Mark 1:4-11

Today I want us to think about baptism in a specific way. There are many ways to think about baptism: one is to think of it as a new birth. It’s forgiveness of sin; it creates and strengthens faith; another perhaps is a moment that you mark as a time when you seek to re-set what defines your life. Baptism is all of these things, but I want to talk about the way that baptism can be an ongoing reminder of God’s love. And maybe we can think about it not in the sense of before and after, not in the sense of life versus death, or sin versus grace—not as a choice between two possiblities, but as one wonderful pronouncmenet: that we are God’s children, and that we’re loved.”

We celebrate baptism as a moment of entry into the church. In the gospel, we have droves of people turning out each day at the river to confess their sins and to be washed in the water. All these people approach John the Baptist with the realization that their lives need to be turned around, need to be defined in a new way. They want to go toJOhn to announce, perhaps to themselves, perhaps to others, that their life is defined by something new. Defined by a story other than the life that they had been leading. You might think, from watching thse people, that baptism is a simple case of before and after. You approach the water to receive God’s favor, and so when you get around to baptism God finally looks down on you with favor. I don’t think that’s true though.  Jesus was baptized , too, and it’s not that God started loving Jesus at his baptism. God loved Jesus the whole time. Instead there’s this line in the gospel that gives us a better sense of what’s happening here:  jut as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart tand the spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, :You are my son, the beloved with you I am well pleased.” It seems to me that the most meaningful piece of baptism come in the words of God: you are mine; you are dearly loved; you bring me great joy.”

And I think these words work as a reminder, not only to Jesus, who needs the reminding of God’s love even as he approaches the cross, but also to all those seeking forgiveness in the water and all of us who have either been baptized or are yet to be baptized. Baptism itself is a pronouncemnet of work that God is doing, has already done, is always doing—that God loves us, that God cares about us, that God is with us. And from the point of baptism, it does nto promise that pain or hardship will never happen again, or that we will always be faithful. Instead, baptism promises that it is always true that God’s favor, God’s pleasure, is in you.

There is no requirementt for our knowledge of baptism. There is no point that we understand fully what our baptisms mean for us. I think today we have the best example of how this is true. Today a young lady named Lillian was baptized, and she’s only been a part of this world for a few months. I’m not sure that she knos a whole lot right now about what her baptism means. She’s still learning that people don’t disappear when you can’t see them anymore. She’s still learning the faces of the people that love her the most. But in these years that she grows into a young woman, she will learn day in and day out what her baptism means to her. She’ll learn how it matter sto her life as she lives it. Jake’s baptism is a little different. He knows a bit about baptism and faith, he knows about Jesus and he knows a bit about why God’s love makes a difference in his life. He might know that he does. We each know differently what baptism means because we each lead our different lives in the world. And we won’t ever know the fullness oof our lives in baptism because we haven’t yet lived the fullness of our lives.

Baptism is our reflection of the work that God is always, already doing. Baptism is not the starting point of God’s love for us. God has loved Jake every moment of his life, and God has loved Lillian every moment of hers. God has loved you every moment of your life, whether you’re baptized or not. When we gather here, together, in this place, we celebrate that love together, as the people of God in the world. When we gather here, together, in this place, we celebrate that God’s grace enters into our world at each moment, in every time. When we gather here, together, in this place to celebrate this sacrament of baptism, we 

A few years ago I was in a relationship with a woman that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. We met at school and spent all of our time together, and we dreamed about trips that we’d take and things we wanted to do. We sort of built our lives together up in our mind. And I think it came to be the center of our lives or, at the very least, of mine. For me, this was the relationship that was going to last, this was the beginning of the fairy tale. And all this excitement made it so much worse when it didn’t work out. I minimize it now, but at the time, it felt like the world was over. It felt like there was nothing in front of me anymore. Any negative thought that I could imagine went through my head. I tried to apply all my energy, all of myself, to figuring out what went wrong, and when I couldn’t figure it out—when I couldn’t make it work—I felt like nothing. And in the course of this prolonged death of the relationship, I lost a ton of weight, I was sick all the time, I couldn’t focus. I had fallen into a pit and had no idea how to move forward. I walked into a regular Thursday night worship service, an evening prayer that was a weekly thing at school, and my entire body gave away that I was broken. And so, before the service, my pastor took me aside for a prayer. And he took me into the church office, and he grabbed me by the shoulder and told me in a voice that was filled with nothing but love and acceptance, “Dan, you are loved. You are baptized. And nothing can change that.”

Not defined as someone who’s rejected by someone they love. And you’re not defined as someone who’s lost a loved one. And you’re not defined as someone who hasn’t held down a job. And you’re not defined as someone whose kids are in jail, not defined as someone who has an illness, or is disabled, or is incapacitated. Your baptism is a reminder to you that at your center, in your heart, at your core, you are a child of God. And that is something no one can take away from you. They might be able to make you forget. You might find yourself distracted from that fact. But luckily there are reminders. Water is an easy reminder to come across. When you wake up in the morning and wash your face, you can remember your baptism. When you’re in the middle of soccer or swim or football or track or any kind of practice and you’re thirsty, you can remember your baptism. As you’re making dinner, or at least sipping on the water before they serve it to you, you can remember your baptism. When you’re lying in a hospital room and you have that bag of saline solution hanging beside you, you can remember your baptism. The point is this: don’t let yourself forget your baptism. Because baptism is the thing that reminds us who we are: which is this.

We are God’s children, gathered together, worshipping and praying and hoping and living out this gift of life from God. Look around the room. You don’t have to make eye contact, though that’s nice too. But take a look around. All of these people are loved by God. All of them. Every single one. [Etc.]

AMEN

The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + January 8, 2012

St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

Isaiah 61: 8-11 + John 1: 6-8, 19-28

Grace and peace to you from God,

and the savior Jesus-Christ.

For many of us,there is something we do

that we’re best known for out in the world.

Sometimes it’s easier for us to

think about this in terms of others.

For example, if you think of George washington,

it would be pretty tough

to think about him without remembering

that he was the first president of the united states.

He did other things in his life,for sure—

he was a husband,

he was a general,

he owned land.

He was a child at one point, I imagine—

but we never think about him in these terms right away.

If you say George Washington the firs tthing I think of is:

oh yes, George washington, first president.

Got it.

+

The same might when thinkign about each other

we know people in one way,

and others know us one way.

WE know that there are other facets of our personalities

because we live in all of them each day,

but to those who see us in one capacity

there’s only one sense of us.

I think that can be said of me,

Before being called to seminary,

I was a swim coach an dpool manager

for years.

If I ever taught you in a swimming lesson,

if I was ever your swim coach,

if you ever camae to me to complain

that the vending machine wasn’t working or

that the umbrella is in the wrong place,

it would probably come as a surprise to find

that I serve now as the pastor of a church.

There are people who might only remember me

for helping hold them up while they learned to swim,

or as someone who without mercy

forced them to swim butterfly

back and forth in the pool, forever.

But here in this place,

I do different things.

(Thanks be to God!)

I stand here some Sunday mornings;

we run into each other durinng the week

in the grocery store or at the hospital

or here.

Coach Dan and Pastor Dan

are the same person.

it’s still the same person in all these situations,

but if you met me first as a coach or first as a pastor,

that might make a difference for how you remember me.

(It works both ways, by the way.)

+

In the gospel reading today,

we’re introduced  to a man named John.

And in some other gospels he’s identified differently,

like we sometimes are.

In Matthew baptist

Mark baptizer

Luke son of zechariah.

but here in John

(and it’s not by him, by the way,

John the gospel-writeris differnet than John the baptist)

he’s known simply as John.

And in the story we find,

if we ask him,

that he won’t even tell anyone who he is.

Not only doesn’t he have several roles

he doesn’t even give us one!

He’ll only tell them who he isn’t.

Are you Christ ?

Nope.

Not Christ.

Elijah?

Prophet?

At the end of the story the authorities

are so fed up with him

that they finally say,

look John,

you’re doing all these things that only

the Messiah or Elijah or a prophet would do.

So if you’r enot them,

you don’ thave any businses doing them.

Who do you think you are?

It dooesn’t help that he hasn’t combed his hair,

or that he’s just wearing camel pelts

and he’s eating whatever he

manages to find out in the middle of nowhere.

+

But it doesn’t matter to John,

because he’s different than people like us,

who exist in different ways and different times all over the place.

John lives for one reason

and for one purpose

The only reason he exists in the world is

to prepare the way of the Lord.

That is it.

He is a one man super-show for the coming of the messiah.

He points the way to the light in the distance.

There’s a line from the book of Isaiah

that mentions the voice of one crying out

“in the wilderness, prepare th eway of the Lord.”

John says “that’s me.”

I’m the one that isaiah is talkgin about;

I’m the guy who’s meant to go into the wilderness

and prepare the way.

It’s me.

That’s why I am here.

it’s why I was born.

Don’t worry about who my parents are

or where I’m from

or what I doo when I’m not baptizing everybody;

if you really want to know who I am

know this:

I am preparing the way of the Lord.

+

The line in Isaiah that’s repeated again in John’s story—

“in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord,’

stretches into our lives even now.

Sure we’re not in the desert,

and we go about baptism a little differently these days,

but there is still a wilderness that needs to be prepared.

it’s in our hearts.

Again in Isaiah God mentions it.

God hates robbery and wrongdoing.

God prefers that we be faithful.

God prefers that we love each other.

It’s not as though God’s hopes for us is a secret,

we hear about how we’re to love God

and our neighbor all the time.

But our hearts are filled with wilderness.

Our hearts are unkempt and unmanaged.

And we live in a world that wants us

to think only about ourselves and our individulaity

rather than to consider the needs of anyone around us.

+

In a wilderness—a true wilderness,

not managed land or a state park,for instance

things can become overgrown.

There are invasive species that can take over others,

and before you know it,

trees are being suffocated by vines,

you can barely move,

and things are just a mess.

Or like the wilderness in the middle east,

where there is nothing growing,

there are only rocks

and there’s barely any water.

Whether a jungle or a wasteland,

Each thing fights for itself.

But preparing a way in the wilderness

doesn’t pick you up and plop you somewhere else.

Instead, preparing a way

makes that same wilderness flourish and grow.

Maintains a bit of space

and provides enough nourishment

for each creature that exists there.

There is room for more than just one expression of life.

more than just one being.

There’s room for growth, for sprouting.

+

So it is with us,

both in our minds and our hearts.

Have you ever felt

as though you’ve pushed another person away

because you couldn’t deal with them at that moment?

Have you ever found yourself

in a situation where you needed

to ignore the needs of others because,

if you didn’t,

you might implode?

Does your heart even know what it wants,

or even kno what it is,

or where it’s going?

Is there a hole

left in your heart by another person—

by someone you loved,

by someone you wanted to love but couldn’t.,

a person-shaped hole

marked by a partner who’s passed away.

Do you feel like you need to protect that hole?

because you don’t want

to forget about that space

that used to be occupied.

You protect it

so that nothing else can get it.

There are times for guardedness;

there are times we really need to raise defenses

and protect ourselves.

But there are also times to cut back that wilderness,

cut back those places

that have  grown wild and grown over inside us.

Open up those spaces and prepare a way for something new.

+

That’s the way that John is telling each of us about.

The way that is freed up

so that our wilderness is maintained

and turns into a beautiful garden.

Not one where the shapes are unnatural,

where it looks just a little too planned.

But one that is allowed to grow and change.

It’s like that Eden where God started everything.

A place that contains blessings,

that harbors relationship.

It’s a place where creation and newness

are the defining quality—

not brokenness.

It’s what we mean by “the reign of God,”

a world that has the comfort of new creation.

it’s the world as it should be.

Where we each know who we are and who we aren’t.

Where we know how to relate to one another,

how to open up our hearts

and expose ourselves

to the unknown possibilities that creation holds.

+

THAT’s what John is pointing to.

That’s the good news tthat’s meant for this wrold.

It’s a new creation,

it’s that light frm the beginning of Genesis

“Let there be light!” that can only look forward.

It’s not the light that comes whe you switch on a night light,

or the weak light that comes from the moon at night

or the twinkling light that stars come from.

It’s not even the light that the sun brings in the mornig.

It’s light that inspires all the others.

That brings FUTURE to the world.

Light that means that everything

is about to change,

be remade,

or be realized.

This man John,

whose entire being belongs to the work of Christ,

comes before to prepare the way

for that transforming light.

To Encourage us to help prepare the way.

To encourage us to help clear the brush

from our lives and others lives.

+

It’s hard work, sure,

and you need your gloves

and someone might ask what you’re doing

and why you get to do it

if your not a prophet or Elijah or Jesus .

But we don’t need to worry about that.

We’re preparing the way.

WE don’t need to worry

about what others happen to be calling us,

because we have our call right here.

In the heart and the spirit.

That divine gardener is clearing the way

for something extraordinary

to break into our ordinary lives.

so that we can recognize—

and show others—

the plantings of that new creation in our hearts.

So let’s go out into the wilderness,

and get to work

preparing a way for the Lord.

AMEN

The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + December 10/11, 2011

St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

I say “all lives” because ministry cannot happen in a vacuum; the old “two or three” is something of a necessity. However, it’s easy to get distracted by numbers and statistics. Our Western context stresses visible results, to a fault. How many young people at Synod assembly? How many minorities represented at Churchwide? How much money spent on mission? How much communion consumed?  These results have a place, but it’s not at the center. One should take a closer look at their work if the church is empty or if you’re engagement outside the building is non-existent; but then, I wouldn’t expect that ministry with, say, Hell’s Angels or another unconventional demographic would yield the same spectrum of “results” that typical parish ministry would. Evaluating excellence—especially in ministry—is one of those things that requires a broad look at all the pieces at work.

In our conversations so far, I’ve gathered a sense of what this embodiment looks like on the front lines, and what strategies strengthen that embodiment. One is the absolute privilege of human relationship. In our readings that have tried to systematize this, I’ve found myself less excited by statistical evaluations for several reasons. Mark Twain’s sense of “Lies, damn lies, and statistics” is one; the other is an appreciation for the untrackability of human relationship, especially in actions that are less conventionally noteworthy. One of the most powerful lessons I will take with me from this context and experience is the hard work and dedication it takes to care for people. It is easy to “care about” them in a general sense; to care for them, one must know a name and a story. One must have a snapshot of a life and the willingness to help foster the opportunity for more snapshots. I could make a list of all the times I’ve called or emailed a friend from the congregation, but that statistic would tell you nothing about how we are the body of Christ. I could give you a count of handshakes on Sunday morning, but neither would that. Engagement with a Christian community is important, yes, but a name on the roster is not what we seek. If we are embodying the gospel and are being the work of the Spirit, affecting lives and strengthening faith, this is a bit of that “excellence.” If we are living inside the stories of God in scripture, in tradition, in the broader world in the lives of people, we are embodying ministry and engaging in that excellent practice of “making disciples.”

As I continue serving as a member of St. Paul’s body (and when I leave in less than two years!), the importance of being grounded in relationship and real lives remains my barometer of excellence. It does not happen within an office, though it can be strengthened by that. It does not happen when reading statistical reports of the congregation, though it can be strengthened by that as well. An article or a sermon does nothing to build up the body if no one is on the receiving end. It is engaging with people, their stories, their lives, and that bit of spirit in each of them that really defines excellent ministry. It’s something that doesn’t care about titles and accolades but simply aspires to meets the hopes of a God who sends servants to the ends of the earth.

Isaiah 64:1-9 + Mark 13:24-37

I generally find waiting to be an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. Which might be a surprise because I love the season of Advent and waiting is a pretty big part of it. If there is a pause in the action out in the world, I immediately go to my phone. Either that, or I look up at the tvs that are mounted to the wall in line, or I graze the supermarket tabloids next to me. [DMV, amusement park rides, grocery store.] I just wish that, instead of waiting, I could actually be doing something.

I always have to remind myself that waiting is doing something too. It’s easy to get mired by the fact that the line is never going to end, or to be uncomfortable with a silence when in conversation with another person. If you only think about waiting in terms of what’s happening right now, it becomes very easy to overlook the fact that waiting also has the quality of looking ahead. you’ll get to Christmas. Your number will eventually be called at the DMV, [amusement park, grocery store line.] When we’re stuck in a moment, focusing on what’s not happening, we might call our time there “waiting.” But if we’re in the moment and looking ahead to the future, it’s more like “expecting” or “anticipating” that takes up our time. Instead of waiting, we’re hoping and looking forward.

I think this difference between waiting and hoping points out something about our lives with God that will always need some work on our part. And I think at least part of the central problem is that we are always misunderstanding God. We don’t understand what God means when God does one thing, or another. And every time we try to predict what God will do—especially when God wasn’t the first person who said it!—we’re always going to find ourselves surprised. And perhaps disappointed. There’s the old saying—it might be a saying?—good things come to those who wait. And so we sit, and we wait, and think about all the good things that might happen after we wait, but then we get impatient and think “why in the world did I spend all this time waiting for nothing?” When we talk about waiting with God, we have to be careful not to cook up unrealistic expectations. God doesn’t promise to pass tests for us, and God doesn’t even promise to be with us in a visible, sensible way.

We misunderstand God when God isn’t around. When God isn’t immediately discernible to our senses. We assume that God has abandoned us, and as Isaiah says, that’s when we start sinning, that’s when we transgress. [A little bit about iniquities here.] WE assume that because we can’t see God, or can’t feel God in every moment, God has left. We start depending on ourselves, we start thinking that we can—or have to!—pick up the slack when God isn’t around. And then God becomes visible again, and we are embarrassed, and we remember that God is our father, and that of course God was around the entire time. We ask God not to be “exceedingly angry”—we allow for a little anger—but then, after th emoment’s passed, we never remember. We misunderstand what God is doing when God isn’t obviously visible. And then we get mired in waiting. And we can’t see past the end of that moment.

We misunderstand what Christ means when he says he’s coming. When sun goes ddown, when the moon goes dark, when the stars fall from the sky, we assume that it’ll be the end of the universe. Doom and gloom (cf. Left Behind books). We assume that when God commes to collect the elect, we aren’t among them. But if elect means favored, and favored means grace, then Christ comes for all of us because God supplies grace and favor to all God’s children. Christ collects us, his favored, his elect (because all God’s children are favored, graced, elect), and Christ sets us right in our relationship with him. I think the power fo Christ makes us recognize the nakedness of those of us who work only for ourselves, out of selfishness and greed, for those of us who would launch entire wars in the name of ourselves. I’m not sure what God does, but this moment blows all the posturing of our lives, all our iniquities, all the moments when we think we ARE alright on our own, and shows us that the entire question is wrong because we’re NEVER alone.

The point isn’t “now we understand,” or that “finally we’ve come up with the right thing”; the point is to always be thinking about whether we are trying to understand God at all, or whether we’re getting caught up in our iniquity. iniquity—the whole I dea that we don’t have it right. the fact that we hold each other not to be equal to one antoher. Forgetting who God is, forgetting who we are. Becoming conquered by our own pride. Thinking that we can go it alone. The second we think we’re right, we’re probably if not most definitely wrong. WE are constantly misunderstanding God, think we have it figured out, only to discover that we can’t. only god can tell us what’s really going on. Only god has the wisdom to make our iniquities known, to remind us that waiting for God ends in being with God. NOT in abandonment.It’s written in Isaiah “God works for those who wait for him.” It’s in our waiting and expectation that God is working—especially when we can’t see it.

The gospel of mark has some great reminders here. Read one way, they can mean that the end of the world is coming. That everything we know is going to fall away, will be cancelled.  But there’s another way to understand what Mark means when he says the sun will go down, and the moon will disappear, and the stars will fall out of the sky. IF we look up—to the sky, especially during Advent—we can notice that these things happen all the time. The age is always changing, somewhat: [sunset, sunrise; new moon, full moon; annual meteor showers.]

I think these signs are meant to remind us of God’s abiding presence, even when nit’s not visible. And to remind us, just in the living-thorugh of these signs, that they aren’t permanent. That something happens after. That the waiting isn’t the only thing that happens. Because the sun comes up the next morning; the moon will go through a new cycle of fullness and newness; that the perseid meteor shower happens every year. They don’t tell us exactly when God will be present, but they remind us that, nevertheless, God is our father. And God is present.

On this first service of Advent, I invite us to look upward toward these signs. WE actually put a few in the gathering area outside the sanctuary this morning. These are signs to remind us that the world isn’t ending just because it looks like it is. In fact, when it looks like that, God is most near. Especially when we can’t even tell. It gets darker and darker, but in that darkness we see more stars. We see more light. We see past the waiting and graduate to hoping. Graduate to anticipating. We double check whether we’ve misunderstood God—did God really disappear, did God really hide Godself?—or is this just one of the ways God works, allowing us to be expectant and hopeful. Giving us an opportunity to trust that God is here, that God was here, that God will be here, especially in our waiting. May God’s signs always remind us of his presence here.

AMEN

The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + November 26/27, 2011

St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

Luke 17:11-19

Nowadays, if you have leprosy, or as its more formally known “Hansen’s disease,” you just go to a clinic in Carville, Louisiana, where they provide a regimen of treatments and your sores start to disappear. when you have leprosy in Israel two thousand years ago, it’s a big deal. you were ostracized. you were completely cut off from the community because everyone assumed that your illness was caused by angering God. you were unholy. The possibility of human contact was completely eliminated. You were lost and you couldn’t recover. and you certainly couldn’t approach other human beings, much less holy ones like this Jesus of Nazareth. so you might imagine how amazing it must have been for this one to return, after finding he was healed, to return to Jesus and give thanks to God. imagine the shock of such a transformation—to discover after you had resigned yourself to a life mired by sin forever, that you would have a second chance. that you would be able to approach God again.

in the story, Christ seems to focus on the fact that this  man returned. and so I wonder if the healing might have only been a means to an end. a good means to be sure—praise god for the men’s healing!—but a means nevertheless. It seems to me that God’s aim in this story might have been, all along, to try to get these ten closer to that godly presence. to give them the chance to look god in the eye. to be close enough to have a real relationship marked, even on the approach, before the healed one even meets Jesus, by giving thanks.

the fact that tomorrow is thanksgiving makes me pay special attention to the aspect of thankfulness in the story. the idea of “giving thanks” in this story connects with a whole spectrum of things in scripture. the word itself shares its roots in the bible with the idea of things  done well, or people or things that are “good,” and the ideas of grace and favor. it’s the same word that we use sometimes to talk about communion—the Eucharist. If you look in your bulletin, we say something called “the great thanksgiving” and in that exchange, the first words that peter will lead us in saying in a few minutes are these: “the lord be with you,” “lift up your hearts, “let us give thank to the lord our god.” this “thanksgiving” is grounded in this idea that the God is with us, that the lord is with us. That there is a relationship that we lift our hearts up into. “let us give thanks to the lord our god.” this idea of “thanks” that we celebrate here is not only one where we show gratitude for gifts and blessings received, but it’s also in celebration of a relationship.

Thankfulness as the way we approach God in this place. It’s not to make a demand, it’s not to have an expectation. We don’t come before God to get something. If that’s why we look to God, we’re missing the point. God is God not because God gives us what we want; instead God is God because God is the source of what we need, whether we know it or not. Thankfulness is a way that we relate to God, and to others. When we gather here, we are reminded that thankfulness is a way that you live your life. It privileges not the action but the person, the other human being standing right in front of you.

Acts of thanksgiving don’t have to be huge. They don’t have to be glorious or well-remembered. Acts of thanksgiving don’t even need to be things that you would mention to another person. An act of thanksgiving could be going to the grocery store, and squeezing your way through the aisle. And instead of trying to ignore the other human beings that are there with you, simply hoping to squeeze by, thanksgiving looks the person in the eye and moves forward. It’s not even an action that’s quotable. But it makes all the difference. An act of thanksgiving is noticing that another human being is wrapping your groceries up and putting them in the cart. It doesn’t matter whether it’s their job, it doesn’t matter whether they’re being paid, it doesn’t matter whether they actually want to do it. What does is that it’s a human connection, through and through, one that is defined by grace and favor and an opportunity to become a part of another person’s life.

An act of thanksgiving is going to a restaurant, perhaps, and appreciating the story of the person who is your server. Appreciating them on a level above the fact that they are taking your order and delivering your food. An act of thanksgiving wonders about their entire life—perhaps silently, perhaps aloud—that they might be a child of loving parents who hope that they’re managing in the restaurant business, that they might be the brother or sister of a brood of kids, all doing different things in the world and all remembering the times they could just play with GI Joes and Barbies. That they left school so that they could get a job; or that they left school and couldn’t get the job they wanted. That perhaps, earlier in the day, something life-changing happened to them and the fact that they are taking your order is only a slice of the life that they lead. [Insert brief mention of arguments, people we detest.]

An act of thanksgiving appreciates the fullness of a human being that is not yourself, but has a life just like you do. An act of thanksgiving looks into the eyes of a human being on the street, that perhaps has lost their job, that perhaps hasn’t been able to prepare a meal for themselves for some time. That was also a child of parents, a sibling of others, a cousin, a grandson. Someone that grew up thinking they would be a starship captain or an archaeologist. Living with this spirit of thanksgiving cuts across the imperfect veneer and seeks to look deep down into a person and love them for who they are, love them because God created them, love them because God loves us and, really, because that love binds us together more fully and more truly than any other bit of definition could.

When we stand before this table, we participate in thanksgiving. We participate in a relationship of favor, in a relationship of grace, in a relationship that is good. We participate in a relationship that is grounded not in fleeting moments, but in the idea that there is an other in our midst that we open ourselves up to and live alongside. Not only can we open ourselves up as the whole person that we are in the world, good with bad, joy with sadness, success with failure, but we can recognize our relationship with a God that has had that intimate relationship with every human creature. With a God that knows the entire story of our lives in an instant. Who delights in our joy and weeps in our sorrow, but loves us intensely, favors us, graces us with companionship. It’s in the bread and the wine, it’s in the sign of the cross—it’s not the action that is the clincher, it’s the relationship that’s strengthened with God as part of the action.

the lord be with you. lift up your hearts. let us give thanks to the lord our god. That’s what thanksgiving is. In the midst of the meals, of the people around us, either family or just met, that we have the invitation to plug into the deepest parts of each other. To explore what it means to exude thankfulness—to see the love of God in the lives of another. To celebrate this relationship.

When we find a moment in our lives when we realize that we are blessed, when we are healed of our version of Hansen’s disease, whatever it is that separates us from relationship. where do we go? do we gallivant around town, proud of ourselves that we were strong enough to beat an illness, or a depression, or that we got a job, food on the table, a shelter? because we’re so awesome? or do we run back to Jesus and realize that the whole point of the healing was to bring us closer to him? do we run back to god, like an excited kid, to share in the delight of a life with renewed possibility? So excited that you’re tripping over your own feet and can’t wipe a silly grin off your face. because I think that’s the point. Jesus just wants you to run headlong back to him, with a silly grin you can’t wipe off, to share in the joy of being healed. and when we go to the table, we’re partners with god in good grace, in good favor. we give back a little of what we get.

friends, we can do this all the time. with the most objectively meager food. But a feast isn’t defined by what’s eaten by the significance of who’s eating it. turkey is nice; family is nice. but it’s not turkey and family for its own sake. it’s the gathering around something we share, united by the love of one that loves us all. it’s so much bigger than what’s intended. all the time. we just celebrate it now. each meal, each moment, be a thanksgiving. Thanks be to God.

AMEN

The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + November 23, 2011

St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

John 8:31-36

With today’s celebration of reformation, I think today more than most we have to wonder: what is a reformation? What is a reformer? Or, pronounced another way, what is RE-formation? What is a RE-former? We think today of Martin Luther and celebrate this new way of being the church in the world—but the focus wasn’t just on shaking things up. He didn’t argue for these radical changes because he thought he was right; rather, he couldn’t get the remarkable notion of Jesus Christ out of his head. Jesus was central to all this, and so we have to wonder—what about Jesus can inspire such drive for RE formation in a person?

This “Jesus” from Nazareth strikes me as quite the reformer. There are a few reasons why.  They are not universal, they’re not the only reasons, but they’re just a few that might help us think together. The first is that when he was reforming nobody had really heard of him. He’s a young man from a poor town, to whom no one paid any attention until they did. I find this to be the case with a lot of reformers in the world. They’re of course very well-known now, but in their early days, they inhabited pretty humble beginnings. They spring up out of nowhere and then, all of a sudden,  the world is changing. Gandhi, the Indian nonviolent leader, was a quiet banker. Martin Luther King Jr. was a parish pastor; Martin Luther was a simple monk. No one was royalty and none were the center of the universe. Instead, they were from the sidelines.

For another, he lived in a place where there an authority pretty much controlled the world. To be a reformer, you need to have something to stand against. For Jesus, it was the Roman Empire. They had power over the entire known world; they believed their emperors were on the same level as their gods. And, for Judea, their rule was absolute. People were things that needed to be controlled. For Gandhi it was the British Empire that had colonized their home, for MLK it was white privilege and the institution of segregation. For Martin Luther it was the church under the pope. Not only were these people who were unknown,

they were Davids facing goliath. They were Israelites staring at the wall of Jericho and thinking it would never come down. The odds were against them all.

Jesus also made outrageous claims given the culture he occupied Outrageous to some,

anyway. That he spoke for God and was in fact God’s son was pretty outrageous. People respond with confusion and disbelief. “How could this be,” they said. Gandhi and MLK appealed to a higher truth and knowledge than the rest of the world did. Rather than settling for the way it had always been, they were appealing to the hope for way things could be.  Martin Luther appealed to God’s word, a word that he couldn’t keep from ringing in his ears, in his head,

in his heart. How could he look at the same texts of the church and see something different?

Bigger than all these reasons though is that Jesus re-formed the world. Turned it into something new. Changed the way that things are and re-defined the way things can be. The social structures remained unchanged; the empire continued for centuries following. We certainly do not live in a world that reflects all of God’s goodness today. But instead, Jesus identified a new way, a new path, a new approach to being in the world. Of experiencing the world. He was a reformer because he did the work of re-formation. Since he was there at the beginning of time itself, his work of re-formation was also the work of re-creation. He did the great work of making something new out of something old, and called us to such great works as well.

It strikes me that there seem to be a lot of attempts at Reformation going on in the world lately. In the early part of the year we saw people in Egypt Syria Yemen Libya. It’s happening here too. The tea party rallies and now the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread across the country and even, this week, there have been arrests and other means of force used to try to quell what looks like a strengthening rebellion. Whether you agree with the principles of any of these movements or not, the people of this world are crying out for a new order. That things are not as they should be, a visible response that is being made to move the world in a different direction. They’re engaged in an attempt to re-make our world. To re-form it. To participate in and realize that recreation.

And at the heart of every great reform m movement, I believe there is something incredibly faithful, incredibly biblical, about this pull we have toward re-formation. To this pull that we feel into a place that calls out injustice or ignorance when it’s seen and hopes for something better. Jesus calls it his word—he said to the disciples, if you remember, that if they continued in his word, stayed with it, lived in it, remained in it, stood in defense of it, then they would know the truth and the truth would set them free. The power of this word, the energy of this word, seems to be the starting place of all this work for truth and freedom.

There are lots of names for this word—sometimes we name it Jesus himself. The word is that man, that person, that friend, that advocate in the world that pushes and fights for things to be right, for people to be free and un-oppressed and made new. Sometimes we name the word as the bible. This thing that we could pick up and hold right now if we wanted to, filled with stories about how God is in the world, renewing it and changing people and changing the very way that things are. Sometimes we name the word as what was said at creation—light from darkness, order from chaos, dry land coming out of deep, new creation,

creatures, and life where it was unexpected. It’s this word—in Jesus, in this book, in the world—that powers this re-forming of the world, again and again and again. And when that word grabs us we are all participating in the recreation. Right here, right now, at this moment. As you hear my words, as you sing these hymns, as you heave this place, as you live your lives.

When Jesus tells us about this Word, when he asks us to continue in his word, he likens the word to a house. With a nice big kitchen, shingles, a family room with a comfy couch. Maybe a whirlpool and a sauna. Nice yard, garden. The word is a place where you can make your life, raise your family, return for rest, host parties. When Jesus says continue in my word,

he’s saying to remain there. To stay a while. For a few nights, or forever. You’re a permanent guest because it is JC who’s invited you in to live, to work, to live, to build the world anew. You’re not interchangeable and removable, like a couch or a dining set. You are there for the long haul.

The closest comparison I can think of right now is of a kid who’s graduated college,

has a degree, or went into the world to make their fortune and, once they realize how expensive rent is, how much food costs, how hard it is to get a job, returns to their childhood home. And even though it feels like a little bit of your freedom is gone, that you’re not out on your won anymore, you can have a full meal, a warm shower, a soft bed, a shoulder to cry on.

Instead of struggling through a difficult and unnecessary life, everything is made new. And of course, on the other side of the story—“when are they gonna move out?” “You’re back again?” like people who come to visit and then just won’t leave. But with Christ, in that household, it’s not like that. You have a place in the household because the son, the heir, says you do. And not only are you wanted, you’re welcomed. And you’re’ not embarrassed about whether you could go it on your own, because you’re home.

WE take up residence with Christ and that’s where the true, real reformation takes place. That’s where we begin to look at the world and participate in its recreation. WE return to the word again and again and again for strength, for joy, for comfort, and safety and then go out again to do the work of re-creation. We leave and return to do the work of Reformation.

Each of us. Captured by the power of Christ and made members of the household, co-inhabitants of it, co creators of the world with him. We can do nothing but share that liberation, that justice, that freedom. With all others who might come through the door.

Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have ea permanent place in the household. The son has a place there forever. SO if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” Make a little house to live in out of the word. Live there forever. Gather strength from it, and make a new creation. That is what the reformation is. And in it, you will be free indeed.

AMEN

The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + October 29/30, 2011

St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

TIME AFTER PENTECOST

Philippians 3:4-14 + Matthew 21:33-46

Earlier this year, sometime in April, a six-year-old girl in Scotland named Lulu wrote a letter to God: To God, How did you get invented? Her father, Alex Renton, thought that instead of answering her himself, he would pass the letter along. He sent it along to the scottish episcopal church and the presbyterians, from whom he got no response, and to the Scottish catholics whose answer was past Lulu’s reading level. For good measure, he also wrote Rowan Williams, who is serving now as the Archbishop of Canterbury, which is the head of Anglican church. He wrote: Dear Lulu, Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this – ‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. . . . Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.” He goes on a bit and then concludes: “And then God would send you lots of love and sign off. I know God doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on God’s behalf. Lots of love from me too, +Archbishop Rowan.”

I love this letter for so many reasons, but Rowan Williams says something that especially caught my eye: “I know God doesn’t usualy write letters, so I have to do the best I can on God’s behalf.” On God’s behalf. Whenever we share a testimony about faith, whenever we read a book about faith, whenever we hear a story about faith, isn’t it something to think that that testimony, that book, that story, is something we do on God’s behalf? I think to the letter that Paul writes to the Philippians—something writen on God’s behalf to the faithful people of the church.

If you were writing a letter about faith, how would you write it? Who would you write it to? If you were to sit and think about what it is you hope for, what it is that inspires you, what it is that claims your life, what would you pass on to another? Every time I encounter one of the letters of Paul I think about this. As I read, I wonder: if I were to write a friend, a colleague, another church, even a stranger about my faith and its grounding, what would be the center of the message? What would be the thing that marks my faith as something worth sharing, as something worth telling something else? And I wonder too, could I possibly tell another about a faith and include the same excitement and joy that it gives me? And could I show how, even though there have been moments of frustration and doubt, there is still something powerful enough that is a powerful enough game-changer to continue to make its claim on me.

Paul writes such a letter to the Philippians, about soomething that has changed his life so profoundly that nothing he has done, none of his prior achievements, even appraoches the level of importance that his faith in Christ now claims. Paul was dastardly, and when he writes his letter he uses that to his advantage. His personal story turns into a testimony, an account of how the Christ has changed his life. Paul was secure in his spiritual place: he was born into the right tribe, he had observed thhe proper religious rituals; he was a strict observer of religious law to the point that he persecuted the early Christian church. If anyone could feel assured that by their own hard work they were secure in their relationship with God, it was Paul. But then paul writes that compared to all the things tha the had hoped for and accomplished, nothing nearly measured up to the power of his meeting Christ. That Jesus was his lord surpassed any possible definition of himself. It was a game-changer. All the things that came before that moment no longer mattered: it was that remarkable power of God working through him that made the difference. He forgets what lies behind and strains forward for what’s ahead.

Paul, I think, issues a challenge to the people at Philippi. His is one that urges them to respond to the freedom of God that they can look in no direction but forward. Which, I think, is very difficult. Because we are our story. Sometimes this is no more true than when we begin to forget it. We are proud of our pasts—of the friends we’ve made, of the things we’ve accomplished. When we meet one another for the first time, the first thing we do to describe who we are is to describe our stories from the past: where we were born, where we’ve lived, what we’ve done for work. We tell stories about ourselves because we understand these stories to be the fullness of who we are and how we’ve lived our lives. I can’t wait to tell others about funny things that have happened to mme, about things that I’ve found inspiring.  I look forward to introducing myself to new people all the time. But Paul does something remarkable: he mentions a few things that have marked his life as particularly noteworthy, that have come together to make him who he is. But he closes with the primary thing that marks him in God’s eyes. “this one thing I do,” he writes, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the heavenly call of god in Christ Jesus.” That’s the marker. That’s the definition. God as a human being and the call back to God in him. The story of God as freedom from oppression and invitation to newness of life. Yes, we each have memories and we all have a history, but from God’s perspective this pales in comparison to the fact God makes us new in Christ. We could maintain all the purity laws that Paul was so intent on maintaining, but they were nothing when he was confronted with the power of God embodied in Christ Jesus. No need to keep purity; we are made pure in Chirst. God re-sets our lives not one-time but always. That through all our differences we share that one thing: God’s love for us.

So, I’m sure we could name at leats one thing that has pushed us toward god, toward this place, to this day. It could be the tower from Brady street that caught your eye and made you think of the first time you saw such a tower. Or you could have spent your entire life of faith in this place and your body is just used to being in this place each week. Maybe yo uread an article in the paper that made you more curious about how faith, or God, or Christ, or that “unnameable thing” works in the world. But maybe you had a moment this week that made you think you could not take another step unless it was to a place that did not require anything of you but to simply be. You find yourself here not because an explosive moment of God’s power has happened to you, but because you hope that in each moment, and especialy at this moment of weakness, it will. Sometimes it’s in those moments in which you feel absolutely empty that you’re drawn most strongly to a life of faith.  That you’re reminded of faith. That you’re grabbed by a faith that starts outside yourself and complete redefines the way you tell your story. The way you think about your life. The way you write your letter.

We should all be little Pauls. And maybe little Rowans, for that matter: all of us writing on behalf of God to each other. And of course we mention how we got here: that we are from this place, that we are related to these people, that we have done this or that work throughout our lives. Of course we mention all the projects that we’ve been inspired to take on: joining this ministry, sending tens of thousands of nets to God’s children around the world, feeding the hungry, showing compassion to those in need. But we also include in our letter the identity that surpasses all others: that we respond to the heavenward call of Christ Jesus. That it brings us into the world to do remarkable things. That we will continue to work in love of God and of our neighbor. And that we tirelessly strain forward to what lies ahead. And may we be strengtthened to pass along that one timeless message on God’s behalf: God sends lots of love. So do I. AMEN

The Rev. Daniel Kuckuck + October 2, 2011

St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa

ta-da!

From what I hear, it turned out to be pretty good!