Sermon on Acts 16:9-15

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

In one of Disney’s newest animated films, Encanto, there’s a Colombian family that has miraculous gifts that they share with their community.

One of the characters Luisa has super strength, and she fixes all kinds of problems around the village, from moving pallets of bricks to collecting a bunch of escaped donkeys (at the same time).

But, her younger sister, Mirabel, realizes that Luisa is having a hard time beneath her tough exterior. A twitching eye betrays the pressure Luisa is holding in.

Luisa explains in her song, “Surface Pressure,” that though she

“take[s] what [she’s] handed, [she] break[s] what’s demanded,” but “under the surface / [she] feel[s] berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus.”

She’s been trying to keep up with all the demands on her time and energy and look completely unfazed. She’s trying to serve everyone, and she’s burning herself out in the process.

Burnout has been a popular topic over the past few years. It’s been a problem for a long time and got its current name in 1973.[1]

A few years later, Christina Maslach, a social psychologist at UC Berkeley, defined burnout as “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who do ‘people work’ of some kind.”

The understanding of burnout has expanded at least in everyday speech to applying to people in any form of work, including parenting and really, just living, especially during a global pandemic.

We don’t know in our reading from Acts whether Paul and Silas were burned out, but they had been going through a tough time. The Holy Spirit kept steering them away from places they wanted to go. And then, finally, Paul has a dream about someone from Macedonia asking him for help.

Finally! Some sense of direction!

So he and Silas make their way to Macedonia, to the city of Philippi. And then, they spend several days there apparently without anything noteworthy happening.

Then, on the Sabbath, they start talking to a group of women at a place where people gathered for prayer.

And one person listens to them: Lydia, a cloth merchant living far from where she’s from.

She’s not only open to their stories about Jesus, but she and her whole household get baptized.

Then, she invites Paul and Silas to stay with her. She offers them hospitality.

None of them know that very soon Paul and Silas will be arrested. Their tough times are about to get tougher.

And when they’re released, they will go and stay with Lydia again.

They need this respite—and they may not realize how much they need it yet.

And they need this connection with Lydia, who will provide respite and safety again.

Paul and Silas have been doing the important work of traveling and spreading the good news about Jesus, and raising up and encouraging leaders and communities of Jesus followers. And after being steered away from plan after plan by the Holy Spirit, they need relief.

And Lydia has eagerly listened to them and been energized by their stories of Jesus. She offers what she has to give—a generous gift of hospitality to these weary travelers.

Where are you right now?

Do you resonate with Paul and Silas? Do you feel like every door is being shut? Do you resonate with Luisa? Are you weary, burned out, taking on tasks you’re too tired for, not realizing you need rest?

Or perhaps do you resonate more with Lydia? Are you finding energy in some area of your life? Is there something new in your life that you’re excited about?

Sometimes God calls us into offering hospitality.

Sometimes God sees that we need hospitality and offers it to us through other people.

In the wake of racist and politically-motivated shootings in Buffalo, NY, and in Laguna Woods—so close to us and in a church, no less—

In the wake of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine—

In the wake of this seemingly never-ending pandemic—

Not to mention the many other painful and difficult things in the world around us and in our own lives—

Burnout is understandable.

We need rest—not just sleep, but many types of rest, including the type of renewal and connection that comes from story and hospitality.

If we pause and look around us, we might see ways God is offering us hospitality in ways we weren’t expecting. But if we don’t want to miss out on it, we have to pause.

Our story from Acts shows us an example of Jesus followers coming together, supporting each other, offering each other what they had to give and receiving those gifts in return.

And in Encanto, Luisa finds a balance between working hard using her gift of strength and taking time to rest and renew.

The whole family, in fact, discovers that they don’t have to do it alone. The family experiences a difficult time—(spoiler alert) their house literally comes crashing down around them. They lean on each other to rebuild, and then, the whole town comes to help them, too. The family has helped the town with their miraculous gifts, and then the town bears them up when they need it most. It’s a beautiful image of community, connection, and shared strength.

And that is what God invites us to. Of course, God is always with us, strengthening us along the way. But God does not expect us to do it alone. God provides community, like this one, for us to lean on.

Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski, the authors of the book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, were on a podcast I was listening to a while back, and they said, “if there’s anything we learned in the process of writing the book, it is that the cure for burnout isn’t and can’t be self-care, it has to be all of us caring for each other.”

There is, of course, more nuance to the concept, but for the purpose of what we’re talking about today, these two have literally written the book on burnout, and they say we can’t fix ourselves on our own. We need the support of others.

Paul and Silas found shelter and safety in Lydia’s hospitality in this story and upcoming ones.

Luisa needed the support of her family to finally give herself permission to rest. And her whole family needed to learn to lean on each other and accept the help of the entire town.

Whether you’re in a season where you can offer hospitality and support or you’re in a season where you need hospitality and support, pause.

See what opportunities are around you.

What do you need right now?

What do you have to offer?

Who around you might need connection too?

Beloved children of God, you are not meant to do this alone.

We are in this together.

Let’s learn to ask for what we need, accept the generosity of others, offer what we have to give, and lean on each other.

May God and this community be with you.

[1]https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/24/burnout-modern-affliction-or-human-condition

Contagion

Pr. Jasmine Waring

May 15, 2022

As my seminary journey comes to an end, I’m reflecting on what a unique and challenging experience it has been going to school full-time, interning part-time, and trying to live a normal life through a pandemic. Much of my seminary and internship experience has been defined by COVID-19, for better or for worse. My professors and supervisors have adapted the curriculum to accommodate and learn from this strange experience. One unexpected resource I found was the Book of Leviticus. The Book of Leviticus is of course everyone’s favorite book of the Bible. This book is an instruction manual for priests, which teaches priests in training how to perform rituals and keep the Law. Some of the instructions found in Leviticus are actually pretty relevant today. Leviticus 13 give instructions on how to diagnose a serious and contagious skin disease and requires those effected to quarantine for seven days. They are also required to wash all of their clothes, their body, and their home after they are healed, along with a sacrifice and purification ritual. Don’t worry, I won’t be performing any sacrifices or purification rituals today! The Torah, or the Law of Moses, which contains Leviticus, is as practical as it is spiritual. It is often misunderstood by modern day Christians. The purity and holiness laws have been misinterpreted by Christians as a judgement on personal morality. We have come to believe that purity is holiness, when in fact they are two separate categories. Purity is manageable. You can become ritually unclean through everyday activities such as being in contact is a dead person or bodily fluids, but there was a process you can go through to be clean again. Although those activities were morally neutral, there were also moral transgressions that would make you unclean, but there was also a process to become clean or right-standing again. Purity was preparation to encounter the holy. Holiness means to be set apart, it is transcendent otherness. The opposite of holiness is profane, simply common, or ordinary, which is not a moral failing. Only God is holy, but God can sanctify, or extend holiness to people, places, and things. If something is holy, then it belongs to God’s holy realm. The reason why ancient Judaism was so concerned about purity/impurity and the holy/ common is because the Torah is a gift from God that brings eternal life. It protects God’s people from the forces of Death. Death was almost contagious, it can infect any part of life and make us unclean. Blood however, was believed to be the source of life, or one’s life-force, and it had the ability to purge sin and the forces of Death. The rituals and commands in Torah helped manage sin and the forces of Death so that the Israelites can be in community with a Holy God. Its very common Christian belief that Jesus didn’t really follow these rules. When we read about Jesus’ healing ministry and how he was touching leapers, dead bodies, a woman with a bleeding issue, and a demon-possessed man living in a graveyard. It is very easy to jump to the conclusion that Jesus came to destroy the Law and get away from “religion” and villainize the Pharisees. These beliefs are anti-semitic, and it is something that I have had to repent from because I didn’t know better. Jesus was devoutly Jewish and faithfully kept Torah. In fact, there is a lot of evidence in the Bible that affirms that Jesus was a Pharisee. Pharisees were reformers! They were the movement that has led to modern day Judaism and Christianity. The conflict Jesus had with other Pharisees was in-group, not pointing his finger in judgement of a different religious group. So when Jesus was seemingly crossing ritual purity lines in his healing ministry, he was not violating the Law. In Christ’s divinity, he was extending holiness. Just like how in Leviticus, the blood in cleansing rituals was used to purge impurities, Christ became a contagion of holiness and blasts away the forces of sin and Death. Whenever anyone came in contact with him, even touching the hem of his garment he was infecting them with holiness. More specifically, Christ extended holiness to the margins of society: widows, orphans, disabled, poor, and sick. In his humanity, Jesus’ blood was shed on a cross, and his life force came into contact with Death, making even Death holy. In the moment when Jesus cried, “It is finished” Death lost its sting when it became infected with God’s holiness. So when we look at our reading today, we see Peter was caught up in a mystical experience that challenged his beliefs and tradition. He saw various animals that were both clean (Kosher) and unclean being lowered by a sheet, and a voice told him to have a snack. He gives a very pious answer, saying that he has never eaten anything profane or unclean. But then the voice replies, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane”. The Holy Spirit is at work within Peter, questioning everything he’s been taught, and it’s causing him to interrogate his tradition. To make matters worse, Jesus isn’t there in the flesh to answer his questions for him! But then Peter’s mystical existential experience became an incarnated reality. He was faced with a choice: To follow his tradition, or follow the voice and include gentiles into the community of God. Peter follows the voice as he is led to the home of gentiles, and the Holy Spirit fell upon them just like She did at Pentecost, and he is reminded of John the Baptist’s words about baptism. Holiness was being extended to the gentiles! Now Peter must take this mystical and embodied experienced back to his faith community, and explain what God is doing. Of course there was push-back, because sometimes God’s holiness extends to uncomfortable and scandalous places. There was a lot of in-group arguing, and probably some biases needed to be checked, and scriptures revisited…but they could not deny what the Holy Spirit was doing. Who were they to hinder what God was doing? Christ is a contagion of holiness, who confronts our experiences, causes us to lovingly critique our traditions, and look at scripture with new eyes. Who or what are you calling profane, that God has made clean? There is so much in-group fighting within Christianity, and even in Lutheranism (believe it or not). Gun control, abortion, transgender healthcare, white supremacy…who is Christ extending holiness to in these spaces? Perhaps you are the one being marginalized and feel unclean or common, even profane. May you receive the life-force of Christ in the wine May you honor your embodied experience in the bread And may you be infected by Christ’s holiness, because you belong in God’s holy realm. Amen

Sermon on John 10:1-30

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

“How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Just looking at this story, it might sound like there are some Jewish people at the Temple who are curious about Jesus and want to remove their doubts about him.
In this case, and pretty much whenever the Gospel of John talks about
“the Jews,” it means the Jewish religious authorities—the Pharisees, the scribes, the elders.

And again, it might sound like these religious leaders are earnestly asking Jesus to confirm his identity so that they can believe in him.

If that’s the case, then Jesus’ response sounds pretty harsh: “you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”

It might sound like they’re dealing with doubts and that Jesus is being downright mean.

Doubt has kind of a bad reputation in church.

Sometimes we get the message that to be secure in our faith, to be “good” Christians, we have to know all the answers, we can’t have questions, and we can’t wonder if things we’ve been taught aren’t true or aren’t the whole story.

So, sometimes we slap a smile on our faces, answer every “how are you?” with “fine!” and swallow the questions that are sticking in our throats.

We think:

·        Maybe if we have doubts, it means our faith isn’t strong enough.

·        Maybe if we ask too many questions, people will wonder if we’re really “Christian enough.”

·        Maybe if we’re honest about our misgivings, God might say to us, “you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”

That’s a heavy and terrifying load to bear.

But we can find examples of doubt from Jesus’ own disciples in the Easter stories.

Jesus’ disciples hid after Jesus’ death. They were afraid of suffering the same fate as Jesus if the authorities found them.

Then, Jesus appears to them—all except poor Thomas.

Thomas missed out on seeing Jesus and was so grief-stricken that he couldn’t muster enough hope to believe his friends when they told him they had seen Jesus. He told them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)

And thus, he got the reputation of being “Doubting Thomas.”

But, Jesus made a special appearance again to the disciples, not to tell Thomas, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. ”No. Jesus made a special appearance to the disciples just so that Thomas could touch him.

And then, there’s Peter.

·        Peter, who denied not just being a follower of Jesus, but denied knowing him at all.

·        Peter, who did this not just once, but three times in a single night.

·        Peter, who swore up and down that he would die for Jesus.

When the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples on the beach in last week’s Gospel reading, he didn’t tell Peter, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.”

No. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him, giving Peter the chance to tell him, “Yes, I love you.” Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to make amends for what he had done, and together, they repaired their relationship.

Jesus’ own disciples show us that there is room in our faith tradition for doubt. Our doubts do not disqualify us

·        from following Jesus,

·        from being in relationship with the Holy Spirit,

·        or from being loved by our loving Shepherd who is Father, Mother, and so much more to us.

So, why did Jesus tell the religious leaders, “You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep”?

Their request doesn’t sound that different from the doubts of Thomas or Peter: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

But what looks like doubt in this story at first glance is not doubt.

They were looking for proof, or more accurately, evidence.

The Pharisees, the scribes, the elders were invested in keeping their institution free of people like Jesus: a popular, but unconventional, rabbi who might start trouble. If we’re being charitable, we can say they wanted to protect the orthodoxy of their religious practice. If we’re being less charitable, we might say that they wanted to protect their power.

Either way, the religious leaders wanted a simple yes or no answer from Jesus about whether he was the Messiah. Not because they earnestly wanted to follow him if he said he was, but so that they could get him to either undermine his own authority or say something that would get him arrested.

And, as usual, Jesus wouldn’t play their games.

He wasn’t barring people with genuine curiosity from his sheepfold. He was making sure he’d be able to care for his sheep a bit longer.

And after his resurrection and he was preparing for his ascension, when he would no longer be physically present on earth with us, he made sure someone would be looking after his sheep.

Each time after Peter affirmed that he did love Jesus, Jesus told him: “Feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” and “feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Jesus was entrusting Peter, who in his fear and doubt had denied Jesus,—Jesus entrusted the care of his people to Peter, doubts, failings, and all.

Jesus didn’t give Peter a list of truths to affirm—a creed of beliefs to assent to. He simply asked Peter if he loved him. And then, he gave him the responsibility to care for others.

Just as Jesus told the religious authorities that they should have known he was the Messiah by looking at what he had been doing, Jesus gave his followers a charge to care for others—an act that would let people know they were followers of Jesus. He also, on the night before he died, instructed his disciples to love one another, because “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

Jesus was concerned with how people treated others, not whether they had doubts or questions.

So, if you have doubts or questions or frustrations about faith, you are in good company—with Peter and Thomas and me and so many of the Psalms and pretty much, if not absolutely, everybody who has ever tried to follow Jesus.

Doubting is faithful. It means we’re paying attention. It means we’re not settling for what we’re told. It means we’re thinking critically and that we’re curious. We don’t have questions about things that don’t matter to us.

One of my favorite writers, Madeleine L’Engle, had a lot of thoughts about doubt. Here is one:

“The value of doubt is to keep you open to God’s revelations. If you don’t doubt, you don’t change. You don’t ask questions. You stay stuck wherever you were. If you have to have finite answers to infinite questions, you’re not going to move… Faith is not reasonable. Faith is marvelous.”

May you be blessed and frustrated by infinite questions.

May you never succumb to easy answers.

May you rest in the company of so many other doubting saints and sinners, secure in the hands of our mysterious and loving Shepherd.