Living in the Spirit: The Kingdom

Pastor Michael Stadtmueller

Gospel Text: JOHN 18:33-37

³³Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” ³⁴Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” ³⁵Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” ³⁶Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” ³⁷Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Living in the Spirit: Led to Righteousness

Rev. Leta Arndt Behrens

Sermon Scripture: MARK 13:1-8

¹As [Jesus] came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” ²Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
³When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ⁴“Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” ⁵Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. ⁶Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. ⁷When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. ⁸For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.”

Sermon Text:

My son and I have very different perspectives on a few things in life–he might say more than a few, but I have time to bring him around to my ways on those things 🙂 One is that he hates surprises… and he is very difficult to surprise actually as he does his best to figure things out–he will say let’s play 20 questions so I can guess my birthday present! Or for Christmas he will send me a text with the EXACT link to the EXACT item that he wants and it is NEVER a good idea to deviate from that link. This is similar to our different perspectives on magic as well. Like surprises, John has always tried to figure out the magic. When he was little after he saw his first magic show he wanted to not just see more magic, but to BE the magician. He needed to figure out the tricks. And once he did we would be summoned to the living room to watch the show. He has never been distracted by illusion, but always willing to create that distraction and illusion for someone else.

Me, I am all good with surprises and magic. I have no problem with anyone giving me a gift that they thought of and took time to present at any time and I am perfectly thrilled with a party that I didn’t plan. I enjoy magic shows because they give them the opportunity to let go, sink into the illusion and let the magic happen. I don’t need to know how it’s done and I am completely gullible and will never figure out what the slight of hand was or who or what is being used to distract me from seeing the truth.

In the cases of surprises and magic, distraction is a gift and blessing. A way of letting go and being in the moment. There are other types of distraction that aren’t so helpful. For instance, I am actually easily distracted. Not because I can’t focus, I can focus quite well actually as long as the room temperature is correct, I have a cup of coffee, the sun is shining correctly through the window in a way that is pleasant and warming not directly in my eyes, and as long as no one interrupts me. Once I am taken away from a task or a focus I find it very difficult to find my way back–which is why, when writing a sermon for instance, it’s best if I am not in my office where Pr. Michael can open my door at any time 🙂

Jesus words today are ones that have this distracting potential to veer us off in the wrong direction where we may have trouble finding our way back to their heart, core and intention. The gospel text sounds like prophecy, prediction for disaster, the world is ending at any moment and you need to be ready or else. Our minds take off at the speed of light to our own newspapers, the situation of our own governments and those across the world, natural disasters, genocides and wars. We look towards the devastating fires in California, the executions of Christians or Muslims or Jews or other religious groups across the globe, the exit of Britain from the European Union, elections, campaigns, and wars over territory, races and faith and in light of this text we think–it’s a sign, the end is near, the world is about to turn in a  way that we are not so sure we want it to turn. It feels like stones are turning. It feels like nothing is sacred or permanent or lasting. Change swoops in and our grounding and foundations seem to begin to fall.

This doesn’t only happen in the big picture. It happens in the small one as well. We can get distracted by our work, laundry, a rumor, our bank account, the weather, a change in a place we love, and argument or miscommunication, or a loss of the way something is or the way we want it to be. We can get so caught up in fact, that we aren’t momentarily distracted or inconvenienced, but we are instead headed down a road of fear, anger, sadness, even self righteousness. And then it looks and feels and seems like some big stones are overturning and in our way.

A few years ago when this text was read in worship, Pr. Michael removed the altar from the sanctuary as a way to show that which we can see as permanent is not in fact what is lasting. This is what it was like for those who were living and worshiping and following Jesus at the time Mark was written. This text is not a prophecy, it is a story of a people and their experience. The temple had already in fact been destroyed. Their rabbis and religious leaders had been killed or sent to exile. The beauty of their place of worship and trade and gathering and the very HOME of God was gone. The stones of their foundation had fallen, turned over, and that was all their eyes could see and the people where there in a time and place where their grounding was shaky, even gone, and they had been stumbling over the stones that lay all around. It is very hard to find your way back from this kind of distraction. So like an altar being removed or an experience of not knowing where to see God, we are called to turn our gaze and look not for lasting permanence in anything other than God.

Jesus’ says–do not be alarmed. Do not be distracted or disillusioned. These things that are gone, they are not the true stones on which your life, your faith, your being and calling to the world are built. Through  me, God is here and will be here and while all of these things are as painful as birth, new life will come. The temple may be gone and you may be in exile, scattered, and full of fear–but God goes with you. God is not limited to a temple or a stone or an altar or way of worshipping or certain prayer or certainly not to one sermon 🙂 God’s promises is limitless and will not be broken.

See these were not words of doom and gloom to those who gathered in the aftermath of war. These are words of hope. Promise that new life is coming and springing up. I brought my little lime tree with me today as another point of reference. It got neglected in the early fall. I had great hope of it growing and springing forth life but it just looked dead, except one little piece of green at the bottom of the stem. So I put it in the sun and have given it water and little by little green has grown and leaves have sprouted and while what is above them looks dead, new life can and will come.

So it is with God. Jesus here beckons us to know that the happenings and turning of the world, the good and the bad,  are real but they are also not fully true. Even as we may find ourselves in a strange land or on shaky ground, it is true that even as the temple was not the heart of God’s work or way of being with the people neither are the foundations we create for ourselves. God went to be with the people in exile and God promises to come and be with us in ours. Living as people of faith is an act of bravery and daring in today’s world just as it was then. Jesus turns us back towards God, a God who has never and will never turn away from us. So our hope rests in this unchanging love of God and the permanence of this grace in the world. As our memory verse this month has guided us-Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness-we can turn our eyes over and over again to the promise of new life for all the places of pain and brokenness in our world where we walk together and that is where we will find our way back and see where the kingdom of God dwells.

Living in the Spirit: Commitment Sunday

Pastor Michael Stadtmueller

Sermon Text: MARK 12:38-44

³⁸As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴²A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Living in the Spirit: Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Rev. Leta Arndt Behrens

Sermon Scripture: MATTHEW 5:1-11

¹When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Children’s Sermon:

One of the ways we are blessed is by  having moments where we remember people even if we do not know them. Many people are going to light candles in today as a way to remember their loved ones. And even though we don’t know them all, we can remember too because they are saints who have lived before us and been a part of being God’s love in the world. These 11 candles I have here are for the people who died last week in a synagogue, a place where Jewish people worship. It is very sad and even though we do not know them, we want to remember their names today as a way for us to honor their lives and as a way to remember that we believe God is with them and us even when sad and difficult things happen. (Read names as candles are lit. Children repeated the names on their own.)

Those killed were Daniel Stein, Joyce Feinberg, Richard Gottfried,  Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger,

Sermon Text:

I am reading Anne Lamott’s book-Almost everything and one of her chapters begins with this: Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a little while. Including you.

This is a truth on so many levels–unplugging from technology yes. But there is also unplugging from thoughts or emotions that hold you back. Unplugging from responsibilities and mandates in your life, even briefly. Unplugging from your own expectations of yourself or those that others have from you. Unplugging from the messages of the world or that voices that try to turn us this way or that way until we are not sure which way makes sense any longer. Unplugging to allow your soul to rest, your mind to breathe, and your thoughts to slow down.

This unplugging is something we hope you can do in worship each week and today, All Saints, we take a bit of extra care to dwell on this time of pause and reflection. A pause to remember those we love who no longer walk with us or text us or call us or snuggle up on the couch next to us. And a pause to remember those new lives among us, those baptisms that help us remember the water that was washed over those who have died and that water that has washed over our own heads as well. As we read names and light candles we also pause to remember who we are and whose we are as we dwell in this space between life and death, between sinner and saint, between grief and hope.

Last week we celebrated the reformation–a day most often seen as the pinnacle day of the birthday of the Lutheran church in particular. And that’s true. And then today we come to All Saints day, where we get to the heart of it all because on this day we pause to remember the core of our theology- that God comes into the depths of struggle and reality and grief and pain and death and God stays there for awhile to hold our hands through it and then helps us remember there is more and death does not have the final say even when it looks or feels that way.

In our world today we stand as witnesses to a massacre at Tree of Life synagogue, to a marches for the rights of all human beings, to a line of immigrants moving north to escape violence and persecution to the interning of ashes for a boy killed for being gay Matthew Shepard’s in the National Cathedral. We also are witness to our own losses and pain, the reality of deep sadness and struggle. We witness these heartbreaks, these lives lost and lives seeking life in a world where we keep allowing death to come too early, death to infringe on how we love our neighbor here and now, death to have more power than resurrection.

We also, who are assembled in faith,  stand as witness to life. To how to live in the promise of God here and now, how to not dismiss the certainty of death and also witness to the power and promise of the resurrection here and now not just in eternal life to come. As Professor Karoline Lewis declares, We stand as witness to believing that loving our neighbors is not for the sake of eternal life but always because it is a means by which death is overcome here and now.

This is a day filled with truth that can be difficult to stand as witness to–that we live in a constant state of ‘in betweenness’. In Between the certainty of death and the certainty of the promise of life. In Between hearing the words of Jesus declaring blessings and the knowledge of living in a world where none of those things are lifted up as blessings. Which then makes it really easy for us to hear the words of Jesus as instructive, as mandate. Want to be blessed? Then have a pure heart, thirst for justice, mourn, and be meek. But these words are actually not written in an instructive form. As Jesus begins his sermon on the mount, he looks out at the people gathered around him and he simple describes them. He sees real lives with real broken hearts, real struggles, real persecution and says you.. You are blessed and loved by God. You, you are a gift and a blessing to this world. You I bless and send to be those that live in this “inbetween. “

It is not these words of blessing in which we need to unplug from. It is the words of death and destruction that creep and crawl their way into our lives each and every day that we need to release and come back to the truth of the blessing of the in between. Yes we are called to thirst for righteousness and justice, yes we are called to seek out a pure heart and to see those that mourn or who are meek or who face grief and death in any form as who and whose they truly are: Blessed as God’s child.

This blessing from Jesus is the truth of who we are and that is why it is imperative that we unplug from words of hate and fear and destruction. That we unplug from messages that paint people as an ‘other’. And as we unplug from those words, we are promised that the Holy Spirit never unplugs from us and continues to infuse us with the knowledge of hope and the promise of life in the inbetween. And so we can hear the words of Jesus as describing and pronouncing  blessing on us and on our world today. Blessed are you who come with grieving hearts. Blessed are you who come with deep joy. Blessed are you who walk in sickness of body or mind. Blessed are you who are barely holding on. Blessed are you who miss someone today and always. Blessed are you see the outcast as saint. Blessed are you who stand as witness to the truth, standing in the gap of life and death. Blessed are you as witnesses to the gospel news that God is here–in the middle, in the gaps and holes and in the midst of life. Rejoice then and be glad in the promise that you are loved sinner, made a saint, and the promise of life is here for you now.