickly discovering that even this has some variation in snowfall.

We are spending some time talking about grace, the gifts we receive from God, and how to transform the spirit to receive with gratitude.  I know you are thinking that gratitude is not the most hard-hitting theological treatise, but to be honest, gratitude has deeper roots in who you believe God is and how you think God works in the world.  We are grateful to God because of what God has done but if you listen to theological conversation in this country it could leave you very confused about the kinds of actions God takes on a regular basis, where we hear people thanking God for parking spots, we hear people thank God for gifts after times of great difficulties, people thank God for the food we eat, people thank God for our nations and people thank God for a sport team’s victory.  And of course, we are talking about God, the huge mystery of the universe, and so if we don’t have

Pastor Lisa Horst Clark

October 29, 2017

John 8: 31-36

Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be made free’?”

34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the Son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

New Reformation Discovery

It is not often that you get a brand new Reformation discovery, but one was found in a painting that was housed at my seminary, the painting that has been shown throughout the service this morning.  The painting is of Martin Luther, surrounded by Protestant reformers, and I know if you are saying, “My, doesn’t that composition look a little like The Lord’s Supper,” you might have something there.  It mimics Catholic paintings of Jesus at the table with the Disciples, only in the place of the Disciples are the Reformers, and what is in place of the bread and cup:  the Bible and a candle.

One of the huge transformations of the Reformation was about how one experienced the grace of God.  As Protestants moved away from seven sacraments to only two, baptism and communion, what rose in prominence was the reading of experience, of experiencing God’s grace through the written word, God’s word made real.  And so here in the painting it is the book that reveals God’s light for the world.  I know what you’re saying, “Wow, that is a lot of 16th Century white dudes, where’s the mystery?”  Oh, wait.

The painting was removed last year for restoration and cleaning and what did the conservator see underneath the painting under a microscope?  She saw color underneath the cracks.  In the painting’s foreground, right at the center of the table, something that had been present was discovered.  This is an image that zooms in on one of the faces that had been painted over, and here it is in total.  Kathy Hebb began her work, painstakingly removing over layers of paint using surgical scalpels and a microscope and this is what emerged:  at the bottom of the painting, at the bottom of the table, are the heads of a cardinal, a bull, a pope and a monk.  And what are they doing?  They’re all looking upwards trying to blow out the candle.  So these are four images of Catholicism and the papal bull was an official decree that then was made into a very literal format.  A different version of this image has the inscription, “The candle is lighted; we cannot blow it out.”

These figures were painted over sometime around the 18th Century; the scholars aren’t sure exactly why.  It could be it was done not to offend Catholics which, frankly, you could see.  It could be that someone thought the painting might sell more easily.  And partially, this is because this is a powerful image.  The Reformers stripped the spaces of worship of images just because they knew how powerful an image could be in telling a story, at stirring the heart and the mind.  I know I have trouble looking at this painting in all of its restored glory because it does evoke that anti-Catholic sentiment we know has had a long and tortured history.

Whenever talking about the Reformation I feel the need to start over by saying that the Catholic Church today is not the one the Reformers were responding to, that they are our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Pope Francis himself commemorated the Reformation this year and we actually have Catholic Community Services here

2 Timothy 3:14-4:8

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 15and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All scripture is inspired by God and is* useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: 2proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favourable or unfavourable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. 3For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, 4and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. 5As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. 7I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Sola Scriptura?

I saw a photo of an exhibit by Jorge Mendez Blake, a Mexican artist. This piece of art is made up of a wall that is 75 feet long.  It is about 6 feet tall, high enough that I probably couldn’t see over it. It’s made up of red bricks, thousands of them put together without mortar.  It spans the length of the museum space and yet in the midst of this exhibit there is just one change: on the ground there is laid one small book.  The book in this exhibit is from Kafka.  It is laid on the ground as the bricks are placed and what it does is unsettles the bricks in their lay.  It starts subtly at first, in those first layers, where the bricks just slightly don’t fit together, but as it continues upward this disruption only exacerbates, increases until by the top the wall has buckled because of the book that was laid at its base.

This exhibit thrills me because I know that walls are built and intended in this world: the walls of empire that show power, the walls of separation that divide us from one another, the walls of oppression that keep us from who we are called to be.  And so, how thrilling is it that such a wall could be breached not by a battalion but by a book?

For today we are talking about a book, a collection of words grappled together across centuries and times and yet these words, this book, has unsettled empires.  And behold, what courage we have to hand them to children unabridged.  Beware the books you give to children for see what accounts they may call you to.

We are talking about the Reformation this month, our heritage in the Protestant tradition.  And one of the heritages that is the major shift involves how the church holds this book.  So to start, in the medieval Roman Catholic Church let’s just name the ways it was hard to read:  the mass was in Latin, the Scripture was read in Latin, literacy was very very low and so for the vast majority of folks faith was a mystery brought to them and mediated by the clergy.  Within the church as well, the authority of the church was that Scripture could only interpreted by tradition. Even while the church was in the midst of deep corruption, there wasn’t a way to call the church to account.  To quote Luther, who always had something to say, “The Romanists

Text:  I Corinthians 1:18-25

18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

A “stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.”  These words from the apostle Paul lay the foundation for the theology of the cross.  The Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall, reminds us that the roots of this theology lie in the Old Testament prophets, especially the suffering servant in Isaiah.   Paul did not name the theology of the cross; that was left to an Augustinian friar born nearly 1500 years later in the town of Eisleben, region of Saxony in the Holy Roman Empire, now Germany.  Martin Luther, we must never forget, was born at the end of the Middle Ages, when one church was all there was.  In a few short years after his birth, he was to be the instigator of one of the most significant social movements in human history.  He was among other things a rebel, reformer, author, master of the print media, translator of the Bible to the vernacular, musical composer, polemicist, husband, father, and above all a theologian who spoke in plain language.  For Luther a theologian was simply someone who thought and talked about God; thus, we are all theologians according to Luther.  For Luther much of theology has to do with tension between opposites; he speaks of law versus Gospel, the hidden (deus absconditus) versus revealed God, the old Adam versus the new being in Christ, saint versus sinner (simul justus et peccator), the priesthood of all believers vs the priesthood of a select few, faith versus works, God versus the devil, the free versus the bound will, and for us today the theology of the cross versus the theology of glory.

In his Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, Luther describes in a series of theses or propositions what it means to be a theologian of the cross.  Theses 1 through 12 have to do with good works, theses 13 through 18 the problem of the will, theses 19 thru 24, the way of glory versus the way of the cross, and theses 25 thru 28, God’s work in us.  Thesis 21 states that the theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil.  The theologian of the cross says what a thing is; in other words, to use today’s language he or she tells it like it is.  Someone once said there is Luther’s theology and there is Lutheran theology; the former is the theology of the cross, while the latter is often the triumphant theology of glory.

This all seems very simple and straightforward, but understanding what is the theology of the cross and who is a theologian of the cross is not always clear.  As Hall warns us, “Woe betide the theologian who thinks that he or she has actually and finally grasped the whole and translated it into propositions and dogmas and systems.”  As Augustine so wonderfully and succinctly warned us: ”Si comprehendis, non est Deus!”  If you think you comprehend, then it’s not God you’re talking about!”

Throughout history there have been many theologians of the cross, some well known and others a