sermon

God calls us twice, with patient urgency, into the reign of God. 

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 3 B 
Texts: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20; John 21:1-19 

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There is an urgency in all of the texts for this week. 

“The time is fulfilled!” Jesus says – his first words in Mark’s gospel. 

“The appointed time has grown short,” Paul writes to the Corinthians. 

“Get up and go,” God says to Jonah.

There is something pressing about the message of all these writers, and it reminded me of something my mom used to say: “If it’s urgent, call twice.” 

That was the instruction she always left for us when we were kids, in the days before texting, on any occasion when we might need to talk to her while she was gone.  “I might not answer the first time,” she’d say. “But if you call back right away, if you call twice, I’ll know it’s urgent and I’ll answer.” That was her promise to us and to this day I know that if I call twice, my mom will drop everything and answer.  She’ll know it’s urgent.

In these texts, something urgent is happening. So God calls twice.  

“God has spoken once, twice have I heard it,” the Psalmist sings.  God calls twice.

“The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.”  God called Jonah twice.  Because it was very urgent. The situation was dire.  God describes Nineveh as a place with more than one hundred and twenty thousand people who don’t know their right hand from their left. Whose wickedness, especially their violence, had risen up before God.  

Jonah’s work is urgent. There are people, thousands of them, who must be reached, who must be stopped, the violence must stop.  For the sake of the people that the Ninevites were hurting, and for the sake of the Ninevites themselves.  God calls Jonah twice, because the need was urgent.  It was time for a better way. 

This is the same urgency that drives Jesus. “The reign of God has come near,” he proclaims, and he pairs with an urgent call “Repent and believe the good news.”  As if he were saying: All you people who don’t know your right hand from your left. It’s time for the reign of God! It’s time for a better way.

It’s the same urgency that still drives prophets who speak and spread the reign of God today. 

This past Monday we celebrated perhaps our greatest modern prophet in the United States, Dr. King.  Dr. King understood the urgency of the reign of God. He dreamed of a better way. And he knew the reign of God meant love and power. 

The Psalmist knew it too: “God has spoken once, twice have I heard it, that power belongs to God. Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord.” 

Power and love belong to God.  That is the recipe for meeting the urgent needs of the people, so urgent that God calls twice.  But power doesn’t work on its own. Love doesn’t even work on its own. That’s the crucial insight that Dr. King understood. 

“Power without love,” he said, “is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”¹

This is the reign of God- power and love, at their best, implementing justice. 

God called Jonah twice because it was time to implement justice.  With both power and love, God saved them all. God saved the victims and God saved the oppressors. Justice and Mercy, Power and Love correcting everything that stood against love.  

This is the reign of God. It’s what God calls each and every one of us into it. It’s incredibly urgent.  And it’s why God calls twice. 

But it’s not the only reason.  

Because God could have called somebody else, when God called the second time, right?  Jonah did not want to do this job, he made that very clear. If you don’t remember the story, the first time Jonah was called to Nineveh, he hopped in a boat and sailed the opposite direction as fast as he could.  That’s how he ended up in the belly of that big fish. Which spewed him up right back on land so that the word of God could come to him a second time. 

God calls twice because God is incredibly patient with us. 

God was certainly patient with Jonah.  Jonah ran away from the first call, because he knew God would be merciful. He knew that God would respond not only with power, but also with love, and he just couldn’t stand it. And in the end the only one who isn’t saved, the only one who isn’t part of the reign of God, is Jonah.  He is left looking down at the city in resentment, telling God he is “angry enough to die!” And the book ends with God patiently loving him too, calling him, yet again, into the reign of God. 

Because it is urgent, God is patient.

God was also patient with those fishers in the gospel for today. Andrew and Simon Peter and John and James. Now, it’s true in this story, they don’t seem to need to be called twice.  “Immediately” they leave their nets and their boats.  James and John up and leave their father in the boat and they don’t even seem to look back.  All four of them are caught up right away in the promise of God’s power and love implementing justice, ushering in the reign of God. 

But we know that they don’t really understand the reign of God yet.  Most of the rest of the gospel of Mark will show how they really don’t get it. And even these men who seemed so eager to leave their nets, will end up back in their boats.  On another lake shore. At the end of another gospel. Lost and despairing because they really didn’t think that God’s love and power in action would look like God dying on a cross. 

But Jesus will call them again. 

He will call these same followers again from their boats.   He will tell them to cast their nets on the other side. He will tell Simon Peter to feed God’s lambs and tend God’s sheep. And he will say, for the second time, follow me.  

Jesus called these fishers twice, in almost the same way. Because God was patient with them, even though they didn’t understand.

And with this patient urgency, God has called you too. 

Even when you, like these fishers, just don’t get it, don’t understand the fullness of the reign of power and love and justice you are being called into. Even when you, like Jonah, don’t like it, when the love of God makes you angry enough to die. God is patient. God calls twice. 

Or three times or four times, or too many times to count!

God has called you into the reign of God.  Maybe you heard God’s voice, saying “Get up and go!”  Or maybe you felt an urge, a stirring from the Holy Spirit that you couldn’t quite explain, maybe you feel it right now, calling you into urgent work. Maybe you heard the words of a prophet with a message as simple as “Repent and Believe.” Or another way you could translate it: “Turn and Trust.”

Turn away from standing against love.  Turn away from the ways you hurt others and hurt yourself.  Turn away from this present world and follow Christ into the new creation.

Turn and Trust.

Trust that power belongs to God. Trust that steadfast love belongs to God.  Trust that God is calling you and will not abandon you. That God will call twice. Again and again and as many times as it takes. 

The reign of God has come near. It’s urgent. Turn and Trust.

In the name of the Father, of the  ☩  Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

_{1. King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Where do we go from here?” Speech. 15 August 1967. Transcript available at https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/where-do-we-go-here. Hear the quoted excerpt from the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsvSq5_vbL4&t=1s}

In this passage the Temple is functioning the way it was supposed to and God’s salvation is seen in many different dimensions.

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
First Sunday of Christmas, year B 
Texts: Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Luke 2:22-40

God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When we think of Jesus in the Temple, we often think of flipping tables.

All four gospels include an account of the “Cleansing of the Temple,” when Jesus drove out the money changers and the merchants. Mark and Matthew include the detail of overturning the tables and in John’s gospel Jesus even has a whip! This encounter lives large in our imaginations and it means that the Temple in Jerusalem, the very center of Jewish faith and religious practice, is primarily associated with Jesus’ righteous fury. Often we only think of it as a place of exploitation and consumerism and corruption.

But in our gospel passage today, we see the Temple in a very different light.

This encounter, like so much of the Nativity story, is only included in Luke’s gospel. And it is a very different account of Jesus in the Temple. There are no whips, no overturned tables, no mention of money-changers. Instead, we see the Temple functioning beautifully, the way it was supposed to.

You can see it with the prophet Anna.

We don’t know much about her, we don’t even get to hear her speak, but we know that she was a widow and that she had lived for a long time without a husband to provide for her. For decades and decades. And we are told that she “never left the Temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day.” Which prompts the question, who was taking care of her? Who was making sure she had what she needed and was holding her in love and respect? In the Temple the answer must be: her neighbors.

Because the Temple was supposed to be the place where the two Great Commandments – to love God and love your neighbor, were fully in effect. Where you could expect the laws commanding care for orphans and foreigners and widows were followed. And where Anna could deliver her prophetic words of critique and comfort and be fed and sheltered. That’s how the Temple should be and, in this story, that’s how it was.

And you can see it in how the young family, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, are welcomed.

They enter the Temple as strangers in Jerusalem, following the law, and presenting their firstborn son to God. They are too poor to offer a lamb, so Mary and Joseph bring a pair of birds to sacrifice, the most they could afford. Yet they are welcomed. Simeon and Anna rejoice over their baby. And their family is held not only in joy, but in pain as well, when Simeon acknowledges Mary’s coming grief, the sword that will pierce her soul. Just as they are, they are seen and embraced.

The Temple was supposed to be a place where everyone could come as they are. Elders and babies, rich and poor, men and women, Jews and Gentiles, gathering at the Temple to rejoice or fast or pray or wait or make an offering or receive a blessing. That’s how the Temple should be and, in this story, that’s how it was.

And you can see with Simeon.

Simeon is promised that he “will not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.” And when the time comes, the Holy Spirit guides him to the Temple. I imagine that the Spirit could have led Simeon to any place to meet Jesus. But Simeon is guided to the Temple.

Because most of all, the Temple was supposed to be a place to have encounters with God, a place where people were expecting God to show up. And when God showed up as the Messiah, not in the shape of a warrior, but incredibly in the shape of a child, Simeon saw! Simeon and Anna were looking for God and they found Jesus. And then they told everyone who would listen, everyone who was looking for God, everyone who was waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. “Look! God is here!” That’s how the Temple should be and, in this story, that’s how it was.

And here’s the point. When the Temple is what it should be – salvation is seen!

Simeon sees. “My eyes have seen your salvation,” he says, and in the context of this encounter in the Temple (with the Temple functioning the way it’s supposed to) we see it too. We see God’s salvation – and in many different dimensions.

We see the cosmic and eternal dimension of salvation.

Simeon is holding God in his arms! God, enfleshed and alive! Simeon recognizes God-with-us in this baby, who has come to reach us, to be made known to us, to love us, to suffer with us, to forgive us, and to save us. So that our broken selves won’t be this way forever, but instead every tear will be wiped away and every child of God will be restored to glory. This is God’s redeeming work to reconcile with humanity, to make all things new forever and always, and bring us into eternal life in the Spirit. And Simeon saw it face to face.

And this salvation is multidimensional!

Not only personal and eternal, but collective and immediate. Not just for you singular sometime in the future, but for you plural, now.

Jesus, destined to cause “the falling and rising of many,” flipped the tables that needed flipping. When the Temple wasn’t functioning like it was supposed to, Jesus brought salvation, driving out all who oppressed and exploited. So that there might be salvation for the poor – like Mary and Joseph, and salvation for the desperate – like Simeon, for the lonely and dependent – like Anna, and salvation for the outsiders – like the Gentiles that Simon sings of. This is the salvation which topples tyrants and lifts up the lowly, and tears down the barriers between us.

And this is the quiet and ordinary salvation of flourishing and abundant life. The kind of salvation that Simeon might have seen in the Temple that day even if Jesus hadn’t been there. But it was there, when Simeon was holding a child from a poor family, who were just going about their ordinary business of loving God and loving their neighbors, there he saw salvation.

This is why we gather, not anymore at the Temple, but as the church, week after week.

So that like Simeon, we can see all these many different dimensions of God’s salvation. Salvation on the scale of the universe, and on the scale of your own heart. And everything in between. At all scales, God is at work. Salvation is happening everywhere all the time. And we gather so that we can see it. So we can tell each other about what we have seen.

Isaiah imagined God’s salvation shining out like the dawn or like a burning torch so that the nations could see. But the dawn can be easy to miss. If you aren’t looking for it, you probably won’t see it. But God wants to be seen. God wants you to see salvation. God wants to guide you right to it. God wants you to hold Jesus in your arms.

We gather not in the Temple, but as the Temple, so that all are loved and welcomed and cared for, so that we can encounter God and see salvation. The way it’s supposed to be.

In the name of the Father, of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

 

Mary was in an impossible situation and it is the same situation that we are in, to bear Christ to the World. Thankfully, nothing is impossible with God.

Vicar Lauren Mildahl 
Fourth Sunday of Advent, year B 
Texts: Luke 1:46b-55, Luke 1:26-38

Greetings, favored ones, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mary only asks one question. 

Most people, I think, if they had been in Mary’s shoes, would have asked more questions. I certainly would have. I would have wanted to know at least a few more details about this crazy thing that was about to happen to me. But when Gabriel tells her she will bear the Christ, a baby she will name Jesus, the Son of the Most High, Mary only asks: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

And the common interpretation, when we hear this question, is that Mary is wondering about the biology of this whole thing. As if she was fixated on the clinical impossibilities of an immaculate conception. As if she’s asking, “Excuse me, Gabriel, can you explain exactly how this embryo will be fertilized? Where will the other half of this baby’s DNA come from? I need to know how this works, medically speaking.”

But what if that wasn’t what she was worried about?

What if she didn’t actually think it would be much of a miracle for the God who created everything that is out of the chaotic void, to manifest one more life. Maybe she didn’t think it would be a big deal for the God who breathes life into everything to breathe life into her womb. After all, she doesn’t sing, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God who miraculously impregnates!”  She actually doesn’t mention that part in her song at all.

So maybe she was thinking about something else. Maybe when she asked her one question, “How can this be since I am a virgin?” she meant something more like, “Do you really know what you’re asking me?! I’m not married yet. Don’t you know how hard it is here for single mothers?” 

Because she didn’t know, yet. She didn’t know that Joseph would step up and stick around, great guy, or that her relatives and her community would support their family. She didn’t know, yet, that complete strangers would show up with expensive gifts from the East!

At this point, all she knew for sure was that if she said yes, she might have to do this alone. And she knew what an impossible situation that might be. 

And as if being a single mother weren’t hard enough, what about being a mother to God?! 

Mary might well have been asking Gabriel, “Do you know what you are asking me? I don’t know how to raise a MESSIAH! I’m just a kid!” Because there she was, not all that far from childhood herself, just a poor girl from a small village, tasked to raise a king of whose kingdom there will be no end!  A king to sit on David’s throne forever! A king who is GOD INCARNATE. Is there a person on Earth qualified for that?! How was she supposed to know what to do? 

Another layer of impossible. 

Or, you know, maybe Mary was just not sure she really wanted to bring a baby into this broken world.

She knew about thrones, about the mighty, and the proud, she did sing about them. And maybe in that first moment of contemplating motherhood, she just couldn’t fathom bringing any more life, any more precious and vulnerable and beloved life into this world that wasn’t yet put right. She was just a virgin, just an unmarried young woman living in an occupied nation, thoroughly and in every way cut off from political and economic power – how could she protect him?

Because even knowing that her baby boy was God incarnate, in this world not yet made right, she would have known what would happen to anybody who went around preaching possibility and hope, justice and redistribution, and all those things that might topple a tyrant.  She might have guessed already that she would have to do the most impossible thing of all for a mother: watch her son die. 

Let’s give Mary some credit. 

And let’s imagine that she knew all the many dimensions of impossibility surrounding the scenario that Gabriel was presenting, and that maybe the part about the virgin pregnancy wasn’t even the top of the list.  So she asks her one question, overwhelmed for a moment, by impossibility:

“How can this be?”

And I don’t blame her.  It seems like a reasonable response to a unique and impossible task. 

Although, it’s not truly unique at all, is it?

A young woman and an unplanned pregnancy? Not unique.  Powerless and terrorized people longing for liberty and restoration? Not unique.  Sinners and sinned against waiting for a savior? Not unique. This story repeats and echoes through the generations, in impossible situation after impossible situation. It repeats in us.  Ordinary people, encountering the divine and answering the call to bear Christ into the world.

Because although we don’t have the same physical experience that Mary had, our calling is the same. 

We are all called to bear Christ, to experience divine love growing within ourselves, to labor and birth Christ anew again and again for the world. 

We bear Christ so that every single person can know that they are favored and completely loved by God. 

We bear Christ so that God’s justice can be accomplished, so that the mighty may be cast down, the proud may be scattered, the rich may be sent away empty. So that every unjust social structure built on oppression and exploitation and violence can be overturned, by the strength of God’s arm. 

We bear Christ so that all life can flourish. That the lowly may be lifted up, that the hungry may be filled with good things. So that every single person can be fed and housed and cared for and welcomed. 

And you know what? That can feel pretty impossible sometimes.  Overwhelmed, we also might want to respond with just one question of our own: How can this be, God? How can we do all the things you call us to do?

And then Gabriel’s words echo through the centuries, answering not just Mary’s question, but our own desperate wonderings.

The angel said: “Nothing is impossible with God.” 

Nothing will stand in the way between God and us.  Not the powers of this world, not our own inadequacies and certainly not biology.  God will go over or around or under or straight through any obstacle to save us.

And every impossible situation you can think of, any impossible situation that you may be facing right now, God is already there. The tenderness of Divine Love is already there, turning impossible into possible.  

God is in the business of possible, of new beginnings, new life, ways from no way.  In a word, hope.  After all, what is hope, if not possibility? When we are called to bear Christ we are sharing a future pregnant with possibility! It is not easy (pregnancy and labor aren’t easy), but it is never impossible. 

With God, nothing is impossible.  

This was the only answer Mary needed to her question.

“Here am I,” she says, “the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

And then she sings. The song that echoes through every Christ bearer and that is our song too:

Our souls proclaim the greatness of our Lord!

And our spirits rejoice in God our Savior! 

Our God of infinite possibility.  Thanks be to God!

In the name of the Father, of the  ☩  Son, and of the Holy Spirit.