Lent Sermon on Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

There’s always some irony in reading this passage from the Gospel of Matthew on Ash Wednesday. Jesus encourages us not to show off our spiritual practices but to let them be just between us and God:

Give anonymously, pray privately, fast inconspicuously.

And we read this passage on the one day of the year when we do a spiritual ritual that involves something visible on our foreheads. It’s one of the few days of the year when our faith tradition is most conspicuous—written on our bodies.

Likewise, there’s some irony in Ash Wednesday falling on Valentine’s Day this year. One of our most solemn and somber holy days falls on the day our culture celebrates romantic love.

Our mortality and our sentimentality coexist this year.

But there’s also something fitting about all these contradictions and strange pairings. Because all of it is about relationships.

In our Gospel reading, Jesus teaches us how to relate to God. This isn’t about salvation; Jesus has already taken care of that. God loves us forever and nothing we can do will make God love us any more or any less.

And,now that God has given us that gift, we get to respond. In our reading, Jesus teaches us a way to respond to God’s amazing grace. How we respond by learning about God, delighting in God, and thanking God is called “discipleship:”being a lifelong learner about our grace-filled God. That’s what our reading is about.

Jesus teaches us that discipleship isn’tabout being holier-than-thou with our neighbors. It’s not about making sure we get a pat on the back from our colleagues or making our rivals jealous of how our bodies look after restricting what we eat and calling it fasting. It’s not about how we’re perceived by others. It’s about quality time with God.

This is where there’s some overlap with Valentine’s Day. If I take my spouse out on an elaborate date tonight just so I can post it on social media and make people jealous but I’m not actually doing it out of care, regard, and love for my spouse, that’s going to be pretty obvious to him, and that’s not going to earn me any brownie points. My performance of love is not the same as love.

It's the same as discipleship. Performative discipleship that makes me feel holy and better than other people is not discipleship.

So, let’s set aside some of our expectations of what Lent “should” look like.Let’s let this season be about relationship instead of restriction orshame.

This is all between you and God. You and God get to decide what’s right for you in this season. I have suggestions, but feel free to disregard any of them that don’t feel right.

Feel free to try something new. Do you normally give something up? Try taking something on instead. Or vice versa.

This year at First Lutheran, we’ve been exploring the theme of Sabbath. If you’re inclined to take on a Lenten discipline this year, I encourage you to try different restful practices. See what they do for your well-being and the way you notice God in your life.

Are you feeling physically tired? Maybe finding time for a nap or some meditation or taking time to rub lotion into your tired hands and feet before bed would be helpful.

Are you feeling mentally tired? Maybe do something methodical like doodling while listening to relaxing music or taking a walk.

Are you feeling emotionally tired? Can you call a friend once a week as your Lenten discipline? Or maybe journal for 10 minutes a day as prayer?

Are you feeling spiritually tired? What would it look like to read scripture in a different way? Do you normally read small chunks? Maybe try reading more at a time. Or if you normally read quite a bit, try reading a single verse over and over. Or try a spiritual practice you don’t frequently do:light a candle, pray for your neighborhood on a walk, pray out loud or silently or write it down or draw your prayer.

There are so many options. If you’re having trouble choosing, talk to me—I’d love to brainstorm with you.

My hope is that you’ll find what works and doesn’t work for you, what helps you notice God more and what distracts you from God.

This Lent, how can you slow down and notice how God is working in your life?

Our powerful God created the whole universe and then rested.

God provided for God’s people in the wilderness so they could rest.

God included restful practices in the Law so that God’s people would rest and remember that their freedom came from God.

God in Jesus took time apart from the crowds to rest and pray.

God invites you, too, to rest and to enjoy God’s company.

On this day when we remember both love and mortality, let’s remember to use the time we’ve been given well. Let’s use it for love. I’m going to borrow poet Mary Oliver’s words and ask, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Sermon on Mark 9:2-9

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

The Transfiguration is, in my opinion, one of the weirdest stories in the Gospels—maybe in the whole Bible. We’ve got Jesus lit up like a glow stick, long-dead ancestors in faith, a supernatural cloud and a voice from heaven. And then all of it goes away as quickly as it happened. It’s no wonder Peter, James, and John were a little overwhelmed.

But let’s start at the beginning. Our reading opens with the words, “six days later.” Whenever we see a context clue like that, it’s worth reading back a little to see what it’s talking about.

In this case, Jesus had been walking around with his disciples, and he asked them about what people were saying about him and then what the disciples said about him. Peter had his glorious moment and said, “You are the Messiah.” If Peter felt half as good as I feel when I give the right answer when called on in class, he must have been feeling amazing.

That is, until Jesus started telling his disciples that he would suffer and die and rise again. Peter, perhaps emboldened by his correct insight, wasn’t having it. And Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Ouch.

Jesus then went on to address his followers with a teaching about denying oneself and taking up one’s cross to follow him.

Our reading today begins six days after these conversations.

Poor Peter never did anything in moderation. He went from correctly and reverently naming Jesus’ identity to getting scolded for trying to derail his mission.

Maybe getting invited, along with James and John, to go on a hike up a mountain with Jesus took a little of the sting away. Or maybe it felt like getting marched to the principal’s office.

When they made it to the top, we could perhaps say “all heaven broke loose.” Jesus started glowing and had a conversation with Moses and Elijah. I wonder if Peter, James, and John thought the air was a little thin up there and they were hallucinating.

They, understandably, started freaking out. It says, “[Peter] did not know what to say, for they were terrified.” But, instead of saying nothing, Peter blurted out, “’Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’”

And yet again, poor Peter got scolded—this time by a suddenly-appearing cloud and a heavenly voice. “’This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’” This echoes what the heavenly voice said at Jesus’ baptism, but instead of talking to Jesus, saying “you are,” this time the voice spoke to the disciples, saying “this is my Son, the Beloved.”

And then, everything suddenly went back to normal. They went back down the mountain, and Jesus swore them to secrecy until after he had died and risen again.

Like I said: weird story.

But what stuck out to me this time, in light of our Sabbath theme, was Peter’s anxiety.

Poor Peter just couldn’t contain his anxiety about what was going on in front of him. He couldn’t just stand there and watch—he needed to do something.

So, he makes up a job for himself. “Let me set up some tents for you!”

But in doing so, he’s deciding how Jesus should be honored, when instead God’s voice says, “listen to him.”

Instead of taking in this amazing conversation and being awed by everything he’s witnessing, Peter makes the experience about “doing” instead of “being.”

Peter would miss out on a once-in-history event if he went foraging for materials to make tents.

What God asks instead is that Peter and James and John listen to Jesus instead of guessing what he would like from them.

How often do we guess what God wants from us instead of slowing down and listening to God?

We read last week about Jesus taking some time by himself to pray and coming away with a fresh understanding of the next steps toward his mission. Maybe Peter and James and John needed to follow Jesus’ example.

And maybe we do, too.

Most of us won’t experience a “mountaintop” encounter with God as dramatic as the one in our story.

But as we end this season after Epiphany, when God made Godself known in Jesus, what if we expect to experience God in our daily lives? How would we move through our day differently? Would we slow down and pay more attention? Would we look with extra kindness at the people we encounter if we expect to see Jesus reflected in their eyes? Would we treat the sunset like the gift from God it is?

I heard about an artist who set up an event space outdoors with a red carpet and chairs. People lined up and took their seats… and then watched the sun set.

If we had to buy a ticket and get dressed up, we might pay more attention to the sunset. If it only happened once a year, we would clear our calendars. If it only happened once a generation, we would take vacation time and travel to a mountain peak to watch that breathtaking moment. But we forget the beauty that is around us every day. It becomes commonplace.

Sometimes, just changing the way we perceive something—like having a red carpet for a sunset—can help us appreciate it and the One who created it.

And sometimes, like Peter, our urge to do something instead of just soaking it in can cause us to miss out on the wonders of the universe we live in.

One of my favorite movies is Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium about a magical toy shop and its quirky owner. At one point, he and his assistant are waiting 37 seconds before something is going to happen.

The assistant says, “Now we wait.”

And Mr. Magorium responds, “No. We breathe. We pulse. We regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. 37 seconds, well used, is a lifetime.”

We can’t actually appreciate every single second of our lives. We would probably crumple under the pressure of paying that close attention.

But,what if we tried to be 1% more attentive today to the world around us? What if we opened ourselves to awe just the tiniest bit?

It could change our lives. It could change the world.

And it doesn’t require doing anything. In fact, quite the opposite: it requires not doing.

As we transition from learning about Sabbath this season to practicing Sabbath rest during Lent, don’t let doing get in the way of being. Listen to Jesus, the Beloved. Let yourself be moved by awe.

Pause, notice, wonder, and be in awe of our beautiful Savior.

Sermon on Mark 1:29-39

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

So far this year, we’ve explored what Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus have to say about Sabbath.

Today, we’re going back to the suggested scriptures for the day and back to the Gospel of Mark, and we’re going to see what Jesus’ life says to us about Sabbath and rest.

It’s still really early in Jesus’ ministry, but he’s done a lot, as the action-lacked Gospel of Mark reminds us. He’s gotten baptized, spent time in the wilderness, and called some disciples. Right before our reading today begins, Jesus was preaching at a synagogue on the Sabbath, and he cast a demon out of a man.

In this reading, we see Jesus’ ministry expanding from the personal to the local to the larger surrounding area.

After the service at the synagogue, Jesus went with his disciples to Simon and Andrew’s home, where Simon’s mother-in-law was sick with a fever. It says, “He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”

Now, it’s easy to get cynical about a woman who’s just been ill immediately getting up and serving men. And that’s a valid reading.

But I find a more charitable reading empowering. First of all, the language of Jesus taking her by the hand and lifting her up is just beautiful.

Then, the word for serve is the same that’s used to describe the angels caring for Jesus in the wilderness just a few verses before. And also, that same word is where we get our word “deacon”—ministers who are known for service. We can read her as the first deacon. I wonder if the moment the fever left her and she got to her feet, still holding onto Jesus’ hand, if she felt a clarity in her mission, a passion to serve those around her in Jesus’ name.

I admire that clarity of mission, and we’ll talk in a minute about where else I see that in this reading.

But first, we see Jesus here having a personal connection with Simon’s mother-in-law in the privacy of her home. That privacy didn’t last long as the sun set on the Sabbath and the first day of the week began.

Word had spread fast about Jesus casting out the demon from the man in the synagogue. So, the moment the sun went down, everyone brought their loved ones distressed by demons or illnesses to see Jesus. Can you imagine the crowd pressing in, full of desperation and hope?

Jesus spent hours curing people and casting out demons. He served the city, just as Simon’s mother-in-law served him and his disciples.

Jesus’ ministry goes from the personal with Simon’s mother-in-law to the local with all their neighbors showing up at the door.

There seems to be plenty for Jesus to do here.

But we know his ministry didn’t stay in that one city. So, what happened?

Our reading says in the morning Jesus went out to a deserted place while it was still very dark.

Perhaps he healed people through the night and was only able to sneak away in the early morning hours. Or maybe he got a few hours of sleep before waking with the faces of the people he had ministered to before his eyes, unable to fall asleep again.

One way or another, Jesus went to be alone and prayed.

Surely there was more for him to do, and it didn’t take long for his disciples to come looking for him in a panic.

But Jesus went to be by himself to pray.

We sometimes get the impression that Jesus was kind of lax about the Sabbath. There are many stories in the Gospels of Jesus getting in trouble for healing people on the Sabbath. In the very next chapter in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, “’The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath, so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.’”[1]

This can give us the impression that Jesus didn’t care about observing the Sabbath.

But in today’s reading, we see Jesus get overtaken by a crowd of people who needed him, and then we see him withdraw and pray. He could have just kept goinguntil burnout and compassion fatigue consumed him.

But he didn’t. After what must have been a tiring day, he found time alone to spend with God. If that’s not Sabbath, I don’t know what is.

And what happened when he found some time to renew himself?

When his disciples found him, he told them, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.”

His time in prayer clarified his next steps. He wasn’t supposed to stay in that city healing people for the rest of his life. He was supposed to go on to neighboring towns to proclaim the message there also, for that is what he came out to do.

We see in our reading a cycle of action and then reflection that gave Jesus direction and clarity about his mission, which went from the personal with Simon’s mother-in-law, to the local need in that city, to the broader mission to share the good news in the larger surrounding area. Jesus needed solitude and prayer before deciding his next step.

That goes for us, too. How often do we take what we think is the next step in our lives, only to find that we’re moving fast toward something that isn’t fulfilling?

If we don’t pause to reflect, we can end up chasing goals that don’t light us up inside.

So how do we figure out what does light us up inside?

It takes time. It takes time to get to know ourselves, to reflect on our values, to listen to the Holy Spirit about where God is leading us.

And we can’t do any of that unless we pause.

Sabbath isn’t about being legalistic about the things we can’t do for a whole 24 hours. It’s about pausing to orient our lives toward God.

It’s not legalistic to feed yourself every day. It’s not legalistic to get a full night’s sleep at night. These are things you need for your body to feel good and to function well.

We need Sabbath rest to feel good and function well. It’s between you and God what it looks like for you. But we all need rest, and we all need to rest in God’s presence.

We, like Jesus, can find rhythms of action and reflection to guide our lives.

One thing that’s been helpful for me over the past several months is meeting with a coach as I’ve been navigating the transition in my role here at FLC. She helped me discern my values:

compassion, connection, community, clarity, and collaboration.

And she also helped me craft a personal mission statement, inspired by this congregation: I compassionately feed hurting people body and soul to collaborate in the practice of Beloved Community.

Knowing my values and mission statement gives me a starting point in the reflection part of the action and reflection cycle in my life.

Our church council will spend some time on this sort of thing at our retreat later this month, and I encourage you to do the same. Find a few minutes this week and jot down a few things that matter to you. You don’t need a formal mission statement. Just knowing your values can help you figure out life-giving next steps in your life.

Jesus could have had a successful career as a doctor in that city. He could have bought a house next to Simon and Andrew. But that wasn’t his mission, and he wouldn’t have figured that out if he hadn’t spent time in reflection and prayer.

It’s not legalistic or self-indulgent to rest and reflect amid all the action we do every day. It’s a gift from God and something we need for our well-being.

May there be rest and reflection for you this week as you seek God’s vision for your life.

Rest well, beloved.

[1] Mark 2:27-28