Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Please Keep Us Weird

 John 17:6-19

May 16, 2021

 

Sometimes I read John’s gospel and I just want to say,
“What?” And this is one of those times.

Jesus speaks a lot plainer in the other gospels.

In John’s gospel it sounds more like poetry than stories,

a little like a freshman in college

who is excited about their first philosophy class.

John can make you a little dizzy.

 

But if you take it slow, diagram the sentences,

it does make sense eventually.

 

This is at the end of Jesus last long discourse

to his disciples. At the last supper.

The very next moment he is arrested and taken away.

This part is a prayer, an open conversation

between Jesus and God.

He is praying for the disciples before he leaves them.

 

He asks God to protect the disciples.

To keep them united.

To make them one like God and Jesus are one.

Jesus knows that the world will be dangerous for

his followers because as he says,

“They are in the world, but they do not belong to the world”.

 

They are in the world, but they are not of the world.

We hear this phrase a lot as Christians,

but it can still kind of be a vague statement.

 

Some people take it to mean that we should

separate ourselves from the world completely.

That we should isolate ourselves and only be involved with people

who share our religious beliefs and views.

 

Others believe that we shouldn’t get involved in current

events or politics, shouldn’t run for office, shouldn’t vote.

That we should leave those things to other “less holy” people

and keep ourselves clean.

 

I don’t think either of those things are what Jesus meant.

Jesus says in this prayer that he has sent his believers into the world,

just like Jesus was sent into the world.

Not to be separated from the world, but to be in it.

Jesus even says to God that he is not asking God to

take us out of the world at all.

 

What I think Jesus does mean is that his people were in the world,

engaged in the world, but they were a little different than normal.

They might have actually looked like everyone else at first glance,

but after a while, people noticed that followers of Jesus were a little different.

 

Jesus is saying that his followers were a little off normal.

In other words, Jesus is saying that his followers were weird.

 

Not just any kind of weird though.

We had this guy come out to our

house in Texas who poured a concrete slab for us.

And he never wore any shoes.

He did everything barefoot. 

He bent a nail in a board for us with the sole of his right foot. 

That was weird.

But it’s not the same kind of weird that I’m talking about.

 

And I’m not talking about dyed hair and beards weird,

or dipping your pizza in ranch dressing weird

or walking around in a Darth Vader costume weird

or climbing mount Everest weird.

I can certainly appreciate that weirdness.

But that’s not what I’m talking about.


I’m talking about divine weirdness.

A weirdness that separates us from the systems of this world.

A weirdness that puts us outside so we could look

objectively at what was really going on.

 

So the first Christians were still a part of the world,

still part of the politics and the money.

They followed the laws, they did everything that other people did.

But they were weird.

 

I told you last week about the way relationships

outside of family were in Jesus time.

People would have relationships with other people

based on exchange. What that person could offer.

 

A rich person would befriend a poor person

they could get honor and accolades from them.

A poor person would then lower themselves

and honor the rich person because they

would give them things - money, shelter, food.

Relationships outside of family were based on

what people could get from each other.

 

But the followers of Jesus stood out from the rest of the world.

They had real friendships with each other

across lines of status, class, gender and race.

People of a higher class were friends with people

who were of a lower class, and they didn’t shame them

didn’t demand accolades or honors.
Didn’t demand to sit in the best seats.

 

They respected each other just because

they were brothers and sisters in Christ.

They were weird.

And this weirdness disrupted the whole system.

 

They visited people in prison, they took food to hungry people,

they gathered together in each others homes

for no specific monetary reason, just to worship God.

They let women lead their communities.

 

They sang songs together. They forgave each other.

They didn’t participate in the power structure that oppressed others

and developed their own power structure that built people up.

They were weird.  Divinely weird.

 

Now somewhere during these last 2000 years,

Christians have lost a little bit of their weirdness.

We started to become normal.

to become adjusted to the world and not only

comfortable with it, but to love it.

 

We actually started to become the world instead

of the weird ones in it.

Christians and Christianity actually became the power structure,

a structure reflected the world more

than the teachings and life of Christ.

We lost a lot of our weirdness.

 

Christians started to be the ones that oppressed instead of set free.

We defended Crusades, Inquisitions, slavery, McCarthyism, segregation.

We defined being Christian as being absolutely normal,

as being completely totally conformed

to this world and it’s laws and rules,

instead of being uncomfortable with them.

Christianity basically rejected weirdness.

So for the past two thousand or so years,

you really couldn’t tell a Christian apart from anyone else.

 

But now, thankfully,

we have started to bring weird back.

We have again become mal-adjusted to the conforms of society.

We have become mal-adjusted to the sight of war and poverty.

We have become un-comfortable with the world that says

that there is no place for forgiveness and vulnerability

that the only way to deal with others is stubbornness and inflexibility.

 

We have become un-comfortable with the world that says

financially stable people are the only ones valuable to society.

We have become uncomfortable with the rules

which tell us that it’s all about us and our money

and our house and our family.

 

With the nudging of the Holy Spirit,

we have become a little weird again.

In the world, but not of the world.


I ate lunch at Panera and I was wearing my collar

and the worker who picked up our plates asked where I was pastor.

I said, Christ Lutheran Church over on William Hilton Parkway.

He thought and then he said, "Is that the church that gives away all the food."

and I said, yes! 

That is weird for a church, that's the kind of weird we're talking about. 


Welcoming the homeless and the stranger.

The immigrant and the refugee.

The lost and the lonely.

Offering forgiveness instead of judgment.

Not doing what will give us power or money or recognition

but doing, and advocating, that which helps everyone

in our community including the weak and poor,

not just the rich or elite.

  

When other people look at us through squinted eyes

and say, “You  people are a little weird”

we can say, “Thank you very much!”

Then we will know that we are on the right track.

Then we know we’ve become the voice that this community needs.

In the world, but not of the world.

The divine weirdoes.

 

And that is Jesus prayer in a nutshell.

“God, you gave me these people

and we made them weirdoes.

I love these weirdoes.

Some people are going to have problems

with them because they’re weirdoes.

So please protect them.”

 

And that is the point of this prayer.

Jesus is leaving. Leaving us alone.

And Jesus is concerned like a parent leaving

their child alone for the first time.

He’s taught them all he can,

now the rest is in God’s hands.

 

We are Easter People.

Shaped by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

We should be weird. Divinely Weird.

 

And being divinely weird is a hard job.

But it’s Jesus call to us to, his little flock.

And it is our prayer:

“God we are yours and you are ours,

please protect us in this world and

please keep us weird.”

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Jesus Calls Us Friends

 John 15:9-17

May 9, 2021

 

I want you to think of something:

An important friend in your life.

It could be your first friend, best friend now, your childhood friend,

a college friend, someone you were very good friends with

and lost touch with. A friend.

How did you become friends?

 

My first best friend was a girl named Veronica.

I was about 8, she was about 7 when we met.

She and her sister lived in the same apartment complex we lived in.

They and their family had just moved from Mexico City.

We had just moved from New York City.

 

They could speak very little English

and my sister and I could speak no Spanish.

My friend Veronica (bottom)
her sister Ana (left) and my sister Kathryn
There were lots of other kids around,

lots of kids who we could speak with more easily

but we became best friends quickly.

Maybe my sister and I also felt like immigrants too coming

from New York to Houston, Texas.

They always said that they learned to speak

English with a New York accent because of us.

 

I don’t know why or how we become friends.

As they say, with us, something just clicked.

We use that word a lot because

whatever happens with friendship like that

it’s almost always a mystery.

 

Did we choose each other,

or was our friendship chosen for us?

Being friends with her and her family

taught me a lot about their culture,

and about how to be a good friend.

 

I don’t know where Veronica is now.

We both moved away at some point and grew apart

and lost contact before we graduated from high school.

I don’t know where she is now.

I have never been able to find her.

But I remember that we had a great time and

I cherish the memory of her.

 

Now we have many people in our lives.

Co workers, our bosses, our spouses, church members,

parents, cousins, our siblings, people who share our interests.

But only certain people in our lives become friends

There are many reasons why people are in each other’s midst,

but with certain people we develop friendships.

Something clicks.

 

Some people actually see friendships as frivolous

as a waste of time.

But friendships are a wonderful thing.

They give us joy, they help us grow.

They change us.

And most of the time they serve no other purpose

than just the companionship and relationship that they are.

It’s a relationship just for the sake of relationship

which is wonderful.

 

The New England writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson,

said that friendship was one of the most lasting ways to be “useful.”

 

The church tends to put friendships on

a second class status friendships are not as honored

as much as a spousal relationship, or family relationships.

 

Even now in seminary, future pastors are warned

you have to make distinctions between parishioners and friends.

“Don’t be friends with your members.”

 

That may be a necessity, as some pastors

have made messes of lives by mixing up those roles.

But I’m not sure such severe lines need to be drawn.

 

And the church as a whole talks much more about family values,

focus on the family, it’s seems to be all

about family and raising our children and being loyal to our family,

as if it’s the primary Christian relationship.

And on Mother’s Day, you think we would get to talk

about those important family relationships.

 

But, honestly, Jesus isn’t that big of a family guy.

He’s more of a friend guy.

In his last supper before he died,

he didn’t choose to be with his family,

he chose to be with his disciples.

And at this point in his last supper monologue,

Jesus tells his disciples that he considers them friends.

This was actually more amazing then, than it sounds to us now.

 

In Jesus time, they had a quirkiness

about relationships outside of family.

Family relationships were paramount then.

You hung out with your family, they were your companions

and the people you did almost everything with.

 

Relationships outside of the family were often only used

for the sake of raising one’s reputation in society,

People were friends mainly for the purpose social status.

It was perfectly acceptable to have a relationship with someone

of a little higher status and use them basically as a rung on the ladder.

It was actually expected.


People would choose companions because they

could share in some of that.

had a little more money, a little more power, more status.

 You hung out with people because you

And benefit from it.

You didn’t necessarily have to like the person,

or click with them.

 

And then the higher status person would then get favors in return:

accolades, praise, appreciation, free labor –

just for letting the lower person be seen with them.

And they would go and for friendships with people

who were even higher status then they were.

It was more of a transactional relationship.

 

In biblical studies, they call this arrangement

the Honor and Shame relationship

and understanding this has helped us understand

many parts of the bible better.

Including this part.

 

Jesus chooses to be friends with the disciples.

Not for any specific benefit or reason.

They were of a lower status than he was,

and yet he didn’t ask for favors, accolades, or free labor from them.

He didn’t call them servants any more.

He was just with them because he wanted to be with them.

They are family without being family

Jesus chose them, although they could give nothing to him.

He called them friends.

It was actually amazing for the time and place.

 

I think we most often see Jesus in this same kind of

unbalanced relationship, we worship him.

We give him accolades, and we hope

that his righteousness will rub off on us.

 

But Jesus loves us, this magical reciprocal love.

There is just a bond.

Something just clicked between us and Jesus.

He is our savior, yes, but we can also say that he is our friend.

 

Even though God doesn’t need to be with us.

God  wants to be with us,

So God gave us Jesus as our friend.

 

But, one thing about our friend Jesus.

He will never grow tired of us.

He will never grow apart from us.

(we might leave him, but he wont’ leave us.)

he won’t stop talking to us because he’s

jealous of our other relationships.

He won’t get too busy for us.

We’ll never have to wonder years later how to get

in touch with him or where to find him.

This friend is a friend that has laid down his life for us.

And he will always be there.

 

We like to think that we are in control.

That we decide our path, 

We choose to come to church,

we decide whether to be people of faith.

 

But if we are here today,

Jesus has chosen us. As friends.

And something just clicked.

And Jesus has chosen our friends for us.

Companions on our journey of faith.

And maybe there was little else we could do.

 

Jesus is our friend.

And we are friends in Jesus.

And that bond will never be broken.

Monday, May 3, 2021

The Fruit of Love

 John 15:1-8

May 2, 2021

 

The vine grower removes every

branch that bears no fruit.

And every branch he prunes to make more fruit.

This is true about grape vines,

but Jesus is talking about more than grapes.

Jesus is talking about our lives with God.

Wine on the Vine
Lisa Hill
 

It is apparent from these words that

fruit is the objective of our life with Jesus.

God wants fruit. God wants more than branches and leaves.

 

To get right to the point,

Jesus doesn’t just want us to be members

of church in name only, or just believers,

or just claim it on our emergency contacts

when we’re in the hospital.

Jesus wants more than that.

Jesus wants us to abide in him.

 

So not just a safe comfortable, platonic,

relationship with Jesus.

Not just seeing each other occasionally for dinner.

Jesus wants us to live with him, to abide with him.

 

We shouldn’t just be vines on the plant.

Jesus wants us to make a commitment of heart and soul.

And when we have that commitment, we will bear fruit.

 

But what is this fruit?

We know we’re not talking about grapes.

 

I’m also pretty sure that he’s not talking about

an easily achievable religious task list

like prayers, or attendance at worship,

or the number of converts

we can get  to Christianity,

or even hours of service.

 

I think that the fruit that Jesus talks about

is a much less tangible than that.

A fruit that is much harder to quantify and identify.

but you do know it when you taste it.

 

Today we’ve also heard from 1st John,

A letter to a believers in the late first century.

Most scholars agree that this letter

is written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of John.

 

So Gospels are written as a story about Jesus,

and the letters, or epistles are theological

reflections on being Christian.

It is rare that we get two types of writing from one writer in the bible.

-          I’ll take that back, the gospel of John and three letters of John

are the only time in the bible we get both

the story and the reflection from one writer.

 

And the second reading for the day

really helps us to understand the gospel reading.

And John says in his letter:

 

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God,

and God abides in them. 

(you see why people think this and the gospel

were written by the same person?)

  

He goes on, We love -  because God first loved us. 

Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters,

are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister -

whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.

 

I would say that the fruit of the vine

that Jesus in this gospel is talking about is love.

Love is the fruit.

 

And the word for love that John uses in his letter is “agape”.

Bible experts tell us, there are three

different words for love in Greek –

one for romantic love,

and one for love of a person you like that is not romantic

like a friend, or a family member.

 

And the third which is agape.

That is the love that we have for people that we

don’t necessarily like,

that we may have serious problems with,

maybe we don’t even know.

 

It’s Love that reaches out beyond a person’s faults,

beyond our own hang ups, beyond differences,

to respect another person, have compassion, understanding,

and honor and treat that person as a child of God.

 

Agape is the love the Martin Luther King, Jr. said he had

for the segregationists who hit civil rights protestors with fire hoses.

Not liking them, not condoning what they do,

but loving them in spite of their actions.

That love, Agape, is the fruit.

  

And If we say we love God, but do not

have agape for our brothers and sisters,

then maybe something isn’t connecting.

As Jesus said in the gospel, maybe our vines still need pruning.

 

These days are a test to our ability to bear

this kind of fruit that Jesus talks about.

We are divided. We keep hearing this and seeing it.

We are physically divided, and ideologically divided.

We are politically divided. Polarized they say.

 

People who have known each other for years

have stopped talking because they now

see each other as enemies.

Life-long friends, family members,

brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts,

half of my high school class,

we want nothing to do with them

because we are so polarized.

And forget about people we don’t know yet.

 

Now many of the things we’re polarized on

are very important and consequential,

and I don’t want to diminish any of those issues.

But when someone holds an opposing view to what we have,

(which seems to be almost half

the population these days),

the tendency is, not just to disagree with them,

but it is to hate them.

To label them as unredeemable.

To discard them and avoid them,

To dehumanize them, to not recognize them as people.

People are reduced to an itemized list of opinions,

and thrown away if they don’t pass one thing on this list.

 

Churches and religious people are famous for this.

Throwing people out, not just out of their churches,

but out of their lives and friendships and families.

As if a difference of opinion will soil their purity.

It’s like if there’s one diverse thought,

God will come tumbling off the throne.

 

And so many people think these days that

if we have love and compassion and see people

we oppose as human beings with multiple facets,

then we are and sympathetic with the enemy.

When you do that you’re a traitor to the cause.

To have compassion for people you disagree with,

and heaven forbid, love for them,

is unacceptable to many, many people.

 

But that is what we’re being asked to do.

To bear fruit. To have love for one another.

 

Jesus took sides.

Especially against the powerful and the strong.

He spoke up against abuses of power and religion

and stood up for the poor.

 

But he also asked us to pray for our enemies

and those who persecute us.

He ate with sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors.

Those who everyone else thought he was supposed to hate.

And he also went to the homes and ate at the tables

of the powerful and those who he spoke up against.

He healed the poor and the rich,

the powerless and the powerful

and he had compassion for all their suffering.

Whether or not he agreed for them,

he had agape, love for everyone.

 

Jesus life told a story of scandalous inclusion.

Such scandalous inclusion that people were mad at him.

Mad enough to kill him.

 

And Jesus wants us to abide with that.

To live with that. To rest in that kind of

scandalous inclusion that makes other people mad.

He wants love that drives everyone crazy.

 

So how is your fruit growing?

How is your agape love growing?

Are you driving people crazy with your love

for those you disagree with?

Or are you playing it safe with just a few chosen people?

Which vine do you have to ask God to prune?

Which hang up, prejudice, fear

does God need to help you out with?

I have my own list for myself.

 

Jesus never said love would be easy.

Bearing fruit takes lots of work and courage.

 

John says “We love because God first loved us”

God loves us. Agape love.

Beyond our own faults and fears and actions.

Beyond our deeds or lack of love for our brother and sister.

God loves us.

 

God is love.

And the fruit of God is our fruit.

And the promise of Jesus to his disciples

and to us is that God will help us to bear more fruit.

And the fruit that we bear,

that love,

will glorify God.