Palm Sunday – Sunday of the Passion
April 14, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

We’ve just heard lots of very loud, angry, fearful voices. In that way, our Gospel reading sounds a lot like the times in which we live. Last Sunday in our Adult Forum on the Better Angels Project, we saw video clips of scenes that are so familiar these days – people filled with rage and vitriol screaming insults, fear and passion, and anger spilling out everywhere.

The voices and images that fill our media these days help me to imagine Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion.

The leaders of the people heap accusations on Jesus – “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king; he stirs up the people by his teaching [everywhere].”

They are insistent. Jesus must be stopped. When their insistence doesn’t work, they begin to “vehemently accuse him.”

Pilate then sends Jesus to Herod who mocks him, along with his soldiers. They pour contempt on him. When Jesus is returned to Pilate, the leaders and the people all shout out together, “Away with this fellow! Release a murderer instead.”

They keep shouting, “Crucify him, crucify him.” “They [keep] urgently demanding with loud shouts that Jesus should be crucified and their voices [prevail.]”

We also hear from women beating their breasts and wailing for Jesus, from leaders scoffing at him, soldiers mocking him, and a condemned criminal deriding him.

It is a loud, angry, fearful scene – not unlike our own time. Yet, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus remains calm. Jesus does not give in to fear or anger. Instead, he responds with forgiveness, with a promise, and with trust in his Father, saying: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”; promises a criminal, “Today you will be with me in paradise”; and finally, “Father into your hands I commend my Spirit.”

The last words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke show the depth of his calm faithfulness. They convey how grounded he is in his true identity.

His words can help us to remain calm and faithful in this time. They provide grounding and assurance for us today.

And God knows, we need all of this today. For whether or not we are out chanting insults at others, we are all in some way complicit in this fearful, angry, broken world.

We all shape and are shaped by our surroundings.  We give in to the power of fear.  We react too quickly out of our implicit or explicit bias.  We rile up ourselves and others with anger and judgment.  We stay silent when we should speak words of peace.  We need Jesus’ words of forgiveness. We need to know we are not defined by our worst moments and bound by base instincts; that we need not be governed by fear and judgment. Instead, we are forgiven and set free. This release allows us to be gracious and kind and hopeful. So today, and each day, Jesus says to you, “You are forgiven, you are set free to love and to serve.”

We also need the assurance that Jesus is with us now and that we will always be with him. We need the promise he gave to the criminal being crucified next to him – I am with you, you will be with me. So today, Jesus says to you, “I am with you. You are not alone in all of this brokenness and pain. This is not all there is. You have a future with hope.”

Finally, we need to know that we, too, can entrust ourselves to God. In the Gospel of Luke we see that Jesus knew he was safe in his Father’s hands. No matter what the world threw at him, no matter what happened, his life was held in God. This assurance allowed him to forgive, love, promise and remain calm, even when he was being tortured and killed.

Beloved, no matter what happens to you, to our world, your life is held in God. You belong to God. You can entrust your life into God’s hands, now and always.

Jesus says, I forgive you, I am with you, you can trust God.

May these words of Jesus ground you, guide you and uphold you – now and always.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Amen.

Fifth Sunday in Lent
April 7, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Preaching text – Psalm 126

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus who has entered the wilderness with us.

God promises, through our Psalm today, that: “Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.” 

Today I want to tell you that I have discovered, deep in my bones, that this promise is true. It is true for you as well.

But first I need to confess that, apparently, I’ve been ignoring scripture this week – specifically, that line in our first reading today, “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.” See, I’ve been doing a lot of looking back this week. Thursday was my daughter Abby’s birthday and I spent a lot of time remembering the joyous day she was born.

Wednesday was my dearest friend Sarah’s birthday. Almost every year, from the time Sarah turned 19 until she turned 42, I got to be with her sometime around her birthday – well except the year Abby was born. Sarah’s 42^nd birthday was the last we celebrated together, however, as she died later that year of a brain aneurysm. This week I spent a lot of time remembering Sarah and not just because it was her birthday, but I’ll get to that.

Sarah and I met the very first day of first-year orientation at Luther College. We grew so close over four years of college and then four years together at Luther Seminary. We bonded over the joys and sorrows of ministry, marriage and motherhood. We were godmothers to each other’s children. Our families vacationed together. When my parents died she came right away – each time. We were so close that I didn’t invest much in other friendships.

Sarah was a great pastor and I learned so much from her. She had a way of showing everyone she met that they were important to her and important to God. She was passionate about supporting women in ministry. Sarah had the most wonderful, joyful laugh – you just couldn’t help but laugh and smile in her presence.

When Sarah died, I didn’t know how I would carry on as a person, much less as a pastor, spouse and mom. I also was only one year into new my call here. I didn’t want to have so many tears at the beginning of ministry among you all. But I did cry. I cried all the way through the service here on the Sunday after Sarah’s death. Good Shepherd members stepped in to preach and lead and I got to sit in the back, worshiping and crying.

The next day, I helped to lead Sarah’s funeral along with the associate pastor at Sarah’s church, Ashley, and a pastor friend of Sarah’s named Regina. Together with 800 other people, we cried and laughed our way through the day, remembering Sarah and remembering God’s promises. My sister, two aunts, and a new friend, Stacey, each drove three hours to sit with me and my family at the funeral.

Now, two and a half years later, what was sowed with tears is bringing new songs of joy. The seeds planted during that time of weeping are bearing a harvest of joy.

Our preacher the day I cried through worship, Amalia Vagts, is now in seminary. The fact that she could prepare a powerful sermon with very short notice that week was just another affirmation that God is calling her into ministry. I have shared tears and deep joy in ministry here among you.

Friends from Luther College have reached out and old friendships have rekindled. Ashley, Regina and I are now dear and close friends. Together, with Sarah’s husband Dan, we oversee the almost $35,000 given in memory of Sarah. We’ve created an initiative called Extending the Table: Sarah’s Invitation. The goal of the initiative is to gather and support women clergy as we lead and as we discern what God is doing in, with, and for the church in a time of change.

Last spring, the initiative provided funds to bring an excellent speaker to a regular gathering of clergy women in the La Crosse area. My friend Stacey and I got to attend this retreat. This past week, the initiative funded the first formal women clergy’s gathering in Northeast Iowa. My friends Stacey, Annie, Melissa, and I planned this retreat together and it was such a beautiful time.

Twenty women clergy gathered together to worship, pray and learn from Wartburg Seminary President, Louise Johnson. We shared our joys and sorrows in ministry. Our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with shouts of joy. We were strengthened and renewed for our service to the church.

I still carry such sorrow about Sarah’s death. I will grieve her as long as I live. The ELCA has lost a great leader. Clergywomen have lost a great advocate.

Yet God is doing a new thing for me, other women clergy and our whole church. Joy has come out of the tears. God is doing what God promises to do in the Psalms and in the book of Isaiah. God says, “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert … to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.”

Whatever tears you know, whatever wilderness you face, you are not alone. God has entered into it all in Jesus who shares our humanity, our suffering, our grief. God is in the wilderness with you and God will make a way through it.

Beloved, God keeps the promises made in scripture. This is what God does. These promises are not just for people long ago. They are not just former things of old. They are for you, for me, for all of us still today.

Along the way, God gives you water in the wilderness through the promises given to you in baptism. God gives you drink, the cup of salvation, as well as the bread of life so that you too might declare God’s praise. You have what you need to walk through your own wilderness and to accompany others in theirs – to be a source of hope. You can praise trusting that joy comes out of the tears, new life comes out of death. Your mouth will be filled with laughter and your tongue with shouts of joy.

Next week we reflect on how deeply Jesus entered the wilderness with us as we remember his passion and death and resurrection. We will remember and consider these things of old. Yet, we will not only remember and look back. We will also open our eyes to see that God does a new thing for each of us – for you, and for me and for our whole hurting world.

God brings joy out of tears, life out of death, again and again.

Thanks be to God.

Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 31, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

One note before the Gospel is read. This Lent we have been focusing on the Psalms, but I couldn’t do it this week! Our Gospel story today is often called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is such a key parable for our life of faith that I couldn’t just read it and not preach on it. So, this is our preaching text for today.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

The two brothers in this story seem completely opposite from each other.

The older brother stays close to home with his nose to the grindstone. The younger one hightails it to a distant country and squanders what he’s been given.

Once he has nothing left, then he realizes he’d be better off as a servant in his father’s house. The older brother claims he slaves away and yet gets nothing.

The father throws a party for his younger son – kills the fatted calf for him; the older son complains he can’t even get a goat.

It’s easy to see and emphasize the contrasts between these two brothers. We often do that when we hear this parable. We tend to identify with one of these brothers and demonize the other. Or, perhaps we identify with the aching father who seems torn between these two very different sons.

Yet these brothers also have much in common. They both distance themselves from their father and their family, albeit in different ways.

The younger son says to his father, basically, I wish you were dead. I can’t wait until you die to get my share of what you have – give it to me now. Then he goes far away and squanders his father’s gift, his father’s savings, his father’s legacy. The older son stays physically close, yet allows resent-ment and anger to be a wedge between himself and his family. He refuses to go into the party when his brother returns. He even refuses to acknowledge him as his brother saying, “when this son of yours came back.”

Both sons break their father’s heart by creating this distance.

These brothers are not so different from one another, and not so different from us. We have all sorts of ways of creating distance in relationships with other people and God. We flee, hide, with- draw, get angry, avoid. We may or may not have run far away; but we have all, in some way, squandered the love God has given us. We may not be quite as bitter as the older brother; but we have all felt overlooked, left out, and resentful at time.

We also know what it’s like to be this father – longing for someone who has left us, physically or emotionally. And we wonder how to respond to people who hurt us. Should we welcome them with open arms or does that just enable them?

There is part of each of the brothers and the father in every one of us. This parable calls us to be- come aware of all those parts of ourselves – to pay attention to our selfishness, our bitterness and anger, and all the longings we carry.

This parable also directs our attention to God who treats us the way the father in the parable treats his sons. So much emphasis is placed on the father’s welcome of the younger son, but the father actually responds to each of his sons in a similar way. He goes out to meet each of them to draw them into a feast.

The father sees the younger son when he’s still far off and runs to embrace him, crossing the threshold of his house to welcome his son home. He runs, he doesn’t walk, doesn’t cross his arms and sit there waiting to be told he was right all along. He hikes up his robes and runs. What was lost is found, who was dead is alive, get him what he needs and let’s celebrate! Compassion and love are given most extravagantly. The father crosses that same threshold again when he leaves the party to go out and plead with his older son to come in and celebrate. The father, who saw the lost son off at a distance, also sees this son who never strayed far from home. He hustles out for both of them. He meets both with compassion and love saying to the older, “All that I have is yours”.

It turns out, the father is the real prodigal in the story. The word prodigal means to be extravagant, excessive and lavish. So, actually, both brothers are a bit prodigal. The younger son is extravagant with his recklessness and self-indulgence. The older son displays excessive anger. Yet it is the father who is the most extravagant, excessive and lavish – prodigal with his love and welcome.

And that is how our God is. God’s prodigal welcome is for each of us, for you. God has come, in Jesus, to embrace us. God, in Jesus, has crossed the threshold of heaven to overcome the distances we create to welcome us and draw us into a feast.

God has also come in Jesus to bring reconciliation between people – that is God’s deep longing. Even when that hope still seems far off, even when bitterness leads to separation, even when those you long for seem far gone, they are beloved of God, as are you. God will not give up on them and God will not give up on you. God keeps watching, welcoming, pleading and rejoicing in us.

And today our prodigal God comes to you to embrace you, every part of you, and draw you into the feast. You are found, you are given new life.

Thanks be to God.

Third Sunday in Lent
March 24, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read preaching texts for today

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace from the One who yearns for you and delights in you.

The Psalmist prays, “Oh God … my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” The prophet Isaiah proclaims, “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.”

Everyone who thirsts – that is, each one of us. We all know what it is to be thirsty – to yearn for what will sustain our life physically, emotionally, spiritually.

This Lent we’re reflecting on our own thirst while the Sunday School raises funds for Water to Thrive. We’re doing this, in part, so that we will experience a sense of kinship and connection with the people in rural Africa who are in need of the wells built by Water to Thrive. Reflecting on our own thirst reminds us that we share a common humanity with these beloved children of God. We all thirst, we all have need. This is crucial to remember because it’s so easy to fall into the white savior mentality, thinking we have to help those poor people in Africa.

Our call as Christians is to something much deeper and much more profound: It is to recognize our kinship with all people. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I’m reading the second book by Father Gregory Boyle called Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship. Fr. Boyle also wrote Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion.

 Boyle has served as a priest in a gang-heavy neighborhood of Los Angeles for over three decades. He’s also the founder of Homeboy Industries which employs former gang members in a wide range of businesses including a bakery, a diner, a recycling center and a silk screen shop.  Homeboy Industries provides training and support as former gang members seek to redirect their lives.

Fr. Boyle has brought hope to thousands of people – to those he calls “homies”; but he’s clear that he needs them just as much as they need him. He stands in awe of how much trauma and heartache they have to carry, in awe of how much kindness, courage and wisdom they bring to the world. And whenever he starts to feel self-important, the homies never fail to take him down a notch, to give him a needed lesson in humility.

This awareness of mutual needs and mutual gifts has led Fr. Boyle to emphasize kinship. He says, if there is “No kinship, [there can be] no peace; no kinship, no justice; no kinship, no equality.” He says, “We’ve become focused on peace, justice and equality, when the truth is, none of those things can happen unless there’s some undergirding sense that we belong to each other, that we’re connected, that we matter. But the good news is, if we focus on kinship, the byproduct of that effort is peace, justice and equality. It’s how it happens.”^[1]

Kinship is something our church body, the ELCA, also emphasizes with a practice we call accompaniment. Our focus is not on helping “those people” but on accompanying others – walking and working together with them towards the healing we all need. As we do this, we discover our interdependence, we see the giftedness of all people.

Fr. Boyle teaches that we need to celebrate the gifts of God that are poured out upon us all. We need to delight in God, in each other and this world we share.

Here he echoes another refrain from our first reading and our Psalm. Isaiah calls us to “eat what is good, and delight ourselves in rich food.” The Psalm indicates that an awareness of God’s presence can help our spirits “to be content, as with the richest of foods.”

When we delight in God, in God’s world and in one another, then we are renewed and not depleted.

Boyle says, “For me, it’s never about depletion. It used to be, when I used to think my job was saving lives. But now I think saving lives is for the Coast Guard. Our choice always is the same: save the world or savor it. And I vote for savoring it. And, just because everything is about something else, if you savor the world, somehow — go figure — it’s getting saved.”^[2] Fr. Boyle and our readings today call us to recognize our common yearning and savor the abundance God showers upon us.

Beloved, all of this can happen for us each week as we gather for worship. We name our thirst and all that depletes us. We hear how much God yearns for us and delights in us. We are reconciled with God and each other through the mercy and forgiveness of Christ Jesus. And we get the chance to savor the gifts that God pours out upon us in worship and in community.

We get to practice delighting other people – even the people who drive us crazy. Fr. Boyle tells of one homie who was always complaining, always whining. One day this kid asked him for a blessing. Boyle blessed him by saying, “You know, Louie, I’m proud to know you, and my life is richer because you came into it. When you were born, the world became a better place. And I’m proud to call you my son, even though”- and Boyle reports he’s not sure why he added this part- “at times, you can really be a huge pain …” And Louie looked up, and he smiled. And he said, “The feeling’s mutual.”^[3]

We each make the world a better place. We each can be a huge pain.

Yet our call is to stand in awe of each other and what we each carry, to recognize our common need for one another and for God. We get to do that together each week. And, we get shaped into people who can love this thirsty, beautiful world.

In closing, I offer a poem by Hafiz called “With That Moon Language”^[4]:

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to
them, “Love Me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us
to connect.Why not become the one who lives with a full
moon in each eye that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language, what every other
eye in this world is dying to hear?

Beloved, you are loved and cherished.
God yearns for you and delights in you.
Go forth to savor and delight in all God’s people.

_________________________________________________

Notes

1. Leadership Education at Duke University Divinity School, “Faith & Leadership,” February 23, 2016.

     https://www.faithandleadership.com/gregory-boyle-save-world-or-savor-it

2. “Faith & Leadership.”
3. The On Being Project, “On Being,” November 22, 2017.

     https://onbeing.org/programs/greg-boyle-the-calling-of-delight-gangs-service-and-kinship-nov2017/

4. Ladinsky, Daniel, trans. Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, Penguin, 2002.

Second Sunday in Lent
March 17, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa|
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Preaching Psalm: Psalm 27

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
2When evildoers close in against me to devour my flesh,
they, my foes and my enemies, will stumble and fall.
3Though an army encamp against me, my heart will not fear.
Though war rise up against me, my trust will not be shaken.
4One thing I ask of the Lord; one thing I seek;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek God in the temple. 
5For in the day of trouble God will give me shelter,
hide me in the hidden places of the sanctuary, and raise me high upon a rock.
6Even now my head is lifted up above my enemies who surround me.
Therefore I will offer sacrifice in the sanctuary, sacrifices of rejoicing; I will sing and make music to the Lord.
7Hear my voice, O Lord, when I call;
have mercy on me and answer me.
8My heart speaks your message—“Seek my face.”
Your face, O Lord, I will seek. 
9Hide not your face from me, turn not away from your servant in anger.
Cast me not away—you have been my helper; forsake me not, O God of my salvation.
10Though my father and my mother forsake me,
the Lord will take me in.
11Teach me your way, O Lord;
lead me on a level path, because of my oppressors.
12Subject me not to the will of my foes,
for they rise up against me, false witnesses breathing violence.
13This I believe—that I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living!
14Wait for the Lord and be strong.
Take heart and wait for the Lord! 

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Dear ones, we need help. We need help in dealing with fear. Fear of the other is leading to so much violence in our world as we saw on display this past week in New Zealand. Acts like that also make us more fearful and worried for ourselves, for loved ones and neighbors, for Muslim neighbors, for our own country and our world. What do we do with this fear? What do we do with the fear that is a regular part of any life?

I have one friend from seminary who approaches any fear or challenge by saying, “It’s going to be fine.” I’ll call him Joe. No matter what issues arise, Joe says, “Ahh, no need to worry. It will be fine.”

He is always confident and sometimes correct. There are times I really want to be that unflappable. Yet, I’ve learned that his confidence, while encouraging, isn’t always grounded in reality.

Then there’s another friend who often thinks about the worst-case scenarios and tries to be ready for them. I’ll call him Paul. He is thorough and prepared and really, really extra vigilant. He also seems really anxious and tired a lot of the time.

Our Psalm today shows us a middle way between these two extremes, a way that acknowledges that there are real concerns and yet remains grounded in trust and hope, grounded in God.

Certainly, we each have our own personalities that wire us to respond to challenges and fear differently. I value both Joe and Paul and learn a lot from them. I also don’t know much about how they pray. Maybe their prayers are very different from their public personas.

As I’ve lived with Psalm 27 this week, I’m persuaded that all of us – Joe, Paul, you and I – would be wise to approach our fears and challenges the way the Psalmist does. In the Psalms, God has given us a different way to be with fear, a way that allows us to be a hopeful, peaceful presence in this anxious world.

As the Psalmist starts to pray, he sounds an awful lot like Joe – “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

No worries, it’s all good. I’ve got nothing to fear.

But then the Psalmist answers his own question – of whom shall I be afraid? Well, there are evil-doers, foes, enemies, an army encamped against him, oppressors, and false witnesses breathing violence – to name just a few.

The Psalmist just stuck his head in the sand, pretending to not see the very real issues in his life. He is aware of them. He names and acknowledges them and brings them to God in prayer. Then he grounds himself in something greater than his fears, in God, and that allows him to rejoice and sing despite the threats all around him.

There is so much faithful wisdom here. Sometimes we get the message that Christians are sup- posed to just push down any fear, that fear is a sign we don’t have enough faith. The witness of scripture contradicts that message over and over. People of faith have all sorts of fear. God doesn’t ask us to just pretend it’s all good. Nor does God expect us to muscle through on our own by being extra prepared for every situation or other strategy to combat fear.

Instead, God gives us the Psalms that offer a different way of being with fear.

First, become aware of fear, notice and name what is making you afraid. I suppose that was a pretty simple step when there were “evildoers closing in to devour your flesh” or “armies encamped” in front of you. Some days it is easy for us to identify what is making us anxious. Yet, in our day we also live with a kind of low-grade fear all the time. We’re barraged with so many fear-inducing messages. But, we’re also told to just keep on keeping on, to just keep pushing through which means we’re not even always aware of the fear we’re carrying.

So sometimes we need to pause and get curious about the worries and racing thoughts in our heads. We need to ask, “What’s troubling me, what’s keeping me up at night, what keeps nagging away in the back of my mind?” Any psychologist will tell us that when we get in touch with what’s eating at us, when we name it, then it has less power over us. Then we can see that anxious thoughts aren’t who we truly are, they are just thoughts.

But the Psalmist goes further than that. He also brings his fears to God and remembers that he is grounded in God – God who is greater than his fears.

He says, “For in the day of trouble God will give me shelter, hide me in the hidden places of the sanctuary, and raise me high upon a rock.”

We, too, need to be reminded that our fears don’t define us and don’t have to control us because our true identity is beloved child of God. Our peace comes not because we can manage our thoughts well or keep calm and carry on. Our peace comes because our life is held in God, now and always. No matter what happens to us, we belong to God. No matter where we are, God is present.

God’s presence gives us the hope, the peace, the courage we need. We can ground ourselves in God’s presence at any moment of the day using a simple breath prayer. Let’s try it now for a moment: Close your eyes or lower your gaze to the floor, bring your attention to your breath, and I’ll lead us through a simple prayer.

As you breathe in and out,
imagine that you are breathing in peace and letting go of fear,
breathing in hope and letting go of worry,
breathing in rest and letting go of weariness.
Take a few moments to breathe and pray.
Now return your attention to a few final words.

This grounding in God’s presence helps us to rejoice and sing – another helpful response to fear. It sounds crazy when the Psalmist says he will do that in the face of his enemies. Yet to rejoice and sing is a way to experience some freedom from fear, a way to say, “Fear, you do not control me, I will not be defined by you. I will trust and hope even when things are hard because I know my life is held in God.”

Beloved of God, you belong to God. In Jesus, who stretched out his arms in love on the cross, God has gathered us together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

Nothing – not sin, not death, not powers nor principalities – nothing can separate us from the love of God.

You can trust and hope.

You can be a calm and hopeful presence in this fearful world because your life is held in God.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.