A sermon on reconciliation: Matthew 5:21-37

A. Hanson France, 2009

Grace, peace, and mercy are yours from God who is the Light of the World.  Amen.

Today’s Gospel text is one of those readings when you are not entirely convinced that you want to respond, “Thanks be to God” or “Praise to you, O Christ” when it is over.  This portion of Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is really painful to hear, so let’s break it down and put it into context. Throughout his Gospel, Matthew is making the claim that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah.   That Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies from the Hebrew scriptures.  The Sermon on the Mount is deliberately intended to be a parallel to Moses teaching the people from Mount Sinai in the book of Exodus. Just as Moses taught the Ten Commandments, we have Jesus doing the same thing. Jesus is not issuing new laws, but rather engaging in the Jewish tradition of faithfully wrestling with the laws and continuing to apply them to ever-evolving situations. The law was never intended to be a static prescription for right and wrong.

Today’s Gospel reading is just sixteen verses out of the Sermon on the Mount, which spans three full chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, and is actually 111 verses.  I counted. We do a great disservice to this text if we separate it from what comes immediately before it, the Beatitudes and the proclamation that we are the Salt of the Earth and Light of the World, and what comes immediately after it, a command to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount we hear the many ways that we are blessed by God and interwoven with all of the directives on the law throughout this sermon, Jesus is saying that being in relationship with God also means being in relationship with others. We are called upon to love God and love our neighbors.

When we hear this text, we are immediately drawn to the loaded words, “adultery” and “divorce” and the fierce word, “murder”.  This text is going to hit all of us deeply in one way or another, so it is worth naming that right now.  These words of Jesus sting, because they hit us right in our broken hearts. I think there are two major mistakes that can happen when reading a text like this: first, to make it a simple morality lesson.  This interpretation might go something like this:  “Well, Jesus said that divorce is prohibited, so you simply must stay in a relationship at any cost, because to marry again or enter into another relationship after divorce would mean that you are committing adultery.  And we can see what happens to adulterers.”  This leads to profound unhappiness in a relationship at best, and at the worst, can create an environment that perpetuates abuse and effectively closes off escape routes for those who experience abuse. It puts up a barrier between the “righteous people” (which is where we would like to see ourselves) and “those other people” (those who are not quite as righteous as we think that we are). 

Another mistake that is just as damaging, although more subtle, would be to read this text as a history lesson. A directive that applies to a different people at a different time, and could not possibly have anything to say to us now.  This interpretation could go something like this, “Jesus lived in a patriarchal society.  Women had no way of providing for themselves and needed to be cared for by men, so divorce would cause a woman to become destitute.  And Jesus didn’t want that, so he decided to prohibit divorce.  But since women are perfectly capable of providing for themselves now, we can just ignore what Jesus is saying.”  If we dismiss the text as an ancient legal prescription for how to live, we do not have to hear how it speaks to our lives now.

In both of these mistaken interpretations, the text is used to create a barrier between us and our neighbors. And this is exactly what Jesus is commanding us NOT to do.

Human nature doesn’t really change all that much over the generations.  The Ten Commandments were given to the people of God so that they might be in right relationship with God and with one another.  But mere hours after Moses received the Ten Commandments the people were worshipping a golden calf and killing each other over who is holiest and closest to God. Fast forward many generations, and those gathered around Jesus at the sermon on the mount are still fighting with one other, hurting each other, even on their way to the temple. In their efforts to be righteous in the eyes of God, they are neglecting their relationships with one another. Jesus is calling out those people who are on their way to enhance their personal relationship with God, yet all the while ignoring their broken relationships with others.  Jesus is making the bold claim that it is not possible to love God without loving your neighbor. And how often do we do this too? From the little things…fighting with our families in the car on the way to church, but pretending like nothing happened as soon as we walk into the sanctuary, to the much larger things…holding onto a grudge for decades that poisons our relationships with all those around us.

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus is not providing a to-do list for how to be a better person.  That is not what this is about. Jesus is talking about what it means to live abundantly in the light of God. The spirit of the law given to Moses and preached by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was never about “do this… but don’t do this and then you’ll be saved”, a how-to plan for salvation if you will, it was about how to live now in a broken world that will one day be redeemed and made new by a loving and gracious God.  It is about reconciliation with one another in the broken present.

But that is hard and scary and sometimes downright impossible.  To reconcile with someone means to own your part of what went wrong. It means to be vulnerable and open yourself up to being hurt.  It feels better to hang onto what we perceive to be our righteous indignation.  Because anger can be useful for us.  It can inspire action. However, it can also be destructive. There is a saying in twelve step recovery programs, “holding onto anger and resentments is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”  And there is incredible truth in this for all of us, not just alcoholics and addicts.  Anger just creates a steel box around our hearts that prevents us from loving fully and drastically reduces the quality of our lives. This is not who we were created to be.

All of the words that Jesus says about divorce and adultery and bearing false witness, otherwise known as lying, all come down to looking at the ways that we deeply hurt each other and the ways that we continue to be hurt by others. This command of reconciliation is NOT about never getting angry or impatient ever again or taking the abuse of others in the name of Christian piety, it is about God breaking in to our lives, and loving us so completely that we are able to see Christ in the other.  God gave his own heart to us in the person of Jesus Christ, knowing that it would be broken, yet did it anyway. God’s heart is not clenched in anger against us. This is about God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves, helping us to forgive those who hurt us, make us angry, and God loving us back into wholeness.  And God is going to keep on doing that regardless of how we feel about it. This is the true freedom of the Gospel.

            This reconciliation is not dependent on us deciding to make it happen.  When Christ tells us all the ways that we are blessed in the beatitudes, and that we are salt of the earth and light of the world, he is saying, you are mine.  You already belong to me.  I live in you.  I know that it’s not always easy to love one another and you are going to stumble along the way, but always remember, I have claimed you and I will give you all that you need.  You are reconciled to God in Christ, no matter what you have done or failed to do, you are saved.  And that’s pretty great news.  Thanks be to God!

Ordinary people….extraordinary things: a sermon on Matthew 4:12-23

Grace, peace and mercy are yours from God who is the light of the world.  Amen.

All four Gospels have a version of today’s text, Jesus calling his disciples. It’s a pretty important story, how Jesus selected the people who would accompany him in his ministry.  While each Gospel account has its own details, they all emphasize Jesus interrupting the disciples in their work and these men dropping whatever they are doing, and following Jesus. No arguments, no protesting, not even a single claim of, “Well, I have a few loose ends to tie up at home. I’ll see you in a couple days.”

I think we’ve all heard this text in sermons many times. It’s a favorite of preachers attempting to exhort their flocks of parishioners to get out into the world and DO something. And it’s a favorite of Sunday school teachers everywhere because of its fun imagery (fishing nets! boats! Jesus!) and simple message: When Jesus comes calling, say “YES!”, drop everything you are doing and follow him.  You just have to DO it.  Easy enough, right?  Yeah…I don’t think so.

Maybe this message isn’t so simple after all. I think that the disciples are often cast as these models of piety and religious observance and we are told that we should do everything in our power to emulate them. James and John didn’t seem to take issue with leaving their father behind, we are told that they “immediately left the boat and their father and followed Jesus.”   And we don’t hear about these disciples packing a U-Haul, so we can assume they left behind the comforts of home and most of their possessions. Simon Peter and Andrew were hard at work using the tools of their trade, and they “immediately left their nets and followed him.”

It’s really tough to imagine giving up the comforts of home for the unknown, and leaving behind loved ones, so we are thankful that someone else is doing it.  We don’t have to consider ourselves disciples.  Aside from the practical concerns of whether or not it would be possible or desirable to devote one’s life to being a disciple, we wonder if we would ever be qualified. If Jesus really knew what we were up to, like our doubts about faith or that decade when we didn’t go to church or our youthful indiscretions, would we make the cut? We think we can’t possibly be good enough or religious enough.  Which is why we would prefer that someone else do it. A professional.  Like missionaries or pastors.  But, I will let you in on a little secret, even pastors don’t always feel qualified to be disciples.   Because every single one of us in this room is only human.  We all make mistakes.  We are often wandering around in the darkness of this world and running into walls and tripping over stuff. We will continue to do so.  And if we focus only on the “should’s” and “ought’s” of being a disciple and put ourselves into a punishing routine of morality, we miss what Jesus is up to.

But what is actually happening in the text?  Jesus is walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee when he encounters these men who will be his disciples.  We don’t really hear if he has interacted with Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John in the past.  However, what we do know is that the disciples were not plucked out of some seminary or discipleship training school. There was not a job interview or a competency exam.  Jesus came to them right in the middle of what they were doing.  Jesus called ordinary people right in the middle of their ordinary lives to do extraordinary things.  They were not called based on their stellar qualifications.  And as the Gospel of Matthew moves along, we hear that the disciples are just human.  They repeatedly fail to notice that Jesus is the Messiah.  They just cannot seem to get their heads around the fact that he is a different kind of King and isn’t going to take down their enemies in some show of force.  They fall asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asks them several times to stay awake.  Simon Peter, one of the first disciples called by Jesus as we hear today, will go on to deny Jesus three times.  Another disciple, Judas, will actually betray Jesus. 

If Jesus was using accomplishments to grade the effectiveness of the disciples, they would have failed.  But they were NOT called to DO.  They were called to BE.  To be in relationship with Jesus and with all people in the kingdom of God.  Just as we are called to be in relationship with Jesus and with those whom Jesus loves. This is not the sort of personal relationship with Jesus Christ where Jesus is your best friend or your therapist or your fairy Godmother who gives you everything you want if you just pray for it in the right way. This is the sort of real and raw relationship where you die to yourself and what you think you want, and that space of self-determination is filled with Christ.  When your hardened heart is broken and is replaced with a new and tender heart of God’s own, which feels the pain of the world and is moved to love in spite of itself.

We are not called to DO, we are called to BE.  We often want to equate vocation, one’s call to be of service to God in the world, with occupation.  I remember around the time I was graduating from College, when I was looking for the dream job which would be my vocation, my younger sister Katie said something that I will never forget. Katie did not go to college right away.   She went to cosmetology school and at the time I was looking for what I considered my dream job that would change the world, she was working in a hair salon.  It was not a fulfilling job.  It was long hours, grueling work, and often thankless. Katie told me that your vocation was not what you do for work, but how you are connected to other people.  So after many hours of cutting hair and standing on her feet, Katie would volunteer at a nursing home to cut and style the hair of the residents.  She would make residents feel special and beautiful, in a place where many people feel forgotten.  Katie taught me that vocation uses your gifts and qualifications, but more importantly, it uses your connectedness to other human beings. Katie has since moved onto college and graduate school and has taken this understanding of vocation into her career as a speech pathologist, but I will never forget what she taught me. 
            So all of us gathered here are called to different vocations in service as disciples.  Some of us have occupations that match up with our vocations.  Some of us do not.  But what we have in common is a sense of connectedness with the people of God.  So how are you being called into relationship with others in the name of Christ?  How is God inviting you to use your gifts as a disciple? 

But, we all protest, what if I am not useful enough?  Let’s entertain a metaphor.  This quilt that I made ten years ago,  , this was my very first attempt at such a complex sewing project.  As you can see, the squares don’t match up.  The colors don’t exactly align.  This quilt is not perfect.  But its imperfections do not render it useless. Despite the fact that it doesn’t look quite right, it’s been on my bed or on my couch or accompanied me on dozens of picnics for the last decade. 

            People of God, we are like this quilt. We have lots of little pieces that make us who we are.  Sometimes they are messy.  Sometimes they are broken.  But they make up one splendid whole that God uses for good in the world.  We all have a vocation to be disciples. So...go and do likewise!

2013 Year in Review

January 8, 2013 Move to MN

I used to be pretty good about sending a Christmas card, that did not happen this year.  The holiday season got a little out of hand.

So here is my answer to what happened in 2013

1. Move to Minnesota:
On January 7, 2013 I left Denver for a two-day trip to the Twin Cities.  This was to begin my Lutheran year classes at Luther Seminary.  I moved into campus housing and took a January intensive class.

It's awfully chilly in MN

2. New Tattoo in January 2013

One of the ways that I mark significant points in my life is with tattoos.  So, to celebrate my move to Minnesota and the final part of my seminary education, I got a new tattoo.  As a side note, this was the most painful tattoo yet out of the four that I have. Do not get a tattoo in this location unless you want to experience excruciating pain.














3. New friendships in Minnesota

I had the privilege of meeting a number of wonderful people in Minnesota: Jodi, Nate, Peter, Kae, Margaret, Eileen, Jon, Dan, Emmy, the list goes on and on.  As well as rekindling friendships with friends from Denver and Augustana College who lived in MN, Asher, Josh, Ingrid and Christy. Humble Walk Lutheran Church brought me immeasurable joy!

Me with my friend Margaret in the state capital.
Credit City Pages

4. Marriage Equality in Minnesota

Lutheran clergywonen at the state capital.
Credit brookerossphotography.com

Being present at the Minnesota state capital the day marriage equality happened…holy time. I talk more about the experience in this blog post, Love is the Law. I also talk about it in my Pentecost Sermon. Driving away from the capital building blasting "Love is the Law" by the Suburbs with the windows down after marriage equality was voted into law…probably hands down my favorite moment of the entire year.





5. Coming out…
Yeah, you heard that right. I am not straight, nor have I ever been.  This is the first time that I have announced this on this blog, although I've alluded to it. It's liberating.  It's also been really hard.

6. Turning 30

Birthday lunch at Pizzeria Lola with Nadia

In July I turned 30.  I got to have lunch at my favorite restaurant in Minneapolis, Pizzeria Lola, then listen to Nadia speak at a conference at Luther, then a dinner picnic at Minnehaha falls. It was a great day! 30 really feels no different than 29 or what I imagine 31 will feel like. Life keeps moving along.















7. Starting Internship

With Nancy at FLC. Credit Susanna for picture

 In August I started my vicar year at First Lutheran Church in St Peter, MN.  I preach, teach, do pastoral visits, and all sorts of other assorted and sundry things.  It is not without challenges, but it is also enjoyable.  It has been an adjustment to live in a small town, but I am getting there. I love the people in this congregation fiercely.  They know what it means to love God and love each other.  They have embraced me and welcomed me into their community. I am learning a lot about myself and my identity as a minister.  

So far my favorite experience…the Christmas Program.  So many wonderful things.









8.  Joining The Pulse: 

Credit The Pulse, Dec 2013

As soon as I moved to St Peter, I knew I would need to have an outlet for stress relief and friendships that was not related to work.  I joined The Pulse, a community gym. This community has been a lifeline for me this year.  For friendships, for exercise, for pushing myself to achieve my fitness goals.  It might seem like an extravagance or even a stupid thing that this made it onto my 2013 year review, but this has been one of my greatest joys this year. 






Looking forward to 2014!

Here are the things brewing for this year:
-Finishing coursework for my Mdiv
-Graduating in June with my Mdiv
-Heading off to do…something...next fall.  No clue as to what this will be.
-Festival of Homiletics in Minneapolis
-several different vacations planned (this week…San Francisco!)

Review of Queer Clergy by R.W. Holmen

Credit Cokesbury.com

Earlier this fall I responded to a call for people willing to review a new book, Queer Clergy by R.W. Holmen, that was hitting shelves in early 2014. I received an advance reader's copy. Life got a little out of hand (as is to be expected while working in a church over Christmas), so I am just now getting around to writing my review.  

Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism is a compelling history of the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and queer (LGBTQ) clergy in five major mainline Protestant denominations, the United Church of Christ (UCC), the Episcopal Church (TEC), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church (UMC). Holmen traces the arc of history in each denomination from the first murmurings of LGBTQ clergy to the present (or until about May 2013). He uses official documents of the denominations: minutes, resolutions, policy statements, and judicial decisions, as well as personal interviews with LGBTQ pioneers in each denomination.

Holmen himself is an ELCA Lutheran with a background in law, who is an ardent ally for LGBTQ persons. He writes in the preface, "Hopefully this book will help LGBT Christians and straight allies to appreciate our past and to remember the pioneers who have led the church to be a place of welcome."   This book is a straightforward and concise history text, but for me, its real value is in naming the pioneering and prophetic queer clergy who have gone before me.  Since I am a part of the ELCA, this review will focus on that portion of the text, part III.

In this forum, it is impossible to summarize all the information packed into this section of Holmen's book. It is a rich examination of the early LGBTQ activist groups in the Lutheran church (starting in the 1970s), the early explorations of social statements regarding human sexuality (although none considered LGBTQ ordination), and the introduction of many early clergy pioneers.  After the formation of the ELCA in 1988, Holmen traces an intensifying call for discourse.  Through reporting personal interviews with those involved and citing synodical documents, he traces the heartbreaking stories of defrocking of out glory, of congregations being expelled from the ELCA for calling openly gay and lesbian pastors. He discusses the process of extra ordinem ordinations and the ultimate formation of the group, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM), to provide a credentialing body for those clergy who had a call to ordained ministry and also happened to be LGBTQ.

A theme in this section is "Biblical obedience mandated ecclesiastical disobedience."  With rising crescendo, Holmen traces the history of resolutions and proposals until the ELCA Churchwide Assembly 2009 (CWA09) and what is referred to in ELCA circles even now as "The Vote."

This resolution is as follows, "RESOLVED that the ELCA commit itself to finding a way for people in such publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders of this church."

With 559 voting yes, and 451 voting no, the moment had arrived for queer clergy in the ELCA.  Holmen writes, "the reaction among a thousand voting members and another thousand observers was muted.  The plenary hall was suddenly sacred space, and the quiet interrupted only by weeping and the murmur of prayer.  By twos and threes and fours and fives, the children of God huddled together in tears and prayer, some in joyous thanksgiving and others in grief."  I remember watching this vote from my desk at work in Boulder, CO.  I remember weeping too with joy that my denomination had found a way.  Little did I know how important this would become for me personally.

Holmen also respectfully addresses the opposition to this vote in the years that follow.  I was impressed by both his treatment of this issue, but also the conduct of the ELCA and its leaders.  He also covers the emotional reinstatement process of those clergy who were defrocked and those congregations that were expelled.

I don't find myself moved to tears by books very often, and Holmen's book did this for me.  I have a lot personally invested in this history, and as I read this text, I gave thanks over and over again for the brave clergy, bishops and allies, who went before.  I know many of the people personally that Holmen writes about, Pastor Anita Hill, Pastor Bradley Schmeling, Retired Bishop Herb Chilstrom, and others, but this book filled in the rest, and I will never stop being thankful for these people.

Liturgy Series Part X: Benediction and Dismissal

LSTC, Augustana Chapel, Chicago.
A. Hanson 2013

I have been a part of many different worship services throughout my life.  In traditional congregations, at College, at camp, and now where I work.

A Benediction is generally something along the lines of:

"The Lord Bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, the Lord look upon you with favor, and give you peace.  In the name of the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen." 

One of my absolute favorite benedictions is from Holden Village:

"O Lord God, who has called us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen."

A benediction is an invocation of God's blessing as the assembly leaves worship and goes out into the world.

A dismissal is the congregation's reminder to itself as to its mission in the world.

My internship congregation says the following together every week as a dismissal:

"Renewed by Christ in Word, water, bread and wine, we go in peace to serve our community and the world.  Thanks be to God."  

Another common benediction is:

"Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.  Thanks be to God."  

This final part of the worship service calls upon God to remain present in the lives of those gathered, and help them to fulfill their vocation as people of God.