sermon

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Claudio was an anxious Eucharistic minister. And he wore his anxiety on his sleeve, so much so that one day I finally asked him about it.

“Such holy things, pastor. Such holy things. When I carry the chalice I’m carrying such holy things. In my head there is always a voice that is repeating, ‘don’t drop it, don’t spill it, just do what you’re called to do; don’t drop it, don’t spill it, just do what you’re called to do…’”

As we catch up with Jesus this morning, the Sermon on the Mount continues. Preaching to his disciples and the crowds, Jesus echoes what Claudio was feeling, “just do what you’re called to do.” In the case of equipping first-century witnesses Jesus gives guidance that is very clear and positive. He speaks to his beloveds of such holy things:

You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Honestly, the power and the impact of Jesus declaration is lost on us. In our overstimulated culture, the metaphors of salt and light seem – well – a bit bland and dim. They are gifts we take for granted

But salt was essential to survival in Jesus’ day. It wasn’t just an optional ingredient that might be added to food to spice things up like cumin or cayenne. Salt was used to preserve food and blazed a trail for international trade. It functioned as an antiseptic, saving lives from infection and disease. As it became more and more valuable as a commodity, it stood at the center of economic and political power.

In a similar way, we who live in the bright glare of cities that never sleep have only the faintest idea of how light functioned before elec-tricity. News flash: the ancients didn’t have a beam of light from their smartphones to find whatever was lost under the car seat, or to blaze a pathway from the bed to the bathroom in the night.

Declaring his people to BE salt and light is a new wisdom that Christ preaches. It is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age. It is a new wisdom that Matthew proclaims along with the apostle Paul, the wisdom of Christ and him crucified. Those who are salt and light in the world not only bring this new wisdom into the world, Jesus proclaims that they actually ARE that wisdom in the world. YOU are that wisdom in the world. You, people of God, are salt and light.

Jesus pushes the envelope.  As Jesus often does. Listen: I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Say it like this: there is a difference between knowing about salt and light and being salt and light. A difference between knowing about our Lord Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead and being our Lord Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead.

Jesus invites us to let our righteousness exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, and to let our light shine. To be his love in the world. This is what Christ means when he says, I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. I am not interested in followers who know about righteousness, or who know about salt, and light, and commandments and teachings. I am not interested in followers who are god-ish. I am interested in followers who are Godly.

Let’s be honest. For a guy like me, it is easy to be god-ish. A cradle Lutheran, I grew up in the 60’s in an area of the country that was deeply Christian. I thought everyone was. Honestly, it wasn’t until I moved to Seattle in 1996 that I met a bone fide pagan, someone who openly if not proudly chosen to practice no faith at all. For a guy like me, being god-ish was easy. Very little risk. I have spent my life being able to go along and get along, to be like salt and light in the world.

Jesus wants us to know a greater gift. Jesus wants more for us, because Jesus always longs for what is best for us. Jesus offers us a gift beyond measure.

On a particular Sunday, I noticed that Claudio was possessed of an uncharacteristic calm as an assisting minister. His hands did not shake. When he handed me the chalice and purificator after com-munion his palms were not sweaty. His face was relaxed and radiant, not furrowed and pinched. After worship, I asked him about it.

“Yep, pastor, there’s been a change. I’m no longer overcome with the mantra, “don’t drop it, don’t spill it, just do what you’re called to do.” God has given me a sense of peace. “What changed?” I asked him.

The last time I was Eucharistic minister, when I sat the chalice on the altar, I realized that Christ was not somehow magically in that chalice. I knew that if I spilled it or dropped it, God would understand. When I looked out across the congregation and saw all the people of God that I was privileged to serve, I realized that Christ was not in the chalice. At least not only in that chalice. Christ was now in all of them. In all of us.”

Claudio had come into a new righteousness that did not eliminate one letter, not one stroke of a letter of all that had gone before. He was able to see Christ fulfilling the Law in a way he’d never seen before. He saw God’s people as bearing the cross of Christ to the world. He saw them as salt and light. In short, he moved them in his mind from god-ish to Godly. He might spill some wine, but he also recognized in a truly sacramental way, that God’s love had spilled into the bodies, the hearts, the minds, of God’s people.

Beloved in Christ. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are not like a bit of seasoning to make bad things a little better. You are not just a sprinkling of light to make someone’s random hard day a little bit brighter. God has been and will once again today be spilled into you.

On our body and in our heart, through our words and by our actions, we ARE salt and light. It’s very sacramental. What once was in the loaf and chalice is now in us. We are bread for the hungry, drink for all who thirst. We are no longer god-ish. Baptized into Christ we are Godly. It is both joy and privilege, gift and task, and Jesus walks with us every step of the way. Because he lives, we shall live also, to bring Christ to the world for others. Light for the world to see.

Salt and light. Christ in the world. This is who we are. Rise and shine, people of God. Godly people. Bringing peace to the troubled. Food to the hungry. Shelter to the homeless. Such Godly people we are called to be.  Such Godly people we get to be. Godly salt. Godly light.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Before we go charging head-long into Matthew 5, let’s review. To this point in his Gospel, Matthew has told us, among other things, of

An inconvenient pregnancy
The threat of divorce – Joseph’s from Mary
A quirky set of visitors from the East, following a star
A maniacal, manipulative king
A dream-inspired flight to a foreign country, making the Holy
Family refugees
The slaughter of innocent children

We have heard about the cousin of Jesus and his eccentric preaching: winnowing forks, unquenchable fire, an ax lying at the root of the tree, that sort of thing…

We learn in early Matthew about:
A forty day fast in the wilderness ending with an encounter
between Jesus and the devil
Christ’s teaching and healing those afflicted with various
diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics

That’s what gets more-or-less covered in the first four chapters as Matthew sets out to tell the story of Jesus. And with that scene- setting backdrop, we turn the page to chapter 5, Jesus climbs a
mountain, has a seat, and begins to speak…

The poor in spirit are blessed, for the reign of heaven is theirs.
Those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted.
The gentle are blessed, for they will inherit the earth.

What are the first four chapters of your life? Frankly, I have no idea. I haven’t known you long enough. But, I know this after forty years of ministry. I know that the chapters of your life and my life are a
whole lot like the opening strains of the Gospel of Matthew.

They are life stories that contain
An inconvenient pregnancy somewhere in our family
The threat of divorce: our own, our friends’, a member of our
own family
We have quirky friends who may have followed a star or something a whole lot more bizarre in search of something meaningful or real
We are not strangers to maniacal, manipulative leaders
Is there a day that goes by that we don’t hear of siblings in
Christ fleeing for their lives to a foreign country?
We are, unfortunately, acquainted with the death of children;
painfully, some of them have been our own.

We know what it means to be tempted, and we ourselves or those we love with all our hearts are
afflicted with various diseases and pains…

So Jesus is not just whistling Dixie when he sits down here among us, today, in – of all places  Minneapolis, Minnesota – and says, says to us – in a way that the world around us would find foolish…. Jesus says, “I know. I get it. I see you.”

Jesus, who by God’s grace, came to live among us full of grace and truth knows first-hand how the crowded ways of human life get crossed up.
With wretchedness and need.
With human grief and burdened toil.
With famished souls from sorrow’s stress.
The world will never see us as Jesus does. The world in its wisdom wants us to move on, to get over it, to buck up and pull ourselves together.

But Jesus sees us with all the tempts us, with all our various diseases and pains, with our broken relationships, and grandiose ideas gone south. He knows how we are tempted to go chasing off after other gods, and how that never, ever satisfies. And so he sits among us today, right here, right now, and says, you who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed. You are mine. You are beloved.
Loving us as he does, just as he loved those before us on the dusty roads of Galilee and the lush mountains where he sat to teach…

Knowing us as Jesus does, and loving us, is reckless in the eyes of world. Foolish. The world does not deal well when those who are low and despised get God’s attention. The world roils and fumes even
more when those who it deems losers are given the title “blessed.”

At its worst, the world will be so flummoxed by those who are called by his name, so undone by any who do justice, or love kindness, or walk humbly with our God that the world will revile us, and
persecute us, and utter all kinds of evil against us falsely.

And yet, and yet. This is what defines us. This is who we are. Blessed at the hand of the One whose own hands are pocked by nail prints, whose side was pierced with pain to heal the pain inside of us. This is
who we are – not perfect, but blessed. In all the messiness of whatever chapters of our lives have led us to this day. Gathered at Christ’s feet once again today we find ourselves: wounded, yet grounded. By mercy surrounded. Already and not yet. Always moving forward in the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Blessed. Blessed. Blessed.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Jesus calls the disciples, and us, to consider what vocation means for our lives and the ways that God calls us.

Vicar Mollie Hamre
3rd Sunday after Epiphany, Year A
Texts: Matthew 4:12-23

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

You have probably been asked this question at some point when you were younger. You might have said that you want to be a doctor, a teacher, a professional athlete, or anything else you could have imagined. In the case of my four year old niece, she excitedly told us she was going to be a cooking game show host. But all of these answers have a commonality: you can only pick one thing. 

At such a young age we are put into a mindset of thinking we can only be one thing. That we can only do one thing. And what is even more strange is we stop asking that question after a certain age. For Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John this is a question they learn that we are to ask as we seek out where God continues to call us. 

Our Gospel starts with Jesus receiving news of John the Baptist being arrested.

In reaction, Jesus flees to Galilee and calls Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John to be his disciples. Jesus approaches them in their day to day work and calls them directly: “Follow me.” We do not find the group of four in the synagogue or somewhere one might expect Jesus to be recruiting, but instead appearing to them in their normal jobs–their normal lives. Jesus calls them to follow, carrying their experiences and knowledge with them in saying: “Come! I will make you fish for people.”

Fishing is a language they understand, it’s their background–but being disciples? Not so much. Yet, the scripture says that they immediately left their boats and followed him. Strangely enough, a question about this drastic life change they are about to experience, never seems to pass through their minds. 

Such a reaction can both leave one in awe as well as skeptical. 

What about their vocation as fishermen? What about all that they were leaving behind? Matthew’s version of calling the disciples feels sudden and there is a reason for it. Jesus’s call is direct, urgent, and encompassing. This is the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, we find him proclaiming that the reign of God has come near, there is no reason to beat around the bush: Jesus knows it is time to get to work. 

But also notice that in calling the four Jesus does not ask them to stop being fishermen or to boost their resumes. Instead Jesus calls them as they are. This call story is not just about dropping one’s nets to jump to another career, it is about exploration, growth, and examining one’s call. The disciples were not only fishermen, they were students, teachers, friends, community, and so much more. All of these aspects of their lives were within the call to discipleship and part of their vocation. We hear this as Jesus goes throughout Galilee doing multiple things: teaching, proclaiming, and healing everywhere. 

As the Gospel continues and Jesus moves between communities, we see that these fishermen disciples realize that their calling means one’s occupation as well as their relationships, their context, and the way that they experience the world. 

What would it mean for our own lives if we lived them out in the same way?

When we enter into the waters of Baptism we are told that we walk with one another holding the “spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy.” That is how each and every one of you are called. You would not only think about this while at your occupation, but in all aspects of your life. 

This is not me saying you need to take on more, but asking what if we thought about vocation and calls to discipleship in a way that was encompassing. That your vocation does not drop and picks up as something completely new, but shifts as we grow. That the way you earn money is a vocation as well as your vocation in parenting. Or the vocation of being a student, being a mentor, being a friend. 

Our Triune God calls out to you to follow.

To live out your vocational calling in your jobs, families, friendships, and everything in between. Teaching one another about love. Proclaiming where you see God within one another. Working as a community and individuals to bring healing and mending places within each other. Peace, justice, and caring for the neighbor are not calls that are saved for people who need to meet the discipleship benchmark. But one that we are all called to as Children of God. 

So I ask again, what do you want to be when you grow up?

What ways do you see God in your life? Where do you feel God calling, “come! Follow me!,” I will guide you in loving your neighbor, connecting with someone who needs a friend, or caring for one another. We know from the journeys and stories of the disciples that even when four of them were called in the same way, their call to discipleship took so many different forms that were all important as the reign of God comes near. And even when we do not know what that vocation looks like or struggle to hear God, we know that God calls us to life. Life in community, life that loves one another, and life even after our time is done here. 

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

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Second Sunday after Epiphany 
Texts: Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 40:1-11, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, and John 1:29-42

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What are you looking for?

It is a common occurrence  in our Seattle home for me to be standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and my wife to be asking, “What are you looking for?”

More often than not, my response will be something like, “I’m not sure, but I’ll know it when I see it.”

It is not unusual for this play to have a second act, when the fridge has been frustratingly slammed shut and I find myself now standing in front of the pantry.

I don’t think this is an uncommon scenario. Whether it’s played out grazing in the kitchen, clicking through channels and live streams on TV, surfing on the Internet, scrolling through FaceBook or other social media, we seem to be always on the prowl. At least I do. I am looking for something.  I’m not sure what.

Jesus wastes no time as his ministry begins in John’s Gospel to zero in.  What are you looking for? As a matter of fact, these are the first words he speaks in John’s account. Christ wants to know our hunger. Christ longs to slake our thirsts. Christ is eternally interested in us. Beloved ones: what are you looking for?

Flummoxed, as we might be, the disciples answer Jesus’ question with a question. And at first, “where are you staying?” might seem shallow, even a sort of stalling tactic, perhaps. But they are not asking for a street address and zip code, but rather a declaration of identity. Who ARE you, Jesus? What makes you tick? If I choose to lay down the remote, or close the refrigerator door, or stop googling through endless pages, what might I expect to find in YOU?

Come and see. What are you looking for? Come and see

There can be no mistaking that John is laying the foundation in this opening chapter that sets up his Gospel as the story of the New Creation. From “in the beginning was the Word” in the sweeping prologue to this seven-day intro to the spirit blowing over the wedding waters about to become wine as chapter 2 opens, Jesus is identified as the one who will make all things new. By Gospel’s end, and in the most unexpected means, by his own crucifixion, he will seal it, just as the first creation was sealed: “It is finished.”

Into our Gospel journey, this path through noise and silence, this way of daily give and take, Jesus invites those who are looking. “Come and see” Jesus says to the first ones gathered around him, and he says it to us in our looking.  Here.  Today. “Come and see.”

Come and see. Come and taste new wine, join the ranks of those born again, quench your thirst with living water, catch a glimpse and promise of one you love be raised from the stench of the grave, know that this Lamb of God is the one, the only one, who can truly, eternally satisfy you, and goes ahead to prepare a place for you.

But know also that the winding path we make with Jesus, with those who also make the pilgrimage and sojourn by his side, will end up at the foot of the cross.  Even today – even this very day! – you will come to the foot of the cross to feast on a body that is broken, a cup that is poured out. For it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

From the get-go, Jesus knew that this would be a journey we could never make alone. And so, by the grace of God we are washed together in the same waters, fed and nourished on the same loaf, drinking from the one cup. Look around you. These are the ones with whom Christ calls each of us to be a light to the nations. These are the ones Christ calls each of us to work tirelessly with for peace and justice for every single child God has created.

It is too light a thing that we would do this for ourselves only. We are called to work together to bring this love story to the ends of the earth. It is mighty, holy work, and the Divine, Eternal Lover will sustain us every step of our way into the New Creation.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Paul E. Hoffman

The Baptism of Our Lord, Year A
Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17 

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Luther so beautifully teaches us, baptism is not water only, but water used according to God’s command, and connected with God’s Word

And with equal beauty and power, Matthew sets out the story of Jesus’ life lived in love for others with that connection of water and Word, in the River Jordan, at the hand of John.

Do you see this powerful intersection of those immeasurable gifts in this story? Water and Word. As Jesus come UP from the water, the Word comes down from heaven.

It is not an unusual pair for our Creator to pull from the Goldy toolbox…

Crashing waters/paired with the thundering Word at Creation
Flooding waters/paired with Noah’s obedience to the Word
Parting waters/paired with the Word at the parting Red Sea
The waters of birth, bringing the Living Word into our own flesh
Cleansing waters/paired with the Word at the Jordan
Purifying waters at the Word of Christ turned to life-giving wine
Healing water, with the spoken word of Jesus, saying to
the Samaritan woman, “I see you…”
By no means the last example, saving waters flowing from the
pierced side of the Crucified, Incarnate Word.

Wasn’t it Coleridge who said,
Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink?

And therein lies our problem. There is water everywhere in our sacred Scriptures. There is likewise never a paucity of the Word. With beauty and power our forebears, St. Matthew, Luther, and a host of saints more recent implore us to dive in to this soothing grace of God in Christ for us. And yet we choose instead that which does not satisfy. The very next line in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner summarizes our self-inflicted plight: The very deep did rot, O Christ/that ever this should be.

Just so, our Creator’s heart breaks as we turn away from these precious, life-giving gifts: Water and Word. Water and Word. Water and Word.

It is not for his own washing and regeneration that Christ comes John at the Jordan. Maximus of Turin, preaching in the 5th Century makes that clear for us. Listen to what he says:
It was not so that Jesus would be made holy by the water, but that the water by Jesus would be made holy.

When those cleansing waters closed around the one foretold, they are not doing so to get Jesus all shined up and ready for his own human walk of daily dying and rising. They are instead to join the waters of the world with the Word and begin the initiation of God’s New Creation. This baptism of his is the beginning of our baptismal hope.

All water for all time. The water running over the body of Jesus, then down the Jordan, into the ocean, evaporated back up into the clouds, watering the earth, flowing in the oceans, creeks, rivers, and sounds. And eventually out of our faucets and quenching, washing us. The water in which we are immersed is immersed with Jesus. The water with which you were sprinkled just today, is water that was sprinkled from John’s hand over the head, the hands, the feet of Jesus. It is holy water. Holy, holy water.

In nothing less than an act of pure, unmitigated, love and grace, God surrounds us with that holy, holy water as a daily reminder. 60% of our bodies – water. 71% of our bodies – water. 85% of a bottle of wine – water. We come into this life in a rush of water, and loving, tender hands wash us with it at our life’s end.

Because of Jesus’ immersion, not water only, but water connected with God’s Word follows us everywhere. Even when our own following fumbles, or flounders or just plain fails. No richer grace than our God’s so mercifully tends us.

On our worst days, when we are as a broken reed, God will not break us. When the wick is burning dimly, God will water us anew, rather than snuff us out.

The water. And the Word. The same water and Word who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from him. That same water, that same Word is with us. Is with you. Given for you. Shed for you. Rejoice and be glad. Thanks be to God.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.