No Haggle Pricing - How Much Does THIS Cost?

Luke 14:25-33; Psalm 1; Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, from Jesus Christ our Lord, and from our Advocate, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I have to acknowledge that beginning with such a greeting after hearing this gospel feels just plain weird.

“Grace, mercy and peace to you, but oh, yeah, to follow Jesus, you need to hate those who we have previously been commanded to love.” Is anyone else struggling with this seeming dichotomy?  This contradiction? With these words Jesus turns upside down our expectations of what grace and peace and mercy mean for us. Why? Why did Jesus say them?

If we look very deeply into the life of Jesus, we find that faithful discipleship is definitely not for the faint of heart, for those w

ho like to straddle the thin, white line, or for those who might think that if I just have enough faith, then discipleship is easy and its challenges will slip away and life will be filled with light, happiness, fulfillment, contentment and prosperity.

Instead, Jesus points out to us that there is a cost to discipleship. And the cost is steep, not to be taken lightly. This is not the first or only time that Jesus has driven home the point that true discipleship is not only costly, but those who follow Jesus, commit to a new modus operandi shaped by the cross. In fact Jesus has to repeatedly drive this point home, because The Way is so contrary to our nature, we of fainting hearts and a deep desire for comfort – even in our witness to the gospel.

While we may chafe against the reality of the demands of discipleship, the other scriptures paired with our gospel today indicate that this teaching is not new, it is simply reshaped for those of us who know Jesus as Lord, who have been transformed through his life, death, and resurrection.

Way back in the wilderness of exile and in those wandering years, Moses speaks to the Israelites who prepare to enter the Promised Land and he tells them that while they are soon to enter that place promised to their ancestors, there are choices that they will make that will lead either to life and prosperity, or to adversity and death.

Following God’s commandments will allow for life in the midst of the sometimes harsh and difficult realities of this world. Turning away from God will bring a unique kind of darkness that can never be penetrated by blessing or the light of true life, both for individuals and for community. This call to trust in God and to obey God’s commandments is for the good of all God’s creation.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks frankly about the serious costs of following the Way of the Cross – the way of Jesus – the way of discipleship.

But if you are like me, there is one particular word that sticks out in today’s text and gives you trouble, and that’s the word “hate,” in verse 26. Deep down, I ‘hate’ that very word and have a hard time imagining it coming from Jesus’ mouth, except to describe how he feels about sin – injustice – racism – and other sins of -uh, hatred.

After all, I stand here all the time and remind you that God is a God of love. Jesus’ greatest commandment is to what? – “to love God and to love one another as we love ourselves.”

So what room in this love-feast is there, for hate? Particularly hate mandated by Christ as a requirement of discipleship? Hate directed at our parents, our siblings, our spouse and children? Didn’t Jesus read the Bible? Doesn’t he know how the hatred of kin wreaked havoc in the Old Testament?

And yet, what does Jesus say his followers must do? Whom should they “hate?” – Father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sister, even life itself.

Wow. Faithful discipleship is NOT for the faint of heart. The question most of us probably wrestle with is, do we really have to follow this instruction to follow Jesus? Does Jesus mean this literally – the way so many of us process words? Can’t I follow Jesus and still love my family? My friends and neighbors? My life?

At this point I think it is helpful to know that the Hebraic understanding of the word Jesus uses here is something that requires single-minded loyalty. Jesus wants us to follow him, possessing such single-minded loyalty.

As followers of Christ, we cannot stand with one foot in the world and one foot on The Way. We cannot equally love our lives as they are and commit to being the disciples Jesus is calling us to be. Discipleship requires radically reorienting our priorities and our actions to single-minded loyalty to the way of Jesus.

While Jesus loved his friends and his mother and sisters and brothers he did not let his love for them keep him looking inward. He did not let it hold him back. Instead, Jesus looked outward, inviting them along, but making his primary action all about obeying the will of God.

Jesus calls his followers to look to the outside, to care more for the good of our neighbor than to the comfort of ourselves. That’s hard. That’s costly – it means giving up things that are very dear to us. It means recognizing that this work, this discipleship isn't about us at all. It I about, and for the sake of Christ.

Jesus calls this church to commit to reaching out, inviting in and opening ourselves up bearing the cost of all that discipleship requires, so that we and those who are not yet among us might see and know and be transformed by the radical love of God, and become disciples too.

Jesus calls Grace to be the church Jesus calls us to be, not overcome with preserving the status quo, nor immersing ourselves in the maintenance of the building that houses us or even the relationships that reside within. Rather Jesus is calling us to be of single-minded purpose – carrying the cross, and following him.

Jesus modeled how transformative mission worked. God has sent people into our world to show us what that kind of discipleship looks like.  

One of those was canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic church today.

While we as Protestants, as Lutherans, do not pray to or venerate saints as our Catholic sisters and brothers do, we do look upon them as examples of faithful living, as individuals who have answered Christ’s call and dedicated their lives to a particular kind of discipleship, and single minded loyalty to Christ.

Mother Teresa of Kolkata was no different from any of us; saint and sinner, bound and free, recipient of God’s grace, mercy and love. She made a particular choice to follow Jesus’ example by ministering to the poorest of the poor. In photos taken of her in her work, you constantly see her touching people – poor people, starving people, homeless people, AIDS victims, dying people, orphaned and abandoned children. Jesus needs us to bear the cost of touching people.

St. Augustine said, “There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” Our past includes the relationships that moor us to our beginnings. Our challenge and the joy that Jesus is calling us to is moving us into a future with single-minded loyalty to Jesus, always looking outward, always reaching out to others for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Sometimes that looks like a life singularly dedicated to relieving the suffering of others, like Mother Teresa’s was. Sometimes that looks like providing lunches, and meals, and clothing, and quilts, and canned food, and hospitality for the stranger, the homeless, and the needy. It looks like ministries we haven’t yet even begun to imagine or explore.

Jesus calls us not to comfortable membership in this church, but to fearless discipleship in his name. Jesus calls us not to maintain the status quo, but to engage in radical hospitality and ministry that will transform our lives and the lives of others, for the sake of Jesus Christ. By God’s grace and mercy, God promises in the midst of all this to be with us, blessing us, challenging us, sending us saints to join the priesthood of all believers of which we are a part, so that others can know the goodness of God. Let it be so.

          

Intelligence Assisting and The Meaning of Life

Luke 9:28-36

I don’t own an iPhone, - a smartphone, yes – but not the Apple iPhone. But I know many people who do have iPhones, and a favorite pass-time among them seems to be to pull out their phones and ask ‘Siri’ all kinds of questions.

In case you’re wondering, “What or who the heck is “Siri?”, ‘Siri’ is a software application or app, which the Apple company, makers of the iPhone, refers to as a “built-in “intelligent assistant.”

This “app,” ‘Siri,’ enables users of the devices on which it is installed, to use voice commands to ask for information and carry out certain tasks.  You can ask ‘Siri’ questions practical, profound, or mundane, and you will receive an answer.

For instance, you can ask ‘Siri’ “will I need an umbrella tomorrow?” And she might say, “There is a 40 percent probability of rain in your area tomorrow,” or, she might answer, “You can forget the umbrella tomorrow. All sun, all day long is forecast for Easton, Maryland.”

Some people I know (you know who you are) like to ask Siri existential, tough, or silly questions, just for the fun of it. For this reason, I know that if you ask Siri a question like, “When will the world end?” one of the responses she might give is, “I don’t know, but maybe we should put bags over our heads or something.” Siri has a sense of humor.

I was reading the blog of a pastor recently, who she wrote that she had inquired several times of Siri, “What is the meaning of life?” and received different answers each time.

“As you can imagine,” she writes, “[Siri’s] answers ranged from the ridiculous to the humorous to the surprisingly profoundly practical. For instance, these are some of the responses Siri gave her to this question:

“Life: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the quality of animate beings. I guess that includes me.”

“And then, contradicting 'herself' [Siri answered]: ‘I find it odd that you would ask this of an inanimate object.’

This was my favorite answer to the meaning of life question: ‘All evidence to date suggests it's chocolate.’

She has also advised: ‘I don't know, but I think there's an app for that.’

“Finally, in an entirely practical vein, [Siri] seems to offer advice to give content or texture to life's 'meaning:” ‘Try and be nice to people. Avoid eating fat. Read a good book every now and then. Get some walking in. And try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.’

“Perhaps if you ask, you'll get different answers,” the pastor continues. “Either way, it is a universal quest, this trying to make sense of it all.”

Trying to make sense of it all may be a little of what the disciples did on that mountaintop so long ago, as it is what we try to do when we read this beautiful, wonderful, complex, mysterious, and puzzling story. Existential questions like this underlie much of our searching, seeking, and questioning.

What the disciples witnessed at the transfiguration was no doubt surprising, confusing and alarming to them. There had been and would continue to be so many questions for them about how God was answering their own search for meaning. How could they make sense of this wondrous vision they beheld, when Jesus was transfigured – transformed before them, entirely changed, from the clothing he wore to the appearance of his face?

While they were still digesting the sight of the transformed Jesus and what it meant, two men appeared with Jesus, and they talked to him, and then a mysterious cloud descended on them all as the whole vision is swallowed up by the cloud. The disciples clearly heard a voice then, God’s voice, speaking clearly to them out of the cloud, instructing them, “This is my Son, my chosen. Listen to him.” What does this mean?

What are they to make of this whole event? I am not even sure Siri would have an answer to that question.

The text tells us the disciples were sleepy, and it is no wonder that they were exhausted. Consider what has come before this passage, in the 9^th chapter of Luke’s writings. Imagine that you were one of those disciples who, within a short bit of time have been commissioned by Jesus and sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God, which you have done all over the Galilean countryside in fact, traveling from village to village and healing people everywhere.

Tired yet exhilarated from your travels, you returned to report to Jesus all that happened on your mission trip. Together you took off for Bethsaida, a quiet little place where you can get some R & R and where you might unpack all that you have experienced and explore what it means for the ministry you are engaged in, but in the end, there is no time for that – because crowds follow you there.

It is the demands and questions and needs of the crowds that Jesus then addressed and where more healing took place until finally, you and your fellow disciples had to prevail on Jesus to send the crowd away, for it is too large, and you are in too remote a place to be able to feed and care for all these people. “C’mon Jesus, give us a break!” Jesus, of course, had other ideas, and with just five loaves and two fish, at Jesus’ command you fed that great crowd, with plenty left over.

After that, as Peter spoke up on behalf of all the disciples and confessed that Jesus is God’s Messiah, Jesus made the prediction that soon he would be rejected, killed, and would rise again; to be his disciple, he said, would mean picking up his cross and following him.

Peter, James and John, along with the other disciples, must not only be exhausted, they must be reeling. How could Jesus die? God can’t die. The messiah is to come to bring victory and vindication – the messiah can’t die!

Then, just a week later, this.

The transfiguration bears witness to the identity of Jesus Christ. The disciples heard the declaration, “Listen to him!” God’s voice pronounces the definitive word about Jesus’ identity in the account of the transfiguration: “This is my Son, my Chosen.” This is God making sense of it all. This journey of Jesus’, this mountaintop experience, the healings and teaching the disciples have been witness to, and what is to come.

This transfiguration episode marks a transition point in the life of Jesus and in the lives of his disciples – including us. This mystical moment, when the curtain of the divine is pulled back and we get a glimpse of something holy, can change the way we see and experience the world around us.

Moses’ presence makes the connection unavoidable; he led the People of Israel on the first exodus. Now Jesus will accomplish a second exodus, leading people safely through the waters of death, even as his own flesh is parted in waves of pain on the cross.

While this talk of exodus and death in the midst of transfiguration may be lost on the disciples, it is not lost on us. Today as we make ready to put aside our alleluias, we acknowledge that the remarkable epiphany of Jesus, the revelation of God with us as the light that marks our way takes a different form.

As Jesus is praying, something remarkable happens to his divine face. As the face of Moses was transfigured on Mount Sinai, Jesus’ own face takes on a luminescence. It shines with the light of glory.

As we mark the end of epiphany, we remember that as Jesus’ authority and divinity have been revealed in varying ways at his birth, in the temple, at the waters of the Jordan, and now on the mountaintop, the revelation is for us. It is for our sake. It is a sign of God’s love that extends itself into a world of hunger, and pain, of searching for meaning, and for existential wandering.

The journey Jesus leads us on is the one true answer for any of our seeking or questioning, hungering and thirsting, struggling and doubting. This is my Son. This is my Son. This is my Son. My chosen. Listen to him!

It is as we listen to him, as we follow his teachings, his example, his life – it is as we take our learning from Jesus and make it a way of life; loving, caring, healing, forgiving, and wrapping all of this in prayer as did Jesus himself (note that in the gospel of Luke Jesus prays a lot – and that this transfiguration occurred as he was praying) – that we ourselves are transformed as children of God and recipients of God’s grace and mercy, into disciples of Christ, whose entire lives have shifted, altered, and been transformed in remarkable ways.

 “Two men” appear miraculously three times in Luke’s gospel accounts: to these disciples at the transfiguration, to the women at the tomb on Easter morning, and again to the men in Galilee on the day of the Ascension of Jesus.

In the words spoken during these three encounters, we discover valuable lessons, for our mountaintop experiences and for the day-to-day lives which can be so exhausting. May the words of Jesus' teachings and the modeling of Jesus’ actions be the ultimate guide for our decision making and our interactions with other people. Listen to him, for in his words lie the secrets to justice among peoples and the peace that passes understanding.

At the resurrection, the two men ask the women, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen." The message for us is, be prepared to be surprised by God. Do not dwell on the things that make for death, but seek the way of Jesus Christ among the hustle and bustle of daily life, and the opportunities for discovering new meaning in life through discipleship.

And on the Day of Ascension, they asked the men of Galilee, "Why do you stand here, looking up?" The same may be asked of us as Jesus bids us to look forward. It does us no good to stand rooted to the ground gazing into the skies. Rather, we need to look one another in the eye and move forward together, across lines of difference, so that the world can be a better place. And in so doing, experience the eternal in the present, the transcendent in the mundane, the mountaintop at the intersection. May it be so for you this day and every day.

Illustrations used by permission, www.freebibleimages.org.

 

 

iPhone image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Plot Twists and Hairpin Turns

Mark 8:27-38

          I’ve been reading a book lately that I have had such a hard time putting down – I finally, thankfully, finished it last night. The storyline has held me captive, especially in the last half of the book, as the plot has taken many twists and hairpin turns. It’s the kind of book where, even if you are not crazy about the storyline, you just have to know where it will end up. Do you know what I mean? So, this sermon may be a bit on the short side because, you know, I had a book I just had to attend to this week.

          Some of the best and most entertaining or captivating books and movies are the ones that have huge plot twists. These are the ones where you just don’t see that particular turn in the plot coming.

          You become fascinated by the unexpected –

                             or perhaps you are unnerved by it,

                                      and either way, you just have to reconcile the

tension that is created.

          Perhaps a major character is revealed to possess some personality flaw – like the fact that though you have grown to love them it is revealed that they really are a serial killer           or are otherwise leading a secret double life. They are just not the person you thought them to be.

          Or maybe tension in the storyline keeps you perched on   the edge of your seat, fingernails digging into the cushions because there are so many unexpected twists and turns that, like the book that I just finished, you just have to find out how it will end: people aren’t who they seem to be; their motives are false; there is a conspiracy underfoot that you misread of missed entirely.

          Something in the story keeps us coming back for more, however, even though we may not be necessarily crazy about the story itself.

          I feel a bit like that when I read the gospel of Mark.

          Now I know that some of you are probably thinking, “Really, Pastor Karen, the Gospel of Mark? (Maybe you should get a life!),” and you would be right. Or – “but we’ve heard these stories so many times, how could you be surprised by anything you read in this gospel?” And of course, you would be right there too, because the truth is that I have read this gospel many, many times.

          Yet as I contemplate its meaning at each reading, I still do find myself surprised, intrigued, often confused, and scratching my head – as I do with this text we read this morning.

          Along with the disciples, I find myself amazed and wanting to get at the heart of what in the world is going on as I observe the exchange that occurs between Peter and Jesus.

          This story marks the midway point in the narrative in this gospel of Mark. Jesus has been traveling throughout Galilee. Already there have been some minor twists here and there.  Jesus has been healing and driving away the demons and the crowds of people following him are growing. What could be better than that for a fledgling mission? But these actions and miracles also attract the attention of the leadership of the temple – and not in a good way. They set out to trap Jesus by various means.

          Jesus has been teaching his disciples and sends them out to do the same   and they bring back stories of great success in preaching, teaching and healing in his name. What teacher could ask for more? Yet at the same time, Jesus warns his followers to keep his works and even his identity to themselves – they mustn’t reveal too much too soon.

          Jesus has been performing works of wonder all around the region –yet things turn ugly when he returns to his own hometown of Nazareth, of all places - so that there, in that place, he can do little.

          In our gospel today, in a confession to Jesus, Peter speaks the words that we’ve all been waiting to hear. Because after all, we who are here, gathered together by the Holy Spirit as confessing Christians know who Jesus is. We have been waiting and watching and hoping that soon everyone will know who Jesus is, beginning with these first twelve disciples, and that the Good News of this revelation will cover the entire earth. Finally, Peter gets it!   Peter says the words we have been longing to hear. Words that I can imagine Jesus has been longing to hear.

          This disciple, with whom Jesus has a deep abiding relationship and friendship, responds to the question, “Who do you say that I am,” with the correct answer: “You are the Messiah,” Peter says.

          Now maybe Mark, who is notably short on words, who often cuts to the chase and seems to leave things out as a result, skips part of Jesus’ response to Peter in order to highlight what is surprising and important to him in this story. We don’t know for sure. But I find it frustrating that here, when someone finally gets it and states the truth about Jesus, the wonderful earth-shattering truth about our Savior, Jesus immediately tries to hush him up. Because what is Jesus response? It is not “good work, my good and faithful servant,” nor is it “High fives! Right answer Peter!” nor “Excellent deduction, my friend.” No. Jesus does none of these.

          Jesus sternly tells Peter and the other disciples not to tell anyone about him. It is not yet the time to let loose this information. Jesus then goes on to tell the disciples what is coming – that he, the Messiah, will – in fact must undergo horrific suffering and a torturous death. We go from high to low.

          Poor Peter. Poor disciples. Poor reader.

          We go from what seems like the greatest climax possible in this narrative - identifying the one we follow, the one we love, the one who has been teaching us, making us promises, calling and gathering us for godly work in the kingdom and we enter into the deepest hairpin turn of all, followed by a stomach clenching plunge into despair.

          Peter and his companions are likely picturing thrones and successful military campaigns and the overturning of the oppressive powers of the earth; they picture Jesus seated in earthly glory, they probably see themselves all as being part of a wonderful movement and kingdom in which Jesus is crowned and enthroned and worshiped and adored but they hear from his own lips shocking, shocking news. Jesus is going to be rejected. Jesus is going to be taken away in the most awful circumstance imaginable. He will be killed.

No – it’s actually unimaginable – what Jesus is saying.

          Can we blame Peter when he chastises Jesus? “Stop! Say no more!

It can’t be true, don’t tell us these things. It is not possible!”

          But Jesus is not finished teaching these disciples – and us – what his messiahship means. He is not finished describing how God’s love for humanity will require the greatest sacrifice from the Son.

          Jesus has much to teach these friends, these followers, these disciples, about what it means for the world that God sent the messiah to be born in human flesh, to dwell in human brokenness, and to raise those who are have been destroyed by sin and death into new life.

          The story suddenly slows down a bit. Jesus is now talking not only about how he will suffer and die, but how those who follow him, who serve him, will also know suffering; will also know pain; will also know mortal death – but will at the same time receive abundant everlasting life.

This is the mystery of life and faith, and it is the key to the kingdom of God.

          Frankly, I suspect most of us find our grasp of this message elusive most of the time. We have to admit that we find Peter’s definition of “messiah” the one we prefer as well. We consider ourselves “blessed” when we are successful, happy, healthy, prosperous, and enjoying the good life. We want a strong God, a God who heals our illnesses in ways we recognize, a God who provides ample prosperity, a God who guarantees our security, a God who ensures victory for our military (and perhaps our sports teams) and generally gives us the happily ever after we seek.

          What Jesus offers with all this cross-bearing talk and demands to “lose our life” is a plot-twist we didn’t see coming and one we have little understanding of.

          And yet, as the saying goes, we do not always get the God we want.

We get the God we need. Jesus points to a God who meets us in our vulnerability, suffering, and loss.

          God meets us in those moments of astonishing twists and turns in the storyline of our lives; those moments when we go from high to low in the moment the phone rings, or the test results come back, or the car is suddenly careening out of control.

          God meets us in the falling of buildings built with human hands, in the crashing down of cranes, in the storm and drought and fear of everyday life, the plot turns that permanently change the trajectory of our well-planned lives.

God meets us in those moments when all we have worked for,

          striven for

                   and hoped for

has fallen apart and we realize that the goal we thought we were headed for is not the goal within our grasp. God meets us in that pivotal moment of mortal need, when we realize that we are incapable of saving ourselves and desperately need a God who knows our every thought, our every breath, our every sin and failure, joy and triumph, and discover that God, our God, is already here – surrounding us with love, support, and comfort through the extraordinary means of a savior who has born the cross for us, and the simple means of friends and strangers who reach out in compassion for all who are in need.

          Among the twists and turns of the gospel is that God is here and present not only in the moments when we are most in need but also in the moments when we are most needed.

          For God is here when we pick up the cross of Christ and walk with others, discovering new purpose through the sharing of our own scarred and treasured hearts, when we serve the world, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, forgiving the despairing, sitting with the lonely, loving the forsaken, and sharing the cross – and love of Jesus. Amen.

Crossing to the Other Side

Mark 4:35-46

        In the Gospel text today, we see the revelation of Jesus Christ as God’s power and authority in our world. Jesus is God’s abiding presence in the life of the kingdom of God – this life into which God is inviting all people. Jesus is God with us and in our gospel we see God’s power and authority at work as Jesus stills the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  

        In the wake of the events of this week, in the pain and turmoil, chaos and storm stirred up by the massacre that took place in Charleston, Jesus’ words, “Peace. Be still!” are words we desperately need to hear. We need to know that Jesus can and does still the chaos in our broken, terrified hearts. We need to hear that the power of God is still at work, can and will defeat the powers of evil.  

        We need to hear that in the midst of the maelstrom of our world and our lives, Jesus is the power and presence of God; God with us, withstanding and controlling the crashing of the seas and the deafening roar of the wind and finally, stilling them.

        We need to know that when the storm strikes, God remains faithful, eternally walking with us, and beside us, surrounding us with love and even, with peace.  

        Jesus isn’t just asleep in that boat. Jesus, God with us, is inviting us to a sense of calm. Jesus invites us to believe that he is the source of all peace for us, and that God is powerfully present in the midst of whatever storm may strike. Even the most terrifying.

        The name of the historic church in Charleston where such horror and tragedy unfolded this week is Emanuel.

        Emanuel – which means - “God with us.” Despite the way the events of this week brought yet another reminder of the deep brokenness in our world, there were also signs – so many signs of God’s presence – of the ways that God is with us still – in the outpouring of love and support, for instance; in faith communities across the country praying in solidarity with our AME brothers and sisters; in flowers and notes left at the church; in the outrage poured out against all forms of racism and bigotry.

        We were also reminded of how much work is yet to be done in this kingdom of God.

        The shooting this week brought a searing reminder that racism and hatred are powerful conditions of sin and evil that are fed by an increasingly broken and hostile society.

        This is a society in which you and I are members and, like it or not, we must admit our own complicity in the ills of prejudice and intolerance. Forgive us, Father, for the things we have done and left undone.

        We acknowledge that we benefit from the systemic illness of a world in which the divisions between rich and poor, black and white, Christian and any other group, are widening at an astonishing rate in our polarized culture. If nothing else, we begin by admitting that we don’t stand up fiercely enough, loudly enough or often enough – to speak against the daily hurts and assaults various groups in our world endure.

        My brothers and sisters, we not only live in a society in which these things take place, and are beneficiaries of the injustices, but we also participate in activities that influence the systemic ills infecting our world.

        More than ever before, the media, entertainment outlets, and the very rhetoric that surrounds us daily and in which we often engage, profit by images and language promoting violence and racism.

        Think of the last five movies you’ve seen or the last five television programs you watched, the last five books you read. Think of the images, the way certain groups of people are portrayed. Reflect deeply on the language and rhetoric which occurs on the nightly news program you may watch.

        Consider the inflammatory language and images that cross your computer screen, whether you read them or not. What happened the last time you were in a group and someone used derogatory imagery, language or characterization of African Americans or Muslims for instance? Did any one stand up and say that it was wrong? Did you?

        We live in a culture that is increasingly divided racially, economically and politically, though we would like to ignore that fact, or deny it, or hide it, sweep it under the banner of “look how far we’ve come.”

        Eventually, when the tensions and the truth explode in images and actions we cannot ignore, can no longer hide, and we are overwhelmed, the boat of our complacency becomes swamped, and we cry out in horror and fear as the disciples did that day, “Lord, do you not care…that we are perishing?”     

        This week, another senseless shooting, and this time, in a Christian church, right here in America, with brothers and sisters in faith cut down following a bible study and time of prayer with the shooter himself. Incidentally, they were shot and killed - by another Christian. An ELCA Lutheran, (that’s our denomination) in fact. Let’s let that fact sink in.

        Another act of hatred. Another list of names of those who, whether they were 26 years old or 87 years old, were taken far too soon.  “Truly,” we think, “our boat is going down.”     

        And yet, in the midst of this storm, I wonder if you heard what I heard? God with us.  Did you hear the sound of reason, the voice of peace, from what we might think would be the most unlikely of places? Did you hear God’s message of love and unfathomable calm in the midst of the storm as, one after another the families of the victims spoke up?

        They each testified to the deep pain and bewilderment that has overtaken them since Wednesday night. God with us. They each spoke to the searing sense of loss and grief that is, at times overwhelming. But there was also something else that they spoke to: that though they truly walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they will not let evil win the day. God with us.

        They spoke of forgiveness – for the shooter. They spoke of the light of Christ that is abiding with them, the LORD who is walking beside them. Many of the family members – the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters and even grandchildren of the victims testified to their conviction that they would not meet evil with evil, hatred with hatred, but instead would turn to Jesus for their strength both to forgive and to find meaning and healing in their staggering losses.

        There is no going back to the way things were Wednesday morning. The lives of so, so many people are irrevocably altered.  Acknowledging that change, these disciples of Christ extended forgiveness, perhaps as an act of hope – connected to the grace of God they themselves have received at the foot of the cross.

        This kind of forgiveness points to the Word of Jesus from the cross itself. In the cross, this incredible act of evil and hatred is met with love. In the cross of Christ, ironically, we find our peace. God with us.

        Jesus and his disciples are in “the boat” – when Jesus says to his disciples, “Let’s go on, across, to the other side.”

        Crossing to the other side with Jesus is transformational. It means being aware of the conditions in the world around us and committing ourselves to the kingdom work of expanding God’s loving justice, as Jesus himself did.

        Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee that day.

        Filled with awe and wonder, the disciples asked, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” We know the answer – God with us.

        God will not be shaken by any storm. Jesus is God’s peace in the midst of the storm. The wind and seas recognized God with us and obeyed his command. Now, in the midst of our storm, Jesus issues the invitation to discipleship, calling those who follow him to go where he has called, confident that he is with them, confident that no evil will truly overtake us when he is at our side.  

        With Jesus Christ, God with us, let us commit ourselves to crossing the racial divide in our land, the widening economic divide between rich and poor, and all divisions in our socio-economic landscape. Crossing to the other side can raise up storms and risk danger, even unto death, especially because people will get stirred up, but let us not fear, but hope, because Jesus is God with us.

Amen.