Reformation Sunday – Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
October 28, 2018
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Pastor Marion Pruitt-Jefferson

First Reading:  Jeremiah 31:7-9; Psalm:  126; Second Reading: Hebrews  7:23-28; Gospel: Mark 10:46-52

Beloved of God,

Grace and peace to you from our Jesus, our Savior.

This is a story about a desperate human being whose only means of survival is to sit in the gutter, at the side of the road, and cry out for mercy. It is a story for our time. A story that is intimately connected with all stories of human suffering and despair.

And it’s a story about the power of God to transform human suffering – to bring people from hopelessness to unbounded joy; to lift people up from lives of desperation and futility and give them lives of purpose and meaning. And it is a story about the power of God to take away human blindness and open our eyes to the vision of God’s love and justice for all creation.

As I prayed with and studied the story of Bartimaeus this past week, I thought about the thou- sands of desperate women and children and men crying out for mercy as they make their way north through Mexico to our southern border. I thought about a story Marty Steele and I heard earlier this month about what it was like to hold a 14-month old baby in a detention center in Texas – a child taken from her parents and placed in a for-profit prison run by our government. I thought about the immense humanitarian crisis taking place in war-torn Yemen where parents are crying out for mercy for their children – children who are dying by the hundreds each day. Like you, I watched as hatred and violence once again played out on our national stage in the horrific shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue and in the rash of politically motivated bombings.

What are we to do when the cries of our suffering world come at us from all directions and we feel overwhelmed? Maybe, like Bartimaeus, we just start by crying out to God for mercy. I know it’s not Advent, yet, but I would also cry out, “Come Lord Jesus!” I would pray with the Prophet Isaiah, “Oh, that you would tear open the heavens and come down! Come and make right all that is so terribly wrong in our world.” And because I know that all the problems in the world are not just out there, but also in here, I would cry out for mercy for my hardness of heart … mercy for lack of faith … mercy for failure to live in love.

What did Jesus do when Jesus heard Bartimaeus’ cries for mercy? Well, obviously Jesus healed him. But before that … before that it says that Jesus stood still. That’s remarkable because in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is always on the move. One of Mark’s favorite words to describe Jesus is ‘immediately’ – immediately Jesus did this or that, or went here or went there. Mark uses that word something like 42 times in his gospel. So it’s noteworthy that when Jesus heard Bartimaeus, he stopped and stood still. Jesus stopped what he was doing, which was very important because he was on his way up to Jerusalem where he was going to give his life for the redemption of all creation. But Jesus stepped aside, stood still and listened to Bartimaeus’ cry for mercy.

Maybe, like Jesus, when we hear all of those cries for mercy, we too need to stop and be still. Most of us are really good at doing lots of things and keeping busy. And especially when there are urgent needs, we can kick it into high gear and take care of business. And to be sure, God is at work in all of that.

But there is a deep humility in recognizing that it’s not up to us to save the world. God has al- ready done that in the death and resurrection of Jesus; and God continues that saving work everywhere that suffering and death and evil are present. When the needs of the world over- whelm us, there is deep humility in letting go, in standing still and recognizing our own need for God.

Our worship is just that sort of stopping point – that point of stillness in our over-full weeks. Here in this sacred place the sure and certain promises of God meet the needs of our suffering world and of our own lives. Here in our gathering together, in our singing and in our praying, in our greetings of Peace, and in our sharing in bread and wine we experience God’s invitation to a deeper participation in love – love for God, love for one another, and love for our broken world.

Here we sing ancient words of hope – 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. (And again, I think about the Honduran migrants marching through Mexico, carrying their precious seeds of hope for a better tomorrow.)

Here we listen to the stories of Jesus and we see again that in Jesus the blind see, the hungry are filled, the prisoners are set free, and the dead are raised to new life.

Here, in our open and empty hands, we receive Jesus, who comes to us humbly, hidden in bread and wine. And only then, when we are filled with Jesus’ endless life and unfailing love, are we sent back into the world set free to participate in all of God’s saving and loving work – set free to bring people from hopelessness into joy; to lift people up from lives of desperation to lives of purpose and meaning; to share with all people the vision of God’s love and compassion and justice for all creation.

Lord, Have Mercy.

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
October 21, 2018
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

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

“We want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” James and John tell Jesus. They sound like entitled kids from some bad, made for TV movie -“C’mon, just give us whatever we want. C’mon, puh-lease. C’mon, just say yes.”

The context makes it even worse. Jesus has just told his disciples that he will be mocked, spit upon, flog- ged and killed. You’d think they’d maybe show a little empathy – say something like, “Wow that’s tough, anything we can do to help? or even, tell us more.” No, James and John decide, “This is the perfect time to make our demands. Seize the moment when his defenses are down.”

So, they step forward, they get up in Jesus’ face and say, “We want you to do whatever we want” – bad form guys, really bad.

Jesus could have just given them an icy stare and shut them up. He could have turned and walked in the other direction. Instead, he engages them. He asks them the question he uses with people who come to him for healing, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

“What is it you want me to do for you?” Imagine if Jesus looked at you and asked you that question.

I would have a lot to say. I would have a pretty long list. I want to see my preferred candidates win on election day. I want congress to do very specific things. I tell my representatives these things regularly, but maybe God could get through? I’d like help with my arthritis and my sister’s health. I want my kids to be happy. I want to see the US pay more attention to the new UN climate change report. I could go on and on.

There is a lot that I’d really like God to do, and now. I’m guessing you’d have a long list too.

I like to think my requests are more noble than what James and John ask of Jesus: “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” That request is just too much – it’s so over the top and grandiose. And yet it is also too small, too petty. And maybe, honestly, so are my requests. I want my party to win and my needs to be met and my views to prevail and my preferred outcomes to happen. All this keeps me fairly narrowly focused on myself.

Jesus, on the other hand, let go of his own power and privilege in order to serve others. He gave himself in love for the whole world – even the people I don’t like. He is focused on changing us all through love.

Jesus calls us to follow in this way of love.

He wants us to know the greatness that comes when we stop focusing so much on our own agenda, no matter how noble, and instead focus on giving ourselves in love for others. I think this call of Jesus pertains even to our political lives, maybe especially to our political lives. We need to focus on loving others.

That is not to say that we should just try to be nice and say, “Can’t we all just get along.” Often love re- quires speaking hard truths and challenging others. We need to advocate and vote and be politically active with strength and conviction and courage. Yet Jesus calls us to do this with love for others, especially those we find it easy to despise. Jesus calls us to do this with a sense of humility.

It seems we need to keep a larger goal in mind. The ultimate goal is not the advancement of one party or the other, one particular policy or another – all of that is too narrow. Love is the ultimate goal. The goal is for all people to know they are loved and to live with love for one another. That must come before, above every other agenda, no matter how noble. That larger goal must inform all the ways we work in the political sphere.

To follow in this way of love and keep focused on this larger goal, we need to be transformed.

We need to know, deep in our bones, that we are loved always and forever. We need to drink the cup Jesus drinks – that is, undergo a kind of death. Our small, petty, ego-driven selves need to die. And we need to share in Jesus’ baptism – that is death and new life.

We need to be transformed. And this is what Jesus does for us. Jesus engages us as he did James and John.

Jesus shows up here today in word and sacrament to love and serve you and each one of us.

Jesus listens to all our requests, whether they be petty or noble, and receives them with compassion.

Jesus convicts us of our narrow vision and pushes us beyond ourselves into God’s larger purpose of love for all people.

Jesus also gives us the cup of his self-giving love and baptism in his name. Jesus works through both of these gifts to put to death our small selves and raise us up into new life again and again – a new life that is so much larger and more loving than anything we could achieve on our own.

Jesus gives himself in love for you today.
You are loved beyond measure.
May love be your guide.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
October 14, 2018
Service of Healing, Feast of St. Luke
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

First Reading:  Isaiah 35:5-8; Psalm 124; Second Reading:  Revelation 22:1-6; Gospel: Luke 4:14-21

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

Today as our kids are given their Bibles, we’re looking at an aspect of the Bible that is troubling and con- fusing to many of us, including our kids.

That is, how do we understand stories about healing? Jesus healed lots of people, but why were only some people healed? Why not everyone?

And what do these stories mean for us today? We pray for healing and people still die. And everyone will die eventually, so why even pray for healing?

Some Christian churches use the healing stories as a kind of test of faith, to sort out the true believers from those who doubt. The message is, “Just take a huge, irrational leap of faith and you too can be miraculously healed. If you aren’t healed, there must be something wrong with you, guess you just don’t have enough faith.”

That’s not what Lutherans teach about healing at all. We embrace doubt as an important part of faith. We recognize that faith is not our own doing, not something we have to muster up with force and will power.

We honor both faith and science.

So, what do we make of these stories?

I think we need a new metaphor to help us interpret them.

These stories don’t demand a blind leap of faith so that we too can experience miraculous healing. In- stead, they offer us gifts for the journey of faith.

For one thing, they help us to know the God who journeys with us in Jesus. We see just how compassion- ate God is, how deeply moved by human suffering. We see God challenging the stuff that keeps people excluded and oppressed. According to Jewish law, every single person that Jesus healed should not have even been touched, much less healed. He touched lepers, unclean women, children, the blind, outcasts, Samaritans, Gentiles. As Jesus did that, he defied all the things that keep people down, all the things that separate us from God and each other.

Ultimately, this is what Jesus’ death and resurrection shows, too. Jesus defies everything that would keep us down and keep us apart, even death. He cannot be stopped from walking with us and loving us. In Jesus, we have a true companion on the journey. And Jesus works to reconcile us with the other travelers on the way, to bring more companions alongside us. We are not alone and this assurance itself brings so much healing. It is important to note, too, that healing is not the same thing as curing. We can experience healing even as an illness persists, even as the forces of oppression grow stronger, even as we die.

Scripture’s healing stories also provide light for the journey. It’s easy to get discouraged, to think this valley of shadows is all that there is. Stories of God’s healing can be like the sun breaking through the clouds after weeks of dreariness. They give us a glimpse of the bright future God intends for all of cre- ation: a future in which mourning and crying and pain will be no more; those now blind will see and those held captive will be released; waters will break forth in the wilderness, streams in the desert; and there will be a tree of life for the healing of the nations. This is what God intends for creation. It is what God is bringing about through the risen life of Jesus and the power of the Spirit. This vision is healing. It lifts our eyes when they are cast down as we plod through the mud. It gives us greater perspective and hope. It shows us that the powers that be will not have the last word after all.

Finally, the stories of healings give us signposts on the journey, directing us towards the paths Jesus wants us to take. Jesus calls us to walk into God’s promised future one act of compassion and inclusion, one step of reconciliation and love at a time. As author Rachel Held-Evans puts it, “The miracles of Jesus … are instructions, challenges. They show us what to do and how to hope.” Rather than a leap of faith, we are invited to walk in faith towards the healing of all creation. And, we have all that we need for this journey: We have the compassionate presence of the risen Jesus and the companions he brings alongside us; we have light for our path and we have guidance along the way. We can walk towards God’s promised healing together.

I see this happening in so many ways among us. I see it happening in the Good Shepherd members who are closely accompanying our immigrant neighbors. Their presence is bringing help and healing; real change is happening for our neighbors. Yet, Good Shepherd members are being healed as well. They are sharing in meals with these neighbors, learning their stories, building relationships. The sun is breaking through the clouds of despair and fear.

I saw healing happen when a member of the Worship and Music Committee did devotions last week at the meeting. He shared how troubled he is about the state of our country and then played music that brings healing for him. The sense of deepened well-being in the room was palpable. I think it got us all thinking about how we can be opened to God’s healing and let it flow through us into the world.

I see healing happening for a member who is undergoing surgeries and is sensing an invitation to rely on God and other people even more fully in this time and for other members who are grieving openly about recent losses, opening up opportunities for others to walk with them.

I could go on and on. It is my deep honor to get a close-up view of so much healing that is happening amidst our sorrows and pain.

Together, we are walking in God’s ways of reconciliation and healing. 
Together, we are walking in God’s promised future.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
October 7, 2018
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Written by Rev. Amy Zalk Larson; delivered by Pastor Marion Pruitt-Jefferson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

A man comes to Jesus and says, “ What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

When we hear that, we’re conditioned to think about an afterlife, about a place called heaven complete with St. Peter and the pearly gates.

We take this story as some kind of entrance exam about who’s gonna get past those pearly gates. This rich guy clearly fails.

So, what does that mean for us? Do we have to give everything away to pass the test?

Very few people in history have actually done that – have they all failed the entrance exam? Probably not.  So, maybe, this was just this guys’ specific test and it doesn’t apply to us?  Or maybe Jesus doesn’t really mean sell everything, just make sure to be generous?  Or maybe Jesus is trying to show us that we really need Jesus to get into heaven?

Actually, this story isn’t about getting past those pearly gates at all. It isn’t about somewhere we’ll go after we die. Throughout the gospels, when Jesus talked about eternal life he was talking about experiencing abundant life in relationship with God now and forever. When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven, he was talking about life on earth being as God intends it.

God intends for us to know peace and well-being and harmony with each other and God. When that happens, we experience the eternal, abundant life God wants for us.

It seems this man was not experiencing that well-being. He came to Jesus and knelt before him. His posture is the same posture used by everyone who comes to Jesus asking for healing in the Gospel of Mark. They kneel and plead for the thing that they are missing.

It seems this rich man has a sense of dis-ease with his life. Something is missing and he longs to know how he can be healed and experience eternal, abundant life with God.

Jesus looks at him with compassion and sees his problem. It is his wealth. Jesus doesn’t spell out how wealth is causing the problem but we can probably guess. Wealth can trick us into thinking that we are self-made people who have earned or deserved every good thing that happens to us.

• In Jesus’ time people believed that wealth was a sign of divine blessing, that it meant you were righteous and worthy of God’s favor.
• In our day, we still often understand some relative measure of wealth to be sign that we are virtuous and have a good, strong work ethic and deserve what we have earned.

Wealth can mask our true dependence on God and one another. As scripture tells us, it is “not good” for us to be alone – we need to be in relationships of mutual dependence with one another. Yet, wealth can lead us to think we’re fine on our own. We can get focused on how to protect and increase what we have earned rather than gratefully receiving and passing on what God has graciously given.

Perhaps this was what was happening for the rich man:

• He had acquired many possessions.
• He had kept the letter of the law.
• He had brought his kids to Sunday School and served on the church committees and done everything he was supposed to do.
• And still something was missing.

He went to Jesus in his dis-ease, seeking a prescription. And Jesus told him something that shocked him – you are lacking one thing so give everything you have away. What? If he was lacking one thing, why give everything away?

• Wasn’t there one more thing he could do, one more thing that would assure him of God’s blessing and relieve his sense that something was missing?
• Isn’t there some self-help book or app that could help us?

No, Jesus said to this rich man, let go of it all and give to the poor. Let go of the illusion that you can do, earn, achieve or buy your way to happiness. Stop looking to external signs of God’s favor and trust in God alone. Happiness, joy, and well-being will come as you give your money away and discover your inter- dependence and connection to the poor and all God’s people.

There is great wisdom for each of us here as well. Both wealth and concerns about money can separate us from God and one another and from the joy and well-being God longs for us to know.

We don’t know what Jesus would tell each of us individually if we were to kneel before him seeking help for our own dis-eases and our own issues with money. Would he tell us to sell all we have and give everything away? Probably not. He gave this extreme advice to just one person. He called some people to leave everything, including possessions and family, to follow him; but he also relied on the hospitality and wealth of many people.

The callings and the healing given to Christians throughout the ages have been as varied as those in scripture. Some of us have been called to leave everything. Many more of us have been called to give abundantly to others so that we might truly know our dependence on God and our connection to one another.

We are all encouraged to ask: What role do money and wealth play in our lives? Have we bought into the narrative that we can buy our own happiness – that what we really need to be satisfied is just a purchase away? Are we consumed by worries about money or do we live with guilt about how much we have? Do we live isolated from almost two thirds of the people in this word who live in poverty or have we realized our interconnectedness with them?

These are the kinds of questions Jesus asks of us. They are the things we need to consider together:

Together, let’s let go of the illusion that we can “do”, earn, achieve or buy our way to abundant life.

Let’s stop looking for external signs for God’s favor and trust in God alone.

Let’s stop living isolated from God and others thinking we are just fine on our own.

Let’s give some significant percentage of our money away.

Wellbeing will come as we give and discover our interdependence and connection to the poor and all God’s people.

This may feel overwhelming, even impossible; but with God all things are possible. God gives us abundant gifts, mercy, forgiveness and healing. God gives us eternal, abundant life in Christ Jesus. We can trust, receive and give freely of what we have first been given.

Thanks be to God

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 30, 2018
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

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

I often find myself saying something like, “I’m not that kind of Christian; I’m not like those people.”

I spend a lot of time getting exasperated at other Christians, muttering to myself, “Get off my team; don’t say that!”

I really don’t want to be this judgmental. It’s just that I want people to see the Christian faith as good news for the whole world, good news that brings life and wholeness and wellbeing to all. And often, what I hear from other Christians does not sound like good news.

I want them to stop speaking for Christians, to stop representing my faith in public.

But, it seems, I’m missing the point just like the disciples did long ago. The disciples come to tell Jesus about those other people, who aren’t doing it right. Jesus!, they insist, probably sounding like I did when I was tattling on my sister as a kid, “Jesus! They are healing and casting out demons, but not the way we do it. Make them stop before they ruin everything.”

Jesus is not impressed by their ego driven appeals, by their need to be right. Jesus does not take theirside. He has a strong message for them and for us. He says, “Stop worrying about what those other people are doing. Don’t spend your energy fretting and fussing about them. Look at your life, look at your whole self. Consider how you are using your life, your hands, your feet, your eyes. Are you using them to embody God’s kingdom’s ways and God’s love for the world? Don’t wring your hands at what they’re doing, don’t dig in your heels with stubbornness and anger, don’t use your eyes to glare at others. Rather, use your bodies and your whole selves for the kingdom of God.”

Why risk losing everything just to be right? Jesus has shown us the way to embody love, to create the relationships that are the foundation for the realm of God. We need to show the world what kind of Christians we are rather than proclaim what we are not.¹

These days, so much of our national conversation is cast in terms of us against them. It is so easy to define ourselves by what we are not, thereby casting judgement on others. Yet Jesus calls us to focus on what we can do to share the good news.

Here at Good Shepherd, our lives and our life together embody the love and welcome of Jesus in so many ways: the welcome of refugees and people who are differently abled, our work on behalf of immigrant neighbors, the Ramadan meal we hosted for Muslim students, our commitment to be good stewards of the earth, and our participation in Decorah’s Pride parade are just a few examples of this.

I hope we can also embody the love of Jesus in this time when so many people who have been sexually assaulted are saying, “MeToo.” I pray that this congregation will offer healing and safety to those impacted by sexual violence – that this will be a place where people will not feel blamed, shamed or pushed to forgive too quickly. I hope that we can listen and respond to stories shared in public and private spaces with empathy and compassion. I give thanks for our Abuse Prevention Program and our work to keep our children, elders and each member safe here. May it be so. I pray, too, that perpetrators of violence will find space where repentance and transformation can happen. Most of all, I pray that all who have been impact- ed by sexual violence know that Jesus is present in the midst of such suffering.

I want to share a prayer from the book Soul Weavings that I have found helpful in this week. This prayer was inspired by the figure of a woman, arms outstretched as if crucified, hung below the cross in a chapel in Toronto, Canada. The anonymous author writes:

“O God, through the image of a woman crucified on the cross I understand at last.

For over half my life I have been ashamed of the scars I bear.

These scars tell an ugly story, a common story,

about a girl who is the victim of sexual abuse.

In the warmth, peace and sunlight of your presence I was able to uncurl the tightly clenched fists. For the first time I felt your suffering presence with me in that event.

I have known you as a vulnerable baby, as a brother, and as a father.

Now I know you as a woman.

You were there with me as the violated girl caught in helpless suffering.

The chains of fear no longer bind my heart and body.

A slow fire of compassion and forgiveness is kindled.

My tears fall now for man as well as woman.

You were not ashamed of your wounds.

You showed them to Thomas as marks of your ordeal and death.

I will no longer hide these wounds of mine.

I will bear them gracefully.

They will tell a resurrection story.”²

We are hearing so many stories of late, not all of them ready to be told as resurrection stories. Many of them are challenging our old, familiar stories and patterns of responding, pushing us beyond harmful assumptions and judgements.

It is our call to hold these stories, to hear these stories, to listen to and honor these stories – as painful as it might be – for our listening proclaims God’s presence, our empathy embodies Jesus’ compassion.

We can do this hard work because Jesus is always at work to bring resurrection, even when it is not yet visible. Jesus is always at work to bring healing and wholeness and well-being to our whole world.

As we listen, share and display compassion, we will show the world who Jesus is. We will embody good news, resurrection hope.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

_______________________________________________

 Notes:

1. Rachael Keefe, “Jesus Is Pretty Clear: We Should Mind Our Own Spiritual Business”, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/living-word/september-30-ordinary-26b-mark-938-50
2. Lyn King, ed. Soul Weavings: A Gathering of Women’s Prayers, (Minneapolis, Augsburg Fortress, 1996), 113.