Sermon on Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

You came on a great Sunday! We’re going to do a new missions program: a real, biblically-based model. We didn’t announce it in advance, because we didn’t want you to bring any extra clothes. And I hope none of you brought your wallets or purses today.

We’re going to put everyone’s name in a hat, pull out names in pairs, and send you on your way to spread the good news.

One pair will go over to Brea, one to Anaheim, one to La Habra, one to Buena Park…you get the idea.

When you get there, you’re going to knock on a door and see if someone will take you in. If they do, you’re going to stay with them for as long as they’ll have you. See you in a few weeks!

That all sounds good, right? Right?

Huh. You all don’t seem very keen on this idea.

That’s probably because what Jesus asks of his disciples is really vulnerable.

He’s taking away their safety nets, their sense of what to expect, even his very presence to lean on.

He’s removing everything they’re used to relying on: money, belongings, familiarity with the town they’re in, the knowledge and presence of their rabbi.

That’s probably why Jesus sent out only the twelve the first time, in the previous chapter—only his first and most committed students. We don’t hear how it went, but presumably that pilot program worked, since Jesus is sending out seventy people this time (or seventy-two, depending on the translation).

This time, we do hear how it went: the returning disciples are overjoyed! They were able to do things they never imagined.

And Jesus is happy for them but reminds them that their true reward is that their “names are written in heaven.”

That sounds like they got a one-way ticket to a place with clouds and harps and halos after they die, but whenever Jesus talks about “heaven” or the “kingdom of God,” he’s not just talking about a far-removed place in the sky for dead people. He’s talking about being part of God’s mission in the world now.

The Reign of God that is both now and not yet is indeed now, at least in part. Jesus sent out his disciples to live vulnerably in the Reign of God wherever they went
Jesus sends them in pairs, because the Reign of God is something we do together.

Jesus sends them out without money and without belongings so that they will depend on others’ hospitality and build connections.

Jesus tells them to stay with only one household per town so that they will deepen that connection and develop relationships and community.

Hospitality and relationships create the kinship of the Reign of God. Some people even drop the “g” in “Kingdom of God” and call it the “Kin-dom of God,” emphasizing the deep family relationships that God invites us into.

That is exactly what Jesus is creating here. You can’t stay in someone’s home for a long period of time without getting to know them. You can’t offer genuine hospitality without forming bonds with people. You can’t heal people without caring about them.

By sending his disciples out in this vulnerable way, Jesus is creating microcosms of the Kin-dom of God. 

When I was in high school, I went on a couple mission trips to Mexico. It wasn’t anywhere near as vulnerable a situation as Jesus sends his disciples into, but it was different from anything I had ever experienced.

We spent a long weekend building a home or two: one room on a foundation with one window and one door. And we put on a Vacation Bible School program for the kids in the area.

As I have grown in my understanding of the world and the history of missions throughout the centuries, my feelings about my participation in those mission trips have become complicated.

Our intentions were good: we wanted to help our neighbors who had fewer resources than we did, and we wanted to tell people that Jesus loves them.

But looking back, there’s a lot I don’t know. I don’t know what organization we were working with. I don’t know where our materials came from—were they bought near where we were building so that it would stimulate the local economy? Were we taking work away from local people (who honestly probably would have done the work a lot better than a high schooler who had little experience with hammers)? Were the kids in our VBS missing school so they could hang out with us?

This only scratches the surface of the potential ethical issues of our trips, and I don’t have answers for how much good versus harm we did on those weekends.

My feelings about those trips are complicated, but I do know how I was impacted by the experience.

I saw poverty that I had never seen before in real life. I saw families living in shacks made of old garage doors and tarps. I saw pits of burning garbage. I knew those things existed, and I knew this was far from the worst poverty in the world, but it was different seeing it in front of me.(And lest we congratulate ourselves for living in a nation with a better quality of living, I have since seen worse poverty on Skid Row in LA, much closer to home.)

And on one of those weekends,we were given hospitality like I had never before experienced.

One of the families we built a house for insisted on feeding us. It was hard to bear the knowledge of what this meal was probably costing them, but you can’t insult people by not accepting their hospitality.

So, we ate.

It was my first taste of mole—an amazing deep brown sauce with warm spices and incredible depth because it includes a bit of chocolate. It’s not sweet at all—just rich and flavorful. Served over chicken and rice, mole is so good!

The family that served us was so gracious. I am still humbled by their generosity and kindness. As we ate and laughed and tried to communicate with our less-than-satisfactory high school Spanish, any “us versus them” melted away. Their hospitality created kinship and, like Jesus’ 70 disciples, we experienced a microcosm of the Kin-dom of God.

Jesus tells his disciples not to rejoice that they could cast out demons, but that they are a part of the Reign of God.

Jesus invites us not to do things that we can be proud of but to be a part of the family of God that transcends culture, border, nationality, and language.

This week, look at your neighbors (which is everyone around you) and don’t wonder what you can do for them, but see if there is a way to connect and find that kinship that Jesus invites us into.

When you do, the Kin-dom of God has truly come near.

Sermon on Luke 8:26-39

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

“Please, Jesus, just leave. You’ve done enough damage here. Just go.”

Not exactly the response we expect Jesus to get.

And that’s not the only weird and surprising thing in this story.

To begin with, Jesus just decides one day to cross the lake with his disciples. On the other side of the lake is Gentile territory—this is the first time Jesus goes to Gentile territory in the Gospel of Luke. And it’s not easy to get there, because there’s a big storm that starts filling their boat with water. Fortunately, Jesus calms the storm. The disciples are so surprised that they start asking each other, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?”

Then, they reach the other side of the lake safely.

All is not well, however.

In the land of the Gerasenes, there is a man who lives in the graveyard, who cannot be held by chains, who walks around naked.

This guy walks up to Jesus—not exactly the ideal welcoming committee—and he starts yelling:

“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me!”

Jesus tries to cast out his demons, and the man only cries out louder.

Then, the demons ask Jesus if they can possess a nearby herd of pigs, and Jesus agrees.

I hope the demons didn’t pay their rent in advance, because their new living situation is short-lived: the pigs immediately run down the hill and into the lake.

The demons aren’t the only ones upset by this: the folks who were caring for the pigs go and tell everyone around what had happened. A whole crowd comes and sees the formerly demon-possessed man at Jesus’ feet—the posture of a disciple, a student—and they freak out and ask Jesus to move along.

There is more to this story than meets the eye. There is something wrong at the heart of the community. The man with the demons has been cut off from his neighbors. In that time, it was shameful—not for the man to be naked—but shameful to the community that did not give him anything to wear.[1] And he lives in a graveyard. He has no part in the life of the living around him, except when they try to chain him up.

Then, when he’s released from being tormented by the demons, the community prizes their livelihood over the wellbeing of one of their own. They don’t want Jesus around if he’s going to threaten their income, regardless of his healing ability and works of power.

And, what might not be obvious to our 21st century minds is that there is another character in this story: the Roman Empire.

The man with the demons says his name is “Legion,” which the Gospel explains as meaning“ many demons had entered him.” But “legion” didn’t just mean “a lot.” Legion was a specific term for “a unit of approximately six thousand Roman soldiers.”[2] This man’s body is occupied by a legion of demons, just as the land he lives in is occupied by the Roman Empire. Both are kept in check by violence and oppression.

Perhaps what the pig farmers are afraid of is not just losing their livelihood but incurring the wrath of Rome when they cannot feed the occupying armies.

There is something wrong at the heart of this community.

The occupying empire, as well as the occupying legion of demons, is threatening the wellbeing of the community.

Seven years and two days ago, something obliterated the wellbeing of a faith community in Charleston, South Carolina.

On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, a young white man walked into Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and joined the folks there for Bible study. He sat and listened through the whole Bible study, and then, during a prayer, he pulled out a gun and shot and killed nine of the twelve people there.

The attack was motivated by white supremacy.

And, lest we think that the problem is hundreds of miles away and has little to do with us, the shooter grew up in an ELCA congregation.

White supremacy insults the image of God in every person. It poisons people and allows them to believe that there are people who are not beloved children of God.

White supremacy is a demonic and sinful belief system that should have no place in our nation or in our denomination. But it does.

White supremacy is insidious. It’s not always so easy to identify as a Confederate flag or a Nazi swastika. It also seeps in in the form of a bad joke, a suspicious glance at someone who looks like they “don’t belong,” and any number of other sly ways. It comes in drops that we might not notice on a daily basis, because it’s a system that floods the world we live in. Those drops build up into storms of violence and hatred and disregard for the image of God in Black people and people of color.

When the image of God is forgotten in any person, just as the community in Jesus’ time had forgotten the humanity of the man with the demons, there is something wrong at the heart of that community.

But Jesus doesn’t leave us to our own devices, throwing his hands up in the air, declaring that our communities are too messed up to do anything about.

No, God has authority over death-dealing systems. Just before this, we saw Jesus calm a storm that had professional fishermen quaking in their sandals. His own followers were amazed: “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?”

Even his own disciples don’t have a good understanding yet of how powerful Jesus is.

But the demons occupying the man in our story do. They know exactly who Jesus is and beg him not to torment them. Demons aren’t really supposed to be the begging sort, but they know who they’re dealing with.

And then, the people who had been watching the pigs saw everything, and they told everyone about this powerful stranger. Granted, the reaction wasn’t exactly positive, but everyone there knew Jesus’ power. And they were so frightened that they asked him to leave them alone.

God has power over death-dealing systems like occupying forces and even white supremacy.

The most violent, destructive systems that exist in our world do not have power over God.

But in our story, Jesus does honor the people’s request for him to leave. He does not smite them or rain down fire on their town—he simply goes on his way.

But he doesn’t wipe the dust of their town off his sandals either. He, in fact, leaves someone very important behind to do God’s work.

The man who had been possessed begs to go with Jesus, to become one of his disciples and follow him wherever he goes. But Jesus tells him to stay there instead.

Jesus is not welcome where they are, but this man has roots in this place. And he has a story to tell about Jesus’ power and compassion. There is work to be done right where he is.

There is work to be done right where we are, too,

in dismantling white supremacy wherever we find it,

in instilling anti-racism in our denomination,

in creating the Beloved Community that God envisions.

There is work to be done right here, especially for those of us who are white.

Those of us who are white have learning, listening, advocating, repairing, and empowering to do. Start where you are, learn something new, listen to your Black siblings and siblings of color, do what you can while following their lead.

Now all of you children of God, take heart. Our God is powerful. Our God is a God of liberation.

God liberated the man in our story from the occupying forces inside him.

God equipped him to share the story of Jesus’ liberating power.

Where all is not well, there is work to be done, and Jesus equips us to do it.

Two days ago may have been the anniversary of the shooting of the Emanuel Nine, but today is also Juneteenth, a celebration of long-overdue freedom for the people who were enslaved in Texas at the end of the Civil War. And today is the anniversary of the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—a step in the direction of honoring the image of God in all people.

God created us all to be free, to be cherished, for our communities to be whole.

We are made in the image of God, and there is work to be done here to remind the world of that.

Let’s make sure the world knows what Paul wrote to the Galatians in today’s reading: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[3]

All of us are one in Christ Jesus. Thanks be to God! Amen.

[1]Nerds at Church podcast

[2]Judith Jones, Working Preacher: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12-3/commentary-on-luke-826-39-4

[3] Galatians 3:28

June 12, 2022

Holy Trinity Sunday

Romans 5:1-5Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Sermon

“A Great Hope”

Pastor Greg Ronning

Martin Luther loved Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  He writes, “This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel. It is well worth a Christian's while not only to memorize it word for word but also to occupy themselves with it daily, as though it were the daily bread of the soul. It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.”

And one of his favorite chapters in the book of Romans was chapter five, the source of today’s appointed epistle .From today’s reading, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” 

In this lesson we have some of the great themes of Luther’s theology; the gift of faith made possible by grace; Christ on the cross - revealing God’s unconditional love for the world; producing in us - a great hope!

In this “secular age” in which we live, hope has become a rare commodity.  Amid so much bad news, conflict and division, economic difficulties, and societal unrest; people are struggling to find hope in their everyday life.  Theologian Walter Taylor connects this loss of hope to our cultural loss of the transcendence of God. Simply put, we no longer expect or look for God to be present in our daily life, we no longer look to God for identity, meaning and purpose.

Instead, we look to the more imminent things, the things that we can see, the things we can grab hold of, the things that our society values and celebrates.  And eventually, inevitably, all these things disappoint us.  At some point we wake up and discover that all the stuff we have collected has no great meaning, and we wonder what import our careers, our hobbies, our relationships, and even our lives have. Taylor concludes, “What previously satisfied us, gave us a sense of solidity, seems not really to match up, not to deserve what we put into it.” Life without a sense of transcendence, life without a living connection to the presence of God; becomes a life without meaning and purpose, and thus a life without hope.

St. Paul begins the fifth chapter, the chapter that leads to a profound understanding of hope, by pointing to “faith.” 

The ironic thing about faith is that God has given all of us the capacity for faith.  To have faith is to trust, to have confidence, to rely, or to depend on “something. ”Ultimately, we all end up trusting and depending on “something ”The question is thus not about having faith but, where you place your faith? And I must confess, that even though I want to place all my faith in Christ, even though I am a believer; I struggle in this secular age and often misplace my faith in the things of this world. It’s so easy to put your faith in your money, your worldly identity, your heritage, your weapons, all the things we think make us more secure in this world, the concrete things that you can see and hold.  So it is that we must ask, in what do we really trust?

Paul reminds us that “faith” is connected to “peace.”  “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, …”  Peace is the result of faith, faith placed in the right things, the transcendent things of God.  Peace, that state of being in which you feel really good about who you are, the life you are living, - and the way that life - your time, talents, and treasures- intersects with the Kingdom of God making a difference in the world around you.  Peace is finding that place where your life’s unique passion impacts the world’s greatest needs. Peace happens when all that comes together in your life.  Peace is being in a right relationship with God, with your neighbor, and with creation.  St. Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  …  and the God of peace will be with you. ”If we don’t know and experience such a peace, perhaps our faith is being placed in the wrong things.

Paul continues in today’s reading from the fifth chapter of Romans, reminding us that “faith” and “peace” are connected back to “grace!”  “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; …”I’m reminded of the old hymn, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

The foundation of our great hope comes from “grace. ”Grace declares that God loves us because God loves us.  Paul proclaims later in chapter five that God died for us while we were yet sinners, reminding us that our identity as the beloved children of God is not based upon our ability to somehow be righteous, to somehow fulfill the lofty expectations of the law, to somehow earn the love of God.  No, grace is freely given, a gift of love. 

And this is the foundation of our great hope.  In the eighth chapter of Romans Paul gets really excited about this love, the amazing grace of God. He writes, “If God is for us, who is against us?”  “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ”Great hope belongs to those who know they are loved by “a great love. ”So it is, that we are a people of faith, overflowing with that peace which surpasses all understanding, standing on the solid rock of grace, and filled with “a great hope.”

And this hope is very real, it’s not just the kind of hope that belongs only to the promises of heaven, but a hope that transcends with the God that is transcendent! Paul continues in today’s reading, “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ”A great hope is one that is present even in our sufferings and our struggles.

Lutheran Theologian David Lose writes, “If God’s greatest revelation was made manifest in and through the struggle and suffering of a man hung on a tree, (Christ on the cross) then what suffering of ours can ever truly be God-forsaken. Hence, God promises to be with us amid suffering, and even work through that to build character and endurance and increase our capacity for hope”.

I was always taught that Christ is most profoundly present in the suffering of this world, in that place on the cross where heaven intersects with earth.  That’s where the love of God is revealed.  So it is, that God’s love for you is most intimately revealed to you in the midst of your pain and struggles. And so it is that we are called to live out the love of God in the midst of our neighbor’s pain and struggles. In our ordinary everyday life, in the many ways it is lived out; in our work, in our hobbies, in our volunteerism, in our relationships; the transcendent love of God – in, with, and through us - gives us meaning and purpose – creating hope. So it is that “a great hope” becomes alive in the midst of what seems like “a great hopelessness.”  Hope transcends and transforms!

Lose concludes, “Paul invites us into “a lot of hope” by tying our suffering to Jesus’ own and inviting us thereby to recognize God’s presence not only in the distant heavens but also, and even more, in the daily struggles of our lives, trusting – promising! – that this kind of hope does not disappoint.”

 On this Holy Trinity Sunday, may the peace of God, the grace of Christ, and the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, our faith in the living triune God; produce in us “a great hope,” a great hope for our own life, a great hope for our neighbor, and a great hope for all of creation. Amen.